“But Morgan Park is in the hoosegow,” Mulvaney protested.
“Unless he’s broken out. But I’d swear that was the track found near Maclaren’s body. The one Canaval found.”
My buckskin’s head came up and his nostrils dilated. Grabbing his nose, I stifled the neigh, then stared up the cañon. Less than 100 yards away a dun horse was picketed near a patch of bunchgrass. Hiding our horses in a box cañon, we scaled the wall for a look around. From the top of the badly fractured mesa we could see all the surrounding country. Under the southern edge of the mesa was a cluster of ancient ruins, beyond them some deep cañons. With my glasses shielded from sun reflection by my hat, I watched a man emerge from a crack in the earth, carrying a heavy sack. Placing it on the ground, he removed his coat and with a pick and bar began working at a slab of rock.
“What’s he doin’?” Mulvaney demanded, squinting his eyes.
“Pryin’ a slab of rock,” I told him, and, even as I spoke, the rock slid, rumbled with other débris, then settled in front of the crack. After a careful inspection the man concealed his tools, picked up his sack and rifle, and started back. Studying him, I could see he wore black jeans, very dusty now, and a small hat. His face was not visible. He bore no resemblance to anyone I had seen before.
He disappeared near the base of the mountain and for a long time we heard nothing.
“He’s gone,” I said.
“We’d best be mighty careful,” Mulvaney warned uneasily. “That’s no man to be foolin’ with, I’m thinkin’.”
A shot shattered the clear, white radiance of the afternoon. One shot, and then another.
We stared at each other, amazed and puzzled. There was no other sound, no further shots. Then uneasily we began our descent of the mesa, sitting ducks if he was waiting for us. To the south and west the land shimmered with heat, looking like a vast and unbelievable city, long fallen to ruin. We slid into the cañon where we’d left the horses, and then the shots were explained.
Both horses were on the ground, sprawled in pools of their own blood. Our canteens had been emptied and smashed with stones. We were thirty miles from the nearest ranch, and the way lay through some of the most rugged country on earth.
“There’s water in the cañons,” Mulvaney said at last, “but no way to carry it. You think he knew who we were?”
“If he lives in this country, he knows that buckskin of mine,” I said bitterly. “He was the best horse I ever owned.”
To have hunted for us and found us, the unknown man would have had to take a chance on being killed himself, but by this means he left us small hope of getting out alive.
“We’ll have a look where he worked,” I said. “No use leaving without knowing about that.”
It took us all of an hour to get there, and night was near before we had dug enough behind the slab of rock to get at the secret. Mulvaney cut into the bank with his pick. Ripping out a chunk and grabbing it, he thrust it under my eyes, his own glowing with enthusiasm. “Silver,” he said hoarsely. “Look at it! If the vein is like that for any distance, this is the biggest strike I ever saw! Richer than Silver Reef!”
The ore glittered in his hand. There was what had killed Rud Maclaren and all the others. “It’s rich,” I said, “but I’d settle for the Two Bar.”
Mulvaney agreed. “But still,” he said, “the silver is a handsome sight.”
“Pocket it, then,” I said dryly, “for it’s a long walk we have.”
“But a walk we can do!” He grinned at me. “Shall we start now?”
“Tonight,” I said, “when the walking will be cool.”
We let the shadows grow long around us while we walked and watched the thick blackness choke the cañons and deepen in the shadows of trees. We walked on steadily, with little talk, up Ruin Cañon and over a saddle of the Sweet Alice Hills, and down to the spring on the far side of the hills.
There we rested, and we drank several times. From the stars I could see that it had taken us better than two hours of walking to make less than five miles. But now the trail would be easier along Dark Cañon Plateau—and then I remembered Slade’s camp. What if they were back there again? Holed up in the same place?
It was a thought, and to go down the cañon toward them was actually none out of the way. Although the walking might be rougher at times, we would have the stream beside us, a thing to be considered. Mulvaney agreed and we descended into the cañon.
Dark it was there, and quiet except for the rustle of water over stones, and there was a cool dampness that was good to our throats and skins after the heat. We walked on, taking our time, for we’d no records to break. And then we heard singing before we saw the reflection of the fire.
We walked on, moving more carefully, for the cañon walls caught and magnified every sound.
Three men were about the fire and one of them was Jack Slade. Two were talking while one man sang as he cleaned his rifle. We reached the edge of the firelight before they saw us, and I had my Winchester on them, and Mulvaney that cannon-like four-shot pistol of his. “Grab the sky, Slade!” I barked the order at him, and his hand dropped, then froze.
“Who is it?” he demanded hoarsely, straining his eyes at us. Our faces being shielded by the brims of our hats, he could not see enough of them. I stepped nearer so the firelight reached under my hat brim.
“It’s Matt Sabre,” I said, “and I’m not wanting to kill you or anybody. We want two horses. You can lend them to us, or we’ll take them. Our horses were shot by the same man that killed your partner.”
Slade jerked, his eyes showing incredulity. “Killed? Lott killed?”
“That’s right. Intentionally or otherwise he met up with the hombre we were following. He drilled your man right over the eyes. We followed on, and he found where we left our horses and shot them both to leave us afoot.”
“Damn a man that’ll kill a horse,” Slade said. “Who was he?”
“Don’t know,” I admitted. “Only he leaves a track like Morgan Park. At least, he’s got a small foot.”
“But Park’s in jail,” Mulvaney added.
“Not now he isn’t,” Slade said. “Morgan Park broke jail within an hour after darkness last night. He pulled one of those iron bars right out of that old wall, stole a horse, and got away. He’s on the loose and after somebody’s scalp.”
Park free! But the man we had followed had not been as big as Park was. I did not tell them that. “How about the horses?” I asked.
“You can have them, Sabre,” Slade said grudgingly. “I’m clearing out. I’ve no stomach for this sort of thing.”
“Are they spares?”
Slade nodded. “We’ve a half dozen extras. In our business it pays to keep fresh horses.” He grinned. “No hard feelin’s, Sabre?”
“Not me,” I said. “Only don’t you boys get any wild ideas about jumpin’ me. My trigger finger is right jittery.”
Slade shrugged wryly. “With two guns on us? Not likely. I don’t know whether your partner can shoot or not but with a cannon that big he doesn’t need to. What kind of a gun is that, anyway?”
“She’s my own make,” Mulvaney said cheerfully, “but the slug kills just as dead.”
“Give this hombre an old stove pipe and he’d make a cannon,” I told them. “He’s a genius with tools.”
While Mulvaney got the horses, I stood over the camp. “Any other news in town?” I asked Slade.
“Plenty,” he admitted. “Some Army officer came into town claimin’ Park killed his brother. Seems a right salty gent. And”—his eyes flickered to mine—“Bodie Miller is talkin’ it big around town. He says you’re his meat.”
“He’s a heavy eater, that boy,” I said carelessly. “He may tackle something one of these days that will give him indigestion.”
Jack Slade shrugged and watched Mulvaney lead up the horses. As we mounted, I glanced back at him. “We’ll leave these horses at the corral of the livery stable in town, if you like.”
Slade’s eyes twinkled a little. “Better not. First time you get a chance take ’em to a corral you’ll find in the woods back of Armstrong’s. Towns don’t set well with me, nor me with them.”
The horses were fresh and ready to go, and we let them run. Daylight found us riding up the street of Hattan’s Point, a town that was silent and waiting. The loft was full of hay and both of us headed for it. Two hours later I was wide awake. Splashing water on my face, I headed for O’Hara’s. The first person I saw as we came through the door was Key Chapin. Olga Maclaren was with him.
Chapin looked up as we entered. “Sorry, Sabre,” he said. “I’ve just heard.”
“Heard what?” I was puzzled.
“That you’re losing the Two Bar.”
“Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”
“You mean you haven’t heard? Jake Booker showed up the other day and filed a deed to the Two Bar. He purchased the rights to it from Ball’s nephew, the legitimate heir. He also has laid claim to the Bar M, maintaining that it was never actually owned by Rud Maclaren, but belonged to his brother-in-law, now dead. Booker has found some relative of the brother-in-law’s and bought his right to the property.”
“Well of all the…that’s too flimsy, Chapin. He can’t hope to get away with that! What’s on his mind?”
Chapin shrugged. “If he goes to court, he can make it tough. You have witnesses to the fact that Ball gave you the ranch, but whether that will stand in court, I don’t know. Especially with a shrewd operator like Booker fighting it. As to Maclaren, it turns out he did leave the ranch to his brother-in-law during a time some years ago when he was suffering from a gunshot wound, and apparently never made another will. What’s important right now is that Jake is going to court to get both you and Olga off the ranches and he plans to freeze all sales, bank accounts, and other money or stock until the case is settled.”
“In other words, he doesn’t want us to have the money to fight him.”
Chapin shrugged. “I don’t know what his idea is, but I’ll tell you one thing. He stands in well with the judge, who is just about as crooked as he is, and they’ll use your reputation against you. Don’t think Booker hasn’t considered all the angles, and don’t think he doesn’t know how flimsy his case may be. He’ll bolster it every way possible, and he knows every trick in the book.”
I sat down. This had come so suddenly that it took the wind out of my sails. “Has this news gone to the Bar M yet? Has it got out to Canaval?”
Chapin shrugged. “Why should it? He was only the foreman. Olga has been told and you can imagine how she feels.”
My eyes went to hers, and she looked away. Katie O’Hara came in, and I gave her my order for breakfast and tried the coffee she had brought with her. It tasted good.
Sitting there, my mind began to work swiftly. There was still a chance, if I figured things right. Jake Booker was no fool. He had not paid out money for those claims unless he believed he could make them stand in court. He knew about how much money I had, and knew that Olga Maclaren, with the ranch bank accounts frozen, would be broke. Neither of us could afford to hire an attorney, and so far as that went there was no attorney within miles able to cope with Booker. What had started as a range war had degenerated into a range steal by a shyster lawyer, and he had arguments that could not be answered with a gun.
“How was Canaval when you left?”
“Better,” Olga said, still refusing to meet my eyes.
“What about Morgan Park? I heard he escaped.”
“Tharp’s out after him now. That Colonel D’Arcy went with him and the posse. There had been a horse left for Park. Who was responsible for that, we don’t know, but it may have been one of his own men.”
“Where did Tharp go?”
“Toward the ranch, I think. There was no trail they could find.”
“They should have gone east, toward Dark Cañon. That’s where he’ll be.”
Chapin looked at me curiously, intently. “Why there?”
“That’s where he’ll go,” I replied definitely. “Take my word for it.”
They talked a little between them, but I ate in silence, always conscious of the girl across the table, aware of her every move.
Finishing my meal, I got up and reached for my hat. Olga looked up quickly. “Don’t go out there. Bodie Miller is in town.”
“Thanks.” Our eyes met and held. Were they saying something to me? Or was I reading into their depths the meaning I wanted them to hold? “Thanks,” I repeated. “I’d prefer not to meet him now. This is no time for personal grudges.”
It was a horse I wanted, a better horse than the one borrowed from Slade, and which might have been stolen. This, I reflected dryly, would be a poor time to be hung as a horse thief. There was no gate at the corral on this side, so I climbed over, crossing the corral. At the corner I stopped in my tracks. A horse was tied to the corral, a horse stripped but recently of a saddle, a dun horse that showed evidence of hard riding. And in the damp earth near the trough was a boot print. Kneeling, I examined the hocks of the tied horse. From one of them I picked a shred of wool, then another. Spinning around, I raced for the restaurant. “Katie!” I demanded. “Who owns that horse? Did you see the rider?”
“If you’re thinkin’ o’ Park, that horse couldn’t carry him far. An’ he would not stay in the town. Not him.”
“Did you see anyone else?”
“Nobody…wait a minute! I did so. ’Twas Jake Booker. Not that I saw him with the horse, but a bit before daylight he came around the corner from that way and asked if I’d coffee ready.”
Booker! He had small feet. He was in with Park. He wanted Maclaren dead. He had killed Slade’s man and shot our horses. Booker had some explaining to do.
Mulvaney was crawling from the loft where I’d slept but was all attention at once. He listened, then ran to the stable office. Waiting only until he was on a horse and racing from town, I started back to O’Hara’s. My mind was made up.
The time had come for a showdown, and this time we would all be in it, and Jake Booker would not be forgotten.
Key Chapin looked up when I came up. “Key,” I said quickly, “this is the payoff. Find out for me where Booker is. Get somebody to keep an eye on him. He’s not to leave town if he tries. Keep him under observation all the time until Mulvaney gets back from the ranch.” Turning to Olga, I asked her: “How about Canaval? Can he ride yet? Could he stand a buckboard trip?”
She hesitated. “He couldn’t ride, but he might stand it in the buckboard.”
“Then get him into town, and have the boys come with him. Fox especially. I like that man Fox, and Canaval may need protection. Bring him in, and bring him here.”
“What is it? What have you learned?” Chapin demanded.
“About everything I need to know,” I replied. “We’re going to save the Bar M for Olga, and perhaps we’ll save my ranch, too. In any event, we’ll have the man who killed Rud Maclaren!”
“What?” Olga’s face was pale. “Matt, do you mean that?”
“I do. I only hope that Tharp gets back with Morgan Park, but I doubt if we’ll see him again.” Turning to Key, who was at the door. “Another thing. We might as well settle it all. Send a rider to the CP and have Jim Pinder in here. Get him here fast. We’ll have our showdown the first thing in the morning.”
Twice I walked up the street and back. Nowhere was there any sign of Bodie Miller, or of Red, his riding partner. The town still had that sense of expectancy that I had noticed upon coming into town. And they were right—for a lot of things were going to happen and happen fast.
Key met me in the saloon. He walked toward me quickly, his face alive with interest. “What have you got in mind, Matt? What are you planning?”
“Several things. In the first place, there has been enough fighting and trouble. We’re going to end it right here. We’re going to close up this whole range fight. There aren’t going to be any halfway measures. How well do y
ou know Tharp?”
“Very well, why?”
“Will he throw his weight with us? It would mean a lot if he would.”
“You can bank on him. He’s a solid man, Matt. Very solid.”
“All right, in the morning then. In the morning we’ll settle everything.”
There was a slight movement at the door and I looked up. My pulse almost stopped with the shock of it.
Bodie Miller stood there, his hands on his hips, his lips smiling. “Why, sure!” he said. “If that’s what you want. The morning is as good a time as any.”
Chapter 12
The sun came up, clear and hot. Already at daybreak the sky was without a cloud, and the distant mountains seemed to shimmer in a haze of their own making. The desert lost itself in heat waves before the day had scarce begun, and there was a stillness lying upon both desert and town, a sort of poised awareness without sound.
When I emerged upon the street, I was alone. Like a town of ghosts, the street was empty, silent except for the echo of my steps on the boardwalk. Then, as if their sound had broken the spell, the saloon door opened and the bartender emerged and began to sweep off the walk. He glanced quickly around at me, bobbed his head, and then with an uneasy look around finished his sweeping hurriedly and ducked back inside. A man carrying two wooden buckets emerged from an alley and looked cautiously about. Assured there was no one in sight, he started across the street, glancing apprehensively first in one direction, then the other.
Sitting down in one of the polished chairs before the saloon, I tipped back my hat and stared at the mountains. In a few minutes or a few hours, I might be dead.
It was not a good morning on which to die—but what morning is? Yet in a few minutes or hours another man and myself would probably meet out there in that street, and we would exchange shots, and one or both of us would die.
A rider came into the street. Mulvaney. He left his horse at the stable and clumped over to me. He was carrying enough guns to fight a war.
The Lawless West Page 22
