Law Of the Desert Born (Ss) (1984)

by L'amour, Louis

  “That’s it, I’m quitting.”

  “You don’t quit until I’m ready,” Sherman snapped harshly. “I want to know what happened out there.” Clyde stepped carelessly to one side so that he could face Tom Cool, too. “Nothing happened,” he said quietly. “They had a nice place there. A nice couple. I envied them, so I decided to let them stay.”

  “You decided?”

  He’s faster than I am, Clyde’s brain told him, even as he moved. He’ll shoot first, anyway, so—

  Morgan Clyde’s gun roared, and the shot caught Tom Cool in the chest, even as the gunman’s weapon started to swing up to shoot him. Clyde felt a bullet fan past his own face, but he shot Cool again before he turned. Something struck him hard in the body, and then in one leg. He went down, then staggered up and emptied his gun into Sherman.

  Sherman’s body sagged, and a slow trickle of blood came from the corner of his mouth.

  Turning, Clyde got to the office door, walking very straight. His brain felt light, even a little giddy. He opened the door precisely and stepped out into the barroom. Across the room, the Earles, staring wide-eyed, jerked out their guns, Through the door behind him they could see Sherrnan’s body sagging in death. They moved as one man. Gritting his teeth, Morgan Clyde triggered his gun. He shot them both… .

  Morgan Clyde almost made it to his horse before he fell, sprawling his length in the dust. Vaguely he heard a roar of horse’s hoofs, and then he felt himself turned over onto his back. Vic Hallam was staring at him.

  Morgan Clyde’s breath came hoarsely. He looked up, remembering. My place,” he muttered thickly through the blood that frothed his lips. There’s a clock. Put= put it-in the corner.”

  There was sympathy and a deep understanding in Hallam’s face. Sure, that’d be fine. When you get well, we’ll move it over together-on condition that you’ll go partners on the homestead… . But why didn’t you wait, man? I’d have come with you.”

  -Partners,” Morgan Clyde said, and it seemed good to be able to smile. That’d be fine. Just fine.”

  *

  Author’s Note:

  THE MOGOLLON RIM

  Also in the Mogollon Rim country is the Double-Circle Ranch, established about 1880. On the ranch are the graves of four train robbers. Hiding from the law, they had taken jobs on the Double-Circle and were trailed to the ranch by a posse accompanied by two Texas Rangers. The outlaws made their fight, and four of them were buried where they fell. No ranch in the area was safe from Apache raids, and outlaws were numerous. Black Jack Christian operated in the area and had a hideout in a cave in Cole Creek Canyon, about twenty miles from Clifton. Christian was killed not far from the cave.

  Not far from the cave is a place known as Murder Camp, where Felix Burress was killed. His murderer . Was traced to a line cabin in the mountains and captured. He was sentenced to fifteen years in the Yuma prison.

  *

  DEATH SONG OF THE SOMBRERO

  Stretch Magoon, six-foot-five in his sock feet and lean as a buggy whip, put his grulla mustang down the bank of the wash, and cut diagonally across it toward the trail up the bank. His long, melancholy face seemed unusually sad.

  When the grulla scrambled up the bank, Stretch kept him to a slow-paced walk. The sadness remained in his eyes, but they were more watchful, almost expectant. The ramshackle house he was approaching was unpainted and dismal. Sadly in need of repair, the grounds around were dirty and unkempt, the corral a patchwork of odds and ends of rails, the shed that did duty for a barn was little more than a roof over some rails where three saddles rode.

  Magoon’s eyes caught the saddles first, and the hard bronze of his face tightened. He reined up in the’space between the shack and the shed. A big man loomed in the door, a bearded man with small, ugly eyes. “Howdy,” he said. “Wantin’ somethin’?”

  -Uh-huh.” Stretch dug out the makin’s and began to build a smoke. Wantin’ t’ tell you all somethin’.” He finished his job, put the cigarette in his mouth, and struck a match on the side of his jeans. Then he looked up. Two men were there now; the bigger man had stepped outside, and a runty fellow with sandy hair and a freckled, ugly face stood in the door. One hand was out of sight.

  -As of this mornin’, come daylight,” he said, I’m ramroddin’ the Lazy S.”

  -You’re what?” The big man walked two steps closer. You mean, you’re the foreman? What’s become of Ketchell?”

  Stretch Magoon looked sadly down at the big man. Why, Weidman, Ketchell did what I knowed he would do sooner or later. He was a victim of bad judgment. Ever’ time that man played a hand of poker, I could see it cumin’.”

  -Get t’ the point!” Weidman demanded harshly. “What happened?”

  -We had us a mite of an argument,” Stretch said calmly, an’ Ketchell thought I was bluffin’. He called. We both drawed a new hand an’ I led with two aces-right through the heart.”

  -Y’ killed Bum Ketchell?” Weidman demanded incredulously. I don’t believe it!”

  “Weir-Stretch dropped his left hand to the reins-“dead or not, they are Navin’ a buryin’. I reckon if he ain’t dead he’ll be some sore when he wakes up an’ finds all that dirt in his face.” He turned the mouse-colored mustang. Oh yeah! That reminds me. We had the argument over suggestin’ t’ you that your Sombrero brand could be run mighty easy out of a Lazy S.” Y’ accusin’ us o’ rustlin’?” Weidman demanded. His eyes flickered for an instant, and Stretch felt a little shiver of relief go through him. He knew where that third man was now. It had had him bothered some. The third man was beside the corner of the corral.

  His eyes dropped, and his heart gave a leap. The sun was beyond the corral, and he could see the shadow of that corner on the hard ground. He almost grinned as his eyes caught the flicker of movement.

  “I ain’t accusin’ you o’ nothin’. I ain’t sure. If I was sure, I wouldn’t be settin’ here talkin’. I’d be stringin’ your thick neck t’ a cottonwood. What I’m doin’ is givin’ you a tip that the fun’s over now. You can change your brand or leave the country. I ain’t p’ticlar which.” “Why, you-” Weidman’s face was mottled and ugly, but he made the mistake of trusting too much to his dry-gulch attempt, and when Stretch Magoon drew, it was so fast he didn’t have a chance to match him. He was depending too much on that shot from the corral corner.

  Magoon’s eyes had been on the shadow, unnoticed by Weidman. Stretch had seen the rifle come up from past the corner of the corral, had waited it out, waited until it froze. Then he drew and fired in the same instant.

  He fired across his body, and too quickly. It had to be a snap shot because he needed to get his gun around and on the other two men. As it was, his bullet struck the man’s hand just where his left thumb lay along the rifle barrel.

  Very neatly it clipped the tip of the thumb and continued past to cut a furrow in the man’s cheek, cut the lobe from his ear, and bury itself in the ground beyond. It had the added effect of a blow behind the ear, and the marksman rolled over on the ground, knocked momentarily unconscious by the blow.

  Weidman’s gun was only half out, and Red Posner had not even started to draw when Magoon’s gun swung back in line. Weidman froze, then, very delicately, spread his fingers and let his gun slip back into its holster. His face was gray under the stubble of beard.

  “No hard feelin’s,” Stretch said quietly, “but I’m repeatin’. Change your brand or gitl”

  He swung his horse and, watching warily, rode to the wash. Then, instead of following the trail up the other side, he whipped the mustang around and rode rapidly down the wash for a quarter of a mile. There it branched away to the left, and he took the branch. Well back in the cedars, he rode out of the wash and cut across country toward town.

  Despite himself, he was disturbed. Something about the recent action had not gone as he had expected. Barker had sent for him two weeks before, when the missing cattle from the Lazy S had begun to mount rapidly in numbers. In those two weeks, Stretch had ascert
ained two things: first, that Lazy S cattle were being branded, and then, while the brands were still fresh, drifted into the breaks across the range near the Sombrero spread of Lucky Weidman.

  Second, he had trailed Burn Ketchell and had actually caught him in the act of venting a brand. The change from a Lazy S to a Sombrero was all too simple for a handy man with a running iron.

  It was merely a matter of making an inverted U over the top bend of the Lazy S to make the crown of the Sombrero, and then running a burned line from the top of the S around and down to the lower tip. It was simple, perfectly simple.

  Burn Ketchell had been the brains behind the rustling. With Burn out of the way, Stretch had believed the rustling would be ended. Now, because of that attempted killing, he was not so sure.

  Lucky Weidman was crooked and he was dirty, but he was no fool. He would never have taken a chance of having Magoon killed on his place after rustling had been discovered, unless he had friends-and friends in places to do him some good.

  Tinkerville was an unsightly cowtown sprawled on a flat at the mouth of Tinker Canyon. Recently silver had been discovered up the canyon and the town had experienced a slight boom. With the boom the town had received an overflow of bombers, a number of whom were from the East and new to Western ways. One of these was the tall, precise, gray-mustached man who became sheriff, Ben Rowsey.

  Another was the tall, handsome Paul Hartman.

  New to the country himself, Stretch Magoon, itinerant range detective, had looked the town over when he arrived. Paul Hartman, only six months a resident of Tinkerville, was the acknowledged big man of the town.

  He had loaned money to Sam Tinker, who owned the Tinker House and had founded the town in Indian days. He bought stock in the milling ventures. He grubstaked three prospectors, he started a weekly newspaper, and he bought a controlling interest in the Longhorn Bar.

  Another newcomer was Kelly Jarvis, who owned the Lazy S, of which Dean Barker was manager.

  Kelly was twenty-one years old, lovely, and fresh from the East. Her father had been a salty old range rider, tough and saddle-worn. He had made a mint of money, and had lavished it on Kelly. She was named for a companion of her father’s. A story she told, and no one questioned, Within two hours after she reached town, Kelly was being shown around by Paul Hartman. He was handsome and agreeable.

  Stretch Magoon knew all of this. Tall, sad, and quiet, he got around, listened, and rarely asked a question. When he did, the questions were casual and calculated to start a flow of talk that usually ended in Magoon’s learning a lot more than anyone planned to tell him. He was having a drink in the Longhorn when Ben Rowsey walked up to him. Magoon, Rowsey demanded sharply, what’s the straight of that shootin’ out at the Lazy Sr . . Magoon was surprised. In the West, rustling usually ended promptly with either a rope or a bullet. Not a man given to violence himself, he acted according to the code of the country. He had presented evidence of vented brands to Barker, had proved that Ketchell’s orders had sent the cattle into the breaks near the Sombrero, and had been riding with Barker and County Galway when he found Ketchell. Ketchell had not seen Barker and Galway, and had tried to shoot it out.

  “Nothin’ much t’ tell. I found him ventin’ a brand, an’ he went for a gun. He was too slow.”

  “You’ll have to understand, Magoon,” Rowsey said sharply, “that gunplay is a thing of the past out here. There’s goin’ t’ be an investigation. You have witnesses?”

  “Uh-huh.” Magoon was mildly surprised but not alarmed. “Barker an’ Galway were comin’ up behind me an’ saw the whole play.”

  Rowsey’s eyes narrowed. “Galway, is it? His evidence won’t be good in this county. He’s been mixed up in too many shootin’ scrapes himself.”

  The door opened then, and Paul Hartman came in. “Oh, hello, Magoon. Just the man I was looking for. Miss Jarvis wishes to see you.”

  Stretch walked outside into the sunlight. Kelly Jarvis, a vision in red hair and dark green riding habit, was sitting a sorrel horse at the door. Hartman and Sheriff Rowsey followed him out.

  “You wanted t’ see me, ma’am?” He looked sadly up into her violet eyes. They were cold now.

  “Yes, I did. I understand you were hired by Dean Barker to find who was rustling on my ranch. Also, that you killed my foreman. I don’t want hired killers on my property. You’re fired.”

  “Fired?” Magoon’s long, melancholy face did not change. “I was hired by Barker, ma’am. I reckon I’ll let him fire me.”

  “Barker,” Kelly Jarvis said crisply, “has already been fired!”

  Magoon looked up at her; then he pushed his battered hat back on his head. “I reckon,” he said sadly, “that’s all the reward a feller can expect after givin’ the best years o’ his life t’ that ranch like Barker done. I reckon that’s all anybody can expect from a girl who was named for a mule!”

  Kelly’s face turned crimson with embarrassment. “Who told you that?” she flared angrily.

  Paul Hartman stepped up abruptly. “That’s enough out of you!” he said sharply. “Get going!” He put a hand on Stretch Magoon’s shoulder and shoved.

  It was an unfortunate thing. Even an unhappy thing. Paul Hartman was a widely experienced young man, not unacquainted with the rough and seamy side of life. Yet when his shoulder blades hit the dust of the street a good six feet off the boardwalk, he was jarred from head to heel, jarred as he had never been before.

  “Here!” Rowsey interrupted sharply. “Y’ can’t—”

  Chicken Livers, the town loafer was smiling. “The dude put his hand on him,” he said dryly. “He shouldn’t a done it.”

  Hartman got up, brushing off his clothes. Then, quietly, he removed his coat. “I’m going to teach you something!” he snapped, his eyes blazing. “It’s about time some of you hicks learned how to talk to a gentleman!”

  Hartman had boxed a good deal, but they had been polite boxing matches, between friends. Stretch Magoon had learned his fighting by extensive application, and while a good deal of boxing skill was included, none of it had been politely learned. The left jab that made a bloody puffball of Paul Hartman’s lips wasn’t in the least polite, and the right uppercut that lifted into Hartman’s solar plexus and picked his feet clear of the boardwalk was crude, to say the least. Even a little vulgar.

  Sheriff Ben Rowsey was unaccustomed to Western ways. He had been appointed by a board of which Hartman was the chairman and the directing voice. He was, however, something of a fighting man. himself. He helped pick Hartman up from the street and dust him off. Aloud, he voiced his sadness at the unfortunate affair. Mentally, he acknowledged it had been months, years even, since he had seen two nicer punches. For the first time, and without adequate reason, he began to wonder about Paul Hartman.

  Kelly Jarvis was an angry young lady. Her red hair and Irish ancestry, and perhaps something of the nature that had caused her father to name her for his favorite mule, helped to make her angry.

  It took her something over an hour to find that she was much less angry at Stretch Magoon for knocking Hartman into the middle of the street than she was at Hartman for allowing himself to be disposed of so thoroughly. Heroes live by doing, and Paul Hartman had not done.

  “The way I figger it,” Stretch was saying to Galway, “is this Paul Hartman has been talking to her. She ain’t been here long, an’ he is the hombre that knows it all. So she listens.”

  “But what’s the idea?” Galway asked. “What’s his ante?”

  “That,” Magoon admitted, “is the point. Maybe he is just a smart lad tryin’ take over a pretty filly, an’ maybe there’s something more behind it. I aim t’ see.

  He was not the only one who was doing some thinking. Kelly was sitting at lunch, and for the first time since coming West, she was using her own pretty red head. New to the West, she had let Paul Hartman advise her. Now she was wondering. After all, Dean Barker had worked for her _since her father had died when she was but fourteen. His report
s, poorly written, but always legible, had been coming with regularity, and somehow, she recalled, the ranch had always shown a profit. Now, on the strength of a new friend’s advice, she had discharged him, and had discharged the man Barker hired to investigate the rustling of her cattle. It was true Stretch Magoon had killed her foreman. Hartman had told her Magoon was a professional idller.

  But was he? She recalled then that her father had once killed two men trying to rustle his cattle. Another thing came up to irritate her: How had Magoon known that her father had named her for a mule?

  It was irritating that he did know. It was also puzzling.

  After lunch, Kelly Jarvis mounted her horse and took to the hills. The green riding habit and hat were left behind in the room at Tinker House. She wore a pair of jeans, boots, a boy’s shirt, and a hat. And for the first time since she was fourteen, when her father had let her ride alone, she was carrying a pistol.

  It had be61 seven years since she had been West, but she found as she rode that her knowledge had not been lost. She had grown up on the back of a cow pony, and she could use a rope and could ride as well as many a cowhand.

  She rode into the breaks that divided her range from that of the new Sombrero outfit. Once, dismounting at a spring to get a drink, she drew a Lazy S in the mud with a stick, then performed the two simple movements essential to change it to a Sombrero. She had to admit that Stretch Magoon had a point. If Lucky Weidman was honest, as,Hartman maintained, it was mighty funny he had chosen the Sombrero for a brand.

  Red Posner, Weidman’s right-hand man, had a face like a horned toad and a disposition like a burro with the colic. He left thinking to his betters, collected his money, drank it up, then rustled more cattle to get more money to buy more whisky. He was very busy venting a brand on a Lazy S steer when Kelly Jarvis rode down into the clearing.

  They saw each other at the same instant, but Red, having a guilty conscience, had the quickest reaction. He hauled iron and threw down on the girl. In a matter of minutes she was on her back in the dust, roped and hogtied with Red’s piggin’ strings.