The Smoking Iron

by Brett Halliday

  It was a good two hours after sunrise when they reached the top. When they pulled their panting horses up to rest, they saw a rider following the winding road up from the other side. He was pushing his horse hard, and they both swung off and rolled cigarettes and watched him approach.

  He was riding an X L horse, and he pulled up with a dramatic flourish and demanded, “You fellows heard about the stage?”

  Pat shook his head and asked, “What stage?”

  “The one from Marfa. Headed to Hermosa.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s wrecked back yonder.” The rider waved behind him. “Turned over the side of the hill and smashed up at the bottom. Driver and passenger is both dead. Team’s all tangled up and dead too.”

  Pat threw his cigarette away and got slowly to his feet. “How many passengers were there?”

  “Just one. Young fellow. Wearing a leather jacket and levis.”

  Pat let out his breath slowly. “Dead, huh?”

  “Yeh. Him and the driver both. And it wasn’t no plain runaway. They’re both shot.”

  “Holdup?”

  “I reckon.” He nodded importantly. “Me and another rider found ’em like that. He rode to Hermosa and I thought I’d better ride to Marfa to tell the stagecoach people.”

  Pat took off his hat. He stared down at it, then put it back on his head. He wondered why Dusty had been the only passenger. Ben Thurston should have been on that coach too. Yet, many things could have prevented Ben from arriving on schedule. Must have missed connections somewhere.

  He asked the Excel rider gruffly, “This the right road to Boracho?” just to be saying something more than anything else.

  “Boracho, huh? That’s a pretty tough town, Mister.”

  Pat frowned and said flatly, “We ain’t what you’d call tender.”

  The rider grinned. “Take the fork to the left, ’bout five miles ahead. That’ll take you right through the Katie spread and across a ford into Boracho. I better be gettin’ on to Marfa.” He spurred past them and went around a bend in a cloud of dust.

  Ezra cleared his throat. “That’s plumb tough luck … him gettin’ killed like that. He’ll never know, now, that he didn’t have nothin’ to run from.”

  Pat shook his head. He muttered, “I don’t see how that adds up to anything.”

  “What you mean? What don’t add up to what?”

  Pat didn’t reply. The pattern had been unaccountably smashed. Dusty’s death didn’t fit into any plan that he could see. And the pieces had all seemed to fit in so neatly a few hours ago as he reviewed them.

  He sighed and said, “I reckon we might as well ride on. He said the left fork … about five miles down the road.” He swung into the saddle and they started out.

  12

  It was well past noon when the two riders approached the edge of the rimrocks breaking down into the river valley. It was hot and they were dusty and tired and hungry. They had been riding for many hours through an uninspiring and forbidding landscape with scant vegetation and few waterholes. The scattered cattle grazing along the way were gaunt and sad-eyed creatures. They had turned off the main road back at the forks indicated by the X L rider and thus had by-passed both the wrecked stage and the village of Hermosa.

  Pat Stevens pulled his horse up sharply when they reached the point where the road dipped over the rimrock. He woke the dozing Ezra with a loud whistle of surprise and pleasure.

  Ezra’s horse stopped automatically, and the big man lifted his head and blinked his one good eye downward at the wide valley of the Katie Ranch, shook his head disbelievingly at the spectacle of lush greenness stretching out in front and below them.

  “It ain’t so,” he muttered angrily. “I’m a-dreamin’ an’ we’re back in Colorado. There ain’t nothin’ like I’m seein’ in the Big Bend of Texas.”

  Pat grinned and said, “I don’t blame you none for thinking yo’re dreamin’. But you ain’t, Ezra. That there’s real. There’s water and green grass down yonder. Look at our hawses. They smell it all the way up here.”

  “It’s worth ridin’ a long ways to look at that. What’re we waitin’ up here for?”

  Pat began to roll a cigarette. “I just want to set here an’ look at it. Kind of makes me feel good all over.”

  “It don’t look like it’s even grazed good. It’s a downright shame to let grass like that go to waste.”

  Pat nodded, licking his cigarette. “It shore enough is,” he agreed. “I reckon that’s maybe the Katie.”

  “Might be. Can’t see the brands from up here.”

  “An’ t’other side of the valley is the river, mostlike. It’s no wonder a gal runnin’ a ranch like this has trouble with rustlin’.”

  A couple of riders appeared along the edge of the rimrock, coming toward them at a trot. Pat’s eyes narrowed as he turned to watch them. One of the riders appeared to be a girl. The other rider was tall and rangy. He held his horse close to the girl’s and leaned toward her as they rode forward.

  “Let’s ride down into the valley,” Ezra muttered. “Looks like that might be a ranch at them trees in the middle. My belly shore could use some linin’ right now.” He scowled at the approaching riders. “Can’t you see one of ’em’s a gal? She’ll wanta stop an’ talk.”

  Pat nodded slowly. “Yeh. She’s a gal, all right.” They were too far away yet for him to see Katie’s face, but he knew it was she. It had to be. That graceful figure just naturally went with the picture Ben Thurston had shown him back on the Lazy Mare in Powder Valley.

  The other rider drew a little away from the girl as they came closer. Sunlight glinted from the silver ornaments on his buckskin jacket and was reflected from the ivory butt of his six-gun carried in a holster turned forward on his left side. Lon Boxley frowned blackly at the two Powder Valley men as he reined up in front of them and demanded in an arrogant voice, “Where you two waddies ridin’?”

  Pat didn’t look at Boxley. He was studying Katie’s face, fascinated to discover that she was prettier than he remembered Sally to’ve been even. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. She looked back at him gravely, without seeming to resent his close inspection, even smiling a little when he grew embarrassed and began to blush as he realized he was acting like a moonstruck fool.

  It was Ezra who answered Boxley. “Where we ride is our own business, Mister.”

  “I ain’t so sure about that,” Boxley said truculently.

  Katie turned her eyes from Pat’s and pleaded with her companion, “Don’t go stirring up trouble, Lon. Not any more today.”

  He insisted, “We can’t afford to take any chances. Not with all the rustling lately. These two hombres look like they wouldn’t hesitate to run off a few head of stock if they get the chance.” His jaw was swollen and purple.

  Pat said, “I reckon yo’re honin’ to show off yore fancy draw.” His hands were clasped loosely atop his saddle-horn. His words were drawled but they rang out coldly.

  Boxley looked him up and down, taking in Pat’s careless posture and the crossed gunbelts with low-tied holsters. Before he could reply, Katie put in sharply: “You men quit acting like a couple of strange dogs … growling at each other and showing your teeth. We don’t care if you’re heading for Boracho, nor why. That’s my ranch down below there, and you’re welcome to ride right on across it to the ford.”

  Pat lifted his hat and said, “Then I reckon you must be Miss Katie Rollins?”

  “Why, yes.” She looked at him questionly. “Do I know you?”

  “What’s it to you who she is?” Boxley snapped.

  Pat paid no attention to him, but Ezra wheeled his horse around to put him close to the X L rancher. He had his gun half drawn, and he warned Boxley hoarsely, “One more crack outta you will be yore last.”

  “Don’t,” Katie cried despairingly. She spurred her horse between the two men and said, “You’d better ride on back, Lon.”

  “And l
eave you here alone with these two gunmen?”

  “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” Her voice stamped its foot.

  As though there had been no interruption, Pat said, “No, ma’m. You don’t know me. I’m Pat Stevens from Colorado … on a buyin’ trip for heifers. They say you’ve got some mighty fine stuff on the Katie.”

  “I have.” Her eyes shone happily. “If you’re interested in breeding stock …” Then she hesitated, biting her under lip and glancing aside at Lon. “But I guess I haven’t anything to sell,” she ended lamely.

  “Not a lead,” he agreed. “But I’ve got some heifers if you are looking for some to buy,” he added to Pat. “Why not come to my ranch and talk it over.”

  Pat was watching Katie. He saw her wince. She said to Lon in a low voice, “I thought you planned to move your stock down on the Katie.”

  He said, “I know what I’m doing.” And to Pat: “How about it?”

  “Why, no.” Pat shook his head. “If I can’t make a deal for K T stuff, I guess I won’t bother.”

  “Why don’t you ride on across to Boracho?” Katie put in bitterly. “Half of my stock is on the other side of the river. You might get more of a bargain if you do it that way.”

  Pat regarded her steadily for a moment. “Maybe that’s a good idea, ma’m.” He reined his horse about and said curtly to Ezra, “Let’s go.”

  They rode on down over the edge of the rimrocks, with their lead horses falling in behind.

  There was a wooden gate at the foot of the cliff barring the cattle from going up the road out of the valley. Pat swung off to open it, and as Ezra was riding through, he heard a horse coming down from above at reckless speed.

  It was Katie. He held the gate open for her to ride through. She pulled up and said, “Thank you.” Her eyes were blazing with anger and a red spot burned high up on each cheek, but her voice was steady.

  Pat closed the gate and swung onto his horse. Katie waited to ride between them, saying, “If you’d like to stop at the ranch I’ll see if my cook can scare up something to eat.”

  Pat said, “That’ll be right welcome,” and Ezra echoed him feelingly, “We ain’t et since last night in Marfa.”

  “I’ll have to apologize for Mr. Boxley,” Katie said, as though she had to force the words out. “He’s gotten in the habit of looking at all strangers with suspicion.”

  “I reckon that’s natural … in the Big Bend. He a neighbor of yores?”

  “Yes. His ranch joins the Katie. He’s … not always this way. But I guess you … noticed his jaw.”

  Pat nodded gravely. “Looked like he’d run into somethin’.”

  “A man’s fist,” she told him succinctly. “In Hermosa this morning. Another stranger. That’s why he was so much on the prod about strangers.”

  “He acts like a tough hombre.”

  “He is. That’s why he feels so badly about this morning. He not only got knocked on his back in front of me, but if I hadn’t stopped it the man would have killed him, too.”

  Pat said cheerfully, “He was just tryin’ to work off his peeve on us. That’s all right, ma’m, we can handle his kind.”

  “Did you say you’re from Colorado?” she asked after they’d ridden on a little way in silence.

  “That’s right.”

  “I wonder if you happen to know a town named Dutch Springs?” she asked impulsively. “It’s in the southern part of the state, I think. In a place called Powder Valley.”

  Pat said, “Lemme see,” and looked coldly across at Ezra who was making a strangling noise. “Powder Valley,” he mused, “ain’t so far from where we’re from. You know, Ezra,” he looked over at the scar-faced man with a wink. “You’ve been there, ain’t you?”

  Ezra nodded in bewilderment, not in the least understanding why Pat was acting so funny. “Shore,” he grunted. “Not more’n …”

  “Why’d you ask?” Pat interrupted him to ask the girl.

  “I wondered if you might know a man there. His name was Ben Thurston. I was expecting him in on the stage this morning,” she went on in a low voice. “The stage from Marfa that got held up and the passenger killed.”

  “Why shore …” Ezra began excitedly, but Pat cut him off again:

  “We know old Tom Thurston,” he told her. “Seems like he did have a boy!”

  “That’s the one! Tom Thurston was his father. My father’s old friend. I wrote him a letter a month ago asking him to come and help me on the K T, and he wrote back saying he’d be in on this morning’s stagecoach. Then it got held up and wrecked and … he was killed.”

  “Why no,” Ezra put in strongly. “I don’t reckon he did, ma’m. Not less’n there was two passengers on the coach.”

  She turned to look at him strangely. “There was only one passenger and he was killed. Lon Boxley told me about it. He knew I was expecting Ben …” Her voice trailed off hopelessly.

  “Must be some mistake,” Ezra boomed before Pat could stop him. “Must be Ben wasn’t on the stage, ’cause we know a friend of ours caught it in Marfa, don’t we, Pat?”

  Pat nodded cautiously, “We know he got on the stage at Marfa. If there was only one fellow killed, it must of been him.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad.” Katie Rollins’ face was radiant with new-born hope. “Perhaps he missed a connection and will be in tomorrow. You see, I gave up all hope when I heard about the accident,” she went on. “Oh, if I’d only kept that other man here! The two of them might have been able to do something. But I sent him away.”

  “What other fellow is that?” Pat asked patiently.

  “The one who knocked Lon Boxley down in Hermosa this morning. He heard me say I needed some hands and he offered to hire out to me. It was mostly my fault, the fight I mean,” she added honestly. “He looked so funny in his striped shirt and city suit that I made the mistake of saying I needed a man on the Katie. That’s when he knocked Lon down. To prove that his funny clothes didn’t mean anything.”

  “Wait a minute,” Pat pleaded. “I don’t get the rights of this.”

  “You think I’m crazy to be telling it all to you, but I happened to think that you might see him if you ride over to Boracho. That’s where he went, I’m pretty sure. I left him at the ranch when I rode away with Lon,” she went on, to Pat’s increasing bewilderment. “I knew there’d be trouble if Lon found him there, so I rode away with Lon and left him. And if you see him in Boracho you might tell him T wish he’d come back now, because I’ve got another man coming and the two of them can work together to stop the rustling. You understand, don’t you?” Her dark eyes pleaded with him.

  “Not quite,” Pat admitted uncomfortably. “No’m. Not altogether. This fellow in the striped shirt an’ city clothes. What’d he look like an’ where’d he come from?”

  “He was young and … handsome.” Katie blushed prettily. “Sort of tall, and he had eyes that looked right through you.”

  Pat set his teeth together firmly. He was recalling Ben Thurston’s striped shirt and city suit. But he couldn’t imagine any girl calling Ben handsome. Still and all, you never could tell about girls. Some of the ugliest men he’d ever known were married. But how had Ben gotten to Hermosa?

  “Where’d you say he was from?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. He … didn’t tell me much about himself. He walked into Hermosa. Claimed his horse had got snakebitten down the road a piece. And he claimed he had traded clothes with a man, just for the fun of it.”

  Pat was further bewildered now. None of it made sense. There couldn’t be two men dressed the same way, wandering around the Big Bend at the same time. But if it was Ben, arrived on foot in some inexplicable manner, why hadn’t he told the girl who he was? She was expecting him. It didn’t sound like Ben Thurston to’ve kept his name from her. Still, it didn’t sound like the Ben Thurston he knew in Powder Valley, either, to’ve knocked Lon Boxley down. He began to wonder if he had sadly underrated the young man. Maybe there
was more of Tom Thurston’s blood in the boy than. Pat had thought.

  He could see Ezra’s one eye glaring at him from beyond the girl who rode between them, and he knew that Ezra had finally added up two and two and made four out of it; that Ezra now realized he must have known about Ben Thurston’s coming before he ever left Powder Valley. He was going to have some explaining to do when they got off to themselves.

  They were nearing the shaded ranch house under the spreading trees, and Katie told them, “You must stop and eat before you ride on to Boracho. And I’ll find out for sure if Dusty had ridden on …”

  “Dusty?” Both men choked out the single word in unison.

  Katie looked at them in surprise. “That’s what he said his name was. The rider I was telling you about.”

  Pat looked across at Ezra helplessly. “An’ you say he was wearin’ a striped shirt an’ a city suit, ma’m?”

  “That’s right. What is the matter with you?”

  Pat said, “I dunno. I reckon maybe it’s this here Texas sun. We ain’t used to it. You feel funny too, Ezra?”

  “I feel like I’d et loco weed,” he said tersely.

  “That’s it, ma’m. I reckon we won’t stop to eat. We’ll just push on to the river …”

  “Nonsense! Not in this hot sun if it affects you that way. You must stop and rest. You can go on to Boracho in the cool of the evening. You’ve got to remember,” she told them with severity, “neither of you are young men any more. I’m afraid the change of altitude is bad for you.”

  “Yes’m,” Pat agreed hollowly. “I reckon maybe it is.” He didn’t protest further. They stopped for Katie to dismount at the house and then took all five horses to the barn to turn them over to Miguel.

  13

  As he rode toward the Rio Grande from the Katie Ranch, Dusty Morgan was definitely positive that he was through with all women forever. He kept swallowing down a taste of bitterness in his throat.

  First Rosa and now Katie. Well, he was sure learning about women fast. He’d never be fooled again. Ridin’ off with Lon Boxley like that! Leavin’ word for him to get the hell off her ranch and go on to Boracho!