Killoe (1962)

by L'amour, Louis

  The man touched his tongue to his lips. “You think you—” I shot him out of his saddle.

  A moment before there had been silence, and then I was holding a gun with a slow twist of smoke rising from the muzzle, and the blond man was on the ground.

  Whatever Tolan Banks might have done he did not do, for Zebony was holding a rifle in his hands, and so was Milo.

  “Tap,” I said, “you pick that man up and ride out of here. You’re welcome any time, but when you come, don’t come with a murdering renegade like him.”

  My bullet had gone a little high, and the man was shot through the shoulder, but from the look of it, he was badly hurt. “

  Tap Henry sat very still on his horse, and there was a strange look in his eyes.

  It was as if he was seeing me for the first time.

  “I’ll come back, Dan. I’ll come back looking for you. Nobody talks to me like this.”

  “You’re my brother, Tap, by raising if not by blood. I want no trouble with you, but when you start traipsing around with men who have attacked us, it is time to ask where your loyalty lies.”

  “You’ll be seeing me too,” Banks said.

  My eyes swung to him. “I was wondering when you were going to put your ante into this game,” I said, “and I’m ready any time you are.”

  He sat his horse, smiling at me. “Not now … not right now. You’ve too many guns against me.”

  “Ride out of here then.”

  Banks turned his horse and Tap got down to help the wounded man into the saddle. Jim Poor came down to help him.

  “You come back when you want, Tap. But come alone or with Karen, and come friendly.”

  “Where is Karen?” Tim Foley demanded.

  “She’s in Socorro,” Tap said sullenly. “She’s all right.”

  Foley held a shotgun. “Are you two married?”

  Tap glanced at him bleakly. “You’re damned right,” he said.

  “What do you think I am?”

  “Take care of her,” Foley said. “I’m no gunfighter, but this shotgun doesn’t care who it shoots.”

  Tap rode away, leading the renegade, who was swearing in a high, plaintive voice.

  There I stood, in the sun of a bright day, watching them ride off down the valley. There went Tap, who had been my hero as a youngster, and there went the last of whatever family I had, and 1 watched him go and was lonely.

  Ours was a hard land, and it took hard men to ride it and live it, and the rules had to be laid down so all could read, and the lines drawn.

  Tap Henry was different. It seemed to me Tap was rootless, and being rootless he had never quite decided where he stood, on the side of the angels or against them. Well, today should force him to a decision. He knew where I stood.

  If that blond man had been trying to sneak a gun on me, I was not sure … nor did I much care. He had been there when my father was killed, and was as guilty as if he himself had fired the shot—and he might have.

  One thing I had learned. It saves a lot of argument and trouble, and perhaps mistakes leading to greater violence, if folks know exactly where you stand. We came to a raw and lonely land, a land without law, without courts, and with no help in time of danger. There were men who wished the land to remain lawless, for there were always those who were unable to abide by the rules of society; and there were others who wanted schools, churches, and market days, who wanted homes, warm and friendly. Now I had taken my stand… I had drawn a line that no man could mistake.

  After they had gone, nobody had any comment to make. The work picked up where it had ceased, and went on as it always must; for birth, death, and the day-to-day matters of living never cease. There are meals to be prepared, cattle to be cared for, meat to be butchered, fences to be built, wood to be cut. For while man cannot live by bread alone, he must have the bread before other things can become real. Civilization is born of leisure, and leisure can come only after the crop has been harvested.

  In our hearts we knew that, for lonely men are considering men, given to thought to fill the empty hours of the lives they live. , Yet now the time had come to ride eastward, to be sure that we recovered our herd.

  I doubted if it had yet been sold, and while my warning to Soto might cause him to deliver the herd, I doubted that it would. Even if he wanted it so—which I doubted—there were others involved.

  “Tim,” I said, “I’m riding after the herd. I’m leaving you in charge. Jim Poor and Tom Sandy will stay with you—and Miguel.”

  “I go with you, Dan.” Miguel looked up from the tiara he had been mending. “It is better so. Soto, he has many friends, and we are a people who protect our own. If you go among them, a stranger, all will be against you, even if they lift no hand.

  “If I go with you to tell what Soto has done, and that you are good people, your enemies will be only the Comancheros.” He smiled. “And I think they are enough for trouble.”

  There was no arguing with him, for I knew what he said to be the truth. The Spanish-Americans of Texas and New Mexico were clannish, as they had a right to be, and I would be a stranger among them, and a gringo.

  They would know nothing of the facts of my case, whether I was a true man or false.

  In such a case they would either ignore me or actively work against me.

  And then Conchita declared herself. She, too, was coming. She had much to do. She must go to Socorro. There were things to buy … in the end, she won the argument, and she came with us.

  Zehony, Zeno Yearly, Milo Dodge, Miguel, and myself made up the group. It was a small enough party for what we had to do.

  Socorro was a sleepy village on the Rio Grande, built on the site of a pueblo. A mission had been established there as early as 1628, but during the Pueblo revolt the people had fled south and established a village of the same name on the Rio Grande, returning in 1817 to reestablish the village. All this Conchita told me as we rode toward the village from the west.

  Though we were a small number, we were veterans at the sort of trouble that lay before us. Growing up on the frontier in Texas is never easy, and Zebony had killed his first Kiowa when he was thirteen. He had spent a week dodging Comanches even before that, and had seen his family killed.

  Zeno Yearly had come west from Kentucky and Tennessee, where he had lived at various places along the Natchez Trace and in the mountains. Most of his life he had lived by hunting.

  Milo Dodge had been a Texas Ranger with Walker, and had served as a boy in the army during the War with Mexico, We rode into Socorro, a tight, tough little band. And there we would buy supplies and start east, for we had far to go to reach the land of the Comanchero.

  It was cool in the little cantina where we went to drink and to listen. Conchita was in the store, and her brother had disappeared somewhere among the fiat-roofed adobe houses.

  We four went into the cantina and ordered the wine of the country, for they were raising grapes and making wine at Socorro, as at E1 Paso and elsewhere. There were old apple trees here, too, planted long ago by the friars, or so it was said.

  Zebony put his hat on the table and combed out his long brown hair, hair fine as a woman’s and as beautiful. Yearly watched him, touching his long mustache from time to time.

  There was a stillness within us, a waiting. Each knew what lay beyond this place.

  For out there was a wild and lonely land where the Apaches roamed, and beyond that, where we were going, the Comanche—great horsemen and great fighters, and we were few, going into a harsh land where many enemies awaited us. But this was what we had to do, and not one of us would draw back. ;

  The wine was good, and after a while the owner brought us each a huge bowl of frijoles, a stack of tortillas, and some eggs scrambled with peppers and onions.

  Miguel came in, standing inside the door until his eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light, and then he crossed to our table and sat down. Leaning toward us, his eyes very bright, he said, “It is well that we came here, for my frie
nds tell me something very interesting.”

  We looked at him, and waited. Miguel took out his cigarito and put it between his lips, “Soto is not at Palo Duro… he is on the Tularosa.”

  “That’s east of here, ain’t it?” Zeno asked.

  “It is a place—a very small place which I think will get no larger because of the Apache–a place called Las Placitas. It is near Fort Stanton, where there are soldiers.”

  He lighted his cigarito. “It is tell to me that Soto brings his cattle there to sell to the soldiers.”

  “I didn’t know there was a fort over there,” Dodge said. “Stanton, you say? There was a Captain Stanton killed there a few years back.”

  “Si, it is name for him. The fort was built… 1855, I think. So these people come to the Rio Bonito and they begin a settlement, but I think the Apache will run them out.” “Soto is there?”

  “Si … with many men. And a large herd of cattle and some horses.”

  “Why, then,” I said, looking around the table, “that is where we will go.”

  We walked out on the boardwalk and stood there together, four men looking up and down the street, and knowing that trouble might come to us at any time.

  And then I saw Karen.

  Or rather, Milo Dodge saw her. “Dan … look.”

  She was coming toward us, and I thought she looked older, older by years, and she looked thinner, too. As always, she was neat, and when she saw us she almost stopped; then, chin up, she came on.

  “Karen … Mrs. Henry,” I said, “it is good to see you again.”

  “How do you do?” We might have been strangers. She spoke and started to pass on.

  “Your folks are still with us. Tap knows where we are, and they would like to see you.”

  She had gone past us a step when she stopped and turned slowly around. “I do not think you like my husband,” she said.

  “Whenever you folks feel like coming home,” I said, “there’s a place for you. Pa left no will, and though he sent Tap away, that makes no difference. If Tap wants to crone back, it will be share and share alike.”

  “Thank you.’”

  She started away, then stopped again. Maybe it was something in our manner, maybe it was just the way we were armed, for each one of us was carrying a rifle, and each had two or more pistols.

  “Where … what are you doing?”

  “We’re going after our cattle, Karen,” I said. “Felipe Soto has them over at Las Placitas.”

  “But… there’s so many of them! You won’t have a chance! Why, there must be twenty men with him—or even twice that many.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we know that, but they’re our cattle.”

  That was how we felt about it. They were our cattle, so we must go after them, and thieves must not be permitted to escape the consequences of their deeds. We had a land to build, we had peace to bring to the land, and for a few years now we would have to bring it with a gun. To the violent, violence is the only argument they understand. Justice they understand, but only when it’ is administered from strength.

  Before the sun was over the eastern mountains we were miles upon our way. We crossed some desert, we crossed the lava flows, and we came up through the live oak and the pines to the mountains and the Rio Bonito. We followed it along toward the cluster of adobes and shacks along the stream.

  There were scarcely half a dozen, and a few tents, a few tipis. We spread out as we came into the town, and beyond the town we could see the herd. There were some men on horseback where the cattle were, and some of them wore plumed helmets and blue uniforms, That would be the cavalry.

  We rode our horses down there, and we saw men come into the street behind us and look after us. A couple of them started to follow.

  “One thing,” I said, “this here’s my fight. If anybody comes in that ain’t asked, you boys do what you’ve a mind to … but I will do the talking and if it is man to man, I’ll do the shooting.”

  They understood that, but I wanted it on the line so they could read the brand of my action.

  Felipe Soto was there, and when I saw who was with him I felt something turn cold inside of me. Tolan Banks was there, and Tap Henry.

  There were eight or nine of them, and four or five Army men inspecting that beef.

  Walking my horse up to them, I saw Banks speak suddenly, and Soto turned sharply around.

  I did not take my eyes from Banks and Soto. “Captain,” I said, “these are stolen cattle, stolen from me. The brands have been altered, but skin any beef here and you will find a K Bar brand before it was changed.”

  “I am buying beef,” the Captain replied coolly, “not fighting over it, or sitting as a court in judgment of ownership.” He turned his horse. “When you have decided whose beef it is, I shall be in Las Plaeitas.”

  He turned his horse and, followed by his brother officers and a couple of sergeants, he started away.

  My eyes sought them out, man by man. On each man I directed my attention, and on each I let my eyes rest for a minute. I wanted each man to believe that he was marked.

  “Well, Soto, you did not deliver the beef. I have come for it.”

  “‘Dan—!” It was Tap. “Dan, for God’s sake!”

  “Tap,” 1 said, “you’d better decide where you stand before the shooting starts. Riding the fence can give a man a mighty sore crotch, and you’ve been on it long enough.”

  “Now, wait!”

  “To hell with that, Henry!” Tolan Banks yelled suddenly. “You’re with us or against us! Stand aside and let me kill that Killoe whelp!”

  What I did, they did not expect. For years Tap and me had practiced shooting on the run, shooting while riding at a dead run, like the mountain men did, and I slapped spurs to that line-back dun and he jumped right into the middle of them.

  They outnumbered us, so as I jumped into them I jumped shooting.

  It looked like a damned fool trick, but it was not. They had been sitting there as we came up and no doubt everyone of them had picked a target, They had us cold and we had them the same way, and in about a split second a lot of men were going to die.

  Starting off with a cold hand that way, a man can shoot accurately, and I would be losing men. So I jumped my horse into their group, which forced them all to move, and each had to swing to get on his target again.

  My Patterson was across my saddle, and as I jumped I shot. My bullet missed Soto and knocked a man behind him sidewise in the saddle, and then I was in among them.

  One more shot left the Patterson before it was knocked from my grip, but I had already come out with a draw with my left hand from my belt.

  Soto swung on me and his gun blasted almost in my face. Knocking his gun up, I shot and saw him jump back in the saddle like he’d been struck with a whip. He shot at me again but I had gone past him and he turned fast, but his big horse was no match for that dun, who could turn on a quarter and give you twenty cents change. The dun wheeled and we both shot and my bullet hit him right below the nose.

  He swung around and fell back out of the saddle, kicking his foot loose from the stirrup at the last minute. He started up, gun in hand, blood flowing from his face in a stream. But I went in on a dead run, holding my six-shooter low and blasting it into him. I saw the dust jump from his shirt twice as I went into him, and then he went down under the dun’s hoofs and I wheeled around in time to see Tap Henry facing Tolan Banks. “I’m with them, Tolan!

  That’s my brother!”

  “To hell with you!” Bank’s pistol swung down in a dead aim on Tap’s chest and Tap triggered his gun charging, as I had.

  Banks left his saddle and hit the ground and rolled over, all flattened out. He made one heave as if he was trying to get up, and then he lay still.

  The gray dust lifted and slowly swirled and settled, and the riderless horses trotted 6ff and stood with their stirrups dangling and their heads up, and men lay on the ground.

  Yearly was down, and Zeb was gripping a bloody arm, h
is face gray.

  Four of them were down, and I knew my jump into them had given us the break we needed, for my boys had been sitting still taking dead aim.

  The Army came riding up. One of the men rode right to Zebony. “Here! Let me see that arm! I’m a surgeon!”

  We rode around, looking at the men on the ground. Felipe Soto was dead, and of the others only one man was alive.

  Among the dead was Ira Tilton. I had never even seen him in the brief encounter, nor did I know whose bullet had put him down, but he had died an ugly death.

  By the look of it the slug had been one of large caliber and it must have hit the pommel of the saddle or something, because the wound looked like a ricochet. It had ripped across the belly, and he had died hard, a death I would wish for no man.

  I turned to the officer as he rode up. “Captain, that man was Felipe Soto.” I indicated the sprawled body of the big Comanchero. “He has been selling rifles to the Indians for years. His own people will tell you of it.”

  “I am buying cattle,” the Captain replied, “and personal feuds are not a part of my business. However, I do know of Soto, but did not realize that was who it was.”

  He glanced at me. “My name is Hyde. It is a pleasure to know you, sir. That was a nice bit of action.”

  Zebony picked up my Patterson from the ground and handed it to me. “You’d better see the Doc. You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m all right. I just—” Glancing down, I saw there was blood on the skirt of my saddle, and my left leg was sopping with it.

  “You!” the surgeon said. “Get down here!”

  It was Tap who caught me when I started to get down and almost fell. He steadied me with an arm to a place under a tree, and he pulled my shirt off.

  A bullet had gone through my side right above my hipbone, but the doctor merely glanced at it. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, but it’s only a flesh wound.”

  Hearing a pound of hoofs, I looked around in time to see Conchita throw herself from er horse and come to me. The doctor looked at her, then at me. “If she can’t make you well,” he said dryly, “nothing can.