L'Amour, Louis - SSC 32

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 3

  He was, Ring was willing to gamble, no murderer. Taylor had said he died of lead poisoning. Who had killed Bayly? Why? Was it a casual shooting over some rangeland argument, or had he been followed from here by someone on vengeance bent? Or someone who thought he might know too much?

  “You’ll like the place,” Taylor had said.

  That was an angle he hadn’t considered before. Ben Taylor had actually seen this place himself! The more sign he read, the more tricky the trail became, and Allen walked outside and sat down against the cabin wall when his supper was finished, and lighted a smoke. Stock had been followed to the ranch by Sam Hazlitt. If Whit was not the thief, then who was? Where had the stock been driven?

  He turned his eyes almost automatically toward the Mogollons, the logical place. His eyes narrowed, and he recalled that one night while playing cards they had been talking of springs and waterholes, and Ben Taylor had talked about Fossil Springs, a huge spring that roared thousands of gallons of water out of the earth.

  “Place a man could run plenty of stock,” he I had said and winked, “and nobody the wiser!”

  Those words had been spoken far away and long ago, and the Red Rock ranch had not yet been put on the table; that was months later. There was, he recalled, a Fossil Creek somewhere north of here. And Fossil Creek might flow from Fossil Springs. Perhaps Ben Taylor had talked more to effect than he knew. That had been Texas, and this was Arizona, and a casual bunkhouse conversation probably seemed harmless enough.

  “We’ll see, Ben,” Ring muttered grimly. “We’ll see!”

  Ross Bilton had been one of the Hazlitt hands at the time of the killing, one of the first on the scene. Now he was town marshal but interested in keeping the ranch unoccupied. Why? None of it made sense, yet actually it was no business of his. Allen Ring thought that over and decided it was his business in a sense. He now owned the place and lived on it. If an old murder was to interfere with his living there it behooved him to know the facts. It was a slight excuse for his curiosity.

  Morning came and the day drew on toward noon, and there was no sign of Bilton or Brule. Ring had loaded his rifle and kept it close to hand, and he was wearing two guns, thinking he might need a loaded spare, although he rarely wore more than one. Also, inside the cabin door he had his double-barreled shotgun.

  The spring drew his attention. At the moment he did not wish to leave the vicinity of the cabin, and that meant it was a good time to clean out the spring. Not that it needed it, but there were loose stones in the bottom of the basin and some moss. With this removed he would have more water and clearer water.

  With a wary eye toward the canyon mouth, he began his work. The sound of an approaching horse drew him erect. His rifle stood against the rocks at hand, and his guns were ready, yet as the rider came into sight, he saw there was only one man, a stranger. He rode a fine bay gelding and he was not a young man, but thick and heavy with drooping mustache and kind blue eyes.

  He drew up. “Howdy,” he said affably, yet taking a quick glance around before looking again at Ring. “I’m Roily Truman, Gail’s father.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” Ring said, wiping his wet hands on a red bandanna. “Nice to know the neighbors.” He nodded at the spring. “I picked me a job. That hole’s deeper than it looks!”

  “Good flow of water,” Truman agreed. He chewed his mustache thoughtfully. “I like to see a young man with get-up about him, startin’ his own spread, willin’ to work.”

  Allen Ring waited. The man was building up to something; what, he knew not. It came then, carefully at first, yet shaping a loop as it drew near. “Not much range here, of course,” Truman added. “You should have more graze. Ever been over in Cedar Basin? Or up along the East Verde bottom? Wonderful land up there, still some wild, but a country where a man could really do something with a few whiteface cattle.”

  “No, I haven’t seen it,” Ring replied, “but I’m satisfied. I’m not land hungry. All I want is a small piece, an’ this suits me fine.”

  Truman shifted in his saddle and looked uncomfortable. “Fact is, son, you’re upsettin’ a lot of folks by bein’ here. What you should do is to move.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ring said flatly. “I don’t want to make enemies, but I won this place on a fourcard draw. Maybe I’m a fatalist, but somehow or other, I think I should stick here. No man’s got a right to think he can draw four cards and win anythin’, but I did, an’ in a plenty rough game. I had everythin’ I owned in that pot. Now I got the place.”

  The rancher sat his horse uneasily, and then he shook his head. “Son, you’ve sure got to move! There’s no trouble here now, and if you stay she’s liable to open old sores, start more trouble than any of us can stop. Besides how did Ben Taylor get title to this place? Bayly had no love for him. I doubt if your title will stand up in court.”

  “As to that I don’t know,” Ring persisted stubbornly. “I have a deed that’s legal enough, and I’ve registered that deed an’ my brand along with it. I did find out that Bayly had no heirs. So I reckon I’ll sit tight until somebody comes along with a better legal claim than mine.”

  Truman ran his hand over his brow. “Well, I guess I don’t blame you much, son. Maybe

  I shouldn’t have come over, but I know Ross Bilton and his crowd, and I reckon I wanted

  to save myself some trouble as well as you. Gail, she thinks you’re a fine young man. In fact, you’re the first man she’s ever showed interest in since Whit left, and she was a youngster then. It was a sort of hero worship she had for him. I don’t want trouble.”

  Allen Ring leaned on the shovel and looked up at the older man. “Truman,” he said, “are you sure you aren’t buyin’ trouble by tryin’ to avoid it? Just what’s your stake in this?”

  The rancher sat very still, his face drawn and pale. Then he got down from his horse and sat on a rock. Removing his hat, he mopped his brow. “Son,” he said slowly, “I reckon I got to trust you. You’ve heard of the Hazlitts. They are a hard, clannish bunch, men who lived by the gun most of their lives. Sam was murdered. Folks all know that when they find out who murdered him and why, there’s goin’ to be plenty of trouble around here. Plenty.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  Truman jerked his head up. “No! No, you mustn’t get that idea, but well, you know how small ranchers are. There was a sight of rustlin’ them days, and the Hazlitts were the big outfit. They lost cows.”

  “And some of them got your brand?” Ring asked shrewdly.

  Truman nodded. “I reckon. Not so many, though. And not only me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not beggin’ off the blame. Part of it is mine, all right, but I didn’t get many. Eight or ten of us hereabouts slapped brands on Hazlitt stock and at least five of us have the biggest brands around here now, some as big almost as the Hazlitts.”

  Allen Ring studied the skyline thoughtfully. It was an old story and one often repeated in the West. When the war between the states ended, men came home to Texas and the southwest to find cattle running in thousands unbranded and unowned. The first man to slap on a brand was the owner, with no way he could be contested. Many men grew rich with nothing more than a wide loop and a running iron.

  Then the unbranded cattle were gone, the ranches had settled into going concerns, and the great days of casual branding had ended, yet there was still free range, and a man with that same loop and running iron could still build a herd fast. More than one of the biggest ranchers had begun that way, and many of them continued to brand loose stock wherever found.

  No doubt that had been true here, and these men like Roily Truman, good, able men who had fought Indians and built their homes to last, had begun just that way. Now the range was mostly fenced, and ranches had narrowed somewhat, but Ring could see what it might mean to open an old sore now.

  Sam Hazlitt had been trailing rustlers he had found out who they were and where the herds were taken, and he had been shot down from behind. The catch was that the tally book, with his r
ecords, was still missing. That tally book might contain evidence as to the rustling done by men who were now pillars of the cornmunity and open them to the vengeance of the Hazlitt outfit.

  Often Western men threw a blanket over a situation. If a rustler had killed Sam, then all the rustlers involved would be equally guilty. Anyone who lived on this ranch might stumble on that tally book and throw the range into a bloody gun war in which many men now beyond the errors of their youth, with homes, families, and different customs, would die. It could serve no purpose to blow the lid off the trouble now, yet Allen Ring had a hunch.

  In their fear of trouble for themselves they might be concealing an even greater crime, aiding a murderer in his escape. There were lines of care in the face of Roily Truman that a settled, established rancher should not have.

  “Sorry,” Ring said, “I’m stayin’. I like this place.”

  All through the noon hour the tension was building. The air was warm and sultry, and there was a thickening haze over the mountains. There was that hot thickness in the air that presaged a storm.

  When he left his coffee to return to work, Ring saw three horsemen coming into the canyon mouth at a running walk. He stopped in the door and touched his lips with his tongue. They reined up at the door, three hard-bitten, hard-eyed men with rifles across their saddle bows. Men with guns in their holsters and men of a kind that would never turn from trouble. These were men with the bark on, lean fanatics with lips thinned with old bitterness.

  The older man spoke first. “Ring, I’ve heard about you. I’m Buck Hazlitt. These are my brothers, Joe and Dolph. There’s talk around that you aim to stay on this place. There’s been talk for years that Sam hid his tally book here. We figure the killer got that book and burned it. Maybe he did, and again, maybe not. We want that book. If you want to stay on this place, you stay. But if you find that book, you bring it to us.”

  Ring looked from one to the other, and he could see the picture clearly. With men like these, hard and unforgiving, it was no wonder Roily Truman and the other ranchers were worried. The years and prosperity had eased Roily and his like in comfort and softness, but not these. The Hazlitts were of feudal blood and background.

  “Hazlitt,” Ring said, “I know how you feel. You lost a brother, and that means somethin’, but if that book is still around, which I doubt, and I find it, I’ll decide what to do with it all by myself. I don’t aim to start a range war. Maybe there’s some things best forgotten. The man who murdered Sam Hazlitt ought to pay.”

  “We’ll handle that,” Dolph put in grimly. “You find that book, you bring it to us. If you don’t,” his eyes hardened. “Well, we’d have to class you with the crooks.”

  Ring’s eyes shifted to Dolph. “Class if you want,” he flared. “I’ll do what seems best to me with that book. But all of you folks are plumb proddy over that tally book. Chances are nine out of ten the killer found it and destroyed it.”

  “I don’t reckon he did,” Buck said coldly, “because we know he’s been back here, a-huntin’ it. Him an’ his girl.”

  Ring stiffened. “You mean ?”

  “What we mean is our figger, not yours.” Buck Hazlitt reined his horse around. “You been told. You bring that book to us. You try to buck the Hazlitts and you won’t stay in this country.”

  Ring had his back up. Despite himself he felt cold anger mounting within him. “Put this in your pipe, friend,” he said harshly. “I came here to stay. No Hazlitt will change that. I ain’t huntin’ trouble, but if you bring trouble to me, I’ll handle it. I can bury a Hazlitt as easy as any other man!”

  Not one of them condescended to notice the remark. Turning their horses they walked them down the canyon and out of it into the sultry afternoon.

  Allen Ring mopped the sweat from his face and listened to the deep rumbling of far-off thunder, growling among the canyons like a grizzly with a toothache. It was going to rain. Sure as shootin’, it was going to rain a regular gully washer. There was yet time to finish the job on the spring, so he picked up his shovel and started back for the job. The rock basin was nearly cleaned and he finished removing the few rocks and the moss that had gathered.

  Then he opened the escape channel a little more to insure a more rapid emptying and filling process in the basin into which the trickle of water fell. The water emerged from a crack in the rocks and trickled into the basin, and finishing his job.

  Ring glanced thoughtfully to see if anything remained undone. There was still some moss on the rocks from which the water flowed, and kneeling down, he leaned over to scrape it away, and pulling away the last shreds, he noticed a space from which a rock had recently fallen. Pulling more moss away, he dislodged another rock, and there, pushed into a niche, was a small black book!

  Sam Hazlitt, dying, had evidently managed to shove it back in this crack in the rocks, hoping it would be found by someone not the killer. Sitting back on his haunches, Ring opened the faded, canvas-bound book. A flap crossed over the page ends, and the book had been closed by a small tongue that slid into a loop of the canvas cover. Opening the book, he saw the pages were stained, but still legible.

  The next instant he was struck by lightning. At least, that was what seemed to happen. Thunder crashed, and something struck him on the skull and he tried to rise and something struck again. He felt a drop of rain on his face and his eyes opened wide and then another blow caught him and he faded out into darkness, his fingers clawing at the grass to keep from slipping down into that velvety, smothering blackness.

  He was wet. He turned a little, lying there, thinking he must have left a window open and the rain was his eyes opened and he felt rain pounding on his face and he stared, not at a boot with a California spur, but at dead brown grass, soaked with rain now, and the glistening smoothness of waterworn stones. He was soaked to the hide.

  Struggling to his knees, he looked around, his head heavy, his lips and tongue thick. He blinked at a gray, rain-slanted world and at low gray clouds and a distant rumble of thunder following a streak of lightning along the mountaintops. Lurching to his feet, he stumbled toward the cabin and pitched over the doorsill to the floor. Struggling again to his feet, he got the door closed, and in a vague, misty half world of consciousness he struggled out of his clothes and got his hands on a rough towel and fumblingly dried himself.

  He did not think. He was acting purely from vague instinctive realization of what he must do. He dressed again, in dry clothes, and dropped at the table. After a while he sat up and it was dark, and he knew he had blacked out again. He lighted a light and nearly dropped it to the floor. Then he stumbled to the washbasin and splashed his face with cold water. Then he bathed his scalp, feeling tenderly of the lacerations there.

  A boot with a California spur. That was all he had seen. The tally book was gone, and a man wearing a new boot with a California-type spur, a large rowel, had taken it. He got coffee on, and while he waited for it he took his guns out and dried them painstakingly, wiping off each shell, and then replacing them in his belt with other shells from a box on a shelf. He reloaded the guns, and then slipping into his slicker he went outside for his rifle.

  Between sips of coffee, he worked over his rifle until he was satisfied. Then he threw a small pack together and stuffed his slicker pockets with shotgun shells. The shotgun was an express gun and short barreled. He slung it from a loop under the slicker. Then he took a lantern and went to the stable and saddled the claybank. Leading the horse outside into the driving rain, he swung into the saddle and turned along the road toward Basin.

  There was no letup in the rain. It fell steadily and heavily, yet the claybank slogged along, alternating between a shambling trot and a fast walk. Allen Ring, his chin sunk in the upturned collar of his slicker, watched the drops fall from the brim of his Stetson and felt the bump of the shotgun under his coat. He had seen little of the tally book, but sufficient to know that it would blow the lid off the very range war they were fearing.

  Knowing the
Hazlitts, he knew they would bring fire and gunplay to every home even remotely connected with the death of their brother.

  The horse slid down a steep bank and shambled across the wide wash. Suddenly, the distant roar that had been in his ears for some time sprang into consciousness and he jerked his head up. His horse snorted in alarm, and Ring stared, openmouthed, at the wall of water, towering all of ten feet high, that was rolling down the wash toward him.

  With a shrill rebel yell he slapped the spurs to the claybank, and the startled horse turned loose with an astounded leap and hit the ground in a dead run. There was no time to slow for the bank of the wash, and the horse went up, slipped at the very brink, and started to fall back. Ring hit the ground with both boots and scrambled over the brink, and even as the flood roared down upon them, he heaved on the bridle and the horse cleared the edge and stood trembling.

  Swearing softly, Ring kicked the mud from his boots and mounted again. Leaving the raging torrent behind him, he rode on. Thick blackness of night and heavy clouds lay upon the town when he sloped down the main street and headed the horse toward the barn. He swung down and handed the bridle to the handyman.

  “Rub him down,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  He started for the doors and then stopped, staring at the three horses in neighboring stalls. The liveryman noticed his glance and looked at him. “The Hazlitts. They come in about an hour ago, ugly as sin.”

  Allen Ring stood wide legged, staring grimly out the door. There was a coolness inside him now that he recognized. He dried his hands carefully. “Bilton in town?” he asked.

  “Sure is. Playin’ cards over to the Mazatzal Saloon.”

  “He wear Mex spurs? Big rowels?”

  The man rubbed his jaw. “I don’t remember. I don’t know at all. You watch out,” he warned. “Folks are on the prod.”

  Ring stepped out into the street and slogged through the mud to the edge of the boardwalk before the darkened general store. He kicked the mud from his boots and dried his hands again, after carefully unbuttoning his slicker. Nobody would have a second chance after this. He knew well enough that his walking into the Mazatzal would precipitate an explosion. Only, he wanted to light the fuse himself, in his own way.