L'Amour, Louis - SSC 32

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 3

  The man jumped as if stabbed. “Kilkenny,” he said, “the Neuces gunfighter!”

  “Who hired you?” Kilkenny’s voice was low. “Just tell me that, and you can ride out of here.”

  “Nobody.” He started to continue, but Kilkenny’s gun muzzle tilted and he stopped. “Look, I—“

  “You’ve got one minute,” Kilkenny said, “then you get a hole in your ear. I don’t reckon I’ll miss. Howsoever, I might notch it a little close.”

  The man swallowed. “All right. It was Turner.”

  He saw the man into a saddle, and then walked back to the house and sat down. The body of the dead man had been removed to the barn. He looked around the bare room and saw on the wall a picture. It was a faded tintype of the main street of Dodge.

  Kilkenny stood up for a closer look, and suddenly, it hit him like a flash. He started to turn, and then stopped. The limping man stood in the open door, and he held a gun in his hand. “Howdy, Lance.” His eyes were faintly amused, yet wary. “Like that picture?”

  Kilkenny lifted a hand slowly to his cigarette and dusted the ash from it, then returned it to his lips. “I went up the trail a couple of times,” he drawled conversationally. “She was quite a town, wasn’t she?”

  Obviously, the two men he had surprised in the cabin had been two of those who ambushed Stroud. Turner would be another. The three could have done it, but there had probably been at least one more.

  “Where’s the boys?” Turner moved into the room, keeping Kilkenny covered.

  “One’s lyin’ out in the barn.” Kilkenny’s voice did not change. “He’s pretty dead. The other one got a chance to take out, and he pulled his freight.”

  Turner studied him. He was puzzled. Kilkenny was so obviously in complete possession of himself. This man who called himself Lance was a mystery in many ways. He—

  “When you were in Dodge,” Kilkenny said, “did you ever hang out at the Kansas House?”

  Turner’s face seemed to tighten and his eyes went blank. “Remember the place,” he said.

  “So do I.”

  Kilkenny drew deep on his cigarette. “Better put that gun down, Turner. You’re through here. Stroud isn’t dead. I’m the deputy marshal.” He jerked his head toward the town. “The folks over there know it. You try anything now, and they’ll all come down here and burn you out. I might say they’ve been considerin’ it.”

  Turner hesitated, not liking it. He hitched around, looking quickly out the door. Kilkenny made no attempt to grab for his gun. He just waited. “You’re through, Turner.”

  Kilkenny’s words repeatedly went through his head. He had a deep-seated fear of the people across the tracks. He knew many of them disliked the saloons and gambling houses, and lived only for the day when the town could be cleaned up.

  “You fellows should know when you’re well off,” Kilkenny continued. He was remembering bloody Kansas and a cold rage was settling over him. “If you’d only known, Stroud was keepin’ you alive. With him down, there ain’t a thing to prevent them comin’ across here and makin’ a cleanup. As long as he kept the peace, they kept their hands off. But you were greedy. Those trail town days are over. You can’t turn the clock back.”

  Turner suddenly looked up. “All right,” he said, “give me a chance and I’ll ride.”

  “No,” Kilkenny said, and drew. His Colt came out fast and Kilkenny stepped in close to Turner and had the muzzle pressed against his ear before the crippled man could bring his gun to bear. He snatched Turner’s pistol away with his left hand and pushed Turner back into one of the chairs.

  “That picture got me thinking. I remember you from Kansas … a long time ago. You were using the name Barney Houseman back then. You and your family skinned a lot of good people out of their money. Killed a few, too.” Kilkenny moved to one side and gestured with his free hand. “Get up.”

  “Lance.” The man turned in the chair. “You let me ride out of here. I know I can make it worth your while.”

  “You’re wrong. Stroud made me take an oath when I pinned on this badge. If I hadn’t, you’d be dead right now.” Barney Houseman looked at him blankly. “We’ve never met, but I’ve heard of you. I’m Kilkenny.”

  Houseman’s eyes narrowed, and his knuckles stood out white where he gripped the chair. “All right,” he croaked. He struggled to get his lame foot under him as he stood.

  Awkwardly, he reached down to steady himself against the chair—and pulled a short-barreled Colt Lightning from a hideout holster!

  Kilkenny stepped back and Houseman’s gun roared, the slug catching him across the front of the shoulder. He shot, but he was already falling and the bullet went wild. Houseman frantically pulled the trigger three more times as Kilkenny scrambled for cover behind the table, hot lead catching him again, this time in the thigh. His gun was gone, the room full of powder smoke.

  Houseman slammed out the door and half fell into the road. He headed for Main Street, reloading. Kilkenny was wounded, maybe dying. They had to move quickly but, he consoled himself, they had done it before and it was time. This had been a good bet, but he knew when his time was up. He had always known. The others had stayed behind at Bannock and at Dodge and other places. He pulled stakes before the Vigilance Committees and United States Marshals got wind of him. He had always moved when the time was ripe. It was ripe now.

  Hillman had just opened his store when Houseman limped across Main Street and followed him inside. “Open the safe, Hill,” Turner said, “we’re getting out. I’ve just had a shoot-up with Kilkenny.”

  Hillman looked incredulous, and the limping man shrugged. “I’m not crazy. That gunfighter Lance—he was Kilkenny. I should have remembered. He’s used the name before.

  “We’ve got to move! Get the safe. He’s in no shape, but people heard the shots and he’ll get help.”

  The look in Hillman’s eyes stopped him. Hillman was looking in back of him, over his shoulder.

  Houseman turned and stared, his hands hanging. Kilkenny stood in the doorway, his chest covered with blood from the still-oozing cut across collarbone and shoulder. Standing silent in the doorway he was a grim, dangerous figure, a looming figure of vengeance.

  Hillman drew back. “Not me, Kilkenny. I’m out of it. He’s made life hell for all of us, Barney has. He’s made us all do his dirty jobs. And I won’t move on to rob another town.”

  Kilkenny did not speak. He was squinting his eyes against the pain. He could feel the blood trickling down his stomach. He was losing a lot of blood, and he had little time.

  Barney Houseman was a murderer many times over. He was a thief and a card cheat, but always he had let his brother and uncle carry the burden of suspicion while he handled the reins. In Dodge they had believed it was he who left Kilkenny’s saddle partner dead in an alley with a knife in his back.

  Kilkenny had long given up the chase, but his memory was good. v

  The Lumping man … Barney Houseman.

  “I beat you just now,” Barney said, “I’ll do it again.” His hand went down for the gun and grasped the butt, and then Kilkenny took a step forward, his gun sprang to his fist, and something slapped at Barney’s pocket. He was angry that anything should disturb him now. He started to lift his gun, and something else slapped him and he suddenly felt very weak and he went down, sinking away, and saw the edge of the table go by his eyes. Then he was on his back, and all he could see was a crack in the ceiling, and then the crack was gone and he was dead.

  Hillman twisted his big-knuckled hands. “He was my nephew,” he said, “but he was a devil. I was bad, but he was worse.”

  Kilkenny asked him then, “Who is Laurie Archer?”

  “My daughter.”

  Kilkenny walked back through the street and people stared at him, turned when he passed, and stared after. He walked up to the jail, and Laurie stood on the steps. Her face was drawn and pale. “Can I see him now?”

  “Yes,” he said. Then he added, “Barney’s dead.”

/>   She turned fiercely, her eyes blazing. “I’m glad! Gladl”

  “All right.” He was tired and his head ached. He wanted to go back to the hotel and wash up and then sleep for a week, and then get a horse, and—

  He indicated the man on the bed inside. “You’re in love with Stroud?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go to him. He’s a good man.”

  Kilkenny turned around and started back up the street, and the morning sun was hot on his shoulder blades and there were chickens coming out into the street, and from a meadow near the creek, a smell of new-mown hay. He was tired, very tired … rest … and then a horse.

  MONUMENT ROCK

  CHAPTER I

  Lona was afraid of him. She was afraid of Frank Mailer, the man whom she was to marry. She realized that it was not size alone that made her afraid of him, but something else, something she saw in his blue, slightly glassy eyes, and the harshness of his thin-lipped mouth.

  He was big, the biggest man she had ever seen, and she knew his contempt for smaller men, men of lesser strength and lesser will. He was five inches over six feet and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Whenever he stood near her, the sheer mass of him frightened her and the way he looked at her made her uneasy.

  Her father looked up at him as he came in. “Did you get that north herd moved before the rain set in?”

  “Yeah.” Mailer did not look up, helping himself to two huge slabs of beef, a mound of mashed potatoes, and liberal helpings of everything else. He commenced his supper by slapping butter on a thick slice of homemade bread and taking an enormous bite, then holding the rest of it in his left hand, he began to shovel food into his mouth with his right.

  Between bites he looked up at Poke Markham. “I saw the Black Rider.”

  “On our range?”

  “Uh-huh. Just like they were sayin’ in town, he was ridin’ the high country, alone. Over toward Chimney Rock.”

  “Did you get close to him? See what he looks like?”

  “Not a chance. Just caught a glimpse of him over against the rocks, and then he was gone, like a shadow. That horse of his is fast.”

  Mailer looked up and Lona was puzzled by the slyness in his eyes as he looked at her father. “You know what the Mexican boys say? That he’s the ghost of a murdered man?”

  The comment angered Markham. “That’s foolishness! He’s real enough, all right! What I want to know is who he is and what he thinks he’s doin’.”

  “Maybe the Mex boys are right. You ever see any tracks? I never did, an’ nobody else that I ever heard of. Nobody ever sees him unless it is almost dark or rainin’, an’ then never more than a glimpse.”

  “He’s real enough!” Markham glared from under his shaggy brows, his craggy face set in angry lines. “Some outlaw on the dodge, that’s who he is, hangin’ out in the high peaks so he won’t be seen. Who’s he ever bothered?”

  Mailer shrugged. “That’s the point. He ain’t bothered anybody yet, but maybe he wants one certain man.” Mailer looked up at Poke, in his malicious way. “Maybe he’s the ghost of a murdered man, like they say, an’ maybe he’s tryin’ to lure his murderer back into the hills.”

  “That’s nonsense!” Markham repeated irritably. “You’ll have Lona scared out of her wits, ridin’ all over like she does.”

  Frank Mailer looked at her, his eyes meeting hers, then running down over her breast. He always made her uncomfortable. How had she ever agreed to marry him? She knew that when he drank he became fiercely belligerent. Nobody wanted to cross him when he was drinking.

  Only one man ever had tried to stop him when he was like that. Bert Hayek had tried it, and Bert had died for his pains. His fighting had wrecked several of the saloons in town. All, in fact, except for the Fandango.

  Was it true, what they said? That Frank was interested in that Spanish woman who ran the place? Nita Howard was her name. Lona Markham had seen her once, a tall young woman with a voluptuous figure and beautiful eyes. She had thought her one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen.

  Lona’s intended was often seen visiting with a beautiful woman who ran a saloon and gambling hall and Lona found she didn’t care … not at all.

  When supper was over Lona left hurriedly. More and more she was avoiding Frank. She did not like to have him near her, did not want to talk to him. He frightened her, but he puzzled her, too. For more and more he seemed to be exerting authority here on the Blue Hill ranch, and more and more her father was fading into the background. People said that Poke Markham was afraid of no man, but of late she’d begun to wonder, for several times he had allowed Mailer to overrule him.

  She crossed the patio through a light spatter of rain to her own quarters in the far wing of the rambling old house. Once there, she hung up her coat and crossed to the window, looking off over the magnificent sweep of land that carried her eyes away to the distant wall of the mountains in the southwest. It was over there the strange rider had been seen.

  Suddenly, as if in response to her thoughts, a horseman materialized from the rain. He was out there, no more than a hundred yards from the back of the house, and scarcely visible through the now driving rain. As she looked she saw him draw up, and sitting tall in the saddle, he surveyed the ranch. Under his black flat-brimmed hat nothing of his face was visible and at that distance she could not make out his features. He was only a tall horseman, sitting in the rain, staring at the ranch house.

  Why she did it, she never knew, but suddenly she caught up her coat, and running out into the rain, she lifted her hand. For a moment they stared at each other and then suddenly the horse started to walk, but as he moved, the Black Rider raised a hand and waved! Then he was gone. One instant he was there, and then he had vanished like a puff of smoke… but he had waved to her! Recalling the stories, she knew it was something that had never happened before.

  She returned to her room, her heart pounding with excitement. She must tell Gordon about that. He would be as surprised as she was. In fact, she paused, staring out at the knoll where the Rider had stopped, Gordon Flynn was the only one who seemed to care much what she thought or how she felt. Gordon, and of course, Dave Betts, the broken-down cowhand who was their cook.

  Mailer dropped into a big chair made of cowhide. He rolled a smoke and looked across at Markham. The old man was nodding a little, and it made Frank smile. Markham, if that’s what he wanted to be called, had changed. He had aged. To think how they all had feared him! All but he himself. All but Frank Mailer. Markham had been boss here for a long time, and to be the boss of men like Kane Geslin and Sam Starr was something, you had to admit. Moreover, he had kept them safe, kept them away from the law, and if he had taken his share for all that, at least he’d held up his end of the bargain.

  He was getting older now, and he had relinquished more and more of the hard work to Mailer. Frank was tired of the work without the big rewards; he was ambitious. Sure, they had a good thing going, but if one knew the trails, there were easy ways out to the towns and ranches, and a man could do a good job on a few banks, along about roundup time. It beat working for money, and this ranch was as good as his, anyway, when he married Lona.

  Looking over at the old man, he began to think of that. Why wait for it? He could shoot the old man right now and take over. Still, it would be better to marry the girl first, but he was not ready for that. Not yet. He wanted to move in on that Spanish woman at the Fandango, first.

  There was that bodyguard of hers to be taken care of. He did not like the big, dark man who wore two guns and always sat near her door, faithful as a watchdog. Yet it would pay to be careful. Webb Case had been a fairly handy man with a gun, and he had tried to push this Brigo into a gunfight, planning to kill him.

  From all accounts, it had taken mightily little of a push, but Webb’s plans backfired and he took a couple of slugs and got planted out on Boot Hill. He began to think of that bank at the Crossing. Four … no, five men. Geslin and Starr, of course, among th
em. Geslin was a lean, wiry man with a pale, hatchet face and white eyes. There was no doubt that he ranked among the fastest gunmen of them all, with Wes Hardin, Clay Allison, Bill Hickok, or Kilkenny.

  The bank would keep the boys happy, for however much Poke Markham was satisfied with the ranch, his boys were not. Poke made money, but most of the men at Blue Hill ranch were not punchers. They were wanted, one place or another, and when they’d tired of cooling their heels, they’d leave. Frank Mailer wanted to take advantage of the situation before that happened. The bank should go for eight or nine thousand, and they could make a nice split of that.

  Four men and himself. That would be enough. Nobody would tackle a gang made up of Geslin, Starr, and himself, let alone the other two he would pick. Thoughtfully, Frank Mailer considered Geslin. How would he stack up with Geslin? Or Starr? He considered it a moment, then shrugged. It would never happen. They were his men, and they had accepted him as boss. He knew how to handle them, and he knew there was a rivalry between Starr and Geslin. If necessary, he could play them off against one another. As for Poke, he intended to kill Markham himself when the time came. He heaved himself out of his chair and stretched, enjoying the feeling of his powerful muscles. He would ride into town and have a talk with that Howard woman at the Fandango.

  He thought again of Jaime Brigo, and the thought bothered him. There was something about the big, silent man that disturbed him. He did not think of Lona. The girl was here when he wanted her, and he did want her, but only casually. His desire for Nita Howard was a sharp, burning thing.

  The Fandango was easily the most impressive place in Salt Creek, and finer than anything in Bloomington. In fact, finer than anything this side of Santa Fe.

  Nita Howard watched the crowd, well pleased. Her hazel eyes with tiny flecks of darker color were large and her lashes were long. Her skin was the color of old ivory, her hair a deep, beautiful black, gathered in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. Although her lips were full, slightly sensual, there was a certain wistful, elusive charm about them, and a quick, fleeting humor that made her doubly beautiful. She was a tall woman, somewhere just beyond thirty, but her body was strong, and graceful.