L'Amour, Louis - SSC 32

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 3

  He was thinking about that when he heard Lona ride into the amphitheater below, so he got to his feet and swung into the saddle. She smiled brightly when she saw him, then gasped as she saw his face. “Oh, what happened to you? You’re hurt!”

  Kilkenny chuckled. “No, not really. I had a fight last night. Didn’t you hear about it?”

  “No … how would I hear?” He took off his hat and swung down to a seat near her on a boulder.

  “It was your man Mailer I was fighting.”

  She came to her feet. “You … fought Frank Mailer?”

  He smiled, painfully. “If you think I look bad, you should see him!”

  “You … whipped him?” Lona was amazed. The more she looked at the tall young man on the rock, the more impossible it became that this man could have beaten Mailer.

  Kilkenny grinned. He didn’t like to brag, and yet … well, what man doesn’t like to have a pretty girl think well of him? “Well, to tell you the truth, I did, and if you’ll pardon my saying so, I did a bang-up job of it. Not that I didn’t catch a few!” He felt with delicate fingers of the lump on his cheekbone.

  “He’ll kill you now.” She was very positive. “He’ll never let you get away alive.”

  “It’s going to get to that point anyway,” Kilkenny said. “I’m going to make sure that ranch is in your hands, all free and clear, with Poke Dunning and Mailer both out of the picture. Do you believe now that Dunning’s not your father?” She looked at him seriously. “I … I never really doubted that. He was always funny around me, and he would never tell me anything about my mother. I remember a lot of little things now.”

  “Anything about that wagon trip?” he asked quickly. “Not much. I remember a town where there were Indians, and from all else I recall, it must have been Santa Fe. There was another man with us then. And we came west from there.”

  “You remember nothing after that?”

  “Well… sort of. It’s not very clear, not at all, but I have a memory of a place … of coming up a long canyon with a small stream in the bottom. We came up it for a long, long way, it seems to me. Once we climbed out of it and I remember Father pointing at a great peak or mesa that was far away. He … I remember that because he said something about an orphan at the time, and I pestered him to tell me what an orphan was. I guess it wasn’t long after that I became one.”

  Kilkenny nodded. “That helps. We’re getting places now. I would bet fifty dollars that the long canyon was Canyon Largo. The Orphan makes sense. You see, that’s the name of a mesa over in the desert near Largo. They call it El Huerfano … the Orphan, because it stands alone.”

  “Isn’t that funny?” she said. “I never connected the mountain and the orphan, at all! Now, let’s see, there was something else, too. Last night I was thinking about it and I dreamed something about a night when there was a fire and I woke up and I could see the light dancing on a rock wall. I’ve thought about that real often. You know how it is, you forget so much and then two or three things sort of stick in your mind? It was that way with this…. I remember waking up and being afraid because I could see that Father was not in his blankets, but when I called to him, he spoke to me from far off and told me to be quiet. I went back to sleep then.”

  Kilkenny squinted his eyes at her. “You remember anything else about that?”

  She shook her head. “No, only I think it was the next day that we got here and the old Indian woman took care of me. I didn’t see Father again for a long time.”

  “Probably you never saw him again, not actually.” Kilkenny got to his feet. “You know, I’ve a hunch that night you woke up was the night your father was killed, and if you got to the ranch the next day, it could not have been far from here.”

  “Oh, but I can’t be sure!” she objected. “It’s been so long, and telling it this way makes it seem a lot more real than it actually was! It’s pretty vague.”

  “Nevertheless, I think I’m right. Before I see Dunning today, I’m going to have a look.”

  “But how could you find it after all this time?” she asked.

  “I’ll have to be lucky,” he admitted. “Mighty lucky. But there aren’t many trails across this country from Santa Fe, and I don’t believe he ever brought the wagons on much further than that. He may have burned them, and if he did, they may still be there, or the rims may. I’ll have a look, anyway.”

  “But why? What’s to be gained?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe nothing. I’d like to get something on Dunning, though. Something definite. And there might be a clue.”

  She nodded, looking out past the screen of pines toward the distant hills. Then suddenly, almost as she turned her head, he was gone from the rock! She stared, then started to her feet. Where in the world …

  “Lona!” She whirled. It was Gordon Flynn. “What in the world are you doin’ way back here?” he asked. He was sitting a dun pony that he often rode, and he looked around wonderingly.

  “An’ how did you ever find this place? I’d never have guessed it was here.”

  “I found it.” Kilkenny stepped from behind a clump of pinon, and Flynn gulped. “You … you’re Kilkenny?”

  Lena’s eyes flew open and she gasped, “Kilkenny!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, “that’s my name.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The hamlet of Aztec Crossing was born of a broken axle and weaned and reared on Indian whiskey. For three weeks the town was a covered wagon and three barrels of whiskey, but by that time “Hungry” Hayes, onetime buffalo hunter and freighter, had built a dugout roofed with poles and earth. With those three barrels of Indian whiskey to prime the pump of prosperity, and a Winchester to back the priming, Hayes turned his broken axle and the river crossing into a comfortable fortune.

  Indian whiskey is a simple concoction of river water, not strained, straight alcohol (roughly two gallons to the barrel), three plugs of chewing tobacco, five or six bars of soap (very strong lye soap), one half pound of red pepper, and a liberal dose of sagebrush leaves. To this is added two ounces of strychnine, and the resulting brew is something to make a mummy rear on his hind legs and let out a regular Comanche yell.

  This recipe was not, of course, original with Hungry Hayes. He merely adopted the formula in use throughout the Indian country, the ingredients varying but little. The first two settlers of Aztec Crossing halted because of proximity to the source of supply, yet neither proved as hardy as the durable Hayes. The first to pass on was helping Hayes mix the whiskey and decided that he preferred it straight, without the addition of the river water. The following morning Hayes planted him on the bank of the river with due ceremony.

  The second settler departed this world after a brief but emphatic altercation with four Apaches. His mistake was entirely due to a youthful disdain for mathematics, for having slain three Apaches, he straightened up from his protecting buffalo wallow to leave, and took an arrow through his chest. He was buried, after an interval of sunshine and buzzards, by Hayes, taking with him a surplus of arrows but considerably less hair.

  Yet, as time passed, Aztec Crossing grew. Ranching began, and the town acquired a general store, four saloons, a livery stable, a bank, and various other odds and ends of business enterprise. Hungry Hayes, fat with money, departed for the East and settled down in a comfortable Kentucky homestead, where people forever after regarded him as a liar for telling what was actually less than the truth.

  The latest institution, and from Frank Mailer’s viewpoint, the most interesting, was the Aztec City Bank. With a dozen ranches nearer to Aztec than any other town, the bank was at times fairly bulging with coin. This fact had not gone unnoticed, and the five hard-bitten gentlemen who drifted into Aztec on the bright and sunny morning in question had decided to give some attention to this money.

  Aztec was drowsing in the sun. The weather-beaten boards of the walk in front of the Aztec Saloon supported the posteriors of four old settlers, talking of great deeds against
the warlike Comanche. In front of the livery stable, half-asleep, old Pete chewed tobacco in drowsy content. In the store, his glasses as far down on his nose as possible, Storekeeper Worth studied a month-old newspaper. A dun pony flicked a casual tail at a fly who buzzed in deep bass, and the morning was warm, pleasant, and sleepy.

  Frank Mailer, mounted on a blood bay, walked his horse down the main street with the saturnine Socorro beside him. Reining in at the bank hitching rail, he swung down, and Socorro did likewise, and stayed between the horses, fussing with some saddle gear, his carbine close at hand. Geslin and Starr came down from the opposite direction, and Geslin drew up, taking time to light a smoke while his slate-gray eyes studied the street with a cold, practiced gaze. Starr chewed tobacco, and sat his horse, his thick thighs bulging the cloth of his jeans. Ethridge walked up from behind the bank and stopped at the corner of the building. He carried a Henry rifle, and with Socorro faced one way and he another, they could cover the street with ease.

  Mailer, his face swollen and ugly, jerked his head at Geslin. Starr followed. Geslin was worried, for he had never seen Mailer as he was today. Always brutal, the man was now in a vicious mood, his whole manner changed. The beating he had taken had aroused all the ferocity innate in his being. He pushed open the door and walked in and toward the office of the president.

  Geslin went to one window, and Starr to the other. Starr took the man who was standing there and spun him sharply, smashing a Colt down over the man’s skull. “All right,” he said, “sack it up!”

  The cashier looked, paled, gulped, and reached for a sack. Mailer had the president out, and with three men under their guns and the fourth on the floor out cold, they proceeded to strip the bank. Across the street Johnny Mulhaven was coming out of the saloon, and Johnny Mulhaven had more nerve than brains. He saw the sudden collection of horses, he saw two men facing the street with rifles, and he let out a shrill Texas yell and went for his gun. Ethridge dropped the rifle on him and fired … the shot was too quick and too high. It hit Johnny in the shoulder and he dropped his gun, but caught it in the air with his left hand and snapped a quick shot at Ethridge. His shot was quick but lucky. Ethridge caught the bullet where his ribs parted and dropped his rifle.

  The old Comanche fighters dove for shelter, two of them under the walk, one behind a watering trough; another dashed for the saloon. Without doubt he was headed for a drink to ballast his shocked nerves, but he was doomed to die thirsty. He caught a slug from Socorro’s rifle and went down on the very step of his goal, and in a matter of seconds the street was laced with gunfire, stabbing, darting flames.

  Young Johnny Mulhaven was still on his feet, carrying enough lead for three men to die, and he was still firing left-handed. Scar Ethridge had made one attempt to get up, but Johnny made sure of him with a bullet through the skull. One of the horses sprang away, and then the bank door burst open and three men charged into the street.

  Mulhaven took the full blast of their fire and went down hard, blood staining the gray boards of the walk. A rifle spoke from the livery stable, another from the store. Three men were unlimbering guns from within the saloon. Old Pete, at the first shot, had come erect with a lunge, swallowed his chewing tobacco, and methodically pulled his old pistol, aimed, shot, and put a slug into Kane Geslin. And then, suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Five men had come into town, and four rode out. Two of them were wounded. It was only then that the full story was known.

  Within the bank, the slugged man told it. He had come out of it just in time to see Mailer strike the banker down, then unlimber his pistol and kill all three of the men within the bank. Wisely, he lay still and lived.

  Four men were dead, but Johnny Mulhaven, miraculously, was still alive, but with nine wounds. Headed east and riding fast were the four remaining outlaws. Geslin had a flesh wound and Socorro had come out of it with a bloody but merely burned shoulder. All four were ugly, despite the success of their venture, and three of them were worried. They had known Mailer for a long time, but not the Mailer in the bank. They were all men who had killed and would kill again, yet those three killings were cold-blooded, unnecessary, and dangerous to their safety. Dangerous because while many a Western town might overlook a bank robbery, they would never overlook a cold-blooded killing.

  They swung north, leaving the trail for the rough country, and circled west, heading for a crossing above White Canyon. They had good horses, and doubted if a pursuit would immediately get under way. Silent, brooding, and bloody, the four men crossed the Rio Grande and headed up Pajarito Canyon, crossed to Valle de los Posos, and headed for the Rio Puerco. Nobody talked. Geslin had lost blood and felt sick and sore. The movement of the horse hurt him. Sweat smarted the burn on Socorro’s arm and his mood became vile.

  Steadily, they pushed on under a baking sun, their shirts stained with blood and sweat, their horses plodding more wearily. Behind them there might be pursuit, and they could easily be followed. There were Indian trackers at Aztec Crossing.

  No clouds marred the faint blue of the sky where the sun hung brassy and broiling. Nothing moved but the sage, and there was no wind, only a heavy, stifling heat. Sam Starr alone seemed unaffected, but from time to time his eyes turned toward the huge sullen figure of Frank Mailer. Mentally, he told himself he was through. When I get mine, he told himself, I’m pullin’ stakes.

  Alkali dust lifted in soft clouds and dusted a film over their clothing. Socorro cursed monotonously and Geslin stared ahead with bleak, desperate eyes, his lips dry, his body aching for rest and water. Frank Mailer, indomitable and grim, rode on ahead. Starr stared phlegmatically before them, his eyes squinting against the intense white glare of the sun. He watched his horse carefully, keeping it to good ground whenever possible, knowing how much depended on it.

  At last the night came and shadows reached out and touched them with coolness. In a tiny glade on the Rio Puerco, the men swung stiffly from their horses. Starr eyed the sacks thoughtfully, and Socorro with greedy, eager eyes, watchful eyes, too, for they shifted vaguely to the night, and then with more intentness on the men close by. Bulking black against the starry sky, looming almost above them, were the rugged San Pedro Mountains.

  Starr got some food together, and nobody talked. Geslin bathed his wound and bandaged it; Socorro did likewise. Mailer stared into the flames, hulking and dangerous. “Will we make it back tomorrow?” Socorro asked suddenly.

  “No,” Geslin replied, “there isn’t a chance.”

  “Let’s split the money now,” Socorro suggested. Starr wanted nothing more than that, but he was hesitant to agree. His eyes shifted to Mailer and they all waited for him to speak, but he said nothing. Starr had seen men like this before when killing was on them. There was only one end to it. Death. They killed and killed until they themselves were slain. He wanted no part of it. He wanted to get away. He also wanted his money.

  Dawn found them pushing northeast, heading up Capulin Creek. With the San Pedros to the south and the bulk of Mesa Prieta to the north, there was no way to see if there was any pursuit or not. Geslin was willing to bet there was, and Starr agreed. They told each other as much during a moment when they had fallen behind.

  It was dusk when they drew up at a spring and slid from their horses. “We’d better stop,” Geslin said. “My arm’s givin’ me hell!”

  Mailer turned on him. “What’s the matter?” He sneered. “You turnin’ into an old woman?”

  Geslin’s face whitened and for an instant they stared at each other.

  “Go ahead!” Mailer taunted. “Reach for it!” Sam Starr stepped back, his eyes watchful. Geslin was in no shape for this. The man’s nerves were shot, he was weakened from loss of blood, and beaten by the endless riding.

  “What’s the matter?” Mailer said. “You a quitter? You yellow?”

  Geslin’s hand flashed for his gun, and Frank Mailer swung his pistol up with incredible speed. An instant it held, then the shot bellowed, thundering between the cliffs. Geslin
went down, his gun spouting fire into the dirt, shot through the heart. Socorro touched his lips with his tongue, and Sam Starr stood very still, staring at Mailer. The man was fast; he was chained lightning.

  Mailer’s eyes went to Socorro, then sought Starr, but Sam had his back to darkness and shooting at him would have been a poor gamble. “Anybody sayin’ anything?” Mailer demanded. He waited while one might have counted five, and neither man spoke. Then he turned away. “No time for loaf in’. We’re ridin’ on.”

  Three days before, Lance Kilkenny had set out on the trail of what he suspected was a thirteen-year-old murder. Following Lena’s vague memories of the journey to the Blue Hill ranch and his own knowledge of the best route to that area from Santa Fe, Kilkenny cut across country to a spot he hoped would intersect the path the Markham wagon had taken. By morning he was in Canyon Largo, headed west, with the sun at his back.

  Lona had told him that she had gone on only one more day after she’d been told that her father had traveled on ahead. That meant that the site of that last camp and possibly the site of the killing was relatively close to the ranch. By going a good sixty miles farther east than would seem necessary, Kilkenny hoped to follow the best path for a wagon and therefore have some hope that he might discover the exact way that Markham, Lona, and Poke Dunning had approached the ranch.

  He was covering ground faster than any wagon could have, not bothering to look for any true clues of the Markham family’s passing, just getting a feel for the slope of the land, watching for deep arroyos and trying to think like a man would when driving with a heavy load. By noon he had stopped at a place where the stream had eddied back on itself and made a good watering hole. From the growth of trees and brush, Kilkenny figured that it was a place that had remained unchanged for many years and was not the creation of some recent alteration in the flow of water.