by Ray Hogan
They halted at the edge of the water, dismounted. Lockett led the horses a distance below, and allowed them a brief drink. As he turned to picket them, he saw that Roxie had settled herself on a nearby log, was brushing ineffectually at her hair with her hands. The rifle she had appropriated from the slain rider lay across her knees, ready for instant use. He sighed heavily, seeing in that an index to the new Roxie; never again would she allow herself to be caught helpless and unprepared.
“This is a beautiful place,” she said. “A house back there on that little rise, the rest of the sheds and things near the trees … Living here would be wonderful.” Her voice faltered, and she added: “If they’d only let us.”
Dade, busy at stripping the gear from the horses, paused. “If you’re thinking of Cushman … not everybody’s like him. Far as the land goes, it’s probably open to homesteading.”
“I know, but it would be a hopeless thing, same as my father’s place. As soon as it was fixed up and doing well, somebody would start wanting it, and sooner or later they’d drive us off.”
“There’d always be somebody who’d try. Out here you have to fight to get what you want, then fight to keep it … and it’s not always some other man you’re up against. Can be a drought or a blizzard, the wind …”
“Those things you can fight,” Roxie said quietly. “It’s men like Cushman, big and strong with plenty of money to hire night riders … killers that ordinary folks like us can’t beat.”
Lockett only shrugged. Straddling the saddles over the fallen pine, he pulled at the strings anchoring his saddlebags, and freed them. It was growing late, and hours back he had become convinced that Cushman and his party had given up the chase—at least until the next day. A small fire, some hot coffee, and the few bites of food that he still had on hand—and they would both feel better. Perhaps, after a little rest they could saddle up and move on.
“Dade … I’m going back.”
He slowed his stride, turned wearily to her. “Back to what’s left of your ranch … that what you mean?”
She nodded. “I can’t let Cushman drive me off. My father worked hard to build up that place, actually died for it … all so that I would someday have something good and worthwhile. I’d be letting him down … betraying him, if I didn’t fight to keep it.”
“We been all through this,” Lockett said. “I was hoping you’d come to your senses. You can’t fight Cushman. You saw that this morning. What makes you think it’ll be any different next time?”
“One thing,” Roxie replied, hands dropping to the rifle. “Cushman won’t be there. I plan to kill him first.”
XXII
Lockett moved on to a small cleared space in the grass, squatted. Setting the saddlebags aside, he began to assemble small stones into a circle for a fire pit.
“I had hoped you’d forgot that, too,” he said in a low voice. “It’s the smart thing for you to do … forget it. Take it for a licking and move on. We can go somewhere else, start over.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
The rocks arranged to suit, Lockett dug into the saddlebags, obtained the sack of crushed coffee beans and the tin he used to boil water in. Filling the blackened container with water, he struck a match to the dry limbs he had placed within the rock circle, and then propped the tin over the flames. “Maybe it’s something you’ll have to do. You or anybody else shoots a big man like Ed Cushman, the law’ll step in.”
“Let it. Right is on my side.”
He faced her, shook his head slowly. “Haven’t you learned yet that being in the right doesn’t always count,” he demanded in a frustrated voice. “There’s plenty of times when somebody being in the wrong turns out to be stronger than somebody in the right.”
“But the law …”
Dade pushed his hat to one side, gently touched the area under the bandage where the rustler’s bullet had left its wound. The place was healing, he supposed, but it was becoming increasingly tender. “Law’s just a man … sometimes a good one, sometimes a bad one, and most of the time they’re beholden for their job. They can’t always be blamed if they look out for themselves.”
“You’re only saying what I’ve come to realize … that you have to look out for yourself … protect what’s yours.”
Lockett fed more wood into the fire. Somewhere up on the slope behind them a dove was calling into the hush. “Might be all right if you were bucking just somebody that didn’t amount to much … but Cushman, he’s somebody big. Hate to say it, but it makes a difference. Have you stopped to think what’ll happen if you do get in close to where you can put a bullet into him? That won’t be easy but if you make it, every lawman in the country’ll be on your trail … along with all the bounty hunters and drifters, looking to pick up a few dollar’s reward.”
“If you’d found the man you set out to kill, wouldn’t it be the same for you?”
The water in the tin was beginning to simmer. Opening the sack of coffee, Dade poured a quantity into the container, and nudging it to a back corner of the rocks, he placed the battered spider he carried over the center of the flames. Taking a chunk of slightly rancid bacon from its oily wrapping, he cut it into slices and dropped them into the pan. To these he added several hard biscuits crushed between his palms, a lone potato discovered in the bottom of the saddlebag, and a piece of onion. Over it all he poured water.
“Be ready pretty soon,” he said, more to himself than the girl.
“Wouldn’t it?”
She hadn’t forgotten the question, as he’d hoped. “No, it’d be different. The man I was looking for was a nothing … a nobody. The law wouldn’t care about him.”
“But if he’d been Cushman …?”
“If it was somebody big like him, then I’d get moving, and stay moving. Only thing I could do.”
“And I can’t—”
“No, by God, you can’t!” Lockett snapped, suddenly finding himself on solid ground. “Places I’d go to keep out of the way you couldn’t go. Things I’d do to bury myself from scalp hunters and the lawmen, you’d not be able to swallow. You’d be like a duck sitting in a rain barrel, and mighty damned fast they’d have you dead or up before some hanging judge friend of Cushman’s. You’d be lucky if you got off with no more’n spending the rest of your life in the pen.”
Roxie sat silent for a time, then: “At least I’d have made Cushman pay.”
“Nothing’s worth being cooped up behind the walls of a pen,” Dade said. “I know, and before I’d let them put me there again, I’d take on the whole United States Army.”
She considered that thoughtfully, eyes on Lockett as he began to stir the stew with his skinning knife.
“It doesn’t matter … none of that,” Roxie said finally. “I have to do it … and I can. It will be simple to hide out near his ranch, put a bullet in him when he passes by. You won’t need to go, Dade. It’s best I do it alone.”
Lockett set the spider off the flames, procured a tin plate, a wooden spoon from the saddlebags. Dividing the contents of the frying pan into the plate, he passed it to her. “I figure you’re making a mistake,” he said, “but I’ll be siding you … there and from here on out. About time you got to remembering that …” He stiffened suddenly, drew himself upright. The clacking insects down the trail had abruptly ceased their racket. A moment later a horseshoe chinked dully against a stone. Lockett set the frying pan back on the fire, spun to Roxie.
“Over there … quick,” he snapped, pointing to the nearby trees.
She rose at once, hurried to the small grove with its undergrowth of brush, filling with shadows now as the day waned. Lockett waited. It could be a false alarm—not Cushman or any of his men but some pilgrim cutting through the mountains. But he was taking no chances.
“You … there by the fire … get your hands up!”
At the harsh command Dade raised h
is arms. He hadn’t been wrong; it was the rancher. Taut, he watched Cushman, accompanied by two other men, move into the open and advance slowly. All had drawn their weapons and were leveling them at him.
A dozen paces away they halted. The rancher looked around, eyes narrowing. “Where’s that woman?”
“Gone,” Lockett said. “You got here too late to finish up your murdering.”
The husky man to the rancher’s left took a half step forward. “She’s the one who’ll be facing a murder charge. Brother of hers, too, only we took care of him this morning.”
Lockett centered his attention on Cushman. “What kind of a deal’s that? Ain’t true and you damned well know it.”
“They shot two of my men. Got witnesses to prove it.”
“That’s a lie, Cushman. The only murdering that’s been done was by you and your outfit.”
The squat rider shook his head. “That’s only talk … and the charge includes you, too, whoever you are. Seen you there this morning. Where’s the girl hiding?”
“Said she was gone,” Dade repeated.
Cushman swore angrily, triggered the weapon in his hand. The bullet plowed into the ground at Lockett’s feet, sprayed dirt over his boots.
“You trying to make me believe that … and me standing here looking at two horses? Where is she? Speak up, or by God, I’ll put the next slug in your belly!”
The third man in the party holstered his pistol, turned to the rancher. “Reckon I know how to make him talk. Just let me work him over a mite.”
“Not worth the trouble, Tip … he’s good as dead anyway,” the rancher said. “It’s a cinch she ain’t gone. Like as not she’s hiding over there in them trees. You and Tillman take a look … I’ll finish off this bastard,” he added, and raised his weapon.
“I’m here, Mister Cushman,” Roxie said from the edge of the grove.
The rifle in her hands blasted as she spoke. The rancher clawed at his chest, rocked back. Tip reached for his pistol. Lockett drew, fired, spun the rider half around with a bullet. He heard the Winchester bark spitefully again as he turned, saw the man called Tillman stagger, fall heavily across a clump of sage. Motion caught at the corner of his eye and he swiveled his attention to Tip. The rider was plunging off into the brush. Dade whipped up his gun once more but it was too late. Tip had disappeared into the brush.
As the rolling echoes faded slowly, Lockett stared at the lifeless figure of Tillman sprawled face up, empty eyes fixed on the sky. A coldness swept over him. He glanced to Roxie, now moving in beside him, her gaze on Cushman.
“Is he dead?” she asked tonelessly.
Dade nodded. “Both of them. Other one’s hit but he got away.”
A shudder passed through her as she looked down at Tillman. “I didn’t want to shoot him but he started to …”
“Don’t think about it,” Lockett cut in roughly, and wheeled about.
There was no time to waste. He had misjudged the rancher, assumed he’d called off the hunt. Instead, he’d kept at it, and that meant the remainder of his party was somewhere on the mountain. Not only would they have heard the gunshots, but Tip would summon them and they would soon be closing in.
“We’ve got to get away from here,” he said, grasping the girl by the arm. “Give me a hand saddling up.”
Roxie frowned. “Why? We can go back to the ranch now. Cushman’s dead.”
Lockett pointed to Tillman. “Forget doing that. Take a good look at him. The badge you see there inside his pocket says he’s a lawman … a deputy sheriff.”
The girl’s lips tightened into a thin line. “A … a lawman?”
“The star didn’t show until he went down,” Lockett said, taking up the saddles and crossing to the horses. “Must’ve been a friend of Cushman’s. Probably came along to make things look good … or it could be he did figure to haul us in to stand trial on that trumped-up murder charge.”
“But Cushman was about to shoot you.”
Dade said: “Yeah, did for a fact, but it won’t make any difference. He’s a lawman and he’s dead.”
The bay was ready. Lockett began to work on the chestnut. Roxie was gathering the cooking equipment, hurriedly stowing the items into the leather pouches.
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“It means we ain’t got a prayer in this part of the country, and a mighty small one everywhere else. Kill a lawman and you’re dead … that’s an old saying and the badge-toters work plenty hard at keeping folks believing it.”
“Then where can we go?”
“We’ll light out for Mexico. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it,” he said, helping her onto the bay. “If not … well, it’s been nice knowing you.”
He pivoted to the chestnut, vaulted onto the saddle. For a few moments he was silent, listening for sounds on the slope that would tell of other men drawing near. He could hear nothing. That was the way it would be from that time on, he realized; they must forever be on guard, fearful of what lay beyond the bend in every trail they followed, of every corner they turned. Their lives would depend on it. Coming about, he faced Roxie. She was erect on the bay, features calm, at peace. She had not returned the Winchester to the boot, instead was resting it across her lap. Lockett ducked his head at the weapon, smiled grimly.
“That’s your best friend now. Just keep remembering it’s the difference between living and dying when you’re a wanted killer … like us.”
“I won’t forget,” she murmured, and, swinging in beside him, rode out of the clearing.
But hope, too, is a many-splendorous thing, and minutes later, when they reached the crest of the first rise, Roxie paused, looked off toward the north where the ranch lay.
“Maybe someday we can come back,” she said wistfully. “After all, the land will still be there.”
“Maybe we can,” Lockett agreed as they rode on.
Wanted: Dead or Alive
I
With the furious storm raging about him, Ben Jordan halted. He was high in the towering Mogollon Mountains of New Mexico Territory, struggling to follow a trail that cut a precarious course along a rocky ridge. He probed the wet half darkness with anxious eyes. Although it was only midafternoon, it seemed night was almost upon him. He was soaked to the skin, despite his slicker, and chilled to the bone from the snow-tinged rain. Water cascaded from him and the weary buckskin he rode in a hundred small rivulets. The trail had become a sea of flowing mud, the entire mountainside a sheet of glistening water. Arroyos were running full, and had become wild, turbulent rivers of boiling, brown slush that swept everything before them. Lightning flashed vividly, now and then striking one of the towering pines that studded the slope, creating an eerie glow and setting up a hissing and crackling that blended with the continual grumble of thunder.
Jordan had no idea of how far he was from a settlement, or even if there was one in the area. It had been hours since he had noted a miner’s cabin or squatter’s shack. But the trail he followed appeared to be a main course; it would lead eventually to somewhere. At this point, however, it made little difference; he wanted only to get in out of the hammering rain to dry and warm himself. It was days since he had ridden out of Mexico and the comfort of the hot Sonora sun. Now, wet and cold, he was having vague regrets, wishing that he had not accepted Tom Ashburn’s offer and that he had not given up the ranch in the Barranca Negra, since that morning when Mexican bandits swooped down, attacked, and killed his father and stepmother.
Perhaps he should have stayed put on the ranch deep in the black-walled gorge; maybe he should have toughed it out, continued the never ending war with the renegades that had begun the day his father, Dave Jordan, and he, then only a small boy, had settled in there. Matters had improved somewhat a few years later when the elder Jordan had met and married a Mexican woman; the gringo patrón and his son had become more acceptable to the nati
ves at that point. But in the end it mattered little. The bandits’ bullets recognized no distinction, and the letter from Dave Jordan’s old friend, Tom Ashburn, arriving two months later was most opportune. It offered him the job as foreman on his vast Lazy A spread in northeastern New Mexico. Ben had lost no time accepting. He gave away what was left of the ranch in the Barranca Negra, packed what few possessions he owned in his saddlebags, and rode out.
In his heart he knew it was the right thing to do. Although he had come to love the country he grew up in, there was nothing there for him; the ranch was a poor, starve-out affair at best. Ben Jordan knew that, admitted it, but change always comes hard to any man. Sitting there, high on the storm-swept mountain, wet and cold, he told himself again that he had made the right decision and he would abide despite the bitter welcome being extended him by the elements. He stared ahead. He could see no sign of shelter through the whipping gusts. All that was visible were the swaying, tortured pines shifting under the storm’s impact, the wetly shining rocks, the deeply grooved trail that was now an onrushing stream. Lightning glared beyond the ridge to his left, and was followed instantly by a clap of thunder. The buckskin trembled beneath him. At once the rain seemed to increase and somewhere behind him came a new roaring as an arroyo, filled to capacity, broke free of its bounds and began to pour down the slope in a new channel.
Jordan urged his pony on. The footing was slippery, dangerous, and the horse moved reluctantly. If there was no hope of reaching a settlement, then he must soon find shelter of some sort for the buckskin and himself. They were both about finished. A low butte facing away from the slanting rain would afford some protection. He was avoiding the thick stands of trees, prime targets, it would seem, for the jagged streaks of lightning.
A hundred yards farther along Jordan again pulled to a halt and dismounted. It was too much for the buckskin to carry a rider and maintain his footing in the swirling mud and water. Walking out ahead of the worn horse, Jordan pressed on, able to follow the trail now only because of the lack of brush and rock in its course.
