“Now, look…!” the man protested, suddenly frightened.
“What gave you the idea you could run off our stock?” Ward asked.
“Nothin’. The stock was in good shape.” He looked suddenly at McQueen who still wore the marks of battle. “You’re the gent who whipped Flagg. He’ll kill you for that, if not for this. You won’t live a week.”
“Bud, tie this man to his saddle and tie him tight. We’ll take him into town for the law to handle. Then we’ll visit Bear Cañon.”
“You’ll do what?” their prisoner sneered. “Why, you fool! Flagg will kill you! The whole bunch will!”
“No,” Ward assured him, “they will not. If they’d left my stock alone, they could have stayed. Now they will get out or be burned out. That’s the message I’m taking to them.”
“Wait a minute.” The man’s eyes were restless. Suddenly his arrogance was gone and he was almost pleading. “Lay off Bear Cañon. This was none o’ their doin’, anyway.”
“You’re talking,” Ward said, and waited.
“Neal Webb put us up to it. Promised us fifteen bucks a head for every bit of your stock we throwed into the Sand Flats beyond Apache.”
“Will you say that to a judge?”
His face paled. “If you’ll protect me. That Webb outfit, they kill too easy to suit me.”
When they rode down the street of Pelona to the sheriff’s office, the town sprawled lazily in the sunshine. By the time they reached the sheriff’s office, nearly fifty men had crowded around. Foster met them at the door, his shrewd old eyes going from McQueen to the rustler.
“Well, Chalk”—He spat.—“looks like you run into the wrong crowd.” His eyes shifted to McQueen. “What’s he done?”
“Rustled a herd of Firebox stock.”
“Him alone?”
“There were four of them. The other three were in no shape to bring back. They won’t be talking. This one will.”
A man at the edge of the crowd turned swiftly and hurried away. McQueen’s eyes followed him. He went up the walk to the Emporium. A moment later Ren Oliver emerged and started toward them.
“Who were the others, Chalk? Were they from Bear Cañon?”
“Only me.” Chalk’s eyes were haunted. “Let’s get inside.”
“Hang him!” somebody yelled. “Hang the rustler!”
The voice was loud. Another took it up, then still another. McQueen turned to see who was shouting. Somebody else shouted: “Why waste time? Shoot him!”
The shot came simultaneously with the words, and Ward McQueen saw the prisoner fall, a hole between his eyes.
“Who did that?” Ward’s contempt and anger were obvious. “Anybody who would shoot an unarmed man with his hands tied is too low-down to live.”
The crowd stirred but nobody even looked around. Those who might know were too frightened to speak. On the edge of the crowd Ren Oliver stood with several others who had drawn together. “I didn’t see anybody fire, McQueen, but wasn’t the man a rustler? Hasn’t the state been saved a trial?”
“He was also a witness who was ready to testify that Neal Webb put him up to the rustling and was paying for the cattle.”
Startled, people in the crowd began to back away, and from the fringes of the crowd they began to disappear into stores or up and down the street. There seemed to be no Webb riders present, but Kim Sartain, sitting his horse back from the crowd, a hand on his gun butt, was watching. He had come up too late to see the shooting.
“Webb won’t like that, McQueen,” Ren Oliver said. “I speak only from friendship.”
“Webb knows where to find me. And tell him this time it won’t be a kid he’s killing.”
Sheriff Foster chewed on the stub of his cigar. His blue eyes had been watchful. “That’s some charge you’ve made, McQueen. Can you back it up?”
Ward indicated the dead man. “There’s my witness. He told me Webb put him up to it, and that Bear Cañon wasn’t involved. As for the rest of it…”
He repeated the story of the tracks he had followed, of the men holed up in the Box.
“You think they went on to Dry Leggett?” Foster asked.
“That was what I heard them say, but they might have changed their minds. Bemis was among the wounded and he was worried. He had a wound and wanted care.” Then he added: “Bine did most of the talking.”
Ward McQueen tied his horse in front of Sharon Clarity’s store, where there was shade. With Sartain at his side he crossed to the Bat Cave.
The saloon was a long, rather narrow room with a potbellied stove at either end and a bar that extended two-thirds the room’s length. There were a roulette table and several card tables.
A hard-eyed, bald-headed bartender leaned thick forearms on the bar, and three men loafed there, each with a drink. At the tables several men played cards. They glanced up as the Tumbling K men entered, then resumed their game.
McQueen ordered two beers and glanced at Ren Oliver, who sat in one of the card games. Had Oliver been only a bystander? Or had he fired the shot that killed Chalk?
Oliver glanced up and smiled. “Care to join our game?” McQueen shook his head. He would have enjoyed playing cards with Oliver, for there are few better ways to study a man than to play cards with him. Yet he was in no mood for cards, and he hadn’t the time. He had started something with his comments about Webb. Now he had to prove his case.
He finished his beer, and then, followed by Sartain, he returned to the street. Ren Oliver watched them go, then cashed in, and left the game. When he entered the Emporium, Hutch glared at him.
“Get rid of him!” Hutch said. “Get rid of him now!”
Oliver nodded. “Got any ideas?”
Hutch’s eyes were mean. “You’d botch the job. Leave it to me!”
“You?” Oliver was incredulous.
Hutch looked at him over his steel-rimmed glasses. Ren Oliver, who had known many hard men, remembered only one such pair of eyes. They were the eyes of a big swamp rattler he had killed as a boy. He remembered how those eyes had stared into his. He felt a chill.
“To me,” Hutch repeated.
V
It was dark when Ward McQueen, trailed by Kim and Bud Fox, reached the scattered, makeshift cabins in Bear Cañon. It was a small settlement, and he had heard much about it in the short time he had been around. The few women were hard-eyed slatterns as tough as their men. Rumor had it they lived by rustling and horse thieving or worse.
“Bud,” McQueen said, “stay with the horses. When we leave, we may have to leave fast. Be ready, and, when you hear me yell, come a-running.”
Followed by Kim, he walked toward the long bunkhouse that housed most of the men. Peering through a window, he saw but two men, one playing solitaire, the other mending a belt. The room was lighted by lanterns. Nearby was another house, and, peering in, they saw a short bar and a half dozen men sitting around. One of them was Flagg Warneke.
Ward McQueen stepped to the door and opened it. He stepped in, Kim following, moving quickly left against the log wall.
Flagg saw them first. He was tipped back in his chair and he let the legs down carefully, poised for trouble.
“What d’ you want?” he demanded. “What’re you doin’ here?”
All eyes were on them. Two men, four guns, against six men and eight guns. There were others around town.
“This morning Chalk and some other riders ran off some of our cows. We had trouble and three men got killed. I told Chalk, if he told me who was involved, I’d not ride down here. He didn’t much want me to come to Bear Cañon, and to tell you the truth I hadn’t been planning on coming down here. Chalk started to talk, and somebody killed him.”
“Killed him? Killed Chalk? Who did it?”
“You make your own guess. Who was afraid of what he might say? Who stood to lose if he did talk?”
They absorbed this in silence, and then a fat-faced man at the end of the table asked: “Those fellers with Chalk? You say you k
illed them?”
“They chose to fight.”
“How many did you lose?”
“We lost nobody. There were three of us, four of them. They just didn’t make out so good.”
“What’re you here for?” Flagg demanded.
“Two things. To see if you have any idea about who killed Chalk and to give you some advice. Stay away from Firebox cattle.”
Silence hung heavily in the room. Flagg’s face was still swollen from the beating he had taken and the cuts had only begun to heal. His eyes were hard as he stared at McQueen.
“We’ll figure out our own answers to the first question. As to the second, we’ve no use for Firebox cows. As for you and that feller with you…get out.”
McQueen made no move. “Remember, friend, Bear Cañon is on Firebox range. What you may not know is that Firebox owns that land, every inch of it. You stay if Firebox lets you, and right now the Firebox is me. Behave yourselves and you’ll not be bothered, but next time there will be no warning. We’ll come with guns and fire.”
He reached for the latch with his left hand, and, as the door opened, Flagg said: “I put my mark on you, anyway.”
McQueen laughed. “And you’re wearing some of mine. Regardless of how things work out, Flagg, it was a good fight and you’re a tough man to whip.”
He opened the door, and Kim Sartain stepped out and quickly away. He followed. Yet they had taken no more than three steps when the door burst open and the fat-faced man lunged out, holding a shotgun in both hands. He threw the shotgun to his shoulder. As one man, Ward and Kim drew and fired. The fat-faced man’s shotgun sagged in his hands and he backed up slowly and sat down.
Men rushed from the bunkhouse and Kim shot a man with a buffalo gun. Ward shot through the open door at the hanging lantern. It fell, spewing oil and flame. In an instant the room was afire.
Men and women rushed from the other buildings and the two backed to their horses, where Bud awaited them on the rim of the firelight.
Several men grabbed a heavy wagon by the tongue and wheeled it away from the fire. Others got behind to shove. Of Flagg, McQueen saw nothing.
As the three rode away, they glanced back at the mounting flames. The saloon was on fire, as well as the bunkhouse.
“Think this will move them out?” Kim asked.
“I’ve no idea. I’m no hand for the sort of thing. Not burning folks out. They’d no right there, and that’s deeded land, as I told them. They may have believed it to be government land. If they’d acted halfway decent, I’d have paid them no mind.”
“There’s no good in that crowd,” Kim said.
“Maybe not, but Flagg fought a good fight. He had me worried there, for a spell.”
“He didn’t get into this fight.”
“No, and I think he’d have acted all right. I think he has judgment, which I can’t say for that fat-faced gent. He just went hog wild.”
Baldy Jackson was pacing the yard and muttering when they rode in. “Durn it all! You fellers ride away with your shootin’ irons on. Then we hear nothin’ of you! Where’ve you been?”
“What do you mean we?” Kim said. “Since when have you become more than one?”
“He was including me, I think.” Sharon Clarity got up from the chair where she had been sitting. “But I’ve only been here a few minutes. I came to warn you.”
“To warn us?”
“To warn you, Mister McQueen. Sheriff Foster is coming for you. He will arrest you for killing Neal Webb.”
“For what?” Ward swung down from his horse and trailed the reins. “What happened to Webb?”
“He was found dead on the trail not fifteen minutes after you left town. He had been shot in the back.”
Neal Webb killed. Ward McQueen sat down in one of the porch chairs. By whom, and for what? Ward McQueen knew what Western men thought of a back-shooter. That was a hanging offense before any jury one could get, but more often a lynch mob would handle such cases before the law got around to it.
Kim Sartain had been with him, but he would be considered a prejudiced witness.
“Pour me some coffee, Baldy,” he suggested. He glanced over at Sharon Clarity. “And thanks.” He hesitated. “I hope your riding to warn me won’t make enemies for you.”
“Nobody knew,” she replied cheerfully. “Anyway, I think you and the Tumbling K are good for this country. Things were getting kind of one-sided around here.”
“Neal Webb killed?” Ward mused. “I wonder what that means? I’d sort of thought he was behind all the trouble, but this makes me wonder.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Sharon said. “Almost as if he was killed purely to implicate you.”
He glanced at her. “That’s a shrewd observation. Any idea who would want to do a thing like that? After all, my trouble was with Webb.”
She did not reply. She got to her feet. “My father used to box,” she said. “Back in the old country he was considered quite good. They had a rule in boxing. I’ve heard him quote it. It was ‘protect yourself at all times.’ I am going back to town, but I think you should be very, very careful. And you’d better go. Foster will have about thirty riders in that posse. You’d better start moving.”
“I’ve done nothing. I’ll wait for them to come.
She went to her horse. “When you get thirty men together,” Sharon said, “you get all kinds. You have to consider their motives, Mister McQueen.”
“Kim, ride along with Miss Clarity, will you? See that she gets safely home.”
“Yes, sir.” Kim had been tired. Suddenly he was no longer so. “But what about that posse?”
“There’ll be no trouble. Take good care of Miss Clarity. She is a very bright young woman.”
In Pelona, Oliver went to the Bat Cave and seated himself at the card table. The saloon was empty save for himself and the bartender, a man with whom he was not particularly friendly, but the cards were there and he gathered them up and began to shuffle. He always thought better with cards in his hands. He carefully laid out a game of solitaire, but his mind was not on the cards.
He was both puzzled and worried. For some years now he had considered himself both an astute and a wise young man. He made his living with his adept fingers and his skill at outguessing men with cards. He knew all the methods of cheating and was a skilled card mechanic, but he rarely used such methods. He had a great memory for cards and the odds against filling any hand. He won consistently without resorting to questionable methods. He rarely won big. The show-off sort of thing that attracted attention he did not want. He played every day, and, when he lost, it was only small amounts. The sums he won were slightly larger. Sometimes he merely broke even, but over the months he was a clear and distinct winner. At a time when a cowhand was pulling down $30 to $40 a month, and a clerk in a store might work for as little as half that, Ren Oliver could pull down $200 to $250 without attracting undue attention. When a professional gambler starts winning big pots, he becomes suspect.
Even Hutch did not realize how well he was doing, and Hutch was providing him with a small income for rendering various services not to be discussed. Over the past year Ren Oliver had built up a nice road stake, something to take with him when he left, for he was well aware that few things last, and many difficulties could be avoided by forming no lasting attachments and keeping a fast horse.
Now Ren Oliver was disturbed. Neal Webb had been killed. By whom was a question, but an even larger question was why.
It disturbed him that he did not know. The obvious answer was that he had been killed by Ward McQueen, but Oliver did not buy that, not for a minute. McQueen might kill Webb in a gun battle, but he would not shoot him in the back.
Moreover, there had been no confrontation between them. The other answer was that Neal had outlived his usefulness and was killed to implicate McQueen.
But who had actually killed him?
It disturbed Oliver that he did not know. Obviously Hutch was behind it, but who had done th
e killing? One by one he considered the various men available and could place none of them in the right position. This worried him for another reason. He had considered himself close to Hutch, yet he now realized that, like Webb, when he ceased to be useful, he might be killed. He was merely a pawn in another man’s game.
For a man of Oliver’s disposition and inclinations it was not a pleasant thought. He did not mind others believing he was a pawn, but he wished to be in control so he could use those who believed they were using him. Now he had the uncomfortable sensation that too much was happening of which he was not aware and that any moment he might be sacrificed.
He had no illusions about himself. He was without scruples. It was his attitude that human life was cheap, and like most men engaged in crime he regarded people as sheep to be sheared. He was cold and callous and had always been so.
Outwardly he was friendly and ingratiating. He went out of his way to do favors for people even while holding them in contempt. You never knew when such people might appear on a jury. For the same reason he had allied himself with Hutch.
It was unsettling to realize there was someone more cunning than he himself. He knew Hutch was hunching over his community like a huge spider of insatiable appetite. Within that community he was considered to be something of a skinflint but nothing more. Men came and went from his store because, after all, it was the town’s leading emporium, as its name implied. That all those people might not be buying was not considered. Oliver believed Hutch hired his killing done, but who did he hire?
Bine, of course, but who else? When Oliver looked over his shoulder, he wanted to know who he was looking for. The fact that there was an unsuspected actor in the play worried him.
He had the uncomfortable feeling that Neal Webb had been killed not only to implicate McQueen but to serve as a warning to him and perhaps to others. A warning that nobody was indispensable.
Oliver shuffled the cards again, ran up a couple of hands with swiftness and skill, then dealt them, taking several off the bottom with smoothness and ease, yet his mind was roving and alert.
West of the Tularosa Page 15
