End Of the Drive (1997) s-7

by Louis L'Amour

  He could see how skillfully the plan had been engineered. How careful the planning. As he studied what Dean had told him of the Cattleman's meeting, another thought occurred. The vote had been six to four to hire Sonntag. But what if Mclnnis had been there?

  The dour New England Scotsman was not one for plunging into anything recklessly. He would never have accepted the hiring of Sonntag. Especially as Collins and the Kastelles had voted against it. This the leader of the rustlers must have figured. The shooting of Mclnnis had been deliberately planned and accomplished in cold blood.

  Had Mclnnis been voting, Taggart either would not have been there to vote, or would have followed Abe's lead. Brewster, hotheaded and impulsive as he was, would have been tempered by the Mclnnis coolness. Then the vote would have been against hiring Sonntag! At the worst, it would have been a tie, and no action.

  That the meeting had been called before the shooting of Abraham Mclnnis, Mahone knew.

  He sat down suddenly and wrote out a short note, a note that showed the vote had Mclnnis been present. He added, Show this to the judge. Then he enclosed it in an envelope, and decided he would send it to the newspaper office by Shoshone Charlie.

  Carefully, he oiled his guns and checked his rifle. Then he made up several small packs of food and laid out some ammunition. He was going to be ready for trouble now, for it was coming. He could wait, and they might never get to him, but he preferred to strike first. Also, he had his cattle to deliver.

  Mexie Roberts was not a man who hurried. Small, dark, and careful, he moved like an Indian in the hills.

  For several days now he had been studying the Lazy K

  -from various vantage points. He had watched Texas Dowd carefully. Knowing the West as he did, he knew Dowd was a man whom one might never get a chance to shoot at twice. Mexie Roberts prided himself on never having to shoot more than once. His trade was killing, and he knew the tricks of his trade.

  Lying on his belly in the dust among the clumps of greasewood, he watched every soul on the Lazy K. Shifting his glass from person to person, he soon began to learn their ways and their habits.

  He was not worried about hitting Dowd, once he got him in his sights. The Sharps .50 he carried was a gun he understood like the working of his own right hand.

  There was no mercy in Mexie Roberts. Killing was born in him as it is in a weasel or a hawk. He killed, and killed in cold blood. It was his pride that he had never been arrested, never tried, never even accused. Some men had their suspicions, but no man could offer evidence.

  He had been given the job of killing Dowd, and there was in the job a measure of personal pride as well as the money. Texas Dowd was to Mexie Roberts what a Bengal tiger is to a big-game hunter. He was the final test. Hunting Dowd was hunting death in its most virulent form.

  In a few days now, perhaps a few hours, he would be ready. Then Dowd would die, and when he died, there would be no one near to see where the shot came from, and Mexie Roberts would have his hideaway carefully chosen.

  All over Laird Valley tides of trouble and danger were , rising. Men moved along the streets of Laird with cautious eyes, scanning each newcomer, watching, waiting.

  In his office beside the barbershop, Judge Gardner Collins moved a man into the king row and crowned him. Doc Finerty rubbed his jaw and studied the board with thoughtful eyes. Neither man had his mind on the game.

  "It was my fault," Collins said. "I should have stopped it. Don't know why I didn't realize how Brewster and Taggart would vote."

  Dean Armstrong came in, glanced at the board, then placed a slip of paper on the checkerboard between them. "Found this under my door this morning," he said. "It's Mahone's handwriting."

  For.

  Against.

  Ike Hibby.

  Collins.

  Ringer Cobb.

  Kastelle.

  Alcorn.

  R. Kastelle.

  Taggart.

  Dowd.

  Logan.

  Brewster.

  Had Abe Mclnnis. been there:

  Ike Hibby.

  Collins.

  Ringer Cobb.

  Kastelle.

  Alcorn.

  R. Kastelle.

  Logan.

  Dowd.

  Brewster (?)

  Mclnnis.

  Taggart (?)

  Show this to the judge.

  Collins studied it thoughtfully. "I reckon he's got it figured proper," he said. "That would make it at worst a tie vote. Taggart would have gone along with his boss, I know that. Dan's hotheaded, but Abe always sort of calms him down and keeps him thinking straight."

  "You see what it implies, don't you?" Dean indicated. "That Abe Mclnnis was drygulched on purpose!"

  "Uh-huh," Finerty agreed, "it does. I agree."

  "Let's call another meeting," Armstrong suggested, "and vote him out. You've got some stock running with the judge, haven't you, Doc? Enough to vote?"

  "It wouldn't do," Collins said. "The Rawhide bunch wouldn't meet. We couldn't get a quorum now. No, he's in, and we might as well make the best of it. What's he been doing, Dean?"

  "Riding all over the range so far. That's all."

  Pierce Logan sat in his office. He wore a neatly pressed dark gray suit and a white vest. His white hat lay atop the safe nearby. As he sat, he fingered his mustache thoughtfully.

  It had been a long wait, and hard work, but now he was there. Only a few more weeks and he would be in possession of all he had hoped for. They would be shaky, dangerous weeks, but the danger would be of the sort he understood best.

  He had come out of the carpetbag riots in New Orleans with money. Enough to come west in obvious prosperity. The little affair near New Orleans, one of those times when the ingrown rapacity of the man had let go like an explosion, had passed over without trouble. Since arriving in Laird he had bided his time. Now he was ready.

  He was not worried about Texas Dowd. Sonntag had set something up, and it would be taken care of soon. Sonntag was range detective, and any killings he might commit would have a semblance of legality. There was opposition here in town, he knew. Judge Collins would be against him, but the judge was no longer young. Finerty could not stand against him, and as for Armstrong ... Logan didn't like Armstrong. At the first hint of trouble from The Branding Iron, he would have to have the presses smashed up.

  His eyes shifted out the window, and suddenly, he stiffened.

  A man was walking slowly along the sandy hillside beyond the livery barn and corrals. He was walking along as though studying the ground. Now and then he would halt, kneel down, and study it carefully, then he would rise and move on. Occasionally he would sift a little dirt through his fingers.

  The man was Garfield Otis.

  Pierce Logan put a hand to his brow. He was sweating. His heart pounding, he slid a hand in a drawer for a gun. Then drew it back. No, that wasn't the way.

  But what could the old fool be looking for? Why would he be examining that hillside, of all places?

  It had been years ago. Certainly, Otis could know nothing. Yet he watched him, and Logan knew for the first time what it meant to fear.

  If he was discovered now, he was ruined. Not even the Rawhide bunch could save him. It was only his power and money that held them together, and if the lid blew off this !

  Garfield Otis was wandering back down the wash now. He would be in the saloon in a few minutes. But no, Otis hadn't been drinking lately. And Otis was a friend of Mahone's.

  Whatever was done must be done at once, and Logan knew there was only one thing that could be done. He got up and walked out into the street.

  Finn Mahone had taken an old game trail east from the entrance to Crystal Valley. It led him down, and across a corner of the lava beds, then into the wild country of the Highbinders north of the Lazy K.

  His stallion walked slowly, and Finn kept one hand near his walnut gun butt. The chance of seeing an enemy here was slight, although he had decided against trying the Notch. If
anyone were to lie in wait for him, that would be the ideal spot.

  The country in which he now rode was country where few horsemen ever went. The hillsides of the Highbinders were too grass less to draw cattle away from the fertile bottoms of the Lazy K range. This was a broken, partly timbered, and very rocky country that offered nothing to any man. Sheep or goats might have lived there; cattle could not.

  Yet, when he was almost due north of the Lazy K ranch buildings, he stopped and swung down.

  Coming out of the woods and turning into the small trail he followed were the recent tracks of a horse!

  Finn loosened his gun in its holster and walked on, leading Fury. On second thought, he turned off the trail and chose a way under the pines, avoiding the dust where his tracks would be seen. When he had gone a little way further, he smelled smoke.

  At first, it was just a faint suggestion, then he got a stronger whiff. Tying the stallion to a low branch, he worked his way cautiously through the brush. He had gone almost a hundred yards when he saw a faint blue haze rising from a hollow among the rocks.

  Crawling out on a flat-topped rock that ended in a clump of manzanita, he lay on his belly and stared down into the hollow.

  A fire, small and carefully built, burned among some stones. A coffeepot sat on the stones, being warmed. A buckskin horse was tethered nearby, and not far away, a grulla packhorse.

  There was one man, and Finn watched him curiously. The man was small and dark, and at the moment Finn spotted him, he was fastening a long narrow piece of white cloth to a tree trunk. Peering at it, Finn could see that it had a cross printed on it near the top, and then graduated markings running down its length. At the bottom was a weight so that the strip would hang straight down.

  When it was fastened, the small man carefully paced off a certain distance and marked the spot, then he picked up his rifle, a Sharps buffalo gun. Finn's brow furrowed.

  Puzzled, Mahone watched the man carry his Sharps to the mark on the ground and rest the muzzle in the crotch of a forked stick he carried. Laying prone, the little man carefully aimed at the cloth strip and then proceeded to work the screw-adjustable peep sight that was fitted to the big gun up and down, making minute adjustments until it was lined up with one of the marks on the cloth.

  "Well, I'll be forever damned!" Finn Mahone muttered. "That's a new one on me!" The dark man was calibrating his sights for a long shot over a previously measured distance.

  When he was satisfied, the man left the rifle where it was and returned to his fire. He drank coffee, ate a little, and took a hurried look around. Then he put out his fire, scattered it, and carefully wiped out all footprints with a pine bough. For a half hour he worked until every mark of the camp had been obliterated.

  Only then did he take his rifle. Mounting the buckskin, which with the packhorse had been led into the trail, he ! held his rifle with great care, then he moved off, walking the horse.

  Finn Mahone got up quietly and walked back to his own horse. Moving carefully, he followed the strange rider. The man's every action gave evidence that he had no intention of riding far, and the only place close to j them was the Lazy K ranch!

  Who, then, was the killer after? For Finn had noj doubts about the man's intentions. Remy? That would] serve no purpose, Frenchy Kastelle? Probably not.

  Who, of all the men on this range, would be most dangerous to successful rustling? Texas Dowd. Who, on this range, might match guns with Sonntag or Ringer Cobb or Montana Kerr? Only, aside from himself, Texas Dowd. All of which meant that this man intended to kill Dowd.

  His conclusion might be mistaken, but Finn could think of no logical alternative.

  When they drew near the edge of the timber, Finn tied the stallion in a concealed position among the trees and, rifle in hand, moved out after the unknown sharpshooter.

  The man had tied his horses with a slip knot and had vanished into the brush. Finn started to follow, then hesitated and walked back to the horses. Untying them, he retied the knot, and lashed it hard and fast. The man who rode these horses wasn't going to be getting away in a hurry!

  Then, working with infinite care, Finn Mahone worked down along the marksman's trail.

  He lost the trail on the edge of the brush. Here the man had moved into a gully, and whether he had gone up down, Finn could not tell. Yet from where he lay on the side of the bluff Finn had an excellent view of the grassy field between the Lazy K ranch buildings and the position he occupied. The sharpshooter would have to move out into position from here, and get into place to fire on the buildings.

  Suddenly, Finn saw the man. He had come out of the gully and was snaking along the ground, keeping low in the grass, still handling his rifle with utmost care. When the man reached the top of a low knoll, his position would be excellent.

  Only then did Mahone realize how carefully this had been planned. The way to the knoll was completely covered from observation from anywhere but this bluff. The man could never have been seen from the ranch.

  The Sharps rifle, known to kill at distances up to a thousand yards, had occasionally been effective at even greater distances, as Billy Dixon had proved at the Battle of Adobe Wells. It used the most powerful black powder cartridges ever made, and fired up to 550 grains of lead with terrific force and remarkable accuracy.

  With the distance deliberately paced off, probably late at night when all were asleep, the unknown marksman would know exactly how much his bullet would drop, and now the finely machined sight was set for precisely that range. One shot would be all he'd get at a target like Dowd, but as Finn correctly surmised, the man had no intention of firing more than one shot.

  Mahone lost him, then found him again, and when he next sighted him he was on the crest of the knoll and settling into position. Finn eased his own rifle up, and waited.

  There was little movement around the Lazy K. Occasionally someone appeared, then vanished. The man below lay perfectly still. Had Finn not known he was there, he could never have picked him out on the grassy, boulder-strewn knoll.

  Then the ranch house door opened, and Finn lifted his head. Remy was walking down to the corrals. A hand led her white mare out, and the girl swung into the saddle and galloped away over the plains, riding west.

  Finn's eyes followed her. How beautifully she rode! He had never seen a woman ride with such grace. Angry with himself, he wrenched his eyes away.

  A man had come from the ranch house and was walking down to the corral. He wore an old black hat, but even at that distance Finn could recognize the straight carriage, the easy movement of the shoulders. Texas Dowd was a man difficult to forget and easy to pick out.

  Mahone's eyes dropped. The man below was waiting for some particular thing, Finn could see that. All men are creatures of habit to some extent, and the marksman KUSTLER KOUNDUP / IO had evidently studied Dowd until he knew his every move.

  No one else was in sight. The cowhand who led out Remy's horse had vanished, and the ranch lay hot in the glare of the sun. Dowd led out his horse and tied it to a rail of the corral fence. Then he brought out the saddle, and threw it on the horse's back. Dowd was standing with his back squarely to the sharpshooter now, but the man waited. Then, slowly he eased his rifle up and Finn, even at this distance, could almost see the man settling his cheek against the stock ready for his shot.

  Finn lifted his rifle and triggered three fast shots at the figure below. Even as he fired, he heard the big rifle boom from the knoll, but his first shot must have come close, for the rifleman threw himself to one side.

  Finn got a hasty glimpse of Dowd's horse rearing, but already his eyes were searching the grass below for the killer. The man had vanished as if he had dropped into the earth itself!

  Riveting his eyes on the grass, Finn began to search it with infinite care, taking it section by section, but he could see nothing of the man. He suddenly realized this was no place for him. If Dowd was to find him here he would be sure it was Finn who had fired, and the sharpshooter was certai
nly making his getaway.

  Scrambling through the brush, he started back to the -horses. Somehow in his rush he took a wrong turn, and though delayed only a minute or two longer than he had expected, he reached the horses just as the marksman appeared. The fellow rushed to the horses and jerked at the slip knot. It stuck, and then Finn said, "All right, turn around and throw up your hands!"

  Mexie Roberts wheeled like a cornered rat and his hand flashed for his pistol. Finn's rifle blasted and Roberts staggered back, coughing, his eyes wide and staring.

  He blinked once, very slowly, then sat down and rolled over, drawing his knees up tightly, and died.

  Mahone wheeled and raced for his horse. Then he was in the saddle and heading down range as fast as he could ride. He had no desire to see Dowd now. The Texan would see what had happened from the tracks.

  Meanwhile, there was business in town. If Sonntag was there, and looking for him, he could find him. Laird, he felt, was the center of things. Knowing as little as he did about all the people there, Finn had only a few ideas. He intended to learn what he could, and there were two sources on which he could rely: Lettie Mason and Otis.

  Remy Kastelle, riding west, heard the sharp cracking report of the Winchester, followed by the heavy boom of the Sharps, then the Winchester twice again. She wheeled her horse and started back on a dead run. She was just reaching the ranch house when she saw Texas Dowd, gun in hand, leave the ranch at a gallop.

  Swinging alongside she disregarded his motions to stay back, and rode on. Suddenly, he seemed to sight something in the grass, and wheeled, riding over to the knoll. He swung down from the horse and picked it up. It was Roberts's Sharps rifle.

  He looked up at the girl, then removed his hat. The Sharps had torn a ragged gash in the brim. "Somebody shot at him," Dowd said, "or he'd a had me sure! I heard that first shot and jerked. This came next."

  The grass was pressed down where Mexie had crushed it in his retreat. The route by which he had approached was not the return route. Mexie had been too cagey for that. Yet his return had been a flight, and Dowd followed, riding his horse until he came to the two horses and Roberts's body.