the Mountain Valley War (1978)

by L'amour, Louis - Kilkenny 03

  He could see a dim streak heading generally westward, which was the trail, or what he called such. Yet, they could get a team down here, and with luck they could cross. They would have to carry water for themselves and the stock, at least on the first trip. There might be water out there; yet, if there was water, it would probably be alkali.

  He went through a deep, shadowy cleft for perhaps a hundred yards, then started to climb again. Suddenly he came out into the sunlight and stopped abruptly.

  At once he saw why he could not find the trail from above. Across it, directly before him, and almost on the place where the trail turned off the cliff's top, lay a huge pine. Perched on the edge of the cliff, its roots weakened no doubt by rock falling away from them, the gigantic tree had blown down and fallen right across the trail. Around it, other pines had sprung up, until it was surrounded by a thick stand of trees that gave no hint of the road that lay beneath them.

  The younger trees were none of them older than ten to twelve years, so the road could not have been used in that time. No doubt it was some early effort by pioneers or by gold seekers, long abandoned.

  He crawled over the fallen giant and went through the grove around it. Then he started the trek back to where he had left his horse.

  It was dusk by the time he reached it, and the horse seemed as pleased to see him as he was to see it. He pulled the picket phi and led the horse to the tree where he had cached his saddle. When he was saddled up he checked his Winchester, then wiped his guns free of dust and tested the action.

  He walked the horse to a tiny rivulet that ran down from the mountain ridge and let him drink. Upstream, he lay down and drank deep of the clear, cold water. He had tasted nothing better.

  While the horse drank, he picked a few wild raspberries and thought about what he had seen. If the trail was practical, they could cross to Blazer in one-third the time needed to take the roundabout route. And they would find no Hale guards watching this route.

  He stepped into the saddle and turned toward the Cup. Two or three good men with axes could open a way through that grove and the tree that lay across the way.

  Someday he would have to find out where that road came from. For the moment he cared only where it went.

  He shucked his Winchester and held it in his hand. This was good country, great country, and it was a place for men to live. It was worth fighting for.

  He must bring Nita to this place. She must see for herself what was here. Yet the thought left him uneasy. To bring Nita here was to share with her something he loved. Before he could do that, he must decide what he wished to do.

  Wished? He knew what he wished. He wanted Nita. He wanted a home, and he wanted it here. Yet the same old problem remained. He was a gunfighter, a man with a reputation, and sooner or later it would always catch up to him. Even now they knew who he was, and when this was over, if he conformed to the pattern he had established, he would ride on.

  Yet, must he do that? Why not stay? The Hatfields were good people, and they accepted him. They had had their own gun troubles, back down the line as well as here, and they knew a man did not have to go seeking such things. This was a wild, new land and a place where a strong man had to stand for what he believed.

  One could not yield to the lawless and the ruthless, or soon there would be no freedom. It was among men as it was among nations.

  So ... perhaps he could stay. Possibly there was a way to happiness for him as well as for others. Certainly, since he had first met Nita Riordan he had thought of no other woman, wanted no other.

  He had a rival. King Bill Hale wanted her, and King Bill was a strong, handsome man. He was a man with a place in the community, a man with powerful friends in business and politics. She could reign like a queen in King Bill's Castle.

  She seemed to be in love with him, Kilkenny. But was she? Or might she change?

  Hale seemed a cold, hard man, yet what man sees another as a woman sees him? The side of a man that he shows to a woman is often very different from that seen by other men.

  Worry began to move through him like a drug. Nita nearby was one thing, but Nita belonging to somebody else was unthinkable. Especially he did not want her to belong to King Bill.

  Hale wanted her, and regardless of what she might believe, he could bring pressures to bear if his own eloquence failed him. He was king in Cedar Valley and he had already shown his willingness to ride roughshod over others. Her supplies came in over a road he controlled. He could not only control her business, he could prevent her from leaving if he wished. Jaime Brigo was the one reason he might not succeed, but Jaime was but one man, no matter how cunning in battle.

  This was a corner of the West off the beaten track. King Bill had made it a point to be both hospitable and friendly to all visitors and travelers passing through, although few of the latter came this way because it was a dead end. There was literally no place to go from Cedar unless to prospect the surrounding hills.

  Farther north there was a scattering of cow or mining towns, each one more or less isolated and concerned solely with its own affairs.

  In conversation with outsiders, King Bill would paint the nesters as rustlers, thieves, and white trash. Nobody could know more than what he said, and many of the people of Cedar felt about Hale as did Leathers' wife.

  At the moment it was King Bill's lack of action that disturbed Kilkenny. Hale had been badly beaten in that fistfight, and knowing the arrogance of the man, Kilkenny knew he would never allow that to pass. Moreover, when he refused them supplies, they had come and taken them from under his nose.

  All this would be discussed in private around Cedar. There would always be some who would suggest that Hale's power was slipping, that he was on shaky ground. Hale was shrewd enough to know this, and of course Cub Hale would be wanting action. Again Kilkenny found himself wondering how much of the violence came from King Bill and how much only from Cub.

  There are those who use a cause to cover their own lust for destruction and cruelty. He who uses terror as a weapon does it from his own demands for cruelly and not because it succeeds, because it never has.

  The killing of a strong man only leaves a place for another strong man, so is an exercise in futility. There is no man so great but that another waits in the wings to fill his shoes, and the attention caused by such acts is never favorable. Yet, such men as Cub Hale did not care. They wished to kill and destroy because it enhanced their own image in their own mind. Cub had grown up in his father's image, but with additional touches. He did not consider the law as applying to him, but only to those vague "others."

  Was Hale planning to starve them out? He knew how many they were, how limited were their provisions, and he had fed enough cowhands to know what they would require and how much. He also knew that a strong man may endure much in the face of adversity, but few strong men could stand to see then" women and children endure the same troubles. It was man's natural instinct, bred from the ages before men were even men, to protect the family.

  Hale could control the trail to Blazer, but did he know of the way across the wilderness country? Kilkenny doubted if anyone knew. Hale had been in the country but a few years, and Kilkenny doubted if any of the townspeople in Cedar had been around the country much longer. Hale had brought many of his hands with him, recruited the rest from drifters through the country.

  Even Kilkenny himself did not know if the trail was passable. It was doubtful if Hale had even considered the possibility of such a thing, and Kilkenny had heard of it himself only through the casual talk of an old, old Indian who spoke no English.

  Saul Hatfield walked down from among the trees as Kilkenny neared the Cup. "Everything quiet?" Kilkenny asked him.

  "Surely is." Saul was frankly curious about the dust-covered Kilkenny. "Jesse took him a ride down toward Cedar. Says they sure are gettin' set for that celebration. Expectin' a big crowd. They say Hale's invited some bigwigs from over to the capital to come an' set by to watch."

  From
the capital? That was good thinking on Hale's part. It was good politics. Hale would entertain them royally, would show them how his ten years in the area had benefited the country, and perhaps casually mention the trouble he was having with rustlers who called themselves nesters. Men who were trying to take from Hale valuable land he needed for expansion.

  Kilkenny knew how persuasive such a man could be, and he would entertain them like royalty, and the bigwigs would go away much impressed. King Bill knew how to impress such men with his power, his wealth, his influence. Hale undoubtedly had friends in the nation's capital, too, and he would not hesitate to use their names.

  His audience would be friendly, well filled with food and wine, and he would give the officials the idea that all was well in Cedar Valley. When it eventually became known that he had eliminated those troublesome outlaws in the mountains, it would be accepted as a public service. What most officials wanted was not to be troubled. They preferred to hear that all was well among the citizens, and Hale would know this.

  In that moment Kilkenny decided he must go to Cedar for the celebration.

  But how? And if he did go, by what means could he secure the ear of the visiting officials? And would they listen to him if he talked?

  As he rode on into the Cup, he went over in his mind every possible way in which he might get into Cedar. His very appearance would invite trouble, and he would have to kill or be killed, which would defeat his purpose at the outset.

  If he killed one of Hale's men, Hale would paint him as one of the problems he must cope with, but if he himself was killed, he would just be an outlaw eliminated, a troublemaker who had come to disrupt the celebration.

  Somehow he had to get into town and get to those officials to at least present his side of the picture. Or rather, the side of the nesters in the mountains.

  A carnival atmosphere would prevail. The officials might be anywhere, and even to find them would be difficult, guided as they would be by Hale or Hale's men. Yet there was, he realized, one place where they would be sure to be. They would be present, and in favored seats, for the Tombull Turner fight.

  For the first time he began to think of Turner. He had seen the man fight. He was a mountain of muscle with a jaw like a chunk of granite, deeply set small eyes, his nose flattened by punches, his lips rather thick. He was a good fighter. You did not even get into a ring with the likes of Joe Goss or Paddy Ryan unless you were. The two times Kilkenny had seen Tombull Turner fight, the man had won, and easily. He could hit with terrific force and could take a punch and keep coming. He had faults, but what fighter doesn't?

  Kilkenny rode down into the Cup and dismounted. Parson Hatfield walked over to him with O'Hara and Jesse.

  "Looks like you've been places, son," Parson said, indicating the dust. "You surely didn't pick that up yonder in the forest."

  "I've been down in the desert," Kilkenny said.

  "The Smoky Desert?" O'Hara asked. "You mean you found a way?"

  "I did."

  "Could you get a wagon down there?" Jesse inquired.

  "With a little ax work. We'd need about four good men with axes to work awhile before we tried a wagon. But whether a wagon could make it across is more than I could say. I found the remnants of a very old trail . . . hasn't been used for ten to fifteen years, and maybe much earlier. How much it was used, I don't know, but I'd say it had seen some use at one time."

  "Where somebody else went," Jesse said, "we can go."

  "How about gittin' across an' gittin' out?" Parson asked skeptically. "Many a trail starts out mighty good an' takes a body nowheres."

  "You're right," Kilkenny agreed. He stripped the saddle from the horse, and then the bridle, turning the animal into the corral. He carried the gear into the stable and put it on the rack. "I'm going to try it. We will have to carry water with us, and we will have to tie cloths over our faces and the nostrils of the horses. There's a lot of alkali dust down there, and from where I looked, it was mighty rough country. We'd have to take a couple of shovels and at least one good pole we could use for a lever in case we get stuck. There's no way it is going to be easy."

  "Leave us shorthanded."

  "That it will. Hale has been leaving us alone, and I think he will until his celebration is over, but we can't count on that. We've got to be ready--really ready-- all the time."

  He paused. "If I can start soon, we might even bring the other wagon back that way. Sure as they get through to Blazer, Hale will have men waiting for them when they start back."

  He walked back toward the house, suddenly realizing how hungry he was. He had eaten nothing since early that morning, and he had used up a lot of energy.

  "Hale has all the time he needs. We do not. He can afford to sit back and let us eat up our supplies, and in the meantime he is playing politics with those men from the territorial capital and laying the groundwork to have no questions asked when he wipes us out."

  Jesse sat down on the step. "Ain't nobody about to tell our side of it."

  Kilkenny took off his hat and stripped off his shirt. He drew a bucket of water from the well and began to bathe the dust from his head and shoulders. The muscles ran like snakes under the tawny skin. "I may go down there and try to talk to them."

  "You'd never have a chance," O'Hara replied.

  "They'd kill you," Parson said.

  "Not while those officials are there. Not if they can help it. And the last thing I want is a gun battle. We've got to convince them we are what we are, just good citizens trying to build homes in the wilderness, and that we have filed on our claims ... as they can find out by checking."

  "How are you going to get to them?" O'Hara asked.

  "I don't know. I've got to think about that. He will have them as houseguests at the Castle, and they'd never let me get within a mile of that place.

  "If I stood around on the street or mingled with the carnival crowd, somebody would recognize me and they'd just block me off or take me out of there. They'd just watch their chance, slug me, pour whiskey on my shirt, and if any questions were asked, I would be just a drunk they'd put in jail to keep out of trouble."

  "Then how will you do it?"

  "I'll think of a way." He paused. "I'm going to the bunkhouse for a clean shirt, but I'll find a way, somehow, even if I have to fight Tombull Turner."

  He walked away from them, and they stood looking after him. "Fight Turner?" Jesse said. "He's crazy. Turner's a prizefighter. He's not another Hale."

  "Maybe," O'Hara said, "but did you watch Kilkenny move? He's like a big cat."

  "He can fight some," Jesse agreed. "He surely whopped King Bill, an' he was supposed to be something."

  "But Turner's a prizefighter! A man who makes his living that way!" Runyon had walked up. "I don't think there's anybody west of the Mississippi who'd have a chance with him. Anyway, they'd have somebody picked to fight him who could give him a fight."

  "He wasn't serious," Bartram commented. "He was just talking."

  "Maybe," Parson said, "but it would be one way of gettin' close to those folks from the capital. Anyway, that can wait. What we've got to think about now is gettin' to Blazer with a wagon."

  Nobody offered a word on the fact that one wagon had already started. They all knew what a slim chance it was that their wagon would get through, let alone get back with their men alive.

  "That desert country is right spooky," Jesse said. "I done looked over it from the rim a time or two. I never lost nothing down there."

  "If there was a way across," Runyon said, "we'd never have to worry about starving out. King Bill couldn't stop us from getting across."

  "He owns property in Blazer," O'Hara said. "He ain't a man to leave much to chance. He's coppered every bet."

  "Nevertheless, if we could make it..."

  "If anybody can, Kilkenny can," Parson said. "He sets out to do something, he does it. He never said a word about what happened today, but if you noticed, he come back with a length cut off his rope, and he ta
ken three of them with him. I wonder how he ever made it down that cliff."

  There was no table long enough to seat them all, and nobody wanted to wait, so when the food was dished up they took their plates and sat down wherever they could, leaving the table for the family.

  They were eating when Kilkenny came in. He got his plate and went to the step outside the open door. Shadows were gathering under the trees, and he felt fresher since his quick and partial bath.

  Bartram came out and sat beside him. "Look," he said, "I think that's a bad notion, you fighting Turner. The chances are they have somebody picked anyway. And how would you get a challenge to them? They'd shoot whoever you sent down."

  Ma Hatfield, a tall, rawboned women in a gray cotton dress, came to the door. "They wouldn't shoot me," she said, "and if need be, I'll go."

  "It was a notion," Kilkenny said, "just a notion. But I'd surely like to know who they've picked to fight him."

  Ma Hatfield refilled their cups and stood by with the coffeepot in hand. "I hain't been to town ha some time," she said, "an' I'm a-frettin' to go."

  She looked at Kilkenny. "They say you know that Riordan woman. Wouldn't she be likely to know who's to fight?"

  "She would know. She seems to know everything. She probably knows who is to come here from the capital, too."

  He looked up at her. "Ma, if you're serious, I'd really like to know two things. I'd like to know who is to fight Turner, and I'd like to know who it is that is coming down from the capital."

  "Why?" Bartram asked. "Do you know somebody there?"

  "Wish I did. No, I don't know anybody there, but there's a man named Halloran ... he's a man who would go a long way to see a good fight. He's at the capital, or so I heard."

  "Come daybreak," Ma said quietly, "I'll ride into town. I'll see that Riordan woman--"

  "Nita Riordan," Kilkenny suggested. "She's a fine person, Ma. You'll like her."

  "Hain't no matter, one way or t'other, but I'll see her an' find out what I can."