Land Grabbers

by Paul Lederer

  ‘They say that it’s a small world, don’t they, Clanahan?’ Shockley said. ‘This is the man who killed me, boys. The way he keeps following me, it seems he wants to try it again. Some people are just plain crazy.’

  Behind me I heard heavy, shuffling steps and glanced toward the door to see Barney Webb, battered more than I had thought, enter, blood smeared across his face. His eyes lit hungrily and he started toward me, hands balling into fists.

  ‘Sit down, Webb!’ Jake Shockley commanded. ‘You had your chance.’

  Only now as I glanced around the room again, did I see young Ned Webb standing in a far corner, his head bowed. He looked up now and waved a hand limply. ‘I’m sorry, Clanahan. I rode right into them before I knew who they were.’

  ‘It’s all right, Ned,’ I told him.

  So the army had not been alerted to the trouble on the Canoga. Where did that leave us, I wondered. The ranchers I had met all seemed to be capable men in their way, but they would be no match for the gang of thugs riding with Jake Shockley. I knew now why Barney Webb had been so angry – it wasn’t that I had taken his sons from their work or enlisted them to fight, it was that I had dispatched Ned to Fort Grant, carrying a message that could have destroyed all of their plans.

  ‘I suppose,’ I said to Shockley, ‘that these are the new settlers.’

  He came as close to a smile as he could. ‘That’s right. The only thing is, you’ve kind of snarled things up. We haven’t yet gotten the army to evict the old settlers.’ His hands came together and clenched tightly. ‘This could have all been done nice and neat, Clanahan, but you had to get involved in something that’s none of your business. Now there’s no way the original plan will work. Now, it seems, there are a lot of people who are going to be killed. We can’t let anyone ride off to tell the tale, can we? And it’s all your fault for meddling, Clanahan. Live with that if you can.’ He paused and lifted those dark eyes to meet mine.

  ‘Not that you’ll be alive that much longer yourself.’

  I had already figured as much, and Shockley’s pronouncement didn’t rock me as much as he intended it to. I knew what the odds on my living were. They sometimes say ‘between slim and none’, but I didn’t figure my chances even rose to the level of slim. I had another, more urgent thought buzzing in my skull, and if Shockley thought he saw panic in my eyes, maybe he did because of it:

  Where was Trish?

  ‘You can’t get away with it, you know,’ I said.

  ‘With what?’ Shockley asked with mock surprise. ‘By the time the army, anyone else gets up here to investigate we’ll have a sad tale to tell of an Indian uprising.’

  ‘The Yavapai! Don’t make me laugh, Shockley. They’re not a hostile people.’

  ‘Nobody will know what band of Indians did it – Apaches, maybe – we just came along and found the unhappy result. Men killed, tortured.…’

  ‘Women and children?’ I persisted, glancing at Barney Webb and the tall man standing beside him, who I took to be Wes King. Shockley didn’t answer. ‘Well, you’d have to kill them too, wouldn’t you? If even one person were left alive to tell the tale you’d lose everything. Did you think about that, Webb, when you signed this pact with the devil? What about your sons? Your wife. You, come to think of it. Why, you’d have something to hold over Jake’s head the rest of his life, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Why don’t you shut up, Clanahan,’ Jake Shockley said. ‘Barney knows I treat my friends right. He’s got first choice of the property when we start carving it up. No more trying to scratch a living on that dust patch the settlers gave him.’

  Barney Webb was wavering, but he could not afford to do so. He was in the game to the limit, all of his chips on the table. He had to believe Jake Shockley.

  ‘Cole might not like this,’ I said, and Jake’s stolid face for once showed surprise.

  ‘You know Hammond Cole?’ he demanded, half-rising.

  ‘We’ve met. I traveled a way with him.’

  Shockley sagged back into the chair, looking deeply thoughtful. ‘Did he have—?’ His question broke off and he wagged his head heavily. ‘Not now,’ he decided. ‘Get him out of here,’ Jake said, pointing a finger at me. I don’t have time to fool with him. There’s too much to do.’ Again he formed that mirthless smile and told me, ‘You’ll keep. I just have to decide which tree is the right one to hang you from.’

  ‘Why don’t you just shoot him!’ Barney Webb demanded. His eyes had a fiery hatred in them that had not been there before. I must have stirred up his emotions with my little speech.

  ‘I have a few more questions for Clanahan,’ Shockley answered. ‘Besides, I promised him that he’d hang,’ Shockley said, ‘and he will. You see, Barney, I do keep my promises. All of them. That barn out back have a lock on it?’ he asked Webb.

  ‘A bar across the doors.’

  ‘All right. Throw Clanahan in there. Latham? You and Quill take turns watching the barn – I wouldn’t want him to have a chance of slipping away.’

  I was escorted roughly across the dry yard behind the house beneath star-filled skies. The hazy glow of the rising moon was just visible along the eastern horizon as a barn door was swung open and thick hands shoved me inside to land on my face in the horse-smelling interior. The door closed again, cutting off all light, and the bar fell heavily into its iron brackets. From some chink in the plank walls enough starlight leaked into the barn so that I caught its reflection in the bay horse’s eye. I struggled to my feet, dusted off and went to the bay’s stall, resting my hand on its neck. In the adjoining stall, I noticed now, stood Trish’s roan pony. How then had she—?

  ‘What’s this,’ a soft voice inquired, ‘the rescue party?’ and Trish rose to her feet in the shadowed corner of the roan’s stall.

  ‘What are you doing here!’ I asked in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Where else could I have gone without being seen?’ she replied. ‘I know Ned’s horses, of course, and when I saw him riding this way surrounded by a group of men I did not know, I guessed there was trouble afoot. I didn’t wait around to find out what it was. I made for the barn, hoping to retrieve my roan, but there wasn’t enough time before they rode in – whoever they are.’

  I told her, briefly, who they were and what had been happening.

  ‘And now they’re talking about massacring everyone on the Canoga?’ she asked in disbelief.

  ‘If Shockley gets his way.’

  ‘No one could be that evil,’ Trish said.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered miserably, ‘someone could.’ I was feeling defeated and futile. I turned from Trish and braced my hands against the stall, staring into the blackness. I felt Trish’s hand touch my shoulder and slide down across my back before falling away.

  I said, ‘Maybe I just should have let well enough alone, like Shockley said. Let the counterfeit army run the settlers off their land.’

  Trish said, ‘Maybe you should have just ignored our problems altogether and run away, Giles.’ There was a smile in her voice, a comforting tone that said she understood my frustration. ‘All that being said, it’s over and done with now. Where do we go from here?’

  I looked back at the barred barn doors and asked, ‘Where can we go? What is there left to try?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m not willing to give up. Are you, Giles?’

  ‘No,’ I said wearily, turning to look down at her, a shadowy, somehow reassuring presence standing near to me. ‘Not yet.’

  I fell silent then and Trish stood unmoving as if trying to penetrate my thoughts. ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked at length.

  ‘I was wondering if maybe we ought just to let Cole come up the canyon trail. Maybe he could moderate Shockley’s actions. There’s something I don’t understand about their relationship.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we’d be any worse off than we are now,’ Trish said meditatively, ‘but then we’d be greatly outnumbered in any fight.’

  ‘I know it!’ I said in a harsh whispe
r. The truth was I didn’t see any way out of this. These men had come to bring war to the Canoga and would not be satisfied until it had been ignited.

  ‘We have to get out of here first,’ Trish said. ‘I could try to warn all the remaining ranchers – to make sure they have their doors locked and rifles ready.’

  ‘How do we get out, Trish?’

  ‘We have one advantage,’ she said. ‘They still don’t know that there are two of us in here.’

  She was right. There would only be one man standing watch outside the barred door. If we could somehow lure him inside.…

  ‘Let’s saddle the horses, Trish,’ I said. That done, I approached the barn doors. I could hear someone nervously pacing outside, probably annoyed at having been posted out in the night, missing whatever discussion was taking place inside Trish’s house. Which one was it? I wondered. Latham and Quill were the two names I had heard Shockley call. I supposed it didn’t matter. I tried:

  ‘Quill?’ and got only silence in return. Louder I said, ‘Quill?’

  Quill growled a response. ‘Shut up in there.’

  ‘I have something to say to you.’ Silence followed that as well. ‘There’s ten thousand in gold for you if you let me go.’

  That too was followed by silence, but it seemed to be a thoughtful silence. Or maybe that was only wishful thinking. Long minutes passed before I heard the outlaw whisper mistrustfully.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about ten thousand dollars in gold,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up. You haven’t got ten bucks, likely.’

  ‘Quill,’ I said, my head leaning against the barn door. ‘Listen to me. You’re in too deep with Shockley and his scheme. There’s going to be a hell of a lot of fighting, men dying on both sides. And when Hammond Cole gets here, he’s going to raise hell with Shockley as well. I know Cole,’ I lied. ‘He won’t like this. Not after he worked out his plan so carefully.’

  Again a long silence followed. Finally Quill asked, ‘This gold you’re talking about – where’d it come from?’

  ‘From—’ I put exasperation into my voice. ‘I can’t keep talking to a door. Come in for a minute. No one else is around, is there?’

  ‘Think I’m crazy!’ Quill asked. ‘You got anything to say, say it now.’

  ‘I have something to say, yes. Ten thousand if you let me escape. My life is worth that to me. What can Jake do to you, cuss you out, slap you around? Listen, Quill, I can’t talk through this damned door. I’ll back off. Stand in the middle of the floor, my back to you.’

  The silence this time was interminable. I was beginning to think that my ploy had failed, that Quill’s fear of Shockley was great enough to overcome his greed. I felt the barn doors push in, a bare inch. The bar was still in place in its iron brackets.

  ‘Step over where I can see you, Clanahan,’ he instructed me, ‘and back to the middle of the barn. Turn your back. I’ll give you two minutes to convince me.’

  I backed to the center of the barn and then turned my back. I had only a fleeting glimpse of Trish standing beside one of the doors with the axe handle in her hands. The heavy oaken bar was lifted and placed aside. Quill slipped into the barn, glanced left and right, unable to see Trish behind the door, and took three steps toward me, his rifle aimed at my back.

  ‘Tell me what the hell you’re talking about, Clanahan. Talk straight and talk fast.’

  I didn’t have to do either. Before the last word had escaped Quill’s lips, Trish had slipped from behind the door, raised the axe handle and slammed it down with all of her strength behind the outlaw’s ear. He folded up without a sound and skidded on his face across the barn floor to lie motionless.

  I snatched the rifle from Quill’s inert hands and slipped his Colt from its holster, sliding it into my own. Trish stood there, trembling, axe handle still in her hand.

  ‘Let’s get moving,’ I said urgently.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. Without a word between us we went to the stalls where our saddled horses stood and moved to the front of the barn. Outside it was silent; no one moved in the shadowed yard. Lights still blazed in Trish’s window as I closed the barn doors, replaced the bar, and with Trish, led the horses from the clearing. Beyond the oaks we paused and swung into leather.

  ‘Warn as many people as you can, Trish. Tell them to get everyone inside and lock down, ready for trouble.’

  ‘You, Clanahan, what—?’

  ‘First I’m going back to the canyon. I made a mistake. Now I have to tell the Canoga ranchers what’s happening back here. I’ll send them home.’

  You’ll be coming with them, won’t you?’ Trish asked. Her hair had mostly come free of its arrangement and now frizzed out in a moonlit halo once again. I had decided that I liked it that way better. Her eyes caught starlight and waited hopefully for my answer.

  ‘No, Trish,’ I said, when I could no longer remain silent. ‘I won’t be coming back with them. Find yourself a place to hole up in the strongest house you know of. Or … Trish, I wish you’d just ride away from all of this. There will be much fighting, much killing.’

  ‘I’ve already told you that I won’t run,’ Trish said defiantly. Then, ‘You’re not going to tell me what you’re going to do, are you?’

  ‘No. You wouldn’t like it and I don’t want anyone to know.’

  Frustration showed in her expression and in her voice, ‘I don’t think you know what you’re going to do at all!’ Then she swung her roan’s head around and heeled it into a rapid trot. I watched her go, weaving through the oaks, vanishing at last in the night shadows. I hated parting that way. Not knowing if I would ever even see her again.

  Glowering, I turned the bay horse westward, retracing my tracks to the head of the canyon where the Canoga boys stood watch. I did know what I was going to do, I just didn’t know if it made any sense at all. It was a desperate plan that I had formulated and I didn’t want to tell Trish and have her try to talk me out of it. I wanted to do it and have done with it one way or the other before I had the time to stop and weigh the consequences. I rode on through the night in the darkest mood in memory.

  ‘Hold up there,’ a voice from the darkness ordered as I reached the trailhead.

  ‘It’s Clanahan,’ I called out.

  ‘Come ahead.’

  I rode past the sentry – it was Dee Cobbold – and found the men gathered loosely together at the canyon rim, watching and waiting for Cole and his raiders. I swung down from my horse and walked up to them, their eyes studying me in the pale moonlight.

  ‘What’s happening, Clanahan?’

  ‘Have there been any Cole men trying the trail?’ I asked without answering.

  ‘Three or four of them tried to sneak up the canyon about an hour ago,’ Harold Kendrick told me. ‘We scattered them with a few dozen rifle shots.’

  ‘All right.’ I looked around, squatting down in the middle of the knot of Canoga settlers. ‘Can everybody hear me?’

  ‘Charlie and Oliver Webb are sleeping. Want me to get them?’ Gus Staley asked.

  ‘No, let them have their rest. This doesn’t concern them anyway. You’ve all got to return home.’ Their faces wore puzzled disbelief. After all, I had practically begged them to ride out here and help me hold the canyon road against Cole and his men. But everything had changed. I hadn’t been expecting an attack from the rear, nor could I have known Shockley’s blood-thirsty plan of action. As quickly as possible, I told them what was happening back on the Canoga. Some of them were heading for their horses before I had even finished speaking.

  ‘It might be a good idea for several families to fort up in one of the bigger houses,’ I said. I got a collection of grunts, nods, indifferent shrugs in response.

  ‘How ’bout you let us fight this battle our own way, Clanahan?’ DeFord growled. ‘You didn’t do us a favor with your advice the first time – got us all out here leaving our homes and family unprotected.’ He was one of those who had alr
eady swung into the saddle. ‘If these raiders hit my spread while I’m out here … God help you if I cut your trail again.’

  I couldn’t blame him. DeFord was right. I had summoned them all away from their ranches, not knowing that Shockley was so close. What had brought Jake into the fight prematurely? According to Cole’s plan he and his men were supposed to wait until the settlers had been forced from their land. And Jake could have had no way of knowing that Cole was bugged down in the canyon. I didn’t like it. Not a bit.

  Which was why I was going to do what I intended.

  Sleepy-eyed, Charlie and Oliver Webb wandered toward me, Ollie with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. They watched the Canoga men slap spurs to their horses and ride hard back toward the settlement. Frowning, Charlie asked:

  ‘What’s going on, Clanahan?’

  I had to tell them. Tell them all – including the fact that their father had fallen in with the raiders, made a pact with them to improve his lot, that he and Wes King were traitors. I don’t know how much of this they believed, how much they accepted. It’s never easy to believe the worst of family. Oliver seemed dazed by the implications.

  ‘What do we do, Charles?’ he asked his older brother.

  ‘What can we do?’ Charlie answered with a sigh. ‘We have to get back to the ranch.’

  ‘That leaves Clanahan alone to watch the trail.’

  ‘We’ll just have to let them have it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter much anymore. Besides, it will take them a while to figure out that we’ve all pulled out.’

  ‘All of us? You too, Clanahan? Where are you going?’ Charlie asked. The friendliness that had always been in his eyes was gone now.

  ‘I’m going down there,’ I said, inclining my head toward Cole’s distant troops.

  ‘And do what!’ Charlie exclaimed. Ollie was even more upset.

  ‘He said he knew Cole, didn’t he? Maybe he’s been working with the land grabbers all along, bringing all the ranchers over here while another group of raiders snuck in the back way.’