They don’t feel nothing Ben thought. They don’t feel a damn thing.
Carmody was stooping, looking down into Spur’s face. He gesticulated. Ben itched to lift his rifle and shoot him dead.
Spur lifted his head. Two men bent over him and lifted him. They heaved him on to the back of the horse in front of the woman. He sat the saddle, bent forward, head drooping. The woman held him upright.
Carmody and the two men walked back to their horses and mounted. The line of riders moved on. The Negro lay still in his cover, watching them go. He had to get Spur away from them. One dark night He chuckled suddenly to himself. He could creep up on an Apache and steal his breechclout. He’d show that Carmody and his deputies. He backed up through the rocks and caught up the horses and the mule.
He put the saddle on the stud and mounted, driving the stock ahead of him. He headed south-west and reckoned he wouldn’t catch sight of Carmody and the rest till it suited him. Spur was obviously in no great shape, but he was still alive. He reckoned that Carmody would keep him alive. For the trial.
There wouldn’t be a trial, Ben promised himself. Not while he was alive. And then from out of nowhere came thought of the Cimarron Kid. He wondered where that no-good boy had gotten to. Right now he could have used the Kid’s gun. Between them they could have swung it. But the boy was trash. He was better off without him.
He rode on.
The Kid was headed, he told himself, for Arizona. He had changed his mind about California. He was apt to change his mind frequently. That was the kind of boy he was. It was lying up in the hills for several days giving his leg a chance to heal that had allowed him time to think. Arizona was the country for a man of his kind. It was wild and free.
He rode easily, but his wary eyes searched the country as he rode. In the last week or so he’d had some close calls and he didn’t like the experience much. He reckoned if Spur and Ben didn’t happen along he’d be dead now. He’d never have let Carmody take him. Death was preferable to imprisonment. He laughed to himself. But he had gotten out of that one. There wasn’t a man living who could take and hold him.
His mind shied away from the truth of it, the fear he had felt, the rage that had come to him when he found himself in the presence of masters like Spur and Cuzie Ben. Beside them he felt nothing more than a cheap little killer that had gathered his scalps with shots in the back and in the dark. He cursed Spur to himself. The man had made him feel something small. He was used to being feared. He had a right to be feared. He was the fastest gun alive. Spur had got the better of him that day because he was wounded. If they had met with guns in leather, Spur would have backed down. There wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t back down to the Kid.
Yet even as he told it to himself, he knew it was a lie. Spur and the Negro weren’t scared of him. They didn’t scare of anything.
God damn Spur.
He rode on. The horse he had taken from that cowhand didn’t amount to much and he hated to ride it. Nothing more than crow bait. But he would come up with some good horseflesh and help himself. The world owed it to him. The strong helped themselves to what they wanted.
He was riding through rough country, keeping to the ridges so that he couldn’t be jumped from above. At the crest of a ridge, he decided that the horse he rode had had enough, so, dismounting, he loosened the cinches and gave it a breather. He squatted, built a smoke and eased his legs.
He had finished his smoke and was preparing to mount when he heard a sound. Quickly, he put a hand over the muzzle of his horse. Looking below him, he saw a mule trot into sight.
His heart stood still.
He had seen that ugly crittur before.
Next came a little mare. Now he had no doubt. That was Jenny, Spur’s mare that he had coveted so much. Then came another saddle horse. At rear came Ben mounted on the red stud. The Kid could hardly believe his eyes. In all this country … but where the hell was Spur.
He grinned to himself.
This was where he got some of his own back.
He reached the cowhand’s carbine from the boot and levered a shell into the breech.
“Ben,” he called.
The Negro halted the stud and turned his head. He saw the Kid and he saw the rifle. He looked as calm as ever.
“Howdy, boy,” he called back.
The Kid said: “Don’t you move an eyebrow, Ben, or I’m goin’ to kill you.”
The Negro didn’t say anything, but sat still in the saddle. He had folded his hands on the horn and was watching the boy without an expression on his face.
The Kid walked down toward him. He was pretty mad that Ben was so calm. He should have been scared.
“What you want, boy?” Ben asked.
The Kid laughed. He was really enjoying himself.
“I want the stud for a start,” he said. “Maybe I’ll take the mare, too.”
The Negro just stared at him. Suddenly, the Kid became suspicious of the terrible calm of the man. Maybe Ben had something up his sleeve; maybe there was something the Kid hadn’t thought of.
The Kid said: “Shuck your gun, Ben. Do it careful.”
Ben shook his head slowly.
“I shuck my gun, you kill me,” he said. “I know you, Kid. You killed more unarmed men than anybody I know.”
Rage burned through the boy, his finger trembled on the trigger of the carbine. He nearly shot Ben down there and then.
“I ought to kill you just for that,” the Kid said, his voice shaking.
“There’s something you oughta know,” Ben said.
The way the Negro said that was so ominous that the Kid was scared again. There must be something he hadn’t thought of, some terrible danger. Maybe Ben wasn’t alone; maybe there was a gun pointed at him from behind right now.
Hardily, he said: “I know all I want to know. I got the drop on the great Cuzie Ben. He don’t stand no more chance than a dollar-a-day hand. Ease that gun out and get down off that horse.”
Ben sighed.
“Put up that fool gun,” he said, “an let’s talk. I don’t want no trouble with you. You think I didn’t see you up in them rocks? You think I couldn’t of cut you down right off?”
That shook the Kid. He didn’t believe it because he didn’t want to.
“If you could of done it, you’d of done it,” he said.
Ben said: “You want me to prove it to you?”
The Kid sneered. “Go ahead.”
“You’ll be plumb killed dead,” Ben told him.
Something cracked right inside the boy. Ben’s reputation was too big for him. There was a deadly aura about the man that was too bright for him to face. He hesitated and in that moment of hesitation, he was lost. Ben had won.
“You givin’ it me straight, Ben?” he asked.
“Boy, you got my word. I don’t mean you no harm. We forget about you takin’ the stud. Sure, ride the mare. String along with me. I need you.”
The Kid’s mouth fell open. Ben hated him. He had called Ben “nigger”. A man like Ben didn’t forget that.
“Where’s the catch?” he demanded.
“Catch is you could get yourself killed. But then you ain’t a coward. You’m the Kid. You ain’t scared of dyin’.”
The Kid found that he had lowered the muzzle of the carbine.
Ben puzzled himself by his attitude to the Kid. A short while back he had called the boy trash to himself. Thought he could get along without him. But now he was thinking of how Spur regarded the boy. Spur must have found something in him that he, Ben, couldn’t. The Kid to him was just a little killer gone haywire. Sure, Ben had killed men and was likely to kill a sight more. But that was to stay alive. He didn’t ever kill for the sake of it. Like Spur he had kept control of himself. Gun sickness had not taken hold of him. Or had it? For the first time, Ben questioned himself. What would he have become if he hadn’t met up with Spur. There had been periods in his life when he had lived normally, such as when he was a cook for the cow-outfit with
Spur on the Cimarron Strip. But the truth of his being an outlaw forced itself back on him with a terrifying inevitability. Spur had seen something in him other men hadn’t seen. Spur had seen the same in the Kid.
The Kid was waiting, watching him. The deadliness had gone from those dark eyes and there was only curiosity there.
“They took Spur,” Ben told him and watched for a reaction.
“Who took Spur?”
“We tangled with Tom Ball and some of his boys when they tried to take the stud away from us. Spur got hit. Then Carmody and a posse come up and took the whole bunch. Me—I lit out. I left him there.”
There was something like agony in the Negro’s voice.
“You ran?” There was scorn in the boy’s voice.
“I didn’t have no choice.”
“He was your partner. Hell, I wouldn’t never run out on a partner.”
“A lot of good I woulda been dead.”
“But a partner don’t run.”
Ben nodded. Maybe the kid had something there.
“Now’s your chance to prove it,” Ben said.
“What does that mean?”
Ben said: “I’m goin’ to get Spur away from them an’ you’re goin’ to help me.”
The Kid looked wild.
“Spur ain’t nothin’ to me.”
“He saved your life. You owe him.”
“I don’t owe him nothin’. Carmody wouldn’t of took me. The whole Goddam posse was scared.”
Ben raised his voice a little. His eyes looked savage.
“You was hit bad. Finished. You’d be dead now if’n it wasn’t for Spur. Me— I’d of put a bullet in your no-good hide long gone.”
For a moment it looked as if the enraged boy would lift the carbine and shoot the Negro dead. A terrible struggle seemed to be going on in his mind.
Ben went on: “Sam saw somethin’ in you, boy. What the hell he seen I can’t rightly tell, but he seen it. Here’s your chance to prove him right.”
The Kid drew in a deep breath.
“I’ll take the stud,” he said. “Climb down.”
Ben’s gun appeared in his hand. It was the fastest thing the Kid had ever seen. It stunned him. The Negro had drawn before he could lift the carbine and fire. The terrible truth that Ben could have killed him had he wanted put cold clay in his guts. Automatically, he dropped the carbine to the ground.
“Go ahead, white boy,” Ben said. “Pull your iron. Let’s see how good you is.”
The Kid mumbled: “I ain’t that crazy.”
Ben said: “See my saddle-horse yonder. You can take that. Go ahead. Clear out. The sight of you makes me sick to the stomach.”
The Kid was amazed by this generosity. Dumbly, he climbed down and transferred himself to the bay. He couldn’t make it out. Once remounted, he turned in the saddle to speak, but he hesitated and remained silent. Ben had put his gun away and seemed to be regarding him carelessly. The Kid was something not worth worrying about. For one crazy moment he was tempted to try and draw and kill the Negro, take the stud and mare, ride off. Something stopped him and that something wasn’t all fear and respect for Ben’s speed. He turned the bay and rode away.
Chapter Twelve
They were camped in the open. I Carmody had chosen a spot exposed to the elements for the simple reason that he wanted to know if anybody approached or left the camp. It was something he had learned long ago. It would take him another four days to reach town and he didn’t mean to lose his captives. If he kept them, his name would be legend; if he lost them, he would be the laughing stock of his world.
He had placed his two guards carefully. He had arranged matters so that he had two men on and two off during the night. He himself woke every now and then at irregular intervals to check that all was well. He had given orders that if any of the prisoners tried to make a break, they were to be shot in the legs. The woman was to be treated no differently from the men. She was poison and even more dangerous than any of the men.
Carmody was a man who saw life in black and white. He was good and these people were bad. Once, long ago in his youth, he had been on the outside of the law and had been bad. But he had made up for that, he had washed out his sin. He upheld the law now and had dedicated his life to it. If he brought these men in, he reckoned that he would have brought in more bad ones than any lawman living. Men would point to him in the street— the great peace officer, the fearless upholder of justice; stories would be written about him; when he entered a town, the badmen would disappear out the other end.
It made him feel good. He enjoyed the terrible revulsion he felt for these people. Take that Spur for instance. He was like a hurt animal; he hadn’t spoken since he had been taken. He suffered silently like an animal, willing himself to die before he, Carmody, put rope around his neck. No damn fight in him now he was taken, now he didn’t have a gun in his hand. They were all the same, their guns were their courage.
The prisoners were on the other side of the fire from the sheriff, the four of them lying together so the guards could watch them the more easily. The woman was lying next to Spur. She had ridden with him on the same horse all day and seemed to have adopted him. It was she who tried to comfort him in his pain. This surprised Carmody. People like that shouldn’t have feelings.
They were all bound hand and foot. Tight.
The woman had her head lifted, glaring at Carmody baleful as a she-lion, screaming: “He’s dyin’. Is that what you want—him to die?”
Carmody showed his big teeth in a mirthless grin.
“Hold your noise, woman,” he said.
Ball said: “So he’s dyin’. What’s that to you? Shut it, Annie, an’ get some sleep.”
“Christ,” cried the woman, “Don’t you bastards have no feelin’s. You wouldn’t treat a dog this way.”
Spur lay white-faced, not saying anything.
Carmody stuck a stogie between his lips, lit it with a burning from the fire and stood up. He paced around the fire and stared down first at the woman, then at Spur. The outlaw lifted his eyes to the man above him.
“I don’t have any feelin’s for your kind,” the sheriff said. “Not a shred. You’re trash.”
“One day,” the woman told him, “I’m goin’ to face you with my hands free and with a gun. Then I’m goin’ to gut shoot you and leave you lie.”
Carmody laid his cold glance on her.
“They won’t hang you, Annie,” he said, “because you’re a woman. But if I had my way...”
Ball said: “To hell with Spur. Only one thing matters. You ain’t fed us in a day. You aim to starve us to death, Carmody?”
The sheriff told him: “We’re short on supplies and I don’t aim to feed you when we go short ourselves.”
“This won’t look so good when it comes out at the trial.”
“Who’ll believe a gunny like you?”
Carmody turned on his heel. He got down on his blankets and added: “Any more noise outa of any of you an’ I’ll bend my gun barrel over your heads.”
Annie called him several foul names.
Spur closed his eyes. He was weak and the only fight left in him was in his will. He willed himself to stay alive. Where was Ben? Was he going to try anything? He knew that he was too weak to try anything by himself. While Ben was out there free, there was still hope. If Ben didn’t come he knew that he would hang, wounded or not. Carmody would take him to Arkhold, a deputy would come up from Texas and take him back home. His family would be there to see him hang maybe. Not a nice thought. He thought of his father and his mother, he thought of his girl on the Cimarron strip and wondered how she was making out. He wondered if he would live to see them again. At last, exhausted with pain, he fell into a troubled sleep.
One of the deputies woke him with the butt-end of a rifle. He stirred, stiff and cold in the dawn. Carmody was striding up and down, beating himself with his arms to get warm. The fire had died down and he was angry. He liked to wake to hot coffee. He wante
d the coffee and he wanted to move on. He couldn’t get this bunch back to town too quickly.
Spur tried to sit up and he did so through a wall of pain. The woman rolled over and looked at him.
“How you feelin’?” she asked.
It seemed funny to Spur that this strange woman was trying to kill him only a short while back.
“Fine,” he said. She snorted.
While one deputy stood by with a rifle ready, the others unfastened the bonds that held the prisoner’s ankles. Stiffly and awkwardly, with many a groan, the prisoners rose first to their knees and then to their feet. Mig Rawlins hawked and spat. One of the deputies coughed on his first smoke of the day. Then came the job of manhandling the prisoners onto their horses and tying their feet under the animals’ bellies. There was a lot of cursing on the part of the deputies. They didn’t handle the outlaws with any gentleness. The woman spat at them as usual and Carmody cuffed her around the head as he would do a man. As usual, she told him she’d live to kill him. She went into detail about how she would do it.
Spur was lifted and placed in front of the woman. Earlier her hands had been free so that she could hold him on, but that had made Carmody nervous and now her hands stayed tied. Spur loosened his belt and looped it over the saddle horn. His feet weren’t tied under the horse. As Carmody said, he wasn’t going anywhere.
They moved out in the misty dawn, going slowly on their way.
Ben travelled briskly after he parted company with the Kid. He didn’t know the country around Arkhold City well, but he knew it some. So it was his plan to get into the rough country that covered the approach to the city and to take a good look at the lie of the land. If he was to get Sam away from a man like Carmody he would have to plan his moves carefully.
He weighed the things which were for and against his doing what he wanted. The only thing he really had on his side, it seemed, was mobility. He had excellent horseflesh, far better than that of Carmody and his men. He could change and change about with the mare and the stallion and could keep a good pace without tiring his animals. He had nothing very clear in his head, all he was certain of was that he wanted Spur free. Having got him free, he would be faced with the serious problem of getting him out of the country. It would not be easy to waft a wounded man magically away. He didn’t fool himself for one moment that it would be easy.
The Cimarron Kid (A Sam Spur Western Book 5) Page 10
