by T. T. Flynn
Will’s glance crossed Michael Lake’s demanding anger. New, brusque authority filled Lake’s question. “Explain, sir, this business of selling guns to hostiles!”
“Darrah is the one to explain. You heard me, Colonel. Darrah has a shipment of rifles now, undoubtedly meant for the Indian trade.”
“I’ll hear what you have to say.”
“Not much,” Will said, and the old, bitter anger came back. “I lost a brother in the meat chopper at Dutch Canyon. Someone knew how the Apaches got the new repeating rifles they used at the Canyon. I’ve been looking for that man.”
“Dutch Canyon,” said Lake under his breath. “Yes, it was bad. Is this Darrah the fellow who has a store in Coronado?”
Will nodded. The old prodding anger put him past wanting understanding or permission. “I’ve some more to do about this, at once.”
And Will learned now why Michael Lake had qualities which had carried the man’s name through distant outposts and garrisons. A gleam entered Lake’s frosty look.
“I seem to have missed some of your talk with this man,” Lake said thoughtfully. “And since you seem to be a civilian, I’ve no interest in your affairs. We’ll see to this wounded man.”
Will had to suppress an admiring salute. He stepped to the rock outcrop and caught up his carbine, and he chose Hansbro’s gray gelding for the ride. And as he left without looking back, he was aware that now all friendship with Barbara Kirby would end. Always Barbara would remember him as the stranger who had smashed her future and her happiness.
The thought hung in Will’s mind depressingly as he followed the ranch road toward Coronado. It was there when the distant rider he sighted drew nearer and became Frank Darrah.
The man looked as well-dressed as usual, Will noted. Darrah was successful, he was prosperous, and he had a certain florid handsomeness, too. Will could understand Barbara’s feeling for the man. He noted Darrah’s puzzled scowl at the gray gelding when they met and halted.
“Yes, it’s Hansbro’s horse,” Will said evenly.
Darrah gaped at him. A kind of quick panic and fright put a greenish look on the florid face. Darrah swallowed twice before his angry harshness came through.
“Have they caught Hansbro?”
“For what?” Will asked.
Darrah swallowed again, and Will’s tired disgust ended the farce. “I caught Hansbro. I shot him. He talked about your hiring him to kill Waggoman. And a lot more.”
“He lied!”
“Did he?” said Will indifferently. “Do you still think you’ll get Barb? Or sell those guns in your powder house?”
Darrah looked greenish-sick; he looked ghastly. The question he asked was thick, shaking. “You found Hansbro alone and shot him?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got five thousand dollars cash here, Lockhart. I can get more. Five thousand more—”
“Now wouldn’t that be a bargain buy?” Will said in greater disgust. “Come along to Half-Moon. We’ll wait there for the sheriff.”
The man’s thick desperation urged, “Fifteen thousand! You’ll get every penny! Here’s the first five thousand now—”
Will’s alert watchfulness relaxed as Darrah’s hand dragged a bulging canvas money sack from his coat pocket. With shaking hands, Darrah loosed the draw string and opened the sack.
“Look at this, and I’ll get the rest!” was his thick promise as he reached in the sack. “Every d-dollar of it, before night—”
The flat, loud blurt of a gunshot covered Darrah’s voice. Will felt the bullet shocking his right side, heeling him back against the cantle. There was no pain. In a kind of marveling surprise, Will gazed at the powder smoke which had spurted from a new, tiny hole in the sack’s side.
A derringer hidden in there. He was paying Hans-bro, and must have meant to shoot Hansbro! flashed through Will’s brain, and the irony of it was supreme. And in the same second, Will was groping back for his own holstered gun, and the arm, the hand, and all his right side felt numb and sluggish.
The greenish fright still held on Darrah’s face, but the hand remained in the sack.
Double-barreled! Another bullet! Will guessed as he dragged the heavy Colt’s gun from the holster. His shocked, sluggish body bent forward a little, straining unconsciously against the hammer blow of another bullet.
This will kill, and he’ll talk out of it someway, and get Barb and Barbara, too! went tiredly through Will’s mind.
Then the walloping report inside the sack opened another tiny hole which spewed its mocking vapor. The shock to flesh and bone drove Will reeling, and in some dogged, stubborn way his thumb continued to cock the heavy Colt’s gun.
Darrah saw it. A look of frenzied horror came on his face as Will’s great effort brought the gun forward. Darrah’s frantic snatch of the reins wheeled his horse off the road. When the gun bucked and crashed in Will’s unsteady hand, the violent crackling of roadside brush around Darrah’s bolting horse did not abate.
Will tried again, cocking, straining the muzzle up in dreamlike, shocked slowness. Darrah was bent low now, kicking his horse into a gallop beyond the belt of brush. This try missed, too. Darrah did not look back as he fled south into the foothills.
Tiredly Will looked after the man. Then slowly, with great effort, Will climbed off the gray horse. He staggered and sat down heavily beside the road.
He was sitting there dully, and the sunlight around him was like a brassy fog when a horse and a big mouse-colored mule took shape in the road. Incredibly the riders were Barbara and red-whiskered Charley Yuill.
And when Charley dropped to a knee beside Will, Charley’s knowledge seemed logical. “Was it Darrah, Cap’n?”
Will nodded. Charley spoke hastily over a shoulder to Barbara. “Get the doc from Half-Moon.”
“How bad?” asked Barbara’s tight voice. She was looking at the blood-soaked shirt. She was pale.
“Ma’am,” said Charley, “you’d better hurry.”
Barbara’s quirted horse pounded away. Charley spread his coat behind Will. “Lie back, Cap’n. What happened?”
On his back, Will dragged his hat forward, with an effort, against the sun glare. His mutter was rueful. “Charley, he was smarter than I thought.”
Charley was opening the shirt. Some time later Charley’s calloused palm slapped Will’s face. “Stay awake, Cap’n!”
Will’s drowsy grin held no offense. Past the edge of the shading hatbrim he muttered dreamily, “Dutch Canyon—and then here—Got both brothers, didn’t he, Charley?”
“Dinna speak so foolish!” Charley’s worried burr commanded. “The doc’ll be here quick!” Charley slapped Will’s chin. “Cap’n, get mad! Stay awake!”
Will’s faint smile was tolerant. Then a thought made him frown under the hat. “Charley, those guns—”
“Cap’n, I’ll track Darrah.”
“Good man, Charley—”
Some time later riders were about them and Matt Seldon uncovered Will’s face. Smiling slightly at the doctor’s serious look, Will let himself drift comfortably into the soft drowsiness. And when he looked up again, Seldon’s graying Van Dyke was oddly the broad, concerned face of Kate Canaday.
Will’s puzzled frown deepened as he looked past Kate. Her gusty relief was like an invigorating shock. “Made up your mind to stay with us?” Kate demanded.
“Isn’t this the Kirby house?”
“Same house,” said Kate. “Same bed you was in before. Alec’s in the next room. An’ why Barbara don’t get tired of takin’ in beat-up strangers is a miracle.”
Will moved cautiously. His middle was swathed in bandages, and under the bandages was more pain. He frowned again. “Very beat up, evidently. Should have taken me to the hotel.”
“Ain’t a bit of doubt of it,” Kate agreed.
“What time is it?”
“Afternoon. Jubal hauled you here yesterday.” Kate was a new woman, dignified in a wine-colored silk dress with puffed sleeves. Her iron
-gray pompadour was brushed high and impressively, and rice powder had been discreetly applied to Kate’s reddish, weathered face. Marveling, Will murmured, “So Waggoman is here, too.”
“Doc wanted him brought to town.”
“How is Waggoman?”
“As usual, meaner’n sin. But someone,” said Kate with a trace of defiance, “has got to look after the old blowbag.”
Will recalled the gray dawn hour and this big, buffeted woman kneeling by Alec Waggoman. Gravely, obtusely, Will wondered, “Do you have to look after him?”
The slightest flush crept into Kate’s broad cheeks.
“Who else’d put up with the man?” Kate cleared her throat. “Alec made me a kinda business proposition. Dave’s dead, an’ Alec won’t see his own victuals before long. I ain’t got a roof now. So Alec’s got an idea I can run both ranches from Barb. Usin’ my eyes an’ his brain, like he had a brain.”
“Mmmmmm,” said Will gravely. “You take over Hansbro’s job?”
“Wel-l-l, not exactly. Alec was hopin’ you’d come over as foreman.”
“Impossible. I’ve business of my own to go back to.”
“Colonel Lake guessed so,” said Kate with resignation. “He said to stop by the fort before you left an’ get your hand shaken.”
“Now did he?” Will murmured. His relief came then in a smile. “When,” Will asked, “is the wedding?”
Now Kate’s face did redden. Bulking beside the bed, big, defiant, blushing, Kate reluctantly admitted, “If I got to stay at Barb, marryin’ the old wind-bag seems the best way. When his eyes give out, this beat-up old face of mine won’t turn all his appetite.”
Will looked at her long and smiling, marveling that a kind of beauty and shining happiness could come so fully to this big, weather-beaten woman.
“Kate, I’m glad,” Will said, and Kate grumbled, “I feel like a fool, at my age.”
“You look like a bride,” Will said, and he saw that it pleased Kate greatly, despite her indignant snort.
Then a thought narrowed Kate’s glance. “I reckon you don’t know about Darrah.”
“What about the man?” Will asked quickly.
“Charley Yuill an’ three of the boys followed Darrah’s trail,” Kate said. “Later on they found he’d half killed his horse gettin’ to town. He loaded grub at the back of his store, cleaned out his safe, an’ then drove to his powder house an’ loaded cases of guns an’ shells.”
Will groaned. “I was afraid.”
Kate said dryly, “Darrah was more afraid. Charley Yuill spotted the fresh wagon tracks comin’ out of the powder house road. The men followed ’em, and met the sheriff’s posse comin’ from Roxton Springs. Part of the posse went with them. Darrah was heading toward the salt lakes an’ the Apache country.”
“With new rifles and shells, he’d be welcomed and protected among the Apaches,” Will guessed thinly.
“Uh-huh,” Kate agreed. “But by trackin’ his wagon quick, the boys got a jump on him. They sighted his wagon, and when Darrah saw them, he cut a horse loose and tried to get away.”
“Tried?” Will said hopefully. “Did they catch him?”
“In a way. The salt crew at the lakes had just been raided an’ killed. Same Indians seen Darrah coming an’ jumped him. He turned back toward the posse, but the Indians had good repeating rifles. They dropped Darrah’s horse. He was running on foot when they downed him. They got his scalp and got clean away before the posse come up.”
Slowly, softly, Will drew a long deep breath. “New rifles—Good repeating rifles—And he was shot by them—and then scalped—”
Will lay thinking about it, strangely not glad, but at peace now, with the long hunt ended. He said quietly, “I’m sorry for Barbara.”
“She ain’t happy about it, of course,” Kate said. “But she’d been to town, given Darrah back his ring, and broken completely with him. They found your gun on Darrah, the one Dave took from you. Ain’t any doubt now Frank Darrah killed Dave. And Barbara, and everyone else, knows now all Darrah wanted was to get his hands on Barb quick by marryin’ Barbara.” Kate’s smile was grim. “A woman sure gets cured complete, knowing she was only a cash drawer.”
Will lay in astounded silence, hardly hearing Kate’s next words.
“Barbara ain’t a catch that way now. I mean to make Alec live a long time. But someday she’ll have Barb an’ Half-Moon, too. She’ll need a real man to help.” Kate paused. “Got any ideas about that?”
Calmly Will said, “My idea is that you’re still a scheming, conniving old woman.”
“Now ain’t I just?” was Kate’s unabashed agreement.
“Where is Barbara?”
“She went to the store.” Kate turned her head as her name was called in the next room. “I’m comin’ right now, Alec,” she answered meekly.
She left hastily, and Will lay quietly, smiling a little as he listened to the two voices murmuring in the next room. Could all the lost years be packed into the remainder for those two, Will wondered. In a way he envied them for what they had found again. And when he heard Barbara enter the house, he closed his eyes again.
Her light quick steps came to his doorway, then moved to Waggoman’s doorway. Barbara’s quiet voice asked there, “Has there been any change in him?”
“In Alec?” Kate asked.
“You know who I mean.”
“I got my hands full with this one,” said Kate blandly. “Look after your own man.”
“Kate, he’s not—”
“Ain’t my fault,” said Kate.
Barbara’s brisk steps went to the kitchen. A few moments later she stepped into Will’s room, and came to the bed. Lying quietly with his eyes closed, Will felt her nearness and her silent contemplation. Barbara’s hand touched his forehead, pushing back his hair, and rested against his cheek for a moment.
His right hand captured her hand there. Barbara gasped slightly, and Will held the small hand against his cheek. His eyes still closed, he said, “I’ll be merely another captain in a hardscrabble fort up the Missouri. A hard life for the army wives and lonesome for the single men.”
Barbara said, “Is it?” Her voice was not small or hesitant. She sounded quiet, composed.
He looked up then, into Barbara’s steady regard. He knew her now, young, spirited, with pensive depths, with understanding. He said quietly, “Kate loved him like storm in the sunshine—”
Barbara’s mouth softened into a remembering smile. She quoted Will’s opinion. “Riches for any man—”
Holding her captured hand against his stubble-roughened cheek, Will repeated Barbara’s words of that chill dawn. “Or any woman—”
“Any woman,” Barbara said now, again.
It was in her eyes, shining in her look, all the years to be not missed as that graying couple in the next room had missed. Will drew Barbara down, and she came to him, her smooth cheek against his rough face—beyond all doubt, Will knew now, riches enough for any man.
Other Leisure books by T. T. Flynn:
REUNION AT COTTONWOOD STATION
RIDE TO GLORY
HELL’S CAÑON
THE DEVIL’S LODE
RAWHIDE
LONG JOURNEY TO DEEP CAÑON
NIGHT OF THE COMANCHE MOON
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
April 2009
Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.
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Copyright © 1954 by T. T. Flynn
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