Dead Man's Range

by Paul Durst

  ‘I should’ve known better,’ Carmody said quietly, picking himself up from the floor. He edged to the window and yelled, ‘Dalmas! Watch out for Anson! He’s in the bunkhouse.’

  Anson shouted something and a second shot tore angrily through the window beside Carmody. He moved his head back quickly and grinned at Anne. ‘I think he’s mad at somebody.’

  Anne didn’t return his smile but peered cautiously out of her window and said anxiously, ‘Jeff – look at Mose Dalmas. He’s riding straight up to the bunkhouse.’

  Carmody looked. ‘Why the damned old fool!’ he said, but there was more admiration than censure in his tone and he added softly, ‘I’ve guessed wrong about a few men in my time.’ He was thinking of Caleb and Clint Merriweather. ‘But I’ve never guessed as wrong as I have about Mose. He’s got iron in him someplace – but that won’t keep him from gettin’ killed.’ He raised his head and yelled, ‘Mose! Get back there! You tryin’ to commit suicide? Get back – we’ll smoke him out of there.’

  ‘I’ll handle this, Carmody,’ Dalmas shouted belligerently and continued to ride slowly forward.

  ‘Damn fool!’ Carmody swore. ‘Now he’s just tryin’ to show us how much spunk he has got. If he’d only wait a minute.…’

  ‘That’ll do, Dalmas!’ Anson called. ‘I got you covered. Now get down off that horse and lead him up here.’

  The sheriff continued to ride slowly toward the man in the bunkhouse. ‘You ain’t got a prayer in hell, Booth. I got your crew. I got your horses. I got you surrounded. Now come out of there and give yourself up. If you shoot me you ain’t goin’ to leave that shack alive and you know it!’

  There was abject silence for a while while Anson studied the obvious truth of this statement. Dalmas rode up to within ten feet of the bunkhouse.

  ‘Come on out, Booth. Come out with your hands up and I’ll see you get a fair trial.’

  ‘How do I know that?’ Anson hedged. ‘You’re tryin’ to arrest me when it’s Carmody you ought to be after. He killed three of my men – that’s why I came after him. I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. Carmody’s the man you want.’

  ‘I suppose you burned down the barn to see if he was under it.’

  ‘That was an accident. One of the boys knocked over a lantern by accident, that’s how the barn burned. You can’t arrest me for that. Now what about Carmody? You goin’ to let him off scot free after he’s murdered three of my men?’

  There was a long moment of hesitation in which Carmody murmured to Anne, ‘He’ll come out. But only because he knows he’s a dead gopher if he stays in.’

  ‘All right,’ Anson called. ‘I’ll come out. But you ain’t got nothin’ on me.

  The door opened slowly, then Anson appeared in the doorway, glancing quickly around. Carmody felt a sudden tingle of alarm. ‘I don’t like this,’ he growled. ‘I’d better get out there.’

  He handed Anne the Winchester and was moving across the kitchen for the door when it happened.

  ‘Throw your gun down!’ Dalmas ordered. Anson slid the Colt from his holster, tossed it impudently on the ground beside the sheriff’s horse. Dalmas dismounted, pistol in hand, and bent to pick it up. Anson slipped his hand inside his shirt, drew a second Colt from his waistband and shot Dalmas twice in the back.

  Carmody was on the porch when he heard Anne’s scream a second before the crash of the shots. He bounded into the yard with his gun drawn in time to see Anson lashing Mose’s horse into a furious gallop for the trees. He fired twice. Too rapidly. He missed. The third time he steadied, took careful aim, squeezed the trigger. But the range had rapidly lengthened and the shot cut harmlessly through the underbrush as Anson disappeared into the trees.

  The posse had turned to look at the sound of the shooting, momentarily bewildered. Carmody yelled what had happened, pointing in the direction Anson had taken. While the possemen ran for their horses he shouted for Will to keep guard on the Anvil crew and ran over to kneel beside Mose.

  The examination was brief. Dalmas was dead from two shots in the back, close to the spine. Carmody spun away, running around the bunkhouse to where the captured Anvil horses had been gathered.

  Wash was there, holding a pistol uncertainly on the Anvil hands while one of them advanced slowly toward a horse. ‘Ah’ll shoot!’ Wash was saying unconvincingly. ‘You tech that hoss, mistuh, an’ Ah’ll shoot!’

  ‘Go ahead, shoot!’ the man taunted, laying a hand on the bridle. ‘You couldn’t hit nothin’ anyway, Wash. Shoot!’

  Carmody came running up. ‘Go ahead and shoot him, Wash,’ he called. ‘You’ll save me the trouble later.’

  The man jerked around. ‘You can’t hold me here, Carmody,’ he said angrily. ‘You got nothin’ on me – it was all Booth’s doin’, not ours. Just let us have a horse apiece and we’ll get out of the country.’

  Carmody shoved him aside and mounted the horse. ‘Will, hurry up!’ he yelled at Henstridge who was running across the yard. ‘And if any of these boys try to walk, run or jump, let ’em have it.’

  Carmody was crossing the creek now, eyes sweeping the valley and the slope beyond for sight of the riders. He spotted them half a mile away down the valley and swung after them.

  Their direction puzzled him. Anson was nowhere in sight. But then he had had a pretty good start and could be anywhere ahead in the maze of canyons and gullies that let into the valley from either side. Either that or they had lost him, and he couldn’t believe that. He caught up with them in a side canyon just two miles short of the Anvil fence. As he fell in beside them he yelled to ask where Anson was.

  ‘Somewhere up ahead,’ one of them yelled back. ‘He’s headin’ for Indian Territory sure as hell. Once he crosses out of the Panhandle we’ll never get him. But – he ain’t goin’ to get that far,’ he added grimly.

  Carmody stared ahead, thinking, his eyes running over the ground looking for sign. But the tiny canyon floor was rocky here and left no trail that could be followed except by close and painful scrutiny at a walking pace. He wheeled the bay abruptly away from the others and called, ‘I got a hunch he headed back for Anvil. There’s a little black box he left there that’s he’s mighty interested in.’

  The others pulled in, staring dubiously at him. ‘If it was me,’ one of them said, ‘I wouldn’t hang around for no box. I’d get to hell out of the country the quickest way possible. And the quickest way is to head up into Indian Territory dead east of here. If he was goin’ to head for Anvil he’d of cut straight up the slope when he left the Merriweather place.’

  Carmody shrugged, said, ‘All right. If I find I’m wrong I’ll swing back and join up with you. I’ll stay with him if I have to track him clear to Arkansas. But I got a hunch I won’t have to.’ Carmody cut back up the slope and headed for Anvil.

  He came out of the canyon onto high ground, saw the Anvil fence on the low, rolling ridge ahead, dipped down into a gully and cut toward it. A few minutes later his heart gave a leap. For a stretch of some thirty yards loose shale showed freshly turned damp where Anson’s mount had cut wide, rounding a curve at high speed. His hunch had been right!

  The long-legged bay suddenly stumbled, faltered. Carmody glanced down, saw the stream of blood pumping out of the animal’s chest. Then the crack of a rifle reached his ears just as the mount buckled and rolled head over heels. At the first sign he had kicked his feet free of the stirrups and levered himself out of the saddle with his hands pushing hard against the pommel.

  He hit hard on his shoulders, grateful for the soft shale along the gully wall. He rolled in a somersault and came up on his knees, tugging out his gun. Shale exploded in his face and he threw an answering shot at the puff of smoke blossoming from the clump of sage on the rim of the gully up ahead. But the range was too far for a handgun and Anson had the advantage of having Dalmas’ rifle. The smoke blossomed again and Carmody scrambled for a protecting shoulder of the gully bank as the bullet kicked up the shale where he had been kneeling.

 
For a good minute while he reloaded Carmody gave vent to his fury until he ran out of words. He stared glumly at the dead horse some twenty feet away and began swearing again. Then he raised his head and listened intently. The sound of fast-fading hoofbeats drifted down the gully and he knew that Anson was gone.

  He came out cautiously, knowing it could be a trap, but doubting it because there was little likelihood that Anson would hang around to settle a personal grudge now when he needed every minute of time to put distance behind him. Peering up the gully Carmody saw that the sagebrush now stood clearly etched against the sky. He came out and began to climb laboriously up the side of the gully. He reached the top in time to see Anson remount after passing through the Anvil wire and then disappear over the top of the ridge.

  CHAPTER 17

  Carmody sighed heavily and started walking along the rim of the gully, back toward the ranch on the creek. With a little luck, he thought glumly, he ought to make it just after dark.

  He had covered about a quarter of a mile and had stopped to rest his aching feet, squatting in the shade of a lone juniper, when a sound brought his head up with a jerk. A horseman rounded a bend in the canyon, coming at a dead run. He gave a little cry and stepped out from behind the juniper and raised his arms and yelled. It was Anne.

  She dismounted to wait for him while he came slipping and sliding down the shale bank, grinning sheepishly. She ran toward him and hugged him tightly, saying, ‘Oh, Jeff! I’m glad I found you – I was scared. Awfully scared. What happened? Where’s your horse?’

  He told her, briefly, what had happened.

  She glanced toward Anvil range for a minute, then said quietly. ‘It doesn’t matter now, Jeff. He’s gone. Maybe the valley can settle down now. It will be nice not to have to worry anymore each time you go to bed whether you might be wakened in the middle of the night by.…’

  She turned toward him and caught the look on his face. She grabbed his arms and said, ‘Jeff – don’t! Don’t look at me like that. I know what you want to do, but I can’t let you. He – he’ll kill you! It isn’t worth it, Jeff, honestly.…’

  ‘I’ll borrow your horse, Anne,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so.’

  ‘All right, then, Jeff,’ she said quietly. ‘I can see you’ve got to go.’ She turned toward the horse. ‘You get up first and help me up behind you.’

  He stared at her. ‘You – you can’t go down there! He’ll.…’

  She smiled at him. ‘If we’re going to be married you might as well get used to me, Jeff.’

  Booth Anson skidded his lathered mount to a halt outside the gate and jumped from the saddle into the yard, bounding up the steps and into the house. In his office he knelt beside the safe, cursing its reluctance to open, his fingers shaking with a nervousness. He jerked the door open and seized the japanned box and opened it, unfolding the map hastily to identify it. Then he wadded it up and dug a match from his pocket and lit it, tossing the burning paper into the fireplace. He watched it for a second to make certain it was burning, then returned to the safe and rummaged through it again, taking out three doeskin bags which chinked metallically as he put them down. There was a big brown envelope which he ripped open, glancing inside to make sure he had the right one. He paused to riffle the green bills, smiling faintly. There was close to fifty thousand in cash here. He hated to lose Anvil, but it had cost him nothing but time and fifty thousand wasn’t bad profit anyway.

  He stood up and jerked a pair of saddle-bags from a peg on the wall, stuffing the envelope and the doeskin bags into the pockets and buckling them shut. Turning, he surveyed the room with a quick glance searching for anything of value that might be small enough to take. Then, as if just remembering something, he darted to the bookcase beside the fireplace and began shoving books aside until he found the bottle of whiskey he had left there.

  ‘To Jeff Carmody,’ he said, lifting the bottle. Then as an afterthought he added, ‘Damn him.’ He drained the bottle and shattered it in the fireplace, then picked up the saddlebags, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. The raw whiskey on an empty stomach made him belch and he thought of food. He went through to the kitchen and dropped the saddle-bags on a chair, jerking open the door into the larder-cave below. Not bothering with a lamp he struck a match and held it high. It was cool down here after the heat of the sun, and the whisky glowed in him removing the nervous haste of a few minutes before. There was a certain encouraging solidity in the familiar surroundings, even though he knew he was leaving them for good.

  He could feel vibrations now and there was no mistaking their origin. Someone was in the vicinity on horseback. He could feel the hoofbeats plainly. In a bound he was up the steps into the kitchen where he picked up the saddle-bags and raced to the front of the house to look out.

  There was no movement anywhere out there. His eyes traversed the long sweep of the valley in both directions clear to the rim. Stepping quickly off the verandah he edged around the house, peering cautiously around each corner before moving round it. A clump of trees partially blocked his view to the north-west, the direction from which trouble would come. He stood for a minute, debating. Whoever it was could still be a long way off.

  He ran around to the front where Dalmas’ lathered horse stood cropping grass beside the watering trough in the wagon yard. Anson paused just long enough to jerk the rifle from its scabbard, then hurried on to the corral.

  Jeff Carmody drew rein behind the clump of trees and peered through the leaves at the house less than a hundred yards ahead. ‘Can’t see anythin’,’ he said quietly to Anne behind him. ‘But the corrals are on the other side. I reckon he’ll be there – if he ain’t already gone.’ He threw a leg over the pommel and slid to the ground, looking up at her. ‘You stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.’ He said it calmly, as if he might be going to take a stroll.

  She reached down and caught his shoulder. ‘Jeff!’ He glanced up at her again, waiting. ‘Jeff – be careful, will you?’

  He smiled briefly. ‘Sure, I’ll be careful. See you in a little while.’ Their eyes held for a minute longer, then he turned away and began walking toward the house.

  Carmody walked slowly, keeping to the shelter of the trees as much as possible. He came out of the trees very close to the house and stood very quietly, in full view. Then he moved parallel to the fence, keeping well outside it but not too far. His eyes searched the windows on both floors as he went, but he was met by their blank stares of emptiness. Then he saw a horse cropping grass by the water trough in the wagon yard and stopped.

  It was Mose Dalmas’ horse, he realized. Still saddled, the lather drying in crusty patches on flanks and belly. He shifted his gaze from the horse to the corral beyond. Something moved in the dim interior of the barn beyond the corral and he heard the unmistakeable slap of a saddle being dropped on a horse’s back. He pulled at his Colt with his forefinger, letting it slide halfway out before letting it carefully back. Then, with his thumb, he set the hammer at half-cock to reduce the distance he would have to pull it back when the time came. With his eye on the stable door he walked past the gate and across the wagon yard and stood beside the open gate of the corral.

  As he waited he noticed a pair of saddle-bags draped over a corral pole near the stable door and he smiled thinly.

  The sound of moving hoofs, soft on the litter of the stable floor, came to his ears just an instant before Anson loomed in the doorway leading a horse. Anson started to reach for the saddle-bags, then froze. He had seen Carmody.

  Anson straightened slowly, warily, turning to face him. Their eyes met; Carmody’s pale and unmoving like drops of ice, Anson’s swinging over the background behind Carmody looking for others.

  ‘It’s just me, Booth,’ Carmody said quietly. ‘I don’t need a passel of hired gunmen to back me up.’

  Anson felt the friendly glow of the belted whisky strengthening his confidence now that he realized Carmody was alone. The man was a damn fool right to the last wit
h his melodramatic heroics. ‘Maybe you’ll wish you had, fella,’ he grinned. ‘I don’t hire men because I can’t handle a gun. I hire them because it saves me trouble.’

  ‘This is one trouble they won’t save you from. I’m waitin’ on you to move, Anson. I’ve got a debt to collect for Caleb and Mose Dalmas and a lot of others.’

  Anson glanced at the sun, squinting. ‘You’re makin’ sure you got all the advantage, ain’t you, Carmody. Careful to keep the sun at your back so that I can’t see you, ain’t you?’

  ‘If that’s all that’s worryin’ you,’ Carmody said, moving sideways to put the sun between them, ‘I’ll be glad to oblige by.…’

  Too late he saw the ruse. He was off balance with one foot awkwardly in front of the other when Anson’s hand flashed down and up, glinting in the light. Carmody tried to make up for lost time, keeping his motions to a bare minimum. But the gun seemed to stick in the holster, the hammer seemed welded to the frame. He saw Anson grin and disappear behind a cloud of smoke and knew he was drawing too late.

  Overconfidence made Anson over anxious and he fired before the gun was full level and the slug furrowed the ground three feet in front of Carmody showering him with dirt. His own gun was jumping in his hand now though he was not conscious of any sound and was vaguely surprised to see the cloud of gunsmoke blossoming repeatedly from it. Then the smoke parted a little and he saw Anson weaving, his face white and contorted with a look that was a mixture of pain and astonishment, his shirt front a bloody and torn mess. His left hand still clung to the reins of the horse he had led out and the animal was rearing and plunging from the gun noise, Anson swaying jerkily on the reins. Then the man’s eyes glassed over, his face lost all expression and seemed to sag. Still gripping the reins he swung under the horse’s neck as he fell, his body lifting and falling with each plunge of the horse, his bones crunching sickeningly as the shod hoofs pounded him repeatedly.