Radigan

by Louis L'Amour

  He had been right, then.

  He stood close beside a sentinel pine, holding his body to merge with the blackness of the trunk. It was dark now.

  Rain talked to the leaves. No bird moved—birds and rabbits were wise enough to take shelter when it rained. The horse stood disconsolate in the rain, and the rocks were black and wet.

  It was cold…he relaxed his grip on the gun action and shifted his hold. The crack in the rock merged its blackness with the surrounding dark so he could scarcely distinguish the opening, but the horse shifted its feet and the saddle glistened wetly.

  A boot scraped on stone, a pebble cascaded among the rocks.

  Delicately, Radigan tilted the Winchester barrel up to meet his left hand. He held the gun at hip level, ready to lift it for a quick shot.

  There was a moment of silence, then a boot crunched on sand. A dark figure moved the shadows in the mouth of the rock, and in the moment before the man reached the horse, Radigan said, “You looking for somebody?”

  The man twisted and the flat stab of fire thrust toward him from the darkness and the rain, crossing the heavier sound of his Winchester, firing almost of its own volition, an instant late. He felt the shock of the bullet as it hit the tree beside him and spattered his face with tiny fragments of bark.

  He fired a second time, realizing as he did so that the other man was fast, and a dead shot. Without warning more than his words the man had wheeled and fired…he saw the man’s body crumpling to the sand and the horse shy back, snorting. Tom Radigan moved a bit more behind the tree and waited.

  He was not about to run up to a man shot down, or seemingly shot down. He waited without movement, listening to the slow whisper of falling rain: there was no other sound.

  The horse blew through his nostrils, not liking the smell of gunsmoke. A wind stirred the corner of Radigan’s slicker.

  The shot was a dart of red flame and a smashing concussion. A finger tugged at the slicker and Radigan fired, levered the Winchester and fired again into the dark bulk of the body.

  Silence again, and rain. It was dark, but his eyes were accustomed and he could make out the body against the gray sand.

  He waited, feeling sure the man was dead…this time he was dead.

  Who had he killed? What was the man doing here, far from any other ranch or town? How had he even known about this place? In the four years since Radigan came to the bench above the Vache there had been no more than a half-dozen visitors.

  The man had come to kill, or else he would not have fired so suddenly at a strange voice speaking from the darkness. And he had been a man skilled in the use of arms, arriving by a route he must have known or to which he must have been well guided.

  The minutes dragged, and Radigan waited. Many times the first man to move was the first to die, and he had learned patience. After awhile there was a short, convulsive sigh and a boot toe scraping in the sand. The man was dead.

  Radigan moved to another tree, his rifle held ready for another shot.

  Near the white palm of an outflung hand Radigan saw the wet shine of a pistol barrel. He came from behind the tree and walked toward the body. The tied horse, not liking the mingled smell of powder smoke and blood, backed off, snorting softly.

  “Easy, boy. Easy now.”

  The horse quieted, reassured by the calm voice. Radigan had a way with animals—they trusted him. Even the bad ones seemed to buck under him merely to uphold their reputations, but with no heart in it.

  Radigan prodded the body with his toe, rifle held for a shot, and when there was no move he turned the body so the face lay white under the dripping sky.

  Squatting near the body, Radigan felt for a pulse and found none. Spreading his slicker, he struck a match under its shelter, and looked at the dead face, mouth slightly open, eyes wide to the rain.

  Young—not more than twenty-one or -two. A narrow face with a hard mouth and thin lips, a forehead too high. The holster was slung low and tied fast.

  Lifting the body, Radigan draped him over his saddle, then retrieved the rifle and pistol and leading the horse he walked back to the barn.

  As he entered the yard the door opened and John Child stepped out with a lantern.

  Child took the dead man’s head in his grip and turned the face to the light. “Know him?”

  “No…do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Something familiar there, though.”

  Radigan noticed a small patch of bandage on Child’s skull and indicated it with his eyes. “He hit you?”

  “Burned me. I had your coat on.” He looked at Radigan across the darkness. “What’s the matter, Tom? What’s wrong?”

  “Damned if I know.” He explained about the tracks that came over the hills far from any trail, indicating the man had come with purpose in mind, using a way that would avoid the chance of being seen. “Somebody hunting me, John. Or you.”

  Child considered that. “You,” he said finally. “My enemies are dead.” He looked at the body. “Bury him in the morning?”

  “No. I’m a curious man, John. A wanting-to-know sort of man. I’m going to leave him tied across that saddle and turn the horse loose.”

  There was a moment of silence while the rain fell, and then Child muttered, “Damn!” There was wonder and satisfaction in his tone. “I’d not have thought of that.”

  “Maybe, just maybe it’ll work. The horse might be borrowed or rented, but it might be his own. In any case, that horse is likely to go home. Or maybe to where it was fed and stabled last.”

  “You’ll do,” Child said. “You’d have made a fine Indian, Tom.”

  He studied the body, noting the three bullet holes. “He was a tough man.”

  “And fast,” Radigan said. “He was fast and he was good. He was awful good. Two shots in the dark, one hit the tree I stood against, the other nicked my raincoat. This was a man knew his business, John. He was a man hired for the job. I’m guessing.”

  “Who?”

  That was the question, of course. From time to time a wandering man made enemies, but none that mattered and none who would come this far off their trail to hunt him down. It made no kind of sense, just none at all.

  He swore suddenly. “John, we’re a couple of children. Give me that lantern.”

  He held the light up to the brand. It was a Half-Circle T—no brand he had ever head of. Then he pulled the dead man’s coat loose and searched the pockets, but there was only a little money, no wallet, no letters. Yet the man had come from somewhere and behind his coming there was a reason.

  “Tom.” Child waited a moment while the time ran and the rain fell. His voice was very serious. “Tom, you be careful. Whoever wants you took no chances on leaving evidence. He’s clean. No identification. They took no chances of him being caught or killed.”

  “They didn’t think about the horse.”

  “No, but the horse is strange around here. That’s no brand we know.”

  “No, but this horse was fed somewhere, watered somewhere. This here is a grain-kept horse, and I’m gambling this man has been around a day or two, studying the lay of the land, and his horse might go back to where he was fed.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Now. We’ll let him start now, and in the morning I’ll trail him down.” Radigan indicated the sky. “Look—the rain is breaking. The tracks will still be there.”

  Leading the horse to the trail south he slapped him hard across the rump, and stood while the horse jumped away and then trotted off down the trail, the dark bulk of the dead man in the saddle. They watched him and listened until they could no longer hear the slowing clop-clop of the horse’s hoofs. Without words they turned and went into the house and Tom Radigan suddenly realized he was tired, dead tired.

  “Coffee’s on. It’ll be stronger than hell.”

  “What else?”

  “Beans, beef…what d’you expect?”

  Child put down the lantern and lighted a coal-oil lamp. Radigan hung his hat and sl
icker on wooden pegs driven into the wall and glanced toward the fire. He had been thinking about that fire for a long time.

  The room was long with a huge fireplace on one side, and a beamed, low ceiling that cleared Tom Radigan’s head by no more than a few inches. It was a frontier room, but somehow more pleasant.

  There had been a lot of years when he had thought of a place like this. It lacked a woman’s touch, but it was strongly built and comfortable, built to last as Radigan had planned it during the long nights on night herd. It had a view down the valley, and was built for strength and a good defense, for there was always a chance of needing that in a strong new country where men did not readily settle into the ways of law. But there were windows with wide, deep sills, windows that would someday carry plants…geraniums, maybe. And there was an inside pump, good for defense, of course, but good also for a woman. It would save her steps and time. It was a rare thing in this country to have an inside pump.

  “Got myself a couple of cats,” Radigan commented.

  “Lose any stock?”

  “Over a time, maybe four or five head. These lions were latecomers, I figure. But no lion ever had any sense. Got them both in the same trap, just reset it. Caught them in the same place on successive nights. Never do that to a wolf.”

  John Child was a square-shouldered man, dark and strong-boned, a man who looked as if he were hewn from oak. The Indian in him was strong, but the white man in him had made him painstaking in his work. He dished up the food, steaming from the fire, and then poured coffee. “You set up to the table, Tom. You’re about done in.”

  Radigan rolled up his sleeves revealing the white skin of powerful forearms, the brown of his hands resembling gloves by comparison. He bathed carefully, working up a good lather with the homemade soap. He washed his face, digging his soapy finger into his ears, then dampened a towel and went behind his ears and finally combed out his stiff brown-red hair. And all the while he was thinking, backtracking himself across the days to find some clue to the unknown dead man and the why of his coming to the ranch on the Vache.

  He dropped into a chair almost too tired to eat. In the past few days he had ridden more than a hundred miles, rounding up cattle, moving them to new range, cleaning water holes, branding a few late calves, then trapping lions and killing a cinnamon bear.

  “Forgot,” he said, “there’s bear meat on the saddle.”

  “It’ll keep in this weather.”

  “Ever eat lion?”

  “Sure, many a time. Best meat there is. First time I heard that from a white man was from Kit Carson, down to Lucien Maxwell’s place, but the mountain men favored it above anything else.”

  Child filled his own cup and sat down. “Don’t you gorge yourself. There’s more.”

  “You make a pie?”

  “No.”

  Radigan lifted his head and scented the air. “Bear sign?”

  “Figured you’d smell ’em first off. When you didn’t I knew you were tired. Ma used to make doughnuts when I was a youngster and when I’d come from school I’d catch that smell, even if it had been hours old.”

  “You get me some, John. You ain’t much for work, but I’d keep you on just for making bear sign. I never saw your beat.”

  “Time was I’ve been kept making bear sign for three days without letup, make ’em by the dishpan full, and none left at the end. Men ride miles to get a handful of bear sign.”

  They were silent, busy with their food and thoughts. Only Radigan was eating, however. After a few minutes he asked, “You eat?”

  “Sure. I’d started out to feed the stock when that feller nicked me. First off I was of a mind to go scalp huntin’, but he had me nailed down so I ate…first thing I was taught was to sleep whenever there was time and to eat when there was food.”

  John Child went to the deep cupboard and brought back a plate of doughnuts. “Dig in boy. There’s a plenty.”

  “John…who d’you reckon he was?”

  “Gunman, that’s for sure. Trigger tied back on his gun. And a mighty fine rifle. He’s got to be a hired killer.”

  Tom Radigan took down his rifle and went to work cleaning it. As he worked he occasionally ate bear sign and drank coffee.

  It had been too good to last. He owned seven hundred head of cattle, and a nice bunch of mustangs. He had spread his cattle around through the mountain meadows where there was good water and good grass, and from time to time he shifted his small herds to new areas where the grass was still long. The winters were vicious, and the snow drifted deep in most of the canyons. It was a brutal struggle to keep the herds alive but there were areas where the wind swept the grass free of snow, and there were protected valleys where little snow gathered. There had been natural increase, and several times he bought cattle from movers. As there were no other ranches close by and the remote valleys restricted the wandering, the task of handling the cattle was a small one.

  Radigan’s progress had been steady, and in another year he would make his first drive to market. His income from trapping was sufficient to pay Child his wages and to put by a little, and from the first he had taken time out occasionally to wash out a little gold from the streams. None of them carried much, but to a man whose wants were simple it was enough.

  The ranch on the Vache had been no sudden thing. From the first he had made up his mind to look for just the place he wanted, and when he found it his plans were well made and he was ready for the hard work they demanded. Every step he must take had been carefully planned, and he believed he had covered all the possible risks and chances to be expected. From the beginning he had been aware that the days of free range could not last, and he had never planned on the vast operations of the bigger ranchers. He was content with a small outfit but one that paid well, and he had solved the problem of making it pay.

  At daybreak he was out of bed and into his socks and shirt. Then he stirred the coals and laid on a few chunks of pitch pine to get a hot fire going, then he put on the water for coffee.

  When he had bathed and dressed he took time out to shave, the wiry stubble on his jaws yielding reluctantly to the razor. He was usually clean-shaven except for his mustache—his one vanity.

  John Child came in. “Saddled that blaze-face sorrel for you. It’s clearing up nicely.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Want I should ride along?”

  “Stick around. There’s enough to do and I don’t want the place left alone now. You keep your guns close and don’t get far from the place.”

  Child grinned at him. “I’m a Delaware…you forgettin’ that?”

  “It’s the English in you worries me. The Delaware can take care of itself.”

  “I’ve put up a lunch…and some of them bear sign.”

  Radigan shouldered into a buckskin coat and went down to the corral. The sorrel was a good trail horse, half-Morgan and half-mustang, with lots of bottom and enough speed.

  He stepped into the leather and Child put a hand on the saddle. “You watch yourself. That dead man’s face is something I remember and I remember it with trouble.”

  No need to worry, Child told himself. Radigan was a good man in woods or mountains, and like an Apache on a trail. He had been a Texas Ranger for two years and built a solid reputation, but he was not a man to shoot unless pushed into it.

  The trail was plain enough, for there had been a hard rain that wiped out tracks before the shooting and wind enough to dry the mud and set the tracks since the rain stopped. The horse had galloped a short distance, settled to a canter and then to a walk. Several times it had hesitated as if uncertain, then had set out down the trail. The trail led right to the bottom of Guadalupe Canyon and after that there was small chance to wander.

  San Ysidro was nothing much as a town. Three stores, two saloons and a third saloon that was called a hotel because they occasionally rented rooms, and a scattering of houses, most of them adobe. It was just short of noon when Tom Radigan rode into town.

  There w
ere four horses at the hitching rack and a buckboard, but nobody on the street.

  Three of the horses were branded with a Running M-on-a-Rail, a brand strange to him. He tied his horse at the hitching rack and went into the saloon. Two of the men at the bar were strangers, the third was Deputy Sheriff Jim Flynn and the fourth a man in buckskins who trapped over in the Nacimientos. His name was Hickman.

  They nodded to each other and Flynn asked, “Travelin’, Tom? Didn’t figure to see you around here this late in the year.”

  “Man has to get out, time to time.” He glanced briefly at the two strange riders. They looked to be tough, competent men. But why here? There was no Running M-on-a-Rail in this part of the country and no open range. There should be a third rider…where?

  Deputy Sheriff Flynn was doing some thinking of his own. He had been marshal of two cowtowns, sheriff and deputy sheriff elsewhere, and as far as he was concerned San Ysidro was the end of the line. He was married now and the father of two children, and he wanted no trouble here.

  A handy man with a gun who knew his job thoroughly, he had always been worried by Tom Radigan.

  He had known such men before. Hickok and Courtright, of course, but Radigan was more like Tilghman, Gillette or John Hughes. He was a dangerous man, but a man with quality, tempered in harsher fires than San Ysidro could offer.

  A quiet man, Radigan minded his own business and rarely drank, but Flynn understood the potential. Knowing his business as he did he also knew there was no logical reason for Radigan’s presence in town today. Radigan had bought supplies only two weeks ago and they usually lasted him all of two months, but this had been an order for the winter and unusually heavy. Nor did Radigan come to town for company or to get drunk. The deputy sheriff took another look at Radigan’s face and decided this was a war party.

  Toying with his glass, he estimated the situation. What had happened that was different than usual? What could have happened to bring Tom Radigan into town right now?

  The answer was obvious. The three strange cowhands and the stranger with the buckboard. All were armed, all looked to be tough, capable men; and more than that, they were better dressed, hence better paid. These were not simply cowpunchers but fighting punchers. And fighting men are not hired unless to fight.