by Elmer Kelton
Sam and the other men got there first. Sam gently took the slingshot and eased the boy away. Kyle heard the boy sob, and suddenly it was himself he heard, as it had been four years ago.
McLeod’s wife got there then. She fell on her knees, crying and praying.
Kyle said tightly, “I didn’t kill him, ma’am. He’ll pull through that all right.”
He stood up, looking into the faces of the two men, finding surprise and shock there. In Sam Whittenburg’s face he saw a deep regret. Enrique Salinas looked at Kyle a moment, then turned his back. Enrique rolled and lighted a cigarette and stood there smoking it, his gaze on the ground.
Kyle heard a girl’s voice behind him and turned sharply on his heel. It was Jane Emmett. “You’ve had your revenge now, Kyle Rayford. Does it give you satisfaction to shoot a man, run off his cattle, take the home from a woman and a little boy? Is that what you came back here to do?”
She didn’t touch him, but her voice stung him like a whip.
“He was there when they killed my father,” he said.
“He wasn’t there,” Jane declared tightly. “Neither was my dad, or any of these other men. Ebeling killed your father. Ebeling and his riders.”
Kyle felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. “He wasn’t there? But they were all there. I saw them.”
“You saw them after it had already been done. Ebeling sent riders to get them. Said he was about to catch Earl Rayford red-handed. When the men got there, your father was already dead. Ebeling had shot him. He claimed your father went for his gun.
“Sure, they condoned it, and that was wrong. But there was a calf tied down and half branded with a Slash R. Its mama was standing there. She had a Bar E on her. It looked like an open and shut case at the time. So they all rode with Ebeling and his men to your place.
“It was a long time before they began to see the truth, Kyle. Then it was too late to do anything. Nobody wanted to face Clint Ebeling. They all dread him.”
Kyle turned away from her, suddenly sick inside. He had to get away, had to think.
Yes, he had done what he had come here to do. But there was no satisfaction in it. There was an emptier feeling than ever before. And there was the guilt, spreading through him like a burning infection. Guilt! Why should he feel guilty? They had done far worse to him.
“Come on, Enrique,” he said tightly. “Let’s go.”
Enrique shook his head, his dark eyes firm. “No, hijo. The pupil has learned all the teacher can teach him, and more. Too much more. You do not need me now. I will stay here.”
This was Kyle’s moment of triumph. The culmination of four years of training and planning. And the bottom had dropped out from under him.
He swung into the saddle and turned away.
They pushed the McLeod cattle completely off the sections which Gorman had bought. They went ahead and cleaned out neighboring Avery sections as well, before darkness dropped down upon them and started them back to town.
Kyle rode along with his shoulders slumped and his gaze mostly on the ground. He wasn’t much help to Gorman’s three men.
Jack Dangerfield loped up to him once, looking as if he could bite a .45 caliber bullet in two. “What’s the matter with you, Rayford, riding along like you’ve gone to sleep? Pitch in here and make a hand, why don’t you?”
Kyle’s eyes raked him like a hot iron, “Shut up and leave me alone!”
Next morning they started out again for the McGivern place to clear the creek sections there. But they found McGivern and some of the neighbors already doing that. McGivern rode out to meet them. Avery was with him. McGivern was a tall, graying man who had always reminded Kyle of a storekeeper, the kind who takes a lead in the community, a man with enough push and imagination to make himself a success. But he wasn’t the kind to do much fighting.
Avery was short, nervous, a little fat. He was a hard worker when he had to be, but usually he had rather not. He had four kids and a strong-willed wife, and he wasn’t a man to risk his life doing anything.
“You can take your gunhands and go, Rayford,” McGivern said stiffly.
Kyle didn’t see fear in McGivern’s face. But he knew McGivern was a realist, too wise to sacrifice himself in a cause that was doomed at the start.
“We’re moving my cattle off the water, just like you said. Everybody is—Brook Emmett and the others. We can’t fight hired gunmen and land deeds.”
Kyle nodded. “Suits me,” he said. And it did. Since yesterday, somehow, he had lost stomach for this fight. He was glad to see it working out this way.
“How about Ebeling?” he asked.
McGivern frowned. “We don’t know about Ebeling. He rides his own road—doesn’t help anybody, doesn’t ask any help. I imagine he’ll fight.”
McGivern pulled his horse around and went back to the herd, the other men following him. Kyle squinted at the herd. He could see Enrique Salinas there, pushing cattle beside Sam Whittenburg. Enrique saw Kyle, but he didn’t come out.
Kyle winced. Then he shrugged. “Well, boys, looks like we’re out of a job here. Let’s head back to town.”
Gorman took the news the way he took everything—with a dark scowl. He chewed on his cigar as if he were mad at it.
“I already knew it,” he said. “Man came in this morning and told me.”
Kyle straightened suddenly. “What man?”
Gorman didn’t answer the question. Angrily he said, “You fools, don’t you know what’s taking place? Sure, they’re moving their cattle off the creek sections I bought. They’re moving them onto those I didn’t buy.”
Kyle demanded, “How can that be? You bought everybody’s but Sam Whittenburg’s.”
“That’s where they’re going with them!” Gorman declared.
“That can’t last long,” Kyle said. “They’ll have Sam’s grass tromped out all up and down the creek.”
“It won’t have to last long,” Gorman blazed. “I’ve got a herd coming in. Damn you, Rayford, why didn’t you tell me Whittenburg had a well-drilling outfit?”
Kyle began to sense the rest of it.
Gorman said, “He moved it over to McLeod’s place yesterday. They’ve already started drilling for water back away from the sections I bought. You can see what that means, can’t you?”
Kyle nodded. Gorman went on, “Soon as they get water on McLeod’s land they’ll move the rig to Avery’s, or McGivern’s. They’ll drill till they’ve got water enough and can get along without the creek.”
Kyle sat down. Somehow the load which had been so heavy on his shoulders began to lift away. Somehow it got almost funny. He began to chuckle, and the chuckle became a laugh.
Gorman snarled at him. “I don’t see what’s so damn funny about it.”
Kyle said, “Just thinking how I used to short-change old Sam. I liked him better than most anybody, but I never thought he was as smart as a lot of them. Now he’s outsmarted the whole bunch of us.”
Gorman paced the floor, raging like a caged lion. “It’s your fault, Rayford. You didn’t let me buy the creek sections Whittenburg holds. Good friend, you said. Sam’d be all right, you said. He wouldn’t give us any trouble. Good friend, hell!”
Good friend. Yes, Kyle realized, Sam was a good friend. He had thrown a monkey wrench into this whole scheme, which had begun to turn sour to Kyle anyway.
Gorman kicked a loose boot out of the way so hard that it knocked plaster from the adobe wall.
“Trail herd is due in a few more days. These people have got to get off this land—do you understand that? They’ve got to get off or there’ll be no place for my cattle.”
He hurled his cigar to the floor. “I’ll teach that Whittenburg to get in my way!”
A cold knot started in Kyle’s stomach. “You’ll leave Sam alone.”
Gorman’s eyes were ablaze. “Not to let him spoil this deal.”
“We made a deal, Gorman, before we ever came up here. I helped you move the others off the cree
k, and you were going to leave Sam alone. I got them off the creek. I’m holding you to what you promised about Sam.”
Gorman’s eyes were like the muzzles of a double-barreled shotgun. “Our deal’s off, Rayford. Your way didn’t work. Now I’ve got a man whose way will work. Your old friend Clint Ebeling came to see me today. He wanted to make a deal. He’s going to run those squatters out of the country.”
Kyle jumped to his feet. “You know Ebeling’s the main reason I came back here, Gorman. You’re not going to cross me and make a deal with him.”
“I’ve already made it, Rayford!”
Kyle leaped at him, knocking Gorman against the wall. He struck Gorman again across the mouth. The blood trickled down Gorman’s lips.
Strong hands grabbed Kyle, spun him around. Jack Dangerfield jerked him away. Dangerfield’s fist struck Kyle like a sledge. He staggered, then went after Dangerfield in a rush. His right fist flattened Dangerfield’s nose, bringing a spurt of blood. His left drove high into the man’s belly, and the breath gusted out of Dangerfield.
Irv Hallmark and Monte Lykes had been watching, stunned by surprise. Gorman cursed at them, and they jumped in. They grabbed Kyle’s arms. He shrugged wildly, almost tearing loose from them, kicking the heel of his boot at Hallmark’s knee and nearly folding him up. But they held onto him, twisting his arms, bringing him down.
Dangerfield was up again, wiping his bloody face, murder in his eyes. Kyle saw his fist coming but couldn’t dodge it. He was locked in the grip of the other two gunmen. It was as if a charge of dynamite went off in his head.
Dangerfield’s murderous rage drove him on and on, beating at Kyle, hammering at his head, his stomach. Kyle’s struggling weakened little by little, and then there was none. He hung limp.
The two men let him drop. Dangerfield pulled his foot back to kick Kyle in the ribs.
“Hold it,” Gorman said. “No use killing him. I got no use for killing unless it’s necessary.”
Hallmark said, “That Ebeling sounds to me like a man who’d do it, necessary or not.”
Gorman grunted. “We’re going out to Ebeling’s ranch. Throw Rayford on a horse. We’ll drop him off out there somewhere afoot. He can’t hurt anything that way.”
Hallmark frowned. “The whole town’ll see us.”
“Let them!”
Kyle was dimly conscious of being carried somewhere, lying facedown across the saddle. The pressure of blood on his brain made him struggle to straighten up. Someone hit him over the head, and he fell spinning back into darkness.
When consciousness finally did come to him, Kyle found himself alone, afoot, out on a wide expanse of rolling prairie. His head was splitting, and he ached all over from the beating they had given him. For a while it was all he could do to sit up. After a quarter of an hour he was on his feet, lurching about, trying to figure where he was. But it was no use. Out here on this open plain, the land all looked alike. He might have been anywhere.
He knew they had carried him here and dropped him off. He had no idea how far they had brought him. He found the tracks of the horses. No telling where they were going. He hadn’t heard that. Wouldn’t do any good to follow them. He had no gun. But by back-tracking, he would reach town, sooner or later.
Painfully he set out, following the tracks back toward their starting place. At first it was tough going. He would walk a couple of hundred yards, then have to sit down and rest. As he walked, however, his strength began to come back to him. Strength and a throbbing anger.
Before long it would be dark. He had to keep going. He cut down the rest stops until was taking almost none. The sun sank low. And Kyle’s heart sank with it.
Then he heard something. He stopped abruptly, listening. There it was again. A dog barking. The sound came on the wind, out of the north. A ranch. There had to be a ranch yonder somewhere. He started walking faster now. Hope surged back into him. If he could only make it. If he could only get word to Sam.
The sun dropped out of sight over the rim of the prairie. Dusk settled over him. Hurry, Kyle, he kept telling himself. Hurry. Get over that rise yonder. Maybe you can see it then.
He struggled up the rise, sinking to his knees in exhaustion as he reached the top of it. And there it was. Brook Emmett’s place. Half a mile or more away. But he knew where it was now. He’d make it, even though it was dark.
A sudden fear struck him. What if they had already left? No, they hadn’t done that, he’d heard a dog. But maybe the dog had slipped away and come back to the only home it knew, the way dogs will. That fear fastened itself to him as he kept on walking, fatigue bearing down on him like a two-hundred-pound weight on his back.
He was conscious of turning into a wagon road. It wouldn’t be much farther now. Keep on going, Kyle. Don’t quit yet. He tried to yell, but it wasn’t in him. So he kept walking, dragging. He dropped in exhaustion at the picket fence. He sat there, unable to move, the dog warily walking back and forth in front of him, barking loudly.
Kyle saw lamplight in the house. Suddenly it winked out. He heard footsteps at the door. Jane Emmett’s voice demanded, “Who’s out there?” He heard the ominous click of a rifle hammer. The dog kept barking.
“It’s me, Jane,” Kyle said weakly. “Kyle Rayford.” He was afraid she couldn’t hear him. He said it again.
“Kyle?” She still didn’t see him in the darkness. “Come on, Kyle, but keep your hands up.”
Putting his weight on the picket fence, he pushed to his feet. “Help me, Jane. Help me.”
For a moment she waited, fearing a trap. Then the rifle clattered against the door jamb, and she ran out to him. Leaning on her, he made it into the house.
“Is anybody with you?” she asked sharply.
“No,” he said. “I’ve walked for miles.”
Evidently believing him then, she lighted the lamp. She gasped at the sight of his bloody, battered face.
“Kyle,” she exclaimed, “what happened to you?”
“I had a falling out. Gorman’s thrown in with Ebeling. I tried to stop him.” He paused for breath. “They’re out to wreck Sam’s drilling rig. They may kill Sam. We’ve got to warn him.”
Jane had a teakettle of water on the big woodstove. She poured steaming water into a pan and dipped a cloth into it. “Do you know where the drilling camp is?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “Somewhere on McLeod’s. That’s all I know.”
It struck Kyle suddenly that old Brook Emmett wasn’t here. He asked Jane where he was.
“He’s out with the cattle,” Jane said in reply to his question. “He and a couple of men have pushed them over to Sam’s. They’re holding them there on the water.”
“Jane,” he said, “I’ve been wrong. Wrong about a lot of things. Enrique tried to tell me, and I couldn’t see it.”
“Don’t blame yourself too much,” she said. “A lot of people were wrong. Sometimes we have a hard time learning a lesson.”
“Funny how it was,” Kyle spoke. “Like a man wanting a drink. He wants it so bad he can taste it. He thinks about it, dreams about it. Then he gets to town and gets the drink, and it wasn’t what he really wanted after all. It goes sour on his stomach. That’s the way it was with me, Jane. For four years I’d looked forward to this. And somehow it went sour.”
The wet rag was so hot that Kyle almost cried out. But Jane was quick and sure in the use of it. She cleansed the cuts and bruises on Kyle’s face and hands. Then she brought some antiseptic. Kyle flinched at the searing pain.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s all right,” he answered. “I’ve hurt you enough.”
He touched her hand. The warmth of it, the nearness of her, brought a rush of blood to his face. “Jane, I—”
Suddenly he pulled her to him, crushing her as if to make up at once for four lost years. Kissing her brought a hammering of pain to his bruised lips, but he didn’t let her go.
“Kyle, Kyle,�
�� she whispered, the flush high in her cheeks, “it’s not too late for us, is it?”
“I don’t know, Jane,” he said. “I don’t know.”
He caught up the Emmetts’ rustling horse and saddled him with an old rig he found in the shed. The stirrups were a notch too short, but he didn’t have time to let them out.
The moon came up, only a half moon, but it cast enough light that he could follow the wagon down the creek toward the McLeod ranch. The place was dark as he approached but it wasn’t vacated. He was still a hundred yards from the house when a woman’s voice suddenly spoke behind him.
“Stop right there and put your hands up.
He raised his hands. “I’m Kyle Rayford,” he said. “I’ve got to get word to Sam Whittenburg.”
“Rayford?”
Kyle lowered his hands a little.
“Put them back up there!” He raised them quickly.
“I’m by myself,” he assured the woman whom he hadn’t yet seen.
“You better be. Get off easy and come in.”
Inside the rock house he found it wasn’t really dark. Blankets had been draped over the windows. Lester McLeod lay on a bed in a corner. He raised up on his good elbow at the sight of Kyle.
“You’re not welcome here, Rayford,” he said. His voice was none too strong.
“I didn’t expect to be. But I’ve got to find Sam. Somebody’s got to help me.”
He quickly explained about Gorman and Ebeling. It took a good while to convince them. It was his bruised face that finally did it. McLeod nodded. “I believe you’re telling the truth. Johnny, saddle your horse. Take him to the rig.”
McLeod’s boy said grudgingly, “All right. But if he makes a false move, I’ll pop him with my slingshot.”
They rode about two hours. At times Kyle was afraid the boy would get lost in the dim moonlight. But the youngster knew the way.
“We ought to find it any time now,” he said.
