by T. T. Flynn
“Thirty years, Matthew . . .” She had to stop, swallow before her low voice went on: “Always, like a candle in a dark night that had no end, there was Matthew Kilgore to believe in.” Her hand made a relinquishing gesture. “Now that is gone. What can I ever believe in again?”
Hat in his square, rope-burned hand, Kilgore stared blankly from the saddle at her. Bewilderment cut deeper lines in his weathered face. “What’s happened, Connie?”
“I believed your promise of no more trouble. Now you’re fencing water holes!”
“We’re spreadin’ out, Connie, beyond the Ojo Rojo Spring.”
“You’re fencing water we’ve always used. You’re taking my ranch and driving me out!”
“No, Connie. Orders has got mixed.”
She was proud, slender, and scornful as she looked up at the bewildered man. “Don’t lie to me again, Matthew! Before I started here a friend had just arrived from Socorro, killing horses to reach us. All this country, he said, has been quietly surveyed. Strange men have filed applications in the Land Office at Las Cruces for homestead titles and water rights. The court at Socorro has been asked for an injunction to stop us from interfering, and a hearing has been set. And every lawyer in Socorro has been hired by you, Matthew, so we can’t even have a lawyer to help us!” As Kilgore stared blankly, her low voice went on: “Now Gideon will kill you . . . or you will kill Gideon!” Sadness, bewilderment, pain broke from her. “Why, Matthew? Why this to me?”
Matt spoke quietly, his voice low but determined. “I don’t say trust me now, Connie, because I guess you won’t. Just wait here while I ride out an’ look into this.”
“While you go to this man, Travis, who has become another son?” She stood straighter, taller. “I waited thirty years. Now Gideon is my hope. Take warning, Matthew . . . nothing will hold Gideon back now!”
Kilgore’s hand made a helpless gesture as he turned away from her.
Clay spoke then: “I’ll ride with you.”
From the saddle, Kilgore’s reply was coldly stern. “I got enough to handle. You follow me, stranger, and I’ll gun you down! This is my business!”
And the man would, Clay saw, and hesitated. He had no quarrel with this stern, stricken man who was being ground and torn between loyalties and emotions. Calmly Clay warned: “Watch Travis. He’s dangerous now.”
The stare Matt Kilgore gave him was stern and expressionless as the man wheeled his horse and rode away.
* * * * *
The fear was a great wave in Patricia as she rode to find her father, and the pale face of Consuela Markham haunted her. Ahead on the shimmering grass flats, prairie dogs stood upright on their dirt mounds in poker-stiff alarm, and flashed down out of sight as the hard run of Patricia’s roan horse came at them, and swerved to miss the treacherous holes. The fear in Patricia grew to near terror again as she thought of this unbelievable thing that was happening to Matt and herself.
Using twisting, grassy draws when possible, Patricia crossed a belt of timbered hills. A time or two she drove the roan directly up through heavy oak brush, ignoring the slapping, clawing branches. Her mind stayed on the pale woman waiting back at the house, and the wild retaliation that Gid Markham was planning even now.
The rider Patricia finally sighted swung his horse to meet her, and he was not Matt. He was one of the crew, a lank, rough-looking man with a black mustache whose name Patricia did not even know.
“Your old man’s ridin’ to the house,” he told her. “Travis is at Cow Springs.”
“Cow Springs is on Markham land!” Patricia threw at him.
His grin was thin. “Wouldn’t know, ma’am.” But he did know, of course.
Patricia left him gazing after her, and pointed the roan toward Cow Springs, driven now by resentful anger. Matt would find Consuela Markham at the house and would quickly know what was happening. And Matt—how well she knew Matt—would ride to find Roger Travis. And Matt would still be ignorant of what he should know. Desperately now Patricia wished that she had told Matt everything. And told Dorothy Strance. This, now, was the best she could think to do.
The yucca was in bloom on Cow Springs Mesa. Tall flower stalks lifted masses of white, bell-shaped blooms tinged with purple, which the natives called Our Lord’s Candles. Patricia had never tired of the sight each spring and early summer. Today she ignored the flowers on every side and rode toward the ridges east of the mesa and the grassy pocket where the springs started a shallow, meandering little stream that died away in its own scant sands halfway across the mesa.
Two wagons, fence posts, staked horses, waiting men were at the springs. The man who stepped on a horse and rode to meet her was Roger Travis, looking big and formidable in canvas jacket, jeans, gun belt, and black hat. Roger’s long, rugged face when they met had the smiling force and assurance so much a part of him.
“Lonesome back at the house?” Roger greeted her lightly.
Patricia said: “No.” Her eyes dwelt in fascination on the sunlight brightening strong auburn tints in Roger’s hair. “You’re fencing Markham water, Roger!”
“That’s right,” said Roger calmly.
“Matt won’t have it!”
“Why, I think he will.” Cool, confident, the new authority. “This is for Matt, too, and us, Pat. Part of my plans.”
Patricia loosened the braided leather barbijo straps under her chin. She tried desperately to appear calm. “Not for Matt! Not for me! What are you trying to do, Roger? Who are you?”
Roger’s smile did not change. “Remember me, Pat? The man you’re going to marry?”
Her mouth was dry. “The man I thought I was going to marry went to Central America through San Francisco. But you’ve never been there, Roger, have you?”
Roger said nothing until he lighted a cigar and bent the match carelessly between fingers, watching her. Then he was so amused and easy that Patricia almost could have believed him. “I had my reasons for saying so. Is that all that’s worrying you, darling?”
“No,” Patricia said. “That isn’t worrying me. What is, Roger, is who you really are.”
He held the amusement, eyebrows lifting. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” said Patricia evenly. “Because, you see, Roger, you have reddish hair and blue eyes. And Dick’s partner in Central America had dark-brown hair and gray eyes. Dick’s last letter to me telling about his new partner said so. I’d forgotten it until I read the letter again.” Suddenly it broke inside her, tearing at her control, so that the words wrenched at him. “Who are you? Did you kill my brother? What are you doing here with us?”
Little points of cold determination flashed in Roger’s eyes. His solid force hardened into icy calm. “You’re hysterical, Pat. Who notices hair and eyes accurately? Hair changes color.” And, fiercely, he said: “How much money do I have to spend on you and Matt to prove who I am?”
It rushed from her, choking, reckless. “Tell it to the man who tried to draw money from the Travis account in San Francisco! He has dark-brown hair and gray eyes! And the pipe he used to escape from the bank!”
Too late now. It was said. Appalled, Patricia watched muscles bunching in Roger’s cheeks. Past Roger in the distance where the crew waited, she recognized the burly man named Grady Doyle who Clay Mara had beaten and Roger claimed to have fired. Roger had lied also about firing Doyle.
And Roger, with a cold blaze in his eyes, was swinging his horse in close, catching the reins of her horse. Roger’s voice was thin. “Dark brown hair and gray eyes? Did that fellow Clay Mara have a straight-stemmed pipe?”
For breathless seconds Patricia gazed at Roger’s fiercely demanding face—and her conviction came suddenly—He’s afraid!—leaving her startled that Roger could be afraid of anything. Then, when Patricia remembered the bronzed, hard stranger named Clay Mara, she could understand Roger’s fear. And suddenly she clung to that memory of Clay Mara as a surprising shield and source of strength, after disliking him, fearing him.
/> “He had the pipe,” Patricia said. Thinking only of Matt’s safety now, she said: “Talk to Mara if you can find him. And let go of my reins! The men are watching.”
Roger drew a slow breath. “I can find him,” he said thinly. “Mara was at Mesa Blanca a short while ago. A man just got here and told me.” Roger’s smile came with obvious effort, smoothing out the bunched muscles along his jaw as he released the reins. “You’ve made a great mistake, Pat. We’ll straighten it out.”
“I hope so,” Patricia said with forced calm. “Now will you stop fencing Markham water?”
“I’ll talk to Matt.”
“Then I’ll get back to the house.” Would Roger stop her as the roan gelding swung away?
An easy trot, a slow lope . . . Could Roger guess the frantic urge to reach Matt, and stop Matt from any clash of temper with this dangerous man who called himself Roger Travis? This man who had held her close and kissed her and spoken of his need for her.
Patricia did not look back. Clay Mara had just been to Mesa Blanca. Why? Had he been hunting Roger? Would Roger hunt him now?
The masses of creamy yucca blooms fell behind as Patricia rode off the mesa. Her last look back showed Roger walking his horse to his men, head bowed in deep thought. And suddenly Patricia knew what Roger was planning, what he would do as cold-bloodedly as he must have planned everything else. When the first rise hid her, she swung the leather quirt and drove the roan into a reckless, frantic run.
XXI
Travis had always despised weakness. His face was aggressively hard when he reined up at the two wagons and called: “Doyle! Where did that Mara and the two men with him go?”
“West from Mesa Blanca, toward Soledad looked like.”
The twelve men lounging around the wagons and steaming coffeepot on the smoking cook fire embers were heavily armed and tough. This was the fighting bunch Travis was holding here at Cow Springs to meet any retaliation Markham tried. They had seen Patricia and were visibly curious as Travis rubbed his right palm on the rough jean cloth of his leg, drying the sweat of tension.
“This Mara,” said Travis levelly, “made trouble at the ranch, too. He’s a Markham gunman. He’ll kill too many of you if he’s not stopped.”
A man at the cook fire reminded: “You had him cold turkey at the ranch and let ’im go!”
“Matt Kilgore took him back to Markham!” The memory of Matt’s bull-headed folly sharpened the order Travis gave. “Every man will stop work wherever he is and hunt this man, Mara. You men ride to the other camps and tell them. I’ll take charge of it from the Kilgore house.” As they stirred, some starting to grin, Travis added: “A thousand dollars cash for Mara dead! Two thousand if he’s dead by noon tomorrow!”
That was the bait that would make every man dangerous. Soft whistles, blurted oaths, instant attention proved it. Grady Doyle’s blue-black left eye still had a trace of squint as Doyle called: “How about them two with Mara?”
Travis remembered the San Francisco newspaper clipping, and the coachman who had helped the man escape from the South Bay Bank. He guessed now that the coachman must be the one named Howie Quist who had come with Mara. Old Ira Bell, too, might know the story. “Same for them,” said Travis shortly. “I’ll add five hundred extra for Mara. Now get going. You, Doyle, ride with me.”
Minutes later when Travis rode away with Doyle, the camp was breaking up, men saddling swiftly, talking, laughing, making plans. By sundown all the armed crew would be combing the country clear to Soledad. And now the sweating shock of Patricia’s words moved in. The tremendous mockery of what had happened to him descended on Travis as he thought of the bronzed stranger who had faced him in the Kilgore kitchen. The real Roger Travis. And he had struck the man down himself, and had tried to hire him. And had watched Mara walk away safely with Matt Kilgore. When Travis recalled how the man had almost destroyed Grady Doyle with bare hands, the sweating tension became almost unbearable.
Grady Doyle rode close now, protesting: “I ain’t layin’ around the ranch house, with all that money offered for a little raafle shootin’!”
Travis coldly reminded: “Mara got away from you twice, and beat you senseless at the ranch. You’ll probably run at sight of him. I want you to ride to that line cabin and see if any of your gunmen are back to help.”
“For that money,” said Doyle, going sullen, “they’d hunt down Gid Markham.”
“Markham’s turn,” Travis promised, “will come later.”
The churning thoughts caught him again. Matt Kilgore, he had no doubt, could be handled easily enough. The bond between Matt and himself was too strong to be broken now. And, when this man Mara was trapped, Patricia’s doubts could be talked away. But the thoughts now of what he stood to lose were overwhelming. In anger and resentment, Travis remembered the day he had stood in the Bonanza Bar laughing and content, friends around him, and Patricia eagerly waiting outside. That had been the last carefree hour. Since then nothing had gone quite right. Now this frantic need to kill a man blotted out everything else. Travis wondered where this Clay Mara was now.
* * * * *
At the weathered adobe back of the Kilgore house, Clay Mara watched the slender woman in black stand motionlessly while her gaze followed the spurred run of Matt Kilgore’s horse into the shimmering distance. She seemed to droop a little as she turned slowly back to the kitchen doorway where Dorothy Strance watched her with a pitying look.
Clay spoke to her. “Ma’am, Kilgore told you the truth. He didn’t know about this. Travis is fencing your water.”
Consuela Markham paused, seemingly aware of him for the first time. Color touched her pallor. “You know this?”
“Why should I tell you wrong?”
“Dorothy believes you are helping them.”
“Dorothy,” said Clay, “has got her mind on too many things.” When red showed in Dot Strance’s smooth cheeks, Clay grinned at her and spoke to Gid Markham’s mother. “Travis is a liar and a thief, but he owns half this ranch now. I heard you ask Matt Kilgore what you could ever believe in again.”
She said, “Yes,” watching him intently.
“Why not try believing in Kilgore again?” Clay suggested. “He’s got Travis to deal with. Your son Gid will be hunting him. Kilgore needs some faith today.”
She said slowly: “You believe in Matthew, don’t you, young man?”
Clay’s small smile came. “Haven’t known him long . . . not thirty years. But he’ll do for me.”
It was something to see—her irresolution and doubt, her hunger to believe becoming conviction, putting life and sparkle into her eyes. Under her breath, Consuela Markham vowed: “And he will for me.” Her own small smile gave him gratitude, and then worry knitted her fine, arched brows. “Why did you not tell Matthew all this about Travis?”
“A man like Kilgore,” said Clay, “has to find out for himself before he believes.”
“Gideon,” she said under her breath, “took his armed men toward Piedras. From there he will hunt Matthew. I know Gideon. He must be told this.” Her eyes begged. “Can you . . . ?”
“No, ma’am,” Clay refused. He adjusted his gun belt before walking to his horse. “Travis is the man I want. Kilgore will find him. And I’ll follow Kilgore to him.”
He had underestimated this slender woman whose eyes were bright now with something that was singing inside. “Then,” she said, “I will follow you to Matthew and stay with him until he is safe.” And quietly she said something that only Clay understood. “It will not happen as Amos planned.”
Thinking of that night thirty years ago, and all that had happened to her since, Clay said: “I’ll saddle your horse.” To Dorothy Strance in the doorway, he said: “Gid Markham may come here with his crew. If anyone can hold him here, waiting, maybe you can.” Malice touched his advice. “If you hold Gid tight enough and long enough.”
He had his reward in the flush that again suffused her face as he turned away.
The ranch
house was behind them when Consuela Markham, riding lightly and easily with him, called over: “Is this man Travis really dangerous?”
“He is,” said Clay, watching the shod horse tracks he was following.
“And you want him?”
“I’ve come a long way to find him.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t believe it, ma’am.”
“So many things I once would not believe,” she said. “So much I want to believe now.”
And, because the end was close and nothing could hold it back, and Matt Kilgore would have need of all her understanding, Clay told her. Soberly, as they rode, he gave her the truth about the man who called himself Roger Travis.
At the end, she said: “A strange story . . . but I believe it because I think Patricia knows it already.” To Clay’s swift look, she said: “Patricia was already afraid today when Dorothy and I reached the house. It was in her eyes.” Consuela Markham hesitated. “A girl in love and happy,” she said, “would not cry. How could he have done this to us?”
“I’ve asked myself the same thing,” Clay said. “He had my money, my name, even my memories . . . everything.”
With conviction, she said: “You will have your name back.”
They were in rolling country with ridges ahead. The long-spaced tracks of Kilgore’s running horse had dug in deeply through here, easily followed. Clay’s gaze swept the distance before he replied. “More back than my name. I’ve been adding up all I’ve learned. His bank account is in my name, under my signature that he copied. His certificates of deposit from Saint Louis are in my name. He put his half of the Kilgore ranch in my name.” Clay smiled thinly across at her. “It’ll take time, but I can prove who I am. All the rest is waiting here. Travis didn’t mean to . . . but he started my life over for me. We’re neighbors, ma’am. You won’t even have to use a new name. I’m Roger Travis.”
The look Consuela Markham gave him held the secret smiling thoughts of an older woman. “Has it occurred to you,” she asked, “that other things have been started for you which no true caballero could refuse to honor?”
