by T. T. Flynn
“Proud?” He shrugged.
“Listen to me, Gid, and don’t ask me how I know,” she said. “Amos Markham had the idiotic conviction that Matt Kilgore was your father. It turned him against your mother and he built his hate into you.”
Gid Markham stared at her. “What a thing to tell a man, Dot.”
“Amos Markham was wrong. He believed a lie. But it warped his life and it’s warped yours.”
Markham’s gaze went to the motionless figure at his feet. “Did Kilgore know this?”
“I’m sure not.”
“My mother never mentioned it.”
“She never answered your father about it.”
“She wouldn’t,” he said weakly. “Her Rivera pride.” After a moment, he added: “But I think she must have taught me the answer when I was small. Be too proud to deny a lie, and always proud enough to admit the truth.”
“Yes,” Dorothy Strance said.
Gid gestured the matter away as no longer of consequence. He spoke of Matt Kilgore. “He was on his horse, I think, and the other man shot up at him. One bullet hit the buckle of his shell belt and tore up along his ribs. Another bullet grooved his head. He may have a chance.”
“Is he alive?”
“Barely.”
“And you’re not helping him?” She knelt beside Matt Kilgore.
Gid spoke to Clay. “I’ve sent men for a wagon and the doctor. There’s not much else to do.”
“I tracked him across the lava,” Clay said. “What other sign is around?”
Markham looked surprised. “Two men rode down the valley here beside the lava. I thought Kilgore was one of them.”
“He met the two men,” Clay said. He walked past Kilgore and picked up two sets of horse tracks and followed them back. And he heard Gid Markham speaking with wry bluntness to Dorothy Strance.
“Dot, a man wouldn’t have much peace around you.”
“As much as he’d deserve, probably,” she said coolly. “But you’ve never been in any danger, Gid. Hand me your bandanna.”
Clay walked slowly around the spot, sorting out the trampled sign. He picked up a dead match and eyed it closely. When he walked back to Dorothy Strance, she had opened Kilgore’s shirt and was working on his wounded side.
Clay said: “Give this match to Patricia. It might mean something to her.” The match was snapped over in the middle. “I saw Travis light a cigar the other day and break the match like this.”
He walked up on the lava flow and led their two horses down. When he started to mount the black gelding, Dorothy Strance came to him.
“Where are you going, Mister Mara?”
With a touch of malice, Clay reminded: “You print everything that happens. Read your paper for news of this.” And levelly he warned: “Don’t follow me this time, or you will sit painful tomorrow.”
She said coldly: “I believe you really would.”
“Just try me, ma’am.”
“You’re going after Travis.” She was earnest. “The sheriff should do that. Or Gid has men waiting at the road.”
Clay settled in the saddle and looked thoughtfully down at her as he gathered the reins. “The sheriff, ma’am, is a hundred and fifty miles away. Markham’s gunmen would shoot Travis on sight.”
“And what, Mister Mara, will you do?”
Clay’s faint smile lacked humor. “I won’t kiss him.”
“Travis will try to kill you.” And when Clay said nothing, she gazed up at him uncertainly, looking for a moment like a slightly older copy of her small, distressed daughter in the sand pile. “Matt needs me here. And Patricia will need you, Mister Mara. Is this risk necessary?”
“It is,” Clay said, and touched a spur and left her standing there.
Between the lava and the ridge slope, old tracks and new tracks cut the earth. The Markham horses had trampled the sign Clay followed. He angled over to the base of the slope and advanced there, watching the ground. When he cut fresh prints of shod horses leading up the ridge slope, he studied them a moment, drew the carbine, and followed the sign.
Brush raked his legs. The click and scuff of his gelding’s hoofs sounded loudly in the quiet as trees closed around. Clay pulled up where trampled prints showed two riders had paused and looked back down into the valley. They had watched Gid Markham pass down there, of course, and then the two men had ridden on across the ridge crest. Clay shook the gelding into a run after them.
* * * * *
When Travis and Doyle rode cautiously and quickly across the Piedras road, the waiting Markham riders were bunched in the distance at the black lava. Beyond the road, screening pines and cedars closed in, and Travis said: “We’ll swing south around them.”
“There’s lava that way,” Doyle reminded.
“I crossed that lava once with Matt Kilgore,” said Travis confidently. “Matt followed cattle and deer trails.”
The mention of Matt Kilgore prodded the empty feeling of loss in Travis as they advanced into roughening country, with lava outcropping increasing among the scrub pines and cedars. On a low ridge, Travis used the binoculars to scan the country behind them, and his sideward glance caught Doyle’s furtive uneasiness on him.
“We’ll take the first good trail west,” Travis said as he cased the glasses.
Doyle rode with him in silence. The trail they found and followed held cattle and horse tracks and deer sign. As they advanced, older lava was buried under more recent flows, many of the flows raw and open, the lava tumbled, twisted, broken. Increasingly the landscape took on an awesome aspect from the ancient eruptions frozen in midfury.
Travis rode in silence, also, planning coolly, like a gambler in a high, dangerous game that he meant to win, no matter how he had to play. Matt Kilgore’s death, he was confident, would be blamed on Gid Markham. But if something happened to that hope, then Grady Doyle could take the blame for shooting Matt. Doyle would not be alive to deny it; by sundown Doyle would be dead because Doyle was treacherous and dangerous. That left only the stranger named Clay Mara. And with Mara dead, no threat at all would be left, Travis was confident. He and Patricia would own the Kilgore Ranch. Patricia would be lonely and grieving, but any doubts that persisted in her could be talked away. With the strong feeling of recklessly gambling in a game he was determined to win, Travis already had decided on the move that would appease Patricia. He turned his head as Grady Doyle lifted his voice.
“You still goin’ to the Kilgore house?” Doyle inquired.
“Yes.”
“Markham’ll be there quick with his men.”
“I’ll be there first,” Travis said. And his slight smile came as he spoke of the change in his plans that would disarm much of Patricia’s suspicion, add blame to the Markhams, and free every effort to find Mara. “Miss Kilgore,” he said, “asked me to pull the men off the Markham water holes. I want to tell her I’m doing that. Then I’ll saddle a fresh horse and ride on to get our men together.” Travis added: “If Matt Kilgore isn’t at the house, I’ll find him and tell him.”
He saw the incredulous look Grady Doyle gave him and ignored it. Still planning ahead, he was thinking with some amusement that the water rights were still legally filed. They could safely wait until pressure eased off.
“Faster!” Travis said. “I’ve got to reach the house before Markham’s men.”
The trail they were following crossed open sheets of lava and followed defiles and reaches between the lava flows where mats of green grass grew. Little-used trails split off. Travis kept Doyle’s burly figure in the corner of his eye. Doyle seemed to sense it. A pale sheen of perspiration began to show on Doyle’s meaty face. Coolly Travis watched Doyle’s growing fear. He had no feeling at all about what was going to happen to Doyle.
“Matt Kilgore claims the cattle hunt these pockets of good grass back in here,” Travis said. “It’s sweeter, richer grass.”
“I reckon,” Doyle said. His voice had a strained sound.
The sun was dropping to
the horizon. Shadows were reaching out. Travis said again: “Faster!”
They rode through a long defile between high masses of lava, and the defile opened into a broad expanse of green grass where scattered cattle and a bull broke away from their advance. “They’re carrying my brand,” Travis noticed.
Doyle wet his lips and was silent as they followed the trail to the end of the grass, where a small pond of greenish-blue water reflected a white cloud overhead. Travis pulled up, staring at hoof-churned mud around the water and the high, raw lava beyond. He looked around the park-like expanse of grass that was walled all around, he saw now, with lava.
Travis’s temper suddenly flared: “No way out of here but the way we came in!”
“A man can get lost in this lava,” Doyle said uneasily.
“We’ll backtrack and find a way through,” said Travis with new harshness. He wrenched his horse around, and the feeling that luck was running against him made his temper corrosive and dangerous.
* * * * *
Some miles south of the Piedras road, the horse tracks that Clay Mara was following turned into a cattle trail and held to it. He was gaining, Clay guessed, and pressed the gelding faster. The landscape took on a desolate look as he entered the lava beds. He was riding west and pulled his hat brim lower against the full blaze of the setting sun. Lengthening shadows gave a sullen unreality to the increasing masses of raw lava. The sense of being alone in a frozen world of past cataclysms became stronger. Men could be shot down in these wild, lonely lava stretches and not be found. The fresh hoof marks reaching ahead sharpened the knowledge that the two men ahead would kill on sight. He rode now with the carbine across his lap, ready.
Travis seemed to be swinging around the Markham crew, heading west toward the Kilgore house. Travis must have some plan; he must believe that Matt Kilgore was dead, and be confident. Squinting into the dazzling glare of the sun, Clay rode through another defile between the endless flows. And suddenly, out of the blaze of the setting sun, a mass of cattle charged through the defile right at him, it seemed. The gelding snorted and halted, then acted by instinct.
Whirling, it took to the lava. Stumbling, recovering, haunches driving, the horse scrambled up the steep, treacherous footing. The steers bolted past just behind them in a slamming mass of horns and flesh. Through the tumult and dust came muffled gunshots as the gelding topped the edge of the flow. It half reared and fell as Clay kicked the stirrups away and twisted out of the saddle, holding onto the carbine. In the sun glare, he made out two riders in the defile. They had sighted him riding up against the skyline and had fired instantly.
Clay stumbled over the rough lava away from the horse and whipped up the carbine. He forced himself to be steady because this shot had to count. And, when he squeezed the trigger, he brought the first horse down. The rider launched off safely. A quick second shot missed him. Both the riders were afoot now, ducking up the steep slope behind huge slabs of lava rock. Before they disappeared, Clay was running at them. The lava through here had a scorched, reddish hue, like vast chunks of cinder, honeycombed with gas bubbles. Some of it had weathered, crumbled. The jagged fragments ground under Clay’s boots as he ran forward. Immense broken slabs forced him into reckless leaps.
A bullet shrilled past his shoulder, and the long face of Travis appeared at the side of a massive lava block. Clay fired. Dust spurted off the block. The figure that appeared behind Travis was the burly man named Doyle. Now Clay knew what he faced. He went down on the flow, and the sharp lava bruised his hands as he scrambled forward. Closing in on them fast was the only way. Otherwise, they’d box him and pick him off.
Clay heard them shooting. Then they waited, trying, evidently, to sight him as he advanced. He risked a look and nothing happened. He stood up, and, when the two men still stayed down out of sight, ran directly at the large, tilted slab of gas-pocked lava where he had last sighted them. He was at the slab before he sighted Doyle down in the defile again, starting a rein-slashing retreat on the one horse that was left. Clay used a corner of the tilted slab to steady the carbine. Again he forced himself to be calm before he gently squeezed the trigger.
It was good enough. When he stepped around the lava slab, Travis lay there, face up, coat and shirt open, hands groping aimlessly for a gun that was not there. Clay left the helpless man there and went to Grady Doyle, sprawled motionlessly down in the defile. The horse, its reins dragging, was sidling away. Clay led the horse back. A soft leather money belt dangled half out of Doyle’s coat pocket and explained why Travis’s shirt had been ripped open.
When Clay opened the money belt, he whistled softly. The pockets of the belt were stuffed with currency of large denomination and deposit certificates on St. Louis banks made out to Roger Travis. The man had been carrying much of the money he had gotten from the South Bay Bank in San Francisco. Doyle had almost escaped with it.
When Clay returned to Travis, the man was breathing with deep effort.
“Get him?” Travis mumbled.
“He’s dead,” Clay said.
“Couldn’t watch him an’ you, too,” Travis whispered. “He knew I meant to shut his mouth.”
“Because of Matt Kilgore?” Clay guessed.
“Mostly,” Travis said thinly. The first cool shadows were reaching across Travis. He shivered. Eyes rolled to the raw, forbidding lava all around, and closed. “Lonesome here,” Travis got out with effort. “Don’t leave me.” Pink bubbled on his lips.
Clay went to a knee and lifted the kerchief folds from Travis’s neck and wiped the bubbles away. “I’m with you,” Clay said.
“Shot me in the back twice,” mumbled Travis with effort. He breathed shallowly, rapidly, and then said: “Tell the padre.”
Travis knew that he was dying, Clay saw. “Want the padre to say prayers?” he suggested.
Something close to humor entered Travis’s clouding gaze. “The padre’s said the prayers already,” he said weakly. “Told me they weren’t wasted. He’ll understand.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Travis’s breathing was again quick and shallow before he gained strength to smile wanly. “Thought you were dead,” he whispered. “Seemed like a good gamble.”
“It was,” Clay agreed.
Travis sighed softly. “I thought I’d found everything here that we lost in Wyoming.”
“We?” Clay said.
Looking down at the long-boned face, going gray, it came to Clay how deeply this man must have entered into another man’s life.
“All here,” said Travis faintly. “Guess I tried for too much.” He struggled for breath and sought Clay’s face. “Hated it about Matt . . . I liked Matt. Wish I hadn’t shot him.”
“Kilgore’s got a chance to live,” Clay said.
Slowly Travis’s eyes closed. “Good,” he said weakly. The graying face seemed peaceful now.
* * * * *
Hours later, when Clay rode Grady Doyle’s weary horse into the yellow lamplight streaming from the Kilgore kitchen windows and open back door, he was still thinking about Travis with a strange lack of animosity. The feeling stayed with him as he talked out back of the house with a relieved Howie Quist and Ira Bell, and watched Gid Markham take his crew to bring in Travis and Doyle.
Dr. Paul Halvord had reached the house some time ago. Matt Kilgore was in his own bed. One had only to look at Consuela Markham’s face, bright with an inner singing, to know that Kilgore was doing all right.
The lamplit kitchen, warm from the big iron range, held an extra glow and warmth, it seemed to Clay as he took the mug of hot coffee that Widow Strance poured for him.
“In a few minutes, we’ll have something for you to eat,” she told him.
He was weary, dirty, and hungry, but Clay smiled. “No hurry,” he said. A moment later Patricia Kilgore came into the kitchen. Clay looked at her still strained pallor and hesitated before he said: “You might like to know that Travis was sorry about what happened. He thought a lot of your father.”<
br />
“He showed it,” said Patricia. She was bitter.
Clay tried to explain. “Travis was a gambler. His game was big here. But when he lost, he took it like a gambler.”
“It’s a little something to remember about him,” Patricia said. “He . . .” She bit her lip, turned abruptly, and left the kitchen again, looking young and shaken.
Gazing after her, Clay guessed that with Matt Kilgore doing well her laughter and zest would soon be back. Then he became aware of Consuela Markham at the sink, holding a dishtowel, trim and remarkably youthful-looking in a gay print apron. She was watching him. The amused knowledge of an older woman was in her eyes and in her question. “Patricia is so pretty tonight, isn’t she?”
Clay took a swallow of coffee and grinned. “Mighty pretty. She’ll make some man a fine wife.”
“Soon?” asked Consuela Markham with amusement.
“Not too long now, I’d say,” Clay guessed.
Dorothy Strance was setting his place at the kitchen table. She was thoughtful. “It will seem strange to call you Mister Travis.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Clay said.
“Now that you’ve recovered a good part of your money and since most of the rest is in your half interest in the ranch, do you intend to settle down here?”
“Still prying, ma’am?”
Color flushed her smooth cheeks. “I have to print this story.”
Consuela Markham said: “Did you see how he looked at Patricia? I think we can guess what Mister Mara intends to do. Now, Dorothy, if some good man would just take you in hand.”
“She needs it,” Clay drawled.
Dorothy flushed and moved the plate on the checked tablecloth. “Such talk isn’t necessary.”
“If ever a young lady,” Clay said, “needed a good man to take her in hand, I could . . .”
“I think this is enough of such talk,” said the widow firmly. Her face was fiery as she moved to the open back door.
Her plain dress and bright red hair pinned back only made more obvious, Clay thought, the slenderness of her figure and the softness of her face. In this moment, she looked once more like her small, distressed daughter. Clay watched her across his lifted coffee mug. “Ma’am, if I really try . . .”
