Collection 1981 - Buckskin Run (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  HORSE HEAVEN

  THE HIGH WALL of the canyon threw a shadow over the entrance of the shallow cave where the two men stood, staring at the skeleton that lay on the sandy floor.

  Only a few rags remained of the man’s clothing, and the dried-out, twisted leather of gunbelt and boots. The front part of the head had been blown away by a bullet fired from behind. Another bullet could still be seen, lodged low down in the man’s spine.

  The taller and older of the two men lifted his eyes to his companion. “Are you sure it’s him? There ain’t much to go on, Jim.”

  Locklin’s face was lonely. This was the last member of a once closely-knit family who lay there, the brother he had loved and admired, who had pleaded with him to come west before the War.

  “I don’t need anything more, Nearly. See where the left elbow was broken? I helped set it in a buffalo wallow while we fought off a bunch of Comanches.

  “That gunbelt was his own work. He did it himself. He was a good man, Pike, too good a man to be trailed here and murdered after he was wounded.”

  “My guess would be that bullet in the spine crippled him,” Nearly Pike suggested. “Why d’ you suppose he came here? Was he just huntin’ a place to hide? Or did he figure you’d be along?”

  “He sent for me, like I told you. This is where we were to meet, so he must have had some reason why he did not want me riding down to the place without seeing him first. He’d camped here on Savory Creek before he built down in the valley, so he’d told me all about the place.”

  “You won’t have anything to go on,” Pike observed. “There’s no sign left after all these years.”

  “There’s two things. His guns are gone, so somebody packed them off, and there’s the ranch. Somebody will have it, and that somebody will have some questions to answer.”

  He turned away. “We will come back and bury him properly when this is settled. A few more days or weeks won’t matter now. From now on we are hunting two ivory-butted guns, and each will have three grooves filed in the bottom of the butt.”

  The trail to Toiyabe was dusty and long. Clouds hung heavy with a promise of rain, but as the hours passed it failed to develop. Wise with the wisdom of forty years west of the Missouri, Nearly Pike knew the manner of man with whom he rode. Yet he was a man who wanted nothing more than peace, and saw little in the weeks ahead.

  Ten years before, George Locklin, accompanied by his much younger brother Jim, was riding through this country heading home to Texas when they saw the V where Antelope Valley points back toward a notch in the mountains. There was water and grass, with lakes and timber in the nearby hills. It was then George told his brother he had found what he wanted, and he would come back and settle on this ground and make a home for them here.

  As they spoke of their plans they were sheltered in the same shallow cave on Savory Creek where his bones now lay.

  Jim Locklin had stayed on in Texas, but then came the note:

  Come on out, Jim, I’ve bought you a place called Horse Heaven, up in the mountains. I bought it in your name and filed the deed in the court house at Jacobsville. Looks like a bit of trouble here and I could use a good hand. If you don’t find me around look up a man named Reed Castle.

  At the time the note came Jim Locklin had been trailing north with a herd, and as they were short-handed there was no way he could leave. The mention of trouble had not alarmed him, as it had not been emphasized and he knew George could handle trouble.

  They would need money to develop their property, so he took on a job ramrodding a herd from Dodge City to Canada, and then he drifted south toward Texas, pausing long enough in Deadwood to strike it rich in a small way. Finally, back in Texas, he paid off old debts and banked the rest. Only then did he start west.

  “They might have buried him,” Pike commented. “A man deserves that.”

  “I’m glad they didn’t. Now I know he was murdered. He was a good man, Pike. He asked nothing from anyone and gave all he could. He could be a hard man, but this is a hard country.”

  “We’d best say nothing about who we are,” Pike commented, as they sighted the first buildings of Toiyabe. “If we listen we might learn something.”

  “Good idea. You round up some grub, and I’ll roust around and see what I can hear. It’s been a good while, but if we can get some old timer to talkin’ the rest should be easy.”

  Toiyabe was booming. In the bottom of its steep-walled canyon the town’s few streets were jammed with freighter’s outfits, the recently arrived stage, buckboards from the ranches, and horses lining the hitching rail. Aside from being the supply center for the ranches, it was also headquarters for miners and for the men who worked in the sawmill.

  The Fish Creek Saloon was run by Fish Creek Burns, whose faded blue eyes had looked sadly upon a world that stretched from his boyhood in the Cumberland Gap country through Council Bluffs to the Platte and west to the Rockies and back again by way of Abilene, Dodge, El Paso, Tascosa, and Santa Fe. He was a man of many interests, few loyalties, and no illusions.

  Now, suddenly, his hands stopped, utterly still, on the glass he had been polishing. A man rarely surprised, he was startled now to immobility; slowly then, after a moment, the hands began to move once more. Under the straw-colored brows, the eyes lost their momentary sharpness and assumed the faded, normal lack of lustre. Yet the mind behind them was busy.

  The man who had come through the door was two inches under six feet, but broad in the chest and thick in the shoulders. He was a young man in his twenties, but compact and sharp, the lean, brown face holding the harsh lines of one much older. Fish Creek Burns never forgot a face or a loyalty.

  “Rye,” Locklin said mildly, “it’s been a dusty ride.”

  “This time of year,” Burns agreed, putting bottle and glass before him.

  Down the bar was Chance Varrow, and behind the stranger was a poker table where one of the players was Reed Castle, of the OZ spread. Burns’s eyes shifted to Locklin. “Driftin’?”

  “Stayin’.”

  “Huntin’ a job?”

  “No, but maybe I’ll have an outfit of my own.”

  Burns’s tone was dry and casual as he picked up another glass. “That big man with the black mustache at the table behind you runs a lot of cattle in Antelope Valley, away back,” his eyes met Locklin’s, “where the valley notches the mountains.”

  Jim Locklin was immediately alert. What was the bartender trying to tell him? That ranch in the notch of the hills had belonged to his brother!

  Burns’s face was without expression. He was polishing another glass.

  “Has he had the place long?”

  “Three years or so. He’s doing right well.”

  The last letter from George had been mailed just about three years ago. Jim wanted to turn and look but he did not. “Maybe he could use a hand. Does he have a name?”

  “Reed Castle.” Burns sighted through a glass. “He’s the big man around here. A man who makes money fast makes both friends and enemies. Down the bar, the tall man in the white hat and the blue coat is Chance Varrow, and some say he could have a dozen notches on his guns if he wanted.”

  Varrow was taller than Locklin, with sharply-cut features, cold as a prowling fox. As Locklin looked, Varrow’s eyes turned and stopped suddenly on Locklin.

  “The big man in the black broadcloth suit,” Burns continued, “is Creighton Burt, district attorney. A man with nerve, a man of integrity. He doesn’t like Reed Castle.”

  Disturbed by the interest in Varrow’s eyes, Jim leaned his forearms on the bar and asked Burns, “Do I look like somebody you know? Varrow acts like he’s seen me somewhere.”

  Fish Creek kept his eyes on the glass in his hands. “Two or three years ago there was a man around here named George Locklin, and you’re somewhat like him. Some said that Locklin and Varrow weren’t friendly. Varrow hasn’t been here long, either. Right around three years I’d say.”

  “Thanks. I would take it you wer
e friendly to George Locklin?”

  “He was one of the finest men I ever came across. However, I’d not speak his name about town if I were you.”

  “Thank you.” He finished his drink. “By the way, there’s a man travelin’ with me. Tall old man named Nearly Pike. He may be in.”

  Jim Locklin managed a casual glance around the room that took in both Creighton Burt and Reed Castle. The former was large, fat, and untidy. Castle was big, and obviously prosperous. He wore a black mustache, and his face was strong-boned, a domineering face and a bold one, the face of a man who would ride rough-shod over obstacles. Jim turned and went out, letting the doors swing to behind him, turned quickly into the crowd and crossed the street. It would be a mistake to become a focus of their attention too soon.

  Glancing back he saw Chance Varrow standing in the door, staring after him. Locklin went to the harness shop and, after a minute, out the side door to the alley and across to the general store where Pike was loading supplies into a couple of sacks.

  Nearly Pike’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat. “Place in Hoss Heaven is lived on,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Some gal moved on the place with an Injun. She’s been havin’ trouble with a man named Reed Castle.”

  Locklin was watching the street through the window. “What else?”

  “Cattle range is sewed up slick and tight between four men. Reed Castle has Antelope Valley north to the mountains. John Shippey has the Monitor and Burly Ives the Smoky. Neil Chase has the Diamond outfit. They won’t let anybody drive through or in.”

  “Get the horses around back and load up. I’m getting some ammunition.” Leaving the older man, Locklin went over to the counter.

  He loved the old, familiar smell of such stores, the smell of spices, freshly ground coffee, new leather, dry goods, and the sweetish smell of gun oil.

  After buying a hundred rounds of .44 ammunition, he glanced at a new shotgun, a short-barreled gun of the express-gun type carried by shotgun messengers. “Give me that scatter-gun,” he said, “and a hundred rounds for it.”

  The storekeeper, a short, stout man, glanced up. “You must figure to fight a war with all that ammunition. And a shotgun? Never cared for ’em myself.”

  Locklin smiled pleasantly. “Good for quail. I like bird-meat.” He loaded the shotgun. “Only empty guns that hurt folks,” he commented, smiling. “I like mine loaded.” He thrust the muzzle of the shotgun into the grocery sack and gathered the top of the burlap around the trigger-guard, carrying it with the stock almost invisible behind his forearm. “As for wars, I never fight unless folks push it on me. However,” he paused briefly, “I plan to go into the cattle business here.”

  The storekeeper’s head came up from the bill he was adding. “If you figure on that you’d better double your order for ammunition. This is a closed country.”

  “Uncle Sam doesn’t say so.”

  “Uncle Sam doesn’t run this country. The Big Four run it, and that means Reed Castle.”

  Jim smiled. “Ever hear,” he asked gently, “of a cowman named George Locklin?”

  The fat man straightened slowly, staring at him. He half turned aside, started to speak and then said nothing. Locklin went to the front door and stepped out, calling back to Pike as he did so. He stepped out right into the middle of trouble.

  Confronting him was a huge back, the top of the shoulders on the level with his eyes, the vest split down the back from the strain of huge shoulders and powerful muscles. The man wore a six-shooter, and his hand gripped the butt. Beyond him Jim could see a young Indian, straight and tall, his face expressionless. He was unarmed.

  “You’re a dirty, thievin’ rustler!” the big man was saying. “Git! Git out of the country! We don’t need your kind.”

  “I steal no cows.”

  “Don’t you be callin’ me no liar!” The big man’s fingers grasped the gun butt tighter and he started to draw.

  Locklin’s left hand shot out and grasped the big man’s wrist. With a startled grunt the big man began to turn, and Locklin let him turn but at the same time he shoved up and back on the gun wrist he held, pushing the elbow higher until the gun muzzle was back of the holster.

  The big man struck viciously, but Locklin was too close, and the blow curled around his neck. At the same time he was shoving the big man back and keeping him off balance. The big man’s back slammed against an awning-post, and Jim twisted hard on the wrist. The gun dropped from the man’s fingers, and instantly Jim stepped back and drew the shotgun from the sack.

  “The Indian wasn’t armed,” he said, “and I’ll see no man murdered.”

  The flash of sunlight on the blue-black barrel of the shotgun had cleared the street behind the big man as if by magic.

  Slowly the big man began to rub his wrist. “You’d no call to butt in, stranger. Nobody pushes Ives around.”

  “We’ve no quarrel,” Locklin said, “unless you come looking for it, or unless you’re one of those who murdered my brother and stole his ranch.”

  There was silence in the street. Somebody shifted his weight and the boardwalk creaked. “Who—? What did you say your name was?”

  “My name is Locklin, Ives. Jim Locklin, brother to George Locklin who was dry-gulched and murdered up in the Monitors about three years ago.”

  Ives backed another step, still rubbing his wrist. He glanced around hastily as if looking for a way out or for help.

  Chance Varrow stood across the street; near him was Reed Castle. “Those are hard words, friend,” Varrow said. “Before you make such a statement you’d better have proof.”

  “I have proof of the murder. As yet I do not have the murderers.”

  “You are mistaken,” Reed Castle said carelessly, but speaking for the onlookers more than for him. “George Locklin sold his ranch to me and left the country. Whatever you think you know is a mistake. George left here under his own power.”

  Jim’s shotgun held steady. “Castle,” he replied, his voice ringing the length of the street, “you’re a liar! I have a letter from my brother telling me of the trouble he was having and asking me to come out. He had no intention of selling out, and he did have plans for developing the ranch.

  “As for your ownership, I am asking right now, before the town of Toiyabe, for you to produce a bill of sale. I want to see it in the office of Creighton Burt not later than the day after tomorrow.”

  There was no movement; the street held its silence. Nobody realized better than Reed Castle the position he faced. Since acquiring the Antelope Valley property nothing had stopped him. His personality and strength had drawn Shippey, Chase, and Ives to him and into the combine he formed. Other cattlemen had been frozen out or driven out, and Castle was building strong and deep.

  In the town itself only Creighton Burt held out against him in the open, although Castle was well aware that many lesser men both feared and hated him.

  Now he had been called a liar in the open street. He had been indirectly accused of murder and theft. Nor would the story stop with the borders of this small town. It would be told and repeated in Carson, Austin, and Eureka.

  “We’ll make it noon, Castle. Show up with your bill of sale, and if you have one the signature had better be valid!”

  Coolly, he lowered his shotgun, picked up the dropped sack, and walked across the street. Nearly Pike waited at the corner of the alley, his rifle in his hands. “Wal, son, you sure laid down your argument. Now they’ve got to put up or shut up.”

  The ride to Horse Heaven was by a devious route. Neither man knew exactly where they were going, just a general direction and some landmarks to look for. They headed northeast when leaving Toiyabe, then turned back to the southwest through Ackerman Canyon. Daylight found them camped near Antelope Peak.

  From there they turned back into the hills, climbing steadily through the pines and aspen, riding warily, for they understood their situation without discussion. The easy way out, perhaps the only way, was to have Locklin k
illed so he could not appear at Burt’s office. If he did not appear it could be shrugged off as the talk of some loud-mouthed drifter. There would be criticism, but Castle could merely say that he had been there, ready with his bill of sale, and where was this so-called Locklin fellow?

  The narrow trail through the trees ended in a long basin, a grass-covered basin scattered here and there with clumps of trees and brush. On the far side, nestled against a corner of the mountain, was a cabin. A lazy trail of smoke mounted toward the sky.

  “You kicked into an anthill,” Pike commented. “Castle will have men ridin’ the hills huntin’ you.”

  Locklin had been thinking of that, and now they drew up in the shadow of some pines and studied the cabin and its vicinity with careful attention. A saddled horse was tied near the corral, and three other horses were loose in the corral.

  As they watched, two people came into sight, a girl from the cabin and an Indian from the rocks near the cliff. “That’s the Injun you spoke for, Jim. I’d know that odd limp anywhere.”

  They had no sooner broken from cover than they were seen. The girl started toward the cabin, but something said by the Indian stopped her, and she turned back.

  What he had expected he was not sure, but certainly not what he found. She was a tall, beautifully shaped girl with dark skin, from which her gray eyes were both startling and lovely. She studied him carefully as he drew near, but she was by no means frightened. She had poise and manner, and seemed perfectly sure of herself. The Indian was wearing a gun now.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” Jim said. “I’m Locklin. I own this place.”

  “I know who you are. As to owning this place, that’s a matter for discussion. Get down and come in, will you? Patch told me what you did for him.”