Monument Rock (Ss) (1998)

by L'amour, Louis

  Astonishment held Reb speechless for a full minute, and then as the riders began to turn their horses to ride away, he found his voice. “You accusin’ me of rustlin’, Nathan?” His eyes seemed to flare. “I won’t take that from no man! Don’t call me a rustler unless you’re willing to grab iron!”

  Embree turned on him. “Yes,” he said contemptuously, “you would try something like that! Oh, we all know you’re a gunfighter, Reb, but now that your own father’s dead, you should have some sense in that head of yours!”

  Reb Farrell stared, unable to believe what he heard. Embree had shouted at them to fire as they heard the rush of hooves, and he had fired at the silhouette of a man in the saddle.

  “By rights you should be hangin’, an’ it’s only because of my daughter that you ain’t!

  But get out, an’ don’t ever show your face around my place or my daughter!”

  Wheeling his horse, he led the group away, and only Dave Barbot lingered. “Sorry, Reb,” he said softly. “I’m really sorry.”

  Alone in the darkness, Reb Farrell stood beside the body of his father and the ashes of all that had mattered to him, and listened to the sound of their retreating hooves.

  Like a man walking in his sleep, Reb caught up his own horse and then his father’s.

  He loaded the body across the saddle and started for home. He rode slowly, his head hanging, devoid of thought. It was the end of everything for him. The job on the ranch he loved, Laura, everything.

  The old cabin where he had spent his boyhood was dark and silent. Dismounting, he went inside and lighted a lamp. Without waiting for day to come, he got some loose boards and knocked together a crude coffin, lining it with an old poncho. Sodden with grief, he went to the place under the trees and there beside the grave of his mother, who died when he was a child, he buried his father.

  Although he had eaten nothing since morning, he had no thought of food. Slowly, he looked around the cabin that had been his home until he moved out to the ranch. What should he take with him? What was there to take? Though men may die, the living must continue to live, and he must think of food, bedding, guns.

  Guns … his father’s fine old Sharps .50, the new Winchester .44 which his father had …

  The Winchester was gone!

  Reb felt a queer tingle of excitement go through him. The Sharps was in its place on the rack, but the new Winchester was gone? And there had been no saddle scabbard on the saddle of his father’s horse. Knowing his father, Reb knew he would never have gone out at night without taking a rifle, and that meant the Sharps. Despite the fact that Reb had made him a present of the Winchester, his father had kept it on the rack and held to his familiar old buffalo gun.

  Aware of something wrong, Reb stood stock-still in the middle of the cabin and looked around. Suddenly he thought of the carefully hoarded cache of money his father had.

  A few hundred dollars only, it was his insurance against illness or old age. Reb dropped on his knees and slid the board from its grooves in the floor. The money was gone!

  Slowly Reb got to his feet. No money had been in his father’s pockets. Something was wrong, but what could it all mean?

  Looking around the cabin, Reb was suddenly struck by the coffeepot on the stove, and going to it, he lifted the lid. There were still grounds in the pot. Either somebody else had made that coffee and left the pot or Jim Farrell had been drawn from his fire while making coffee, for Jim had habits of neatness acquired from years of living with his wife. He never left a pot on the stove and never left a dish unwashed.

  As he packed the remaining food Reb Farrell considered all the possibilities, and slowly the conviction gathered in his mind that either his father had been somehow alarmed and left the cabin or he had been taken from it by force.

  It was daylight when Reb Farrell finally left the cabin. He took with him two packhorses and four head of saddle stock aside from the horse he himself rode. There were Rocking F cattle around that belonged to him, but they would have to wait.

  Reb struck for the hills above Indian Creek. He was not leaving the country, not until he knew exactly what had happened. Of one thing he was sure. His father had never done anything dishonest. There had been too many times in the past when he might have profited without anyone the wiser, but Jim Farrell had not taken one single thing that did not belong to him. Not even when, as had happened, he had a shadow of a claim.

  As Reb rode up the narrowing canyon he thought the matter over. His father had no enemies. A kindly man, he never had trouble with anyone, working at whatever he could to eke out his existence, and selling off little by little the once fair-sized herd he had owned. Therefore, if his cabin had been looted, it had been by chance thieves.

  Or … the thought came to him suddenly . .. enemies of Reb’s!

  But who were Reb’s enemies? Aside from a few fistfights at dances, none of which led to enmity, Reb had no enemies.

  Except … except the rustlers themselves. Reb had found and recovered two herds of stolen cattle, and he had upon several occasions trailed the rustlers for miles.

  In fact, he had been the only man they had reason to fear. Suppose they had chosen this way to strike at him?

  Skirting South Peak, Reb Farrell rode into a narrow canyon where he had once trailed a wounded elk, and circling into the back of the canyon, he dismounted and opened an old corral and turned in his horses. Then he switched saddles from the animal he had been riding to a long-legged zebra dun. There was plenty of grass in the corral, growing rich and green, and a small stream flowed through one corner of it. Several years ago he had built that corral himself, but had never expected to use it as he was now.

  There was no cabin, but the deep overhang of a cliff provided all the shelter he needed, and the firs growing before it would keep his fire from reflecting by night and would dissipate his smoke by day, for Reb had no intention of leaving the country.

  The dun was a fast and tough horse, one whose staying power and heart he had tested before this. In the saddle, he headed for town. First, he had to see Laura Embree.

  The town of Palo Seco was resting when he rode in. There were lights in the two saloons and in a few scattered houses. One of these was Nathan Embree’s town house. Knowing well the hardheadedness of his former boss, Reb dismounted in the cottonwoods some fifty yards from the house and walked up along the rail fence surrounding the Embree garden. Easing into the yard, he glanced through the window.

  Laura was at the piano and there was no one else in the room. Swiftly, he mounted the porch and tapped gently on the door. A second time he tapped, and then the music stopped. He heard the sound of steps and the door opened.

  “Reb!” Laura’s hand went to her lips and her eyes widened. “If Father finds you here, you’ll be killed!”

  “Maybe. But I had to see you.” His eyes searched her face. “Where do you stand, Laura?

  Do you believe I am a rustler?”

  “I don’t know, Reb,” she said cautiously. “But I don’t know if I can take a chance on you either.”

  “You can trust me! You just watch, I’m gonna-” She closed the door in his face and he stood staring at it, his world collapsing around him.

  Laura, too! Stunned, he turned away and walked back to the dun. Somehow, even when he tried to convince himself that she would think as her father did, he had not believed it. But tonight she had looked at him as though at a stranger!

  One hand on the pommel, Reb Farrell hesitated, scowling. All right, he had to begin somewhere. He knew his father was not a rustler. He knew his father had not been out there willingly. As long as he knew those things there was a chance to prove himself right.

  One other person, perhaps several others, knew the truth also; the rustlers knew he or his father had been framed.

  But who would be doing the rustling? The most likely person was, he knew, Lon Melchor over on Tank Mesa. Melchor had rustled cattle before, but had always been too quick to be caught at it. But somehow he co
uld not believe that Lon would kill his father.

  They had been on opposite sides of the fence but they had always been friendly. Regardless, it was a place to start.

  Hard riding put him at Lon’s place shortly after midnight. All was dark and still.

  Swinging down from the dun’s saddle, Reb moved swiftly along the side hill toward the cabin where Lon Melchor lived. All was still, but there was something about the feel of the night that he did not like. Hesitating, he tried to resolve the feeling into something concrete and definite.

  He moved up to the corner of the house. The door was standing open, which was unusual, for the night was cool. Straining his ears, he could hear hoarse breathing but no other sound. He spoke softly. “Lon!”

  All was still. He stepped into the door of the cabin and pushed the door shut, listening. Again he spoke the old rustler’s name, but again there was no sound. Then he took a chance and struck a match.

  Lon Melchor was sprawled on the floor, lying in a stupor, his shirt stained with blood!

  Forgetting his mission, Reb dropped to his knees and made a quick examination of the old man, and then he began to work swiftly. He got a fire going and put water on the stove, and then he put a pillow under the old man’s head and stretched him out easier, rolling him over onto a blanket which he placed on the floor. When the water was hot he bathed the wound, which was a nasty bullet burn along his left side, and only when he had the wound bandaged did he turn to look around.

  Lon’s gun lay on the floor, and picking it up, Reb saw it had been fired three times.

  His rifle was nowhere about, and was probably on his horse. Slipping out of the door, Reb looked about until he found the horse. The saddle was wet where the old man had bled, and Reb stripped the saddle from the horse and turned him into the corral.

  There was water in the trough and he forked down some hay, then returned to the cabin.

  Lon’s eyes were open. “Reb!” he gasped. “You seen ‘em? Them rustlers, I mean?”

  “Who were they, Lon? Did they shoot you?”

  “Yep.” He stared up at the younger man, his misery showing in his face. “They got your dad and it’s my fault, too. I knowed Joe Banta was a bad-”

  “My dad?” Reb Farrell leaned over the bunk. “What do you know about him?”

  “He’s dead. Banta come in here wantin’ a hideout, maybe three weeks ago. I knowed he was a plumb bad hombre, but I let him stay on. Fact is, I couldn’t have drove him away. Then he did leave, only to come back with a bunch of hardcases. They were rustlin’ cattle an’ slippin’ them out of here at night… you know that.”

  “You’re durned right I do. What about my father?”

  “They were talkin’ about what to do about you.” The old man coughed, and then grimaced with the pain. “They wanted to warn you off.

  “I waited until they left, then I took off, tried to beat ‘em by going across the mountains. I got there too late! They killed him! Dragged him right out in the yard and shot him! I opened up at them with my Winchester and one of ‘em shot me. I got back on my horse and rode right out of there! guess none of them followed.”

  “They thought he was doing it, Lon.” Briefly, Reb explained all that had taken place.

  The old man was angry.

  “Nathan Embree was always a pigheaded fool!” he snorted. He grabbed Reb’s hand. “Get you some men, son! I know where he’ll go! He’ll head for the old hideout at Burro Springs! You got to follow Dark Canyon to get there. Right up the canyon through all them boulders! From there he can sell that herd to the minin’ camps easy as pie!”

  Reb hesitated, but the old man waved him on. “What’re you going to do for me, boy!

  I lost a sight of blood, but you ain’t no doctor. You get some men and go after those coyotes. I’ll get along.”

  Reb wheeled and ran to the door. His horse was excited, seeming to realize what was at stake. There was no time to go for help, and there was a chance he might get shot on sight if he went back for it.

  Day was just breaking in the east when he first found the opening into Dark Canyon and rode down from the lip of the mesa into the deep, shadowy green recesses of this oasis in the desert.

  Long suspected as a possible hangout for rustlers, the canyon had been searched several times in the past year, but Lon’s remark about the boulders explained why they had found nothing. Searchers had always been stopped by the seemingly impassable jumble of boulders, some of them so close together there seemed no way through. Moreover, the place was exceedingly dangerous. If caught in the canyon bottom during a heavy rain, there would be small chance of escaping the roaring flood which came down the canyon, fifteen, sixteen, sometimes twenty feet or more high.

  Now Reb knew there was a way through those boulders, if the cattle had been taken through, then he could go through. He rode now with extreme caution, pausing to study the canyon ahead of him, and then pushing on. Soon the huge boulders that had hitherto blocked all progress in the ancient riverbed were before him. Long before this point they had always lost all tracks, a matter the occasional rains would attend to or a few hands dragging brush behind their horses. The boulders seemed to block all advance. Riding up to them, he searched for a way between, but try as he might, he could find none that would allow the passage of a horse or cow. Yet with Lon Melchor’s statement to urge him on, he persisted, and it was finally a mark on the canyon wall that tipped him off. It was such a mark as might have been made by the brushing of a stirrup or stirrups. Riding close to the wall, ducking his head because of the overhang, he suddenly saw the opening, only wide enough to allow for passage. He rode through, then paused in the shadow of the cliff.

  The canyon continued a jumble of boulders, and nothing could be seen for some distance ahead. After a careful study of the rocks and earth, he rode on, then turned up a narrow path that showed at one side of the canyon. It was a little-used trail that looked like it was probably made by wild horses. It led him into the broken rock of the shattered canyon wall, and then on to a green-topped mesa. Crossing this, he paused under some trees and looked down.

  Below him, the canyon widened out into a long, green, and well-watered valley of some five hundred acres. Two huts and a long bunkhouse or boardinghouse were against the wall of the canyon below him. There was a stable and some corrals, and scattered over the canyon several hundred head of cattle were feeding.

  As he watched, two men came from the long building and strolled toward the corrals.

  They walked as men do who have enjoyed a good meal and are in no hurry to go to work.

  One of them was Joe Banta.

  Banta had never been known to operate in this part of the country, and Nathan Embree would have been the first to scoff at such an idea, yet here he was, and in plain sight. He was a stocky man of considerable breadth and little height, a swarthy fellow with a battered gray hat. Even at this distance Reb could recognize him without trouble.

  When they turned around, Reb recognized the man with him as Ike Goodrich, a small-time outlaw and occasional hand who had once worked for Embree.

  Two hours of waiting and watching while his horse cropped grass contentedly gave Reb Farrell the idea that at least four men were below. Aside from Banta and Ike, there was the cook, whom Reb had seen come to the door to throw out some water, and a thin, redheaded fellow who walked with a slight limp and appeared to favor one leg considerably, as though it had been injured at some time not long since. This man went to the corral and saddled four horses.

  There was no time to go for help. It would take hours to get out and hours to get back, even if he could convince somebody of the truth of his story. Barbot might believe him. Embree never would, but by the time they returned, the cattle might be gone, for it was likely there was another way out of the canyon, probably the route that led over to the mining camps.

  Leading his horse, Reb left the mesa top and made his way slowly down a back trail into a deep draw that opened on the valley where the ru
stlers were holed. Leaving his horse in the brush, Reb walked down the canyon, rifle in hand. From the mouth he looked out over the valley. The nearest corral was not twenty yards away, the back of the nearest shack about the same distance. The redhead was standing in front of the stable, tightening a saddle girth.

  Reb walked out of the canyon mouth and strolled along the corral bars until he was facing the man in front of the stable. Nobody else was in sight.

  “All right, Red.” His voice was low but strong enough. “Unloose your gun belts and turn around. One wrong move and you die!”

  Red turned slowly, his hands wide. His face was tight with surprise. “Where’d you come from?” he demanded.

  “Unloose that belt!”

  Red’s hands went to the buckle, then he hurled himself to one side and grabbed his gun. Reb’s Winchester barked and Red kept falling, the gun slipping from his fingers and sliding along the earth a foot from the outstretched hand.

  A chair slammed over inside the house and Goodrich jumped into the door. Reb was waiting for him and he fired. The shot burned Ike on the neck, cutting along that side nearest the cabin. Goodrich jerked away and fell out the door.

  From the window a bullet slammed near Reb, and Reb charged. Goodrich grabbed his gun and rolled over. Reb chanced a running shot and saw the bullet kick dirt in Ike’s face. While the gunman swore and grabbed at his eyes, Reb dropped his rifle, grabbed a pistol, and lunged through the door. He took a chance/ gambling that Joe Banta would be expecting nothing of the kind. Banta wheeled as Reb came on and both men fired at once and both missed. Reb grabbed the edge of the table to stop his forward movement and fired again. Banta jerked hard and his shot went wild. Then Reb jumped at him, clubbing with his six-gun barrel. Banta went down to his hands and knees, and started to get up when Reb hit him a second time.

  Wheeling, he sprang to the door. Goodrich was crawling for the rifle Reb had dropped and Reb put a bullet in the ground before him. Goodrich stopped, and glared at the doorway. “You’ll suffer for this! If I live a thousand years, I’ll never forget it!”