Monument Rock (Ss) (1998)

by L'amour, Louis

  Instantly he was alert. His hand touched the roan and the horse relaxed slowly. He waited, listening. The horse was coming through the pass from the Chisos.

  It slowed … a saddle creaked … with a warning signal to the roan, Chick eased himself forward on cat feet.

  The horse was drinking at the spring, and as he watched, the rider got up from the ground. It was Rose Murray. She wiped the water from her mouth and looked carefully around.

  What was she doing here? And where were Yates and Chilton?

  He watched her step into the leather and turn west, then mounted his own horse. Was she involved in the plotting? Or had she come upon some clue?

  Holding a course that kept him inside the brush, he worked his way along the mountainside in the direction Rose had chosen. Suddenly he drew up.

  A horse with shoes badly worn on the outside had come off the mesa from the west.

  A blade of grass in one of the hoofprints was just springing into place. This could be the mysterious camper in the brush of whom Pedro had told him.

  Chick Bowdrie followed on, but slowly. He had good reason to know the skill and trickiness of Andy Short. The quiet, gray-faced man in the nondescript clothes, described to him by the hostler, but whom he had never seen. That the man was a gunman, Bowdrie knew from the Rangers’ Bible-his agency’s file of outlaws.

  At the edge of the pin oaks he drew up, scanned the empty country before him, then moved ahead, alert for trouble. His eyes roved, and suddenly held.

  The Rock Hut.

  And two horses standing near a mesquite tree. One was the horse Rose had ridden.

  The other was the horse he had seen once before, the horse of the mysterious rider.

  He waited, studying the lay of the land. There was a door, obviously, from the path, leading from the front of the building toward where the horses stood. There was no window on this side, but there was a window behind. A small window.

  Swinging down, he moved carefully, closing in. From the window came half-heard voices.

  “So, you trailed young Radcliff. What a joke! He’s back at your place taking care of Chilton’s greenhorn son.”

  The girl spoke, too softly.

  “You just sit there, Missy. We’ll figure out …” The man’s voice dissolved into a murmur.

  Chick started to move closer, then he dropped to his haunches behind a boulder and some brush. A hard-ridden horse was coming down the trail. It was Rad Yates.

  Chick moved away then stepped out from the brush as Yates slid his horse to a stop.

  His face was a study in cold fury. Bowdrie knew how tricky the situation was. “Rad.”

  He spoke quietly, striving to keep his voice casual and calm on the other man. “Whatever you’re figurin’ on, don’t do it.” Yates’s head snapped around.

  Before Rad could speak, he continued, “Think now! You’re clean. Nobody has anything on you. We have plenty on Short. Why butt into something where you’re not wanted? Turn around and ride out of here a free man. Stay, and you become an outlaw.”

  The view was so eminently reasonable that Rad Yates hesitated. What Bowdrie said was true. He was still on the right side of the law. If he went ahead, there would be no return trail.

  But the lure of the gold was strong. “No.” He spoke slowly. “I’ve come too far-waited too long.” He swung to the ground. As he turned he drew.

  Whatever he planned failed to materialize. In the instant he swung down, Bowdrie had closed in. As Rad turned, his gun coming up, Bowdrie slapped the gun aside and down and hit him on the chin.

  It was a short, wicked blow. Yates tottered and stumbled against his horse, the startled bronc moved, and Yates lost his balance and fell. As he hit ground, Bowdrie kicked the gun from his hand.

  Yates came up fast and Bowdrie was too close to chance a draw. But Yates’s rising lunge met the battering ram of Bowdrie’s rock-hard fist and the bone in Yates’s nose crushed under the impact, showering him with blood. The man was game, and shaking his head, he got up. Bowdrie let him rise, taking time for one quick glance toward the Rock Hut. No sign of life there at all.

  The idea of Short discovering them frightened him and he stepped in quickly. For all his size, Rad was no fistfighter. He threw a long swing and Bowdrie went inside with a wicked right to the chin that dropped Yates. Grabbing the man’s gun and taking his rifle, he threw them, whirling, high over the brush. Then he ran for the Hut.

  He was running on soft ground and he heard voices, then stopped. “How come you knowed about this place?”

  “I heard you tell Rad you’d meet him here today. Then I realized this might be the place.”

  Chick heard the chink of metal on metal. “You’re hard luck, kid, you shouldn’t have come here.”

  Andy Short came through the door, his hands and pant legs dusted with dirt, dragging a sack. His eyes went wide and he swung up the gun he carried in his right hand, and fired. The shot was too quick, a startled response to the unexpected sight of the Ranger. It missed.

  Chick Bowdrie palmed his Colt and fired, but Short had dropped low and the bullet took him through the shoulder. It knocked him around and his second shot missed, and then Bowdrie put two fast bullets into him.

  Bowdrie stepped back, his dark, Apache-like face grim and lonely. He began to shove out the shells for reloading when from behind him he heard Yates’s voice. But it was a warning, not a threat.

  “Bowdrie! Look out!”

  Chick turned … another rider sat his horse, and he held a four-shot Roper revolving shotgun in his hands. It was Houdon, the marshal.

  Bowdrie could see Yates, blood still streaming from his nose, and Yates had another cut now-on his skull. But he was not out.

  Houdon’s face was grizzled and old, his jowls heavy, his small eyes no longer looked dopey or sullen. Now they held amusement, and cunning.

  “Killed Andy, did you? Can’t say I’m sorry. Andy there could be right slick with a gun.”

  Bowdrie watched the man carefully. Slowly, things began to fit together.

  “You’re the sixth man,” he said suddenly. “You’re the last survivor of the Chilton gang.”

  Houdon did not change expression for a moment, then he chuckled. It was a slow, fat, easy chuckle. “Yep, an’ I’m the one killed Dan. It wasn’t Andy, like you prob’ly figured. I took Andy’s horse from the livery, knowin’ a body could track them shoes.

  I think that might’ve turned him against me, what d’you think?”

  “You were all trying to find the treasure?”

  “We were gonna be partners. But now … well, the deal’s off. Knowed I had to move quick when you told me Andy had been layin’ for me back o’ the saloon.

  “I killed that cowpoke, too. Heard he was huntin’ around up here.”

  Bowdrie was thinking. He held his six-shooter and it was still partly loaded. Did Houdon know that? Or did he think because he had pushed out two shells that the gun was empty? But where were the loads? For the life of him, he could not recall. There should be one empty under the hammer, but was it there, or just above the loading gate?

  “How’d you get away? I ran right into that alley,” he asked.

  Houdon chuckled. “The office is raised up, maybe two feet off the ground. I went under it, up into the trapdoor. I made that so’s I could sweep right out and not have to use no dustpan. Pays to be a lazy bachelor, sometimes.”

  He nodded at the gold. “Old Dan never guessed when we made that strike at the RM that I’d wind up with it all. He sure didn’t.”

  This was the last of the outlaws-what had his name been? Hopper? He had murdered Chilton in cold blood. Had killed two in gunfights, but he was a sure-thing killer, the kind who never gave anyone a break.

  Chick Bowdrie smiled suddenly. He was a Ranger and this was his job. He felt the skin drawing tight over his wide cheekbones. He lifted his left hand and moved his hat back on his head. “You know, Hop, I think-” He threw himself in a wild lunge, low down and straight
at the horse!

  The startled bronc gave a leap, snorting. The shotgun blasted and dust kicked into Chick’s face. Then he came up to his knees as Houdon fought the frightened horse and swung up his gun.

  Houdon saw it coming, and left the saddle in a leap of agility surprising in a man of his years. He hit the ground in a crouch and triggered the shotgun, but the muzzle was high and the charge of shot blasted by, high and to the right.

  Bowdrie’s gun clicked on an empty chamber, then fired, then he threw himself into a roll, came up, and fired again.

  Houdon took the shot right along the top of the shotgun. Smashing into his chest.

  He tried to come up, gasping, and Bowdrie shot into him again.

  He fell, staring for one awful instant into Bowdrie’s face, and then lay stretched out, choking horribly, his fingers working.

  Chick Bowdrie turned away and walked to Rose. She stood in the Rock Hut door, her face in her hands.

  He looked over his shoulder at Rad Yates. “Can you ride?”

  Yates got slowly to his feet. His nose was smashed, and the cut on his head still bled.

  “I can ride.”

  “Then get on your horse and get out of here. Don’t stop until you’re somewhere else.”

  Rad Yates wiped blood from his face. He started for his horse, then halted. “That Chilton kid … you’ll find him in the smokehouse with a headache. He wasn’t man enough for the job.”

  “Beat it,” Bowdrie said.

  Rad Yates walked his horse away, and after a minute Chick told Rose, “Get your horse.

  I’ll load up the gold, then follow.”

  “There’s blood on it,” she said, dazed.

  “Yeah”-Bowdrie’s voice was dry-“but it’ll buy cows.”

  *

  THE MAN FROM THE DEAD HILLS

  The sagebrush flats shimmered in the white heat of a late-summer sun, and a gray powder of dust lay thick upon the trail. Far away the hills loomed purple against the horizon, but the miles between were endless flats dancing with heat waves.

  Leosa Barron stood in the door, shaded her eyes against the glare, and searched once more, as she had so often of late, for a figure upon the road. There was nothing.

  The road was empty of life, vanishing in the far hills where lay a little cow town known as Joe Billy.

  She looked away. She must not expect him yet. Even if Tom Andrews received her letter and was able to come, he could not arrive so quickly.

  When her housework was finished, during which time she resolutely refused to look at the trail, she walked again to the door. Yet there was nothing but the white dust and the heat. Then her eyes turned back up the even lonelier trail to the badlands, the trail to the dead and empty hills where nothing lived. Her lips parted suddenly, and she stared, refusing at first to believe what she saw between her back fence and the dark cliffs.

  Someone was coming. Someone was coming from the direction of the Dead Hills.

  Unable to return to the shaded coolness, she waited in the door watching. She was a slender girl, taller than most, and graceful in her movements. She had a friendly mouth, eyes that smiled easily, and lips that could laugh with her eyes. The few freckles scattered over her nose only added a piquant touch to an already charming face.

  Much later she was still standing in the doorway when the solitary figure had shaped itself into a man, a man walking.

  His hat was gray and battered, his plain wool shirt had a dark spot on the shoulder and was gray with dust. The man was unshaven, and the eyes under the dark brows flashed with a quick, stabbing glance that made her start with something that was almost fear.

  The jeans he wore were roughened by wear, and his boots were run-down at the heel.

  His belt was wide leather, and curiously handworked. Leosa thought she had never seen a man in whom strength was so apparent, strength and ruthlessness.

  Yet he wore no gun.

  She had been watching him for two miles when he reached the gate. Now he fumbled ,with the latch and swung it open. He did not speak, but turned back, closing the gate carefully.

  As he faced her she knew she was looking at a man exhausted but not beaten, a man whose lips were cracked with thirst, whose flanks were lean with starvation, but a man in whom there burned an indomitable fire, a fire of whose source she knew nothing, and could sense nothing.

  Several times she had seen him stagger upon the road, and now as he faced her, his feet wide apart, it suddenly occurred to her that she should be frightened. She was alone here, and this man was from the Dead Hills. Her eyes went to that dark spot on the shoulder, a spot that could be only blood. His face was haggard, a gray mask of dust and weariness from which only the eyes stared, hard and clear.

  He walked toward her, and his eyes did not leave hers, fastening to them and clinging as though only their clear beauty kept him alive and on his feet. As in a trance, she saw him stop at the well coping and lift the rope. He staggered, almost losing balance, then she heard the bucket slap on the water.

  Quickly she was beside him. “Let me do it-You’re nearly dead!”

  He smiled then, although the movement of his lips started a tiny trickle of blood from the heat cracks. “Not by a durned sight, ma’am.”

  But he let her help him. Together they drew up the bucket, then he lifted it and drank, the water slopping over his chin and down his shirtfront. After a minute he put the bucket down and stared at her, then around the place. His eyes returned to her. “You alone here?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  He held the bucket in his hands, and waited. She knew how the body yearns for water and more water when one has been long without it, but this man waited. He impressed her then as a man who could do anything with himself, a man who knew his strength and his weaknesses. His eyes glinted at her, then he lifted the bucket, drank a little more, and put it down.

  Turning away from her, he picked up the washbasin and sloshed water into it. Stripping off his shirt, he began to bathe his body. Standing behind him, she could see that there was an ugly wound near the top of his shoulder and a dark stain of dried blood below and around it. Hurrying inside, she secured medicine and clean linen and returned to him.

  He accepted her ministrations without comment, only watching her with curious eyes as she cleansed the wound and bandaged his shoulder.

  As she worked she was wondering about him. Long ago she had taken a ride into that remote desert country around the Dead Hills. Outlaws had lived there before the gangs were wiped out, but nobody else. There were hideouts near some of the water holes, but those water holes were hard to find unless one knew the country.

  To a stranger the region was a waterless horror, a nightmare of grotesque stones and gnarled and blasted cacti, a place where only buzzards and an occasional rattler could be seen.

  How far had this man come? What had happened to his horse, and where and how had he been shot?

  When she had finished with his wound, she stood back from him and looked up into his eyes. He was smiling, and the expression in his eyes startled her, for it was so different from the lightning of that first glance from the gate. His eyes were warm and friendly, even affectionate. Yet he stepped by her and into the coolness of the room beyond. Without a word he lay down on the divan and was at once asleep.

  Returning to the door, she looked down the road again. If Tom Andrews were to arrive in time, there was need that it be soon. If she lost possession of the ranch before he arrived, she had been told there was small chance they would ever recover the property.

  Then, almost at sundown, she saw them coming. Not Andrews, but Rorick and Wilson, the men she feared.

  They came into the yard riding fast, drawing up with out dismounting. “Well”-Van Rorick’s voice was cool but triumphant-“are you ready to leave? All packed?”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  Leosa Barron stood straight and still. She knew these men, and for all Rorick’s pretended interest in her, she knew there
was nothing he would not stoop to do if it obtained results. Lute Wilson was just a tool for Van, and a dangerous man to cross. Yet it was Rorick she feared the most, for she knew the depths of malice in the man, and she had once seen him vent his hatred on a trapped wildcat.

  “Then you leave us no choice, Leosa,” Rorick replied. “We’ll have to move you. If we do that, we might have to handle you rather roughly. You’ve had plenty of time to leave without trouble.”

  “I told you I was not going.” Leosa stood even straighter. “You will leave this ranch at once!”

  Rorick’s eyes narrowed a little, but he laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “If you want to come to my place, I could make you comfortable. If you don’t come with me, there will be no place in Joe Billy where they will have you.”

  Leosa knew the truth of this. Van Rorick was known and feared in the cow town, but more than that, she was herself a stranger, and unkind rumors had been set afloat because of her living alone. She had no doubt that those rumors had been originated by Rorick himself. He knew so well the prejudices of a small town.

  “I told you I was staying.”

  Yet there was no chance of winning. Had Tom Andrews made it, she might have stood them off. She could rely on Tom. Alone against them, she was helpless. And where could she go? She had neither money nor friends. Only Andrews, who had failed her.

  “All right, Lute. I guess we move her.”

  Lute was the first to reach the ground. He turned to face the porch, then stopped, his face stupid with shock.

  Surprised, Leosa turned, and found the unshaven stranger at her side. He had belted on her uncle’s guns.

  “You heard the lady. Get goin’! Get out of here!”

  There was a low, ugly sound in the man’s voice that frightened her and apparently had something of the same effect upon Lute Wilson, for he froze where he stood, uncertain how to move.

  “Leosa,” Rorick demanded, “who is this man? What is he doing here?”

  The stranger stepped down to the ground, his movements swift and catlike. “Shut up,” he said, and his voice was not hard, only somehow more deadly for it. “Shut up an’ get out!”