Killoe (1962) (17 page)

We looked at him, and waited. Miguel took out his cigarito and put it between his lips, "Soto is not at Palo Duro... he is on the Tularosa."

"That's east of here, ain't it?" Zeno asked.

"It is a place--a very small place which I think will get no larger because of the Apache---a place called Las Placitas. It is near Fort Stanton, where there are soldiers."

He lighted his cigarito. "It is tell to me that Soto brings his cattle there to sell to the soldiers."

"I didn't know there was a fort over there," Dodge said. "Stanton, you say? There was a Captain Stanton killed there a few years back."

"Si, it is name for him. The fort was built... 1855, I think. So these people come to the Rio Bonito and they begin a settlement, but I think the Apache will run them out." "Soto is there?"

"Si . . . with many men. And a large herd of cattle and some horses."

"Why, then," I said, looking around the table, "that is where we will go."

We walked out on the boardwalk and stood there together, four men looking up and down the street, and knowing that trouble might come to us at any time.

And then I saw Karen.

Or rather, Milo Dodge saw her. "Dan . . . look."

She was coming toward us, and I thought she looked older, older by years, and she looked thinner, too. As always, she was neat, and when she saw us she almost stopped; then, chin up, she came on.

"Karen ... Mrs. Henry," I said, "it is good to see you again."

"How do you do?" We might have been strangers. She spoke and started to pass on.

"Your folks are still with us. Tap knows where we are, and they would like to see you."

She had gone past us a step when she stopped and turned slowly around. "I do not think you like my husband," she said.

"Whenever you folks feel like coming home," I said, "there's a place for you. Pa left no will, and though he sent Tap away, that makes no difference. If Tap wants to crone back, it will be share and share alike."

"Thank you.'"

She started away, then stopped again. Maybe it was something in our manner, maybe it was just the way we were armed, for each one of us was carrying a rifle, and each had two or more pistols.

"Where . . . what are you doing?"

"We're going after our cattle, Karen," I said. "Felipe Soto has them over at Las Placitas."

"But... there's so many of them! You won't have a chance! Why, there must be twenty men with him--or even twice that many."

"Yes, ma'am, we know that, but they're our cattle."

That was how we felt about it. They were our cattle, so we must go after them, and thieves must not be permitted to escape the consequences of their deeds. We had a land to build, we had peace to bring to the land, and for a few years now we would have to bring it with a gun. To the violent, violence is the only
argument
they understand. Justice they understand, but only when it' is administered from strength.

Before the sun was
over the
eastern mountains we were miles upon our way. We crossed some desert, we crossed the lava flows, and we came up through the live oak and the pines to the mountains and the Rio Bonito. We followed it along toward the cluster of adobes and shacks along the stream.

There were scarcely half a dozen, and a few tents, a few tipis. We spread out as we came into the town, and beyond the town we could see the herd. There were some men on horseback where the cattle were, and some of them wore plumed helmets and blue uniforms, That would be the cavalry.

We rode our horses down there, and we saw men come into the street behind us and look after us.
A couple of them started to follow.

"One thing," I said, "this here's my fight. If anybody comes in that ain't asked, you boys do what you've a mind to . . . but I will do the talking and if it is man to man,
I'll
do the shooting."

They understood that, but I wanted it on the line so they could read the brand of my action.

Felipe Soto was there, and when I saw who was with him I felt something turn cold inside of me. Tolan Banks was there, and Tap Henry.

There were eight or nine of them, and four or five Army men inspecting that beef.

Walking my horse up to them, I saw Banks speak suddenly, and Soto turned sharply around.

I did not take my eyes from Banks and Soto. "Captain," I said, "these are stolen cattle, stolen from me. The brands have been altered, but skin any beef here and you will find a K Bar brand before it was changed."

"I am buying beef," the Captain replied coolly, "not fighting over it, or sitting as a court in judgment of ownership." He turned his horse. "When you have decided whose beef it is, I shall be in Las Plaeitas."

He turned his horse and, followed by his brother officers and a couple of sergeants, he started away.

My eyes sought them out, man by man. On each man I directed my attention, and on each I let my eyes rest for a minute. I wanted each man to believe that he was marked.

"Well, Soto, you did not deliver the beef. I have come for it."

"'Dan--!" It was Tap. "Dan, for God's sake!"

"Tap," 1 said, "you'd better decide where you stand before the shooting starts. Riding the fence can give a man a mighty sore crotch, and you've been on it long enough."

"Now, wait!"

"To hell with that, Henry!" Tolan Banks yelled suddenly. "You're with us or against us! Stand aside and let me kill that Killoe whelp!"

What I did, they did not expect. For years Tap and me had practiced shooting on the run, shooting while riding at a dead run, like the mountain men did, and I slapped spurs to that line-back dun and he
jumped
right into the middle of them.

They outnumbered us, so as I jumped into them I jumped shooting.

It looked like a damned fool trick, but it was not. They had been sitting there as we came up and no doubt everyone of them had picked a target, They had us cold and we had them the same way, and in about a split second a lot of men were going to die.

Starting off with a cold hand that way, a
man
can shoot accurately, and I would be losing men. So I jumped
my
horse into their group, which forced them all to move, and each had to swing to get on his target again.

My Patterson was across my saddle, and as I jumped I shot. My bullet
missed
Soto and
knocked
a man behind him sidewise in the saddle, and then I was in among them.

One more shot left the Patterson before it was knocked from my grip, but I had already come out with a draw with my left hand from my belt.

Soto swung on me and his gun blasted almost in my face. Knocking his gun up, I shot and saw him jump back in the saddle like he'd been struck with a whip. He shot at me again but I had gone past him and he turned fast, but his big horse was no match for that dun, who could turn on a quarter and give you twenty cents change. The dun wheeled and we both shot and my bullet hit him right below the nose.

He swung around and fell back out of the saddle, kicking his foot loose from the stirrup at the last minute. He started up, gun in hand, blood flowing from his face in a stream. But I went in on a dead run, holding my six-shooter low and blasting it into him. I saw the dust jump from his shirt twice as I went into him, and then he went down under the dun's hoofs and I wheeled around in time to see Tap Henry facing Tolan Banks. "I'm with them, Tolan!

That's my brother!"

"To hell with you!"
Bank's
pistol swung down in a dead aim on Tap's chest and Tap triggered his gun charging, as I had.

Banks left his saddle and hit the ground and rolled over, all flattened out. He made one heave as if he was trying to get up, and then he lay still.

The gray dust lifted and slowly swirled and settled, and the riderless horses trotted 6ff and stood with their stirrups dangling and their heads up, and men lay on the ground.

Yearly was down, and Zeb was gripping a bloody arm, his face gray.

Four of them were down, and I knew my jump into them had given us the break we needed, for my boys had been sitting still taking dead aim.

The Army came riding up. One of the men rode right to Zebony. "Here! Let me see that arm! I'm a surgeon!"

We rode around, looking at the men on the ground. Felipe Soto was dead, and of the others only one man was alive.

Among the dead was Ira Tilton. I had never even seen him in the brief encounter, nor did I know whose bullet had put him down, but he had died an ugly death.

By the look of it the slug had been one of large caliber and it must have hit the pommel of the saddle or something, because the wound looked like a ricochet. It had ripped across the belly, and he had died hard, a death I would wish for no man.

I turned to the
officer
as he rode up. "Captain, that man was Felipe Soto." I indicated the sprawled body of the big Comanchero. "He has been selling rifles to the Indians for years. His own people will tell you of it."

"I am buying cattle," the Captain replied, "and personal feuds are not a part of my business. However, I do know of Soto, but did not realize that was who it was."

He glanced at me. "My name is Hyde. It is a pleasure to know you, sir. That was a nice bit of action."

Zebony picked up my Patterson from the ground and handed it to me. "You'd better see the Doc. You're bleeding."

"I'm all right. I just--" Glancing down, I saw there was blood on the skirt of my saddle, and my left leg was sopping with it.

"You!" the surgeon said. "Get down here!"

It was Tap who caught me when I started to get down and almost fell. He steadied me with an arm to a place under a tree, and he pulled my shirt off.

A bullet had gone through my side right above my hipbone, but the doctor merely glanced at it. "You've lost a lot of blood, but it's only a flesh wound."

Hearing a pound of hoofs, I looked around in time to see Conchita throw herself from er horse and come to me. The doctor looked at her, then at me. "If she can't make you well," he said dryly, "nothing can.

Zeno was going to be all right. He had caught two slugs, and he was in bad shape, but he was going to pull through. Tap Henry told me that some time later, for about the time that Conchita arrived everything
faded
out. I had started to speak, and then everything blurred. The next thing I knew it was hours later and I was in bed at the Fort.

"Are the cattle all right?"

"Sold 'em," Tap said, "all but a couple of hundred head of breeding stock."

"Looks like I'll be here for a while," I said, "so you'd better take the boys and start for home with that herd."

"'Dan." Tap hesitated, as embarrassed as I'd ever seen him. "I've been a fool. I'm . . . well, I never intended for the herd to go to Bosque Redondo. Banks and me wanted to use it to grab land on the Mimbres."

"I guessed it was something like that."

He looked at me for several minutes. "Dan, I'm going to let Karen ride back with the boys. I'll wait here until you can ride, and we'll go home together."

"Sure," I said, "that's the way Pa always wanted it."