Showdown On the Hogback (1991) (15 page)

He stared down the canyon toward the mouth, his rifle across his knees. He did not look at Kedrick, but he commented casually. "We need luck, Captain, plenty of luck."

"Uh-huh." Kedrick's face was sober. "Right now we're bottled up, and believe me, Burwick will stop at nothing. I wonder who was on watch up the canyon? Or supposed to be?"

"Somebody said his name was Hirst. Sallow-faced hombre."

"We'll have to talk to him. Was he down below?"

"Come to think of it, he wasn't. He must have hid out back there."

"Or sold out. Remember Singer? He wouldn't have been the only one. was Laredo rubbed out the last of his cigarette. "They'll be makin' their play soon. You know, Kedrick, I'd as soon make a break for it, get a couple of horses, an' head for
Mustang
. When we go we might as well take Keith an' that dirty Burwick with us."

Kedrick nodded agreement, but he was thinking of the men below. There were at least four good men aside from Shad,
Laine
, and Dai Reid. That left the numbers not to
evenly
balanced. The fighting skill and numbers were slightly on the enemy's side, its they had at least twelve men when the battle opened, and they had lost only Starrett. That made the odds eleven to eight unless they had moved up extra men, which was highly probable. Still, they were expecting defense, and an attack-his He studied the situation. Suddenly, a dark figure loomed on the rim of the canyon some hundred and fifty yards off and much higher. He lifted his rifle and fired even as both Shad and Kedrick threw down on him with rifles, firing instantly. The man vanished, but whether hit or not they could not tell.

Desultory firing began, and from time to time they caught glimpses of men advancing from the canyon mouth, but never in sight long enough to offer a target, and usually rising from the ground some distance from where they dropped. The afternoon was drawing on, however, and the sun was setting almost in the faces of the attackers, which made their aim uncertain and their movements hesitant. Several times Shad or Kedrick dusted the oncoming party, but got in no good shots.

Twice a rifle boomed from the top of the butte, and once they heard a man cry out as though hit.

"You know, Laredo," Kedrick said suddenly, "it goes against the grain to back up for those coyotes.

I'm taking this grub up to Burt, an' when I come back down, we're going to move down that canyon and see how much stomach they've got for a good scrap."

Shad grinned, his eyes flickering with humor. "That's ace high with me, pardner," he said dryly. "I never was no hand for a hole, an' the women are safe."

"All but one," Kedrick said. "That Missus Taggart who lives in that first house. Her husband got killed and she wouldn't leave."

"Yeah, heard one of the womenfolks speak on it.

That Taggart never had a chance. Good folks, those two."

Colonel Loren Keith stared gloomily at the towering mass of Yellow Butte. That man atop the Butte had them pinned down. Now if they could just get up there. He thought of the men he had commanded in years past and compared them with these outside-a pack of murderers. How had he got into this, anyway? Why couldn't a man know when he took a turning where it would lead him? It seemed so simple in the beginning to run off a bunch of one--
callused
farmers and squatters.

Wealth-he had always wanted wealth, the money to pay his way in the circles where he wanted to travel, but somehow it had always eluded him, and this had seemed a wonderful chance. Bitterly, he stared at the butte and remembered the greasy edge of Burwick's shirt collar and the malice in his eves. Burwick used men as he saw fit, and disposed of them when he was through.

In the beginning it hadn't seemed that way. His own commanding presence, his soldier's stride, his cold clarity of thought, all these left him despising Gunter as a mere businessman and Burwick as a conniving weakling. But then suddenly Burwick began to show his true self, and all ideas of controlling the whole show left Keith while he stared in shocked horror as the man unmasked. Alton Burwick was no dirty weakling, no mere ugly fat man, but a monster of evil, a man with a brain like a steel trap, stopping at nothing, and by his very depth of wickedness startling Keith into obedience.

Gunter had wanted to pull out. Only now would Keith admit even to himself the cause of Gunter's death, and he knew he would die as quickly. How many times had he not seen the malevolence in the eyes of Dornie Shaw, and well he knew how close Shaw stood to Burwick. In a sense, they were of a kind. His feeling of helplessness shocked and horrified Keith. He had always imagined himself a strong man and had gone his way, domineering and supercilious. Now he saw himself as only a tool in the hands of a man he despised, yet unable to escape. Deep within him, there was the hope that they still would pull their chestnuts from the fire and take the enormous profit the deal promised.

One man stood large in his mind, one man drew all his anger, hate, and bitterness. That man was Tom Kedrick.

From that first day Kedrick had made him seem a fool. He, Keith, had endeavored to put Kedrick firmly in his place, speaking of his rank and his twelve years of service, and then Kedrick had calmly paraded an array of military experiences that few men could equal, and right before them all. He had not doubted Kedrick, for vaguely now, he remembered some of the stories he had heard of the man. That the stories were the truth and that Kedrick was a friend of Ransome's infuriated him still more.

He stepped into the makeshift saloon and poured a drink, staring at it gloomily. Fessenden came in, Goff with him. was We goin' to roust them out of there, Colonel?"

Goff asked. "It will be dark, soon."

Keith tossed off his drink. "Yes, right away.

Are the rest of them out there?"

"All but Poinsett. He'll be along."

Keith poured another stiff shot and tossed it off as quickly. Then he followed them into the street of Yellow Butte.

They were all gathered there but the Mixus boys, who had followed along toward the canyon, and a couple of the newcomers, who had circled to get on the cliff above and
beyond
the boulders and brush where the squatters had taken refuge.

Poinsett was walking down the road in long strides. He was abreast of the first house when a woman stepped from the door. She was a square-built woman in a faded blue cotton dress and man's shoes, run down at the heel.

She held a double barreled shotgun in her hands, and as Poinsett drew abreast of her, she turned on him and fired.

She fired both barrels at point-blank range, and Poinsett took them right through the middle.

Almost torn in two, he hit the ground, gasping once, his blood staining the gray gravel before their shocked eves.

The woman turned on them, and they saw she was no longer young. Her square face was red, and a few strands of graying hair blew about her face. As she looked at them, her work-roughened hands still clutching the empty shotgun, she motioned at the fallen man in the faded check shirt.

In that moment the fact that she was fat and growing old and that her thick legs ended in the grotesque shoes seemed to vanish, and in the blue eyes were no tears, only her chin trembling a little, as she said, "He was my man.

Taggart never give me much, an' he never had it to give, but in his own way, he loved me. You killed him-all of you. I wish I had more shells."

She turned her back on them and without another glance, went into the house and closed the door behind her.

They stood in a grim half circle then, each man faced suddenly with the enormity of what they were doing and had done.

Lee Goff was the first to speak. He stood spraddlelegged, his thick hard body bulging all his clothes, his blond hair bristling. "Anybody bothers that woman," he said, "I'll kill him."

Chapter
13

Keith led his attack just before dusk and lost two men before they withdrew, but not before
they
learned of the hole.

Dornie Shaw squatted behind the abutment formed by the end wall of the canyon where it opened on the plain near the arroyo. "That makes it easy," he said.

"We still got dynamite."

Keith's head came up, and he saw Shaw staring at him, his eyes queerly alight. "Or does that go against the grain, Colonel? About ten sticks of dynamite dropped into that crevasse, an'

Burwick will get what he wants-no bodies."

"If there's a cave back there," Keith objected, "they'd be buried alive!" Nobody replied. Keith's eyes wandered around to the other men, but their eyes were on the ground. They were shunning responsibility for this, and only Shaw enjoyed it.

Keith shuddered. What a fool he had been to get mixed up in this!

A horse's hoof struck stone, and as one man they looked up. Saddle leather creaked, although they could not see the horse. A spur jingled, and Alton Burwick stood among them.

Loren Keith straightened to his feet and briefly explained the situation. Burwick nodded from time to time and then added, "Use the dynamite. First thing in the morning. That should end it, once and for all."

He drew a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end. "Had a wire. That committee is comin' out, all right. Take them a couple of weeks to get here, an' by that time folks should be over this an' talkin' about somethin' else. I'm figurin' a bonus for you all."

He turned back toward his horse. Then he stopped and catching Dornie Shaw's eye, jerked his head.

Shaw got up from the fire and followed him, and Keith stared after them, his eyes bitter. Now what?

Was he being left out of something else? Beyond the edge of the firelight and beyond the reach of their ears, Burwick paused and let Shaw come up to him;

"Nice work, Dornie," he said. "We make a pair, you an' me."

"Yeah," Dornie nodded. "An" sometimes I think a pair's enough."

"Well," Burwick puffed on his cigar, "I need a good man to side me, an' Gunter's gone-at least."

"That company of yours," Dornie was almost whispering, "had too many partners, anyway." , "Uh-huh, " Burwick said quietly. "It still has."

"All right, then." Dornie hitched his guns into a firmer seating on his thighs. "I'll be in to see you in a couple of days at most."

Burwick turned and walked away, and Dornie saw him swing easily to the saddle, but it was all very indistinct in the darkness. He stayed where he was, watching the darkness and listening to the slow steps of the horse. They had a funny sound-a very funny sound.

When he walked back to the campfire, he was whistling "Green Grow the Lilacs, O."

The attack came at daybreak. The company had mustered twenty men, of whom two carried packages of dynamite. This was to be the final blow, to wipe out the squatters once and for all.

Shortly before Burwick's arrival, Keith and Dornie Shaw, with Fessenden accompanying them, made a careful reconnaissance of the canyon from the rim. What they found pleased them enormously. It was obvious, once the crevasse had been located, that not more than two men could fire from it at once, and there was plenty of cover from the scattered boulders. In fact, they could get within throwing distance without emerging in the open for more than a few seconds at a time. Much of the squatters" field of fire would be ruined by their proximity to the ground and the rising of the boulders before them.

The attack started well, with all the men moving out, and they made twenty yards into the canon, moving fast. Here, the great slabs fallen from the slope' of Yellow Butte crowded them together. And there the attack stopped. It stopped abruptly, meeting a withering wall of rifle fire, at point-blank range!

Tom Kedrick knew a thing or two about fighting, and he knew full well that his hideout would in the long run become a deathtrap. He put himself in Keith's place and decided what that man would do.

Then he had his eight men, carrying fourteen rifles, slip like Indians through the darkness to
carefully
selected firing positions far down the canyon from where Keith would be expecting them.

Five of the attackers died in that first burst of fire, and as the gunhands broke for cover, two more went down, and one dragged himself to the camp of the previous night with a shattered kneecap.

He found himself alone.

The wife of Taggart had begun it-the mighty blast of rifle fire completed it.

The company fighters got out of the canyon's mouth, and as one man they moved for their horses, Keith among them and glad to be going. Dornie Shaw watched him mount up and swung up alongside him.

Behind them, moving carefully, as if they were perfectly disciplined troops, the defenders of the canyon moved down, firing as they came. A horse dropped, and a man crawled into the rocks and then jumped up and ran. Dai Reid swung wide of the group and started after him.

Another went down before they got away, and Kedrick turned to his group. "Get your horses, men. The women will be all right. This is a job that needs finishing now."

A quarter of a mile away, Brokow spotted a horse standing alone and started for it. As he arose from the rocks, a voice called out from behind. "A minute!"