Showdown On the Hogback (1991) (19 page)

At the end of that time three men got down from the afternoon stage and were shown to rooms in the St. James.

An hour later, while they were at dinner, Captain Tom Kedrick pushed open the door and walked into the dining room. Instantly, one of the men, a tall, immaculate young man whose hair was turning gray at the temples, arose to meet him, hand outstretched. "Tom! Say, this is wonderful!

Gentlemen, this is Tom Kedrick, the man I was telling you about. We served together in the war between the states! Tom-Mr. Edgerton and Mr.

Cummings."

The two men, one a pudgy man with a round, cheerful face, the other as tall as Frederic Ransome, with gray muttonchop whiskers, acknowledged the introduction. When Kedrick had seated himself, they began demanding details.

Quietly, and as concisely as possible, he told them his own story from his joining the company in New Orleans.

"And Burwick's gone?" Edgerton asked. He was the older man with the muttonchop whiskers. "Was he killed?" was I doubt it, sir," Kedrick replied.

"He simply vanished. The man had a faculty for being out of the way when trouble came. Since he left, with the aid of Miss Duane's and her uncle's papers, we've managed to put together most of the facts. However, Burwick's papers have disappeared, or most of them."

"Disappeared?" Edgerton asked. "How did that happen?"

"Miss Duane tells me that when she entered the house before the final trouble with Shaw, she passed the office door and the place was undisturbed and the desk all in order. After the crowd had gone and when we returned, we saw that somebody had been rifling the desk and the safe."

"You imply that Burwick returned? That he was there then?"

"He must have been. Connie-Miss Duane-tells me that only he had the combination and that he kept all the loose ends of the business in his hands."

Cummings stared hard at Kedrick. "You say that this Shaw fellow killed Keith? How do we know that you didn't? You admit to killing Fessenden."

"I did kill him. In a fair fight before witnesses. I never even saw Keith's body after he was killed."

"Who do you think killed John Gunter?"

Cummings demanded.

"My guess would be Burwick."

"I'm glad you're not accusing Keith of that,"

Cummings replied dryly. "Keith wouldn't have used a knife," Kedrick replied quietly. "Neither would he have attacked him from behind, as was obviously the case."

"This land deal, Kedrick," Ransome asked.

"Where do you stand in it?" "I? I don't stand at all. I'm simply not in it."

Cummings looked up sharply. "You don't stand to profit from it at all? Not in any way?"

"How could I? I own nothing. I have no holdings or claim to any."

"You said Burwick promised you fifteen percent?"

"That's right. But I know now that it was merely to appease me long enough to get me on the spot at Chimney Rock, where I was to be killed along with the others. Burwick got me there and then rode off on the pretext that he wanted to look at a mineral ledge."

"How about this girl? The Duane girl?"

Cummings asked sharply. "Does she stand to profit?"

"She will be fortunate to get back her money that her uncle invested."

"See, Cummings?" Ransome said. was I told you Kedrick was honest. I know the man."

"I'll give my opinion on that later, after this investigation is completed. Not now. I want to go over the ground and look into this matter thoroughly. I want to investigate this matter of the disappearance of Alton Burwick, too. I'm not at all satisfied with this situation."

He glanced down at the notes in his hand and then looked up. "As to that, Kedrick, wasn't Fessenden a duly elected officer of the law when you shot him? Wasn't he the sheriff?"

"Elected by a kangaroo election," Kedrick replied, "where the votes were counted by the two officials who won. If that is a legal election, then he was sheriff."

"I see. But you do not deny that he had authority?" was I do deny it."

Connie Duane was awaiting him when he walked back to his table. She smiled as he sat down, and listened to his explanation. She frowned thoughtfully.

"Cummings? I think there is something in Uncle John's papers about him. I believe he was acting for them in Washington."

"That explains a lot then." Kedrick picked up his coffee cup and then put it down abruptly, for Laredo Shad had come into the room, his face sharp and serious. He glanced around and sighting Kedrick, hurried toward him, spurs jingling. Kedrick got to his feet. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

"Plenty! Sloan was wounded last night and Yellow Butte burned!"

"What?" Kedrick stared.

Shad nodded grimly. "You shouldn't have turned that rat loose. That Dornie Shaw."

Kedrick shook his head irritably. was I don't believe it. He was thoroughly whipped when he left here. I think he ran like a scared rabbit when he left, and if he did want revenge, it would be after a few months, not so soon. No, this is somebody else."

"Who could it be?"

His eyes met Connie's and she nodded, her eyes frightened. "You know who it could be, Tom. It could be Burwick."

Of course, that was what he had been thinking.

Burwick had bothered him, getting away scot-free, dropping off the end of the world into oblivion as he had. Remembering the malignant look in the man's eyes, Kedrick was even more positive. Burwick had counted on this land deal. He had worked on it longer than any one of them, and it meant more to him.

"Shad," he said suddenly, "where does that grulla tie in? It keeps turning up, again and again. There's something more about all this than we've ever known, something that goes a lot deeper.

Who rides the grulla? Why is it he has never been seen? Why was Dornie so afraid of it?"

"Was he afraid of the grulla?" Shad asked, frowning. "That doesn't figure."

"Why doesn't it? That's the question now. You know, that last day when I had Shaw thoroughly whipped, he looked up and saw something that scared him, yet something that I think he more than half expected. After he was gone down the street, I looked around, and there was nothing there. Later, I stumbled across the tracks of the grulla mustang. That horse was in front of the house during all the excitement!" Frederic Ransome came into the room again and walked to their table.

"Cummings is going to stir up trouble," he said, dropping into a chair. "He's out to get you, Kedrick, and if he can, to pin the killing of Keith on you, or that of Burwick. He claims your story is an elaborate buildup to cover the murder of all three of the company partners. He can make so much trouble that none of the squatters will get anything out of the land and nothing for all their work. We've got to find Burwick."

Laredo lit a cigarette. "That's a tough one," he said, "but maybe I've got a hunch."

"What?" Kedrick looked up.

"Ever hear Burwick talk about the grulla?"

"No, I can't say that I did. It was mentioned before him once that I recall, and he didn't seem interested."

"Maybe he wasn't interested because he knowed all about it," Shad suggested. "That Burwick has me puzzled."

Connie looked up at him. "You may be right, Laredo, but Pit and Sue Laine were Burwick's stepchildren, and they knew nothing about the horse. The only one who seemed to know anything was Dornie Shaw."

Tom Kedrick got up. "Well, there's one thing we can do," he said. "Laredo, we can scout out the tracks of that horse and trail it down. Pick up an old trail, anything. Then just see where it takes us."

On the third day it began to rain. All week the wind had been chill and cold, and clouds had hung low and flat across the sky from horizon to horizon.

Hunched in his slicker, Laredo slapped his gloved hands together and swore. "This finishes it!" he said with disgust. "It will wipe out all the trails for us!"

"All old anyway," Kedrick agreed.

"We've followed a dozen here lately, and none of them took us anywhere. All disappeared on rock or were swept away by wind."

"Escavada's cabin isn't far up this canyon," Shad suggested. "Let's hit him up for chow. It will be a chance to get warm, anyway."

"Know him?"

"Stopped in there once. He's half Spanish, half Ute. Tough old blister, an" been in this country since before the grass came. He might be able to tell us something."

The trail into the canyon was slippery, and the dull red of the rocks had turned black under the rain. It slanted across the sky in a drenching downpour, and when they reached the stone cabin in the corner of the hills, both men and horses were cold, wet, and hungry.

Escavada opened the door for them and waved them in. He grinned at them. "Glad to have company," he said. "Ain't seen a man for three weeks."

When they had stripped off their slickers and peeled down to shirts, pants, and boots, he put coffee before them and laced it with a strong shot of whiskey. "Warm you up," he said. "Trust you ain't goin' out again soon. Whiskey's mighty fine when a body comes in from the cold, but not if he's goin' out again. It flushes the skin up, fetches all the heat to the surface, and then gives it off into the air. Man freezes mighty quick, drinkin' whiskey."

"You ever see a grulla mustang around, Escavada?" Laredo asked suddenly, looking up at the old man.

He turned on them, his eyes bright with malicious humor. "You ain't some of them superstitious kind, be you? Scared of the dark like? An' ghosts?" "No,"

Kedrick said, "but what's the tie-up?"

"That grulla. Old story in this here county.

Dates back thirty, forty years. Maybe further than that. Sign of death or misfortune, folks say."

Laredo looked inquiringly at Kedrick, and Kedrick asked, "You know anything about it? That horse is real enough. We've both seen the grulla."

"So've I," the old man said. He dropped into a chair and grinned at them. His gray hair was sparse, but his eyes were alive and young. was I seen it many times, an' no misfortune come my way. Not unless you call losin' my shovel a misfortune."

He hitched his chair nearer the woodpile and tossed a couple of sticks on the fire. "First I heard of it was long ago. Old folks used to tell of a Spanish man in armor, ridin a mouse-colored horse. He used to come an' go about the hills, but the story back of it seems to be that a long time back some such fellow was mighty cruel to the Injuns. That story sort of hung around an' a body heard it every now and again until about fifteen, sixteen years back.

Since then, she's been mighty lively."

"You mean, you heard the story more since then?"

Kedrick asked.

"Uh-huh. Started with a wagon train wiped out by Injuns up on the Salt. Every man jack of them killed
,
dead
women
folks, too, the story was. There was a youngster come off scot-free, boy about five or six years old. He crawled off into the brush, an' after, he swore them Injuns was led by a white man on a grulla horse, a white man in armor!"

"Wild yarn," Shad said, "but you can't blame the kid, imag
in
' things after what he must've seen."

"He said that hombre in the armor went around with a long knife, an' he skewered every one of the bodies to make sure they was real dead. He said once that hombre looked right square at him, layin' in the brush, an' he was scared like all get-out, but must've been he wasn't seen, "cause he wasn't bothered. his "An" this grulla has been seen since?"

Shad asked. "Regular?"

"Uh-huh, but never no rider close enough to say who or what. Sometimes off at a distance, sometimes just the horse, standin'. Most folks get clear off when they see that horse."

He got up and brought back the coffeepot.

"Right odd you should ask me about him now," he commented.

"Right odd. his Both men looked at him, and sensing their acute interest, he continued. "Been huntin' here lately.

Caught me a few bees off the cactus an' mesquite, figurin' to start a bee line. Well, I got her started, all right, an' I trailed them bees to a place far south of here.

"South an' west, actually. Most of this country hereabouts is worked out of bees. I been at it too long, so I was workin' a good ways off.

Well, my bee line took me over toward the Hogback. You know that place?

"She's a high curvin' ridge maybe five or six hundred feet at the crest, but she rises mighty close to straight up for four hundred feet. Crawlin' up there to locate the cave them bees was workin' out of, I come on a cave like a cliff dwellin', only it wasn't. She was manmade, an' most likely in the past twenty years or so.

"What started me really lookin' was my shovel-the one I lost. She was right there on that ledge, so I knowed it hadn't been lost, but stole off me, so I began huntin' around. I found back inside this place it was all fixed up for livin'. Some grub there, blankets, a couple of guns, an' under some duffle in the corner, an old-time breastplate an' helmet."

"You're serious?" Kedrick demanded incredulously.