Showdown On the Hogback (1991) (2 page)

"That was slick." It was Dornie Shaw's soft voice. His brown eyes probed Kedrick's face curiously. "Never seen the like! Just slapped his wrist an' busted it!"

With Keith, John Gunter had come up, smiling broadly. "Saw it all, son! That'll do more good than a dozen killings! Just like Tom Smith used to do! Old Bear Creek Tom, who handled some of the toughest rannies that ever came over the trail with nothin' but his fists!"

"What would you have done if he had jerked that gun back and fired?" Keith asked.

Kedrick shrugged, wanting to forget it. "He hadn't time," he said quietly, "but there are answers to that, too!" , "Some of the boys will be up to see you tonight, Tom,"

Gunter advised. "I've had Dornie notify Shad, Fessenden, and some of the others.

Better figure on a ride out there tomorrow. Makin' a start, anyway. Just sort of ride around with some of the boys to let "em know we ain't foolin"."

Kedrick nodded and after a brief discussion went inside and to his room. Certainly, he reflected, the West had not changed. Things still happened fast out here.

He pulled off his coat, waistcoat, and vest, then his boots. Striped to the waist, he sat down on the bed and dug into his valise. For a couple of minutes he dug around and then drew out two well-oiled holsters and gun belts. In the holsters were two .44 Russian pistols, Smith and Wesson guns manufactured on order for the Russian army and among the most accurate shooting pistols on the market up to that time.

Carefully, he checked the loads and then returned the guns to their holsters and put them aside. Digging around, he drew out a second pair of guns, holsters, and belts. Each of these was a Walch twelve-shot Navy pistol, caliber .36, and almost identical in size and weight to the Frontier Colt and the .44 Russian.

Rarely seen in the West and disliked by some, Kedrick had used the guns on many occasions and found them always satisfactory. There were times when the added firepower was a big help. As for stopping power, the .36 in the hands of a good marksman lacked but little offered by the heavier .44 caliber.

Yet, there was a time and a place for everything, and these guns had an added tactical value. Carefully, he wrapped them once more and returned them to the bottom of his valise. Then he belted on the .44 Russians and digging out his Winchester,
carefully
cleaned, oiled, and loaded it. Then he sat down on the bed and was about to remove his guns again and stretch out, when there was a light tap at the door.

"Come in," said Kedrick, "and if you're an enemy, I'll be pleased to know you!"

The door opened and closed all in a breath. The man that stood with his back to it facing Kedrick was scarcely five feet four, yet almost as broad as he was tall. But all of it was sheer power of bone and muscle, with not an ounce of fat anywhere. His broad brown face might have been graved from stone, and the bristle of short-cropped hair above it was black as a crow's wing. The man's neck spread to broad, thick shoulders. On his right hip he packed a gun. In his hand he held a narrow-brimmed hard hat.

Kedrick leaped to his feet. "Dai!" The name was an explosion of sound. "Dai Reid! And what are you doing in this country?"

"Ah? So it's that you ask, is it? Well, it's trouble there is, boy, much of trouble! An' you that's by way of bringin' it!"

"conale?" Kedrick waved to a chair. "Tell me what you mean."

The Welshman searched his face and then seated himself, his huge palms resting on his knees. His legs were thick muscled and bowed. "It's the man Burwick
you're
with? An" you've the job taken to run us off the land? There is changed you are, Tom, an' for the worse!"

"You're one of them? You're on the land Burwick, Keith, and Gunter claim?" "I am that. And a sight of work I've done on it, too.

An' now the rascals would be puttin' me off.

Well, they'll have a fight to move me, an' you, too, Tom Kedrick, if you're to stay one of them."

Kedrick studied the Welshman thoughtfully. All his doubts had come to a head now, for this man he knew. His own
father
had been Welsh and his mother Irish, and Dai Reid
had
been a friend to them both.
Dai had come from the old country with his father, had worked beside him when he courted his mother, and although much younger than Gwilym Kedrick, had come West with him, too.

"Dai," he said slowly, "I'll admit that today I've been laving doubts of all this. You see, I knew John Gunter after he war, and I took a herd of cattle over the trail for a friend (f his.

There was trouble that year, the Indians holding up very herd and demanding large numbers of cattle for themselves, the rustlers trying to steal whole herds, and others 3emanding money for passage across land they claimed.

I
took
my herd through without paying anything but a few fat
beefs
for the Indians, who richly deserved them. But not what they demanded-they got what I wanted to give. "Gunter remembered me from that and knew something A my war record, so when he approached me in New Orleans, his proposition sounded good. And this is what he told me.

"His firm, Burwick, Keith and Gunter, had filed application for the survey and purchase of all or parts of nearly three hundred sections of land. They made oath that this land was swampland or overflowed and came under the General Land Office ruling that it was land too wet for irrigation at seeding time, though later requiring irrigation, and therefore subject to sale as swamp.

"He went on to say that they had arranged to buy the land, but that a bunch of squatters were on it who refused to leave. He wanted to hire me to lead a force to see the land was cleared, and he said that as most of them were rustlers, outlaws, or renegades of one sort or another, there would be fighting, and force would be necessary."

Dai nodded. "Right he was as to the fighting, but renegades, no. Well," he smiled grimly past his pipe, "I'd not be saying that now, but there's mighty few. There are bad apples in all barrels, one or two," he said, "but most of us be good people, with homes built and crops in.

"An' did he tell you that their oath was given that the land was unoccupied? Well, given it was! And let me tell you, ninety-four sections have homes on them, some mighty poor, but homes.

"Shrewd they were with the planning. Six months the notices must be posted, but they posted them in fine
print
and where few men would read, and three months are
before
anything is noticed, and by accident only. So now the, come to force us off, to be sure the land is unoccupied an)"' ready. As for swamp, 'tis desert now, and always desert Crops can only be grown where the water is, an" little
enough
of that."

Dai shook his head and knocked out his short-stemmed
pipe. "Money we've none to fight them, no lawyers among us, although one who's as likely to help. A newspaper man he is. But what good without money to send him to Washing ton?"

The Welshman's face was gloomy. "They'll beat us,
that
we know. They've money to fight us with, and tough men but some of them will die on the ground and pay for it
with
their red blood. And those among us there are who plan t less-than see "tis not only the hired gunners who die, but the high an mighty.

You, too, lad, if among them you stay."

Kedrick was thoughtful. "Dar, this story is different
from
the one I've had. I'll have to think about it, and tomorrow we ride out to look the land over and show ourselves."

Reid looked up sharply. "Don't you be one of them, boy We've plans made to see no man gets off" alive if we can hell it. his "Look, man!" Kedrick leaned forward.

"You've got
to
change that! I mean, for now. Tomorrow it's mainly a show o. force, a threat.

There will be no shooting, I promise you We'll ride out, look around, and then ride back. If there': shooting, your men will start it. Now you go back to
them
and stop it. Let them hold off; and let me look around."

Dai Reid got slowly to his feet. "Ah, lad! "tis good to set you again, but under happier circumstances I wish it were I'd have you to the house for supper and a
game
, as in the
old
days! You'd like the wife I have!" "You? Married?" Kedrick was incredulous. "I'd never believe it!" Dai grinned sheepishly.
"Married it is, all right, and happy, Tom."
His face darkened. "Happy if I can keep my ground. But one promise I make! If your bloody riders take my ground, my body will be there when they ride past, and it will be not alone, but with dead men around!"

Long after the Welshman had gone, Tom Kedrick sat silently and studied the street beyond the window. Was this what Consuelo Duane had meant? Whose side was she on?
First
, he must ride over the land and see it for himself, and hen he must have another talk with Gunter.

Uneasily, he
looked
again at the faces of the men in his mind. The cold,
wolflike
face of Keith, the fat, slobby face of Burwick,
under lined
with harsh, domineering power, and the face of Gunter,
friendlv
, affable, but was it not a little . . . sly?

From outside came the noise of a tinny piano and a trident female voice, singing. Chips rattled, and there was he constant rustle of movement and of booted feet.
Somewhere
a spur jingled, and Tom Kedrick got to his feet and
slipped
into a shirt. When he was dressed again, with his lulls belted oil, he left his room and walked down the hall to he lobby.

From a room beside his, a man stepped and stared after him.
It was Dornie Shaw.

Chapter
3

Only
the dweller in the deserts can know such mornings, greater-than
s
uch silences, drowsy with warmth and the song of the cicacclas. Nowhere but in the desert shall the far miles stand out
s
o clearly, the mesas, towers, and cliffs so boldly outlined. Nowhere will the cloud shadows island themselves upon the Desert, offering their brief respite from the sun.

Six riders, their saddles creaking, six hard men, each lost in the twisted arroyos of his own thoughts, were emerging upon the broad desert. They were men who rode with guns, men who had used their guns to kill and would use them so again. Some of them were already doomed by the relentless and ruthless tide of events, and to the others their time, too, would come. Each of them was alone, as men who live by the gun are always alone, each man a potential enemy, each shadow a danger. They rode jealously, their gestures marked by restraint, their eves by watchfulness.

A horse blew through his nostrils, a hoof clicked on a stone, someone shifted in his saddle and sighed. These were the onl
y
sounds. Tom Kedrick rode an Appaloosa gelding, fifteen hands even, with iron-gray forequarters and starkly white hindquarters splashed with tear-shaped spots of solid black-a clean-limbed horse, strong and fast, with quick intelligent eyes and interested ears.

When they bunched to start their ride, Laredo Shad stopper to stare at the horse, walking around it admiringly. "You're lucky, friend. That's a horse! Where'd you find him?"

"Navajo remuda. He's a Nez Perce war horse, a long ways off his reservation."

Kedrick noticed the men as they gathered and how they all sized him up carefully, noting his western garb and especially the low-hung, tied-down guns. They had seen Mir yesterday in the store clothes he had worn from New Orleans, but now they could size him up better, judge him with their own kind.

He was tall and straight, and of his yesterday's clothing only the black, flat-crowned hat remained, the hat and the high-heeled rider's boots.

He wore a gray wool shirt now and a black silk kerchief around his neck. His jeans were black, and the two guns rode easily in position, ready for the swing of his hand.

Kedrick saw them bunch, and when they all were there, he said simply, "All right, let's go!"

They mounted up. Kedrick noted slender, wiry Dornie Shaw; the great bulk of Si Fessenden; lean, bitter Poinsett; the square, blond Lee Goff; sour-faced Clauson, the oldest of the lot; and the lean Texan, Laredo Shad. Moving out, he glanced at them. Whatever else they might be, they were fighting men. Several times Shaw glanced at his gun.

"You ain't wearin" Colts?"

"No. Forty-four Russians. They are a good gun, one of the most accurate ever built."

He indicated the trail ahead with a nod. "You've been out this way before?"

"Yeah. We got quite a ride. We'll noon at a spring I know just over the North Fork. There's some deep canyons to cross and then a big peak.

The Indians an' Spanish called it the Orphan. All wild country. Right beyond there we'll begin strikin' a few of "em." He grinned a little, showing his white, even teeth. "They are scattered all over hell's half acre."

"Dornie," Goff asked suddenly, "you figure on ridin" over to the malpais this
trip
?"