the Man from the Broken Hills (1975) (28 page)

Sonora's gun was coming up when I shot him. Sonora was on the right. It is an easier move from right to left, so I took him first.

Laredo had been fast ... too fast for his own good. And he neglected to take that split instant of time that can make a good shot better. His thumb slid off the hammer as his gun was coming up, and the bullet spat sand a dozen feet in front of me. Mine hit the target.

Long ago, an old gunfighter had told me, 'Make the first shot count. You may never get another.' I wasn't going to need another. Laredo fell against the side of the house and his gun went off into the dust at his feet. His shoulder against the wall, his knees buckled and he slid down to the hardpacked earth.

For a moment, I stood very still, just waiting. It was warm, and there was the acrid smell of gun smoke. Somewhere up the street, if you could call it that, a door slammed. A woman stood in the street, shading her eyes toward us.

Slowly I crossed to my horse, thumbing cartridges into my gun. When I holstered it, I stepped into the saddle.

The bartender was in the door, looking at me. "What'll I do?" he pleaded. "I mean, what--"

"Bury them," I said. "There'll be money in their pockets, and it will buy you an easy winter ... Take it. Keep their outfits. Bury them, and put some markers on their graves."

I pointed at each in turn. "His name was Laredo Larkin, and his was Sonora Davis."

"Where they from?"

"I don't know," I said, "but they got where they were going. They've been riding down the road to this place for a long, long time."

Then I rode out of there.

Laredo and Davis. Was I riding the same road as them?

Chapter
26

The trail of the stolen cattle turned south toward the Llano River country. The worst of it was, I'd ridden out of town without getting anything to eat, and my belly was beginning to think my throat was cut. So when I saw an adobe house up ahead, I rode up to it and swung down.

A slender young woman came to the door, shading her eyes at me. I also saw a man come to the door of the barn to watch me.

"I'd like to buy something to eat," I said. "Or grub I can take with me."

" 'Light an' set," she said. "I'll put something on."

The man walked up from the barn, a thin young man with a quick, shy smile. "Howdy! Passin' through?"

"That's my name," I said, grinning. "Seems to me that's about all I do. Pass through. Been here long?"

"Nobody's been here long. I come in when the war was over. Found this place, fixed up the old 'dobe and the corrals. Got a few head of cattle on the range, and then I went back to West Virginia for Essie, there."

"Well, you've got water, grass an' time. Seems like you won't need much else."

He glanced at me again. "Surprised you didn't eat in town. That Mexican woman's a good cook."

"There was a shooting up there, so I lit out. No tellin' when there might be more."

"A shootin'? What happened?" he asked.

"Looked to me like a couple of gunhands had been waitin' for a man. He rode into town and they had at him and came up short."

"He got them? Both of them?"

'"Looked that way. I just straddled my bronc and lit out," I said.

We walked to the trough, where I let the horse drink, then tied him on some grass while I went inside. We sat down, and the man removed his hat, wiping his brow and then the sweatband of his hat.

"Hot," he said. "I've been down in the bottom putting up some hay."

Essie came in and put plates on the table. She shot me a quick, curious glance. News was scarce in this country, and visitors were few. I knew what was expected of me. They wanted to know what was happening ... anywhere at all.

So I told them all about the box supper at Rock Springs Schoolhouse, about the cattle thefts up in the Concho country, and repeated what I'd said about the recent shooting.

Essie put a pot of coffee on the table, then beans, beef and some fried potatoes--the first I'd had in some time. "He grows them," she said, proudly, indicating her husband. "He's a good farmer."

"Seen some cattle been driven through here. Some of yours?" I asked casually.

He shook his head quickly. "No. No, they aren't. They come through here from time to time ... Never stop." He glanced at his wife. "That is, they never done so until this last time ... There was a stranger along then, flashy looking man. I didn't take to him much."

Essie's face was flushed, but I avoided looking at her.

The man continued. "He stopped off, started talking to Essie. I guess he took her for a lone woman, so I came up, and he kind of edged around her, and I seen him take the loop off his gun."

"A man with a high forehead?" I asked.

"Yes, sir. He did have. Kind of wavy hair. Anyway, I was afraid of trouble, but that other man came back and spoke real sharp to him, and this first man, he rode off. When he looked back he said, 'You wait, honey. I'll be ridin' this way again.' I heard that other man say 'Like hell you will! I done too much to keep this trail smooth. I don't figure to have it messed up by--' Then his voice kind of trailed off, but I heard the other man speak. Believe me, they were none too friendly when they left."

"The one who talked to you," I said to Essie, "is a gunman named Tory Benton."

"A gunman?" Her face paled. "Then if--"

"Yes," I said bluntly. "He might have killed your husband. He wouldn't hesitate to do just that. He shot a friend of mine up north of here."

They exchanged glances.

"Those cattle," I asked casually, while refilling my cup, "does he take them to his ranch?"

"Wouldn't call it a ranch, exactly. He's got him a place down on the Llano ... Runs maybe a thousand head ... or more. All young stuff." He hesitated. "Mister, I don't know you, and maybe I shouldn't be tellin' you all this, but that there outfit doesn't size up right to me."

"How so?" I asked.

"Time an' again they drift cattle through here. They never bothered me, nor me them, until that last feller come along who bothered Essie. Hadn't been for him, I might have kept my mouth shut. I got no call to suspicion them except that it don't seem likely a man would have so many calves without cows, always driftin' along the same route."

"How many men does he have?"

The young man shrugged. "Can't say. Most often he's driftin' only a few, an' he's alone. Sometimes it's after dark, and I can't make them out. Time or two, when I was scoutin' for game down south of here, I cut their trail. One time I looked across the Llano and saw the cattle. Seemed to me there were two or three men down there, but I was afraid they'd see me and I wanted no trouble, so I lit out."

"South of here, you say?" I asked.

"Almost due south. The Llano takes kind of a bend this way. There's quite a canyon there, and he's running his cattle in south of there. Good grass, plenty of water, and lots of oak, elm, mesquite and some pecans. It's a right nice locality."

When I'd finished eating, I went out and brought up my horse, tightened the cinch and stepped into the saddle. "Friend," I suggested, "you could make yourself a couple of dollars if you want to take a ride."

"A ride to where?"

Now I knew that cash money was a hard thing to come by in these places, and any two-bit rancher like this was sure to be hard up.

"Up north of here along the Middle Concho ... Likely they're south of there by now, and you could meet them half way. There's a party of riders ... a Major Kimberly and a man named Balch will be leading, I think. Tell them Talon sent you, and that the cattle are on the Llano."

"Those are stolen cattle?" he asked.

"They are. But you just ride, and don't tell anybody why or wherefore. The man you had trouble with was Tory Benton, and the man bossing the move is Twin Baker ... and he's five or six times tougher and meaner than Benton. Don't cross them.

"They'll see my tracks if I miss them and they come back this way. So don't lie. Tell them I was here, that I ate here and just pulled out. I didn't talk or ask questions. I just ate. You understand?"

He agreed.

My trail was southeast, through rough, broken country with a scattering of cedar and oak. Nor was it the kind of country a man likes to travel if he's worried about being drygulched; the country was perfectly laid out for it.

Like I said before, my mother raised no foolish children that I knew of, so I switched trails every few minutes. That horse must have thought I'd gone pure loco. Suddenly, I turned him and started due east toward the head of Five Mile Creek. Then south, then west.

I scouted every bit of country before I rode across it, studying the lay of the land and trying to set no pattern so that a man might trap me up ahead. I'd ride toward a bunch of hills, then suddenly turn off along their base. I'd start up the hills on a diagonal, then reverse and go up the opposite way. Whenever I rode into trees or rocks, I'd double back when I had concealment and cut off at an angle. It took time, but I wasn't fighting time. The main idea was to get there alive and in action.

Not that I had any very good idea of what I was going to do when I arrived. That part I hadn't thought out too well. I decided to just let things happen. Mainly I wanted them not to drive off the cattle.

Nightfall found me under some bluffs near the head of Little Bluff Creek. It was a place where a big boulder had deflected the talus falling off the rim to either side, leaving a little hollow maybe thirty yards across. And the slope below was scattered with white rocks.

There was a cedar growing near the boulder, low and thick, and some mesquite nearby. I scouted it as I rode past. Then, stopping in a thick patch of trees and brush, I built myself a small fire, made coffee and fried some bacon. When I'd eaten and sopped of the bacon gravy with one of the biscuits Essie had packed for me, I dowsed my fire, pulling the sticks away and scattering dirt over the ashes. Then leading my horse, I walked back several hundred yards to the hollow below the boulder.

Stripping my rig from the horse, I let him roll, watered him and picketed him on the grass below the boulder. Then I unrolled my bed, took off my boots and stretched out. And believe me, I was tired.

If I had it figured right, the Llano was about eight or nine miles due south, and the holding ground for the cattle right beyond that river. That young rancher I'd sent north after Balch and Timberly had laid it out pretty good for me, and Baker was running his cattle in a sort of triangle between the Llano and the James, and just east of Blue Mountain ... but trying to hold them between Blue Mountain and the Llano.

The moon was up when next I opened my eyes. Everything was white and pretty. I could see that black-legged horse cropping grass out there, but I couldn't see his legs at all, only his body, looking like one of those white rocks.

I turned over and started to go to sleep again, and then my eyes came wide open. Why, I was a damned fool. If they came sneaking up on me ... them or the Kiowas ... I'd never have a chance. They'd spot my bed right out there in the open and fill it full of lead. Well, I slid out of that bed like a greased eel through wet fingers. I rolled a couple of rocks into my bed, bunched the bedding around it, and went back into the deeper shadows under that big boulder. And with the saddle blanket around my shoulders, I leaned back and dozed again, rifle to hand and my gunbelt on.

Dozing against that rock, suddenly I heard my mustang blow like a horse will sometimes do when startled. My eyes opened on three men walking up on my camp.

One whispered, "You two take him. I'll get his horse."

Flame blasted from the barrels of two rifles and there was a roar of sound--the harsh, staccato barking of the rifles.

They stood there, those two dark figures, within twenty feet of my bed, and they worked the levers on their rifles until they shot themselves out of ammunition. I had my Winchester in my hands, pointed in their direction, and I was maybe forty feet from them.

That ugly roar of sound was to ring in my ears for many a day, as they poured lead into what they thought was me, shooting and shooting again.

I heard the horse snort, and a voice called out, "You get him?"

There was a rude grunt and the other man said, "What the hell do you think?"

The moonlight was bright.

I stood up--one nice, easy movement--taking a pebble from the ground as I did so. They had half turned, but some slight rustle or shadow of movement must have caught the ear of one of them because he looked toward me. Backed up against that big boulder as I was, he could have seen nothing or, at best, only a part of something. With my left hand, I tossed my pebble off to the right, and they both turned sharply.

"You bought the ticket," I said quietly. "Now take the ride."

My Winchester stabbed flame and knocked one man staggering, reaching for his pistol. The other turned sharply off to his left, diving for cover as he drew, but I was always a good wing shot, and my bullet caught him on the fly and he went plunging straight forward on his face.

The echoes of my shots chased each other under the eaves of the cliffs, then lost themselves along the wall.