the Mountain Valley War (1978) (23 page)

It was a three-cornered game now, and he had two to fear. Two men who had committed themselves to killing him. Two men who might appear at any time.

Chapter
18

As they worked their way back by a longer route, Kilkenny suddenly became worried. They had been gone a very long time, and the people at the Cup were few. Winding around, they climbed a steep mountainside, rode through a grassy bottom, and were entering the edge of the forest when far ahead of them they heard a rifle shot.

Instantly he clapped the spurs to his mount and went ghosting through the trees. The others, as if on command, spread out in a long skirmish line, each finding his own way through the forest.

Before him the Cup suddenly opened wide, and then he was coming down a little-used trail. He heard another shot and then saw a bunch of men scrambling for their horses. He slid to the ground and dropped to one knee. He fired as his knee touched the ground, and he saw one rider grab for the saddle horn, his shirt suddenly blossoming with crimson.

He fired three rapidly spaced shots, and down the line he heard others opening up as well. Then he was in the saddle and racing up to the house.

Jack Moffit lay sprawled on the ground, the rifle near his hand.

Sally ran from the house to him, and Ma Hatfield came out. "Hit us 'bout an hour back, maybe less. Jack, he'd been taking care of the stock when we heard them coming. Jack got off a shot and then run for the house. They nailed him before he made more'n three or four steps. I cut loose at them, and they holed up right quick. Bart, he rode in about that time and joined us. They nicked him, too."

Kilkenny dropped to his knees beside Jack. The boy had been grazed along the scalp, but the bad one was through his chest, high up.

Price Dixon dropped down beside him. Kneeling over the boy, he conducted a swift, professional examination. "We'll have to get him inside on a table. That bullet has to come out."

Parson spat. "Ain't nobody here good enough to do that," he remarked, "although Ma's had a sight of experience."

"I'll do it," Dixon said. "I was a doctor once. Maybe I still am."

When they had the boy inside, Kilkenny went to the door with Parson. "This changes everything, Parson. I'd better go back in and get Nita. She won't be safe there now. This is wide-open war, and it has Cub's mark on it."

"You'd better take help. There's enough of us now to hold this place."

"I'll go alone. It is better that way, and I can move quieter and don't have to worry about where anyone else is."

"Don't you go to forgettin' Cain Brockman."

He glanced at Dixon. The man had taken a small, compact kit of tools from his saddlebags.

Parson jerked his head in Dixon's direction. "Says he's a doc. I hope he is."

"He is. I knew it the minute he went to work on my cut eye. I've seen professional handlers who were good, but not that good."

"You surely whupped Turner!" Hatfield said. "I d'clare, you surely did."

"I was lucky," Kilkenny said honestly. "I'm not as good a fighter as he is. It was simply that he wasn't expecting me to be as good as I was, and the fact that I had seen him fight before. If we fought again, Parson, he'd probably beat me."

"You whupped him."

"I whipped him today. I got him irritated there at the start, and he was too anxious to teach me a lesson, so I got in several good solid punches at the beginning before he was warmed up. Then he had the idea that I was just some husky cowhand, and he did not fight me as he would have a professional ... and I've had professional training."

Kilkenny shook his head. "I'm no fool, Parson, and I know something of fighting. If we fought again, he'd beat me."

"You'd better get some rest, boy. That's a hard ride down an' back, and you've been through a lot. Let the doc there, if that's what he is, work over your face a mite, then you'd best catch some shut-eye. Won't do no good to go hightailin' it down there ready to drop out of the saddle. If the time comes when you face up to Cub Hale, you'd best be ready."

It made sense, and he took his blanket roll out under the trees again and stretched out. Until that moment he had not realized how thoroughly exhausted he was, but he had scarcely stretched out before he was asleep, and when he awakened, it was hours later and the sun was already down behind the mountains.

He rolled his bed and took it to his saddle. From long and grim experience he knew that whatever a man's plans might be, events can change them on the spur, and it paid to be ready. He never left a friend without the awareness that he might never see him again.

Price Dixon had operated, removing the bullet that endangered Jack Moffit's life. Constant manipulation of cards had at least kept his fingers deft and skillful, and from time to time in mining camps and elsewhere he had worked at his profession.

Kilkenny was not surprised to learn that he had been a skilled surgeon. The West was a haven for many kinds of people, and from all walks of life. Doctors, lawyers, judges, businessmen, European nobility, all thronged west looking for escape from what they had become or were becoming, or for adventure, quick wealth, whatever the West had to offer, and its promises and gifts were many.

Price Dixon and Lance Kilkenny had recognized each other from the first, not from any past experience together but as men from the same level, men of education and background, men of the lost legion of drifters, of whom there were many.

"The boy will live," Price told Kilkenny. "The bullet was dangerously near the spine, but it's out, and what he needs now is simply rest and plenty of good beef broth."

Sally Crane found him at the corral when he was saddling the gray horse he was riding that night. She came up in a great hurry and then suddenly stopped and stood silent, shifting her feet from place to place. Kilkenny glanced at her curiously from under the flat brim of his hat.

"What's the trouble, Sally?"

"I wanted to ask . . ." She hesitated shyly. "Do you think I'm old enough to marry?"

"To marry?" He straightened up, surprised. "Why, I don't know. How old are you, Sally?"

"I'm sixteen, nigh to seventeen."

"That's young," he conceded, "but I heard Ma Hatfield say she was just sixteen when she married, and in Kentucky and Virginia many a girl marries at that age. Why?"

"I reckon I want to marry," Sally said. "Ma Hatfield said I should ask you. Said you was Daddy Moffit's best friend and you was sort of my guardian."

"Me?" The idea startled him. "Well, I never thought of it that way, Sally. Who do you want to marry, Sally?"

"It's Bart. Mr. Bartram."

"Do you love him?" He suddenly felt strangely old, and looking at Sally, standing there so shy and yet so eager, he felt more than ever the vast loneliness that was in him, and also a tenderness such as he had never known before.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Well, Sally," he said, "I expect I am as much of a guardian as you have, and Moffit and I saw things pretty much alike. He would want the best for you, Sally, and if you love Bart and he loves you, I guess that's all that's needed, as he is a fine, straightforward sort of man. As soon as this trouble is cleared up, he will do all right. Yes, you can marry him."

She turned to start away.

"Sally?" She stopped, turning to face him. "Sally, remember one thing. Bart is a man who is going to grow. He will not stay the man he is, so if you marry him and want to be happy, you will have to grow with him.

"I've seen a lot of Bart, and he is a young man on his way. You can't just settle down and be blissfully happy and in love with him, because he is going to grow and he will be an important man in the community sometime. You will have to learn more and be more and be a credit to him."

"Oh. I will! I will!"

She was gone, running.

For a few moments he stood there, hands on the saddle, ready to mount. Then he stepped into the stirrup and threw his leg over the saddle. "Now, that is one thing you never expected to happen, Lance Kilkenny. Somebody asking you for permission to marry! Next thing I know, I'll have to give the bride away!"

He turned his horse into the trail. Men had died here. Men had built homes here. Now Sally and Bartram would be married. This was the country, and these were its people. They had the strength to live, to endure, to be. These were the people of simple tastes and simple virtues who were the backbone of the country, and not those vocal ones who were quick with words and prided themselves on their sophistication.

The little gray horse he was riding was as surefooted as the buckskin. He spoke to it in a low whisper, and it flicked an ear to listen. This was a good horse, a steady, and quiet one.

He came up to Cedar in the darkness, with the stars about. He reined in, sensing something wrong, some change. The gray horse had its ears pricked, nostrils flaring. The smell of wood smoke was in the air, and. a tension, an uneasiness. He looked down upon it, seeing only vague outlines, no lighted windows visible from where he sat. Something had changed, something was wrong.

He walked the gray horse forward, keeping to sandy or dusty places where it would make no sound. The black bulk of a building loomed before him, and the smell of smoke was stronger.

The Mecca was gone! Where Hale's place had stood was a heap of charred ruins.

What could have happened? An accident? No ... it was something else, and behind the doors and windows he seemed to sense movement. The town only appeared to be asleep.

Keeping in the shadow of the barn, he moved forward. A faint light showed from Leathers' store, but the Crystal Palace was dark. Carefully keeping to the deepest shadow, he worked his way to the back of the Crystal Palace, leaving the gray under the trees near the abandoned building next door.

He had started out from the trees when a movement made him stop dead still.

A man was moving ahead of him, unaware of him, a huge man. He stopped, easing into the deeper shadow. It was Cain Brockman!

Watching, Kilkenny saw him moving with incredible stealth, saw him move to the door, work for a moment at the lock, then disappear inside.

Kilkenny crossed the intervening space in swift, soundless movement and went into the door after Brockman. Once inside, he flattened against the wall to present as small a target as possible for any possible shot

He heard the big man ahead of him. On cat feet he moved after him.

What could Brockman want here? Was he after Nita? Or hoping to find him, to catch him off guard?

He moved along, closed a door behind him, lost Brockman in the still darkness. Suddenly a candle gleamed from an opening door. Nita was there in riding costume.

"You've come, Lance? It was you I heard?"

"It was not me," he said aloud, "it was Cain Brockman. He's here."

A shadow moved, and Cain Brockman said, "You bet I'm here."

Cain came back toward them, weaving among the card tables until he was scarcely fifteen feet away. The heavy drapes at all the windows were drawn, keeping all light within, but there was only the light of the candle. If he lived to be a thousand years old, Lance Kilkenny would never forget that room or that moment.

Brockman was there, huge, invulnerable, ominous.

It was a large room, and rectangular. Along one side was the bar; the rest of the room, except for the small dance floor across which they now faced each other, was littered with tables and chairs. There were the usual brass spittoons, fallen cards, scattered poker chips, cigarette butts, and glasses, all awaiting the cleanup man who would come at daybreak.

A balcony surrounded the room on three sides, a balcony with curtained booths.

Only the one tall, flickering candle. And Nita, her black hair gathered against the nape of her neck, her eyes unusually large in the dim light.

Facing him was Cain Brockman. His black hat was pushed back on his head, his thick neck descended into powerful shoulders, and a checkered shirt was open to expose a hairy chest. He wore crossed gun belts and his thumbs were tucked behind the belt within easy reach of the guns.

His flat face was oily and unshaved, his stance was wide, his feet in their boots seemed unusually small for such a large man.

"That's right," he said, "I'm here, Kilkenny."

Kilkenny drew a deep breath. A wave of something like hopelessness swept over him. He could kill this man. He knew it. Yet why kill him? Cain Brockman had come hunting him because it was the code of the life he lived and because the one anchor he had had been pulled loose, his brother, Abel.

At that moment Kilkenny saw Cain Brockman as he had never seen him before, a big, simple man, an earnest man who had drifted down the darker trails behind his brother. That one tie had been cut, and he stood here now, a lost man, with no destiny, no future. To kill Kilkenny was now his only purpose.

Kilkenny spoke calmly. "Cain, I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to shoot it out with you. Cain, there's no sense in you and me shooting things up, no sense at all."

"What do you mean?" Brockman's brow furrowed. This was a puzzle. He knew Kilkenny too well to believe he was afraid.