the Mountain Valley War (1978) (24 page)

"I don't want to kill you, Cain. You're too good a man. You and you brother teamed up with the wrong crowd down in Texas, and because of that we got into a shooting match. You looked for me, and I had to fight you. I didn't want to then, and I don't want to now.

"Cain, I owe something to those people in the mountains. I've a reason to fight for them. They are good, honest people and they are trying to build something. If I kill, it will be for that. If I die, I'd prefer it was in trying to keep their land for them. There's nothing to gain for either of us in a shoot-out. Suppose you kill me? What will you do then?

Cain hesitated, puzzled. "Why, I'd go back to Texas."

"And then?"

"Go to ridin' for somebody, I guess."

"Maybe, Cain. And maybe some old acquaintance would come along and you'd rustle a few head or rob a stage. Then they'll get you like they did Sam Bass.

"You're a good man, Cain, and I'm not going to draw on you, and you're too good a man to shoot a man who won't fight. You've got too much good stuff in you to live the way you'll live and to die as you'll die, with a bullet or at the end of a rope."

Cain Brockman stared at him, and in the flickering candlelight Kilkenny waited. For the first time he was really afraid, afraid his words would fail and the big man would go for his gun. He honestly did not want to kill him, but his own instinct for self-preservation would make him draw if Cain did.

Suddenly Cain's hand went to his face, rubbing his grizzled chin. "Well, I'll be ... I'll be eternally damned!"

He turned unsteadily and walked past Nita toward the door. He blundered into the doorjamb, then went out.

They heard his feet on the gravel, heard him pause, then walk slowly away into the night.

Chapter
19

Kilkenny stepped back and wiped the sweat from his brow. Nita crossed the room to him, her face radiant with relief.

"Oh, Lance! That was wonderful! Wonderful!"

"It was awful," he replied. "Just plain awful! I never want to go through that again."

He looked around. "Nita? Where is Brigo?"

"He's in my room, Lance. I was going to tell you when Brockman came. He's hurt, very badly."

"Brigo?" It seemed impossible. "How?"

"Two of Hale's gunmen, Dunn and Ravitz. Cub sent them after me. Brigo met them right here, and they shot it out. He killed both of them, but he was shot... three times."

"What's happened here, anyway? The Mecca has been burned."

"That was before Dunn and Ravitz came. Some miners were in the Mecca drinking. One of the miners had some words with a Hale gunman about your fight and about the nesters, and the miner proceeded to say what he thought about Hale.

"The gunman reached for his gun, and the miner hit him with a bottle, and that started it. Miners against the Hale riders. Oh, it was awful, Lance! It was bloody and terrible.

"Several of the Hale riders liked your fight and your attitude, and they quit. The miners outnumbered the others, and they drove them out of the Mecca, and in the process a lamp was knocked over and the place caught fire.

"Fighting continued in the street, but nobody used a gun. It was all rough-and-tumble, and by the time it was over, the Mecca had burned to the ground and the miners got into wagons and started back for Silver City or wherever they were from.

"For the next few hours it was like a morgue. Nobody was on the streets. They were littered with broken bottles, smashed chairs, and torn bunting. Everything was quiet then until Dunn and Ravitz came."

"Have you seen Cub?"

"No, but they say he's wild. He hated you and was furious when some of the men quit. He doesn't care about Halloran, for he's completely lawless. Also, he doesn't realize what Halloran can do to his father, or what all of this means. He cannot remember a time when his father was not a big man and able to do whatever he wanted.

"He's taken a dozen men and gone out after stolen cattle."

"Good! That means we have some time. Nita, you can't stay here. Ride to the Cup and send Price Dixon down here. If anybody can do anything for Brigo, he can. And you will be safe there."

"And you?"

"I'll be all right. Just send Dixon down here. Meanwhile, I'll get a buckboard and we'll be ready to take Brigo back with us."

They were silent, listening. There was no sound. The town had the silence of a grave.

"What about King Bill?"

"There are only rumors, Lance. Some of those cowhands who quit stopped in here for drinks. They said he acts like a man who's lost his mind. He was in here after the fight, but then he went to the Castle.

"He asked me to marry him, and I refused. He said he would take me anyway, and I told him Brigo would kill him if he tried. He went away, and it was then Cub sent those men after me.

"But something has happened to Hale. He's not the same man. He lost money to you, to the miners, and to Cain Brockman. He paid all his bets, even those for which he had not put up money. I don't believe the money mattered, but the losing did. He's never lost, he's never been thwarted, and he doesn't know how to cope with adversity. He was never a strong man insofar as character is concerned, and suddenly he has just seemed to come apart.

"We heard that Halloran told him the law would have to decide the nesters' case, and that if he had ordered Moffit and Miller killed, he would hang.

"Well, that was when he started to come apart. He had ruled like a little king here and had come to believe that he was almost that, and everything had gone about as he wanted until you came along."

"You mean everything went all right until he tried to turn some people out of their homes."

"Your whipping Turner really began it for him, for he did not actually hear of what happened in Blazer until afterward. I mean, he heard you tell Halloran about the nesters who were killed but I don't believe he realized he had lost men, too. Soderman in particular."

"What was that about stolen cattle?"

"When they left, some of his own hands drove off a herd he had planned to drive to Montana for the mining camps. Cub went after them."

"You must go," he urged. "Take my little gray. He's right out there under the trees. Don't worry about him. He can run' all the way and not be breathing hard at the end."

She kissed him lightly on the lips and then was gone. He walked to the door to see her get into the saddle, and then turned back.

All was dark and still. The big Yaqui was asleep. He was breathing deeply and his face was flushed. Kilkenny laid a hand on his brow and it was hot, but he was sleeping and better left undisturbed.

Kilkenny walked back to the candle and checked his guns. Then he reloaded Brigo's guns and retrieved the shotgun kept under the bar. He found two more pistols, and both were loaded. He placed one on the bar and tucked the other in his waistband. Then he doused the candle and sat down in a chair from which he could watch both doors and hear Brigo's breathing.

It would be a long time until morning.

Twice during the long hours until daybreak he arose and paced restlessly about the great room or peered out into the ghostly street. Once something struck the broken glass of a bottle and he was out of his chair in an instant, but it proved to be only a lonely burro wandering along the dead street.

Toward morning he slept a litde in snatches, every sense alert for trouble or for some stirring on the part of the big Yaqui.

Not until it was growing gray in the street and he had looked in on Brigo again did he think of food. He went into the big, empty kitchen and looked about, but found very little. He put on water for coffee, but the eating of the past weekend and the celebration had almost stripped the kitchen.

He went back to Brigo and found the big Yaqui awake. The Yaqui turned his head to look at him and Kilkenny said, "Nita went to the Cup. She's sending Price Dixon down for you." Then he added, "Turns out he's a doctor."

"I know. I know for long time about this."

"How do you feel?"

"Not good." Brigo was still, then he said, "Very weak."

"All right. You sit tight." He took the gun from the bar. "I'll leave you with this. I'm going over to the store for grub. Be right back."

The street was empty. He stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. There was no sound, not even a squeaky pump or braying mule. He walked along the boardwalk to Leathers' store. He rattled the knob, and there was no response. Without further hesitation he put his shoulder to the door, lifted up on the knob, and pushed. The lock burst and the door swung inward.

Leathers appeared from the back of the store. "Here!" he exclaimed angrily. "What are you doing?"

"When I rattled the door, you should have opened it. I figured maybe you wanted me to come right on in."

"That door was locked!"

"Was it, now?" He glanced innocently at the door. "Well, what d' you know? It surely isn't locked now!"

"I told you once I wouldn't sell to you," Leathers protested.

"So you did," Kilkenny said mildly. "I figured you'd probably changed your mind. Where've you been the past few days, Leathers? There's been some changes, and there will be more."

He threw a slab of bacon on the counter, put a dozen eggs into a paper sack, and gathered a few other things he liked. He kept the eggs separate but filled a burlap sack with other things he thought might be needed, including two boxes of .44's.

From his pocket he took some money and dropped in on the counter.

"Leathers," he said, "you're both a damn fool and a yellowbelly. Why did you ever come west in the first place? This isn't your kind of country. You're built for a small, very civilized little community where you can knuckle under to authority and crawl every time somebody looks at you. We don't much care for that in the West, and they probably didn't like it wherever you came from."

"Hale will get you for this!" Leathers said angrily.

"Leathers," Kilkenny said patiently, "hasn't it dawned on you that Hale is finished? Half his men have quit, and some of them are stealing his cattle. Hale himself has found a hole and crawled into it. If he is still alive thirty days from now, he will be indicted for murder.

"You've spent your life living in the shadow of bigger men. Part of it is due to that sanctimonious wife of yours. If King Bill happened to smile at her, she'd walk in a daze for hours. The trouble is that she's a snob and you're a weakling.

"Take a tip from me. Take what cash you've got, enough supplies for the trip, and get out."

"And leave my store?"

"Within the next few hours Cub Hale will be riding into town with his outfit. They will be mad, and you know how much respect he has for you or anyone like you. If they don't clean you out, the Hatfields will.

"You refused supplies when we needed them, but now Hale is finished, and so are you. There's no place for you here any longer. If Cedar lasts, and I don't believe it will, we'll start from the ground up and build a new town, and we want men who will stand on their own two feet, like Perkins over in Blazer."

He walked back to the saloon and stored his grub.

Brigo was awake and had propped himself up a little. He had the gun in his hand.

Kilkenny went back to the kitchen, made coffee and some hot broth, which he took to Brigo. The big man was weak, so he fed him himself.

From time to time he went from window to window looking out The sunlit street remained empty. Not a creature stirred. Yet the Hale riders would be coming back, and he wanted to get out before they did. From the back of the saloon he saw a blackboard standing at the side of a corral about fifty yards away.

Were there horses in the stable? Whose were they?

He scrambled some eggs, fried some bacon, and drank several cups of coffee.

Brigo had fallen asleep. He was flushed and feverish. The street was still empty, so Kilkenny went along the back of the buildings to the corral. There were several horses in the stable, so he harnessed two and led them out, leaving a note behind that the horses had been borrowed for an injured man and would be returned.

He hitched the horses to the buckboard and took it back to the Palace. From the back door he carried a mattress and some bedding and arranged them in the back of the buckboard.

He took the team to the usual place under the trees and tied them there, then went back to the saloon. Brigo was asleep, and he hesitated to awaken him, for sleep was the greatest curative, given the constitution Brigo had. He needed medical attention, and Doc Pollard, Hale's man, had fled to the Castle.

He went to the front door and barred it, then sat down at a table from which he could watch the street and waited.

He took up a spare deck of cards and riffled them in his fingers.

Nita was at the Hatfields' by now. At least he hoped she was. He had been a fool about her. He should have asked her to marry him before he left Texas. She would have come with him, and after all, he was not nearly so well known as Hardin or Hickok. He could just drop from sight

Why not now? No use worrying about what he should have done, for the chance was here, now, staring him in the face. Suppose he did get killed eventually? Doesn't everybody die sometime? He had known for a long time that she was the girl for him, and lovely as the place in the high peaks was, he knew he could find another. Why not California? They did not know him there.