the Mountain Valley War (1978) (25 page)

She was lovely to look at, tender and thoughtful, and above all, she was strong. She knew herself and what sort of person she was and wished to become.

Yet always the memory returned of the faces of the wives of other gunfighters, some of the fine men who had died bringing the law to little frontier communities. He had taken the news to more than one, and the bodies of their husbands to at least two. That was what had stopped him until now.

Bartram had Sally Crane. Soon they would be married. He remembered her sweet, youthful face, flushed with happiness. It made him feel old and tired.

The big Yaqui was still asleep. He tiptoed to the door and looked out. All was quiet. The clouds were building up around the peaks. If it rained, it would make it tough to move Jaime Brigo. Thunder rumbled like a whimper of far-off trumpets. He walked back to the table and sat down. Finally he went to the kitchen and got an apple from the stuff from Leathers' store.

He bit into it, and the sound was loud in the empty room.

Chapter
20

They came down the dusty street through the sunlit afternoon, a tight little cavalcade of riders expecting no trouble. They rode as tired men ride, lounging in their saddles, for there was dust on their horses and dust on their clothing and dust on their beards. It was only their guns that had no dust.

There was no humor in them, for they were men to whom killing was a natural business. The softer members of the Hale crew were gone. These were the salty pick of a hard-bitten, lawless bunch who rode for the highest bidder.

Lee Wright was in the lead, riding a blood bay. At his right and a little behind was Jeff Nebel, then Tandy Wade, who was wanted in Texas, Missouri, and the Indian Territory, and then there was Kurt Wilde. They were ten in all, ten tough, gun-belted men riding into Cedar when the sun was high.

Dunn and Ravitz had not returned to the Castle, and what that meant they did not know, nor did they care. They had been sent to get a woman, and if Dunn and Ravite had decided to keep her for themselves, they would take her away. If those two had failed and Brigo remained, they would take her from him. They had their orders and they knew what to do.

Near Leathers' store the group broke and three men rode on down to the Palace and dismounted at the door. Lee Wright, big, hard-faced, and cruel, was in the lead. With him were Wade and Wilde.

Kilkenny had seen them come, and he waited. As they stepped up on the walk, he took down the bar and opened the door. It was safer with the door closed, but he wanted to cut the odds down at the start, and he needed shooting room.

"What d' you want, Wright?"

"Who is it?" The shadows under the awning and the darkness of the doorway blurred his vision after the bright sunlight of the street.

"It's Kilkenny."

"Kilkenny! I don't believe it. Where'd you come from?"

"Been here all the time, Wright. Only, they call me Trent."

"Well, I'll be damned! Well, you got a chance to ride out of here with your reputation intact, Kilkenny. We just want that woman."

"But she's my woman, Wright," Kilkenny said softly. The three were spreading out a little. He had seen it so often before. "That makes a difference, doesn't it?"

They were wary. They had a job to do, but he was not part of it unless he made it so, but apparently he was doing just that. Yet they were tough men, worried less about him and his reputation than about who else might also be here. Nobody likes to walk into a stacked deck, and Brigo should be around somewhere. Also, if Kilkenny was here, there might be others.

Their lack of knowledge was half his strength.

"We were expecting you," he said. He was standing back from the doorframe, quite in the dark interior. He could see them, but they could see nothing of him, at best a dim outline. "I was wanting to tell you boys that I'd light a shuck, if I were you. The Hales are finished here."

"Do tell?" Wright was straining his eyes to see. "We come after that woman. We'll get her."

"Sorry, boys, but she's not even here. She's been gone for hours. As for taking her, you'd come after her with only ten men? Ever try to take a place like this with no more men than you've got?

"Anyway, who is going to pay you? I won most of Hale's money. By the time he paid off the miners, he was broke. You boys are working for nothing."

"We'll see about that."

"Don't try it, boys. The Hatfields like to use those rifles of them, and you fellows are sitting ducks out there in the bright light."

"You're runnin' a bluff!" Wade said. "You're alone."

"Where are they, then? You--"

There was a tinkle of glass from a window, and a rifle muzzle showed itself. Wright turned to look, and Kilkenny saw him swear soundlessly.

It could mean but one thing. Brigo had gotten out of bed and thrust a rifle out the window at the right moment. But how long could he stand there?

"Why fight for nothing? You try to take this place, and some of you will die and the rest won't get any payoff."

Kurt Wilde had been sitting quietly. Now suddenly he exploded with impatience. "The hell with this! Let's go in there!" He jumped his horse to one side and went for his gun.

Kilkenny palmed his gun and fired, the first shot clipping the bridle on the rearing horse, the second taking Wilde through the shoulder and knocking him into the street.

Brigo fired at almost the same instant, and Tandy Wade's horse caught the bullet meant for him and went down. Wade leaped free, and he and Wright sprinted for shelter.

Kilkenny slammed the door and dropped the bar in place and then sprinted for Brigo. The Yaqui's face was deathly pale, and the movement had started his wounds bleeding again.

"Lie down, dammit!" Kilkenny said. "You did your part. You fooled 'em. Now, lie down!"

"No, senor. Not when you fight."

"I can hold 'em now. Rest until I need you. If they rush the place, I'll need help."

Brigo hesitated, then let himself be taken back to the bed. He sank weakly down, and Kilkenny lifted his feet up. From where he lay he could see through a crack of the window without moving. Kilkenny dropped a rifle and a box of shells on the bed. Then he went back and made a round of the windows, peering from each.

Wilde was getting up. Kilkenny watched him, letting him go. Suddenly the man wheeled and blasted at the door. Brigo, lying on his bed, shot him through the chest.

"One down," Kilkenny told himself, "and nine to go!"

He had no illusions. These men were too old at the business to be fooled for long. Sooner or later they would rush the place, making a feint from one direction and charging from another. They had men enough, and he had too large an area to defend and there was no way he could watch it all. They could even come over the roofs and swing into the upper windows.

Kilkenny was looking toward Leathers' store when he saw a man slip around the corner of the building and dart for the door. He fired quickly. Once ... twice.

The first shot hit the man about waist-high, but on the outside, near his holster. He staggered, and Kilkenny's second shot brought him down.

Kilkenny stood up and moved away just as a rifle bullet struck right where he had been an instant before. Had he remained in position, he would now be dead or dying.

No chance to get Brigo to the buckboard. Not by daylight and probably not by night.

They came with a rush, finally.

It had been quiet, and then a sudden volley blasted the back of the saloon. Taking a chance, Kilkenny ran to the front and was just in time to see a half-dozen men charging the front of the Palace.

His first shot was dead center and knocked a Hale man rolling. His guns were roaring then, and he smelled the hot, acrid fumes of gunpowder, felt a red-hot whip laid across his cheek as a bullet grazed him.

He thrust a gun into its holster empty and drew the spare from his waistband.

They disappeared then, and he saw that two men were down. He recognized neither of them. He thrust the gun back into his waistband, and drawing the empty gun, fed shells into the loading gate. Then he checked his second gun, from which two rounds had been fired.

His cheek was burning like fire, and when he touched it, his hand came away bloody. He wiped the hand on a curtain and brought the shotgun up to the door, stuffing his pocket full of shells.

He waited. It was hot, and the waiting was what got to a man. He did not want to wait. He wanted to go get them. Three, possibly four of their men had been hurt or killed.

There was no firing now. Obviously they were doing some hard thinking. The shotgun was his payoff weapon, and knowing what it would do to a man at close range, he hesitated to use it.

He could hear voices raised in argument from Leathers' store. With three men hit and possibly four, they were undoubtedly having second thoughts. Suddenly he had an idea.

"Lie still and watch," Kilkenny said suddenly. "I'm going out."

"Out? You going after them?"

"Si ... with this." He showed him the double-barreled shotgun. "They are all in the store. I'm going to settle this, once and for all."

He went to the door. For several minutes he studied what lay outside and listened to the violent argument next door. Price Dixon would be arriving soon, and the Hale men undoubtedly knew he had joined Kilkenny and the Hatfields. He would be riding right into a trap from which there was no possible escape, unless he, Kilkenny, sprang the trap first. If Jaime Brigo was to live, he needed Dixon's attention, so both men's lives were at stake.

Kilkenny waited. The sun was making a shadow under the awning. He eased outside, then left the door with a quick soundless crash that took him to the wall of Leathers' store.

From here it was four good steps to the door, but there was no window to pass. He stepped up on the porch, knowing that if they had a man across the street he was a gone gosling.

He took a step and waited. He could hear Wright's voice inside. "Cub will pay off, all right. If he doesn't, we'll just take some cows."

'To hell with that! I don't want cows, I want money! An' I want out of this with a whole skin so's I can spend it."

"Pussonally," somebody drawled, "I don't see any sense in gettin' killed because somebody else wants a woman. I'll admit this Riordan gal is something to look at, but if she wanted a Hale she'd take one. I think she's crazy for Kilkenny, and for my money he's the best of the lot."

"What's it to you, Tandy?" Wright demanded. "Hale pays us. Besides, that Kilkenny just figures he's too damned good."

Tandy laughed. "Lee, I reckon if you want to prove you're better and ask him for a personal duel, he'll give it to you."

"Say!" Wright jumped to his feet. "That's it! That's the way we'll get him. I'll challenge him; then, when he comes into the street, we'll pour it into him."

There was a moment of silence. Kilkenny was just outside the door now. "Lee," Tandy said, "that's a polecat's idea. I'd have no part of such as that, an' you know it. I'm a fightin' man, not a murderer!"

"Tandy Wade," Wright warned, "someday you'll--"

"Suppose I take it from here?" Kilkenny interrupted.

He stood in the open door with his shotgun in his hands. Wright turned, his mouth open, his face suddenly discolored and ugly. Tandy Wade held his hands wide. He looked at the double-barreled shotgun and said, "Kilkenny, I guess that shotgun calls my hand."

"Buckshot in it, too," Kilkenny said casually. "I might be able to get more'n four or five of you gents at the one time, because she scatters pretty good at this range. I'd hate like the devil to blow you boys apart, but if you ask for it, what can I do?"

"Now, take it easy!" Wright protested. "I--"

"Leathers," Kilkenny said, "you just walk over here and collect their guns. Slap their shirts, too. I wouldn't want one of you boys to have a hideout gun and get your friends all shot up."

The storekeeper, shaking with fright, did as he was told, and no one said a word. These men were all too familiar with guns, and most of them had seen what a shotgun could do at that distance. When the guns were all collected and laid at his feet, he stood there for a moment looking at them.

"Wright, I heard you wanting to trick me and kill me."

Wright's expression was haunted and sick. "I talked too much. I wouldn't have done that."

There was a rattle of horses' hooves in the street, and Kilkenny saw hope flicker in Wright's eyes. "Careful, Lee!" Kilkenny spoke quietly. "If I go, you go with me."

"I ain't movin'! For God's sake, don't shoot!"

Chapter
21

Now the horses slowed to a walk, and they drew up before the Crystal Palace. Kilkenny dared not turn. He dared not look. Putting a toe behind the stack of guns, he pushed them back, then farther back. Then he waited. A slight turn of his head, and they would rush him en masse; he might get off a shot, and might not. Certainly he would be dead within the minute.

Sweat beaded his forehead, and his mouth was utterly dry. He tried to swallow and could not. They had just to walk up behind him. He backed to one side of the door, but kept his eyes on them. Even for an instant he dared not avert his eyes. His only way was to go out fighting.