the Empty Land (1969) (10 page)

He had missed his chance. He had missed it for now, anyway.

Chapter
9

Half a mile beyond Strawberry, Burke slowed his team for the climb up the pass. It was very hot, and the team needed a breather after their hard run. At this point there was small risk, for a cliff rose sheer from the road on one side, and the ground dropped off steeply at the other. To attempt a holdup along this stretch the thieves would have to wait for the coach right in the middle of the road.

"Strawb'ry looked all right," Burke commented. "Uh-huh." Coburn was wondering about Dorset. He was quite a distance from the home ranch.

Matt thought to himself that it was time he quit this business. He was getting jumpy. The necessity for continual alertness, the suspicion engendered by the work itself, these were changing him. He could feel it, and he did not like it; but he had the reputation and it was the best way he knew how to make a living.

Often he had wondered why others did not quit; now he could see it was not an easy thing to change the pattern of one's life. He could quit and go East, but what could he do there? All he knew was the West, stage lines, freighter outfits, and cattle. Maybe a little about mining. But what they wanted him for was
his gun
and his knowledge of how and when above all when to use it.

At the top of the rise, Burke drew up to let his horses catch their breath, and Pike Sides swung down, standing In the trail, looking forward, then back He looked up at Coburn, a curious grin on his face. "The worst of it is ahead," Pike Sides said. "You know that, don't your Matt shrugged. "Maybe." He had dropped to the road beside Pike.

"Whatever happens between here and Carson," Pike said, "you can count me in. I'm riding shotgun, too." The two men walked ahead a little way.

"For yourself?" Matt asked.

"Let's just say I don't want to lose anything." He turned his hard, flat eyes toward Matt "Tm ridin' herd on more than you. An' more likely to get stopped."

"Are you trying to tell me something? Or just talking?"

"Lettin' you know that you've got another gun. A good one."

"I know it's good," Matt said. "I've seen you work, and if you're riding shotgun on something, that's your business. I'll be glad of the help."

Burke started the coach toward them, walking the team to keep them from stiffening. Matt Coburn stopped where he had a view of the road ahead, but only in glimpses as it curved around among the hills. The trail appeared to be empty. There was no dust.

There would be none, of course. Anybody who wanted this coach would have been planted here hours ago, just waiting. He knew that and Burke knew it, and they only hoped, by moving fast, to come upon them before they were quite set and in position.

The coach drew abreast of the two men and Sides caught at the open door and swung in. Matt noted that he sat facing the rear. Matt swung up, and after a moment he quietly told Burke what Pike Sides had said.

Burke was as puzzled as Matt
was
. 'There's something here," Burke said, "something I don't read."

He walked the team another quarter of a mile and then the downward grade steepened and he started them at a trot.

"No whip, no yells," Matt cautioned, "unless you see them."

"You think it will be Meadows?"

"Maybe ... and if Pike's telling the truth we may get hit twice."

Burke's face grew taut. "I don't like that, Matt. I don't like it at all."

The coach picked up speed. Matt was thinking of the trail ahead. There were a dozen places, at least a dozen, where it might happen.

As they raced down the long hill he was thinking of Dandy Burke. The stage driver accepted the idea that they might be held up, but that they might be stopped twice worried him. It was a matter of the odds, Matt supposed. You could win once or twice, but you could not expect to win them all.

From the top of a ridge a watcher with field glasses had picked up Matt Coburn, and with a mirror he had flashed the signal to Harry Meadows.

"Wrap it up, boys." Meadows said, and walked to his horse. "We're passing this one up."

Scarf swore. "You're going to pass this one up? Are you crazy? A hundred thousand dollars?"

"What's money to a corpse?" Meadows eyed him coldly. "I say the odds are wrong. I say we don't do it. As of this minute, Scarff, the job is yours if you want to do it I want no part of it, but if you go, don't come back. Not ever."

Scarff hesitated, sorely tempted. "Damn it, Harry, I didn't mean "

"I hate to lose it, too. But take it from me, Matt Coburn won't go easy. I've seen a man like him soak up lead the way a sponge soaks up water. And when
he goes
he'll take somebody with him. I don't want it to be me."

"What'll we do?" Kendrick asked.

"We'll leave now, and we'll ride for Sacramento Station. We'll stay outside there in the cedars and watch what happens. If there's a chance, we'll take it."

They started, and with fresh horses and a start of five miles on the coach they made it easily. Harry Meadows was a man who knew the country, and he led them into a tiny copse well back of the station but within two minutes' riding to the station door. And the view there was good.

"Four riders," Scarf reported after a minute. "And they're no cowhands. Those men are loaded for bear meat, and riding some real horse flesh."

Harry Meadows stared at him. "You mean somebody else is going to try? But how could they know?"

He crawled up on the rock from which the station yard could be plainly seen.

The station was a long, low building. Close by were corrals, and the ruins of a stone building that had been a previous station, burned by Indians.

The horses were tied in plain sight, and they were certainly no ordinary homes. The men who rode those mounts wanted something with speed and bottom, and these were superb animals.

Only one man was in sight. Harry Meadows leveled his glasses at him, and then swore. Scarf said, "What is it, boss?"

"That's Tucker Dolan down there."

Scarf lifted his head, staring down at the dark figure that leaned against the doorpost, watching the yard. Tucker Dolan had been a deputy sheriff up in Oregon, and after that in Idaho. He had also been a hired gun for the big cattle outfits back in Texas. He was no outlaw, but his activities had often skirted the very edge of crime.

Meadows handed the glasses over to Scarf. "Somebody you know," he said.

A second man had emerged from the door, a toothpick between his lips. He was a slim man with catlike movements ... Bob Longer. Another tough man, another gun for hire, an occasional outlaw who had never been caught at it. Scarff had made a cattle drive up from Texas with him. He was a hard man, and a disagreeable one, a good worker, but a trouble-hunter.

"What the hell is this?" Scarf wondered out loud. "Somebody wants a scalp'," Meadows said, "and by the power they've got, they must want Coburn."

Two more men, unknown to the watchers, came out of the station, and after a heads-together conference one of them walked toward the corner of the corral, while the other stepped around the side of the house and waited there, out of sight from the road.

Meadows and his men heard the stage coming. "Are we in or out?" Kendrick asked.

"Out," Meadows said, "unless they take the gold. If they do that we hit them, quick and hard, from ambush."

"Them?"

"Right after a fight, in which they'll get hurt, they won't be expecting anything. We'll move against them." Scarff did not like it, but he said nothing, and neither did the others. They had learned to trust Meadows'
judgment
.

Of the presence of Harry Meadows, and his men, Coburn knew nothing. He had his shotgun in his hands and ready when they swung into the yard. He knew Tucker Dolan at once, and he also recognized Bob Longer. And there were four horses, which meant two others somewhere about.

Half turning, he pounded three sharp blows on the top of the stage, and then as the stage drew into the yard he told Burke, "Out from the buildings, Dandy. Stop her right here. If I go down, hit them with the whip and take her out of here."

The stage swung up, the following dust cloud
closing in
and settling around it. In one easy movement, Matt Coburn swung to the ground.

"Hello, Dolan." he said. "It's been a coon's age."

Tucker Dolan was surprised. He had had no idea that Matt Coburn would be riding shotgun. "I didn't know you were in this part of the country," he said.

"We're changing horses, Tucker. You interested?"

"I don't know what you're carrying, Matt, and you know I'm not riding the owl-hoot. I came to meet a passenger of yours."

Madge Healy! Why?

The stage creaked ever so slightly. A shifting of weight inside? Or somebody getting down?

"I hope it isn't trouble, Dolan. I wouldn't want that. Our passengers are to be delivered in safety."

Tucker Dolan straightened up from the door where he stood and walked just to the edge of the awning shadow. Bob Longer took a long. easy step to the right.

"Is Madge Healy aboard?" Dolan asked.

The stage door opened, and Madge stepped down. She held her purse in her left hand. Her right hand gathered her skirts. All of this Matt saw from the corner of his eye. ... Did that hand among the folds of the skirt hold a gun?

"Yes, gentlemen? Is there something I can do for you?"

"You have some papers, ma'am," Tucker Dolan said. "We were sent to pick them up."

Dunning and Kearns were getting down. Charlie Kearns's face was drawn and stiff. Dunning seemed merely curious.

"Any papers I have," Madge said, "are my own. The property they represent was bought with my own money, by me. Nobody and I mean nobody has any rights or share in them."

"I ain't here to argue, ma'am. I was sent to get them papers. I aim to do just that."

"An' we can do it," Longer said. "We got the edge." Two more men had stepped into view. Meadows had not known them, but Matt Coburn did. Claim-jumpers, strike-breakers, thorough toughs. Medley and Parsons. He knew them both.

Pike Sides stepped from behind the stage. "Maybe not, Bob," he said. Without turning his head, he went on, "Coburn, if they open the ball, I want Longer an Parsons."

Matt Coburn still held the shotgun. It was loaded with buckshot, and he knew what it could do to a man. "Madge Healy is my passenger, gentlemen," he said; "she is Wells Fargo's passenger. I don't know who paid you, but whatever you're getting it won't be enough."

"I figure you must be
packin
' Wells Fargo gold," Dolan said, "or they wouldn't have you on the box, Coburn. Now, we don't want any part of your gold. We ain't holdup men. We don't even want the Lady. We just want them papers." And he added, "One man has died for them, a'ready."

"Sorry," Coburn replied. Have told you that Miss Healy is a Wells Fargo passenger. Now, gentlemen, I am through waiting. This coach has a schedule and we are going to keep to it. Dolan, this is an express gun, if you haven't noticed. At this range I can cut you right in two, and there isn't a thing in God's world could save you. Even if you got a bullet into me, or two, I'd still have your guts spread all over the ground there.

"Now, I'm not worried about Pike Sides. You all know him, and we know you. You're a tough, game lot of boys who could cut us up considerable. Nobody would win the fight, unless it would be Wells Fargo an' Miss Healy here.

"But suppose you did win? No matter what your reason, or whether you touched the gold or not, you'd be outlaws, and they'd hang you. Wells Fargo wouldn't sit still about it. And suppose Miss Healy should get shot? That they'd surely hang you for."

Tucker Dolan hesitated.
Every word Matt had said was true, and he knew it He also knew what that shotgun could do, and he had been giving it some thought.
No man in his right mind bucks a deck so stacked against him.

"All right," Dolan said, "you've got us over a
barrel.
But that boy Madge Healy killed was the nephew of a mighty important man, and as her husband's heir, those papers belong to him."

"You'd better get some legal advice," Matt replied. "In the meanwhile, you boys just mount up and ride out of here."

Bob Longer laughed cynically. "Bide? Who rides? Who's got who? The minute you put down that shotgun I'm going to cut you into doll rags."

"Piker Matt spoke sharply and tossed the shotgun, which Pike caught deftly.

"All right, Bob," Matt's tone was even. "I'm not holding the shotgun now."

Bob Longer looked across the intervening thirty feet at Matt Coburn. This was the old bull of the woods. This was the man they said was the toughest, the fastest, the gamest of them all. Longer went for his gun.

The watchers saw him move, the listeners heard only one sound. Bob Longer felt the quick, sharp tug at his shirt pocket. His gun was moving. In his mind a single thought: he was going to kill . . . he was going to kill... to kill . . . kill .. .