the Empty Land (1969) (3 page)

"You never can tell about a woman. Some of them have more built-in nerve than a body would expect." Without a backward glance, he rode away, and Felton went back to camp. Cohan was frying meat. He indicated the rider with a bob of his head. "What did he have to say?"

"He's riding on."

"Well, you met him, anyway."

"Met who? He didn't offer his name."

"That was Matt Coburn."

Felton sat down abruptly. Matt Coburn!

"Fm sorry to see him go," Cohan said. "He's a good man, and before this is over we'll need him the worst way."

"We don't want him. Not his kind.'

Cohan merely shrugged and went to the pot for coffee. Felton still felt irritated. Suppose this was his first boom town? There was violence, but he had expected that. He had worked in timber-cutting crews as a boy, and he knew about a rough crowd. He said as much.

The trouble is," Cohan replied, "those boys you knew didn't pack six-shooters. You'll find some of that lot here too, but they're pretty small potatoes."

Matt Coburn held to no trail, preferring to make his own way into the Snake Valley. He was not in any hurry, and he had no destination, which was just the trouble. There never had been a destination, and a man just had to be heading for something, somewhere, if he figured to amount to anything.

Yet it was not strictly true. Back there before the war, when he was a youngster he had dreams of becoming a lawyer. He had saved his money and bought a copy of Blackstone ... what ever became of it, anyway?

When the war was over he had to make a living. He worked for a freight outfit on the Santa Fe Trail, then as a shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo.

For five months he had no trouble, while others were robbed, or robberies were attempted. Then one night, not fax from Sand Mountain, they surprised him.

He dropped to the ground and opened fire, and when the fireworks were over he was packing two slugs, but one bandit was dead, another seriously wounded, and the third he tracked down and brought in on the very stage he had tried to hold up.

One week later he had walked out on the street for the first time and three of the outlaws' friends were waiting for him. They had him boxed, and expected him to drop his gunbelt on command. Instead, he drew. It caught them flatfooted, and in a matter of seconds he had chalked up his second and third killings. The third man escaped, carrying a bullet as a memento of the occasion.

Coburn drew his time and drifted to Colorado, where he hired out as a cowhand. Four months later he went to Texas to drive a herd to Dodge. After one scramble with rustlers and two Kiowas, he brought the cattle in, and went after a second herd, which he bought with his own money. The Kiowas were waiting for him and he lost his head and his shirt.

For four months he was a deputy marshal in a cow town and never drew a gun on a man. He had a reputation for being fair and the trail hands knew he'd come up from Texas himself, so when he talked, they listened. But he was restless, and he moved on.

He was still moving on, partly because he liked the look of the mountains ahead of him and partly because he knew what was happening in the town behind him. He knew every move that had been made, and those that would be made. Even some of the names were the same.

He saw the rider before she saw him. She was a quarter of a mile down the slope, and a hundred yards ahead of him. She was riding a blazed-face sorrel, and she carried a rifle as if she intended to use it.

Coburn, from higher up, could see the two men she was following. One was Kid Curtis, a small-time gunman and cow thief; the older man was Skin Weber. He had been around Pioche, Virginia City, and Eureka, always running with the rough bunch. Neither man had ever raised a cow in his life.

Replacing his field glasses in his saddlebag. Coburn angled across the slope, keeping to the cover of the scattered juniper when possible. He had a notion that girl would need help when she caught up with her cattle.

His approach brought him to the cut through the hills before the cattle could make it. He wasted no time examining his motives. The necessity for action was here and he accepted the responsibility. Had the pursuer been a man he would have left him to his own devices, but no woman was fitted to cope with Weber and Curtis.

The cattle were a good-looking lot, longhorns crossed with some other breed that gave them more beef. The two riders hazed them into the cut "Somebody cumin," Weber said.

Matt knew it was his own horse that Weber's horse had sensed, but neither man suspected Matt's presence. Skin walked back to the opening and looked down the trail. 'You're right somebody comin'. Looks like that Shannon girt"

"You can't shoot a woman," Curtis replied.

"Kid, sometimes you're a damn fool. Who'd shoot a good-lookin' woman at a time like this?"

Curtis glanced at him uneasily. "Skin . . . you watch it. Nobody in his right mind fools around with a woman in this country."

Skin's reply was a dry chuckle. "She's a long way from home, and she's got no husband to worry over what becomes of her."

"She's got a couple of cowhands. They could become almighty curious. We left a trail a blind man could foller."

"Uh-huh, an from here on we leave no trail a-tall.' A sudden silence caused Matt to peer around the slab of rock behind which he was hidden. The girl had ridden into the cut, and it was obvious she had not expected anyone to be waiting there. Her rifle started to lift, but she was already under their guns.

"I have been following my cattle," she said. She was very cool. 'They seem to have drifted off my range."

Skin was amused. 'Ma'am, they didn't drift. We pushed 'em. The boys up yonder at the mines need beef."

Kid Curtis was worried. Matt could see it in the way he kept licking his lips and looking from the girl to Weber.

`They are my cattle, gentlemen, and I shall drive them back to my ranch." She was not only cool, she was hard. She did not seem the least bit frightened. But Matt was alert to her danger.

"Well, if you ain't a gonna be reasonable " Skin put his rifle down. "Kid, if she makes one wrong move, you shoot her, d'you hear? Don't mess her up, just shoot him the shoulder or the knee like. We kind of want her the way she is."

Matt Coburn stepped from behind the rock. His rifle was in the saddle scabbard, and he had not drawn a pistol. But he had to stop it before the girl tried to shoot, which he knew she would do.

Skin started toward her, and at that instant she saw Matt Coburn. Her sudden start of surprise made Curtis turn his head. "Skin," he warned, "we got trouble."

"Aw, most of em fight a little bit until they find out who's boss. I'll just "

"Skin!" The sharpness of Curtis' tone stopped Weber. "We got compn'y."

Skin Weber did not like interruptions. He had his own plans, and he was angry. Then his eyes followed the Kid's.

He looked at Matt Coburn and did not like what he saw. "Where'd you come from?"

"Skin ... be careful."

The warning in Curtis' tone was obvious, and it rang an alarm in Weber's brain that burned through his anger. "Whoever you are, get out! Get out whilst you're able."

Matt Coburn let a slow moment go by. "I was going to make you that offer, Skin, but after your attitude toward the young lady here, I don't much care whether you go or stay. The buzzards will have you boys sooner or later, and it might as well be here."

Skin Weber was suddenly cautious. This man was cool and confident; he was unworried. In the world in which Skin Weber moved, that meant the stranger had an edge. Skin's eyes swept the rocks. Were other men hidden here?

His eyes went back to Coburn. This man could have drawn his gun before he stepped into sight, but he had not. That meant he believed he could get into action fast enough, and that might mean that he was somebody. But Skin Weber himself was a handy man with a gun and he did not like backing down.

"We're just havin' a little fun. You beat it"

Coburn's attitude did not change. |Skin, you've got the lady's cattle. You stole them from her ranch."

"You callin' me a cow thief?" Skin's tone held a threat "Sure I am, Skin. You've been called one before. You've also been called a horse thief, a dry-gulching murderer, and a robber of drunks and old ladies."

Skin was appalled. The man was deliberately goading him into making a fight of it. And the more eager the man was for a fight, the less eager Skin became.

"Skin" Bid Curtis spoke only loud enough for his ears "that's Matt Coburn."

Laurie Shannon was looking at Skin Weber when the Bid spoke, and she saw the face of a man who had looked upon death. Slowly and carefully, Weber eased his hand away from his gun.

It was Curtis who spoke. "Mister, if it's all the same to you, we'd like to ride out of here."

"All right, boys, if you want to ride ... ride."

Bid Curtis walked stiff-legged to his horse. He did not look to see if Weber followed. Only when he was in the saddle did he look back. Skin had not stirred, and the paleness of his face had given way to the red of anger. "Skin," Curtis said, "don't try it"

A moment more Weber hesitated, then slowly he turned away. Curtis watched warily, his own hands clasped very plainly on the pomme
l
Skin mounted and the two gunmen rode out of the cut, with Matt Coburn following to see that they continued to travel.

"Mr. Coburn, I would like to thank you."

When the girl spoke, he turned and looked squarely at her for the first time, and he thought that she was beautiful. She had auburn hair and hazel eyes, and she was taller than most women.

"You will need help to drive the cattle back," he said. "May I lend a hand?"

They had started the cattle when two riders appeared, charging up in a cloud of dust from pounding hoofs. One was young, aggressive, and somewhat arrogant. The second man was nearing fifty, with careful blue eyes that missed nothing. He had a look of seasoned toughness about him.

"You all right?" he asked the girl.

"Mr. Coburn helped me. I'm afraid I rode into trouble, Joss."

"Coburn?" The young one turned sharply for a better look. "Matt Coburn?"

"That's the name," Matt replied, then ignored him. He knew the type. A tied-down gun and some swagger about him. A fresh one who had yet to learn that it needs more than a gun to make a gunfighter.

"It's all right," Coburn told the older man. "No trouble."

"Where are they? Did you shoot 'em?" That was the younger one again, asking questions instead of listening and learning.

"Why shoot them?"

"You mean they just gave you the cattle? That was Kid Curtis and Skin Weber. I got close enough to spot 'em."

"They misread the brands," Coburn replied solemnly. `They said they were sorry."

"Sorry? An' you let 'em get away? Why, I'd have " "Got yourself shot more'n likely." The older man was patient. "Thank you, Coburn. You saved us some grief." "Pot nada," Coburn said, smiling. "I'll be riding on." "Wait," the girl said quickly. I'm Laurie Shannon, and I own the Rafter LS. We don't have much of an outfit yet, but we set a good table. Will you come along and take potluck with us?"

She indicated the older man. "This is Joss Ringgold, and ... Freeman Dorset."

"Howdy."

Ringgold ... he knew the name. A salty old-timer who would stand hitched, but there was trouble in the young one. If he could keep that gun in his holster until he was old enough to know when to use it, he might live as long as Ringgold, but Coburn would have taken no bets on it. "There's no place to eat within twenty miles," Joss suggested, "unless you go back to Confusion."

Coburn hesitated, for he had learned to be wary of human relationships. He had learned the hard way that men could not be trusted too much. All men and women were sadly, weakly human. They were inclined to expect more than they were likely to get, and to expect it to come easier.

"All right," he said, and immediately regretted it. He had often made a lonely camp, and had not minded it too much. He could have done so again.

There was trouble in the quiet, strong young beauty of Laurie Shannon, and there was trouble in Dorset. About Joss Ringgold he had no worries. He and Ringgold spoke the same language, they had eaten the dust, felt the rain, branded calves on the open grass, and they had bitten on the bullet.

Meanwhile, back in Confusion, circumstances were moving men on the chessboard to involve Matt Coburn. For there are, in the affairs of men and nations, inexorable tides from which they cannot remain aloof. If they do not enter upon them prepared, they will be caught unprepared, and at the wrong time.

All Matt Coburn wanted just now was a good meal, and by such small motives are the lives of men altered.

Chapter
4

By evening of the seventh day there were five tent saloons in Confusion, and two frame buildings were under construction. There were three stores, a blacksmith shop, a tent theatre, two tent hotels, and about three dozen dugouts, shacks, and tents for private residences. At least a hundred men were camping without shelter.

After a meeting at Gage's place the council had chosen a marshal, a respected, well-liked soldier named McGuinness.