Blood on the Moon (16 page)

“Tate, listen to me! Answer me! You mean that you didn’t buy this place because you wanted it? You mean you’ve been swindling these nesters into thinking it’s their rights you’re fighting for?”

Riling smiled and took hold of Carol’s arms. “Sweetheart, I want money for us. That was a way to get money, a lot of it, money your dad could spare.”

Carol shook his hands away savagely, but when she spoke it was coolly. “And you did try to talk Dad into selling there in town the other night?”

Riling nodded.

“And sent a man out yesterday to see him?”

Riling nodded impatiently, his eyes almost unfriendly. “What do you care, honey? It was for us.”

Carol’s face was a dead white, and she looked at Riling with unblinking gravity. “Tate, look me in the eye. Do you love me? Have you ever loved me?”

Riling did as he was bid and looked at her and then he laughed softly. “What do you want me to say? Of course.”

“You lie! You’re a liar!”

Riling’s smile faded, and Carol spoke wildly, heedlessly, bitterly. “You’ve used me to beat Dad! You’ve used me just like you’ve used these nesters! I’ve lied for you and betrayed Dad for you, and that’s all you ever wanted! It’s all you ever counted on, isn’t it?”

Riling put his shoulder against the door and regarded her thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t say that,” he murmured.

“Will you marry me now? Will you go in town
with me this minute and marry me, like you promised?”

Riling was silent a moment and then shook his head. “Not until I can support you.”

Carol laughed then, laughed wildly. She was still laughing when she went over to her coat and put it on. She picked up her gloves and her quirt and her hat and came over to him again. He was standing by the door, watching her with a puzzled look on his face.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

Carol smothered her laughter and said, “I was thinking of something I told Amy this morning about men.”

Riling only scowled, watching her. Carol took a deep breath and got control of herself. She kept looking at him, and as she did he could see a passionate hatred in her eyes.

“I’d like to leave something with you besides memories,” Carol said gently. She raised her quirt and lashed him across the face with it.

His reaction was instinctive, immediate. He slapped her across the face hard with the palm of his hand. Carol staggered back against the wall, righted herself and calmly walked across the room and out the front door, her back ramrod straight.

She swung into the saddle and didn’t even look back or down as she climbed the switchbacks. But once she was out of sight she couldn’t pretend any longer.

She dismounted and sat on a rock and cried. The slow snow fell silently around her as she sobbed, her face buried in her hands.

She didn’t know how long it was before she was aware that there was someone with her.

She looked up and saw Ted Elser, his face sober and troubled, standing in front of her. He was holding out a freshly laundered neckerchief.

“Maybe you could use this,” he said gently.

When Riling rode into Big Nels’s line camp that afternoon he was wet and cold and as close to being scared as he could get. The thing he feared was Jim Garry, and not the man alone but also the things he could do. What were they? All during that ride he had cast about for a clue to Jim’s actions. They were concerned someway with Lufton’s refusal to sell his herd. Where was Jim and what was he doing? He simply didn’t know and couldn’t guess.

Big Nels’s camp lay between the Chimney Breaks and the Massacre and was nothing but a cabin measuring scarcely eight by ten, with a brush lean-to for horse shelter, set alone on the clay flats that were now greasy mud.

The snow had held on all through the day, melting as soon as it fell. To Riling it held the reminder that the end of his gamble was approaching, and not the way he had planned it. When he rode into the yard nobody greeted him, although there was smoke coming from the chimney. This was one camp for his men who were patrolling the Massacre these last three days until the deadline was here.

Riling rode around to the lean-to, reined up and sat there in the snow, regarding the lone horse under the brush. It was Milo Sweet’s roan. Riling grimaced at sight of it. The prospect of spending the remaining hours of this day in a tiny cabin with only
Sweet for company wasn’t inviting. But he was wet and he was cold, and there was a stove inside.

He dismounted, put up his horse and tramped across the greasy clay toward the cabin. He’d had to be careful with Sweet since Shotten got in that trouble at Avery’s. That near mutiny ended by putting the men out on patrol, giving them something to do, but Sweet was the least tractable of them all.

Riling had to stoop for the low door of the sodroofed shack, and when he stepped inside he could see nothing for a moment. Then his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, and he saw Sweet lying on the lower of the double tier of bunks that extended across the rear of the shack. Sweet hadn’t shaved yet; he lay there with his fingers laced behind his head, and when Riling entered he didn’t move, only observed, “Wet, ain’t it?”

Riling said it was and peeled off his coat and hung it on a nail to dry. The rusty stove gave out a welcome warmth, and Riling held his hands above it and looked around the shack. It was about as plain and small as a line shack could be and still have any value. It was dirt-floored, and a couple of boards shoved into the cracks between the logs formed the table. The lone chair was a section of cottonwood stump that did double duty as a chopping block. A rusty ax was sunk in it now, and Riling pulled it out and leaned it against the wall and sat down. The door had to remain open since the place was windowless. A stack of wood took up most of the front corner.

Riling unbuckled his wet chaps and hung them and his gun belt by his coat and then sat back to roll a smoke. Sweet was watching him, he knew, but Riling
was in no mood for talk. When he’d finished his cigarette there was nothing to do except sit on his stump and warm himself or sleep.

He went to the bunk and swung into the top one and lay down on the hay. Near the roof it was warm and comfortable, and he found himself doing as Sweet had done, lacing his fingers behind his head and staring absently at the ceiling.

His thoughts returned to what had been bothering him all day. It wasn’t Carol; he had forgotten her utterly and completely as he had forgotten other pretty women whom he had used and discarded. It was Lufton that was bothering him. Was the man crazy, that he’d take a total loss on his herds rather than sell them for what he could get? It was the first time Riling had ever heard that money can have morals, and he didn’t believe it.

His musing was interrupted by Sweet’s voice from the lower bunk. “I hear Manker deputized Shotten.”

“That’s right.”

Sweet was silent a moment. “I told him I’d cut down on him if I saw him in this country again. I’ll do it too.”

“He ain’t in your hair in Sun Dust, is he?”

“No.”

“Then let it ride. We may need him,” Riling said lazily. Purposely he kept any argument out of his voice and was relieved when Sweet subsided.

Riling returned to his thoughts. Jim Garry, damn him, had spilled the scheme to Lufton, and now Lufton was merely being stubborn. How long would he hold out? And Jim Garry was back. Riling didn’t deceive himself; this was the worst of bad news. He
had no illusions about Garry. He knew Garry could hate like an Indian and, once aroused from his indifference into anger, could be as wild as hell. And he’d be mad now, Riling knew. The course his anger would take was another thing that troubled Riling, but not so much as Lufton’s stubbornness. What was Jim doing? That question ran like a refrain through his mind.

Again Sweet’s voice broke into his reverie. “What’s Lufton doin’, Riling?”

“Rounding up the stuff we stampeded, ain’t he?” Riling said patiently.

“Yeah, but why? He won’t have it rounded up in time to drive across ahead of the army.”

“That ain’t our worry,” Riling said indifferently. It was though, and he knew it.

“No,” Sweet agreed doubtfully, but he said no more.

A stick of wood cracked in the stove, and a fitful gust of wind blew down the chimney and sent a puff of smoke out around the ill-fitting stove lid. Riling heard Sweet yawn and he hoped he was going to sleep. Riling’s leg was going to sleep, and he shifted it carefully so that the rustle of the hay wouldn’t disturb Sweet. He had it settled comfortably and all was silent when Sweet spoke again.

“Where’s Riordan?”

Riling had been waiting for somebody to ask that question, and now it was here. These nesters hadn’t paid any attention to Riordan while he was alive except to ignore him; now that he was dead their curiosity wouldn’t give him oblivion.

“Dead,” Riling said.

He heard the hay move, and then Sweet’s head and shoulders appeared above the edge of the bunk. “Who done it?”

“Garry. Cornered him in the saloon in Commissary.”

Sweet pondered this, his searching eyes on Riling’s face. “Good,” Sweet said and added, “That’s how come you got marked up, too, ain’t it?”

“Is it?”

Sweet grinned faintly and turned and walked over to the stove. He shoved in a chunk of wood and then stood in the doorway, peering out at the slowly falling snow. Presently he put his shoulder against the doorjamb.

“Yes sir, Garry is one smart gunman,” he observed idly, dryly. “He knew where to hit for.”

Riling was listening hard, and Sweet went on, “He knew damn well the law couldn’t touch him on the reservation.”

“So that’s where he is,” Riling thought grimly; “helping Lufton round up his stuff.”

Sweet looked out at the snow and laughed softly. “So now it makes sense.”

“What does?”

Sweet looked at him, grinning. “Mitch Moten come in yesterday with the news. He’d got it from an old Ute buck on Sulphur Creek that had seen them.” He paused. “I guess Garry didn’t even want to leave anybody at the agency for the Bench County sheriff to complain to. He just took the Ute agent huntin’ with him.”

Riling lay utterly motionless for three seconds and then he came up on his elbow.

“What did you say?”

“A fact. Garry’s rammin’ around this slope of the Three Braves with Pindalest.”

“You’re a liar!” Riling said flatly. He vaulted out of the bunk, took the four steps to Sweet, bunched Sweet’s vest in his big fist and almost hauled him off his feet.

“Damn you, you lie!” he raged. “Who put you up to that?”

For some seconds Sweet was more surprised than angry, but then his temper that was never far from the surface flared. He batted Riling’s hand away with a vicious sweep of his hand and then lashed out at Riling with his fist. His blow landed on Riling’s broken nose.

Riling felt an agony of pain that washed a savage rage through him. He struck out blindly at Sweet with a blow that caught Sweet in the chest and sent him backward over the stove. Sweet landed on his back with a breath-jarring impact. And then, wild with anger in his face, he groped for his gun.

Riling saw him move and remembered in a flash that his own gun belt was on the nail above Sweet’s head. He grabbed the first thing he could reach, which was the ax. He swung it up with one hand and stepped to the stove. He saw Sweet’s gun clearing leather and then he swung blindly with the ax, using both hands, bringing it down with a lashing sweep that caught Sweet full in the chest.

The force of his swing carried him onto the stove and over it, so that he fell across Sweet’s leg.

He clawed wildly away from the man on the floor until he was brought up against the far wall. Then he looked. The head of the ax was entirely buried in
the dead center of Sweet’s chest, the helve angling up toward the door.

Riling huddled there against the wall a moment, holding his face, not because of the sight of Sweet lying there but because of the pain in his nose, which was a throbbing, fiery torture. Presently, minutes later, it died away and his nose stopped bleeding.

He got shakily to his feet and looked down at Sweet, and then the slow realization of what he had done came to him. He went over and looked closely at Sweet and saw he was dead. The sight wasn’t pleasant, and he stepped to the door. He’d been a fool, he thought meagerly; he’d let his temper get away with him. And now Sweet, the man these nesters looked to as one of themselves, was dead at his hand.

Riling listened carefully for anyone coming and then got a grip on himself. This was bad but it wasn’t irremediable. What was worse was that Jim Garry and Pindalest were together. For the first time Riling considered this fact without panic and without anger. Could Pindalest be double-crossing him? The only way he could do it would be to supply Jim with the money to buy Lufton’s herd. And then he knew Pindalest wouldn’t do it; the agent had already given Riling enough money to buy the herd to insure loyalty. The only reasonable explanation of Jim’s presence with Pindalest was that Jim was blackmailing the agent in return for silence. That was the most that could be between them.

When Riling arrived at this conclusion he had a moment of deep self-contempt. He’d lost his temper and he’d killed Sweet over something that had no importance at all. His rule was never to act before
he’d thought, but he’d forgotten it this time. Sweet’s blow on his broken nose had destroyed all reason, and he’d acted with the abandoned rage of a hurt animal.

He brought out his tobacco and rolled and lighted his cigarette, considering what to do about Sweet. He could claim Sweet tried to kill him and probably make his story stick with Les Manker. The circumstances of the death were all in his favor. But even if he made it stick the mere fact that Sweet was killed would lose him these nesters that he needed now. Their loyalty right now was a pretty thin thing, and it would need only this to destroy it. On the other hand, he needed their loyalty and help for only two or three more days, until Lufton could be made to see his foolishness and sell out. After that they could go to hell.

He knew what he was going to do then. It was easy to hide a dead man for a week or a month. He could tell his men that Sweet was fretting about the appearance of the army and had decided to ride over to Fort Liggett to make sure there was no slip. That would cover the three days he needed. After that he wouldn’t be here to answer their questions or their doubts.

He could see nothing wrong with that scheme. Turning, he went back into the room for his coat. He stepped over Sweet, not looking at him, put on his coat and chaps and gun belt and went out.

On the way to the brush lean-to he noted the tracks he had made coming in. The snow was like a slow rain, blurring every mark on the ground. He was safe.

Saddling his own and Sweet’s horse, he brought
them around to the door of the shack. From Sweet’s bedroll on the bunk he took out the ground sheet and then considered his next move with distaste. It was all right to say that when a man was dead he was like any other dead thing. It wasn’t true. He spread the tarp out beside Sweet and then braced himself.

His face had a cold, shrinking brutality in it when he rolled Sweet onto the tarp. When he couldn’t see his face it was better. He wrapped him tightly, lashed him with rope and then picked him up. Sweet’s horse wouldn’t take the burden at first, spooking away with a wild fright, but Riling finally calmed him.

During those few remaining hours of daylight Riling rode deep into the Chimney Breaks. They were the badlands of the upper Basin, a fantastic wind-and water-eroded series of deep canyons and gaunt ridges that were useless for grazing.

Before dark he found what he was looking for, a steep cut bank with considerable overhang. On this particular one there was a cedar tree whose roots were exposed on the side of the bank.

Riling led Sweet’s pony under the bank, put a gun to his ear and shot him. Afterward, not touching the burden that was lashed to the roan’s saddle, he put his rope around the tree, took a dally on his saddle horn and touched spurs to his horse. The tree pulled out, starting a slide of dirt that moiled up in a great cloud of dust. When the dust had cleared away Riling surveyed his work.

There was nothing there but a gentle slope of freshly exposed clay. He pulled his horse around and rode placidly back to the shack.

That same night Jim Garry and Pindalest were camped north of the road, high in the stormy Three Braves. They were leaving tracks; it was still snowing, but Jim, like everyone else, wanted to have his look on the day of the deadline.