Dark Canyon (1963) (14 page)

Taking no time to destroy evidence of their camp, Parrish started out, leading Weaver's horse and the two pack horses. Colburn had been gone scarcely an hour, Kehoe even less.

All over the desert the strings were drawing tighter; men and events moved steadily toward a climax of which none of them were aware.

Riley rode into the ranch yard with the sun behind him, and the first person he saw was Colburn. The white-haired outlaw was walking toward him, and Cruz was standing in the door, watching.

Scarcely had Colburn begun to ask for help for Weaver, when Parrish, leading the horses, rode into camp. "Jim," he said, "I'm sorry. I couldn't wait."

"Cruz!" Riley yelled. "Fix a bed for him up at the house!"

While the Mexican worked swiftly to prepare a bed, Colburn and Riley untied Weaver and helped him from the saddle and into the house.

Gaylord Riley took one look at the wound and turned to the door, catching up his hat. "Where you off to?" Colburn asked.

"He needs a doctor, and there's one in Rimrock." He waited for no argument, but went outside, shifted his saddle to a fresh horse, and turned into the trail to Rimrock. It was a long ride and a hard ride, but the dun he was riding was a stayer, and fast along with it.

McCarty was sitting on his bed with one boot off when he heard the pounding on the door. It was Riley.

"McCarty, you know Doc Beaman. We need him out at the ranch."

McCarty hesitated. "Beaman's got it in for you, Riley. He thinks you killed his nephew and stole his cattle."

"I can show him a bill of sale, but it makes no difference what he thinks of me. He's a doctor, and there's a. man who needs help at the ranch. I'll have to take my chances."

Beaman was seated at his desk going over some accounts when McCarty and Riley came. He glanced at Riley, his face hardening.

"I hear you've no use for me," Riley said abruptly, "but that's neither here nor there. One of my hands has been shot, and he needs help the worst way." "You're a damned murdering coyote," Beaman said coldly.

"Doc, if you say that to me after tonight you'd better have a gun in your hand. Tonight I need you too bad to resent anything you say. However, I've a witnessed bill of sale for those cattle."

"Witnessed?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't matter now." Doc Beaman got to his feet. "I'll see your man. After that we'll straighten this out once and for all, and don't think your talk of gun play intimidates me. I was using a gun before you were dry behind the ears."

When they arrived at the ranch Doc Beaman wasted no time. He glanced sharply at Kehoe, who stood outside; then he went into the house. He checked the wounded man's pulse, and unbound the wound.

He turned to Riley. "Did you get the bullet out?" "No, I wasn't there. It's still inside him somewhere."

"It's got to come out, and no time wasted." Suddenly there was a pound of a horse's hoofs in the yard, and Riley went swiftly to the door. Ji
m
Colburn was at the bunkhouse door, Kehoe near the stable. Both held rifles.

It was Marie.

"Gaylord"-she called him by his first name for the first time-"you're going to be raided. Eustis and Strat Spooner stopped by the ranch to get Uncle Dan. He would have no part of it."

It was Riley who took charge now, and did so without thinking. "Kehoe," he said quickly, "get up on the mountain. There's a trail-you'll find it just past the corral over there. You can see all over the country. When you see them, come on down."

Doc Beaman had come to the door. "Marie, you can help me. Come in here, will you?"

He turned back inside, and Riley followed. From a niche in the wall he took a leather wallet and from it the bill of sale.

"Isn't that your nephew's signature? And there's the witness. He's a bartender in Spanish Fork." Beaman glanced at it. "Yes, that's Coker's hand. And I know the bartender."

He pushed by. "No time for that now."

"I figured you ought to know . . . we're going to be attacked."

Beaman turned around sharply. "Damn it, man, I'm busy! Keep them off me, that's all I ask! Keep them off if you want this man to live!"

Riley went outside to Colburn and Parrish. "You heard him. It's up to us."

"And to me, amigo," Cruz said. "I am one of you, am I not?"

"When this is over," Colburn said, "we'll ride out of here."

"If you do," Riley replied, "I go with you." "What's that mean?" Colburn demanded.

"It means you're not leaving. Look, Jim. Weaver's fighting for his life in there, and lucky to have the chance. Parrish had a narrow escape just a while back. The odds are all against you, and if you ride out of here you're riding into trouble, and you all know it."

"So, then?"

"I need help, and you boys own part of this layout. My suggestion is you all stay on and work with me. You've got a first-class Morgan stallion there, and we've got some mares. This is good horse country. What I mean is, you boys have ridden your last trail. You stay here, where you belong."

"And what about that Swede sheriff?"

"I've got a hunch he knows who I am, and he's left me alone. He made a remark once about giving things a chance, and I believe he meant me. Well, I think he'll give you a chance, too."

Jim Colburn stared out over the hills. He would be a fool not to admit that he was tired-tired of running, tired of being on the dodge. It would be good to settle down, to have friends, to smell the smoke of branding fires and handle a rope again.

"I think he's right, Jim," Parrish said, "and I can speak for Kehoe. We've been talking about quitting. The fact is, Kehoe would have quit a long time ago but for you-he didn't want to leave you holding the bag."

Colburn continued to gaze at the hills. He had gotten into this business without really intending to, and there never had seemed a way out. Now there was. He had taken money with a gun, now he could repay it in a measure by building something.

He paused to ask himself whether he really meant it, or whether the old night trails would call again; but no sooner had he put the question to himself than he knew all the desire had gone out of him. They had been wild young cowboys when they began; now they were men, and it was time to change. It was just lucky that they had been given the chance.

It was a strange thing that the boy they had tried to save was now to save them all.

"All right, Riley," Colburn said, "we're workin' for you."

Strat Spooner drew up where Trail Canyon cut off on the left. "There's no way out of that hole," he said, indicating Trail Canyon, "but Nick, you take four men and go around through Ruin Canyon and come across the saddle and take them from the north. We'll hold on here, and when we move in we'll go in fast an' shootin'-hit anybody who ain't on a horse." "How many will there be?" Nick
Valenti
asked.

"Four-maybe five. One man is down sick, and likely the rest will be scattered."

"There's Riley, Cruz, and Lewis. You forgettin' them?"

"There's eighteen of us," Spooner said. "As for Darby Lewis, he'll cut an' run. Anyway, he's over in the basin, an' there's scarcely a chance he'll show up."

"All right,"
Valenti
agreed, "but when do we go in?"

"Right at daylight. You get in position, and when I shoot, you come a-foggin' it."

Spooner and the others stayed there, and nobody talked for a while. They dismounted and huddled about, smoking and shielding the glow of their cigarettes in cupped palms. Nick
Valenti
and his men had swung down Ruin Canyon toward the basin, and it would take time for them to get into position. Spooner's waiting place was almost a mile and a half from Kehoe's place up on the Sweet Alice Hills. Once, Kehoe thought he heard a distant sound, but it was not repeated and it could have been a falling rock or some small animal scurrying around in the darkness.

But Kehoe was restless. The knowledge that. an attack might come and leave him marooned on top the mountain worried him, and after a time he decided to slip down closer to the trail.

For a while there had been lights and movement down at the ranch, which was plainly in view, nearly five hundred feet lower down and due west. He went to his horse and mounted.

Marie appeared at the door of the house. "Gaylord, can I get some fresh water?" she asked. "Doc wants to boil his instruments."

Cruz came out of the shadows and took the bucket, and walked away toward the spring.

Marie stood beside Riley in the darkness. "How does he look?" Riley whispered.

"Bad . . . very bad. Doc is really worried." Neither spoke for a minute and then Marie said, "Gaylord, was this the reason you wouldn't say anything the other night? Because these men were your friends?"

"Do you know who they are?"

"Kehoe told me."

"Yes, they are my friends. I was one of them." "But you quit."

"Yes . . . and they put up part of the money to give me my chance. You see how it is."

"Did you think it would make a difference to me? You know it wouldn't."

The night was very still. The stars hung low. It was almost morning, although there was still no hint of gray in the sky. But here it became light very quickly, for they were high up.

Gaylord Riley stared at the stars, aware of the girl by his side, but thinking rather of what this night meant to him, to them both. This was an out-and-out attack, and partly by the townspeople and ranchers, even if the bulk of the attackers would be the hired gunmen who had been holed up over near the Blues.

Some of those who got hurt might be ranchers like Eustis or Bigelow, but once the battle opened nothing could be done about that. They would be shooting, and they would be shot at, perhaps killed. No matter what happened, he intended to stay, and to keep the others with him. Somewhere, sometime a man had to take a stand, and this was his stand. Besides, he now had something worth fighting for.

At least, Dan Shattuck had refused to join them. That much was favorable.

Cruz returned with the water, and Marie followed him into the house, leaving Riley alone.

His fingers went to the fully loaded cartridge belt around his hips, then to the bandolier of cartridges across his chest. He walked toward the trail entrance, listening.

There was no sound.

Dan Shattuck rode reluctantly westward with the note in his pocket. The handwriting was strange to him, for he had never had occasion to see anything written by Martin Hardcastle. The message was plain and right to the point, and the note unsigned.

If you want evidence, ten head of your steers are penned up near the ruins at House Park Butte. They are fresh branded to 5B.

There were several ways in which a Lazy S could be changed into a 5B, which was Gaylord Riley's brand. Eager as he was to apprehend whoever had been rustling his cattle, Shattuck feared to discover that Riley was actually the one.

So he had said nothing to anyone on receiving the note, which had been thrust under his door, but had saddled up and ridden away in the night. If he
c
ould come upon the cattle at House Park Butte he might find evidence that would convince him. And if such evidence was found, he would join the attackers.

House Park Butte was a towering rock mass that almost divided the basin where Riley was reported to be running his cattle, and it was only a few miles north of the ranch on Dark Canyon Plateau. Shattuck had a good horse, and he rode swiftly. No longer a young man, he was wiry and strong, and had been born to the saddle. Furthermore, he knew the country over which he must ride. Skirting Salt Creek Mesa, he followed a dim trail toward the butte.

Martin Hardcastle, who knew most things that went on, did not know that Chats, the Mexican boy, had a hero. Chats lived in abject fear of Hardcastle, and obeyed his every command, and in return Hard-castle saw that he was fed and occasionally gave him money; but all that meant nothing, compared to his idol.

That idol was a man of his own people. He was a top hand, a skilled hand with a rope, a fine horseman, and an excellent shot. That idol was Pico, and, being so close, Chats could not resist the chance to look upon him once more.

At the Lazy S bunkhouse Chats crept stealthily to the door. There he paused, fearful of going further. From within came the sound of snores, and the door stood open, for the night was cool though far from cold. He edged nearer, wanting at least a glimpse of his hero, and perhaps a glimpse of the gun he carried.

"Chata" the voice was low but Chats jumped as if struck
"what are you doing here?"

Pico was seated on the edge of his bunk, a pistol in his hand.

"It was only to look," Chata said, "to see the pistols."

"You've seen it. Now you'd better go. You might be shot, prowling around like that."

He spoke in a low tone and in Spanish. As he finished he suddenly realized the boy's presence on the ranch could scarcely be accidental.

"Chats, tell me, what are you doing out here? Why did you come?"

Chata hesitated. It was a rule of Senor Hardcastle that one did not speak of the messages carried, or the errands done. Until now he had obeyed that rule, but now-this was Pico!