Novel 1954 - Utah Blaine (As Jim Mayo) (v5.0) (19 page)

Rink hesitated, searching for the motivation behind Nevers’ apparent anxiety or irritation. He failed. He shrugged. “All right, we’ll go to the 46. Turley’s there. If Blaine rides in, Turley should get one shot at him, at least.”

Rink turned and jerked his head at Hoerner. The big man hesitated, looking at Nevers. “You sure you want me?” he asked softly. “Maybe I’d better stay here.”

Nevers’ head swung and he glared at Hoerner. “You ride to the 46!” he said furiously. “Who’s payin’ you?”

“You are,” Hoerner said, “long as I take the wages. Maybe I aim to stop.”

Rink Witter stared from one to the other. “You comin’ with me?” he asked Hoerner. “Or are you scared of Blaine?”

Hoerner turned sharply, his face flushing. “You know damn’ well I’m scared of nobody!” He caught up his hat and rifle. “Let’s go!” At the door he paused. “Maybe we’ll be back mighty soon,” he said to Nevers.

Nevers stood in the doorway and watched them go. Then he turned swiftly. Angie Kinyon stood in the door from the kitchen. “Oh? Have they gone?”

“Yeah.” Nevers’ voice was thick and something in its tone tingled a bell of warning in Angie’s brain.

She looked at him carefully. She had never liked Nevers. He was a cold, unpleasant man. She could sense the animal in it, but it had nothing of the clean, hard fire there was in Utah Blaine. Nevers’ neck was thick, his shoulders wide and sloping. He stared across the table at her. “You get into a man, Angie.” he said thickly. “You upset a man.”

“Do I?” Angie Kinyon knew what she was facing now, and her mind was cool. This had been something she had been facing since she was fourteen, and there had always been a way out. But Russ Nevers was different tonight—something was riding him hard.

“You know you do,” Nevers said. “What did you want to tie in with Blaine for?”

“Utah Blaine’s the best man of you all,” she said quietly. “He stands on his own feet, not behind a lot of hired gunmen.”

Red crept up Nevers’ neck and cruelty came into his eyes. He wanted to get his hands on this girl, to teach her a lesson. “You think I’m afraid of him?” he demanded contemptuously. Yet the ring of his voice sounded a little empty.

“I know you are,” Angie said quietly. “You’re no fool, Russ Nevers. Only a fool would not be afraid of Blaine.”

He dropped into a chair and looked across the table at her. “Give me some of that coffee,” he commanded.

She looked at him, then walked to the stove and picked up the pot. Choosing a cup, she filled it. But instead of coming around the table as he had expected, she handed it across to him. He tried to grasp her wrist and she spilled a little of the almost boiling coffee on his hand.

With a cry of pain he jerked back the hand, pressing it to his lips. “Damn’ you! I think you done that a-purpose!”

“Why, Mr. Nevers! How you talk!” she mocked.

He glared at her. Then suddenly he started around the table. “Time somebody took that out of you!” he said. “An’ I aim to do it!” Swiftly she evaded his grasp and swung around the table.

“You’d look very foolish if somebody came in,” she said. “And what would you do if Blaine rode up?”

He stopped, his face red with fury. Yet her words somehow penetrated his rage. At the same time he realized that he had deliberately separated himself from all help! Suppose Blaine did come?

Coolly, Angie took the note she had picked up from where Rink had thrown it. She tossed it across the table. “How does that make you feel?” she asked. “You know what would happen if Blaine found you trying to bother me.”

“He won’t find us,” he said thickly. “They’ll get him at the 46!”

Yet even as they talked several things were happening at once. Ben Otten was racing over the last mile to the cabin on the river, while Lee Fox, with two riders, was closing in from the north. He had left his post, watching for Blaine, and had taken a brief swing around through the hills. Reining in, at the edge of the trees, he looked down and saw the horse standing in the yard. And then he saw a second rider come racing down to the ford and start into the river. Lee Fox spoke quickly and rode down the trail.

In Red Creek six deputies with shotguns were stationed at six points in the town. Their job was to keep the peace. Before the hotel fifteen men were mounted and waiting. And then Rocky White came out, followed by Padjen and Forbes. All mounted.

A tough gunhand who had come drifting into the valley hunting a job, filled his glass. He looked over at the bartender. “One for the road!” he said.

“You leavin’?”

The gunhand jerked his head toward the street. “See them gents ridin’ out of town? Those are good people, an’ they are mad, good an’ mad! Mister, I been in lots of scraps, but when the average folks get sore, that’s time to hit the trail! Ten minutes an’ you won’t see me for dust!”

B
EN OTTEN RACED up the trail just as Nevers started after Angie the second time. Nevers stopped just as she reached the door into the next room. He stopped and heard the pound of hoofs. His face went blank, then white. He grabbed for a gun and ran to the door. He was just in time to see a man swing down from a horse and lunge at the steps. Nevers was frightened. He threw up his gun and pulled it down, firing as he did so.

Ben Otten saw the dark figure in the door, saw the gun blossom with a rose of fire, and felt something slug him in the stomach. His toe slipped off the first step and he fell face down, and then rolled over and over in the dust.

Russ Nevers rushed out, his gun lifted for another shot. He froze in place, staring down at the fallen man.

Ben Otten!

Angie heard his grunt of surprise, but she was pulling the box down from the shelf of the closet. Lifting out the gun she concealed it under her apron and walked back to the kitchen.

Russ Nevers was on the steps and he heard her feet. He turned, staring blankly at her. “It’s Otten,” he said dully. “I’ve killed Ben Otten.”

He was still staring when Fox rode into the yard with his men. He looked down at Otten, then at Nevers. “What did you shoot
him
for?” he asked wonderingly.

“He rushed me. I thought he was Blaine.”

Fox peered at Nevers curiously, then looked up at Angie. Slowly realization broke over him, and he looked from one to the other, then nodded, as if he had reached a decision.

“Get him out of the way,” he said shortly. “Blaine’s comin’.” He turned to his men. “Gag that girl, but be easy on her.”

Angie heard him speak, but not the words. The two men swung down as Nevers caught Otten’s body by the arm to drag it aside. The two hands walked toward her, apparently about to help Nevers. She did not suspect their purpose until suddenly they grabbed her. She tried to swing up the gun but it was wrested from her.

“You won’t be hurt,” Fox said. “We just don’t want you to warn Utah.”

Helplessly, she watched them scatter dust over the blood where Ben had fallen. She watched them lead the horses away and scatter dust over their tracks. She watched them carefully take their positions.

Russ Nevers inside the house…Lee Fox in the stable…his two riders, one in the corral and one behind a woodpile near the edge of the timber. There they were: five men and all ready to kill. And somewhere along the trails were Rink Witter and Hoerner.

U
TAH BLAINE HAD been gone for more than twenty minutes when Ortmann heard the riders coming. He got a glimpse of them right away: Rink Witter and Hoerner.

Taking his time he drew a careful sight on Hoerner and fired. The shot was a miss, but it frightened the two and both of them jumped their horses into the brush. Coolly, using a rifle, Ortmann began to spray the brush, working his way across and then back, and jumping a shot from time to time.

Hoerner was flat on his face in the brush, hugging the ground. The bullets overhead had a nasty sound. “That ain’t Utah!” he said. “He’d have let us come closer!”

“I know it ain’t. Must be Ortmann.”

“What are we waitin’ for? Let’s get back. Blaine’s sure to go gal-huntin’ now.”

Rink Witter thought it over and decided Hoerner was right. Moreover, he did not like to think of Angie Kinyon alone with Nevers. The more he thought of it, the more he was sure she was not safe, that Nevers had wanted him away.

They worked their way back to their horses and both men mounted and headed away. Ortmann heard them going and swore softly. He hesitated, wanting to follow them, but he remembered Blaine’s admonition. No matter what, he was to stay put.

“That way,” Blaine had said grimly, “I won’t be worried about who I shoot at. I know I won’t have any friends out there!”

Ortmann fixed a meal and ate it at a table where he could watch the road. He sat that way until the sun faded and the night crawled down along the mountain sides.

N
IGHT CAME TO the cabin in the sycamores. It gathered first in the stable, then in the yard under the trees. One by one the men slipped into the rear door of the house, ate and slipped back. Fox came and when he did, he checked the girl’s bonds, freed her of the gag and made her coffee.

“You take it easy,” he said “an’ you won’t get hurt.”

“Take it easy?” she asked bitterly. “While you kill a better man than all of you?”

The night drew on. A mocking bird spent most of it rehearsing in the sycamore nearest the house. Fox spent it lying on a horse blanket with a gun in his hand. Angie slept, awakened, then slept again.

On the bench among the cedars Utah Blaine was stretched out on his stomach. He had his blanket over him and he was comfortable despite the chill. He was exactly one thousand feet above the little ranch. From his vantage point he could see it plainly except for the places where the thick foliage of the sycamores prevented his getting a view of the yard and the back door.

Angie’s mare was in the corral, and his dun was there. Yet he saw nothing of Angie. He had arrived just before night, and after it was dark he could see nothing but the lights and shadows cast by the moon and the mountains. There had been a light in the house, in the kitchen. It continued to be in the kitchen except once when it was carried into another room and then back. Several times he heard a door close.

All the arrivals had reached the ranch before he had a chance to see them. Nevertheless, Blaine knew they would be watching this place. He drew back from the edge and lighted a cigarette. It was growing colder yet he dared not build a fire. Still, he would wait. If she was down there alone, she was all right. If she was not, there would be some sound, some warning.

He would wait until morning. That would be soon enough to go.

F
OX LIFTED HIS head suddenly. He heard footsteps within the house. He heard the boards creak softly. A door opened. He got to his feet and with a word to his men, moved swiftly.

Like a wraith he slipped into the house. By the shadow on the floor from the dimmed lamp he knew he was right. Nevers was standing over the horrified girl who could only stare at him. He was standing there, leering at her, his eyes wicked.

“This ain’t your station, Russ.”

Nevers’ face twisted with fury. He turned sharply. “Damn you, Lee! Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“This is my business.” Fox was calm but his eyes had started their queer burning. “I don’t want to get hung!”

“You go back where you belong!” Nevers said harshly.

“Not me,” Fox grinned. “I’m stayin’ here. You go to the stable.”

“Like hell!” Nevers exploded.

Lee Fox tipped his rifle ever so slightly until the muzzle was pointing at Nevers’ body. “Then shuck your gun, Russ. You go or one of us dies right here!”

Russ Nevers had never known such hatred as he now felt. He stared at Fox for a long instant. Then he wheeled. “Oh, hell! If you want to be a fool about it!”

He walked from the house and let the door slam behind him. Utah Blaine heard that door slam. It worried him.

Chapter 21

I
N THE DARKNESS Utah Blaine came down the steep side of the bench. Instinctively, he felt that he was headed for a showdown. When the first gray appeared in the sky, he was standing in the brush not fifty yards from the corral, and no more than eighty yards from the cabin under the sycamores.

He took his time, lighting a cigarette and waiting, studying the house. There was no movement or sign of life for several minutes, and when it did come it was only a slow tendril of smoke lifting from the chimney. He studied it with furrowed brow, trying to recall if Angie had ever said anything about her hour of rising.

There was no wind and the sky was clear with promise of a very hot day. Utah was tired but ready. He could feel the alertness in his muscles, and that stillness and poise that always came to him in moments of great danger.

His wool shirt was stiff with sweat, dust, and dried blood. His body had the stale old feeling of being long without a bath. There was a stubble of coarse beard on his jaws, and as he stood there he could smell the stale sweat of his own body, the dryness of the parched leaves, the smell of fresh green leaves. He could hear the faint rustle of the river, not far off.

The slow tendril of smoke lifted lazily into the sky. Suddenly, the smoke grew blacker, and his eyes sharpened a little. He drew deep on the cigarette and watched. An oil-soaked cloth—something—suddenly the smoke broke sharply off. There was a puff, a break, another puff, another break!

Someone within the house—it could only be Angie—was signaling, warning him!

There was a sharp exclamation from the corral. A man Utah had not seen suddenly reared from behind the water trough and sprinted for the back door, cursing as he ran.

Utah Blaine smiled bleakly. “Good girl!” he said. “Oh, very good!”

Her ruse had been successful. He heard sharp talk, Angie’s voice, then another man interposed. He listened, but could not make out the words. The voice sounded like that of Lee Fox.

The man came out the back door, glanced hurriedly around and went in a crouching run toward the water trough where he vanished from sight. The man was a rider for Fox. Blaine had seen him but once, but had heard the man called Machuk.