Ride the Man Down (17 page)

Celia kept running, and then she tripped and fell heavily to the ground. She saw Sam run past her and stop to empty his gun at Will. Already a pair of horsemen up in the cottonwoods thundered off in pursuit, but she watched Sam's broad back. Each time he shot he brought his gun down savagely, as if clubbing a man, as if the violence of his effort could somehow knock Will from the saddle.

Will was hidden now by a break in the land, and she saw Sam fumbling out the fresh shells from his belt. Suddenly the futility of shooting occurred to him, and he wheeled and started to race back for his horse.

And then he saw Celia and hauled up in front of her. His face was contorted with rage and hatred, and at sight of it Celia laughed. She didn't know why, but she laughed at him. Sam raised his hand and slapped her across the face with his heavy hand, and she fell.

A pair of horsemen pounded past them, but Sam stood above her, staring at her, his mouth open a little in surprise at what he had done.

Celia raised a hand to her face and said quietly, “Thank you for that, Sam.”

Sam hesitated only a second, and then he started to run for his horse, and Celia watching him, wondered if he would ever understand why she had thanked him.

Chapter 15

Lottie left her few purchases on the counter for her father to bring home later, said good night to the clerk, and left the store. She was glad for the coyer of the night and had waited for it before she left the house. That way there was less chance that she might encounter other women, the mothers of the children she taught. For Lottie didn't know yet how she was going to face this. At noon the children had returned to school with something changed about them. They were excited and they whispered and they were restless. Lottie had seen this happen before, and she knew they would tell her in their own good time. It remained for little Tom Donovan to give it away after school. He stayed to ask her if Will had killed him with a shotgun.

That was the first Lottie knew of the killing of Ray Cavanaugh last night. The fact that it came from an eight-year-old made Lottie hot with shame and anger. This was a hard country, and more than once she had tried to explain an incident of violence to these children and give it a plausibility that didn't exist to her, but never before had it come so close. Will had killed a man who was in care of the sheriff. It was less easy to explain Sheriff Kneen's part than Will's, and Lottie was sick with disgust and humiliation. And she was angry with herself for waiting until darkness to sneak out and shop, as if in some obscure way she herself were guilty.

When she passed the last store she took her hat off and let the cool wind blow through her pale hair. She had not talked to her father at the store, but when he came tonight he would tell her what the town thought. She could tell then what course to take with the children at school tomorrow, but whatever it would be, she knew what she felt: It was plain, sick horror.

Turning in the gate in the darkness, she shut it behind her and came up the graveled walk.

A voice spoke quietly out of the night, “Let me in ahead of you, Lottie.”

It was Will, and he stood next to the maple, tree so that he blended with the trunk. Lottie wanted to say a hundred things then, but she detected an urgency in Will's voice that made her hurry up the steps.

She followed Will through the dark house to the kitchen, where he lighted the lamp in the wall bracket. When he turned to her she put her hat on the table and said, “I know. They're after you.”

“Are they in town?” Will asked swiftly.

Lottie said, “I suppose they're all over town, aren't they? Isn't anybody entitled to shoot at you now?”

Will's face altered a little as understanding came, but he said nothing.

Lottie said in a small voice, “How could you do it, Will?”

“I didn't like it,” Will said curtly. “Let's don't talk about it Lottie.”

“What can I tell the children I teach? What can I tell myself?”

Will came over to her and put his hands on her upper arms, gripping them tightly. “I did what I had to do. Now let's don't talk about it, I say.”

Quiet accusation was in every line of Lottie's face as she answered him. “It's not easy to live with murder, is it, Will?”

Anger flared in Will's eyes, and the line of his jaw was hard. He let his hands drop and turned away from her. Moving over to the window curtain, he looked out into the night and then let the curtain drop and said matter-of-factly, “I'm on the dodge, Lottie. Bide and Sam were waiting at Hatchet when I came in this afternoon with John's body. It took me till dark to shake them and their crew.”

“Do you want to hide here?” Lottie asked quietly. “Won't they look here first?”

Will said shortly, “I'm not staying.” He came slowly, hesitantly, over to her. “I came because I didn't want to leave things the way they are between us, Lottie.” He added somberly, “It looks like they aren't the same. They're worse.”

“And whose fault is it?”

Will shook his head wearily and sighed. “Lottie, go see Joe Kneen. You respect him. Ask him how it happened. Ask him why. I haven't the tune to make it plain.”

“Joe Kneen's as guilty as you are.”

Will nodded. “Exactly as guilty.”

They were standing just as they had stood that morning they had almost quarreled, the expression on their faces exactly the same, and Lottie almost wondered if time hadn't stood still, if everything that had happened these past few days had not been a dream.

She said bitterly, “I promised you once that right or wrong I would help you if you needed me. What do you need, Will? Food? Blankets? Guns?”

“Nothing—when it's offered that way.”

Lottie said passionately, “But, Will, it's so useless to keep this up! You're getting over your head! And for what? Bide's still on Hatchet! Sam's hunting you! One of your men is shot! The cattle you've taken are gone! Celia isn't able to—” She paused, seeing the surprise wash over Will's face. She said then, “Didn't you know? Red Courteen took all the cattle from Hatchet's pasture yesterday.”

Will said quietly, “Courteen? His weren't there.”

A faint flush crept into Lottie's face. “Dad sold him his cattle. Red went in to take them, and one of your men was hurt in the fight.”

Will's eyes were dark, somber, watchful, and Lottie had to steel herself to face what she saw in them. Will said mildly then, “You like that, don't you, Lottie?”

“Dad had a right to sell them! More right than you had to take them!”

Will nodded. “Trouble is, his nose for a dollar is pushing him into some peculiar company. You know Red, Lottie?”

Lottie didn't answer, and Will continued, his voice taking on a faint edge, “Red's number is coming up, Lottie. Tell your father it's coming up for anybody that runs with Red too.”

Still Lottie didn't answer. Will said, “Who was hurt?”

“Ike Adams, I think.”

Will turned away from her and went over to the stove and gathered up a handful of matches and put them in his shirt pocket. Then he went to the back door and stood by it and said mildly, “One of us has got to change, Lottie. I can't. I can meet you over on the reservation in two days, and we can have the preacher marry us. But that wouldn't change me. I'd come back to Hatchet.”

“And I'll meet you on the reservation in two days and marry you, Will. But if you come back to Hatchet you'll never see me again.”

They looked long at each other, and Will said gently, “You see? One of us has got to change.”

“I see it.” Lottie couldn't keep the quaver out of her voice.

And neither of them in their pride would move a step toward the other. They both waited, hoping the other would break, but it was Lottie who knew neither of them would.

Will saw it in her face, and he said in a discouraged voice, “I figured I'd come and go from Cavanaugh's place while they're hunting me, Lottie. I'll be there two nights from now. If you change your mind ride up to it and we'll go over to the reservation. Will you do that?”

“If I change my mind,” Lottie said quietly.

Will glanced briefly, almost hungrily, at her and then slipped out of the doorway into the night.

Chapter 16

Around eight o'clock in the morning, when most of Boundary was on the street, Bide Marriner and Sam Danfelser with their crews rode into town. It was an imposing aggregation of riders, and people stopped to watch them, knowing vaguely that this was connected in some way with the shooting of Ray Cavanaugh.

The riders dismounted in front of the Belle Fourche, and a few of them loafed around the steps of the saloon while others, among them Bide and Sam, went inside. The Belle Fourche, in this last week, had become more of a clearinghouse of information than ever. It was here that the men from the outfits under Indian Ridge waited, nursing their small poker games along, for news of the fortunes of Hatchet or Bib M.

Bide and Sam had timed their entrance shrewdly this morning. A whole day had passed since Cavanaugh was killed, allowing time for the news of it to spread to Indian Ridge and draw the small outfits to town.

As Bide and Sam entered the Belle Fourche this morning Bide grunted with satisfaction at what he saw. There were four or five of the Ridge ranchers here, along with a couple from the Indigos.

Bide was too shrewd a man to beat a drum. He and Sam bellied up to the bar and asked for beers and spoke to acquaintances. Schultz came in with a box of forty-five shells, and Bide put his shell belt on the bar and began to fill it with fresh cartridges.

Harve Garretson came up and said, “Seen Joe Kneen?” and Bide said he hadn't. A couple of the Ridge ranchers came up behind Garretson to listen.

“What's he doin'?” Bide asked idly, fingering the smooth cartridges into his worn belt.

“Nothin', far as anybody knows.”

“Joe,” Bide observed mildly, “has resigned, only he don't know it.”

Garretson regarded him worriedly. “You think he will?”

“Resign?” There was scorn in Bide's voice, but he went on with his loading. “He don't have to. Any man that pays any attention to Joe from now on is a fool.”

Another pair of Ridge ranchers drifted up. They were a taciturn, footless lot, and Marriner knew they disliked and envied him and that his hold on them was slight. But he was wise enough to treat them as equals, for he had been one of them himself once. In those days Phil Evarts considered him half rustler, half clown, and Bide could date his hatred of Evarts from those days. He was not going to make the same mistake himself, for these men, with their endless cousins, their crews, could catch Will for him.

Garretson said, still worried, “It don't look right. Him sittin' there and Ballard on the loose.”

Sam spoke for the first time. “You know what to do about that, don't you?” When Garretson didn't answer Sam said grimly, “The same thing I'm doin'.”

Bide let a note of sarcasm creep into his voice now. “This isn't a club, Harve. You can join it without payin' dues.”

“What?”

Bide's speech again was careless. “A bunch of us aim to do Joe's job for him, since he won't. We're goin' to get Will Ballard.” He went on loading his belt, waiting for a reply, and there was only silence. He looked up at Garretson, in whose face was only a very mild interest tempered with caution. Shuttling his glance to the Ridge riders, he saw the same thing. Exasperation edged into Bide's thin face, and he said tauntingly, “If you're gettin' too old, Harve, send your men.”

Garretson shook his head. “I don't reckon. That's Joe's job.”

Bide ceased his work, wrath building up in his voice. “And he's doin' it, is he?”

“No. But I don't want any of it.”

“Will got your cattle, didn't he?”

“All right,” Garretson murmured. “I've got 'em back and sold 'em. I'm out of it.”

Again Bide glanced at the others. Whatever judgment they had about this they were reserving, and Bide, in whom aggressiveness would not be subdued, said truculently to the lot of them, “What about you fellows?”

“Oh, we're all together,” Garretson said. “We been talkin' it over this mornin'.” He paused. “It ain't our fight.”

“But you'll take Hatchet grass when Will's licked, won't you?”

“You got to lick him first,” one man pointed out.

Bide's angry glance almost pounced on him. “I'll lick him—with your help or without it!” He looked around at the men and then at Garretson, and he said angrily, “What's bitin' you boys? Are you scared of him?”

“That's right,” Garretson said mildly.

Bide just stared, his mouth open a little. It was incomprehensible to him that any man could admit this. He looked wonderingly at Sam and found the same puzzlement in his face. He turned again to Garretson and said blankly, “Well, why?”

Garretson said dryly, “I'm no hand with a gun, Bide—never claimed to be. I'd just breathe a heap easier without that Injun on my neck. So damned if I'll hunt him or take his grass.”

By this time most of the barroom had gathered around Bide and Garretson, and Bide looked the crowd over in one bitter, sweeping glance. He said violently, “Well, what in the hell did you think he'd do when you first decided to move in? Not fight you?”

Nobody spoke for a moment, and then a man at the outside of the crowd said, “You missed him yesterday, Bide, so your crew says. He's loose and warned. He don't forget.”

Sam's flat palm crashed down on the bar top with the violence of a pistol report. “He's only a man!” he said wrathfully, challengingly, and there was again silence.

Garretson murmured dryly, “That's right. He whittled you down a couple of inches, though, didn't he?”

Sam brushed Bide out of the way with a sweep of his arm, sending him roughly into the men beside him. He came up to Garretson, his bruised face ugly with a passionate anger.