West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) (3 page)

It was a good-sized herd, and it had come out of the chaparral not long before. From droppings he spotted, he judged the herd had been moved not more than four or five hours before.

The country grew increasingly rugged. It was an area into which he had never ventured before, a wild, broken country of canyons and mesas with rare water holes. By sundown he was too far out to turn back. And he had no bedroll with him, no coffee, and worst of all ... no gun.

Yet to turn back now would be worse than foolish. This was, without doubt, a rustled herd. Time enough to return when he discovered their destination. As there were still some minutes of daylight, he pushed on. On his right was a long tongue of a lava flow, to the left a broken, serrated ridge of rusty rock. Before him, at some distance, lifted the wall of the mountain range, and it seemed the cattle were being driven into a dead end.

Coolness touched his face and the trail dipped down. The desert was gone, and there was a sparse growth of buffalo grass that thickened and grew rich as he moved ahead. The lava flow now towered above his head and the trail dipped down, and rounded a shoulder of the lava. He found himself in a long, shallow valley between the flow and the pine-clad range. And along the bottom grazed more than a hundred head of cattle.

He swung the steel dust quickly right to get the background of the lava for concealment. Then he walked his mount forward until he could see the thin trail of smoke from a starting fire. Concealing his horse, he walked down the slope through the trees.

When he reached a spot near the camp the smoke had ceased, but the fire was blazing cheerfully. A stocky man with a tough, easy manner about him worked around the fire. He wore chaps, a faded red flannel shirt, a battered hat . . . and a gun.

Rossiter turned and started back through the trees. If he cut across country he could have Mulcahy and a posse here shortly after daybreak.

A pound of hooves stopped him and he merged his body with a pine tree and waited, alert for trouble. Through an opening between trees he saw three riders. Two men and a boy.

A boy . . .

With a tight feeling in his chest he turned abruptly about and carefully worked his way back toward the camp. Ed Blick, George Sprague--and Mike Hamlin.

Mike's face was white, but he was game. His hands were lashed to the pommel of his saddle.

The red-shirted man looked up. "What goes on?" He glanced from the boy to Sprague.

"Found him workin' our trail like an Injun."

The man with the red shirt straightened and dropped the skillet. "I don't like this, George. I don't like it a bit." *

"What else can we do?"

"We can leave the country."

"For a kid?" Sprague began to build a smoke. "Don't be a fool."

"Lonnie said Frisby went to Rossiter, then Rossiter to the sheriff." Blick was talking. "I don't like it, George."

"You afraid of Rossiter?"

"That lawyer?" Blick's contempt was obvious. "Mul-cahy's the one who worries me. He's a bulldog."

"Leave him to me."

Their conclusion had been obvious. Mike Hamlin had found their trail, and now he had seen them. They must leave the country or kill him. And they had just said they would not leave the country.

The red-shirted man had not moved, and Rossiter could see the indecision in his face. Whatever else this man might be, Rossiter could see that he was no murderer. The man did not like any part of it, but apparently could not decide on a course of action.

Rossiter had no gun. ... He had been a fool to go unarmed, but he had intended only to ride to Frisby's to talk to Mike and look over the situation on the spot. He had never considered hunting the thieves himself, but there came a time when a man had to fork his own broncs.

Whatever they would do would be done at once. There was no time to ride for help. Blick lifted Hamlin from the saddle and put the boy on the ground some distance away. The red-shirted man watched him, his face stiff. Then Blick and Sprague slid the saddles from their horses and led them out to picket. Jim worked his way through the brush until he was close to the fire.

Rossiter knew there was little time and he had to gamble. "You going to let them kill that boy?" he asked quietly.

The man's head came up sharply. "Who's that?"

"I asked if you were going to let them kill that boy?"

He saw Rossiter now. His eyes measured him coolly. "You want them stopped," he said, "you stop them."

"I wasn't expecting trouble. I'm not packing a gun."

It was his life he was chancing as well as Mike's. Yet he believed he knew men, and in this one there was a basic manhood, a remnant of personal pride and integrity. Each man has his code, no matter how far down the scale.

The fellow got to his feet and strolled over to his war bag. From it he took a battered Colt. "Catch," he said, and walked back to the fire.

Jim Rossiter stepped back into the shadows, gun in hand. He had seen Mike's eyes on him, and in Mike's eyes there had been doubt. Rossiter was a reader of books, a thinker . . . and this was time for violence.

Sprague and Blick came back to the fire and Sprague looked sharply around. "Did I hear you talkin'?" "To the kid. I asked if he was hungry." Sprague studied the man for a long minute, suspicion thick upon him. "Don't waste the grub." He started to sit down, then saw the gap in the open war bag. With a quick stride he stepped to the boy and rolled him over, glanced at the rawhide that bound him, then looked around on the ground.

Blick was puzzled but alert. The man in the red shirt stood very still, pale to the lips.

The gambler straightened up and turned slowly. "Bill, where's that other gun of yours?" "I ain't seen it."

Rossiter smelled the acrid smell of wood smoke. There was the coolness of a low place and damp grass around him. Out on the meadow a quail called.

"You shoved it down in your pack last night. It ain't there now." "Ain't it?"

Bill knew he was in a corner, but he was not a frightened man. It was two to one, and he did not know whether the man in the shadows would stand by him--or even if he was still present.

"I'm not fooling, Bill. I won't stand for a double-cross." "And I won't stand for killin' the kid." Sprague's mind was made up. Ed Blick knew it, and Ed moved left a little. Bill saw that move and knew what it meant. His tongue touched his lips, and his eyes flickered toward the pines.

Rossiter took an easy step forward, bringing him into the half-light. "If you're looking for the gun, Sprague, here it is."

The gun was easy in hand . . . Blick saw something then, and it bothered him. No lawyer ever held a gun like that. He tried to speak, to warn Sprague, but Rossiter was speaking.

"Bill," he said, "untie that boy."

Sprague's lips had thinned down against his teeth. The corners of his mouth pulled down, and the skin on his face looked tight and hard. "Leave him be. I'm not backing up for no cow town lawyer."

"Watch it, George," Blick said. "I don't like this."

"He doesn't dare shoot. One of us will get him."

"Untie the kid, Bill." Rossiter's eyes were on Sprague, a corner of attention for Blick. He sensed that Blick was wiser at this sort of thing than Sprague. Blick was dangerous but he would start nothing. It would be Sprague who would move first.

Bill walked across to Mike and, dropping on his knees, began to untie him.

"Back off, Bill," Sprague warned, "or I'll kill you, too." He crouched a bit, bending his knees ever so slightly. "Get ready, Ed."

"George!" There was sudden panic in Blick's voice. "Don't try--!"

Sprague threw himself left and grabbed for his gun. It was swinging up when Rossiter shot him. Rossiter fired once, the bullet smashing Sprague in the half-parted teeth, and then he swung the gun. He felt Blick's shot burn him, then steadied and fired. Blick backed up two steps and sat down. Then he clasped his stomach as if with cramp and rolled over on his side and lay there, unmoving.

Bill touched his lips with his tongue. "For a lawyer," he said sincerely, "you can shoot."

Rossiter lowered the gun. Mike was sitting up, rubbing his arms. He walked over to where the other man's kit lay on the ground and dropped the pistol onto a blanket. "Much obliged, Bill. Now you'd better saddle up and ride."

"Sure."

Bill turned to go, then stopped. "That gun there. I got it secondhand." He rubbed his palms down his chaps. "I'll need a road stake. You figure it's worth twenty bucks to you?"

Rossiter drew a coin from his pocket and tossed it to Bill. It gleamed gold in the firelight. "It's a bargain, Bill. A good buy."

Bill hesitated, then said quietly, "I never killed no kids, mister."

Nobody was in the street when they rode in at daybreak. There was a rooster crowing and somewhere a water bucket rattled, then a pump squeaked. Rossiter walked his horse up the street, leading two others, the bodies of Sprague and Blick across them.

Mike started to turn his horse toward home, then said, "You never said you could shoot like that, Jim."

"In a lifetime, Mike, a man does many things."

Mulcahy came from the door of his house, hair freshly combed. "Ain't a nice sight before breakfast, Jim." Mulcahy glanced at the two dead men. "You want me to put out a warrant for this Bill character?"

"No evidence," Rossiter replied. "Let him be. The last of them is Lonnie Parker. I want you to let me come along."

"Tomorrow," the sheriff said.

It was noon when he got out of bed. He bathed, shaved, and dressed carefully, not thinking of what was to come. He left Bill's gun on the dresser and went to a chest in the corner and got out a belt, holster, and gun. The gun was a .44 Russian, a Smith & Wesson six-shooter. He checked the loads and the balance, then walked out into the street.

Magda was just leaving her gate. She hesitated, waiting for him. She looked from the gun to his eyes, surprised. "Jim . . . what are you doing?"

He told her quietly of what happened, and of Bill riding away.

"But," she protested, "if they are dead and Bill is gone--"

"There were four rustlers, Magda," he said gently. "I don't know what the other one will do."

She got it then and he saw her face go white. One hand caught the gate and she stared at him. "Jim!" Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, Jim!"

He turned away. "I don't want trouble, Mag. I'm going to try to take care of him for you. After all," he said with grim humor, "he may need a lawyer."

Sheriff Mulcahy was waiting up the street in front of his office. The time had come.

He was gone three steps before she cried out, and then she ran to him, caught his arm.

"Jim Rossiter, you listen to me. You take care of yourself! No matter what happens, Jim! Jim, believe me, there was never anybody else--nobody at all--not after I met you. The night he came to town I ... I was just so glad to see him, and then you saw us and you wouldn't talk to me. He took too much for granted, but so did you."

His eyes held hers for a long, long minute. Up the street a door slammed, and there were boots on the boardwalk. He smiled, and squeezed her arm. "All right, Mag. I believe you."

He turned then, and felt the sun's heat on his shoulders and felt the dust puff under his boot soles, and he walked away up the street, seeing Lonnie Parker standing there in the open, waiting for them. And he was not worried. He was not worried at all.

*

A Husband For Janey
.

He had been walking since an hour before sun-up, but now the air had grown warm and he could hear the sound of running water. Sunlight fell through the leaves and dappled the trail with light and shadow, and when he rounded the bend of the path he saw the girl dipping a bucket into a mountain stream.

He was a tall boy, just turned eighteen, and' four months from his home on a woods farm in East Texas. He looked at the girl and he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in a throat that seemed unusually long, rising as it did from the wide, too-loose collar of his homespun shirt.

He swallowed agam and cleared his throat. The girl looked up, suddenly wide-eyed, and then she straightened, her lips drawing together and one quick hand brushing a strand of dark hair back from her flushed cheek. "Howdy, ma'am," he said, his accent soft with East Texas music. "Sure didn't aim to scare you none."

"It . . . it's all right." Her alarm was fading with her curiosity. "Are you goin' to the goldfields?"

A measure of pride and manly assurance came into his voice. "I reckon. I aim to git me money to go back home to Texas an' buy a farm."

They faced each other across the stream. The boy swallowed, nervous with the silence. "You . . . your pa washin' gold about here?"

"Yes . . . Well, he was . . . He's gone to the settlement. He's been gone three weeks."

The boy nodded gravely. It had taken him two days to walk up from Angel's Camp, and with that awareness that comes to those who walk the trails he knew her father was not coming back. It was a bad time to be traveling with gold in one's poke.