Deadman Canyon (2 page)

T
HE SMELL
of raw, cheap whiskey wrinkled Clay’s nose. He lifted a hand feebly and opened his mouth to protest. He choked as a river of wet fire poured down his throat and exploded in his stomach. He opened his eyes and sat up.

“See,” a voice said triumphantly. “I told you he wasn’t bad hurt.”

Clay looked into the bright eyes of Tom Roddy. He turned his head slowly and saw Tonia Lyles coming toward him worriedly. Roddy held out the whiskey bottle. Clay brushed it aside. The sight of Tonia was more warming right then than even Tom Roddy’s particular brand of liquor.

She said, “Clay …?”

“I‘m fine, Tonia.” Clay was surprised to see how little she had changed in five years. The promise of her childish prettiness had matured into beauty. She was still tall and slender and quick of movement, with fine features, her mouth full and warm, her dark eyes enormous in her oval-shaped face. But he saw a dignity that had. been lacking before. And he found it hard to recall the sixteen-year-old tomboy who had sobbed so wildly when he left the valley.

She said, “Hello, Clay,” and held out her hand.

He took it and held it to the point of awkwardness before he let loose. He looked around in embarrassment. He was on the sofa in the back parlor of Judge Lyles’ house. Tom Roddy was still holding his whiskey bottle, grinning foolishly through his salt-and-pepper beard, looking no older and no less spry than Clay remembered him.

Roddy slapped his free hand on his skinny leg. “It’s good to see you, boy. But we wasn’t expecting you for a few more days. Leastwise that’s how you wrote it in your last letter.”

Clay sat a moment, not answering, trying to bring his thoughts back together. He rubbed a hand over his face, wincing when he touched the place where the block of wood had scraped his chin. He took away his hand and saw that there was no blood on it.

“Tonia washed you up good before you come to,” the old man said. “She thought you was ready for Doc Fraley’s hospital, but I told her I seen you in worse shape when you got bucked off a bronc when you was a kid. I could say the same about her.”

“You talk too much,” Tonia said without heat. “I made some coffee. Will you bring it in, Tom?”

The old man strode off. Tonia looked broodingly at Clay and sat in a chair facing him. “What happened? And why did you come back earlier than you planned to?”

“Didn’t your father tell you?” Clay asked. He looked around. “Where is the judge?”

Her lips compressed into a line of distaste. “He went to Helena on some kind of political business with Bick Damson. They won’t be back until tomorrow.” She gave him a quizzical look. “Didn’t dad tell me what?”

Tom Roddy came in then, carrying a tray holding the coffee. He said, “About the trouble up on the summer graze, Tonia.” He glanced at Clay. “I don’t reckon he did tell her, seeing she’s been over to the coast visiting up to a week or so ago.”

Tonia stood up. “Stop talking in circles around me! What happened?” she demanded.

Clay picked up a cup and drank some of the hot coffee. He said, “Two weeks ago your dad and I met in Helena. I’d been writing him about the plan I had to turn that swamp and mountain land I own into a paying ranch. He wrote back and suggested we have a meeting.”

He reached for his tobacco sack and began to shape a cigarette. “He agreed to the idea, all right, but there was a joker in the deck.”

He struck a match and lit his cigarette. He sucked in smoke with deep satisfaction and leaned his head back tiredly. “You remember that three years ago I wrote and suggested the judge run some of his stock in the summer up in my mountain meadows. That way he could turn part of his valley pasture into new hayfields to grow extra winter feed and so increase his herd about thirty per cent.”

“He did just that,” Tom Roddy put in. “And it worked real good until this fall.”

Tonia cried, “Why did I have to be away when things went wrong? What happened this fall?”

“The judge hired a drifter to go up in the mountains and bring down the stock as usual,” Tom Roddy said. “He always hires a drifter because the crew’s mighty busy putting up hay. Well, this fellow rode up to the meadows, all right, but when he was bringing down his first gather someone knocked his hat off with a rifle bullet. He was the scairt type and he took off for town like a buckshot rabbit. And he wouldn’t go back for anything.”

“Someone really shot at him?” Tonia whispered.

“The judge didn’t think so,” Roddy said. “Figured he was just too lazy to work and looking for an excuse to quit. So the judge hired himself another man. That fellow lasted two days. Then he come down swearing he wasn’t going to work no job where somebody kept shooting bullets in his coffee can. Leastwise not when it was hanging over the fire. He swore it happened two nights running.”

“Didn’t Roy Ponders do anything about it?” Tonia demanded.

“Sure he did,” Tom Roddy said. “He deputized a bunch of men — Bick Damson and me and a bunch of others and we scoured that hillside. We didn’t find nothing but fat shorthorns. Not even an empty rifle casing.”

He gulped his coffee down and poured himself another cupful. “The judge was fit to be tied. With winter coming soon up in the mountains, he had to get that beef down to the valley. But he needed all his crew to finish the haying. And he couldn’t get nobody to go up there and round up the stock. Not after them two drifters got through telling their story around. Nobody but me,” he added.

He glared at them. “And don’t try to tell me what the judge did — that I’m plumb too old for hazing steers out of the brush. I did just fine. I got me a whole day’s gather in a rope corral up in the lowest meadow and was getting ready to bring ‘em down when some coyote started shooting. Them cattle stampeded right through that rope and like to trample me to death before I could get out of the way. They all hightailed it back into the brush where I’d got ‘em.”

“And you didn’t see who did it?” Tonia asked.

“I didn’t see a thing,” Tom Roddy said. “It was getting dark then but I had time for a little hunting. I couldn’t even find a footprint. Whoever it was stayed on hard ground and picked up his shells after he got through his target practice.” He finished the second cup of coffee. “I came and told the judge and he made me stay put down here. Just about that time he got Clay’s letter and went off to Helena.”

“That’s the way the judge told it to me,” Clay agreed.

“But who would do a thing like that?” Tonia demanded. “What reason could anyone have?”

“The judge thought it was a madman,” Clay said. “He couldn’t think of anybody who would want to keep him from getting his stock down from the mountains before snow fell.” He looked inquiringly at Tom Roddy. The old man had always been a source of local gossip. If anybody had heard anything, he would be the one.

Roddy shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “I’d like to think it was Bick Damson. But he’s been trying to make friends with the judge since he got rich. Wants to go into politics.”

Clay felt himself growing tired. He had put in a full day in the saddle and the bruising he had taken had sapped his remaining energy.

He said wearily, “At any rate, the judge pointed out that as long as someone was keeping people off my land, my plan for turning it into a paying ranch had no chance of working out. I said I’d come home as soon as I sold my claim in Butte, and see what I could find. We planned it so the judge would let the word out that I would ride in day after tomorrow. That way we figured I could get here early and maybe surprise the sniper.”

He leaned forward and put out his cigarette. “Only he did the surprising.” He told the story briefly.

Roddy shook his head. “That’s the first time the coyote ever tried to kill anybody. Before he just tried to scare ‘em off.”

“I was thinking that,” Clay said soberly. “I remembered the threat Bick Damson made against me when I left town five years ago.”

“That wasn’t nothing to the show he’s been putting on since the news got out you’re coming home,” Tom Roddy said. “The last few days, Damson’s made it plain enough that quick as he sees you, he’s running you right back out of the valley.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tonia cried. “Just because of a fight five years ago, he doesn’t want Clay in Wildhorse?”

“Damson always was a proud man and a bully,” Tom Roddy said. “When a nineteen-year-old boy whipped him in the town square in front of half the people and made him yell he was licked, it wasn’t something he’d likely forget. Especially not now, when he aims to be a big man.”

That would be the way of it, Clay thought. Damson couldn’t stand to live in the same place with the one person who had publicly humiliated him.

“I stood up to Damson before,” Clay said. “I can do it again.”

“That was before he got rich,” Tom Roddy said. “Now he’s got the power to back up his threats.”

Clay rose stiffly. “Tell me about it in the morning,” he said. “Right now, all I want is a bed.”

Roddy steered him to his cottage. Clay undressed and crawled under the covers of the extra bunk. He tried to find sleep but it wouldn’t come. His mind kept turning to Bick Damson.

He thought of the unkempt, swaggering Damson he had known. A man who eked out whiskey and grubstake money doing odd jobs and who spent his spare time pecking away at a hole in the hillside behind his ramshackle cabin. Who boasted that someday he would find the rumored vein of silver that had brought the original settlers into the valley, but which had never been found.

Clay said, “Tell me about Damson, Tom.”

The old man stirred in the darkness. “Last fall he struck that vein of silver he was always bragging about. And now he rides a palomino and dresses fancy and lives in a big new house.”

“The judge told me all that,” Clay said.

“Did the judge tell you that Damson hired himself some men? Two of ‘em are supposed to be miners and one manages his business affairs.” Roddy snorted. “If I ever saw hardcases, them miners of Damson’s is it.”

Something in Roddy’s voice made Clay ask, “And the third man?”

“Kemp Vanner,” Roddy said. “He drifted in just about the time Damson hit that vein of silver. Funny about him — he’s the one took to puffing Damson up in the first place. Seems like Vanner won’t stop till Damson’s big as they come, do just about anything to make that happen.”

The name meant nothing to Clay. He stared up into the darkness as if there he might find the sleep he wanted so badly.

Tom Roddy said, “If Vanner thinks your being here will hurt Damson’s chances of getting big, then he’s the one to watch out for, boy.”

“I’ve handled my share of men,” Clay said.

“Sure, when you can see ‘em coming,” Roddy said. “But Vanner ain’t that kind. When he’s around, you got to watch front and back and both sides. And then you ain’t too safe.”

Clay barely heard him. He had finally found the sleep he needed.

C
LAY
leaned against one of the wooden pillars holding tip the roof over that piece of sidewalk belonging to the hotel Now and then people spoke or waved to him, welcoming him home. He answered civilly enough but without moving from his position against the post.

Clay saw the stocky figure of Sheriff Roy Ponders moving purposefully down the wooden sidewalk toward him. He took out his sack of tobacco and began to shape a cigarette with slow, deliberate movements.

The sheriff came straight to where Clay stood and stopped in front of him. He was a heavy-set, middle-aged man with a stolid, almost bovine expression on his face. But the sharp, quick eyes had warned more than one would-be gunhand that the sheriff wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Clay knew from experience that Roy Ponders could anticipate a man’s moves in a way that made him seem like a mind reader.

“The stage isn’t due for an hour yet, Clay,” he said. There was no particular welcome in his voice.

“Maybe I’m looking the town over,” Clay said. “It’s been a while since I saw it. Is there a law against that?”

Ponders’ weathered cheeks flushed. “Don’t push me just because you’ve got some kind of deal with Judge Lyles. I ran you out of town once. I can do it again.”

Clay studied the sheriff with a deceptively casual look. He had been expecting this meeting since he had ridden into town from Tom Roddy’s cottage earlier this morning. The sheriff had always been a fair man but he had never made any effort to conceal his dislike of the rough, easy-to-take-offense kid that Clay had been. Nor had he made any effort to conceal his pleasure when Judge Lyles ordered him to run Clay out of town.

But that was five years ago, Clay thought. A man as fair as Ponders had been — tolerating Clay despite his dislike — should know that people changed, and boys grew up.

Clay said, “I didn’t come here to start fighting, Sheriff. I came to settle down. All I ask is the chance to do just that.”

“You aren’t waiting for the stage because you expect Judge Lyles to be on it,” Ponders said accusingly.

“That’s right,” Clay answered. “I’m waiting for Bick Damson. If he means to back up his threats, I want him to get started. I’ve got work to do. I can’t wait around wondering when I’m going to get a bullet in the back.”

“Damson was just making a lot of noise with his talk,” Ponders said. “You should remember that much about him.”

Clay said quietly, “I was up on my land last night and someone tried to kill me.”

Ponders snorted. “So you’ve run into the judge’s mysterious sniper too! Even if there is one, he wasn’t trying to kill you. Only frighten you off like he did the others.”

“When a man rubs a bullet over my cantle, when he takes a second shot at me after I’m on the ground, when he stalks me through the brush, I figure he’s trying to kill me,” Clay said. “And if you want proof, Sheriff, you might ride up there and look for rifle casings. He didn’t have time to pick them up this time. I chased him into town.”

Ponders’ expression was a mixture of disbelief and reluctant concern. “Without getting a look at him?”

“He had too big a head start. But go look, Sheriff. About halfway up the ridge to my first meadow.”

“I might do just that,” Ponders said. “After the stage gets in,” he added pointedly. Then he shook his head. “Someone shoots at you and right away you want to fight Bick Damson. Why? Because he made a lot of noisy threats?”

“That piece of mountain to the south is my land,” Clay said. “I’ll fight anyone who tries to keep me off it.” He straightened up. “If that man is Damson, then I’ll fight him.”

“If you find any proof that Damson or anyone else is up on your land, bring it to me,” Ponders said flatly. “I’m the law here, not you.” He glanced around. A few curious bystanders were watching from a distance but no one stood close enough to hear their talk.

“And don’t go trying to stir up trouble by making threats against Damson — until you get some proof,” the sheriff added.

“I can’t make threats but he can? Is that it, Sheriff? Now Damson’s got money and so he gets rights that I don’t?”

Ponders’ face turned brick-red under his heavy tan. “I played no favorites before. I’ll play none now,” he cried. “But you were a bigger trouble maker than any other two people in this town. Maybe you’ve changed. I’ll feel a lot better when I know for sure.”

“Five years can make a lot of changes,” Clay said softly. “They made Damson rich.” His gaze met the sheriff’s steadily. “I hope they haven’t changed you as much as it sounds, Sheriff. You were a good lawman.”

The color faded from Ponders’ face, leaving him white and shaking. He took a deep breath and then expelled it slowly. He turned and stalked away.

Tom Roddy drifted up from a doorway close by. “You was a little rough on him, boy.”

“What does he expect me to do?” Clay demanded. “Wait until Damson gets in the first lick before I defend myself?”

“The first lick and maybe the second,” Roddy agreed. “Roy Ponders is still a good lawman, but he’s as human as the rest of us. And Bick Damson’s rich and big and growing bigger. You keep that in mind.”

Clay said stubbornly, “He made his threats to run me out of the valley as soon as he saw me. All right, I’m going to be right here, where he can’t miss seeing me.”

“You’re just as feisty as you ever was,” Roddy said. “And you don’t pay much more attention to advice than you did before. I told you Damson has three men working for him. It won’t do no good to brace him. He’ll just huff and puff and make a lot of noise. And while he’s doing it, Kemp Vanner can come up from behind and run a knife into you.”

“If this Vanner’s around, I wish he’d start trying,” Clay said.

“Oh, he’s around,” Roddy answered. “He rode into town early this morning. He’s been sitting over in the Cattlemen’s Bar ever since. And don’t think he ain’t got a tight eye on you right now.”

Clay could see genuine concern in the old man’s sharp blue eyes. And when Roddy got a burr under his saddle this way, Clay knew it meant something.

He glanced across the street to the far side of the town square and the front of the Cattlemen’s Bar. He could see that the half-curtain covering the lower part of the front window was pulled back a few inches, just enough to give a man watching a good view of the spot where Clay stood.

“I’ll just save the sheriff some worry,” Clay said. “Maybe I can get this settled before Damson ever gets here.”

He stepped into the street and strode toward the Cattlemen’s Bar. Roddy stood watching him for a moment and then followed. He touched the hunting knife he always wore at his belt, as if to make sure it was still where it belonged.

It was that hour between breakfast and noonday dinner when most men still hadn’t worked up a thirst and the Cattlemen’s was quiet and almost empty. When Clay stepped inside, he saw only four men — a balding bartender lazily polishing the big mirror back of his bar, two seedy looking drifters playing a desultory game of cards at a table by the alley door, and a neat looking man sitting by the curtained front window.

Clay looked hard at the man by the window, the one who was Kemp Vanner. A dozen feet from him, Clay stopped and let his eyes take in all there was to see — a small, slender man, city dressed in a dark suit and flat-heeled boots. Thin leather riding gloves and a black, hard-crowned hat lay on the table beside a half-empty cup of coffee.

“Vanner?” Clay said.

“That’s right,” Vanner’s voice was light. He had a round, bald-looking face and dark eyes with oddly cold flecks of laughter in them. “I’ve been watching you prop up that post in front of the hotel,” he said. He sounded as if he found this amusing.

“I’m waiting for your boss to come in on the stage,” Clay said. He made it a challenge.

Vanner merely shook his head, then stood up and carried his coffee cup to the bar. The bartender stopped polishing his mirror and hurried to refill the cup from a graniteware pot. Vanner made no offer to pay, but carried the cup back to the table and sat down. His movements had an easy grace that reminded Clay of a stalking mountain cat.

Clay noticed with interest that Vanner wore no gun under his neat-fitting coat. Vanner turned an unblinking stare on Clay. And suddenly, without the kind of reason that he could put into words, Clay knew that this man hated him with a viciousness that made him deadlier than a dozen shouting, bullying Bick Damsons could ever be.

Vanner’s voice lost its lightness. “You’re wasting everybody’s time, Belden. You aren’t wanted in this country. My advice is for you to ride before Mr. Damson gets back.”

“Are those
Mister
Damson’s orders?” Clay said mockingly.

“If you really need an answer, here it is,” Vanner said. His voice was soft but it cut with the cold deadliness of a winter wind. “You have a bad reputation as a troublemaker. Mr. Damson has too many important matters with which to concern himself to bother worrying about you. Part of my job is to see that he isn’t bothered.
This
warning is mine.”

Clay took a step forward, his fists doubled up. Then he relaxed them, realizing the futility of anger at Vanner. The man was physically too small for Clay to strike. He said, “And this is my warning, Vanner. Last night I was shot on my own land. I was holding Damson to account for that. But he isn’t the kind to hide in the dark and shoot a man in the back. I think maybe you are that kind. The next time I’m sniped at, I’ll take a ride down into the valley and maybe do some shooting for myself.”

Vanner said contemptuously, “I wouldn’t waste my time crawling around that pile of rocks you own.”

He picked up his coffee cup and turned his head away.

Clay said, “To make sure, let’s go check your bootprints against the fresh ones somebody left up on my pile of rocks last night, little man.”

Color surged into Vanner’s cheeks. His hand shook, slopping coffee over the side of the cup. He made an obvious effort to control himself, but when he spoke his voice was tight and highpitched.

“You’re leaving Wildhorse, Belden — now.”

He nodded his head toward the rear of the saloon. Then with studied indifference he drank down his coffee.

Clay threw a quick glance toward the table by the alley door. The two seedy drifters who sat there were watching him carefully. The nearest man had his gun out and was making a pretense of wiping the metal with a rag.

A scraping noise turned Clay toward the bar. The bartender had a shotgun lying across the bar so that the barrel pointed directly at Clay. He was rubbing the palm of his hand over the dully gleaming wood of the gunstock, humming softly as he worked.

Clay moved his eyes from the bartender to the drifters and back to Vanner. A surge of wild anger ran through him and started his hand down for his gun. He pulled himself up short as he remembered Vanner was apparently unarmed. The triumph in Vanner’s eyes died.

Clay took a half step forward and a half step sideways. He stopped, holding his hands well away from his sides.

He said casually, “You don’t run this town, Vanner.” His eyes traveled to the pair of drifters by the rear door. “And you never will with an army like those two.” He took another step, again half forward and half sideways. And now he was directly between Vanner and the barkeep.

Clay saw the soft, slow opening of the rear door. He said quickly, “Keep that door shut, Tom!”

The eyes of every man swung toward the door. Clay dropped to one knee, beneath the line of fire of the shotgun. As he moved, he slapped his hand down, drawing his   .44. He had a quick glimpse of the bartender looking back toward him and reaching for the trigger of his shotgun. He saw the shocked expression on the man’s face as he realized that Vanner and not Clay was in his sights now.

Clay looked toward the drifters. The one with the gun was sitting very still as he stared into the muzzle of Clay’s   .44. “Go ahead and shoot, friend,” Clay said softly. “Let’s see how fast you can squeeze that trigger.”

The man let the barrel of his gun drop slowly. “I didn’t hire out for no gunplay,” he said to Vanner.

Clay heard Vanner stir but he kept his eyes on the drifters. The door began to inch open again and Clay called, “All right, Tom.” His voice turned crisp. “Now, you two, throw your guns out to the middle of the room.”

Two guns thudded to the floor. The drifters got to their feet and began to back toward the far corner of the saloon. The door swung open and Tom Roddy stepped in, a wide grin splitting his whiskered face. The grin disappeared abruptly.

“Clay, watch out!”

Clay twisted around in time to see Vanner lift his hard-crowned hat from the table with one hand. The other hand held a small gun that had been concealed under the hat.

Clay’s own gun was still aimed at the rear of the room. He knew he had underestimated the smaller man. He stared helplessly, watching Vanner’s fìnger whiten on the trigger of his hide-out gun.