Flint (1960) (3 page)

He could be no more than thirty miles from Flint's hideout in the malpais.

He awakened sharply, every sense alert. He heard a distant shout, and then a reply so close he jumped from his blankets.

"He can't be far! Search the trees!"

Swiftly he drew on his boots and swung the gun belt around his lean hips, then shrugged into the sheepskin. There was no time to eliminate signs of his presence here, so he simply faded back into the deeper shadows, taking the shotgun with him.

Brush crashed. A rider pushed through, then another.

"Hell! That ain't his fire! He had no time!"

"Somebody waitin' for him, maybe."

"Whoever it was" -- the second rider's voice was sharp with command -- "had no business on this range. Throw that bed on the fire."

Kettleman stepped from the shadows, the shotgun ready in his hands. "The blankets are mine." Without taking his eyes from the riders he threw a handful of brush on the fire, which blazed up. "And if he lays a hand on that bed, I'll blow you out of your saddle."

"Who the devil are you?" The older man's tone was harsh. "What are you doing here?"

"Minding my own business. See that you do the same."

"You're on my range. That makes your being here my business. Get off this range, and get off now."

"Like hell."

The man called Kettleman felt a hard, bitter joy mounting within him. So he was going to die. Why die in bed when he could go out with a gun in his hand? He could cheat them all now, and go as Flint had gone, in a blaze of gunfire.

"When you say this is your range, you lie in your teeth. This is railroad land, owned, deeded, and surveyed. Now understand this: I don't give a damn who you are, and like it here. You can start shooting and I'll spread you all over that saddle."

He felt the shock of his words hitting them, and knew they were taken aback, as in their place he would have been, by his fury. The fact that he held a shotgun on them at less than twenty paces was an added factor.

"You're mighty sudden, friend." The man in command held himself carefully, aware that he faced real trouble, and sensing something irrational in the sharpness of the counter-attack. "Who are you?"

"I'm a man who likes his sleep, and you come hooting and hollering over the hills like a pack of crazy men. I take it you're hunting somebody, but with all that noise he's probably bidden so well you couldn't find him anyway. You act like a lot of brainless tender-feet"

"That's hard talk, for a stranger."

"There's nothing strange about this shotgun. It can get almighty familiar."

"I've twenty men down below. What about them?"

"Only twenty? They make noise enough for eighty. Why, I'd have a half dozen of them down before they knew what they were up against, and the rest of them would quit as soon as they knew you weren't around to pay them for fighting."

A voice called through the trees. "Boss? Are you all right?"

"Tell them to go about their business," Kettleman said. "And then you do the same."

The rider turned his head. "Beat it, Sam. I'll be along in a minute. Everything is all right."

He turned back to Kettleman. "There's something here I don't understand. What are you doing here? What do you want?"

"Not a damned thing. Not a single damned thing."

The rider dismounted, then turned to his companion. "Bud, you ride along and help the others. I'll meet you at White Rock."

Bud hesitated. "It's all right, Bud, there will be no trouble with this man. Never tackle a man who doesn't care whether he lives or not. He will always have an edge on you."

He was short, with square shoulders, prematurely gray hair, and he wore a mustache. His hard, dark eyes studied Kettleman with care.

Obviously puzzled, he glanced around the camp, seeking some clue. His eyes found the big game rifle. "That's quite a weapon. Must be hard to get ammunition though."

"I load my own."

"I see." The rancher got out a cigar and lighted it. "A man with a rifle like that -- well, if he was a good enough shot, he could make himself a lot of money."

Kettleman was bored. Daylight was not far off and he badly needed rest. Talk of money irritated him, anyway. He could buy this rancher and give him away and never miss what it cost, and how much could it help him now?

"My name is Nugent. I'm a cattleman."

"All right."

Nugent was accustomed to respect and Kettleman's impatience angered him. Wind stirred the flames, and he added a few sticks. Poking at the fire gave him time to think. There had to be a reason for the man's presence. No cowhand could afford such weapons. The rifle alone must have cost several hundred dollars.

"You said something about this being railroad land."

Nugent was fishing now, and Kettleman smiled to himself. Experts had tried to get information from him.

He shrugged. "At least half the land along any railroad right of way is railroad land, isn't it?"

Nugent was not satisfied. He had a suspicion the man was amused by him, and such a thought was unbearable. He treated Nugent like an inferior. Nugent was not accustomed to being so treated and did not like it. The flat-heeled boots did not go with cow country, and the man's clothing showed little wear.

"I never knew a man who did not want something."

"You are looking at one."

Nugent got to his feet and Kettleman arose too. "I don't like a man who takes a crowd when he goes hunting."

Really angry, Nugent replied shortly, "Even the law does it."

"You are not the law. I think a man who can't do his own hunting is a coward."

Nugent's face went white, and with an effort he fought down the urge to reach for a gun. But he was no gunfighter, and knew it.

"My advice to you is to clear out. We don't take to hard-talking strangers."

Deliberately, Kettleman yawned. "Get the hell out of here. I want to sleep."

Unable to think of a reply that might not get him killed, Nugent walked to his horse and mounted.

'I'll see you later," Nugent said when he was in the saddle. "If I didn't have a squatter to chase, I'd -- "

"Squatter?" Kettleman smiled at him. "Why, you're only a squatter yourself. You don't own a foot of range. You came in here a few years ago and started running a few cattle on land that doesn't belong to you. Now of a sudden you are talking of squatters. You're a pompous little man with a bellyful of importance. Now get out of here."

Blind with fury, Nugent wheeled his horse and rode away, spurring the animal madly. By the Almighty! He would get his hands and come back, and ...

Something went over him like a dash of ice-cold rain.

How did this stranger know all that ? Who was he?

Kettleman rolled his bed swiftly, slung his haversack and blanket roll and, picking up his shotgun and rifle, he started along the ridge. It was still some time until daybreak, but if Nugent did come back he had no desire to be caught sleeping, and the rancher was mad enough to gather his crew and return.

Thomas S. Nugent. He knew the name from the files. Before building the railroad they had made a study of ranchers in the area to gauge the amount of shipping there would be to handle their cattle and what supplies they might require. There was not a ranch in the area about which he was uninformed. Because of the proximity to Flint's old hideout, he had paid particular attention to the vicinity.

It was faintly gray in the east when he climbed out of the hollow and started across country.

He was heavily loaded for the long walk that lay before him, but his illness seemed to have taken little toll of his strength as yet. He had always been strong, and even in New York he had been active, with regular workouts in the gym, a good bit of walking, and hunting trips to Virginia or over in New Jersey.

He had been walking only a short distance when he found the hunted man.

Chapter
2

Nancy Kerrigan opened her eyes as the train slowed for a stop, and watched the stockyards flip past the windows like the spots on a riffled deck of cards. It was good to be home, despite the trouble she brought with her.

The straw-haired man was on his feet, and when he glanced back along the car she noticed the pockmarks on his cheeks and a tiny white scar above one eyebrow. He was very tall, and the way in which he flipped the gun belt around his hips spoke of long practice.

She had never seen this man before but she had lived too long in the West not to know his kind. Since the Lincoln County war and the Land-Grant fights there had been many of his kind in New Mexico, and now there were rumors of trouble building in the Tonto Basin of Arizona.

Yet this man was not going to the Basin. He was leaving the train at Alamitos.

She became aware that he was looking past her with sudden sharp attention. His eyes flickered over the car again, returning to the seats behind her, and involuntarily she turned to look. The man who had been seated back there was gone.

The train had made no stops, and this was the only passenger car. Yet the man was gone.

Obviously disturbed by something he did not understand, the big gunman's eyes rested briefly on her, and for an instant he seemed about to speak. The train slowed and steam drifted past the windows. She picked up her bag and walked down the aisle.

Conscious of being stared at, she glanced at a stocky man in a broadcloth suit and derby hat, his florid face and glassy blue eyes directed at her with singularly disagreeable attention. She averted her eyes, yet she had a feeling his interest was not entirely due to the fact that she was a woman.

When she descended to the platform Ed Flynn was waiting for her near the corner of the freight depot.

Nancy Kerrigan was a girl who found her home attractive. She had gone to school in the East, but for her the world revolved around Alamitos, the high plains of her own ranch, her cattle, the men who worked for her, and particularly, the wild, free country.

She had lived at Kaybar most of her life except for her time at school, and a few visits to friends, and for her it had always seemed the ultimate in security. Now that security was menaced in a way she had never believed would be possible. And with it, her whole future was at stake.

Ed Flynn took the bag from her hand and started toward the buckboard. Flynn had come West with her father and uncle, and had helped to found the Kaybar. Since her father's death he had been foreman. No businessman, he was nevertheless an excellent cattleman, understanding range conditions and the fattening of cattle as few men did.

She drew his attention to the straw-haired gunman. Flynn put her bag in the buckboard and then said quietly, "Whoever is paying the bills is going first class. That's Buckdun."

The name was legend. Buck Dunn, shortened by common usage to Buckdun, was known wherever range riders gathered. A professional fighting man, at times a bounty hunter, rarely a town-tamer, he was always a hunter and killer of men.

Nancy Kerrigan was familiar with cow-country gossip. Often enough the fighting in cattle or sheep wars was done by the hands on the job, without importing gunmen, and many a rancher was prepared to handle his own shooting chores. But when men like Buckdun came to town, somebody was preparing for war.

As Flynn helped Nancy into the buckboard she saw him glance across the street, and two Kaybar men sauntered from the walk in front of the store and got into their saddles. They were Pete Gaddis and Johnny Otero.

"Armed escort?"

Ed Flynn nodded grimly. "Two weeks has done a lot to this country."

"Has there been trouble?"

"Nugent lost fifty head of steers. He trailed them south along the malpais and then they just seemed to drop off the world."

"Rustlers?" Nancy was incredulous.

"When your father and I came into this country we didn't have a neighbor within a hundred miles in any direction, leaving out Indians, but this country is changing fast. Yes, there are rustlers working now. For the first time."

Nancy waved at Gaddis and Otero.

Johnny Otero had grown up on the Kaybar where his father had been one of their first hands. He was New Mexican, his family coming up from Mexico more than a hundred years before. On his mother's side the family had been living around Santa Fe since before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Now nineteen, Johnny was considered the best rifle shot in the country.

Pete Gaddis had been at the ranch only four years, the newest of their hands with one exception, and he had a reputation for being a tough man, in any kind of a fight. Gaddis had been a shotgun guard on the Cheyenne to Deadwood stage, deputy marshal in a tough cowtown, and a warrior in more than one range war. A short, solidly built man, he was a top hand.

Flynn struck a match with his left hand and cupped it in his left palm to his cigar. "Burris and two strangers filed a homestead on a piece of Nugent's range, claiming it was government land and open for filing," he said. "You know Tom Nugent. He flew off the handle and burned them out and there was a shooting. The homesteaders showed fight and shot a Nugent rider out of the saddle. One of the strangers died right there and the last I heard Nugent and his crowd were hunting the other one off east of here."