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Authors: Louis L'Amour

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Chapter XVIII

Quietly Kilkenny swung the door open and stepped into the room, poised to go for a gun.

A man sat in a chair at a table on which there was a dish of fruit. The man wore a white shirt, a broad leather belt, and gray trousers that had been neatly pressed and were tucked into cowhide boots. He also wore crossed gun belts and two guns. He was clean shaven except for a small mustache, and there was a black silk scarf about his neck. It was Victor Bon-ham.

“So,” Kilkenny said thoughtfully, “it’s you.”

“That’s right. Bonham or Barnes, whichever you prefer. Most people call me Royal Barnes.”

“I’ve heard of you.”

“And I’ve heard of you.”

Royal Barnes stared at him, his eyes white and ugly. There was grim humor in them, too. “You’re making trouble for me again,” Barnes said.

“Again?” Kilkenny lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes. You killed the Webers. They were a bungling lot, but they were kinfolk, and people seem to think I should kill you because you killed them. I expect that’s as good a reason as any.”

“Mebbe.”

“You were anxious to die, to come in that way.”

“Safer than another way, I think,” Kilkenny drawled.

Royal Barnes’s eyes sharpened. “So? Somebody talks, do they? Well, it was time I got new men, anyway. You see, Kilkenny, you’re a fool. This isn’t going to stop me. This is merely a setback. Oh, I grant you it is going to cause me to recruit a new bunch of men. But this will rid me of some of your men, too. Some of the most dangerous men in the Live Oak country will be killed today. The next time, it will be easier. And, you see, I intend to come back, to reorganize, and to carry on with my plans. I’d have succeeded already but for you. Steele will fight, but if he isn’t killed today, I’ll have him killed within the week. The same for Frame and your friend, Gates. Gates isn’t dangerous alone, but he might find someone else to work with, someone as dangerous as you.”

The sound of firing had grown in tempo now, but Royal Barnes did not let his eyes shift one instant. He was cool, casual, but wary as a crouched tiger. In the quiet, well-ordered room away from the confusion below, he seemed like someone from another world. Only his eyes showed what was in him.

“You seen Steve Lord?” demanded Kilkenny.

“Lord?” Barnes’s eyes changed a little. “He never comes here.”

“He worked with you,” Kilkenny flatly accused.

Barnes shrugged carelessly. “Of course. I had to use what tools I could find. I held Nita out to him as bait, and power. I told him I would give him the Steele Ranch. He is a fool.”

Slowly Kilkenny reached for cigarette papers and began building a smoke, his fingers poised and careful. “You’re wrong, Barnes. Steve is crazy. He’s crazy with blood lust and a craving for power. He killed Des King. He killed Sam Carter and a half dozen other men. Now he’s gunnin’ for you, Barnes.”

Royal Barnes sat up. “Are you tellin’ the truth?” he demanded. “Steve Lord killed those men?”

Kilkenny quietly told him of all that had transpired. Outside, the shooting had settled to occasional shots, no more. A break was coming, and the tension was mounting with every second.

“Now,” Kilkenny added, “if you want my hunch, I think Steve figgers to get you. He figgers with you gone, he’ll be king bee around here.”

Royal Barnes got up, and, for a moment, he stood listening.

“Somebody’s on the trail now,” he said suddenly.

That would be Steve. Instantly it came to Kilkenny with startling awareness that Barnes was waiting for something, some sound, some signal. If there was a spring gun on the main trail, it would stop Steve in his tracks.

He drew deeply on his cigarette. Somewhere he could hear water dripping slowly, methodically, as though counting off the seconds. Royal Barnes dropped a hand to the deck of cards on the table, and idly riffled them. The spattering sound of the flipping cards was loud in the room.

A heavy crash sounded again. That would be Mort
Davis. Somebody else trying to get water. Somebody who wouldn’t try again.

Gravel rattled on the trail, and Kilkenny saw Royal Barnes’s face tighten.

Then in the almost complete silence:
Bang!

Royal Barnes dropped into a crouch and went for his gun with a sweeping movement. At the same instant, he dumped over the table and sent it crashing toward Kilkenny.

Kilkenny sprang aside barely in time to escape the table, and a shot crashed into the wall behind him. His own gun was out, and he triggered it twice with lightning-like rapidity. Through the smoke he could see Royal Barnes’s eyes blazing with white light, and his lips parted in a snarl of killing fury.

Then the whole room was swept up in a crashing roar of guns. Something hit him and he was smashed back against the wall. His own guns were bucking and leaping in his hands, and he could see bright orange stabs of flame shot through with crimson streaks. He stepped forward and left, then again left, then back right, and moving in. Barnes had sprung backward through a doorway, and Kilkenny crossed the room, thumbing cartridges into his six-guns.

He went through the door with a leap. A bullet smashed the wall behind him and another tugged sharply at his sleeve. He stepped over, saw Barnes, and fired. The flame blossomed from Barnes’s gun and Kilkenny felt his legs give way as he went to his knees. Barnes was backing away, his eyes wide and staring.

Slowly, desperately Kilkenny pulled himself erect and tried to get a gun up. Finally he did, and fired again, but Barnes was gone. Stumbling into the next
room, he glared about. He was sick, felt himself weaving on his feet, and blood was running into his eyes.

The room was empty. Then a shot crashed behind him. He turned in a loose, stumbling circle and opened up with both guns on a weaving target. Then he felt himself falling, and he went down, hard.

He must have blacked out briefly, for when he opened his eyes he could smell the acrid smell of gunpowder, and it all came back with a rush. He turned over, and drew his knees under him. Then, catching the door frame, he pulled himself erect.

Royal Barnes, his face bloody and ugly, was propped against the wall opposite, his lips curved back in a snarl. A bullet had gone through one cheek, entering below the nose and coming out under the earlobe. Blood was flowing down his side. Blood was soaking his shirt, too. Barnes was cursing slowly, monotonously, horribly.

“You got me,” he mouthed viciously, “but I’m killin’ you, too, Kilkenny.”

His gun swung up, and Kilkenny’s own guns bucked in his hands. He saw Barnes wince and jerk, and the bloody face twisted in pain. Then the outlaw lunged out from the wall, staggering forward, his guns roaring a crescendo of hatred as he reeled toward Kilkenny. His shooting was wild, insane, desperate, and the shots went every which way.

He was toe to toe with Kilkenny when Kilkenny finished it. He finished it with four shots, two from each gun, at three-foot range, pumping the heavy .45 slugs into the outlaw. Barnes fell, and tumbled across Kilkenny’s feet.

For what seemed a long time, Kilkenny stood erect, his guns dangling, empty. He stood staring blankly
above the dead man at his feet, staring at the curious pattern of the Indian blanket across the room. He could feel his breath coming in great gasps, he could feel the warm blood on his face, and he could feel his growing weakness.

Then suddenly he heard a sound. He had dropped one of his guns. Abruptly he let go everything and fell headlong to the floor, lying there across Royal Barnes, the warm sunlight falling across his bloody face and hair…

A long, long time later he felt hands touching him, and felt his own hand reaching for his gun. A big man loomed over him, and he was trying to get his gun up when he heard a woman’s voice, speaking softly. Something in him listened, and he let go the gun. He seemed to feel water on his face, and pain throbbing through him like a live thing. Then he went all away again.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was lying on a wide bed in a sunlit room. Outside there were lilacs, and he could hear a bird singing. There was a flash of red, and a redbird flitted past the window.

The room was beautiful. It was a woman’s room, quiet, neat, and smelling faintly of odors he seemed to remember from boyhood. He was still lying there when a door opened and Nita came in.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Nita laughed, and her eyes grew soft. “We had begun to believe you’d never come out of it.”

“What happened?” he mumbled.

“You were badly hit. Six times, in all. Only one of
them serious. Through the body. There was a flesh wound in your leg, and one in your shoulder.”

“Barnes?” Kilkenny asked quickly.

“He’s dead. He was almost shot to pieces.”

Kilkenny was quiet. He closed his eyes and lay still for a few minutes, remembering. In all his experience he had never known any man with such vitality. He rarely missed, and even in the hectic and confused battle in the cliff house he knew he had scored many hits. Yet Royal Barnes had kept shooting, kept fighting.

He opened his eyes again. “Steve Lord?”

“He was killed by a spring gun. A double-barreled shotgun loaded with soft lead pellets. He must have been killed instantly.”

“The outlaw gang?”

“Wiped out. A few escaped in the last minutes, but not many. Webb Steele was wounded, but not badly. He’s up and around. Has been for three days.”

“Three days?” Kilkenny was incredulous. “How long have I been here?”

Nita smiled. “You’ve been very ill. The fight was two weeks ago.”

Kilkenny lay quietly for a while, absorbing that. Then he remembered.

“But Calkins?”

“He was killed. Jaime killed him, and two of his family. Steele put it up to the other Calkins boys to leave me alone and to leave Jaime alone or fight him and all the ranchers. They backed down.”

The two weeks more that Kilkenny spent in bed drifted by slowly, and at the end he became restless, worried. He lay in Nita Riordan’s bed in her house,
cared for by her, and receiving visits daily from Rusty and Tana, from Webb Steele, Frame, and some of the others. Even Lee Hall had come by to thank him. But he was restless. He kept thinking of Buck, and remembering the long, lonely trails.

Then one morning he got up early. Rusty and Tana had come in the night before. He saw their horses in the corral when he went out to saddle Buck.

The sun was just coming up and the morning air was cool and soft. He could smell the sagebrush and the mesquite blossoms. He felt restless and strange. Instinctively he knew he faced a crisis more severe than any brought on by his gunfight. Here, his life could change, but would it be best?

“I don’t know, Buck,” he said thoughtfully. “I think we’d better take a ride and think it over. Out there in the hills where the wind’s in a man’s face, he can think better.”

He turned at the sound of a footstep, and saw Nita standing behind him. She looked fresh and lovely in a print dress, and her eyes were soft. Kilkenny looked away quickly, and cursed himself under his breath for his sudden weakness.

“Are you going, Kilkenny?” she asked.

He turned slowly. “I reckon, Nita. I reckon out there in the hills a man can think a sight better. I got things to figger out.”

“Kilkenny,” Nita asked suddenly, “why do you talk as you do? You can speak like an educated man when you wish. And you were, weren’t you? Tana told me she picked up a picture you dropped once, a picture of your mother, and there was an inscription on it, something about it being sent to you in college.”

“Yes, I reckon I can speak a sight better at times,
Nita. But I’m a Western man at heart, and I speak the way the country does.” He hesitated, looking at her somberly. “I reckon I better go now.”

There were tears in Nita’s eyes, but she lifted her head and smiled at him.

“Of course, Kilkenny. Go, and if you decide you want to come back…don’t hesitate. And, Buck”—she turned quickly to the long-legged horse—“if he starts back, you bring him very fast, do you hear?”

For an instant, Kilkenny hesitated again, then he swung into saddle.

The buckskin wheeled, and they went out of Apple Cañon at a brisk trot. Once he looked back, and Nita was standing where he had left her. She lifted her hand and waved.

He waved in return, then faced away to the west. The wind from over the plains, fresh with morning, came to his nostrils, and he lifted his head. The buckskin’s ears were forward, and he was quickening his pace.

“You an’ me, Buck,” Kilkenny said slowly, “we ain’t civilized. We’re wild, and we belong to the far, open country where the wind blows and a man’s eyes narrow down to distance.”

Kilkenny sat sideward in the saddle and rolled a smoke. Then his voice lifted, and he sang:

I have a word to say, boys, only one to say,

Don’t never be no cow thief, don’t never ride no stray.

Be careful of your rope, boys, and keep it on the tree,

But suit yourself about it, for it’s nothing at all to me!

He sang softly, and the hoofs of the buckskin kept time to the singing, and Lance could feel the air in his face, and a long way ahead the trail curved into the mountains.

Chapter I

Smoke lifted wistfully from the charred timbers of the house, and smoke lifted from the shed that had been Moffitt’s barn. The corral bars were down and the saddle stock run off, and, where Dick Moffitt’s homestead had been in the morning, there was now only desolation, emptiness, and death.

Dick Moffitt himself lay sprawled on the ground. The dust was scratched deeply where his fingers had dug in the agony of death. Even from where he sat on the long-legged buckskin, the man known as Trent could see he had been shot six times. Three of those bullets had gone in from the front. The other three had been fired directly into his back by a man who stood over him. And Dick Moffitt wore no gun.

The little green valley was still in the late afternoon sun. It was warm, and there was still a faint heat emanating from the charred timber of the house.

The man who called himself Trent rode his horse
around the house. Four or five men had come here. One of them riding a horse with a split right rear hoof. They had shot Moffitt down and then burned his layout.

What about the kids? What about Sally Crane, who was sixteen? And young Jack Moffitt, who was fourteen? Whatever had happened, there was no evidence of them here. He hesitated, looking down the trail. Had they been taken away by the killers? Sally, perhaps, but not Jack. If the killers had found the two, Jack would have been dead.

Thoughtfully Trent turned away. The buckskin knew the way was toward home, and he quickened his pace. There were five miles to go, five miles of mountains and heavy woods, and no clear trails.

This could be it. Always, he had been sure it would come. Even when happiest, the knowledge that sooner or later he must sling his gun belts on his hips had been ever present in the back of his mind. Sooner or later there would be trouble, and he had seen it coming here along the rimrock.

Slightly more than a year ago he had built his cabin and squatted in the lush green valley among the peaks. No cattle ranged this high. No wandering cowpunchers drifted up here. Only the other nesters had found homes, the Hatfields, O’Hara, Smithers, Moffitt, and the rest.

Below, in the vicinity of Cedar Bluff, there was one ranch—one and only one. On the ranch and in the town, one man ruled supreme. He rode with majesty, and, when he walked, he strode with the step of kings. He never went unattended. He allowed no man to address him unless he spoke first, he issued orders and bestowed favor like an Eastern potentate,
and, if there were some who disputed his authority, he put them down, crushed them.

King Bill Hale had come West as a boy, and he had had money even then. In Texas he had driven cattle over the trails and had learned to fight and sling a gun, and to drive a bargain that was tight and cruel. Then he had come farther West, moved into the town of Cedar Bluff, built the Castle, and drove out the cattle rustlers who had used the valley as a hide-out. The one other honest rancher in the valley he bought out, and, when that man had refused to sell, Hale had told him to sell, or else. And he had cut the offered price in half. The man sold.

Cedar Bluff and Cedar Valley lived under the eye of King Bill. A strong man and an able one, Hale had slowly become power mad. The valley was cut off from both New Mexico and Arizona. In his own world he could not be touched. His will was law. He owned the Mecca, a saloon and gambling house. He owned the stage station, the stage line itself, and the freight company that hauled supplies in and produce out. He owned the Cedar Hotel, the town’s one decent rooming house. He owned 60,000 acres of good grazing land and controlled 100,000 more. His cattle were numbered in the tens of thousands, and two men rode beside him when he went among his other men. One was rough, hard-scaled Pete Shaw, and the other was his younger son, Cub Hale. Behind him trailed the gold-dust twins, Dunn and Ravitz, both gunmen.

The man who called himself Trent rarely visited Cedar Bluff. Sooner or later, he knew, there would be someone from the outside, someone who knew him, someone who would recognize him for what and who he was, and then the word would go out.

“That’s Kilkenny!”

Men would turn to look, for the story of the strange, drifting gunman was known to all in the West, even though there were few men anywhere who knew him by sight, few who could describe him or knew the way he lived.

Mysterious, solitary, and shadowy, the gunman called Kilkenny had been everywhere. He drifted in and out of towns and cow camps, and sometimes there would be a brief and bloody gun battle, and then Kilkenny would be gone again, and only the body of the man who had dared to try Kilkenny remained.

So Kilkenny had taken the name of Trent, and in the high peaks he had found the lush green valley where he built his cabin and ran a few head of cows and broke wild horses. It was a lonely life, but when he was there, he hung his guns on a peg and carried only his rifle, and that for game or for wolves.

Rarely, not over a dozen times in the year, he went down to Cedar Bluff for supplies, packed them back, and stayed in the hills until he was running short again. He stayed away from the Mecca, and most of all he avoided the Crystal Palace, the new and splendid dance hall and gambling house owned by the woman Nita Riordan.

The cabin in the pines was touched with the red glow of a sun setting beyond the notch, and he swung down from the buckskin and slapped the horse cheerfully on the shoulder.

“Home again, Buck! It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?”

He stripped the saddle and bridle from the horse and carried them into the log barn, then he turned the buckskin into the corral, and forked over a lot of fresh green grass.

It was a lonely life, yet he was content. Only at times did he find himself looking long at the stars and thinking about the girl in Cedar Bluff. Did she know he was here? Remembering Nita from the Live Oak country, he decided she did. Nita Riordan knew all that was going on; she always had.

He went about the business of preparing a meal, and thought of Parson Hatfield and his tall sons. What would the mountaineer do now? Yet, need he ask that question? Could he suspect, even for a moment, that the Hatfields would do anything but fight? They were the type. They were men who had always built with their hands and who were beholden to no man. They were not gunfighters, but they were lean, hard-faced men, tall and stooped a little, who carried their rifles as if they were part of them. And big Dan O’Hara, the talkative, friendly Irishman who always acted as though campaigning for public office—could he believe that Dan would do other than fight?

War was coming to the high peaks, and Trent’s face grew somber as he thought of it. War meant that he would once more be shooting, killing. He could, of course, mount in the morning and ride away. He could give up this place in the highlands and go once more, but even as the thought came to him, he did not recognize it as even a remote possibility. Like O’Hara and the Hatfields, he would fight.

There were other things to consider. The last time he had been to Cedar Bluff, there had been a letter from Lee Hall, the Ranger.

We’re getting along all right here, but I thought you would like to know: Cain Brock-man is out. He swears he will hunt you down
and kill you for killing his brother and whipping him with your fists. And he’ll try, so be careful.

He dropped four slices of bacon into the frying pan, humming softly to himself. Then he put on some coffee water and sat watching the bacon. When it was ready, he took it out of the pan and put it on a tin plate. He was reaching for the coffee when he heard a muffled movement.

Instantly he froze in position. His eyes fastened on the blanket that separated his bedroom from the living room of the two-room cottage. His guns were hanging from a peg near the cupboard. He would have to cross the room to them. His rifle was nearer.

Rising, he went about the business of fixing the coffee, and, when close to the rifle, he dropped his hand to it. Then, swinging it hip high, he crossed the room with a bound, and jerked back the blanket.

Two youngsters sat on the edge of his homemade bed, a slender, wide-eyed girl of sixteen and a boy with a face thickly sprinkled with freckles. They sat tightly together, frightened and pale.

Slowly he let the gun butt down to the floor. “Well, I’ll be…! Say, how did you youngsters get here?”

The girl swallowed and stood up, trying to curtsey. Her hair, which was very lovely, hung in two thick blonde braids. Her dress was cheap and cotton and now, after rough treatment, was torn and dirty. “We’re…I mean, I’m Sally Crane, and this is Jackie Moffitt.”

“They burned us out!” Jackie cried out, his face twisted and pale. “Them Hales done it! An’ they kilt Pappy!”

“I know.” Trent looked at them gravely. “I came by
that way. Come on out here an’ we’ll eat. Then you can tell me about it.”

“They come in about sunup this mornin’,” Jack said. “They told Pap he had two hours to get loaded an’ movin’. Pap, he allowed he wasn’t movin’. This was government land an’ he was settled legal, an’ he was standin’ on his rights.”

“What happened?” Trent asked. He sliced more bacon and dropped it in the pan.

“The young ’un, he shot Pap. Shot him three times afore he could move. Then after he fell, he emptied his gun into him.”

Something sank within Trent, for he could sense the fight that was coming. The “young ’un” would probably be Cub Hale. He remembered that slim, erect, panther-like young man in white buckskins and riding his white horse, that young, handsome man who loved to kill. Here it was, and there was no way a man could duck it. But, no. It wasn’t his fight. Not yet, it wasn’t.

“How’d you kids happen to come here?” he asked kindly.

“We had to get away. Sally was gettin’ wood for the house, an’, when I met her, we started back. Then we heard the shootin’, an’, when I looked through the brush, I seen the young ’un finishin’ Pap. I wanted to fight, but I ain’t got no gun.”

“Did they look for you?” Trent asked.

“Uhn-huh. We heard one of ’em say he wanted Sally!” Jackie glanced at the girl, whose face was white, her eyes wide. “They allowed there wasn’t no use killin’ her…yet!”

“You had horses?” Trent asked.

“Uhn-huh. We done left them in the brush. We
wasn’t sure but what they’d come here, too. But we come here because Pap, he done said if anythin’ ever happened to him, we was to come here first. He said you was a good man, an’ he figgered you was some shakes with a gun.”

“All right.” Trent dished them out some food. “You kids can stay here tonight. I got blankets enough. Then in the mornin’ I’ll take you down to Parson’s.”

“Let me fix that,” Sally pleaded, reaching for the skillet. “I can cook.”

“She sure can,” Jackie declared admiringly. “She cooked for us all the time.”

A horse’s hoof
clicked
on a stone, and Trent doused the light instantly. “Get down,” he whispered hoarsely. “On the floor. Let’s see who this is.”

He could hear the horses coming closer, two of them from the sound. Then a voice rang out sharply.

“Halloo, the house! Step out here!”

From inside the door, Trent replied shortly: “Who is it? What d’ you want?”

“It don’t make a damn who it is! Trent, we’re givin’ you till noon tomorrow to hit the trail! You’re campin’ on Hale range! We’re movin’ everybody off!”

Trent laughed harshly. “That’s right amusin’, friend,” he said dryly. “You go back an’ tell King Bill Hale that I’m stayin’ right where I am. This is government land, filed on all fittin’ an’ proper.” He glimpsed the light on a gun barrel and spoke sharply. “Don’t try it, Dunn. I know you’re there by your voice. If you’ve got a lick of sense, you know you’re outlined against the sky. A blind man could get you both at this range.”

Dunn cursed bitterly. Then he shouted: “You won’t get away with this, Trent!”

“Go back an’ tell Hale I like it here, an’ I’m plannin’ to stay!”

When they had gone, Trent turned to the youngsters. “We’ll have a little time now. Sally, you take the bed in the other room, Jackie an’ me, we’ll bunk out here.”

“But…?” Sally protested.

“Go ahead. You’ll need all the sleep you can get. I think the trouble has just started. But don’t be afraid. Everything is goin’ to be all right.”

“I’m not afraid.” Sally Crane looked at him with large, serious eyes. “You’ll take care of us, I know.”

He stood there a long minute staring after her. It was a strange feeling to be trusted, and trusted so implicitly. The childish sincerity of the girl moved him as nothing had ever moved him before. He recognized the feeling for what it was, the need within him to protect and care for something beyond himself. It was that, in part, that during these past years had led him to fight so many fights that were not his. And yet, was not the cause of human liberty and freedom always every man’s trust?

Jackie was going about the business of making a bed on the floor as though he had spent his life at it. He seemed pleased with this opportunity to show some skill, some ability to do things.

Trent reached up and took down his guns and checked them as he had every night of the entire year in which they had hung from the peg. For a minute after he completed the check, he held them. He liked the feel of them, even when he hated what they meant. Slowly he replaced them on the peg.

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