Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0) (12 page)

The Crystal Palace was one of those places that made the Western frontier what it was. Wherever there was money to spend, gambling joints could be found, and some became ornate palaces of drinking and gambling like this one. They had them in Abilene and Dodge, but not so much farther West.

Cedar Bluff had the highly paid riders of the Hale Ranch. It also drew miners from Rock Creek. The Palace was all gilt and glass, and there were plenty of games going, including roulette, faro, and dice. Around the room at scattered tables were at least a dozen poker games.

Nita Riordan, Trent decided, was doing all right. This place was making money and lots of it. Trent knew a lot about gambling houses, enough to know what a rake-off these games would be turning in to the house. There was no necessity for crooked games. The percentage was entirely adequate.

They crossed the room, and Trent saw Jaime Brigo sitting on a chair against the wall as he always sat. The sombrero on the floor was gray and new. He wore dark, tailored trousers and a short velvet jacket, also black. The shirt under it was silk and blue. He wore, as always, two guns.

He looked up as Trent approached, and his lips parted over even white teeth.
“Buenos días, señor,”
he said.

Price stopped and nodded his head toward the door. “She’s in there.”

Trent faced the door, drew a deep breath, and stepped inside. His heart was pounding, and his mouth was dry. No woman ever stirred him so deeply or made him realize so much what he was missing in his lonely life.

It was a quiet room, utterly different from the garish display of the gambling hall behind him. It was a room to live in, the room of one who loved comfort and peace. On a ledge by the window were several potted plants; on the table lay an open book. These things he absorbed rather than observed, for all his attention was centered upon Nita Riordan.

She stood across the table, taller than most women, with a slender yet voluptuous body that made a pulse pound in his throat. She was dressed for evening, an evening walking among the tables of the gambling room, and she was wearing a black and spangled gown, utterly different from the room in which she stood. Her eyes were wide now, her full lips parted a little, and, as he stopped across the table, he could see the lift of her bosom as she took a deep breath.

“Nita,” he said softly. “You’ve not changed. You’re the same.”

“I’m older, Lance,” she said softly, “more than a year older.”

“Has it been only a year? It seems so much longer.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “And you are lovely, as always. I think you could never be anything but lovely and desirable.”

“And yet,” she reminded him, “when you could have had me, you rode away. Lance, do you live all alone in that cabin of yours? Without anyone?”

He nodded. “Except for memories. Except for the thinking, I do. And the thinking only makes it worse, for, whenever I think of you, and all that could be, I remember the Brockmans, Bert Polti, and all those others back down the trail. Then I start wondering how long it will be before I fall in the dust myself.”

“That’s why I sent for you,” Nita told him. Her eyes were serious and worried. She came around the table and took his hands. “Lance, you’ve got to go. Leave here, now. I can hold your place for you, if that’s what you want. If that doesn’t matter, say so, and I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you anywhere, but we must leave here.”

“Why?” It was like him to be direct. She looked up into his dark, unsmiling face. “Why, Nita? Why do you want me to go?”

“Because they are going to kill you!” she exclaimed. She caught his arm. “Lance, they are cruel, ruthless, vicious. It isn’t King Bill. He’s their leader, but what he does he believes to be right. It’s Cub. He loves to kill. I’ve seen him. Last week he killed a boy in the street in front of my place. He shot him down, and then emptied his gun into him with slow, methodical shots. He’s a fiend!”

Lance shook his head. “I’ll stay, no matter.”

“But listen, Lance,” she protested. “I’ve heard them talking here. They are sure you’ll fight. I don’t know why they think so, but they do. They’ve decided you must die, and soon. They won’t give you a chance. I know that.”

“I can’t, Nita. These people in the high meadows are my friends. They depend upon me to stand by them. I won’t be the first to break and run, or the last. I’m staying. I’m going to fight it out here, Nita, and we’ll see who is to win, the people or a man of power and greed.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Nita looked at him seriously. “Hale is out to win, Lance. He’s got men. They don’t know you’re Lance Kilkenny. I’ve heard them talking, and they do suspect that you’re something more than a nester named Trent. But Hale is sure he is right, and he’ll fight to the end.”

Trent nodded. “I know. When a man thinks he is right, he will fight all the harder. Has anybody tried to talk to him?”

“You can’t. You can’t even address him. He lives in a world of his own. In his way, I think he is a little insane, Lance, but he does have ability, and he has strength. He’s a fighter, too.”

Trent studied her thoughtfully. “You seem to know him. Has he made you any trouble?”

“Why do you ask that?” Nita asked quickly.

“I want to know.”

“He wants to marry me, Lance.”

Trent tightened and then stared at her. “I see,” he said slowly. “And you?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated, looking away. “Lance, can’t you see? I’m lonely. Dreadfully, frighteningly lonely. I have no life here, just a business. I
know no women but those of the dance hall. I see no one who feels as I do, thinks as I do. King Bill is strong. He knows how to appeal to a woman. He has a lot to offer. He has a son as old as I, but he’s only forty, and he’s a powerful man, Lance. A man a woman could be proud of. I don’t like what he’s doing, but he does think he’s right. No,” she said finally, “I won’t marry him. I’ll admit, I’ve been tempted. He’s a little insane, I think. Drunk with power. He got too much and got it too easily, and he believes he is better than other men because he has succeeded. But whatever you do, Lance, don’t underrate him. He’s a fighter.”

“You mean he’ll have his men fight?” Trent asked.

“No. I mean
he
is a fighter. By any method. With his fists, if he has to. He told me once in such a flat, ordinary voice that it startled me that he could whip any man he ever saw with his hands.”

“I see.”

“Shaw, his foreman, tells a story about King Bill beating a man to death in El Paso. He killed another one with his fists on the ranch.”

“I’ve got to see him today. I’ve got to convince him that we must be left alone.”

“He won’t talk to you, Lance.” Nita looked at him with grave, troubled eyes. “I know him. He’ll just turn you over to his cowhands, and they’ll beat you up or kill you.”

“He’ll talk to me.”

“Don’t go down there, Lance. Please don’t.”

“Has he ever made any trouble for you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “So far, he has listened to me and has talked very quietly and very well. No
one has made any trouble yet, but largely because they know he is interested in me. Some men tried to hold me up one night, but Jaime took care of that. He killed them both, and that started some talk. But if King Bill decides he wants this place…or me…he’ll stop at nothing.”

“Well,”—he turned—“I’ve got to see him, Nita. I’ve got to make one attempt to stop this before anyone else is killed.”

“And if you fail…?”

He hesitated, and his shoulders drooped. Then he looked up, and he smiled slowly. “If I fail, Nita, I’ll buckle on my guns, and they won’t have to wait for war. I’ll bring it to Cedar Bluff myself!”

He stopped in the outer room and watched Price Dixon dealing cards, but his mind wasn’t on the game. He was thinking of King Bill.

Hale was a man who fought to win. In this little corner of the West, there was no law but that of the gun. Actually there were but two trails in and out of Cedar Valley. What news left the valley would depend on Hale. The echoes of the war to come need never be heard beyond these hills. Only one trail led into Cedar Bluff, and one led out. Most of the traffic went in and out on the same route. The other trail, the little-used route to Blazer, was rough and bad. Yet in Blazer, too, Hale owned the livery stable, and he had his spies there as all around.

Hale himself lived in the Castle, two miles from Cedar Bluff. He rode into town once each day and stopped in at the Mecca for a drink and again at the Crystal Palace. Then he rode out of town. He went nowhere without his gunmen around him. Thinking
of that, Trent decided on the Mecca. There would be trouble unless everything happened just right. He didn’t want the trouble close to Nita.

He knew what Nita meant when she said she was lonely. There had never been a time when he hadn’t been lonely. He had been born on the frontier in Dakota, but his father had been killed in a gun battle, and he had gone to live with an uncle in New York, and later in Virginia.

Trent walked out on the street. It was late now, and the sun was already gone. It would soon be dark. He walked down to the buckskin and led him to a watering trough. Then he gave him a bundle of hay and left him tied at the hitching rail.

There were few people around. Dan Cooper had left the store and was sitting on the steps in front now. He watched Trent thoughtfully. Finally he got up and walked slowly down the walk. He stopped near the buckskin.

“If I was you, Trent,” he said slowly, “I’d get on that horse an’ hit the trail. You ain’t among friends.”

“Thanks.” Trent looked up at Cooper. “I think that’s friendly, Cooper. But I’ve got business. I don’t want a war in Cedar Bluff, Cooper. I want to make one more stab at stopping it.”

“An’ if you don’t?” Cooper studied him quizzically.

“If I don’t?” Trent stepped up on the boardwalk. “Well, I’ll tell you like I’ve told others. If I don’t, I’m going to buckle on my guns and come to town.”

Dan Cooper began to roll a cigarette. “You sound all-fired sure of yourself. Who are you?”

“Like I said, old son, I’m a nester, name of Trent.”

He turned and strolled down the walk toward the Mecca, and, even as he walked, he saw a small cavalcade
of horsemen come up the road from the Castle. Four men, and the big man on the bay would be King Bill Hale.

Hale got down, and strode through the doors. Cub followed. Ravitz tied King Bill’s horse, and Dunn stood for a moment, staring at Trent, who he could not quite make out in the gathering gloom. Then he and Ravitz walked inside.

Walking up, Trent pushed open the swinging doors. He stopped for an instant inside the door. The place was jammed with Hale cowhands. At the bar, King Bill was standing, his back to the room. He was big—no taller than Trent, and perhaps an inch shorter than Trent’s six one, but much heavier. He was broad and powerful, with thick shoulders and a massive chest. His head was a block set upon the thick column of a muscular neck. The man’s jaw was broad, his face brown and hard. He was a bull. Looking at him, Trent could guess that the stories of his killing men with his fists were only the truth.

Beside him, in white buckskin, was the slender, cat-like Cub Hale. And on either side of the two stood the gunmen, Dunn and Ravitz.

Trent walked slowly to the bar and ordered a drink. Dunn, hearing his voice, turned his head slowly. As his eyes met Trent’s, the glass slipped from
his fingers and crashed on the bar, scattering rye whiskey.

“Seem nervous, Dunn,” Trent said quietly. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“I’ll be hanged if I will!” Dunn shouted. “What do you want here?”

Trent smiled. All the room was listening, and he knew that many of the townspeople, some of whom might still be on the fence, were present.

“Why, I just thought I’d ride down an’ have a talk with King Bill,” he said quietly. “It seems there’s a lot of war talk, an’ somebody killed a harmless nester the other day. It seemed a man like King Bill Hale wouldn’t want such things goin’ on.”

“Get out!” Dunn’s hand hovered above a gun. “Get out or be carried out!”

“No use you makin’ motions toward that gun,” Trent said quietly. “I’m not heeled. Look for yourself, I’m makin’ peace talk, an’ I’m talkin’ to King Bill.”

“I said…get out!” Dunn shouted.

Trent stood with his hands on his hips, smiling. Suddenly Dunn’s hand streaked for his gun, and instantly Trent moved.

One hand dropped to Dunn’s gun wrist, while his right whipped up in a short, wicked arc and exploded on Dunn’s chin. The gunman sagged, and Trent released his gun hand and shoved him away so hard he fell headlong into a table. The table crashed over, and among the scattered cards and chips Bing Dunn lay, out cold.

In the silence that followed, Trent stepped quickly up to King Bill.

“Hale,” he said abruptly, “some of your men killed Dick Moffitt, shot him down in cold blood, and then
burned him out. Those same men warned me to move out. I thought I’d come to you. I’ve heard you’re a fair man.”

King Bill did not move. He held his glass in his fingers and stared thoughtfully into the mirror back of the bar, giving no indication that he heard. Cub Hale moved out from the bar, his head thrust forward, his eyes eager.

“Hale,” Trent said sharply, “this is between you an’ me. Call off your dogs! I’m talkin’ to you, not anybody else. We want peace, but if we have to fight to keep our land, we’ll fight! If we fight, we’ll win. You’re buckin’ the United States government now.”

Cub had stepped out, and now his lips curled back in a wolfish snarl as his hand hovered over his gun.

“What’s the matter, Hale?” Trent persisted. “Making a hired killer of your son because you’re afraid to talk?”

Hale turned deliberately. “Cub, get back. I’ll handle this!”

Cub hesitated, his eyes alive with eagerness and disappointment.

“I said,” Hale repeated, “to get back.” He turned. “As for you, you squatted on my land. Now you’re gettin’ off, all of you. If you don’t get off, some of you may die. That’s final!”

“No!” Trent’s voice rang out sharply. “It’s not final, Hale! We took those claims legal. You never made any claim to them until now. You got more land now than you can handle, and we’re stayin’. I filed my claim with the United States, so did the others. If we don’t get justice, we’ll get a United States marshal in here to see why.”

“Justice!” Hale sneered. “You blasted nesters’ll get
all the justice you get from me. I’m givin’ you time to leave…now get!”

Trent stood his ground. He could see the fury bolted up in Hale, could see the man was relentless. Well, maybe…Suddenly Trent smiled. “Hale,” he said slowly, “I’ve heard you’re a fightin’ man. I hope that ain’t a lie. I’m callin’ you now. We fight, man to man, right here in this barroom, no holds barred, an’, if I win, you leave the nesters alone. If you win, we all leave.”

King Bill wheeled, his eyes bulging. “You challenge
me?
You dirty-necked, nestin’ renegade. No! I bargain with no man. You nesters get movin’ or suffer the consequences.”

“What’s the matter, Bill?” Trent said slowly. “Afraid?”

For a long moment, there was deathly stillness in the room, while Hale’s face grew darker and darker. Slowly, then, he unbuckled his gun belt. “You asked for it, nester,” he sneered. “Now you get it.”

He rushed. Trent had been watching, and, as Hale rushed, he side-stepped quickly. Hale’s rush missed, and Trent faced him, smiling.

“What’s the matter, King. I’m right here!”

Hale rushed, and Trent stepped in with a left jab that split Hale’s lips and showered him with blood. In a fury, Hale closed in and caught Trent with a powerful right swing that sent him staggering back on his heels. Blood staining his gray shirt, King Bill leaped at Trent, swinging with both hands. Trent crashed to the floor, rolled over, and got up. Another swing caught him, and he went down again, his head roaring with sound.

King Bill rushed in, aiming a vicious kick, but
Trent rolled out of the way and scrambled up, groggy and hurt. Hale rushed, and Trent weaved inside of a swing and smashed a right and left to that massive body. Hale grabbed Trent and hurled him into the bar with terrific power, and then sprang close, swinging both fists to Trent’s head. Trent slipped the first punch, but took the other one, and started to sag. King Bill set himself, a cold sneer on his face, and measured Trent with a left, aiming a ponderous right, but Trent pushed the left aside and smashed a wicked left uppercut to Hale’s wind.

The bigger man gasped and missed a right, and Trent stabbed another left to the bleeding mouth. Hale landed a right and knocked Trent rolling on the floor. Somebody kicked him wickedly in the ribs as he rolled against the feet of the crowd, and he came up staggering as Hale closed in. Hurt, gasping with pain, Trent clinched desperately and hung on.

Hale tore him loose, smashed a left to his head that split his cheekbone wide open, and then smashed him on the jaw with a powerful right. Again Trent stabbed that left to the mouth, ducked under a right, and bored in, slamming away with both hands at close quarters. Hale grabbed him and threw him, and then rushed upon him, but, even as he jumped at him, Trent caught Hale with a toe in the pit of the stomach and pitched him over on his head and shoulders.

King Bill staggered up, visibly shaken. Then Trent walked in. His face was streaming blood and his head was buzzing, but he could see Hale’s face weaving before him. He walked in, deliberately lanced that bleeding mouth with a left, and then crossed a right that ripped the flesh over Hale’s eye.

Dunn started forward, and with an oath Hale
waved him back. He put up his hands and walked in, his face twisted with hatred. Trent let him come, feinted, and then dropped a right under the big man’s heart. Hale staggered, and Trent walked in, stabbed another left into the blood-covered face, and smashed another right to the wind.

Then he stood there and began to swing. Hale was swinging, too, but his power was gone. Trent bored in, his head clearing, and he slammed punch after punch into the face and body of the tottering rancher. He was getting his second wind now, although he was hurt, and blood dripped from his face to his shirt. He brushed Hale’s hands aside and crossed a driving right to the chin. Hale’s knees buckled, but, before he could fall, Trent hit him twice more, left and right to the chin. Then Hale crashed to the floor.

In the instant of silence that followed the fall of the King, a voice rang out. “You all just hold to where you’re standin’ now. I ain’t a-wantin’ to shoot nobody, but sure as my name’s Quince Hatfield, the one to make the first move dies!”

The long rifle stared through the open window at them, and on the next window sill they saw another. Nobody in the room moved.

In three steps, Trent was out of the room. The buckskin was standing at the edge of the walk with the other horses. Swinging into the saddle, he wrenched the rifle from the boot and with two quick shots sent the chandelier crashing to the floor, plunging the Mecca into darkness. Then, the Hatfields at his side, he raced the buckskin toward the edge of town. When they slowed down, a mile out of town, Quince looked at him, grinning in the moonlight.

“I reckon you all sure busted things wide open now.”

Trent nodded soberly. “I tried to make peace talk. When he wouldn’t, I thought a good lickin’ might show the townspeople the fight wasn’t all on one side. We’re goin’ to need friends.”

“You done a good job!” Jesse said. “Parson’ll sure wish he’d been along. He always said what Hale needed was a good whuppin’. Well, he sho’ nuff had it tonight.”

Nothing, Trent realized, had been solved by the fight. Taking to the brush, they used every stratagem to ward off pursuit, although they knew it was exceedingly doubtful if any pursuit would be started against three armed men who were skilled woodsmen. Following them in the dark would be impossible and scarcely wise.

Three hours later, they swung down at the Hatfield cabin. A tall young man with broad shoulders stepped out of the darkness.

“It’s us, Saul,” Jesse said, “an’ Trent done whipped King Bill Hale with his fists!”

Saul Hatfield strode up, smiling. “I reckon Paw will sure like to hear that!”

“They gone to bed?”

“Uhn-huh. Lijah was on guard till a few minutes back. He just turned in to catch hisself some sleep afore mornin’.”

“O’Hara get here?” Quince asked softly.

“Yeah. Him an’ Smithers an’ Bartram are here. Havin’ a big confab, come mornin’.”