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Authors: Louis L'Amour

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Chapter IV

Without looking down, Lance started toward the glow of the fire, his face set and angry. Had they killed Mort?

They had not. Lance was still several hundred yards away when he saw a rifle flash and heard the heavy bark of Mort’s old Sharps. Several shots replied.

Touching spurs to the buckskin, Lance whipped into the circle near the flames at a dead run, snapping three quick shots into a group of men near a low adobe wall. It was a gamble at that speed, but the attacking group was bunched close. There was a cry of pain, and one of them whirled about. He was fully in the light and his chest loomed up. Lance put a shot into him as he flashed abreast of the man, heard a bullet whip past his own ear. Then he was gone into the darkness beyond the light of the flames.

Sliding from saddle, Lance put the rifle to his
shoulder and shot twice. Reloading in haste, he began smoking up every bit of cover near the burning house, taking targets when they offered, and seeking the darkest spots of cover at other times. When his rifle was emptied, he dropped it to his side and opened up with a six-gun.

Men broke from cover and ran for their horses. The old Sharps bellowed in protest at their escape, and one of the men fell headlong. He scrambled up, but made only three steps before he pitched over again, dangerously near the flames.

Again Lance reloaded, then walked forward.

“Mort!” he called. “Come out of there, you old wolf! I know your shootin’!”

A tall, dark-bearded man in a battered black felt hat sauntered down from the circle of rocks at the foot of the cliff.

“Looks like you got here just in time, friend,” he said. “You see Sam?”

Briefly Lance explained. Then he jerked his head in the direction the attackers had taken. “Who were they?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Mebbe Webb Steele’s boys. Him and Lord want me out of here, the worst way.” He scratched the stubble on his lean jaws. “Let’s have us a look.”

Three men had been left behind. With the man Lance had killed out on the prairie, that made four. It had been a costly lesson. Well, Lance told himself, they should have known better than to tackle an old he-wolf like Mort Davis.

A lean, gangling sixteen-year-old strolled down from the rocks. He carried a duplicate of his father’s Sharps. He stood beside his father and stared at the bodies.

“Don’t look like nobody I ever seen,” Mort said thoughtfully, “but Webb and Chet both been a-gettin’ in some new hands.”

“Pap,” the youngster said, “I seen this one in Botalla trailin’ with Bert Polti.”

Lance studied the man’s face. It wasn’t one of the men he knew. “Mort,” he asked, “where do the Brockmans figger in this?”

The old man puckered his brow. “The Brockmans? I didn’t know they was in it. Abel Brockman rode for Steele once, but not no more. He got to sparkin’ Tana, and the old man let him go. He didn’t like it none, neither.”

“It don’t look right,” Lance said as he rubbed his jaw reflectively. “Lord and Steele are supposed t’be fightin’, but so far all I’ve seen is this gang that trails with Polti. They jumped me in town.”

“Watch them Brockmans,” Mort said seriously. “They’re poison mean, and they never fight alone. Always the two of ’em together, and they got this gunfightin’ as a team worked out mighty smooth. They always get you in a spot where you can’t get the two to once.”

Lance looked around. “Burned all your buildin’s, didn’t they? Any place you can live?”

“Uhn-huh. We got us a little cave back up here. We lived there before we built us a house. We’ll make out. We’re used to gettin’ along without much. This here’s the best place we had for a long time if we can keep it.”

“You’ll keep it,” Lance promised, his face harsh and cold.

Mort Davis had done his share in making the West a place to live. He was getting old now, and deserved the
rewards of his work. No big outfit, or outlaws either, was going to drive him off, if Lance could help it.

“Who knew this Sam Carter was to meet me?” he asked. “Or that you were?”

“Nobody I know of,” said old Mort. “Carter’s a ’puncher who started him a little herd over back of the butte. We worked together some. He was settin’ for chuck when them riders come down on us. I asked him to get you.”

Lance sketched the trouble in Botalla, then added the account of his run-in with Tana Steele. Mort grinned at that.

“I’d a give a purty to seen that,” he said. “Tana’s had her head for a long time. Drives that there buckboard like a crazy woman! At that, she can ride nigh anythin’ that wears hair, and she will! Best lookin’ woman around here, too, unless it’s Nita Riordan.”

“The woman at Apple Cañon?” Lance asked quickly.

“Yep. All woman, too. Runs that shebang by herself. Almost, that is. Got her a Yaqui half-breed to help. Ain’t nobody to fool with, that Injun.”

“You better hole up and stay close to home, Mort,” Lance said after a minute. “I’m dead tired, but I’ve some ridin’ to do. I caught a couple of hours’ sleep back in the hollow before the trouble.”

He swung into saddle and started back over the trail. It was late and he was tired, but he needed more information before he could even start to figure things out. One thing he knew. He must talk to Lord and Steele and try to stop the trouble until they could get together. And he must get more information.

Four of the enemy had died, but even as he told himself that, he remembered that none of the dead
men had been in any sense a key man. They were just straw men, men who carried guns and worked for hire, and more could be found to fill their places.

And then Sam Carter was gone. A good man, Sam. A man who could punch cows, and who had enough stuff in him to start his own place, and to fight for what he knew was right. No country could afford to lose men like that.

Suddenly, on the inspiration of the moment, Lance whirled the buckskin from the trail and headed for the Webb Steele spread. He could try talking to Steele, anyway.

He was well into the yard before a man stepped from the shadows.

“All right, stranger! Keep your hands steady. Now light, easy-like, and walk over here.”

Lance obeyed without hesitation, carefully keeping his hands in front of him in the light from the ranch house window. A big man stepped from the shadows and walked up to him. Instinctively Lance liked the hard, rugged face of the other man.

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

“Name of Lance. Ridin’ by and thought I’d drop in and have a talk with Webb Steele.”

“Lance?” Something sparked in the man’s eyes. “You the gent had the run-in with Miss Tana?”

“That’s me. She still sore?”

“Lance”—the older man chuckled—“shore as I’m Jim Weston, you’ve let yourself in for a packet of trouble. That gal never forgets! When she come in this afternoon, she was fit to be tied!” He holstered his gun. “What you aimin’ to see Webb about?”

“Stoppin’ this war. Ain’t no sense to it.”

“What’s your dicker in this?” Weston asked
shrewdly. “Man don’t do nothin’ unless he’s got a angle somewheres.”

“What’s your job here, Weston?” Lance said.

“Foreman,” Weston announced. “Why?”

“Well, what’s the ranch makin’ out of this war? What are you makin’?”

“Not a cussed thing, cowboy. She’s keepin’ me up nights, and we got all our ’punchers guardin’ fence when they should be tendin’ to cows. We’re losin’ cattle, losin’ time, losin’ wire, and losin’ money.”

“Shore. Well, you don’t like that. I don’t like it, either. But my own angle is Mort Davis. Mort’s a friend of mine, and, Weston, Mort’s goin’ to keep his place in Lost Creek. He’ll keep it, or, by glory, there’ll be Lord and Steele ’punchers planted under every foot of it.”

“Think you’re pretty salty, don’t you?” Weston demanded, but there was a glint of understanding in his eye. “Well, mebbe you are.”

“I’ve been around, Weston. But that don’t matter. You and me can talk. You’re an old trail hand yourself. You’re a buffalo hunter, too. What you got against Mort?”

“Nothin’. He’s a sight better hand and a whole lot better man than lots of ’em ridin’ for this ranch now.” He shook his head. “I know what you mean, mister. I know exactly. But I don’t make the rules for the ranch. Webb does…Webb, or Tana.”

They stepped inside the ranch house, and Weston tapped on an inner door. At a summons, he opened it. Big Webb Steele was tipped back in his chair across the table from the door. His shirt was open two buttons, showing a hairy chest, and his hard level eyes seemed to stare through and through Lance. To his
right was Tana, and, as she saw Lance, she came to her feet instantly, her eyes blazing. Across the table was a tall, handsome man in a plain black suit of fine cut, a man with blue-gray eyes and a small, neatly trimmed blond mustache.

“You!” Tana burst out. “You have the nerve to come out here?”

“I reckon, ma’am,” Lance drawled, and he smiled slyly. “I didn’t reckon you carried your whip in the house. Or do you carry it everywhere?”

“You take a high hand with my daughter, Lance, if that’s your name,” Webb rumbled, glancing from Tana to Lance and back. “What happened between you two?”

“Steele,” Lance said, grinning a little, “your daughter was drivin’ plumb reckless, and we had a few words in which I attempted to explain that the roads wasn’t all built for her own pleasure.”

Webb chuckled. “Young feller, you got a nerve. But Tana can fight her own battles, so heaven have mercy on your soul.”

“Well,” Lance said, “you spoke of me takin’ a high hand with your daughter. If my hand had been applied where it should have been, it might’ve done a lot more good.”

Webb grinned again, and his hard eyes twinkled. “Son, I’d give a hundred head of cows to see the man as could do that. It’d be right interestin’.”

“Father!” Tana protested. “This man insulted me.”

“Ma’am,” Lance interrupted, “I’d shore admire to continue this argument some other time. Right now I’ve come to see Mister Steele on business.”

“What business?” Webb Steele demanded, cutting short Tana’s impending outburst.

“War business. You’re edgin’ into a three-cornered war that’s goin’ to cost you plenty. It’s goin’ to cost Chet Lord plenty, too. I come to see about stoppin’ it. I want to get a peace talk between you and Chet Lord an’ Mort Davis.”

“Mort Davis?” Webb exploded. “That no-account nester ain’t goin’ to make no peace talk with me! He’ll get off that claim or we’ll run him off!” Webb’s eyes were blazing. “You tell that long-geared highbinder to take his stock and get!”

“He’s caused a lot of trouble here,” the man with the blond mustache said, “cutting fences and the like. He’s a menace to the range.” He looked up at Lance. “I’m Victor Bonham,” he added. “Out from New York.”

Lance had seated himself, and he studied Bonham for an instant, then looked back at Webb Steele, ignoring the Eastern man.

“Mister Steele,” he said, “you’ve got the rep of bein’ a square shooter. You come West with some durned good men, some of the real salty ones. Well, so did Mort Davis. Mort went farther West than you. He went on to Santa Fé and to Salt Lake. He helped open this country up. Then he finds him a piece of ground and settles down. What’s so wrong about that?” Lance shifted his chair a little, then went on. “He fought Comanches and Apaches. He built him a place. He cleaned up that water hole. He did things in Lost Creek you’d never have done. You’d never have bothered about it but for this fencin’ business. Well, Mort Davis moved in on that place, and he’s a-goin’ to stay. I, for one, mean to see he stays.” He leaned forward. “Webb Steele, I ain’t been hereabouts long, but I been here long enough to know
something mighty funny is goin’ on. Mort Davis was burned out tonight, by somebody’s orders, an’ I don’t think the orders were yours or Chet Lord’s, either. Well, as I said, Mort stays right where he is, and, if he dies, I’m goin’ to move in an’ bring war to these hills like nobody ever saw before.”

“You talk mighty big for a loose-footed cowhand,” Bonham said, smiling coldly. “We might decide not to let you leave here at all.”

Lance turned his head slowly at the direct challenge and for a long minute he said nothing, letting his chill green eyes burn into the Easterner. “I don’t know what your stake is in this, Bonham,” he said evenly, “but when I want to leave here, I’m goin’ to. I’ll leave under my own power, and, if I have to walk over somebody in gettin’ out, I could start with you.”

“Better leave him alone, Bonham,” a new voice interrupted. “He means what he says.”

They all looked up, startled. Rusty Gates stood in the doorway, a sardonic smile on his hard red face.

“I was ridin’ by,” he explained, “and thought I’d rustle some coffee. But take a friendly tip.”

Bonham laughed harshly. “I…”

“Better shut up, New York man,” Gates said. “There’s been enough killin’ tonight. You keep talkin’, you’re goin’ to say the wrong thing.” Rusty smiled suddenly, and glanced at Lance, his eyes twinkling. “Y’see”—he lighted his smoke—“I’ve heard Lance Kilkenny was right touchy about what folks said of him.”

Chapter V

The name dropped into the room like a bombshell. Tana’s hands went to her throat, and her eyes widened. Webb Steele dropped his big hands to the table and his chair legs slammed down. Jim Weston backed up a little, his tongue wetting his lips.

It was Bonham, the man from New York, who Lance Kilkenny was watching, and in Bonham’s eyes he saw a sudden blaze of white, killing rage. The man’s lips drew back in a thin line. If ever lust to kill was in a man’s face, it was in Victor Bonham’s then. An instant only, and then it was gone so suddenly that Kilkenny wondered if it had not been a hallucination.

“Did you say…Kilkenny?” Webb Steele demanded. “The gunfighter?”

“That’s right.” Lance’s voice seemed to have changed suddenly. “My name is Lance Kilkenny. Mort Davis was in trouble, so I came to help him.” He glanced up at Webb. “I don’t want trouble, if I can
avoid it, but they tried to burn out Mort and wipe him out.”

“What happened?” Bonham demanded.

“Four men died,” Lance said quietly. “They were not men anybody ever saw ridin’ with Steele or Lord.” He smiled a little. “Mort’s still around, and still able.”

Bonham was staring at him. “Yes, I seem to recall something about a man named Kilkenny being nursed by Davis, after a fight.”

Lance got up. “Think it over, Mister Steele. I’m not ridin’ for war. I never asked for trouble with any man. But Mort’s my friend. Even with two old prairie wolves like you and Chet Lord there can be peace. You two should get together with Mort. You’d probably like each other.”

Kilkenny stepped backward out of the door and went down the steps to the buckskin. Tana Steele stood there beside the horse. He had seen her slip from the room an instant before he left.

“So,” she said, scorn in her voice, “you’re a gunman. I might have known it. A man who shoots down other men, less skilled than he, then holds himself up as a dangerous man.”

“Ma’am,” Kilkenny said quietly, taking the bridle, “I’ve killed men. Most of ’em needed it, all of ’em asked for it. What you say doesn’t help any, or make it worse.” He swung into the saddle. “Ma’am,” he added softly, “you’re shore pretty in the moonlight…where a body can’t see the meanness in you. You’ve either got an awful streak somewhere to make you come out here and say somethin’ unpleasant, or else”—he grinned impudently—“you’re fallin’ in love with me.”

Tana started back angrily. “In love with you? Why…why, you conceited, contemptible…”

But the buckskin swung around and Lance dropped an arm about her waist and swung her from the ground. He was laughing, and then he kissed her. He held her and kissed her until her lips responded almost in spite of themselves. Then he put her down and swung out of the ranch yard at a gallop, lifting his voice in song.

Old Joe Clark has got a cow

She was muley born.

It takes a jaybird forty-eight hours

To fly from horn to horn.

Tana Steele, shaking with anger or some other emotion less easily understood, stood staring after him. She was still staring when his voice died away in the distance.

Then she heard another horse start up, and watched it gallop down the trail after Lance Kilkenny.

It was several minutes before the rider caught up with Kilkenny, and found him, gun in hand, facing downtrail from the shadows at the edge. It was Rusty Gates. “What do you want?” Kilkenny demanded.

Rusty leaned forward and patted his black on the neck.

“Why, I reckon I want to ride along with you, Kilkenny. I hear you’re a straight shooter, and I guess you’re the only
hombre
I ever met up with could get into more trouble than me. If you can use a man to side you, I’d shore admire to ride along. I got an
idea,” he added, “that in days to come you can use some help.”

“Let’s ride, Rusty,” Kilkenny said quietly. “It’s getting late…”

When Lance Kilkenny rolled out of his blankets in the early dawn, he glanced over at Gates. The redhead was still snoring. Kilkenny grinned, then shook his boots carefully to clear out any wandering tarantulas or scorpions that might have holed up for the night. Grimly he contemplated a hole in his sock. No time for that now. He pulled the sock down to cover the exposed toe, and slid the boot on. Then he got up. Carefully he checked his guns.

He moved quietly out of camp. For ten minutes he made a painstaking search of the area. When he returned to camp, he saddled his horse and rode quietly away. He was back, and had bacon frying when Rusty awakened and sat up.

They had camped on a cedar-covered mountainside with a wide view of Lost Creek Valley. From the ridge above they could see away into the purple distance of the mountains of Mexico. The air was brisk and cool with morning.

Coffee was bubbling in the pot when Rusty walked over.

“You get around, pardner,” he said. “Shore, I slept like a log. Hey!” He looked startled and pleased. “You got bacon!”

“Got it last night from that Mexican where we got the
frijoles
. He’s got him a half dozen hogs.”

Rusty shook himself, and grinned. Then he looked up, suddenly serious.

“Ever see this
hombre
Bonham before?” he asked.

“No.” Kilkenny glanced sideward at Gates. “Know him?”

“No. He ain’t from around here.”

“I wonder.”

“You wonder? Why? They said he was from New York. He looks like a pilgrim.”

“Yeah, he does.” Lance poured coffee into two cups. “But he knew about Mort carin’ for me after the fight with the Webers.”

“Heard it around probably. I heard that myself.” Rusty grinned. “You’re too suspicious.”

“I’m still alive.” Lance Kilkenny grinned wryly.

Rusty nodded. “You got something there. Don’t pay to miss no bets. Who you think Bonham is?”

Lance shrugged. “No idea.”

“You had an idea last night. You said this fightin’ wasn’t all Lord an’ Steele.”

“You think it is?” asked Kilkenny.

Rusty shook his head. “No. Can’t be. But who?”

“You been here longer than I have. How does she stack up to you? Who stands to gain but Steele and Lord? Who stands to gain if they both get gunned out or crippled?”

“Nobody. Them two have got it all, everywheres around here. Except for Mort, of course, but Mort ain’t grabby. He wants his chunk of Lost Creek Valley, that’s all.”

“Rusty, you ever see a map of this country?”

“Map? Shucks, no! Don’t reckon there is one. Who’d want a map?”

“Maps are handy things,” Kilkenny said, sipping his coffee. “Sometimes a country looks a sight different
on a map than you think it does. Sometimes, when you get a bird’s eye view of things, you get a lot of ideas. Look here.”

Drawing with his finger in the sand, Lance Kilkenny drew a roughly shaped V showing the low mountains and hills that girded the Live Oak country. Off to one side he drew in Lost Creek Valley.

“Right here, where it opens on the main valley,” he said, “is where Lord and Steele’s fence lines come together.”

“That’s right, plumb right,” Rusty agreed. “That’s what all the fuss is about. Who gets the valley?”

“But notice,” Lance said, “this V-shaped valley that is half Steele’s and half Lord’s runs from the point of the V up to the wide cattle ranges of Texas. And up there are other cow outfits, bigger than even Lord’s and Steele’s. Fine stock, too. I come down through there a while back and rode over some fine range. Lots of whiteface bulls brought in up there. The stock is bein’ improved. In a few years this is goin’ to be one of the greatest stock-raisin’ countries in the world. The fences won’t make much difference at first except to limit the size of the roundups. There won’t be no more four county roundups, but the stock will all improve, more beef per steer, and a bigger demand for it. The small ranchers can’t afford to get good bulls. They’ll cut fences here and there, as much to let bulls in with their old stock as anything. But that’s only part of it. Look at all these broad miles of range. They’ll be covered with fat stock, thousands upon thousands of head. It’ll be fat stock, good grass, and plenty of water. They’ll shift the herds and feed the range off little by little. You’ve punched cows long enough to have rustled a few head. Huh, we all have now and again. Just
think now, all this is stock country up here above the V. Now foller my finger.” He drew a trail in the dust down through the point of the V into the country below. “See?” he asked.

Rusty furrowed his brow and spoke thoughtfully. “You mean somebody could rustle that stock into Mexico? Shore, but they’d have to drive rustled cows across the Steele and the Lord spreads, and…” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “Say, pardner, I get it. You mean, if Lord and Steele was both out of it, whoever controlled that V could do as he danged well pleased down there. Right?”

Kilkenny nodded. “What’s this place at the point of the V?”

“That’s Apple Cañon. It’s the key to the whole country, ain’t it? And it’s a hang-out for outlaws!”

“Shore, Apple Cañon. The Live Oak country is like a big funnel that will pour rustled stock down into Mexico, and whoever controls the Live Oak and Apple Cañon controls rustlin’ in all this section of Texas!”

“Well, I’ll be durned!” Rusty spat into the dust. “And that’s where Nita Riordan lives!”

Kilkenny got up. “That’s right, Rusty. Right as rain, and we’re ridin’ to have a little talk with Nita. We’re ridin’ now.”

Llano Trail lifted up over the low hills from the Live Oak country and headed down again through Forgotten Pass, winding leisurely across the cactus-studded desert where only the coyotes prowled and rattlesnakes huddled in the shade of boulders, and the chaparral cock ran along the dim trails. Ahead of the two horsemen, lost like motes in a beam in all
the vast emptiness of the desert, could be seen the great, ragged rocks of the mountains. Not mountains of great height, but huge, upthrust masses of rock, weirdly shaped as though wrought by some insane god.

It was a country almost without water, yet a country where a knowing man might live, for barrel cactus, the desert reservoir, grew there. One might cut a hole in the cactus and during the night or in a matter of an hour or so considerable liquid, cool and fresh, would gather. Always sufficient for life.

The buckskin ambled easily, accustomed to long trails, and accustomed to having his head in pacing over the great distances. His was a long-stepping, untiring walk that ate up the miles.

The sun lifted from behind a morning cloud, and started climbing toward noon. Buzzards wheeled lazily, their far-seeing eyes searching the desert in an endless quest for food.

Slouching in his saddle, his hard face burned almost as red as his hair, Rusty Gates watched the rider ahead of him. It was easy to admire a fighting man, he thought. Always a fighter himself, Rusty fought because it was easy for him, because it was natural. He had punched cows, ridden the cattle trails north. He had, one time and another, tried everything, been everywhere a man could go on a horse. Usually he rode alone. But slowly and surely down the years he began picking up lore on Lance Kilkenny. He had it at his fingertips now.

BOOK: Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0)
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