Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0) (7 page)

Chet Lord was slumped in his chair and Kilkenny thought he had never seen a man look so old. Tana Steele was looking strange, too, and Kilkenny, looking up suddenly, saw that her face was oddly white and puzzled.

“I think,” Kilkenny said, after he had made his disturbing accusation about the mysterious killer, “that Des King knew who the killer was. He was killed to keep him from exposing that rattler, and also, I believe, because the killer hated King.”

“Why didn’t he tell then?” Steve Lord demanded.

Kilkenny looked up at Steve. “Mebbe he did,” he said slowly. “Mebbe he did.”

“What d’you mean by that?” Webb Steele demanded. “If he told, I never heard nothin’ of it.”

Kilkenny sat quietly, but he could see the tenseness in Tana’s face, the ashen pallor of Chet Lord, slumped in his chair, and Steve’s immobile, hard face.

“Des,” Kilkenny said slowly, “had a little hangout in the hills. In a box cañon west of Forgotten Pass. Well, Des kept a diary, an account of his search for the killer. He told Lee Hall that, and Lee told me. Tomorrow I’m goin’ to that cabin in the cañon and get that diary. Then I’ll know the whole story.”

“I think…,” Tana began, but got no further because suddenly there was a hoarse yell from the street and the sharp bark of a six-gun. Then a roll of heavy firing.

Kilkenny left his chair with a bound and kicked the door open. There was another burst of firing as he lunged down the steps. His foot caught and he plunged headlong into the dust, his head striking a rock that lay at the foot of the steps.

Rusty and the others plunged after him. They were just in time to see two big men lunging for their horses while rifles and pistols began to bark from all over town. One of the big men threw up his pistol and blazed away at the group on the porch. Rusty had just time to grab Tana and push her against the wall as bullets spattered the hotel wall.

Kilkenny, his head throbbing from the blow of his fall, crawled blindly to his feet, eyes filled with dust. There was a wild rattle of hoof beats, then horses charged by him. One caught him a glancing blow with its shoulder and knocked him flat again. There was another rattle of gunfire, and then it was over.

Kilkenny got to his feet again, wiping the dust from his eyes.

“What was it?” he choked. “What happened?”

Frame had come running up the street from the general store carrying an old Sharps rifle.

“The Brockmans!” he shouted. “That’s who it was!
Come to bust up your meetin’ and wipe you out, Kilkenny. Jim Weston, Shorty, and the other Steele rider tried to stop ’em.”

Webb Steele stepped down, eyes blazing. “So that was the Brockmans that rode by! Cussed near killed my daughter!”

“Yeah,” Frame agreed. “They got Weston. Lewis is shot bad, and they got the other boy…O’Connor, I think his name was. Weston never had a chance. He dropped his hand for his gun and Cain drilled him plumb center. Abel took Lewis, and they both lowered guns on the last one. It was short and bloody, and I don’t think either of them got a scratch.”

“This busts it!” Steele shouted. “We’ll ride to Apple Cañon and burn that bunch to the ground! They’ve gone too far!”

Tana Steele was straightening up. She looked at Rusty. “You saved my life,” she said quietly. “If you hadn’t thrown yourself in front of me, I might have been killed.”

Rusty grinned, and suddenly Kilkenny saw blood on his shirt.

“You better take him inside, Tana,” he said. “He’s hit.”

“Oh!” Tana caught Rusty quickly. “You’re hurt!”

“It ain’t nothin’,” Rusty, said. “Shucks, I…” He slumped limply against the wall.

Steele and Frame picked him up and started inside. The Lords, father and son, headed down the street.

Suddenly Kilkenny heard the porch boards creak, and a low voice, Bert Polti’s, spoke.

“All right, Mister Lance Kilkenny, here’s where you cash in.”

As Kilkenny recognized the voice, he whirled and
drew. Polti’s gun flamed as Kilkenny turned, and he felt the hot breath of the bullet. Then he fired.

Polti staggered, but caught himself. His head thrust forward, he tried to squeeze off another shot, but the six-gun wouldn’t come up. He tried, then tried again, but slowly the gun muzzle lowered, he toppled, and fell headlong.

Steele came charging to the door, gun in hand. He took one look, then holstered his gun.

“Polti, huh? He’s had it a comin’ for a long time. How come he drew on you?”

Kilkenny explained briefly. Steele nodded. “Figgered with your back turned he had a chance to get you. Well, he didn’t make it. Good work, son! You beat the rope for him with that bullet.” He looked down at the fallen man. “Plumb center, too. Right through the heart.”

Kilkenny looked up. “Steele, get your boys ready and stand by. Have Lord do the same. I’m goin’ after the Brockmans myself, and, when I come back, we’re goin’ t’clean up Apple Cañon. Right now the main thing is to get the Brockmans out of the way.”

“You goin’ after ’em alone?” Steele was incredulous. “They just gunned down three men!”

“Uhn-huh.” Kilkenny grinned, without humor. “But there’s only two of ’em. I’ll go after ’em. You see that somebody takes care of Rusty.”

Steele grinned then. “I reckon Tana’s doin’ that.”

A half hour later, stocked with grub for three days, Kilkenny rode out of town on the trail of the Brockmans. For the first half mile they had ridden hard, then had slowed down, saving their horses when they noticed no pursuit. They were both shrewd riders
and they would save their horses while confusing their trail.

Three miles from town they had turned from the trail and taken to the rough country toward the lava beds. The trail became steadily more difficult, and wound back and forth across the desert, weaving around clusters of boulders and following dry washes. They had used every trick of desert men to lose their trail, and yet it could be followed. Still, time and again, Kilkenny was compelled to dismount from his horse, search the ground carefully, and follow as much by guess and instinct as by sight or knowledge.

It became evident the Brockmans were traveling in a big circle. Picturing the country in his mind, Kilkenny began to believe they were heading for Cottonwood. But why Cottonwood? Could they by chance know of the wires he had sent? Were they afraid of what those wires might mean to them? Or were they watching the station on orders from the unknown in the cliff house?

On impulse, Kilkenny swung the buckskin from the trail and cut across country for Cottonwood. Now he kept to the cover, and rode steadily by gulch and by cañon, toward the little station.

That night he bedded down on the same creek that ran into Cottonwood, but about six miles upstream from the town. His camp was a dark camp, and he tried no fire, eating a cold supper and falling asleep under the stars.

With daylight he was up. Carefully he cleaned his guns and reloaded them. He knew the Brockmans, and was under no misapprehension as to their skill. They were good, and they were dangerous together. If
only by some fortune or stratagem he could catch each one alone. It was a thought, but the two ate together, slept beside each other, walked the streets together, and rode together.

It was almost nine o’clock before he saddled up and rode into town. If his calculations were correct, he was still ahead of the Brockmans. He would still make Cottonwood first, but, if not first, at almost the same time.

When he reached town, he tied Buck under the trees on the edge of the stream, and walked across the little log footbridge to the street. There was nothing much in Cottonwood. On one side of the street was the little stream, never more than six feet wide, and a row of cottonwood trees backed by some bunches of willow beyond the stream. On the opposite side were the telegraph office and station, a bar, a small store, and four or five houses. That was about all. Kilkenny walked into the station.

“Any messages for me?” he asked.

The stationkeeper nodded and stretched. “Yeah. Just come in. Three of ’em.”

He passed the messages across to Kilkenny, broke a straw off the broom, and began to chew it slowly and carefully, glancing out the window occasionally.

“Reckon there’ll be some fireworks now,” he said, nodding at the messages. “It shore beats the devil.”

Kilkenny pocketed the messages without glancing at them, left the station, and crossed the street to the willows, after a brief glance into the bar. On the far side of the bridge he lay down on the grass and began to doze.

He was still there an hour later when the stationmaster came to the door. “Hossmen comin’ out of the
brakes, stranger!” he called out. “They look powerful like the Brockmans!”

Kilkenny got up slowly and stretched. Then he leaned against the trunk of a huge cottonwood. Waiting.

The riders turned into the road leading to Cottonwood at a fast trot. There were three of them now. Kilkenny did not know the third man. They came on at a fast trot. As they reined in suddenly in front of the bar, Kilkenny stepped out and walked across the bridge.

Abel Brockman had swung down. Hearing the footsteps on the bridge, he turned and glanced over his shoulder. His hand stiffened, and he said something, low-voiced, and began to turn. The Brockmans had been caught off side.

Kilkenny stepped out quickly from under the trees. “All right!” he yelled.

Up the street a man sitting on a bench in front of a door suddenly fell backward off the bench and began to scramble madly for the door. Cain Brockman was still in the saddle, but he grabbed for his gun. As Abel’s hand moved, Kilkenny’s hand whipped down in the lightning draw that had made him famous. His gun came up, steadied, and even as Abel’s six-shooter cleared his holster, Kilkenny fired.

Walking toward them he opened up with both guns. Abel got off a shot, but he had been knocked off balance by Kilkenny’s first shot, and he staggered into the hitch rail. Cain’s horse reared wildly, and the big man toppled backward to the ground. Kilkenny walked on, firing. Abel went to one knee, swung up, lurching, and his guns began to roar again.

Unbelieving, Kilkenny stopped and steadied his
hand, then fired again. He was sure he had hit Abel Brockman with at least four shots.

Abel started to fall, and, swinging on his heel, Kilkenny tried to get a shot at the third man. But, grabbing Cain Brockman, the fellow dragged him around the corner out of sight. One of the horses trotted after them. Gun in hand, Kilkenny walked up to Abel.

Lying on his back in the dust, hand clutching an empty gun, his chest covered with blood, Abel Brockman stared at him.

“Cain’ll kill you for this!” he snarled, his eyes burning. “Cain’ll…oh!” Abel’s face twisted with agony. “Cain…where’s…?”

One hand, thrust up and straining, fell into the dust, and Kilkenny, who had lifted his eyes toward the corner, started toward it.

Then he heard a sudden rattle of hoofs, and he broke into a run.

The third man, whoever he had been, with Cain Brockman across his saddle was taking off up the trail.

Kilkenny stared after them a moment, then shrugged, and walked back. He didn’t think he had hit Cain Brockman. Probably he had been thrown from his horse and knocked cold.

Kilkenny retrieved Buck and swung into the saddle. Then he rode back by the station. The stationmaster thrust his head out.

“Didn’t think you could do it, mister!” he said. “Some shootin’!”

“Thanks. And thanks for the warnin’.” Kilkenny jerked his head back at Abel Brockman’s body. “Better
get that out of the street. He’s pretty big and he’ll probably spoil right fast.”

He turned Buck toward the Botalla trail, and started down it. Well, it wouldn’t be long now. He slapped Buck on the shoulder and lifted his voice in song:

I have a word to speak, 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 nothin’ at all to me!

Yet, even as he sang, he was thinking of the problems ahead. It was the time to strike now before anything else was done by the man at Apple Cañon to stir up strife between the Steele and Lord factions. If he and the ranchers and Botalla men could attack Apple Cañon and rout out the rustlers living in the long house there, and either capture them or send them over the border, much of the trouble would be over.

The cowpunchers of the two ranches would still have hard feelings, all too easily aroused if the proper stories were circulated and there should be more killing. Kilkenny realized that. So the thing to do was to strike before the man at the cañon could direct another move. That meant they must move at once—now!

Polti was dead. Abel Brockman was dead. That much at least had been done. Cain Brockman was alive. How would he react? Would he come out to kill Kilkenny as Abel had maintained? Would he flee the country, harassed by the thought of his brother’s being gone? Would his confidence be ruined? There was no guessing what the man might do, and, despite the death of Abel, Kilkenny knew that Cain Brockman was still a dangerous man. Then two others remained, for Kilkenny was convinced that the unknown killer on the range and the man at Apple Cañon were not one and the same. Two men left, and no hint of who either one was.

On a sudden hunch, Kilkenny turned the buckskin and took a cut-off across the hills toward Apple Cañon. Another talk with Nita might give him some clue. Or was he fooling himself? Was it simply because
he wanted to see the hazel-eyed girl who had stirred him so deeply?

He rode on, his face somber, thinking of her. A man who rode the lonely trails had no right to talk love to a woman. What did he have to offer? He had nothing, and always in the background was the knowledge that someday he would be too slow. He couldn’t always win. Confident as he was, certain as he was of his skill, he knew that a day must come when he
would
be too slow. Either that, or it would be a shot in the back by an enemy, or a shot from someone who wanted to be able to say he was the man who killed Kilkenny. That was what any gunman of repute had always to fear. For there were many such.

More, there was that curious thing that made gunmen seek each other out to see who was fastest. Men had been known to ride for miles with only that in mind. Sometimes those meetings had come off quietly and without actual shooting. Sometimes it was a matter of mutual respect, as in the case of Wild Bill Hickok and John Wesley Hardin. Some gunmen did live together, some were friends, but they were the exception, and there was always the chance that some ill-considered remark might set off the explosion that might leave a dozen men lying in death.

No, men who lived by the gun died by the gun, and no such man had any right to marry. No matter where he might go in the West, there would always be someone, sometime, who would know him. Then his name would become known again, and he must either fight or be killed. Billy the Kid, Wild Bill, Ben Thompson, King Fisher, Phil Coe, and many another were to prove the old belief in dying by the gun. One
day the time would come for him, too, and, until then, his only safety lay in moving on, in being what he had always been, a shadow on the border, a mysterious, little-known gunman who no man could surely describe.

The buckskin skirted the base of a hill, and came out among some cedars. Below lay Apple Cañon.

Thoughtfully Kilkenny studied the town. It seemed quiet, and there was no telltale flash from the cliff house. It might be that he could visit the town without being seen.

Carefully, keeping to cover of the scattered groves of cedar, Kilkenny worked his way along the mountainside, steadily getting closer and closer to the bottom. There was no sign of life.

Finally, close to the foot of the hill, he dismounted and tied the buckskin to a tree with a slipknot. Enough of a tie to let the buckskin know he should stand, but not enough to hold him if Kilkenny should whistle for him. Then, keeping the saloon between himself and the livery stable, Kilkenny walked casually out of the trees toward the back of the bar.

The biggest chance of being seen would be from the Sadler house, or by someone walking down the short street of the town. He made the trees around Nita’s house without being seen. Carefully he placed a hand on the fence, then vaulted it, landing lightly behind the lilacs.

Inside the house someone was singing in a contralto voice, singing carelessly and without pretense as people sing when the song is from the heart more than the brain. It was an old song, a tender song, and for a long time Kilkenny stood there by the lilacs, listening.
Then he moved around the bushes and stopped by the open window.

The girl stood there, just inside, almost within the reach of his arm. She had an open book in her hands, but she was not reading, she was looking out at the hills across the valley, out across the roof of the livery stable at the crags.

“It’s a lovely picture,” he said softly, “a mighty lovely picture. Makes me regret my misspent life.”

She did not jump or show surprise, nor at first did her head turn. She kept her eyes on the distant crags, and smiled slowly.

“Strange that you should come now,” she said softly. “I had been thinking of you. I was just wondering what you were like as a little boy, what your mother was like, and your father.”

Kilkenny took off his hat and leaned on the window sill.

“Does it matter?” he asked softly. “No man is anything but what he is himself. I expect his blood has something to do with it, but not so much. It’s what he does with himself, afterward. That’s what matters. And I haven’t done so well.”

“No? I would say, Kilkenny, that you had done well. I would think you are an honorable man.”

“I’ve killed men. Too many.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps that is bad, but it is the West. I do not believe you ever shot a man from malice, or because there was cruelty in you. Nor do I believe you ever shot one for gain. If you killed, it was because you had to.”

“That’s the way I wanted it,” he said somberly, “but it ain’t always been that way. Sometimes you stand in
a bar, and you see a man come in, and, when you look at him, you can tell by his eyes and his guns that he’s a gunslinger. That’s when you should leave. You should get out of there, but you don’t, and then sooner or later you have to kill him. You have power when you can sling a gun, but it’s an ugly power, and it keeps a man thinkin’, worryin’ for fear some day he may use it wrong.”

“But Kilkenny,” Nita said, “surely the West needs good men who can shoot. If there were only the bad men, only the killers, then what chance would honest people have? We need men like you. Oh, I know! Killing is bad, it’s wrong. But here in the West men carry guns…for wild steers, for rattlesnakes, for Comanches or rustlers…and some learn to use them too well. But the West can’t grow without them, Kilkenny.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You’re a smart girl, Nita. You think, don’t you?”

“Is that good, Kilkenny?” The hazel eyes were soft. “I’m not sure that a girl should ever think, or at least she shouldn’t let a man know it.”

“That’s what they say.” He grinned suddenly. “But not for me. I want a girl who can think. I want a girl to walk beside me, not behind me.”

“Kilkenny,” she said, and her hand suddenly came out to touch his, “be careful! He…he’s deadly, Kilkenny. He’s as vicious as a coiled snake, and he’s living just for one thing now…to kill you! I don’t think it is for the reason he gives. I think it is because he hates you for your reputation! I think he’s a little afraid, too. He was drinking once, and he told me, when we were standing at the gate, that he wasn’t afraid of Hardin. He said he knew he could beat
Hardin or King Fisher. He said in all his life only two men had him bothered. Ben Thompson and you. He’s always talking about you when he’s drinking. He said Thompson had more nerve than any man he ever knew. And he said that, if you ever fought him, you’d have to be sure he was dead, because if he wasn’t and he could walk, he’d come after you again. You bothered him because he said he couldn’t place you. You were like a ghost. Nobody could say anything about you except that you were fast and hard-shooting.”

Kilkenny nodded. “Yeah, I know what he means. When you’re fast with a six-gun, you get to hearin’ about others. After a while you get a picture of ’em in your mind, and, when you shoot, you shoot with that picture in mind. Most times you’re right, too. But when you don’t know about a man, it bothers you. A stranger rides in, wearin’ his gun tied down, or mebbe two guns, and he’s got a still, cold face, and he drinks with his left hand. Well, you know he’s bad. You know he’s a gun slick, but you don’t know who he is. It leaves you restless and uncertain. Once you know what he is, then you know what you’re up against.”

They stood there for a while in the warm sun, and a little breeze stirred, and the lilac petals sifted over his shoulders, and he could smell their heavy perfume. He looked up at the girl and felt a strange yearning rise within him. It wasn’t merely the yearning of a man for a woman. It was the longing of a man for a home, for a fireside, for the laughter of children and the quiet of night with someone lying beside you. The yearning for someone to work for, to protect, someone to belong to, and some place in life where you fitted in.

It was so different from all he had known these last bitter years. These years of endless watchfulness, of continual awareness, of looking into each man’s eyes, and wondering if he was another man you would have to kill, of riding down long trails, always aware that a bullet might cut you down. Yet, even as he thought of that, he knew there was something in his blood that answered to the wild call of the wilderness trails. There was something about riding into a strange town, swinging down from his horse, and walking into a bar, something that gave him a lift, and that gave life a strange zest.

There was something in the pounding of guns, the buck of a .45 in his hand, the leap of a horse beneath him, and the shouts of men, something that awakened everything that was in him. Times bred the men they needed, and the West needed such men, men who could bring peace to a strange, wild land, even while they found death for themselves. The West was won by gunmen no less than it was won by pioneering families, by fur traders and Indian fighters.

“What are you going to do, Kilkenny, when all this is over?” Nita asked softly.

He leaned his elbows on the window sill and pushed his hat back on his head. “I don’t rightly know,” he said thoughtfully. “I reckon I’ll just move on to some other town. Might rustle me a herd of cows and settle down somewheres on a piece of land. Mebbe over in the Big Bend country.”

“Why don’t you marry and have a home, Kilkenny?” Nita asked softly. “I think you’d make a good man around a home.”

“Me?” He laughed, a bit harshly. “All I can do is sling a gun. That ain’t much good around a house. Of
course, I might punch cows, or play poker?” He straightened suddenly. “Time I was ridin’ on. You be careful.” Then he paused. “Tell me, Nita. What hold does this man have over you?”

“None. It is as I have said. I like to live, even here, and alone. I know I would die, and quickly, if I talked. Then, after a fashion, he has protected me. Of course,
señor
”—she fell into her old way of speaking—“it is that he wants me for himself. But I belong to no man. Yet.”

“You can’t tell me who he is?”

“No.” She looked at him for a minute. “Perhaps you think I am not helping, but, you see, this is all I have, this place. When it is gone, there is nothing. And the people out there”—she waved a hand toward Botalla—“do not think I am good. There would be no place for me there. I can only say that he will kill you if he can, and you must be careful if you go to the cliff. And do not go by the path.”

When he was back on the buckskin, he turned toward Botalla. If Steele and Lord had their men there, he would bring them back to Apple Cañon at once. In his ride to the place he had carefully scouted the approaches.

It had been easy enough to see just what they would be facing in an attack on the stronghold. He could muster about sixty men. There would be at least forty here at the cañon. Sixty wasn’t really enough, for the men at the cañon would be fighting on their own ground, and behind defenses. And all were seasoned fighters. Nevertheless, much could be lost by waiting. The time was now. The raid on Apple Cañon, however, might leave the range killer at large.

As Kilkenny rode, his brain dug into the accumulated
evidence, little as it was. Yet one idea refused to be denied, and it worried around in his mind until he reached town.

He came up to the Trail House at a spanking trot. Dropping from saddle, he flipped a dollar to a Mexican boy.

“Take that hoss, Pedro,” he said, grinning, “and treat him right. Oats, hay, water, and a rub-down.”

Pedro dropped his bare feet to the boardwalk and grinned, showing his white teeth.

“
Sí, señor
, it shall be done!”