Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0) (20 page)

“Thought you’d need that,” he said.

“I did.” No need to tell him I carried a spare.

“You get one of them?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You didn’t see him after?”

“Didn’t have time. Didn’t need to. I shot where I was looking. He’s dead…twice.”

“One down,” Jenkins said.

“Yeah…and too many to go.”

“Like I said, when you get to Kansas City, you talk to Ben. He always knows what to do.”

The man with the chin whiskers no longer looked sour. “That was fast work, young man,” he said, “mighty fast. Who were they?”

“Doesn’t matter much,” I said. “The name they use isn’t their own.”

I slipped out my gun and fed three cartridges into it to replace those fired.

“Billy,” I said, “when we get to a station, wake me up, will you?”

He nodded. “I will. You go ahead an’ sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

“May have hurt one of your steers,” I said. “I think the crosspieces caught part of the shot, but not all of it. You may have a dead crittur on your hands.”

“You get some sleep,” Jenkins said, “and don’t you forget that telegraph. We passed a station back yonder.”

Suddenly I could scarcely keep my eyes open. I curled up in the seat, trying to make myself comfortable. Under me the car rumbled and bumped over the rails. The train whistled, a long, lonely call into the darkness.

And then I was asleep.

Chapter 16

H
E WAS SEATED on the top of the corral watching his cattle when Billy Jenkins led me to him. He wore corduroy pants stuffed down into laced boots, a corduroy jacket with the belt hanging loose, and a narrow-brimmed felt hat. His mustache was dark and streaked with gray. There was a touch of gray at the temples.

“Mr. Blocker? This here is Kearney McRaven. He’s got problems, and I told him you could help him.”

Blocker rolled his cigar in his teeth and glanced over at me. “Looks like a man who could take care of his own troubles,” he said. He motioned to a seat beside him on the corral. “Climb up and sit down.”

He glanced down at Billy. “Your report says you’re one head short. What happened?”

“That was my fault, sir,” I said. “That steer was shot with lead intended for me.”

“You catch any of it?”

“A couple of pellets. Done me no harm. Don’t know where they picked up that shotgun, but they taken it for granted it was loaded with slugs. It carried bird shot.”

“Tell me about it.”

So while Billy Jenkins went off about cattle business, I sat on the corral bar and told Ben Blocker about what happened and what I had to do about claiming my property. He listened, rolling his cigar a time or two but making no comment.

“They’re a-hunting me, Mr. Blocker,” I said, “and I can handle the fighting part of it. Maybe I can handle it all. Trouble is, pa ain’t with me no longer and I’d nobody to sort of talk it over with. Billy, he surely sets store by you. He figures you can do anything.”

“He’s wrong, Kearney. I can’t, nor can any man. Looks to me like you’re in trouble, all right. But maybe I can help. What you need is a good lawyer.”

“Pa always fought shy of lawyers. Said they caused more trouble than they ever settled.”

Blocker laughed. “Well…sometimes. But a good lawyer can save you a lot of trouble. For instance, I know one right here in Kansas City who was born in Carolina. He knows folks down there. More than that, he’s figuring on taking a trip home right soon. We’d better go see him.”

“No, sir.”

“What?” He looked around at me. “Did you say no?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t want to get him killed. Or tangled up with them women, either. Maybe we could get him to come to you…not me. Maybe I could sort of drop in on you, like.”

“You think you’ll be watched? And if you went to a lawyer’s office they’d guess why?”

“Yes, sir. And they’d kill him. I mean that, sir. This bunch are like wolves. They kill first and ask questions afterward. Killing the wrong man doesn’t mean
that
to them. I’ve been watching and I’ve seen nobody around, so they don’t have me located yet, but by nightfall they will.”

Blocker took out a heavy gold watch and glanced at it. “All right. These stockyards are in what is called the West Bottoms. You meet me at six o’clock in the Livestock Exchange, at Twelth and State Line. We can talk there.”

He paused, looking at me again. “Have you got walking-around money?”

“Yes, sir. I have enough, sir.”

“See you there.” Blocker dropped off the fence. “Keep out of trouble now. This here is a fast town.”

Carrying my rifle, saddlebags, and blanket roll, I headed uptown, keeping off the busy streets. Mostly I was worried about all that money I was carrying, so I headed for the Wells Fargo office.

Now, coming in off the street I looked pretty rough, but Wells Fargo had done business with rough-looking men since the gold rush in California. “I want to make a deposit,” I told the man in the office.

He looked me over carefully. “All right. How much?”

“Have you got a private office? I want to get in out of sight.”

He looked at me again. “Come right along,” he said, and indicated that I should walk ahead of him.

Seated in his office, I taken up my saddlebags and began taking out the money. He never turned a hair. In those days a man never knew who was carrying money and who wasn’t, and there were men selling stock down in the Bottoms or at the Exchange who looked a lot rougher than me.

It came to nine thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars. “I’ll keep the seventy fifty-two,” I said. “I’ll need some walking-around money.”

“That should do it,” he commented dryly. “Now, your name?”

“Kearney McRaven.” I hesitated. “Anything happens to me, this here is to go to Miss Laurie McCrae of Silverton, Colorado Territory.”

“My name is Eliot,” the Wells Fargo man said. “This is quite a large sum of money.”

I pocketed my receipt. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll leave my rifle and my gear with you. I’ve got some running around to do, and it wouldn’t look right to be packing a rifle.”

“Stay away from gambling, Mr. McRaven,” Eliot suggested.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not inclined that way. Do you know Ben Blocker?”

“Of course.” Eliot’s interest was obvious. “We all know Mr. Blocker and we have all done business with him. I had no idea you were an associate of his.”

Well, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by associate, but it sounded right so I didn’t argue the point. “Look,” I said, “there’s been some shooting trouble back down the line, so if a couple of men come hunting me, you don’t know anything about me. It won’t be a lie, because you surely don’t know much, but above all don’t tell them where I went. I don’t want any trouble in Kansas City.”

“Is the law involved?” Eliot asked. “We cooperate with officers whenever we can.”

“So would I, if they seemed to need it. So far the law has taken no interest in what’s going on, and I don’t think they will. Seems to me most officers right now are more concerned with what happens in their own town without hunting trouble outside it.”

He noticed my holstered gun. It was barely covered by my coat, but the tip of the holster showed. “You can be arrested in this town for carrying a weapon,” he said. “You know, this isn’t Dodge City.”

I grinned at him. “I surely know it, Mr. Eliot, but I’d sooner be arrested than killed, which is what I have to think about.”

At six o’clock I was at the Livestock Exchange, and the first person I saw was Ben Blocker.

“Good! I was getting worried. We have an appointment at the House of Lords.” Then he added, “It’s a gambling house, but you can get the best food in town there…if they know you.”

“All right,” I agreed, “but I don’t gamble. Fact is, I was just warned against it by Mr. Eliot over at Wells Fargo.”

“A good man,” Blocker said. “We’ve done business from time to time.”

As we walked up the street, he explained a little about his business, buying cattle in Texas and driving them north to the market, sometimes holding them on good grass until they were well fattened before bringing them to market. I had worked with enough stock to know competence, and had been impressed by the way people responded to his name.

“Mr. Blocker,” I said hesitantly, “when you buy cattle, do you ever have partners?”

“Almost always. Cattle buying isn’t as lucrative as it once was. Prices for cattle bought on the range in Texas have gone up, and so have the expenses of making a drive, but there’s still money to be made.”

“I’d like to get into something like that,” I said, “but I’ve been thinking of ranching, too. There’s mighty fine grass in the mountains out Colorado and Wyoming way, and the cattle can winter on the range.”

“I’ve heard of that.” He glanced at me. “You’ve experience with that?”

“Yes, sir. I held a herd on grass all last winter, and they came off in fine shape. The grass cures on the stem, and you won’t find any better feed anywhere. The trouble is that most of them are so hungry for profit they overgraze. Seems to me from what I’ve seen that small herds of mixed longhorn and Durham or longhorn and Hereford do the best.”

We stopped outside the door of the House of Lords. I was looking around warily. I’d seen two men following us and I said, “Mr. Blocker, there’s two men behind us who’ve been following right along. You’d better get inside.”

He smiled and put his hand on my arm. “Son, don’t worry about it. Those are my men…just in case. Billy Jenkins is one of them, because he saw those men who attacked you. The other one is Carlin Cable.”

“I’ve heard the name.”

Blocker chuckled. “So have a lot of others. He’s a good man with a gun.”

When we were seated at a table in a quiet corner, Ben Blocker ordered dinner. “Charlie will be along soon. His name is Attmore. Good man, with connections in the South. He came from the Carolinas or Georgia, I’m not sure which, but he will know what you’re talking about.”

He paused for a minute, his eyes sweeping the crowd in the gambling hall below. “You spoke of investing in cattle. How much money are you talking about?”

“Two or three thousand dollars,” I said.

“That isn’t all you have, I hope?”

“No, sir.”

“Good! Never put all your eggs in one basket, to repeat an old saying. At going prices, two thousand dollars will buy and deliver at the railroad about one hundred head of steers. No one can be sure what the market will be, but this year I brought them to Dodge City for eighteen dollars a head and sold for twenty-eight. Last year I started three herds over the trail. Indians stampeded one of them and managed to drive off about two hundred head. We lost a half dozen swimming a swollen river, and two more were killed in that stampede. All that cuts into the profits, as you can see.”

A short, fat man suddenly appeared at the table. He wore a gray suit, obviously tailored for him. His face was florid, his shock of white hair carefully combed. He carried a wide-brimmed hat in his hand. “Ben! It’s good to see you! And this,” he said, turning to me, “will be Mr. McRaven? How do you do, sir? It’s a pleasure, a great pleasure!”

“Sit down, Charlie, and order. Then we can talk.”

When I left my gear at the Wells Fargo office, I had kept with me my father’s buckskin case. Now I took it out and spread the papers before him.

He glanced at the map first. He looked at it, looked again, and swore softly. “Yes, yes! Well, I’ll be damned!” He looked up at me and tapped the largest plantation marked on the map. “You know the story about this place? They say it’s haunted.”

“Considering some of my relatives, I’m not surprised.”

He chuckled. “Met them, have you? Met Delphine? Oh, she’s a pretty one!”

He turned to Blocker. “Yes, I know the story, know the area, and that’s not surprising, because a lot of people do. That plantation has a bloody history, right from the beginning, but it’s a valuable piece of property.”

Briefly, I explained the circumstances of pa’s death and what had happened since.

“You killed one of them? You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. I know where I put my shots, sir. Either one would have killed him.”

“They’re a bad lot, Ben, a bad lot. I’ve known them or known of them since they were boys. Yant isn’t their name. It is L’Ollonaise. Whether they were related to the pirate of that name, I do not know. One of the boys was reared by a very decent family named Yant, but he ran away and left them. They have used the name intermittently ever since, as well as others.”

“The one with the scar on his chin?”

“Elias, and one of the most dangerous of them. A dead shot and a master with any sort of weapon. He killed a man in Charleston when he was but fourteen. He got off because he was so young and the man he killed was a notoriously quarrelsome man. Later he killed a man in a duel at Mobile, another in New Orleans. It is a question between he and Felix as to who is the most dangerous.”

“Not a pleasant family,” Blocker said wryly.