Radigan (1958) (10 page)

They would rest for a few hours, and he would make some plans. Despite their long ride they were again within striking distance of the ranch, and he had no intention of allowing the Foley outfit to get settled on the place. Fortunately, the horses he had on pasture were not far from here, held in a small valley that served as a corral with its sheer walls, plentiful grass and water. There were twenty-two head of horses there, most of them wild horses Radigan had himself broken to the saddle.

Throughout the early part of the day they loafed and slept, and meanwhile Radigan did some serious thinking.
He was a tenacious thinker, who wrestled with an idea until every detail was worked out, and now he realized that with the winter staring them in the face the first thing they needed was a base of operations that was warm, comfortable, and hidden from discovery.

Moreover, he had a few moves to make to render his own position secure. He anticipated no assistance from Flynn, nor would there be any forthcoming from the authorities in Santa Fe, although they would appreciate that right was on his side. But he intended to appeal to both, and to get his case on record. These steps were merely to secure his own position from attack by the law; the counterattacks he would make on his own. He neither expected nor wanted the help of the law.

He finally dropped off to sleep and awakened suddenly to find the canyon filling with shadows. The fire crackled and there was a pleasant aroma of coffee. Gretchen sat by the fire watching him. John Child was still asleep.

Radigan sat up and scratched his head. "Have you slept at all?"

"I'll sleep later. Everything is all right. I took a walk around down the canyon, but there was nothing in sight."

"You
'll
do to ride the river with," he said. "Did you learn that in a convent?"

"I learned that from Uncle John," she said, indicating Child. "He's as careful as you."

"It's a way of life. And there's times when it is the only way if you want to live."

He rolled a smoke and lighted it with a twig from the fire. It was going to be a cold night. "John told me the Indians wiped out your family."

"I remember so little . .. we seemed forever coming west that we lost track of time.

At least I did. Sometimes I thought the rumble of wagon wheels was the only sound in the world, that and the wind; there was always the wind in the grass.

"There was my father and mother, and I believe there was an uncle . . . it's so hard to remember. I had gone to the creek after some water with my father, and suddenly we heard shooting and yelling. Oh, I was frightened! Father made me hide in some willows and then he went to see what was happening, and I waited a long time and then went to find him and the Indians saw me."

"They treat you all right?"

"Oh, yes! They were excited about any yellow hair, and they were kind. But they smelled so funny, and I tried not to cry.

After that they made me work but they were nice to me and the Indian who found me treated me like his own child." Radigan walked out into the canyon and, catching a deadfall, dragged it to within easy reach of the cave mouth. It would provide fuel for the night. He walked up the canyon and gathered several large chunks and brought them back to the fire. The rim of San Pedro Mountain was crested with gold from the setting sun, and a deep rose lay along the flank of Nacimiento Peak. The sky was clear.

When he had saddled up he returned to the cave and accepted a cup of coffee. "No time to waste," he said. "I want to get started before the light goes."

"Be careful." "That I'll be."

He went out to his horse and slid his rifle into the saddle scabbard. Gretchen had followed him out. "Tom-be careful." A lost ray of sunshine caught her golden hair in a web of gold light.

"Sure," he said, and reining the horse around he cantered down the canyon.

An hour later he was seated on the side of a rugged peak something over a mile from the ranch, studying it with his field glasses. The cattle were standing about, and a horse was tied at the corral. After a moment he saw a man come from the house with a rifle. There was no other movement.

Then when some of the cattle moved he saw the faint flicker of a campfire at the base of the promontory. Several dark figures moved about. Some of the cattle had strayed up almost as far as his own position and he studied them thoughtfully. If a stampede started . . . it was just a thought.

Darkness came suddenly and he came down off the slope and rode down among the cattle.

Drifting back and forth across the valley, which was narrow, he started the cattle moving south. He worked slowly and with care, and a cold north wind helped. The cattle turned their tails to the wind and drifted. By the time he was a quarter of a mile from the fire he had at least two hundred head moving south. Suddenly he drew his pistol. For an instant it lay across the pommel of his saddle as he watched the dark figures of the plodding cattle, and then he fired and at the same time let go with a wild Texas yell and spurred his horse into the cattle. They broke and ran with two more shots and his wild yells to urge them on.

More than four hundred head were between his own group and the fire, and they started with a lunge.

There was a wild yell and a shot from the fire and then it was blotted out by a surge of bodies. The stampeding cattle swept over and beyond the fire and went charging off down the canyon. From the house there was a shout and the slam of a door, and then a pound of hoofs. Tom Radigan turned his gelding and walked it across the valley and lost himself against the blackness of the trees.

Skirting the marsh, Radigan found the Cebolla Trail and followed it over the mesa to the cluster of houses that marked the village.

At a house on the edge of town he drew up amid the yapping of dogs and when the house door opened he said, "Pedro, it is Radigan."

The door closed and he heard the pad of bare feet coming toward him. "What is it I can do, senor?"

"That black horse! I'll leave mine here." "Come!"

Pedro led the way to the corral and roped the black. When the saddle was shifted, Radigan said, "Better hide my horse. These are not good men."

"Do you need help, Senor Tom?" "No, no help."

"There are men. At Loma Coyote there are men. Good men for the fight. If you wish it I will ride there and they will come to you."

"No, not yet."

He rode south and camped that morning at a spot above San Ysidro. When he had slept an hour the sun was up and he saddled up again and rode down into the town.

Downey was sweeping off the boardwalk in front of the stage station. Slowly, he straightened up. "You're in trouble, Tom," he said. "I heard they ran you off."

"Did you?" Radigan tied the black to the hitching rail and straightened. He needed a bath and a shave, and a good meal. Suddenly he realized how hungry he was. "I left because I didn't want to be pinned down."

Flynn came around the building and stopped when he saw Radigan. The deputy sheriff measured him carefully, and then said, "You leavin' the country?"

"This is my home."

"I'd advise you to leave. You've lost your place, which means there's nothing to keep you here."

"You've made up your mind then?" "What d' you mean?"

"You've chosen your side, is that it?"

Flynn's face seemed to flatten out and grow hard. "I've told you. You start anything and I'll take you in."

Radigan measured Flynn carefully. "Don't try it, Jim. You've a wife and family. You don't want trouble because you're afraid you'll lose all that. The day you try to take me in, you've lost it."

Jim Flynn's jaw set, and slowly his feet shifted. And then he looked into Radigan's eyes and suddenly everything within him seemed to go still and cold. Radigan was not bluffing.

"Don't push me, Torn," he said, but even as he spoke there was certainty in him that if he attempted to arrest Radigan he would be killed.

"The day you try to arrest me without cause, Jim," Radigan replied shortly, "that day you'll die. I am in the right here, and it is you who've followed off a pretty red wagon because it's new. I'm going over your head, Jim."

"What's that mean?"

"I've written to the governor, and to the sheriff. I have notified them of the situation here. My certificates of title are registered in Santa Fe, and if you interfere in this, except to run that Foley outfit off, you are an accessory after the fact of a crime. "

Jim Flynn suddenly found himself with nothing to say. If Radigan had written to the sheriff and the governor, and if Radigan was in the right, then his own job was not worth a tinker's damn. At the same time he suddenly realized he had a strong distaste for a gun battle with the man who had killed Vin Cable.

At the same time the letter gave him an out and he was quick to accept it. "All right, I'll wait. I'll wait until I hear from the sheriff, and then I'll act, and if it's you I come after, I'll take you."

Tom Radigan made no reply. He knew what had happened to Flynn and he sympathized with him.
What was it Sir Francis Bacon had said, "He who hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprise."

Well, at least they made a man think.

Radigan went inside and accepted the drink that Downey poured for him.

"Breakfast?" "Sure." "You killed one of them?" "I think so."

"You did. They'll be in this morning, Tom. Some of them will be in."

"I'll think of that after breakfast."

He had written no letters, but now he did. He wrote the letters of which he had told Flynn and he wrote one other. To a Ranger captain in Tascosa, and it was an inquiry about the Foley-Thorpe outfit and their cattle.

He was on his second cup of coffee when Flynn pushed through the door. He walked immediately to Radigan's table. "You want to fight the Foley outfit?"

"Are they coming?"

"They sure are, four or five of them."

He nodded briefly. "Thanks, Jim." He had started to get up and then heard the pound of horses' hoofs and looking out the window saw the riders pulled up at the rail-five of them.

"Too late!" Flynn said angrily. "Damn it, you're too late!" "I wanted some more coffee, anyway," he said, and sat back down.

Flynn turned sharply around. "You can get out the back door! Quick!"

"I like it here."

Flynn stared at him, then started to speak. His mouth opened and then snapped shut and he walked to the bar. "Give me a drink," he said hoarsely.

Radigan picked up the pot and filled his cup. Then he leaned back in his chair and relaxed, watching the door.

Boots sounded on the boardwalk and somebody laughed. Then the door swung wide.

Chapter
Four.

The three cowhands who entered first were strangers to him, but the last two were Barbeau and Bitner.

They bellied up to the bar laughing and talking loudly, and obviously unaware of his presence. Whatever else the death of one of their number had done, it had not depressed them to any appreciable extent. Radigan made no move, remaining at the table, and watching them.