Radigan (1958) (3 page)

He dropped into a chair almost too tired to eat. In the past few days he had ridden more than a hundred miles, rounding up cattle, moving them to new range, cleaning water holes, branding a few late calves, then trapping lions and killing a cinnamon bear.

"Forgot," he said, "there's bear meat on the saddle." "It'll keep in this weather."

"Ever eat lion?"

"Sure, many a time. Best meat there is. First time I heard that from a white man was from Kit Carson, down to Lucien Maxwell's place, but the mountain men favored it above any thing else."

Child filled his own cup and sat down. "Don't you gorge yourself. There's more."

"You make a pie?" "No."

Radigan lifted his head and scented the air. "Bear sign?" "Figured you'd smell 'em first off. When you didn't I knew you were tired. Ma used to make doughnuts when I was a youngster and when I'd come from school I'd catch that smell, even if it had been hours old."

"You get me some, John. You ain't much for work, but I'd keep you on just for making bear sign. I never saw your beat." "Time was I've been kept making bear sign for three days without letup, make 'em by the dishpan full, and none left at the end. Men ride miles to get a handful of bear sign."

They were silent, busy with their food and thoughts. Only Radigan was eating, however.

After a few minutes he asked, "You eat?"

"Sure. I'd started out to feed the stock when that feller nicked me. First off I was of a mind to go scalp huntin', but he had me nailed down so I ate ... first thing I was taught was to sleep whenever there was time and to eat when there was food."

John Child went to the deep cupboard and brought back a plate of doughnuts. "Dig in, boy. There's a plenty."

"John ... who d'you reckon he was?"

"Gunman, that's for sure. Trigger tied back on his gun. And a mighty fine rifle.

He's got to be a hired killer."

Tom Radigan took down his rifle and went to work cleaning it. As he worked he occasionally ate bear sign and drank coffee. It had been too good to last. He owned seven hundred head of' cattle, and a nice bunch of' mustangs. He had spread his cattle around through the mountain meadows where there was good water and good grass, and from time to time he shifted his small herds to new areas where the grass was still long. The winters were vicious, and the snow drifted deep in most of the canyons. It was a brutal struggle to keep the herds alive but there were areas where the wind swept the grass free of snow, and there were protected valleys where little snow gathered.

There had been natural increase, and several times he bought cattle from movers. As there were no other ranches close by and the remote valleys restricted the wandering, the task of handling the cattle was a small one.

Radigan's progress had been steady, and in another year he would make his first drive to market. His income from trapping was sufficient to pay Child his wages and to put by a little, and from the first he had taken time out occasionally to wash out a little gold from the streams. None of them carried much, but to a man whose wants were simple it was enough.

The ranch on the Vache had been no sudden thing. From the first he had made up his mind to look for just the place he wanted, and when he found it his plans were well made and he was ready for the hard work they demanded. Every step he must take had been carefully planned, and he believed he had covered all the possible risks and chances to be expected. From the beginning he had been aware that the days of free range could not last, and he had never planned on the vast operations of the bigger ranchers. He was content with a small outfit but one that paid well, and he had solved the problem of making it pay.

At daybreak he was out of bed and into his socks and shirt. Then he stirred the coals and laid on a few chunks of pitch pine to get a hot fire going, then he put on the water for coffee.

When he had bathed and dressed he took time out to shave, the wiry stubble on his jaws yielding reluctantly to the razor. He was usually clean-shaven except for his mustache-his one vanity.

John Child came in. "Saddled that blaze-face sorrel for you. It's clearing up nicely."

"Thanks." "Want I should ride along?"

"Stick around. There's enough to do and I don't want the place left alone now. You keep your guns close and don't get far from the place."

Child grinned at him. "I'm a Delaware . .. you forgettin' that?"

"It's the English in you worries me. The Delaware can take care of itself."

"I've put up a lunch . .. and some of them bear sign." Radigan shouldered into a buckskin coat and went down to the corral. The sorrel was a good trail horse, half-Morgan and half-mustang, with lots of bottom and enough speed.

He stepped into the leather and Child put a hand on the saddle. "You watch yourself.

That dead man's face is something I remember and I remember it with trouble."

No need to worry, Child told himself. Radigan was a good man in woods or mountains, and like an Apache on a trail. He had been a Texas Ranger for two years and built a solid reputa
tion
, but he was not a man to shoot unless pushed into it.

The trail was plain enough, for there had been a hard rain that wiped out tracks before the shooting and wind enough to dry the mud and set the tracks since the rain stopped. The horse had galloped a short distance, settled to a canter and then to a walk. Several times it had hesitated as if uncertain, then had set out down the trail. The trail led right to the bottom of Guadalupe Canyon and after that there was small chance to wander.

San Ysidro was nothing much as a town. Three stores, two saloons and a third saloon that was called a hotel because they occasionally rented rooms, and a scattering of houses, most of them adobe. It was just short of noon when Tom Radigan rode into town.

There were four horses at the hitching rack and a buckboard, but nobody on the street.

Three of the horses were branded with a Running M-on-a Rail, a brand strange to him.

He tied his horse at the hitching rack and went into the saloon. Two of the men at the bar were strangers, the third was Deputy Sheriff Jim Flynn and the fourth a man in buckskins who trapped over in the Nacimientos. His name was Hickman.

They nodded to each other and Flynn asked, "Travelin', Tom? Didn't figure to see you around here this late in the year. "

"Man has to get out, time to time." He glanced briefly at the two strange riders.

They looked to be tough, competent men. But why here? There was no Running M-on-a-Rail in this part of the country and no open range. There should be a third rider . . where?

Deputy Sheriff Flynn was doing some thinking of his own. He had been marshal of' two cowtowns, sheriff and deputy sheriff elsewhere, and as far as he was concerned
San Ysidro was the end of the line. He was married now and the father of two children, and he wanted no trouble here.

A handy man with a gun who knew his job thoroughly, he had always been worried by Tom Radigan.

He had known such men before. Hickok and Courtright, of course, but Radigan was more like Tilghman, Gillette or John Hughes. He was a dangerous man, but a man with quality, tempered in harsher fires than San Ysidro could offer.

A quiet man, Radigan minded his own business and rarely drank, but Flynn understood the potential.
Knowing his business as he did he also knew there was no logical reason for Radigan's presence in town today. Radigan had bought supplies only two weeks ago and they usually lasted him all of two months, but this had been an order for the winter and unusually heavy.
Nor did Radigan come to town for company or to get drunk. The deputy sheriff took another look at Radigan's face and decided this was a war party.

Toying with his glass, he estimated the situation. What had happened that was different than usual?
What could have happened to bring Torn Radigan into town right now?

The answer was obvious. The three strange cowhands and the stranger with the buckboard.

All were armed, all looked to be tough, capable men; and more than that, they were better dressed, hence better paid.
These were not simply cowpunchers but fighting punchers.
And fighting men are not hired unless to fight.

"Stage is about due," Flynn commented.

"No rush this time of year," Downey the barman said as he leaned his thick elbows on the mahogany. "Folks just naturally start avoiding this country just shy of first snowfall, and they're smart.

One of the strange riders looked around. "Does it get cold here?"

Flynn nodded, looking into his glass. "You're up high, man. You're right near a mile above sea level here, and any place out of town it's higher." He indicated Radigan with a jerk of his head. "Up at Tom's place it's a half mile higher. And cold? Seen it forty below up there, many a time."

The door opened then and a big man came in. As tall as Radigan's six feet and two inches, he was thirty pounds heavier than Radigan's one hundred and eighty-five.

His square, powerful head sat on a wide thick neck and powerful shoulders, yet for all his beef he moved easily, and he glanced sharply at Radigan, then again.

"I know you from somewhere," he said. "Maybe. "

"You live around here?"

The cowhands had straightened up at the bar and so had Flynn. "Could be."

The newcomer hesitated as if to say something further but a shrill yell from down the street and the rattle of hoofs and harness brought the stage up to the door.

Flynn, Radigan thought, was relieved, but he made no move toward the door until the three cowhands had gone out. The big man stood in frowning concentration, then called after the last man through the door. "Coker," he said, "shake the snow off those robes in the buckboard."

Radigan glanced out the window. It was snowing, not very seriously, but snowing nonetheless.

He felt relieved. A good snow now might close the country for all winter. His first glance registered the snow, but the second caught the horse tied behind the stage.

Hickman stepped in the door. "Sheriff," he said, "we've a dead man out here."

Downey came from behind the bar. All of them went out but Tom Radigan. He refilled his glass.

Hickman glanced at him curiously. "Ain't you curious?" "Me?" Radigan glanced at him.

"I've seen a dead man."

He tossed off his drink and stared at his glass, wondering why he ever touched the stuff. He didn't really like it and he had discovered long ago that it took a lot to have any effect on him and when he got the effect he didn't like it.

The door pushed open and men came in carrying a body which they stretched on the pool table. The big man followed them in, his features a study in puzzled anger.

A man obviously the stage driver entered with Downey and Flynn.

"About ten mile out," the driver was saying, "we come around a bend and there was this horse, walkin' toward us. We figured it was somethin' for you."

The deputy sheriff stared sourly at the dead man. Why didn't they let the horse keep going? Clean out of the county? "Anybody know him?" he asked.

Nobody spoke up.
In the silence Hickman glanced quizzically at Radigan.

Flynn noted the glance.

"He's some shot up," Downey commented, "and I'd say early last night." At Flynn's questioning glance Downey flushed. "Worked with doctors durin' the war," he said.

"I know some thing about wounds."

"He could have come quite a ways," Flynn commented, "since early last night."

Torn Radigan was sure he knew what Flynn was thinking, that the unknown dead man could have come from the ranch under the mesa. There were not too many places he could have come from except maybe Jemez or Jemez Springs. Deputy Sheriff Flynn, Radigan decided, was no fool.

"All the wounds are in front," Radigan commented.

"That's where you'd expect 'em to be," Hickman said. "That's Vin Cable."

Flynn turned sharply around. "Damn it, Hickman!" he demanded irritably. "What would Vin Cable be doing up here? He's a warrior, a dollar-on-the-barrelhead fighting man."

Hickman shrugged. "How should I know what he was doin' here? Maybe somebody is startin' a war?"

"Cable must've killed five or six men," Downey said.

"That folks can testify to," Hickman added. "No tellin' how many he dry gulched."

The big man turned sharply on Hickman. "You talk a lot," he said.

"You don't like it?" Hickman's voice was mild. He was idly whittling with a bowie knife.

"Stop it," Flynn said, glaring at him. The deputy looked as sore as a hound dog with a had tooth. He smelled trouble, Radigan surmised and, good officer that he was, wanted to avoid it.

Coker came to the door and called to the big man, "Ross, Miss Foley is ready to go."

Radigan followed them to the street, and Flynn trailed after. A tall young man was helping a girl in a gray traveling dress from the stage. She had dark-brown hair and, as Radigan saw when she glanced up at him, green eyes. He escorted the girl to the buckboard and paused there as Ross joined them. What ever he said caused the young man to turn on him, startled and angry. The girl waited, listening.