Showdown at Yellow Butte (1983) (9 page)

"Slagle," he added, 'I know. McLennon I do not know. Your suggestion eliminates a frontal attack. We must try some other means. Also," he added, "I believe that your presence has some claim on that of Miss Duane. Consequently, as we can brook no failure now, I have a proposition for you. How would you like to come into the firm? As a silent partner?"

Keith's face flushed angrily, but Gunter looked up, his eyes suddenly hopeful. Burwick continued. "We could give you a fifteen per cent interest, which, believe me, will be adequate. I believe you could keep Miss Duane in line, and with you at the helm we might straighten this whole thing out
without bloodshed."

Kedrick hesitated. The money was a temptation, for he had no desire to be indebted to Connie, yet the money alone would mean nothing. It was that last phrase that gripped his attention and made him incautious. "Without bloodshed," he repeated. "On those terms, I accept. However, let's discuss this matter a bit further."

Keith spun on his heel. "Burwick, this doesn't make sense! You know the only way we'll get those people off is by driving them off. We agreed on that before. Also this man is not reliable. I happen to know that he has friends on the other side and has actually been in communication with them." "So much the better." Burwick pursed his fat lips and mopped perspiration from his face. "He'll have a contact he can use to make a deal." He chuckled. "Suppose you two run along and let me talk to Captain Kedrick?"

Hours later, Tom Kedrick paused on the street and studied it with care. Burwick had been more tha
n
reasonable. Little as he was able to trust him, he thought it possible that Burwick was sincere in his agreement to buy off a few of them, and to by to convince others. Certainly, if the Government moved in they would have to move, anyway. With Mc-Lennon and Slagle out of the picture the chances were there would be no fight, for the others lacked leadership. No fighting meant no deaths, and the settlers at least would come out of it with a little money.

He paced the street irritably, avoiding company. Burwick stank of deceit, but the man was a practical man. He realized that a sudden mess of killings preceding the sale of the land would create a furor that might cause them to lose out all around. At least, trouble had been avoided for the time and even Connie was hopeful that something might be done. Tomorrow Kedrick intended returning again to try to make some deal with Mc-Lennon and Slagle. A neutral messenger was leaving tonight.

"They won't come to town," Burwick had agreed, "so why not pick some intermediate point? Meet them, say, at Largo Canyon or Chimney Rock? Have your talk there, and I'll come with you. Just you and me, McLennon and Slagle. We can talk there and maybe make peace. Ain't it worth a try?"

It was only that chance for peace that had persuaded him and helped him to persuade Connie. She had listened in silence as he explained the situation. Then she had turned to him frankly. "Captain, you don't trust them, and neither do I. Uncle John has never been this way before, and I believe somehow he has fallen under the domination of those other men. However, I think that if Burwic
k
is willing to talk, we should at least agree. I'll stand by you in this and we'll hope something can come of it that will prevent trouble."

Kedrick was less hopeful than he had let it appear, and now he was studying the situation from every angle. As things stood, it was a stalemate. He was confident that with McLennon and Slagle to lead them, the settlers could manage a stiff defense of their town and their homes. Certainly, they could prevent the survey being completed and prevent any use being made of their lands.

Yet there were fiery elements on both sides, and Keith did not like the turn things had taken. Colonel Loren Keith had from the beginning planned on striking fast and wiping out the opposition. It would be merely another unsolved mystery of the West. Kedrick resolved to keep an eye on the man and be prepared for anything.

He returned to the St. James and to bed, yet he awakened early and was surprised to see Keith mounted and riding out of town at daybreak.

With a bound he was out of bed and dressing. Whatever Keith had in mind, he meant to know. Swiftly, he descended the stairs and went to the livery stable. Mounted, he headed out of town, found Keith's tracks with ease, and followed them. Keith turned off the trail and headed west and slightly north. But after a few miles, Kedrick lost the trail and took a wide swing to try and cut it again. He was unable to. Keith had vanished somewhere in the vicinity of Largo Canyon.

Returning to the hotel he found a message from Bob McLennon.. He and Slagle would meet with Burwick and Kedrick at Chimney Rock at three in the afternoon on Wednesday. It was now Monday
,
and a whole day lay between. Yet during the remainder of Monday he saw nothing of Dornie Shaw, although Laredo Shad appeared a couple of times, then vanished into one of the saloons.

At midnight the door of his room opened slowly and Tom Kedrick, gun in hand, sat up. It was Laredo Shad.

"Somethin's up," he said, dropping on the bed, "an' she looks mighty peculiar. Couple of hours ago Poinsett an' Goff showed up an' said they had quit. No fightin' here, so they were pullin' out for Durango. About a half hour later they mounted up an' took out."

"What's peculiar about that?" Kedrick inquired, building -a smoke. "That's in line with Burwick's talk with me."

"Yeah," Shad replied dryly, "but both of them came in here with a good deal of gear. They lost their pack horses somewheres and went out only with what they could carry on the one horse, and durned little o' that."

"What about Fessenden?"

"Ain't seen him."

"Any of the others gone?"

"Clauson is. At least, he ain't around in sight. I ain't seen him since morning."

That left Shaw, who had been around little himself, and Fessenden, if he was still in town. Despite himself, Kedrick was disturbed. But if Burwick was getting rid of his gunfighters it was a good sign, and probably he, Tom Kedrick, was getting too suspicious. Nothing, Shad said, had been said to him about quitting. "In fact," he said dryly, "the Mix-us boys pulled in this morning, an' they went right to Burwick."

'Who are they?"

"Killers. Drygulchers, mostly. Bean an' Abe Mix-us. They were in that Sandoval affair. Couple of men died awful opportune in that affair, an' come to think of it, Burwick was around. Fact is, that was where I met him."

"Were you in that?"
Uh
uh. I was in town, though, an' had me a run-in with Roy Gangle. Roy was a mighty tough ranny who'd been ramroddin' a big spread down thataway, an' when he got into the war he went bad, plumb bad. We'd had trouble over a steer, an' he braced me. He was a mite slow."

It made no sense gunmen leaving, but others arriving. Of course, the Mixus boys could have been spoken to before the change of plans. That must be it. He suggested as much to Laredo and the Texan nodded dubiously.

"Maybe. I don't trust that hombre none. Your man Gunter is in over his head. Keith, well, he's all around bad when it comes to that, but neither of them can hold a candle to that Burwick."

Study the situation as he would, Tom Kedrick could see no answer to it, and the fact remained that they were to meet Slagle and McLennon for a peace conference. Out of that anything might come and he had no real cause to distrust Bur-wick.

The morning was bright and clear with the sun promising a hot day. It was still cool when Kedrick appeared on the street and crossed to the little restaurant where he ate in silence. He was on his second cup of coffee when Connie came in.

Her face brightened with a smile as she saw him
,
and she came over to his table. "You know, you're the one bright spot in this place. I'm so tired of that old stone house and seeing that dirty old man around that I can scarcely stand it. I'll be glad when this is all over."

He studied her. "What will you do then?"

"You know, I've not really thought of that. What I want to do is to get a ranch somewhere, a place with trees, grass, and some running water. It doesn't have to be a big place."

"Cattle?"

"A few, but horses are what I want. Horses like that one of yours, I think."

"Good idea. It takes less land for horses, and there's always a market for good stock." He studied the beauty of her mouth, the quietness and humor of her eyes. "Somehow I'm glad to think you're staying. It wouldn't be the same without you. Not now."

She looked at him quickly, her eyes dancing with laughter, but with the hint of a question in their depths. "Why, Tom! That sounds almost like gallantry. Like you were trying to make love to me, like all the cowboys."

"No, Connie," he said quietly, "when I make love to you there won't be any doubt about it. You'll know and I won't be fooling."

"Somehow I think you're right. You wouldn't be fooling."

"Over west of here," he said, "west and south there's a great rim that stretches for miles across the country, and a splendid pine forest atop it. There's trees, water, game, and some of the finest mountain meadows a man ever saw. I know a place over there where I camped once, a goo
d
spring, some tall trees, graceful in the wind, and a long sweep of land clear to the rim's edge, and beyond it miles upon miles of rolling, sweeping range and forest."

"It sounds fascinating, like what I've been wanting ever since I came West."

He pushed back his chair. "Maybe when this is over, you'd ride over that way with me? I'd like to show it to you."

She looked up at him. "All right, Tom. We'll look at it together."

He paused, hat in hand, staring out the door. "Together .. ." he mused. Then he glanced down at her. "You know, Connie, that's the most beautiful word in the language together."

He walked away then, pausing to pay his check and hers, then stepping outside into the warmth of the street. A buckboard had stopped and a man was getting out of it, a man who moved warily and looked half frightened. He glanced around swiftly, then ducked through the door into the store.

Chapter
VIII

TWO men crossed the street suddenly. One of them was a man Kedrick had never seen before, the other was the sly-looking loafer he had seen hanging around the back door in the saloon a
t
Yellow Butte. The loafer, a sour-faced man called Singer, was talking. They stopped, and he indicated the buckboard to the man with him. "That's him, Abe," Singer was saying: "He's one of that crowd from across the way. He's brother-in-law to McLennon."

"This is a good place to start," Abe replied shortly, low voiced. "Let's
go!
"

Tom Kedrick turned on his heel and followed them. As they stepped into the door, he moved forward and caught it before it slammed shut. Neither man seemed to be aware of his presence, for they were intent on the figure at the counter.

"Hello, Sloan," Singer said softly. 'Meet Abe
Mixus!
"

The name must have meant something to Sloan, for he turned, his face gray. He held a baby's bottle, which he was in the act of buying, in his right hand. His eyes, quick and terror stricken, went from one to the other. He was frightened, but puzzled, and he seemed to be fighting for self-control. "You in this squabble, Singer? I figured you to be outside of it."

Singer chuckled. "That's what I aim for folks to think."

Mixus, a lean, stooped man with yellow eyeballs and a thin-cheeked face drew a paper from his pocket. "That's a quit claim deed, Sloan," he said. "You can sign it an' save yourself trouble."

Sloan's face was gray. His eyes went to the deed and seemed to hold there. Then slowly, they lifted. "I can't do that. My wife's havin' a child in the next couple of days. I worked too hard on that place to give it up. I reckon I can't sign."

"I say you better." Mixus' voice was cold, level.

The storekeeper had vanished, and the room was empty save for the three, and for Tom Kedrick, standing in the shadows near some hanging jeans and slickers. "I say you better sign because you don't own that prop'ty anyhow. Want to call me a liar?"

Sloan's face was gray and yet resolution seemed to have overcome his immediate fear. He was a brave man, and Kedrick knew that whatever he said now, he would die. Tom Kedrick spoke first.

"No, Abe," he said softly, "I'll call you a liar!" -Mixus stiffened as if struck. He was a killer, and dangerous, but he was a smart, sure-thing killer, and he had believed himself alone but for Singer. Now somebody was behind him. He stood stock still, then started to turn. Singer had fallen back against the wall, his eyes staring to locate Kedrick.

"It's Kedrick!" he said. "The boss gunman!"

Mixus scowled. "What's the matter?" he said irritably. "What yuh buttin' in for?"

"There's to be no more killing, Abe." Kedrick held his ground. "We're havin' a peace conference tomorrow. This killing is over."

"Got my orders," Mixus persisted. "You talk to Burwick."

There was a movement from Sloan, and Mixus whirled on him. "You stand still!" he barked.

"You can go, Sloan," Kedrick said. "Get in your outfit an' head back an' tell McLennon my word is good. You'd better stop thinking about him, Abe. You're in trouble, and I'm the trouble."