The Desperado (14 page)

He was gone before I could think of anything to say. Buck Creyton—a
name as deadly as a soft-nosed bullet. A name as well known as Pappy
Garret's, when the talk got around to gun-fighters.

I thought, Have you lost your guts? Why didn't you tell him that you
were the one that killed his brother, and not Pappy?

I didn't know. I just thought of those deadly blue eyes and felt my
insides turn over. He would kill me without batting an eye. Then I
thought, Just like I killed his brother, and the three policemen, and
the cavalryman.

I walked over to Red and swung up to the saddle. “Come on, boy,” I
said. “Let's get out of here.”

I waited for pappy at the camp we had made, up the river from the
herds. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to run or to stay with Pappy and
see the thing through with Creyton. Maybe I would have the decision
made for me, if Pappy ran into Creyton before he got back to camp.

Then—out of nowhere—I heard the words: Don't worry about me. I'm
not going to get into any more trouble. They sounded well worn and
bitter. They were words I had said to Laurin, and a few hours later I
had killed another man, a soldier.

Now I had the government officers on my tail as well as the state
police. Laurin ... I'd hardly had time to think about her until now. I
could close my eyes and see her. I could almost touch her. But not
quite.

I picked up a rock and flung it viciously out of sheer helplessness
and anger.

I hadn't asked to get into trouble. It was like playing a house game
with the deck stacked against you. The longer you played, the harder
you tried to get even, and the more you lost. Where would it stop?
Could it be stopped at all?

I realized what I was doing, and changed my thinking. You'd go crazy
thinking that way. Or lose your guts maybe, and get yourself killed.
And I wasn't planning on getting killed, by Buck Creyton, or the
police, or anybody else. I had to keep living and get back to John's
City. I had to get back to Laurin.

They didn't really have anything against me—except, of course, that
one trooper that I had shot up at Daggert's cabin. But a jury of
ranchers wouldn't hang me for shooting a bluebelly. Just lay quiet, I
told myself, and wait for the right time.

But there was still Buck Creyton to think about. My mind kept coming
back to him. I wondered vaguely if Paul Creyton had any more kinfolks
that would be bent on avenging him. Or the policemen, or the trooper.

At last, when I finally went back to the beginning of the trouble,
there was Ray Novak. He was the one who had started it all. I realized
then that I hated Ray Novak more than anybody else, and sooner or
later...

But caution tugged again in the back of my mind. Lie quiet, it said.
Don't ask for more trouble.

Pappy came in a little before sundown, covered with trail dust and
looking dog tired. I didn't know how to break it to him about Buck
Creyton. I wasn't sure what he would do when he found out that Creyton
was after him for something he hadn't done.

“I got us fixed up with a job of work,” he said, wetting his bandanna
from his saddle canteen and wiping it over his dirty face. “The Box-A
outfit needs a pair of swing riders to see them through the Territory.
Forty dollars a month if we use our own horses. That all right with
you?”

“I guess so,” I said.

He wrung his bandanna out and tied it around his neck again. “You
don't sound very proud of it,” he said. But he grinned as he said it. I
could see that Pappy was in good spirits. “It seemed like I rode
halfway to the Rio Grande looking for that outfit,” he went on. “But
it's what we want. The trail boss is a friend of mine and he don't
allow anybody to cut his help for strays. Cavalry included.” He patted
his belly. “Say, is there any of that bacon left?”

“Sure,” I said. I got the slab and cut it up while Pappy made the
fire. I decided I'd better let him eat first before saying anything.

It was almost dark by the time we finished eating. Pappy sat under a
cottonwood as I wiped the skillet, staring mildly across the wide,
sandy stretch of land that was Red River. There was almost no river to
it, just a little stream in the middle of that wide, dusty bed.
Quicksand, not water, was what made it dangerous to cross.

I put the skillet with the blanket roll and decided that now was as
good a time as any.

“Pappy,” I said abruptly, “we're in trouble.”

He made one of those sounds of his that passed for laughter. “We
were
in trouble,” he said. “Not any more. We've got clear sailing
now, all the way to Kansas.”

“I don't mean with the police. With Buck Creyton.”

I saw him stiffen for a moment. Slowly, he began to relax. “Just what
do you mean by that?” he asked. Some people, when they get suddenly
mad, they yell, or curse, or maybe hit the closest thing they can find.
But not Pappy. His voice took on a soft, velvety quality, almost like
the purring of a big cat. That's the way his voice was now.

But I had gone too far to back down. I said, “I saw him today. He's
working with one of the outfits getting ready to make the crossing.
He's looking for you, Pappy. He says he's going to kill you.”

Pappy sat very still. Then he said, “You yellow little bastard.”

The words hit like a slap in the face. I wheeled on him, my hands
about to jump for my guns, but then I remembered what Pappy had done to
Ray Novak, and dropped them to my side.

“Look, Pappy,” I said tightly, “you've got this figured all wrong.”

He didn't even hear me. “You told him I was the one that killed Paul,
didn't you?”

“I didn't tell him a thing,” I said.

“I'll bet! You didn't tell him that
you
did it.” Slowly he got
to his feet, his hands never moving more than an inch or so from the
butts of his pistols.

I suppose I was scared at first, but, surprisingly, that went away. I
began to breathe normally again. If he was determined to think that I
had crossed him, there was nothing I could do about it. If he was
determined to force a shoot-out, there was nothing I could do about
that, either. He was standing in a half crouch, like a lean, hungry cat
about to spring.

“You yellow little bastard,” he said again.

I said, “Don't say that any more, Pappy. I'm warning you, don't use
that word again.”

I think that surprised him. He thought I was afraid of him, and now
it kind of jarred him to find out I wasn't. Pappy was good with a gun.
I'd seen him draw and I knew. Maybe he was better than me—a hundred
times better, maybe—but he hadn't proved it yet.

He said, “I picked you up. I went to the trouble to save your lousy
hide, and this is what I get. This tears it wide open, son. This
finishes us.”

“If you're not going to listen to reason,” I said, “then go ahead and
make your move. You've got a big name as a gun-slinger. Let's see how
good you really are.”

He laughed silently. “I wouldn't want to take advantage of a kid.”

I was mad now. He hadn't given me a chance to explain because he
thought he could ride his reputation over me. I said, “Don't worry
about the advantage. If you think you've got me scared, if you think
I'm going to beg out of a shooting, then you're crazy as hell.”

He still didn't move. “You think you're something, don't you, son?
Because you got lucky with Paul Grey-ton, because you killed a couple
of state policemen who didn't rightly know which end of a gun to hold,
you think you're a gunman. You've got a lot to learn, son.”

“Draw, then,” I almost shouted. “If you think you're so goddamned
good and I'm so bad. Draw and get it over with. You're the one that got
your back up.”

For a moment I thought he was going to do it. I could see the smoky
haze of anger lying far back in those pale eyes of his. I felt muscles
and nerves tightening in my arms and shoulders, waiting for Pappy to
make a move.

Suddenly he began to relax. The haze went out of his eyes and he sat
slowly down by the cottonwood.

“What the hell got into us anyway?” he asked, shaking his head in
amazement. “Hell, I don't want to kill you. I don't think you want to
kill me. Sit down, son, until the heat wears off.”

It took me a long time to relax, but I didn't feel very big because I
had made Pappy Garret back down. I knew it wasn't because he was afraid
of me.

“Go on,” Pappy said softly, “sit down and let's think this thing
over.”

The anger that had been burning so hot only a minute ago had now
burned itself out. Me and Pappy getting ready to kill each other—the
thought of that left me cold and empty. Pappy had saved my life, he had
given me a chance to live so someday I could go back to Laurin.

“It's just as well we got that out of our systems,” Pappy said at
last. “I'm sorry about the things I said. I didn't mean them.”

That was probably the first time Pappy had ever apologized to anybody
for anything. And he was right. It was just as well that we got it out
of our systems. Sooner or later, when two men live by their guns, they
are bound to come together. But there was slight chance of it happening
again. You don't usually buck a man if you know he isn't afraid of you.

Pappy got out his tobacco and corn-shuck papers, giving all his
attention to building a cigarette. After he had finished, he tossed the
makings to me.

I said, “Hell, I guess I was just hot-headed, Pappy. I'm ready to
forget it if you are. We're too good a team to break up by shooting
each other.”

Then Pappy smiled—that complete, face-splitting smile that he used
so seldom. “Forgotten,” he said.

After it was all over, I felt closer to Pappy than I had ever felt
before. We sat for a good while, as darkness came on, smoking those
corn-shuck cigarettes of his, and not saying anything. But I guess we
both had Buck Creyton in our minds. I had already decided that I would
hunt Creyton down the next day and tell him just the way it happened;
then if he was still set on killing somebody, he could try it on me. I
couldn't guess what Pappy was thinking until he said:

“This is as good a time as any to push across the river. You get that
red horse of yours, son, and we'll be moving as soon as it's a little
darker.”

I got the wrong idea at first. I thought Pappy was running because he
was afraid of a shoot-out with Buck Creyton. But then I realized that
he wouldn't admit it that way if he was. At least he would make up some
kind of excuse for pulling out.

But he didn't say anything, and then I began to get it. He was moving
out on my account. He was ready to cross the Territory without the
protection of a trail herd so that Buck Creyton wouldn't have a chance
to find out that I was the one who had killed his brother. He was
protecting me, not himself.

I didn't see the sense in it. It seemed like it was just putting off
a fight that was bound to come sooner or later, and why not get it over
with now? But I didn't want to argue. I didn't want another flare-up
with Pappy like I'd just had. So I went after Red.

We crossed the river about a mile above the Station, keeping well
east of the main trail, and pushed into Indian Territory. We rode
without saying anything much. I didn't know how Pappy felt about it,
but I didn't like the idea of running away from a fight that was bound
to come sometime anyway. I figured he must have his reasons, so I let
him have his way.

By daybreak, Pappy said we were almost to the Washita, and it was as
good a place as any to pitch camp. The next day we pushed on across the
Canadian, into some low, rolling hills, and that was where I began to
see Pappy's reason for running.

First, we picked a place to camp near a dry creek bed; then Pappy
insisted on scouting the surrounding country before telling me what he
had in mind. Fort Gibson was on our right, Pappy said, over on the
Arkansas line, but he didn't think it was close enough to bother us.
The Fort Sill Indian Reservation was on our left, on the other side of
the cattle trail, but the soldiers there were busy with the Indians and
wouldn't be looking for us. The thing we had to worry about now, he
went on, was government marshals making raids out of the Arkansas
country. But we would have to take our chances with them.

“I've told you before,” Pappy said, “that you've got a lot to learn.”
He led the way down to the dry creek bed and pointed to a log about
forty yards down from us. “Pull as fast as you can and see how many
bullets you can put in it.”

It sounded foolish to me. And dangerous. What if soldiers heard the
shooting? But I looked at Pappy, and his face was set and dead serious.
I shrugged. “All right, if you say so.”

I jerked at my righthand gun, but before I could clear leather the
morning came to life with one explosion crowding on top of another.
Pappy had emptied his own pistols into the log before I had started to
shoot.

Pappy looked at me mildly and began punching the empties out of his
two .44's. I didn't even bother to draw my own guns. My insides turned
over and got cold as I thought of what Pappy could have done to me the
other night, if he had wanted to. I breathed deeply a few times before
I tried to speak.

At last I said, “All right, Pappy. Where do I start to learn?”

He grinned faintly. “With the holsters first,” he said. “If you don't
get your pistols out of your holsters, it doesn't make a damn how good
a shot you are.” He made me unbuckle my cartridge belts and he examined
the leather carefully. “See here?” he said, working one of the .44's
gently in and out of the holster. “It binds near the top where it's
looped on the belt.”

We went up to where the blanket rolls were, and Pappy got some saddle
soap out of his bags. “You don't develop a fast draw all at once,” he
said, rubbing the saddle soap into the leather with his hands. “You cut
away a piece of a second here, a piece of a second there, until you've
got rid of every bit of motion and friction that's not absolutely
necessary. All men aren't made to draw alike. Some like a cross-arm
draw, or a waistband draw. Or a shoulder holster under the arm is the
best for some men. You've got to find out what comes easiest and then
work on it until it's perfect.”