to Tame a Land (1955) (17 page)

He came in that night after the killing of Burdette an d I told him about the last words of the man from Maso n Crossing. Then we started talking, as we often did, abou t the gun fighters who were making names for themselves , about Hickok, Allison, Ben Thompson, and King Fisher.

"You ever run into Ash Milo, the Mogollon gunman?"

"Never did. He wasn't one of the Market Squar e crowd in Kansas City. That was where I saw Hickok."

Mustang rolled a smoke. "He's a mighty mean man.

And pure poison with a gun. I never did see him, either , and never heard tell of him until about two years ago.

In those two years he's made a name."

He tipped back in his chair. "He killed six men las t year. Hunted down two of them, two big names. Deliberately hunted them. He's mean, he's reckless, doesn't see m to care . . . or didn't at first. This past year he's tapere d off a little. Maybe he found something worth living for."

"Don't know much about him. Outlaw, isn't he?"

Seemed to me as I spoke that I'd seen his name o n some of the circulars we got in the mail.

"Uh-huh. Stuck up a payroll in Nevada. Then a train , some stages. Killed the marshal at Greener."

"Hope he doesn't come this way," I said. "I want n o truck with him. I don't want to kill anybody, not ever."

We talked and loafed through the night and finall y when daylight began to show we called the day watc h and turned in. After I got into bed I got to thinkin g about Mustang asking me if I'd known Milo. Maybe th e question had been more pointed than I'd believed. . . .

No, I was getting too suspicious. Finding double meaning s everywhere.

By then I had saved eight thousand dollars. Not s o much, maybe, but a sight for a kid with no education wh o was just twenty-one years old.

Folks in town seemed to like me. And I was gettin g to know them. The toughs passed me by, glad to be unnoticed, but the businessmen often stopped to talk an d their wives would bow to me on the street.

I'd always kept the office looking clean and dusted , but lately I'd taken to dressing up a little myself. I'
d discarded the old buckskins, and had taken to wearin g tailored black or gray trousers.

Also I'd started a move to clean up the back yard s and junk heaps. Not that I needed any help. All I ha d to do was drop a word here and there.

But always in the back of my mind was Liza, and I k new I would never feel free until I knew she was al l right, and until I was sure she was happy. Sometimes I g ot to studying about it and trying to put it all together: t he fact that Billings knew something about her, that Ol d Blue had been left at a nearby ranch, that Ollie Burdette had known something.

We had tried to find out where
Ollie Burdette ha d been hiding out before he came to Alta, but we got nowhere. His trail vanished utterly. For two months ther e was a complete blank space in his life.

Mustang never stopped digging around. Sometimes h e would come up with odd comments that started me thinking. Mustang was a patient man, and when I said h e would make a good Pinkerton, I was right. If I was a crook I'd not want him on my trail.

One day he came into the office just after I got up.

It was right after lunchtime. We had stood the nigh t watch, as usual.

"This here Ash Milo," he said, "he killed another man.

Killed an outlaw named Ruskin."

"Heard of Ruskin."

"Uh-huh. Bad man. Woman trouble. Ruskin neve r could leave them alone."

"Where'd this happen?" I was just making conversation. I didn't care where it happened. Or anything abou t either of them.

"Thieves' hideout. Place back on the plateau calle d Robbers' Roost."

Of course, I knew about the place. There was an are a out there several hundred miles square that was a know n hideout for thieves and killers. We had no big crime i n Alta, so it didn't affect us, but every time a bank, train , or payroll was taken, the bandits took off for the Roost.

And no posse dared to go after them. Only one eve r tried. The two men who survived had been shot to dol l rags.

"This Ash Milo is the boss back in there."

"Yeah?"

"You never knew him?"

"Not me."

Mustang, he let his chair legs down to the floor. "That'
s funny, Rye, because he knows you."

Chapter
15

THAT TOOK a few minutes to make itself felt. Then I s aid, "By reputation, you mean."

"No. He knows you."

I scowled, thinking back. There was no Ash Milo anywhere in my memory. Of course, a man meets a lot o f folks, time to time, and back on the cattle drive ther e had been a lot whose names I never knew. The same wa s true of Wichita, Dodge, Uvalde, and Kansas City.

There had been a lot of gun-packing men at Red Rive r Crossing, too. But no Ash Milo that I could remember.

"What gives you that idea?" I said at last.

"Because the word's out. None of that gang are t o start any trouble over here. They stay out of town an d they pull nothing crooked in this town. He told the m flatly you were bad medicine and to be left alone."

"Good for him. Saves trouble."

Mustang Roberts wasn't happy about it, I could see.

Something was biting him, eating at him. He got up an d paced the floor and he was studying this thing out. H
e had a good head and he thought of a lot of things.

"This may be it, Rye. This may be it."

"What?"

"The tie-up. The link between Billings, Liza and Ol d Blue."

"No connection that I can see."

"Me, neither. But it's got the feel. I think it's there."

That night I made my rounds about eleven o'clock.

That was the best time, because by then the boys woul d be liquored up enough to think they were mighty big , but knowing my gun was around usually kept the m mighty sober. Most times all I had to do was walk aroun d and show myself.

While I was walking, I got to thinking. It might be.

Maybe there was something to this idea. It might jus t be the connection between Liza, Billings, and the fac t that Ollie Burdette had seen Liza recently.

Pausing against the side of a building, I thought tha t over.
Ollie Burdette had dropped from sight for severa l months, and during that period he must have seen Liza.

On Robbers' Roost he would be out of sight and s o would she. And nobody would do much talking about it.

And Burdette had said a better man had Liza. Ha d he meant Ash Milo?

Of course, I knew a little about Milo. And since Mustang had mentioned him I'd begun remembering thing s and hearing more. I expect I'd been hearing them befor e without paying them no mind.

Many considered him the most dangerous gunman wes t of the Rockies. And they weren't giving him second plac e to Hickok, Earp, or any of them.

Returning to the office, I went through the files. Th e holdup in Nevada seemed t have been the beginning o f his Western caree n It had been a job with timing and finish. It ha d been planned carefully and had come off without a hitch , and must have taken place while I was on that cattl e drive.

The killing of the marshal revealed another side to hi s character. The account in the files told of Milo's literall y shooting the marshal to rags. It had been the act of a killer, of a man in the possession of terrible fury or a homicidal mania . . . or of an extremely cold-bloode d man who wanted to shock people into absolute fear.

The marshal before John Lang had kept careful files , and reading what I could find on Milo gave me a pictur e of a sharp, intelligent, thoroughly dangerous man who sho t as quick as a striking snake and asked no questions.

The picture was not pretty. At least twice he had kille d men because they got in the way at the wrong time. An d when they were only too anxious to get out of his way.

He was a man utterly ruthless, but also a man wh o seemed driven by some inner fury.

Ash Milo shaped up like no easy proposition. He wa s a very dangerous man, but he did not fit the descriptio n of any man I knew. So that part could be ruled out.

Nevertheless, the thought that he might have Liz a worried me. And where else could she be? Thinking o f Liza made think of Old Blue. When I awakened the nex t day at noon, after working the night hitch, I saddled u p and rode out to see him.

He trotted to the fence to greet me. It was good t o see the old fellow. I fed him some sugar, slapped him o n the shoulder, ran my fingers up through his mane . .
. A n d stopped.

My fingers had found something. Something tied o r tangled there. Slowly, knowing it was by the feel, I parte d the long hairs of the mane and looked at a folded squar e of paper. Untangling the mane, I untied the knots tha t held it in place.

It opened out, and I knew the handwriting.

Liza!

My heart pounding, I held it a moment before beginning to read. Then, finally, I lowered my eyes.

Dearest Rye:

Please don't try to find me. Go away. To find me wil l only bring you heartbreak and misery, and possibl y death. I am all right, and I am happy to know yo u are well, and away from here. Go! If you love me , please go!

Li.

So . . . at last a message. The gap lyidged by a fe w simple words. But she was sending me away.

That I did not think of at first. Only that she had t o be close. She was near.

Vaulting the fence, I stepped into the leather an d went to the ranch house at a dead run.

The old man had been washing dishes and he came t o the door drying his hands on a towel. "Figured to se e you," he said. "That girl was here."

"When was it?"

"Two days ago, along about sundown. She come wit h that puncher and two others. Looked mighty mean, the y did. She went down to see the horse and two of the m stayed close all the time. She asked if you had been aroun d and seemed pleased when I told her you was some happ y about the horse."

"How's she look?"

"Mighty pretty. Beautiful, even. Hair's pretty, and a good figger. Looks well fed, but ain't fat. Just nice-like.

But . . . well, kind of worried. Upset, maybe."

"Where'd they go?"

"Like I said, it was sundown when they showed. B
y the time they left, it was clean dark. I couldn't even se e to the gate, but I figure they went south."

No matter how many questions
I asked, that was al l he could tell me, except that they had not let her ou t of their sight, and the one puncher he had seen befor e had this time stayed well away from the house.

"Mighty interested in you," he added. "Asked a sigh t of questions." He returned to washing dishes. "Seeme d to me they picked that time to get here so's they coul d leave in the dark. I figure it was planned."

Descriptions of the men meant nothing to me, nor coul d he tell me if any one of the three seemed to have authority.

Liza had been treated politely and with respect, but the y had never left her alone with him for a minute.

Mustang was sitting on the walk with his back agains t the wall of the building when I returned to the office.

I told him what had happened and showed him the note.

He frowned over it, reading poorly as he did, but the n he looked up and said, "Man asking for you. He's a t the hotel." Mustang got up. "It's that gent from Denver.

That Denison what's-his-name."

"All right. I'll go see him. He say what he wanted?"

"No. Only he asked a lot of questions about you. Aske d about Burdette, and about the fight at Billings' place."

The hotel was a long two-story building of unpainte d lumber, some weathered by wind and rain. It had bee n put together in a hurry to accommodate the sudden influ x of visitors while the town was booming.

Denison Mead sat by the fire alone when I walked int o the lobby. The place was almost empty, usual for that tim e of day.

The room was big and there was a homemade settee , some huge old leather chairs, and the desk at one en d of the room with the stairway to the rooms opposite it.

The floor was bare and there were only a few crud e paintings on the wall, and one good drawing of a buckin g horse, traded to the proprietor for a meal two year s before.

Mead got up to shake my hand, and seemed reall y pleased to see me. His eyes searched my face curiously , and then he waved at a chair and sat down himself.

"Tyler, I'll get right to business. When I first met yo u in Denver I was struck by your resemblance to somebod y I knew. When you answered my questions, your answer s told me without doubt you were the person whom I t hought you to be."

"I'm afraid I don't quite get you, mister,"

"I told you I was a lawyer handling mining property.

My firm also handles the Blair estate. In fact, they ar e one of our oldest clients."