Читать книгу Blood on the Range - Eli Colter - Страница 8

FOUR days later, in that dusk which lies between sunset and moonrise, and all the rangeland lies in quiet dreaming, Doe Gaston heard a familiar step on the back stairs. Gaston had gone to bed early, weary with his conjectures about what could have happened to Gage Hardin, as well as about what was still to come. But he had not yet gone to sleep.

Gaston turned and lighted the lamp on the table against the wall, as Hardin closed the door, came in and slumped down into a chair before he spoke. His shoulders spoke eloquently of a mission that had not been accomplished, before Gaston said a word.

From the blackness of the yard there came the faint nicker of a horse. Chaser knew he was home. He was wondering why he had been left there, still saddled and bridled, with his comfortable stall so near.

“I thought—” Gaston expended his breath in a gust, as the lamplight grew from the ignited wick and steadied. “I thought you were never coming. Where is Vandover? Couldn’t you find him?”

“I didn’t bring him, after all,” Hardin said dully.

He slipped deeper down into his chair, his attention seemingly focused on the table and the lighted lamp. He did not look at Gaston as he suddenly began talking and hastily recounted all that had happened, in minute detail, since he and Gaston had parted there at the edge of the desert.

“He shot himself before I could make a move to stop him. I had to bury him there on the desert. I didn’t dare try to bring him back all that distance in the hot sun, with only one horse. It really doesn’t matter, anyway, Doe. I took Scotch back to Hoaley. He wouldn’t accept anything for the use of him. I got Chaser—and here I am. What has been happening around here?”

Gaston huddled in his underwear. “Nothing has had much time to develop, Gage. But I did this—I sent Red Corcoran for Sheriff Shawnessy. When the sheriff got here, I simply told him to go find Mary Silver.”

Hardin nodded, staring at the wall, in blank silence. His mind traveled back to the time when he had first come to Great Lost Valley, eight years before, when Guy Shawnessy had just been elected sheriff of Grant County. Great Lost Valley had then been wild and unsettled country.

Hardin had arrived in it with money enough at hand to buy the acres encompassing most of the rich valley and a great deal of the excellent rangeland to the south and west of it. He had established at that time the Circle Crossbar Ranch.

Within three years other families had moved into the Valley, and ranches had grown up around him to the east and north. Fred Warde had come with his wife and two sons, Gilbert and Lester, to found the Diamond W Ranch. Jefferson Baker, with his wife and three sons, Toby, Ferris and Walt, and his infant daughter Annie, had founded the J Bar B Ranch.

Not long after that, less than a year of time, Hardin had met Doe Gaston in Heppner, and Doe had eventually accepted a place as partner of the Circle Crossbar. A strange and unaccountable loneliness, but a loneliness nevertheless forever manifest, had lingered about Gage Hardin. Doe had never succeeded either in banishing it or sounding it.

The next people to move into the Valley, five years after Hardin’s advent, had been Mary Silver and her elder brother Melvin. Mel was apparently dying on his feet, of a treacherous heart, and he had wanted to die in the mountains.

Brother and sister had purchased a patch of land a few miles up the Valley from the Circle Crossbar, and had settled to make a home. Mel had not died. He had grown strong and secure.

Guy Shawnessy and Gage Hardin had realized in the same week that they both loved Mary Silver. She had had eyes only for Hardin, and she was of too honest fiber to make any pretense otherwise.

Shawnessy, needing but little and showing himself seldom in that territory, had taken his loss with grace—but he had never forgotten that he loved Mary Silver. Neither had Gage Hardin forgotten.

Gage stirred in his chair, bleak gaze intent on Doe Gaston.

“You sent for Guy?”

“I did.” Doe pulled his long-sleeved underwear over his wrists. “I figured that if there was one man besides you who would turn the world over to find Mary he would be Guy Shawnessy. He asked for a posse of picked men. I gave him Red Corcoran, Dutch Sundquist, Tamm Oaks, and Salt River Charley. They left yesterday at sun-up. I waited here for you. I haven’t much of a head for details, Gage. I did what I could.”

“You did all any man could do.” Hardin smiled, and this time it was not a grimace that he achieved. “You shot true, Doe. If Guy can’t find her——” He left the sentence hanging, remembering the coming of Louis Peele to Great Lost Valley.

Peele had first shown himself in the Valley four years ago. He had quietly investigated the Valley, to be certain that he had found Gage Hardin at last, then had bought the last remaining stretch of land in the Valley, the tract lying to the south of the Circle Crossbar, between Hardin’s ranch and the Diamond W.

From that day, Doe Gaston had known that old enmity existed between Gage Hardin and Louis Peele. The fact was blatantly evident in Peele’s mock courtesy whenever he chanced to meet any members of the Circle Crossbar crew. It was quite as evident in Hardin’s thin-lipped silence.

The more Doe had seen of Peele’s outfit, the more uneasy he had become. Doe Gaston never asked questions, but he had done more than one man’s share of wondering.

He had wondered why Hardin, with an inscrutable wry smile on his face, had nicknamed the cowboy inseparables, Corcoran, Sundquist, Oaks and Salt River Charley, the “Four from Hell’s Hill.” He had wondered why Hardin’s ancient enemy should deliberately move into Great Lost Valley and settle next the Circle Crossbar. Doe’s wondering had not decreased as time’s cycles waxed and waned. Peele had grown increasingly nasty and belligerent with every year that passed. Seeing that his nastiness and belligerence did not draw Hardin’s retaliation, Peele had begun to commit numerous depredations, such as cutting fences, stealing a few calves, butchering young beef, gradually growing bolder and more vindictive. And though those acts could never be proved to have been performed by Peele and his men, every hand on the Circle Crossbar knew that the guilt lay at their doors.

Doe’s wondering had come to be almost unbearable. He had wondered why Hardin had sternly forbidden any of his crew to visit the least reprisal on Peele. Such an inactive course under persecution wasn’t reasonable; but it prevailed rigidly under Hardin’s strict orders. Hardin had said just once that he was waiting the day when Peele would break all moorings and commit some overt act, rendering himself irrevocably answerable to the law. Doe had wondered at that, too, but his inarticulate wondering had availed him nothing.

He sat now, huddled in his chair in his underclothing, staring at the returned Hardin, startled to note that that inscrutable wry smile was again on Gage Hardin’s face.

“So.” Hardin roused himself, and drew his big body erect. “So—you sent Guy Shawnessy to find Mary, and for posse you gave him—the Four from Hell’s Hill!”

“Yes.” Doe repressed a shiver; something emanating from Hardin chilled him.

Hardin’s smile softened, relaxing a little. “It’s all right, Doe. You couldn’t have done a better thing. I—you——” The smile faded now. “You don’t know much about me, do you, Doe? I’ve always meant to tell you when the time came. Well, it’s come.” He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes fixed intently on Gaston’s face. “A long way from here, Doe, boy, in the high cattle country around—well, no matter: but a long way from here there is a mountain country that rises to its crown in a high peak. Back there they call that particular peak Hell’s Hill. It is one solid, strange mass of red rock, queer stuff ranging all the way from deep red to bright brick color.

“Fifteen years ago, when I was a youngster of sixteen, there were two families growing up in that ranching country, near the town of Tenville: two families living side by side, the Hardins and the Peeles. There were two boys in each family, two only—Louis Peele and his brother Harry, my brother Bruce and myself. Bruce was nineteen years old then. Louis was twenty, and Harry was twenty-two. We four about lived together; we were with each other so much that the people living there nicknamed us the Four from Hell’s Hill.”

“Oh!” Doe Gaston started.

For a fleeting instant Hardin’s thin smile returned. “Yes, Doe. That’s where it all started. I’ll try to get it said as short as possible. That friendship continued for about two years. Bruce and I were the younger, we were easily influenced.

“We thought Louis and Harry were fine fellows, reckless and full of the devil, but we didn’t realize that they were bad. Not till my father warned Bruce and me. He said Louis and Harry had been getting themselves into some pretty wild scrapes, and if we didn’t stay away from them they were going to get us into trouble. He was alarmed, and he succeeded in alarming us. We began to stay away from the Peeles.

“About that time Mrs. Peele died. Less than a month later my father was gored to death by a range steer. We made his death an excuse to stay at home, to keep quiet and avoid further truck with Louis and Harry. The Four from Hell’s Hill were on the verge of a permanent break, and Louis didn’t like it. I realize now that he wanted to use us, to make us his goats. He began prodding us and jeering at us, trying to force us to join them again. We tried to resist, but he had a smooth tongue.

“Louis pretended to see at last that he and Harry had been bad ones, and they promised to change—to act more like grown, honest folks—provided we two would take up our old ways with them again. Well, what would you expect, Doe? We’d been brought up together. We believed Louis.

“We hadn’t more than begun to run around with them again, when Louis and Harry held up a pack train of mules traveling north with a fortune in cash. The pack train belonged to a couple of old prospectors who had made a fair strike, had carted their ore to town and converted it into cash. They were on the way home with their money, all in one-thousand-dollar bills.

“I never knew how Louis and Henry learned about the pack train and the cash it carried. But they did learn—with a gang, they held up the pack train, killed the two old prospectors, and got away with the money.

“They weren’t very expert about it. They were suspected. They tried to drag Bruce and me into it. We weren’t with Peele that night. I couldn’t prove it, but I succeeded in making the sheriff believe in my innocence. The sheriff had come to our ranch after Bruce and me. After talking with me, he took his posse and went away. Bruce was not home. He hadn’t come home the night before, from Tenville. He didn’t come home that day. None of us ever saw Bruce again—alive.”

“You saw him—dead?”

“I did, Doe. He disappeared. We could find no trace of him. Mother was frail; she was laid low by the shock. Harry Peele had disappeared, too. And Louis, who had done the killing. Louis proved that he hadn’t been near the scene of the holdup. Things like that happen sometimes, Doe. The shock that had prostrated my mother killed her within three weeks. Two days after she was buried, a man came to the house at night, a big fat fellow called Porky Ellerton. I had seen him just once before, with Louis Peele, the day before the holdup.

“When I asked what he wanted of me, he said he knew where Bruce was, that if I would go with him, he would take me to Bruce and Harry. I asked just what was back of his coming to me that way, and he said he would tell me later. I went with him.

“It was a two-day ride we took. He led me to the slope behind Hell’s Hill, so far back into the wilderness, so deep into timber and across canyons, that I wondered how he could find his way. But he knew what he was after, and he went straight to it—a pile of leaves and rocks in a thicket. He got off his horse and tore the leaves and rocks away. You can guess what was there.”

“Bruce?” Doe’s tongue was thick. “And—Harry Peele?”

“Right. Both of them had been shot to pieces. They had been dead for nearly four weeks. I took from Bruce’s little finger the ring my father had given him. It is this ring, Doe.” Hardin held up his right hand. On his little finger was a plain gold seal ring, engraved with the initials, B H. “I turned away, and told Ellerton to cover up the bodies. He did it, and followed me back to our horses. Then I learned what he hoped to gain by coming to me.

“He openly admitted that he wanted to rouse me against Louis Peele. ‘Louis did that!’ he said, pointing to the heap where Bruce and Harry lay. ‘He killed them both. I saw him do it. Killed Bruce, and his own brother Harry!’

“I asked what Bruce was doing there. ‘Why, that holdup was pulled right back there,’ he said. ‘Bruce was coming back from Tenville, and he ran into us in the hills. He got curious as to what we were up to and followed us. After the holdup, Harry tried to stop one of the gang from getting away with the cash. Harry got it and started to run with it. Bruce jumped in and tried to take it from Harry. Louis shot them both down. And you—you have to get Louis Peele.’

“ ‘Why don’t you get him yourself?’ I said. He answered that he was afraid to try it. He was a poor shot. I’ve always been a good shot. He knew it. Well, I believed that Porky was telling the truth. But I didn’t know it. That is, I couldn’t prove it. Louis, remember, had proved that he wasn’t near the scene of the holdup at the time it had taken place. I went back to the ranch a very sick boy, Doe. My entire family was gone. I was utterly alone. With the help of the sheriff I sold the ranch and got out of there.

“Before I left, three men of Peele’s gang had been arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to the penitentiary. They were all men I had never seen before—a little rat with mean eyes, George Sidney; a gun-toting fellow named Jean Bluex; and a big ugly bruiser with a curly beard, Halvord Creegan, called ‘Vord.’ I saw them only at a distance, as the sheriff was taking them to jail. The week I left there, Porky Ellerton was found dead at the base of Hell’s Hill. He had tried to get Louis after all, and had failed—but nobody could prove it.”

“And you drifted down this way, and bought this ranch,” Doe added thoughtfully. “And Louis found you out, and followed you. Why?”

Hardin sighed. “I think I know, Doe, boy. I have never stopped trying to get something definite on Louis. He must realize that. Ever since he came here, I have held my hand and waited for him to break loose and give himself away.

“He knows how I loved Bruce. He’s afraid I will find evidence against him some time, and he’s bound to get rid of me, no matter what the price. He will never rest easy so long as I live. But he is too cunning to shoot me down in cold blood. He doesn’t want to hang, nor go to the penitentiary for life as those three of his gang did. He wants to force me to fight, so that he can kill me—in self-defense.”

“Oh!” breathed Doe again. “I’m beginning to see clear.”

“Yes. He’s on the rough edge, Doe. Yet—I know without asking you that there is no proof that he and his men killed Lonny Pope.”

“You’re right.” Gaston lifted miserable eyes to Hardin’s face. “There’s no proof that he carried Mary Silver off, either. But we all reckon he did. He knew well enough that her brother Mel had gone in to Pendleton to ride in the roundup, and that she was therefore there alone. He got the hands of the J Bar B all riding along the Diamond W line, helping Warde’s outfit—trying to catch some rustler that had been raiding the herds of both ranches. He was the rustler. But can we prove it? Hell, no! And while all the men of the Valley were down there, Mary disappeared. I know as well as you do who did it all, but none of us has any more proof than a jack rabbit.”

“What did you do when you found Lon?” demanded Hardin.

“I went straight to the J Bar B taking Lon with me. I didn’t dare accuse any one till I had something to go on. I did say that Louis Peele might have some knowledge of what had happened to Lon. The J Bar B crew don’t love Louis any better than the Diamond W boys do, o’course. We all went flying down to Peele’s ranch. It was plumb deserted, Gage. Not a soul there. Not a thing out of order, not a suspicious sign. That was when I went south after you.

“When I got back—what do you guess? One of Peele’s men came in, as smooth as cream. He said he had come back to take care of the ranch till Louis and the rest of the crew returned; that they had gone to Pendleton to the round-up and he had ridden with them as far as Sky Gulch. Could anything sound more reasonable? And how were we to prove that he wasn’t telling the truth?

“Even Warde and Baker cooled off. They told me I shouldn’t go off half-cocked and get dangerous notions against Louis and his outfit till I had some proof to back me up, even if we didn’t any of us like them too well. What was there left for me to do, Gage?”

“Exactly what you did do, Doe—send for Guy Shawnessy. It’s a damn mess. The Four from Hell’s Hill gone with the sheriff to hunt Louis Peele! But we can’t waste time sitting here shooting the breeze, Doe. Mel will be getting back from the round-up——”

“But he won’t!” Doe interrupted. “A bad horse piled him and broke his left hip. He’ll have to stay there in the hospital for months. We just got word.”

“That’s bad, Doe! Bad for him, and for us, right now when we need him too——” Hardin cut himself short, as there came from the night outside the drumming sound of a horse’s hoofs, approaching at a hard gallop. He turned his head swiftly to stare at Gaston.

They sat rigid, listening. The wildly running horse reached the lane, raced down it, and came to a staggering blowing halt in the rear yard near the house. The sound of a man’s spur chains clinked through the silent night, as the rider of the horse heaved himself from the saddle and advanced toward the house.

Hardin sprang to his feet, half drawing his right-hand gun. He leaped to the door and swung it open.

Guy Shawnessy lurched up the back steps and staggered across the porch. Hardin fell back a step as the sheriff stumbled into the room.

Shawnessy was hatless. His thick, blond, curling hair was matted with blood that had oozed from a wound in the scalp above his right temple. His pale face was streaked with blood and grime, drawn with pain and weariness.

His clothes were torn in numerous places and caked with dirt. His left arm hung limp. The shirt over his left shoulder was bullet-torn and dark with blood. There was a bullet hole in the top of his right boot, but the bullet which had made it had barely scored the skin.

In his arm he held Mary Silver. The right arm gripped her against his chest. Her lax body was further supported by the suspenders he had removed and tied about his body and hers for the purpose.

Her clothes were soiled and torn, also, spotted with blood from his wounds, but she was uninjured. Her face was drawn and white under the grime of dust and sweat. Racked by terror, vitiated by exhaustion, she was as soundly asleep as a person drugged.

Doe gaped at them, with appalled eyes, utterly unconscious of his scant garb.

Shawnessy turned a glassy gaze on Hardin. He seemed to be striving fully to convince himself that he had reached his destination at last. “Take her, Gage. Quick, man!”

Hardin dropped his half-drawn gun into its holster, slammed shut the door, and leaped to meet Shawnessy’s swaying figure, all in one coordinated movement. He jerked asunder the suspenders that held Mary Silver’s knees to the sheriff’s side.

As he took her unconscious body into his arms, Shawnessy, relieved of the dead weight, closed his eyes and fell forward on his face.