Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 88

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Dave Denver made his preparations in the dark hour preceding dawn. He ordered the best horses saddled and brought to the porch. He opened his gun locker and distributed the rifles resting there, at the same time dividing his outfit into three parts, one to patrol his range, one to return to work, and one to ride under him. From the patrolling party he dispatched a man to Sundown for Dr. Williamson and another to Steele's ranch. The rest of that particular group he detailed to various points in the hills. All ate a hurried breakfast. The work party went off discontentedly; and when the first gray light of morning broke through the fog he gathered his chosen riders, mounted, and swung up the side of the ridge to trace the hoofprints of Cal Steele's horse. Lyle Bonnet, traveling directly behind, offered a brief suggestion.

"Better send somebody to tell Leverage. It's a matter for the vigilantes."

Denver shook his head. "I'll never ask anybody else to do a dirty chore I ought to do myself. And don't get it in your head, Lyle, that I want anybody else to settle this. I'll find the party who killed Cal—and I'll smile when I see him dead."

The yielding earth bore the print of Steele's last ride for better than two miles straight down the trail. At that point the tracks swung into the slope of Starlight, crossed the bottom of the canyon, and angled along the far side. Once Denver halted and got down. Steele had fallen from the saddle. A carpet of leaves was marked with the man's blood.

"He had a bad time gettin' back on," muttered Denver. "Don't see how he ever made it. It's clear as day his strength was about gone."

Beyond Starlight the trail went zigzagging through timber. Denver advanced slowly. His friend seemed to have got lost and in sheer despair given his horse free head. All through the timber were places where the pony had circled, doubled on its own course, and straightened again for the canyon. As the day broadened Denver pushed deeper into the secretive glens and pine reaches guarding the Copperhead watershed. Cal Steele's trail began to straighten.

"Not far from the place now," said Denver. "See, he had control of himself for a little while and managed to make a true course."

Thirty minutes later Denver halted in an upland meadow and pointed at the broken surface of the soil. Hoofmarks overran the meadow and muddied it as if to blot out some sinister story that had been there. Into this confused area ran the pony tracks—and there were lost to distinct view.

"Here's where it happened," announced Denver, eyes flaring. "Now let's see where all these night birds went afterward. Cut back into the trees and circle. Keep out of the meadow or you'll make the ground worse than it is."

Lyle Bonnet, already on the quest, jumped from his saddle and bent over. "Here's a hat, Dave."

Denver rode over and took it. He looked briefly at the sweatband. "Cal's," he said. And while the crew scouted off he went back to the center of the meadow and tried to construct some sort of a story. "Cal had warnin'," he reflected. "Somebody came to the dance and tipped him off. Then he came here, smashed into trouble, and made his last stand. Those shots Bonnet heard must have been the ones that riddled him. They came from this direction about a half hour or so after he left the dance. That means he lost no time. Didn't hunt around but rode right into it. In other words he knew where this bunch was—or the messenger knew. And who was that messenger?"

Lyle Bonnet returned. "Must have been twenty men in the party. They pulled the old Apache trick. Shot him to ribbons and then scattered. There's a dozen or more tracks leadin' away to every point of the compass."

"So," reflected Denver. "But before they could go away they had to come. Must be some tracks pointing in."

"Yeah. They rode up from the Copperhead together, accordin' to my judgment."

Denver studied Steele's hat. "Blood on it. Blood all over the trail. A good man's blood waterin' this damned dark country. Come on, we'll start trackin'. No use wastin' time here."

With the crew behind him, he swept across the meadow and struck the inbound trail of the night party. It took him downhill to the south-east. From the clots of mud spattering the brush he knew that the group had come along at a fast clip. Come from where? Presumably from the river. But there was extraordinarily rough country along the river at this point, which brought him to the possibility that the outlaws had dashed out of the Sky Peak country and crossed the bridge. That as well seemed unlikely. The dance hall was too close to the bridge to permit unobserved passage of any large party during the evening.

Lyle Bonnet's shrewd mind had been going along much the same line of reasoning. "They musta spurred out of the south, Dave, and circled the schoolhouse at a distance."

"Maybe," agreed Denver. "But maybe they didn't. Maybe they were on Steele's range, or Nightingale's range, and looped around to the meadow. They were near enough this country at midnight for some friend of Steele's to see them and give Cal a warning. That meadow is on my range but close to Cal's. Maybe he got warning they were rustling his stuff and rode off to take a hand. And found them on my soil instead."

"Sounds unlikely," observed Bonnet. "It was awful dark last night. Either he knew right where they were, or else they made a powerful lot of noise. No trail he might have took to get home would bring him near the meadow. What defeats me is why he didn't let somebody know about it instead of ridin' off alone."

Denver shook his head, saying nothing. Cal Steele was a man of moods and never quite fathomable. Mystery surrounded his last hours, a part of the brooding mystery that of late hovered over Yellow Hill County.

He drew in, having reached the gravel road connecting Sundown Valley with the ranches along the Copperhead. At this point the outlaw trail left the soft ground of the ridge and fell into the road, merging with all the other prints of travel along it.

"They come from Steele's or Nightingale's all right," stated Bonnet after a long inspection. "But that ain't what we want to know. Our question is where they went afterward. How about sendin' two-three boys back to the meadow and trackin' down some of those departin' buzzards? Sooner or later we'd find where the bunch come together again."

Denver rolled a cigarette. "No, there's an easier way, Lyle. If it was just one man or two men we'd have to scout from the beginnin' and unravel what we found. But when it's a mess of twenty or more there ain't much doubt in my mind as to who we're looking for. There ain't but one gang in Yellow Hill that big."

"Meaning Lou Redmain," mused Bonnet. "If you consider doin' what I think yuh are, then I'd say send somebody back for the rest of the crew. Eight of us ain't enough."

For a still longer time Denver sat in the saddle, staring down the road. He was arrived at last at that crisis to which he long had hoped he never would come. To live and let live—such was the very foundation of all his thoughts and acts. He wished to have no part in judging what was good and what was bad. Yet for all that he could not escape from the clear call of his conscience. He would fight his own battles, he would justify his friends. No matter if it meant the end of all peace, no matter if it meant Yellow Hill was to be torn asunder and left aswirl with powder smoke.

And so it would be when he turned the crew around and started west on that road. He was too wise to believe differently. Inevitably the force he represented would collide with the force that Lou Redmain stood for; and in that conflict nobody could say what result would arise. It was grim irony that he trembled on the very margin of an act he had condemned at the Association meeting. He had rejected the quasi-legal opportunity to strike at Redmain and now was about to strike without the shadow of any formal sanction. This was war, this was violence but one degree above Redmain's own outlawry. No matter what background there might be of rough-handed justice, that staring fact remained, and David Denver was too candid with himself to avoid it.

Yet he had no wish to avoid it. Through many months he had seen violence smoking up to some enormous culmination. Quite clear-sightedly he had seen it and made known the fact that he was not to be counted as a partisan unless the one and only one proviso arose. Well, it had arisen. Cal Steele was dead. And somewhere Lou Redmain was preparing to strike again. For with a man who declares the sky to be his limit there could be no halfway point, no line of decency. Redmain would go on, from one piece of violence and banditry to another, with increasing contempt of law. He would never stop—until he died. So the problem lay clear and simple in David Denver's mind. He tossed away his cigarette, turning to the crew.

"I reckon I'm responsible for whatever happens and whoever gets hurt. You know what's ahead. I won't ask anybody to ride with me that feels different. Sing out now before we start."

A short constrained silence followed. Lyle Bonnet raked the men with sober eye and spoke for them. "Now that you've got that ceremony off yore chest, let's waste no more time."

"All right—"

The sound of a cavalcade came drumming around the bend. It was Steele's crew with Hominy Hogg leading. The party halted.

"We was a-comin' around to meet yuh by Starlight," explained Hominy. "What's the ticket?"

"We're crossing over Sundown Valley," said Denver.

"The sooner the better," grunted Hominy. "I thought you'd do it. That's why we come loaded, all of us."

"Didn't you know about what happened before I sent a man over?" queried Denver.

"Nope. Steele left around eight last night, alone. Said he'd probably be home considerable late. That's the last we saw or heard, till Ben come along with yore note."

"Didn't one of you fellows ride to the dance and give him a message?" persisted Denver.

Hominy Hogg looked blank. "Nobody as I know about. Fact is, none of our outfit went to the dance. Steele seemed to sorter have trouble on his mind and told us to stick close to quarters."

"I'd give a great deal to know who the man was," was Denver's slow answer. "He led Cal to the slaughter—and disappeared. You understand, boys, that we're starting something, and it may be a long pull before we're finished. If anybody's got an idea this is just a holiday he'd better drop out."

"Whud yuh suppose we come for?" countered Hominy. "This business leads back to one gent. Go ahead. You do the thinkin' and we'll do the shootin'. As long as it takes."

Denver reined his horse about and set off, the men pairing behind. Around and down and up the twisting gravel road they galloped, thirty-odd riders heavily armed and single minded. They passed the mouth of Starlight and came into the Sundown-Ysabel Junction stage road. They traversed the plank bridge at Sweet Creek and labored along the hairpin turns, and so came at last to the level stretch across which Shoshone Dome threw its shadow. Here Denver turned over the soft meadows of Sundown Valley and entered the dark land bordering the Wells.

All along this route Denver's mind kept plucking away at the puzzle of Cal Steele's unknown informant. Who, other than one of his own crew, would come hasting out of the night to warn him? And, having done that, vanish from the picture? If this man had known of the outlaws and had considered it important enough to reach Cal Steele, why then did he not go back with Steele and engage in the same fight? Perhaps he had done so. And escaped when Steele fell. Then why was it that the man had not gone to tell others instead of dropping from view? Had he been wounded and crawled into some thicket to die? Or was the fellow some traitorous friend of Steele's who had knowingly led the latter to destruction? This was possible, though it seemed queer to Denver that Steele would let himself easily into a trap. Steele had lived in the country long enough to understand all the tricks.

But over and above all these speculations one unexplainable fact kept jarring every probable hypothesis. Steele had gone off without help, without confiding in another. And he had gone off in a seriously upset frame of mind. Only a disturbance of major import could have placed that pallor and those lines on the easy- going man's cheeks. Each time Denver reverted to that final scene at the dance he was conscious of a strange chill, a premonition of evil. His mind beat against the black curtain of uncertainty. For a brief instant that curtain slipped aside, and Denver caught sight of something that repelled and hardened him. He ripped out an oath. Lyle Bonnet forged beside him swiftly.

"See somethin'?"

But Denver shook his head and set his jaws. He pulled himself away from his painful thinking and with visible effort concentrated his senses on the tangible world about him. He experienced a sudden dread at allowing himself to tamper with that concealing curtain again.

Lyle Bonnet was once more beside him. "You goin' to smash right down, Dave? Or put a ring around 'em?"

Only then did Denver realize the full absorption of his thoughts. He had covered five rugged miles almost sightlessly. They were in a widening bay of the pines, a bay that entered a scarred hillside clearing. And over there, slumbering under the full sun, were the unlovely buildings of the Wells. Nothing moved in the street, By common consent the party halted.

"Looks a little fishy to me," observed Bonnet. "Too damned deserted. I'd hate to run into a pour of lead."

"Not even no smoke from the chimbleys," observed Hominy Hogg.

Denver's nerves tightened, an acute clarity came to all his senses. In that lull of time every detail of the sagging buildings, the frowzy street, the scarred hillside registered indelibly on his brain. He actually felt the quality of suspended, breathless silence emanating from the place and the almost animate glare of the windows facing him.

Denver made his disposition of forces quickly. "You take half your men, Hominy, and circle for the top of that hillside. Then walk out of the trees and straight down. Lyle and six others will go to the right, curve clear around, and get set to come into the street from that end. I'll wait here. Hominy's got the longest trip. When he rides to view, the rest of us start accordingly."

Hominy wanted to be absolutely sure of Denver's intent. "In case they don't quite make up their minds to fight or be peaceable, what's our cue?"

"If Redmain's yonder," said Denver, "there can be no question what he'll do. He's burned his bridges and cut himself off. Nothing left for him but fight it out."

"But in case—"

"There ain't any other answer, for him or for us," broke in Denver with sudden impatience. "Get going!"

The two parties filed through the trees; Denver waited with cold patience. He had come to the Wells once before, ready to cast up accounts. Lou Redmain had spoken softly, calling upon his given word as a mark of friendship, yet all the while meaning not a syllable of it. This day there would be none of that. The outlaw chief had forfeited the right to make a promise. There remained no solitary rule of human conduct by which he might establish his faith. He had nothing left but his jungle instincts, plus that lusting spark of domination that at once made him far more dangerous than any other beast of prey. For, while the lower animals obeyed the inevitable cycle of their kind, a renegade man obeyed only his own impulses, and it was impossible to tell what these impulses might be from hour to hour.

The stark barrenness of the town challenged Denver's watchful eyes. Methodically he swept every corner, every rubbish pile, every shaded crevice. Some doors were shut, some swung ajar. The street seemed cleared for ambush, yet if Redmain were hidden there, no sign or portent rose to warn Denver. As he considered this he looked aside and found Hominy's men advancing from the high trees. At once he gathered his reins and walked into the clearing, the following men spreading fan-wise to either side of him. Hominy accelerated the pace and deployed his party to command the Wells from behind. Lyle Bonnet, having less room to maneuver on the far side of town, elected to speed up and so reached the street in advance of the others. Denver spurred by the first building and jumped to the high porch of the saloon. Watchfulness gave way. He yelled suddenly. "Spread out! Smash down the doors! Don't bunch up!" And he plunged into the saloon one pace ahead of Lyle Bonnet, gun lifted to debate his entry. The oncoming riders carried him a dozen feet before he hauled short, surprised at what he found.

There was no opposition, no renegades ranked along the walls. Behind the bar the black giant lolled, saying nothing. A dozen oldish men and six or seven women clustered sullenly at the far end of the place and stared back with apathetic hatred. Half expecting trickery, he turned about. But he could hear the others of his party running from building to building, calling down their signals. Hominy roared a savage challenge. "Where is that skunk-stinkin' pirate? Knock hell out o' the joint!" A woman laughed, shrill and scornful.

"You better get up earlier in the mornin' to find anybody here, Mister Denver!"

He swung on the drab group. "Well, where are they?"

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" retorted the woman. "Go and find out!"

He aimed for a rear door, went through it at a stride, and found himself in a hall. A stairway climbed to dim upper regions. Bonnet and a few others pursued him.

"Careful," muttered Bonnet; "this is a damned fine slaughterin' pen!"

Denver struck the banister with his gun barrel and listened to the echo run blankly through upper emptiness. That seemed to convince him. He sprang along the stairs three at a time, arrived at the second-floor landing, and saw more doors yawning into a hall. His men filed in either direction covering these dingy rooms One room at the end seemed larger than the rest, and Denver went in. The bed was made, and a trunk and some personal effects indicated occupancy, but from the open bureau drawers and the scattered tills of the trunk he guessed what Redmain had done.

"They've scattered," he told the incoming Bonnet. "Took their travelin' gear and departed. Redmain knows he never would be safe a minute with this for headquarters."

He dropped the top of the trunk and stared at the "L. R." burned in the wood ribs. Bonnet found grim amusement in that. "The high card's own private roost, uh? By golly, he'll sleep in harder places than this from now on."

Denver only heard part of his foreman's comment. He had found half of a book page tacked to the wall with this fragment of verse on it:

Into this Universe, and Why Not Knowing

Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,

I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

Denver ripped the page from the wall and crushed it in his blackened fist. "The poor condemned fool! What couldn't a man like that do with a drop of honest blood in his veins? Don't tell me he can't tell what's right and what's wrong. He knows the difference. He'll travel the crooked trail with fire in his heart just because he knows the difference too damned well! And there's the fellow who's going to be hunted like a rat, shot at, starved, brought to stand, and knocked over! He knows better!"

A woman came, breathless and defiant, to the door; the same one who had scorned him. There was still a trace of prettiness about her. "Can't you keep your dirty hands off his things?" she cried. "Get out of here! You'll never catch Lou Redmain by prowling through his trunk! Leave it alone."

"It's your room, too, ma'm?" asked Denver.

"Well, what if it is?"

"My apologies," said Denver gravely. "I don't make it a habit of enterin' a lady's room. Not even if it's about to be destroyed." He passed her and went down the stairs.

She followed him. "What's the meaning of that?"

He crossed the saloon hall again and found Hominy waiting, morose and restless. "Well, they ain't here, that's plumb clear. What about these guineas left behind? Why not pack 'em to Sundown and let the county treat 'em for a while? Otherwise they'll get word to Redmain and tattle. When he comes back—"

"He won't come back," broke in Denver softly.

"I ain't sure about that."

"No. He'll have nothing to come back to. We're putting him on the country for good."

"What're you driving at?" insisted the woman.

Denver raised his voice to the uneasy camp followers of the outlaw bunch. "You've got five minutes to pull your belongings out of doors. I am burning the town."

"Not a bad idee," grunted Bonnet. "I never did burn a town afore. Be somethin' new in a short but sweet life."

"Lou will kill you!" cried the woman.

"That's one of the two possibilities," said Denver. "The other is that I may kill him. I reckon you'll only have about four minutes left. It ain't my desire to burn any of your possibles, so I'd suggest you hurry."

The rest of the riders followed him to the street. "Set fire to four or five places at the same time," said Denver. "This joint is dry as pitch, and it'll go in one quick roar."

"Ready?" inquired Bonnet.

"Give these poor devils their chance, Lyle."

The black barkeep walked from the saloon barehanded. "I come here without nothin' and I'll leave without nothin'. Ain't takin' no favors from you, Mister Denver."

"That's too bad," drawled Denver. "But maybe you'll do me one. Maybe you'll take a message to Redmain for me."

"I do nothin' for you, Mister Denver. Never."

"Just as well. You'd be too slow. Now I see horses in that barn yonder and a wagon. Hitch up the wagon and turn out the rest of the animals."

The denizens of this condemned town straggled from the buildings. Denver moved down to the end of the street and sat quite still in the saddle. His attention reverted to the stable, and he spoke casually to the nearest hand. "The big boy takes too long to hitch a wagon. Go down there and let him smell the end of your loop." Instead of one, three men galloped off to carry out the chore. Denver felt the restlessness of his party, and he knew they wanted to do the job and be away. But he tarried until he thought all of the people had retrieved their possessions. They came toward him, a shabby, disreputable set that stirred him to faint pity. Aimlessly they milled at the street's end. Out of the stable came the wagon and team, the giant lashing the beasts into a dead run. He had three loops around his neck and three riders spurring ahead, threatening momentarily to haul him out of the vehicle. Denver raised his arm and the ropes slacked away. The giant halted the wagon and rolled his eyes at Denver.

"'Fore God, you'll suffer fer this!"

"Somebody suffers," was Denver's laconic answer. He raised his gun to the sky and fired a single shot in warning to whoever might have loitered in the buildings. Then he called out to those men waiting to apply the match. "Let her burn."

The woman who had enough spirit to defy him ran against his horse. "You—you'll find a day to regret this!" she cried. Of a sudden Denver bent down, one arm sweeping her aside. There was the flat, startling report of a gun. The woman's right hand was wrenched up, revealing the weapon. Denver seized it and threw it far aside; and even then the tight calm remained on him.

"Can't say I blame you," he muttered. "Was I in your place I reckon I'd do the same."

The smell of smoke drifted down the street. A sinuous tongue of fire licked up a porch rail. The woman screamed at him.

"Now I know why they call you Black Dave! You call yourself a man—and do this?"

"What's your name?" demanded Denver.

"May!" said the woman, spitting it at him.

"A pretty name. The sort of a name that fitted the girl your mother figured you'd be. There's pride still in you. You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you? What for? For a man—a man not worth an inch of your finger. You've lived in this ratty hole a long spell, haven't you? No comforts, no safety, nothin' cheerful. And all you've got to show for the bargain is that bundle of clothes in your arm. You've been pretty badly cheated."

"Who are you to talk?" she cried. "You're gloating because you've hurt a few poor fools that can't hurt you back! You ought to have the hide whipped off you!"

"I reckon the shoe begins to pinch," he replied. "You never felt that way when your men folk rode back from killin' a man, did you? You knew Lou Redmain was a killer, didn't you?"

"What of it? You're one yourself, you dog!"

"That's right," said Denver slowly. "As black and dirty-handed as any other. When a man starts on this business he swallows his conscience and closes his mind. And before I'm finished you and your kind, as well as a lot of other people, will consider me worse than you ever considered another human bein'. This is war, girl. And I'm deliberately forgettin' there ever was such a thing as a white man in your tribe of cutthroats. Get in that wagon, you people, and clear out of here. I don't care which way."

High flames shot from the pitch-dry buildings. The men who had set the blaze dodged through the street, shielding themselves from the increasing heat. Denver looked grimly at the black giant.

"I said you'd be too slow. Redmain, wherever he is, will see my message in a few minutes. Come on, boys."

He gathered his party and spurred up into timber. Lyle Bonnet quartered down from a remote angle of the trees, where he had been drawn by his ferreting curiosity.

"I think that outfit hit for the country back of Leverage's place. Tracks indicate it."

"Well," snapped Hominy, "we've burned the rat out, anyhow. That's one detail."

"Just one place we won't have to look for him," agreed Denver. "But it's a long hunt yet. Redmain's got a talent for this business. Close in here and listen to me careful. I want these things done exactly like I tell you."

He looked behind. As they ran along the pine-cramped trail he talked to Hominy and Bonnet in subdued phrases.