the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) (19 page)

"You're quiet," she said finally. "You don't say anything."

"What can I say?" I asked her honestly enough.

"You've just said it all."

She didn't act mystified and want an explanation, for she knew as well as I what I meant and how I felt. She did finally say something, and it was so much what a lot of girls would have said that it enabled me to get my feet on the ground again. She said, "You've only known me a few hours."

"How long does it take? Is there a special time, or something? A special set of rules that says flatly a man has to know a girl three weeks, seventeen hours and nine minutes before he can fall in love with her? And another set that says she must know him six months, four hours and five minutes before she can admit she likes him?

"There isn't any time limit and there never has been," I told her. "To some people it comes quick, to others slow. With me it was the minute you walked out on the porch back there, and I rode into the yard. That's exactly when it was. The rest doesn't matter."

My voice wasn't a lover's voice. It was pretty sharp and hard because I felt just that way. Then it hit me all of a sudden and I could see it plain as day. "Well, at least he didn't steal you!"

She looked up quickly, her eyes going wide with surprise. "Steal me? Who?"

"Hugh Taylor," I said.

"Who?" She looked puzzled and a little frightened.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Howie Taber-the one who was a friend of Lynch's, only his name is Hugh Taylor, and he's my cousin."

"Your cousin?" She was staring at me now, but there was not so much surprise in her eyes as I had expected.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about a big blond and handsome man with broad shoulders and deep-set blue eyes, a man with a small scar on the point of his chin, who rides good horses and wears flashy clothes and handles a gun well. That's who I mean. A man who is my cousin but who could easily have called himself Howie Taber."

Her face was white now, but she was staring right through me.

"And what is your name?" she demanded.

"I'm Wat Bell," I told her. "I am the man Lynch was looking for at the Tin Cup, and how did he know I'd be there? Only one man in all the world knew it, and that man was Hugh-who I thought was my best friend."

"I don't believe that," she said. "I don't believe any of it. You may know him, but you're an outlaw, masquerading under a false name.

You've made all this up."

"All right," I said, "I made it up!" With that I reined my horse around and started back for the T.

If I had been riding Rowdy I'd never have gone back at all, but this was a cowhorse I'd borrowed, wanting to save the big black after his long trek across country.

There was only one thing in my mind then, to get Rowdy and hit the trail out of there, but fast. And where to?

Back to Texas! To prove that I hadn't killed my uncle. To prove that I was no outlaw.

The cowhorse I was on was a good horse and he took me over the hill to the T at a fast lope, and I came up from behind the corrals and hit the dirt, and then stopped. Right there across the yard from me was Ross Lynch, and beside him was Gene Bates.

Win Dolliver was on the step, and his face looked dark as death and just as solemn. Lynch stepped out toward me and stopped. "Wat Bell!" he said.

"I arrest you for murder!"

"Whose murder?" I demanded.

"The murder of Tom Ludlow!" he said. Then he smiled. "There is a charge against you in Texas, but we'll hang you for this one!"

I was mad all the way through. My hands swinging at my sides, I looked at him. "Ross Lynch, I did not murder Ludlow, and you damn' well know it. You know it because you know who did! And I know! It was-to "

Gene Bates' hand swept down for a gun and so did Lynch. My own guns were coming up and I took a quick step forward and right and fired quickly-too quickly.

My first bullet knocked the gun from the sheriff's hand, and I hadn't intended it that way. I wanted to kill him. The second one took Gene Bates right over the belt buckle.

Win Dolliver hadn't moved. He stood there on the steps, his eyes wide. But what he thought he wasn't saying. I don't know where Maggie was.

On the bunkhouse steps were two of the boys and another one stood at the corral. He turned to his saddle pockets and dug out a box of .44's. "Catch!" he said simply, and tossed it.

"Thanks!" I caught the box in my left hand and backed toward the corral. Lynch was holding his numbed hand and staring at me.

"I'll kill you for this!" he said. "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do!"

"If you do, it will be!" I told him. Astride the cowpony, I looked at Win. "Thanks, Dolliver. You've been mighty square. Tom Ludlow was killed by Gene Bates and Bill Keys. That chip on the bone-handle of Keys' gun was broken off when it fell into the rocks, you know where!"

Then I reined my horse around and hit the trail at a fast run.

That pony had worked hard, but he was game. He stayed with that run until he hit timber, and then I slowed him down to a canter, and then to a walk. After that I began to Injun my trail. I took so many twists and turns I was dizzy, and I rode up and down several streams, across several shelves of rock and through some sand. And then I doubled back and headed for the Tin Cup.

My horse wouldn't go far and he needed rest. I needed food. There was food in the cabin, and every chance they wouldn't think of it right away. Also, it was within striking distance of the T, and I had no idea of leaving Rowdy. That big black horse meant a lot to me, and ever since old Valverdes gave him to me, I'd treated him like a child.

Now I was an outlaw, having resisted arrest, the first crime I'd committed. But if I could prove that Bates and Keys had killed Ludlow, and with the sheriff's knowledge, I'd be in the clear even on that. And it was something I intended to prove.

From the expression on Lynch's face I knew that shooting of mine had been a distinct shock. Hugh hadn't warned them about that simply because he didn't know. Hugh had always beaten me in shooting matches.

That was before I went to Mexico. He had probably told Lynch I was only a fair shot. Well, the shooting that knocked the gun from his hand and drilled Bates had been good shooting, the kind he wouldn't be too anxious to tackle again.

By sundown I was bedded down in the pines watching the Tin Cup ranchhouse. All through the final hours of daylight I watched it and studied the trails. I wanted no traps laid for me, although I doubted if they would think of the Tin Cup right away.

It was well after midnight before I started down the trail to the ranch, and I took my horse only a short distance, then left him tied in the brush and cat-footed it down by myself, leaving my spurs on the horn of my saddle.

Nothing looked very good right then. I had killed Gene Bates and resisted arrest. Hugh Taylor, whom I'd considered my best friend, had tried to trap me into an ambush, and Maggie Dolliver, the girl I wanted more than anything in life, was in love with Hugh. Right then I'd about as little to live for as any man, but I'd a lot of resentment-nor was I one to bow my head before the storm and ride off letting well enough alone.

When I did ride off it would be with my name clear, and also I would know and the world would know who had killed Uncle Tom Bell. Until then I had a job to do.

The warm sun of the late afternoon had baked the ground hard after the rain, and I moved carefully. The stone house was dark and still when I tried the door, and it eased open without a sound. Once inside I wasted no time, for while Win had been making coffee on the day of the killing, I had seen where the food was kept.

Hastily, I reached for the coffee sack.

It was almost empty!

Puzzled, for it had been nearly full when I last saw it, I reached for the beans, and they were gone. And then there was a whisper of movement behind me and I turned, palming my gun as I moved.

"Don't shoot!" The voice was low, but the very sound of it thrilled me so that I couldn't have squeezed a trigger if I'd wished. "The food is on the table, all packed."

"Mag! You did this ... for me?" I couldn't believe that, and moved around the table toward her. She had been in that inner room, waiting behind the blanket-covered door.

"Yes." The word was simple and honest. "I did it for you, and I've no idea whether I'm doing right or not. Maybe all they say about you is true.

Maybe you did kill your uncle and maybe you did kill Tom Ludlow."

"You don't believe that?"

"No." She hesitated. "No, I don't believe I do. I know Boss Lynch, Wat-that is your name, isn't it? He has been mixed up in so many wrong things. It was the only fault I could find with Howie-that he trailed with Lynch and that devil, Bill Keys."

In the darkness I could not see her eyes, but suddenly my hands lifted to her shoulders. "Mag," I said softly, "I've got to ride out of here. Whatever else I do, I've got to clear myself, and I'm going to do it, an' if the trouble strays over on somebody else's range, I'm going to follow it there.

"I could go away now, taking the blame for Old Man Ludlow like they've already hung the blame on me for Uncle Tom, but I won't do it. I won't have you doubting me, even if I never see you again. Nor do I want folks to think I've killed Uncle Tom, after he did so much for me."

She didn't say anything for a moment, and with her arms all warm under my hands it was all I could do to keep from drawing her close. Finally, she spoke. "Do what you have to do, Wat. I know how you feel."

"But, Mag, suppose that somebody you- Well, I mean, suppose that when I find who did this killing, I find it was somebody close to you. What then?"

She looked up at me again. "Why, then, Wat, it would have to be that way. I guess I knew you felt like this, I knew who you believed was guilty, but I came here and got this food ready for you, sure that you'd come. I brought your horse, too, Wat. He's in the shadow by the stable."

"Rowdy?" My voice lifted, then lowered. "You did that? Oh, you darlin'! Now I'll feel like a man again! This pony, he tries hard and he's got a great heart, but he's not Rowdy."

"I knew how you felt about him." She drew back. "Now you'd better go. Ride out of here, and good luck, whatever you do, or whatever comes!"

Chapter
IV

Horsethief Valley
.

That was just the way I left, with that pack over my shoulder, slipping out to find Rowdy, who nudged me with his nose and stamped contentedly. But I waited there until she was on her horse and gone, and then I slid into the saddle and headed for the hills. When I got to where I'd left the pony, I tied the bridle reins up and turned him loose, knowing he'd find his way back to the T.

Already I'd had an idea. Bill Keys had come from the Bradshaws, and that was where I was heading, right for Horsethief Valley. There had to be a tie-up there. Nor was I waiting until morning.

Rowdy was rested and ready for the trail, and I took it, riding west across the mountains, skirting Latigo, and heading on west. On the third night I camped at Badger Spring, up a creek from the canyon of the Agua Fria, and after a quick breakfast in the morning, crossed the Bumblebee and Black Canyon and headed up the Dead Cow. Skirting the peak on a bench I cut down the mountainside into Horsethief Canyon.

Western men knew the West, and it was no wonder that even as far east as Dimmit County, Texas, we knew about the horsethief trails that cut through the country from Robber's Roost and the Hole in the Wall to Mexico. This place was only a way station, but from all I'd heard I knew some of the crowd that trailed stolen horses, and they were a hard bunch of men.

Rowdy had a feeling for trouble. The big black pricked his ears toward the ramshackle cluster of cabins and corrals that lay on the flat among the mountains. Nobody needed to tell me that we were not watched all the way down that trail, and when Rowdy drew up in front of the combination saloon and store that was the headquarters at Horsethief, a half-dozen men idled on the steps.

Across at the big barn a man sat on a bench with a Henry rifle across his knees, and another man whittled idly in front of a cabin even further along.

When I swung down I tied Rowdy to the rail and stepped up on the porch and dug out the makings.

"Howdy," I offered.

A lean, hatchet-faced man, who looked the type to murder his mother-in-law, looked up. "Howdy."

Nobody said anything and when I'd built a smoke I offered the tobacco around, but nobody made a move to accept. A short, stocky rider with run-down heels on his boots squatted against the wall. He looked up at me, then nodded at Rowdy. "Quite a hoss. Looks like he could make miles.""

"He made 'em to here." I looked at Shorty again. "Want a drink? I'll buy."

He got up with alacrity. "Never refused a drink!" he warned me. We pushed through the doors and bellied up to the bar. There was a smell of cured bacon, dry goods, and spices curiously intermingled. I glanced around the store, and sized up the fat man in the dirty shirt who bounced around to the bar side and made a casual swipe at the bar top with a rag.