the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986) (12 page)

Ross started after her and noticed Kerb Dahl, his hard, lupine face set grimly, staring after him. Dahl had drawn aside from the crowd and was building a smoke. Mabry, who had been working hard all morning, was still in the center of things, but Voyle was saddling a fresh horse.

Haney overtook Sherry, and she looked up at him. He noticed for the first time how thin she had grown and how white her face was.

"Sherry?" Surprisingly, his voice was unsteady. "Wait a minute."

She drew up, waiting for him, but he thought she waited without any desire for conversation.

She said nothing as he rode alongside. "Leaving so soon?"

She nodded. "Star said the men were getting pretty rough in their talk, and they'd be more comfortable if I went in."

"I've been hoping I'd have a chance to talk to you. You've been avoiding me." His eyes were accusing, but bantering.

She looked at him directly then, "Yes, Ross, I have. We must not see each other again. I'm going to marry Star, and seeing you won't do."

"You don't love him." The statement was flat and level, but she avoided his glance and made no response.

Then suddenly she said, "Ross, I've got to go. Star insisted I leave right away."

Haney's eyes hardened. "Do you take orders from him? What is this, anyway? Are you a slave? Haven't you a chance to make up your own mind?"

Her face reddened, and she was about to make a quick and probably angry retort when her remark hit him. He seized her wrist. "Sherry, you say Star insisted? That you leave now?"

"Yes," she was astonished and puzzled by his expression. "He said-"

The remark trailed off, for Ross Haney had turned sharply in his saddle. Kerb Dahl had finished his cigarette. Voyle was fumbling with his saddle girth, and for the first time, Haney noticed that he carried a rifle in his saddle scabbard, a rifle within inches of his hands.

Ross's eyes strayed for the white horse and found it on the far side.

He turned quickly. "Sherry, he's right. Get back to the ranch as fast as you can, and don't leave it!"

He wheeled his horse and started back toward the branding pens at a rapid canter, hoping he would be in time. A small herd of cattle was drifting down toward the pens, and behind it was Streeter and Repp Hanson.

As he drew up on the edge of the branding, Mabry was just straightening up from slapping a brand on a steer. "Bill!" Haney had to speak three times before Mabry heard him, and then the red-headed cowhand turned and walked toward him. "Look out, Bill! It's coming!"

His remark might have been a signal, for Emmett Chubb, sitting his horse near the corral on the outside of the pole fence, spoke up and pointed his remark at Riggs, a Box N rider. "You all feet or just nat'rally dumb?"

Riggs looked up sharply. "What's the matter with you, Chubb? I haven't seen you down here doin' any work!"

Riggs was a slim, hard-faced youngster and a top hand. His anger was justifiable, and he was not thinking or caring who or what Chubb was. Riggs had worked while the gunman lounged in his saddle, carrying his perpetual sneer.

"Shucks!" Chubb said. "You Box N hands done enough work afore the roundup, slappin' brands on everythin' in sight! Bunch of tinhorn cow thieves!"

"You're a liar!" Riggs snapped, and Chubb's hand flashed for his gun. At that, Riggs almost made it. His gun was coming up when Chubb's first shot smashed him in the middle. He staggered back, gasping fiercely, struggling to get his gun up.

Instantly, the branding pens were bursting with gunfire. Mabry swung into the saddle and whipped his horse around the corner of the stock pens, and he and Ross Haney headed for the timber. "It's their fight," Mabry said bitterly. "Let them have it!"

"Look!" Haney was pointing.

Mabry glanced over his shoulder as the firing burst out, and his face went hard and cold.

Streeter and Hanson, from their saddles, had opened up on Reynolds and Pogue. Voyle was firing over the saddle of his horse, and cattle were scattering in every direction. Dust arose in a thick cloud. From it came the scream of a man in agony and then another burst of firing.

Mabry gasped out an oath. The freckles were standing out against the dead white of his face. "Pogue's own men turned on him!"

"Yeah," Ross Haney hurled his cigarette into the dust. "We'd better light a shuck. I think they intended to get us, too!"

The crash of guns stopped suddenly, but the scene was obscured by dust from the crazed cattle and excited horses. Ross saw a riderless horse, stirrups flopping, come from the dust cloud, head high and reins trailing. Behind them there was a single shot, then another.

Finally, with miles behind them, Mabry looked over at Ross. "I feel like a coyote ridin' away from a fight, like that, but it sure wasn't none of ours."

Haney nodded grimly. "I saw it comin' but never guessed it would break out just that like. It couldn't be stopped without killin' Levitt."

"You think he engineered it?"

"Sure." Haney explained how Levitt had started Sherry home, and how his riders had moved out of the working men's group to good firing positions. "Chubb had his orders. He deliberately started that fight when he got the signal."

"I'll get him if it's the last thing I do!" Mabry said, bitterly. "That Riggs was a good hand. We hunted strays together."

"There was nothing we could have done but stay there an' die. We've got other things to do, Bill. We've got to see that Levitt's plans go haywire an' that he gets his deserts. We've got to get the Vernons out from under. Star will have this country sewed up now, with no one able to buck him but us. He'll rave when he finds we got away."

"As far as Reynolds an' Pogue," Mabry said, "I can't feel no sorrow. They were a couple of murderin' wolves, but they had some good men ridin' for 'em."

Mabry scowled. "Wonder what Levitt will do now? He's got the range sewed up with them two out of the way an' the Vernons knucklin' under to him."

Ross frowned. He had thought that over and believed he knew the answer. "That we'll have to wait an' see," Haney said. "I'm right curious, myself. He'll hunt us, an' we'll have to lay low. He'll blame the whole thing on the feud between the two big outfits an' claim he was just an innocent bystander."

"What about the riders?" Mabry protested. "Some of them will tell the truth!"

"Bill," Haney said, "I'd lay a good bet none of them know. We knew pretty well what was comin', an' moreover we got off to one side with a clear view. Down there among the stampedin' cows, the dust an' shootin', I'll bet the ones who are alive won't know. Moreover, I'll bet most of them drift out of the country.

"If they don't drift," Haney added, "Levitt will probably see that they do. From his standpoint it's foolproof. Remember, too, that Levitt's gunmen were men from both outfits."

"If he kills like that," Mabry asked, "what chance have three men got?"

"The best chance, Bill. We're still honest men, even if the only law is gun law. We'll wait an' see what Levitt does, but I imagine the first thing he'll do will be to clean up the loose ends. He may even call in the law from outside so he'll be in the clear with a clean bill of health."

Roily Burt was waiting for them when they rode in. "What happened?" he demanded. "Did the lid blow off? I heard shootin'."

Briefly, Haney explained. "The fight would have come, I expect, even if Levitt hadn't planned it."

"How many were killed?"

"No tellin'. I doubt if so many. Enough to warrant Levitt playin' the big, honest man who wants to keep the peace. Down there in the dust, I doubt if anybody scored many good shots. Too much confusion and too many running cattle. Riggs is probably dead."

"Murderin' coyotes!" Burt limped to the fire. "Set an' eat. I've got the grub ready."

He dished up the food and then straightened, fork in hand. "Ross, what happened to Chalk?"

Haney did not look up. "He's sure to be dead. So's Pogue. Even Syd Berdue was shootin' at them. Killed his own uncle, or lent a hand."

"Chalk was no good, but no man deserves that."

Burt looked up suddenly. "Boss, while you two were gone I done some stumpin' around to loosen the muscles in this here game leg, an' guess what I found?"

"What?" Haney dished up a forkful of beans and then looked over it at Roily, struck by something in his tone.

"That rumblin' in the rock. I found what causes it!" he said. "An' man, when you see it, your hair'll stand on end, I'm a-tellin' you!"

Chapter
XIII

Cavern of Terror

Yawning, Ross Haney opened his eyes to look through the aspen leaves at a cloudless sky. The vast expanse of blue stretched above them as yet unfired by the blazing heat of the summer sun. He rolled out of his soogan and dressed, trying to keep his feet out of the dew covering the grass.

Bill Mabry stuck a head bristling with red hair, all standing on end, out of his blankets and stared unhappily at Haney.

"Roily," he complained, "what can a man do when his boss gets up early? It ain't neither fittin' nor right, I say."

"Pull your head back in then, you sorrel- topped bronc!" Haney growled. "I'm goin' to have a look at the valley, an' then Roily can roll out an' scare up some chuck."

"How about this all-fired rumblin'?" Mabry sat up. "I heard it again last night. Gives a man the creeps."

Burt sat up and looked around for his boots. He rubbed his unshaven jowls as he did every morning and muttered: "Dang it, I need a shave!"

"Never seen you when you didn't." Mabry thrust his thumb through a hole in his sock, swore, and then pulled it on. "You need a haircut, too, you durned Siwash. Ugly, that's what you are! What a thing to see when you first wake up! Lucky you never hitched up with no girl. She sure would have had you curried and combed to a fare-thee-well!"

Ross left them arguing and, picking up his glass, walked to the nest of boulders he used for a lookout. Settling down on his stomach in the sand, he pointed the glass down valley.

At first, all seemed serene and beautiful. The morning sunlight sparkled on the pool below, and the sound of the running water came to his ears. Somewhere, far off, a cow bawled. He swept the edge of the trees close at hand, studied the terrain below, and then bit by bit eased his line of quest up until he was looking well down range toward the Soledad trail.

The sun felt good on his back, and he squirmed to shift his position a little; he leveled the glass and then froze.

A group of horsemen was coming up the trail toward Thousand Springs, riding slowly. Star Levitt, he made out, was not among them. As they drew nearer, he picked out first one and then another. They were led by Syd Berdue, and Kerb Dahl and Voyle were with him. Also, Emmett Chubb and a half dozen other riders. As they drew rein below him and let their horses drink, their words drifted up to him. This time they were making no secret of their conversation, and in the bright morning air, their words were, for the most part, plain enough.

"Beats all where he got to!" Voyle complained. "One minute both of them were there, an' then they were gone."

"We'd better find 'em," Dahl replied. "I never did see Star so wrought up about anythin' as when he found they'd got away. He must have turned over everything in the flat, a- huntin' 'em. Refused to believe they'd got away. Golly, was he mad!"

"He's a bad man to cross," Streeter commented. "I never seen him mad before. He goes crazy."

Chubb hung at one edge of the group, taking no part in their talking. His eyes strayed toward Berdue from time to time. Finally, he swung down and walked to one of the springs for a drink, and when he came back, wiping his mouth, his eyes shifted from one to the other. "Some things about this I don't like," he said.

There was no reply. Watching, Ross had the feeling that Chubb expressed the view of more than one of them. Syd idly flicked his quirt at a mesquite.

"Well, you can't say he ain't thorough!" he said grimly.

Chubb looked around. "Yeah," he agreed sarcastically. "But how thorough? Where does his bein' thorough stop? You ever start to figure like that? He had me primed to start the play by gunnin' Riggs, as he had Riggs pegged as a hothead who would go for a gun if pushed. Well, I hadn't no use for Riggs, my own self, but he never told me what was to come after. It was pure luck I didn't get killed!"

"Where do you reckon Haney went?" Dahl demanded, changing the subject.

"Where did Roily Burt go?" Voyle asked. "You ask me, that Ross Haney is nobody's fool. He an' Mabry sure got shut of those brandin' pens in a hurry! They lit out like who flunk the chunk. Maybe left the country."

"He shore didn't!" Chubb said bitterly. "He wants my scalp! He'll not leave if I read his tracks right."

"He called the boss a couple of times," Voyle said. "Pogue, too. Don't seem to take no water for anybody."

Syd Berdue's eyes shifted from face to face, waiting for somebody to mention his own fuss with Haney, but they avoided his eyes. "I'd say the thing to do would be to stop chasin' over the country an' keep an' eye on that Kinney feller. He was right friendly with Haney, they tell me."

"Or Sherry Vernon!" Berdue sneered. "I think the boss is buckin' a stacked deck with her."