the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986) (34 page)

Society has never been comfortable with killers. In times of warfare and troubles they have been tolerated, but have always been discomforting to have around. A marshal or sheriff with such a reputation might be tolerated as long as he was necessary, but as soon as the need passed, most citizens wanted to be rid of him.

Contrary to western motion pictures, nobody went around cultivating a reputation as a gun- fighter unless he was a psychopath. A gun- fighter was simply a man who was good with a gun. His coordination, his coolness in a tight situation, and his steadiness of nerve and hand also might have been better than others'. At a time when gunfighting was the accepted way of settling disputes, a man with a steady hand and eye came up a winner. By the time he had won two or three times, he had a reputation. Some admired him for his ability, but far more were uneasy in his presence.

A man such as Lance Kilkenny would not want such a reputation, and, as in this story, might flee from it. But a reputation is hard to escape in a country of a small but constantly shifting population. Moreover, the motivations and skills that won him the reputation in the first place would always be with him.

There are always those who will ride roughshod over the rights of others if they can make a dollar by doing so, and each one believes he is manifest destiny. But there are always those who will resist. And there are always those who believe that because they have wealth or power, they are different from those without it.

Such people as Jared Tetlow in this story were all too familiar. In Wyoming a number of large ranchers or their superintendents, aided by men who were politically powerful, actually recruited fifty-odd gunfighters to come secretly into Wyoming and kill more than eighty men. The men to be killed were called "rustlers," but as a matter of fact most of them were simply nesters, people who had moved to government land, built cabins, and laid claim to land and waterholes the big cattlemen wanted. So these gunmen were imported for the purpose of committing murder, nothing more nor less.

Sheepmen were often killed by cattlemen because of the mistaken impression that cattle would not feed where sheep were. That this was utter nonsense made no difference. The killings were carried out by self-righteous cattlemen accustomed to the use of power.

These wars were not "made up" by writers. They actually happened and were not infrequent. From the standpoint of ecology, the big cattlemen were closer to being right than the nesters, but that had nothing to do with justice or common decency.

*

Chapter
I

Smoke lifted wistfully from the charred timbers of the house, and smoke lifted from the shed that had been Moffitt's barn. The corral bars were down and the saddle stock run off, and where Dick Moffitt's homestead had been in the morning, there was now only desolation, emptiness, and death.

Dick Moffitt himself lay sprawled on the ground. The dust was scratched deeply where his fingers had dug in the agony of death. Even from where he sat on the long-legged buckskin, the man known as Trent could see he had been shot six times. Three of those bullets had gone in from the front. The other three had been fired directly into his back by a man who stood over him. And Dick Moffitt wore no gun.

The little green valley was still in the late afternoon sun. It was warm, and there was still a faint heat emanating from the charred timber of the house.

The man who called himself Trent rode his horse around the house. Four or five had come here. One of them riding a horse with a split right rear hoof. They had shot Moffitt down and then burned his layout.

What about the kids? What about Sally Crane, who was sixteen? And young Jack Moffitt, who was fourteen? Whatever had happened, there was no evidence of them here. He hesitated, looking down the trail. Had they been taken away by the killers? Sally, perhaps, but not Jack. If the killers had found the two, Jack would have been dead.

Thoughtfully, Trent turned away. The buckskin knew the way was toward home, and he quickened his pace. There were five miles to go, five miles of mountains and heavy woods, and no clear trails.

This could be it. Always, he had been sure it would come. Even when happiest, the knowledge that sooner or later he must sling his gun belts on his hips had been ever present in the back of his mind. Sooner or later there would be trouble, and he had seen it coming here along the rimrock.

Slightly more than a year ago he had built his cabin and squatted in the lush green valley among the peaks. No cattle ranged this high. No wandering punchers drifted up here. Only the other nesters had found homes, the Hatfields, O'Hara, Smithers, Moffitt, and the rest.

Below, in the vicinity of Cedar Bluff, there was one ranch-one and only one. On the ranch and in the town, one man ruled supreme. He rode with majesty, and when he walked, he strode with the step of kings. He never went unattended. He allowed no man to address him unless he spoke first, he issued orders and bestowed favor like an eastern potentate, and if there were some who disputed his authority, he put them down, crushed them.

King Bill Hale had come west as a boy, and he had had money even then. In Texas he had driven cattle over the trails and had learned to fight and sling a gun, and to drive a bargain that was tight and cruel. Then he had come west, moved into the town of Cedar Bluff, built the Castle, and drove out the cattle rustlers who had used the valley as a hideout. The one other honest rancher in the valley he bought out, and when that man had refused to sell, Hale had told him to sell, or else. And he had cut the offered price in half. The man sold.

Cedar Bluff and Cedar Valley lived under the eye of King Bill. A strong man and an able one, Hale had slowly become power mad. The valley was cut off from both New Mexico and Arizona. In his own world he could not be touched. His will was law.

He owned the Mecca, a saloon and gambling house. He owned the stage station, the stage line itself, and the freight company that hauled supplies in and produce out. He owned the Cedar Hotel, the town's one decent rooming house. He owned sixty thousand acres of good grazing land and controlled a hundred thousand more. His cattle were numbered in the tens of thousands, and two men rode beside him when he went among his other men. One was rough, hard-scaled Pete Shaw, and the other was his younger son, Cub Hale.

Behind him trailed the gold-dust twins, Dunn and Ravitz, both gunmen.

The man who called himself Trent rarely visited Cedar Bluff. Sooner or later, he knew, there would be someone from the outside, someone who knew him, someone who would recognize him for what and who he was, and then the word would go out.

"That's Kilkenny!"

Men would turn to look, for the story of the strange, drifting gunman was known to all in the West, even though there were few men anywhere who knew him by sight, few who could describe him or knew the way he lived.

Mysterious, solitary, and shadowy, the gunman called Kilkenny had been everywhere. He drifted in and out of towns and cow camps, and sometimes there would be a brief and bloody gun battle, and then Kilkenny would be gone again, and only the body of the man who had dared to try Kilkenny remained.

So Kilkenny had taken the name of Trent, and in the high peaks he had found the lush green valley where he built his cabin and ran a few head of cows and broke wild horses. It was a lonely life, but when he was there he hung his guns on a peg and carried only his rifle, and that for game or for wolves.

Rarely, not over a dozen times in the year, he went down to Cedar Bluff for supplies, packed them back, and stayed in the hills until he was running short again. He stayed away from the Mecca, and most of all, he avoided the Crystal Palace, the new and splendid dance hall and gambling house owned by the woman, Nita Riordan.

The cabin in the pines was touched with the red glow of a sun setting beyond the notch, and he swung down from the buckskin and slapped the horse cheerfully on the shoulder.

"Home again, Buck! It's a good feeling, isn't it?"

He stripped the saddle and bridle from the horse and carried them into the log barn; then he turned the buckskin into the corral and forked over a lot of fresh green grass.

It was a lonely life, yet he was content. Only at times did he find himself looking long at the stars and thinking about the girl in Cedar Bluff. Did she know he was here? Remembering Nita from the Live Oak country, he decided she did. Nita Riordan knew all that was going on; she always had.

He went about the business of preparing a meal, and thought of Parson Hatfield and his tall sons. What would the mountaineer do now? Yet, need he ask that question? Could he suspect, even for a moment, that the Hatfields would do anything but fight?

They were the type. They were men who had always built with their hands and who were beholden to no man. They were not gunfight- ers, but they were lean, hard-faced men, tall and stooped a little, who carried their rifles as if they were part of them. And big Dan O'Hara, the talkative, friendly Irishman who always acted as though campaigning for public office-could he believe that Dan would do other than fight?

War was coming to the high peaks, and Trent's face grew somber as he thought of it. War meant that he would once more be shooting, killing. He could, of course, mount in the morning and ride away. He could give up this place in the highlands and go once more, but even as the thought came to him, he did not recognize it as even a remote possibility. Like O'Hara and the Hatfields, he would fight.

There were other things to consider. The last time he had been to Cedar Bluff, there had been a letter from Lee Hall, the ranger.

We're getting along all right here, but I thought you would like to know: Cain Brock- man is out. He swears he will hunt you down and kill you for killing his brother and whipping him with your fists. And he'll try, so be careful.

He dropped four slices of bacon into the frying pan, humming softly to himself. Then he put on some coffee water and sat watching the bacon. When it was ready, he took it out of the pan and put it on a tin plate. He was reaching for the coffee when he heard a muffled movement.

Instantly, he froze in position. His eyes fastened on the blanket that separated his bedroom from the living room of the two-room cottage. His guns were hanging from a peg near the cupboard. He would have to cross the room to them. His rifle was nearer.

Rising, he went about the business of fixing the coffee, and when close to the rifle, he dropped his hand to it. Then, swinging it hip high, he crossed the room with a bound and jerked back the blanket.

Two youngsters sat on the edge of his homemade bed, a slender, wide-eyed girl of sixteen and a boy with a face thickly sprinkled with freckles. They sat tight together, frightened and pale.

Slowly, he let the gun butt down to the floor. "Well, I'll be-! Say, how did you youngsters get here?"

The girl swallowed and stood up, trying to curtsey. Her hair, which was very lovely, hung in two thick blond braids. Her dress was cheap and cotton, and now after rough treatment, was torn and dirty. "We're-I mean, I'm Sally Crane, and this is Jackie Moffitt."

"They burned us out!" Jackie cried out, his face twisted and pale. "Them Haleses done it! An' they kilt Pappy!"

"I know." Trent looked at them gravely. "I came by that way. Come on out here an' we'll eat. Then you can tell me about it."

"They come in about sunup this mornin'," Jack said. "They told Pap he had two hours to get loaded an' movin'. Pap, he allowed he wasn't movin'. This was government land an' he was settled legal, an' he was standin' on his rights."

"What happened?" Trent asked. He sliced more bacon and dropped it in the pan.

"The young'un, he shot Pap. Shot him three times afore he could move. Then after he fell, he emptied his gun into him."

Something sank within Trent, for he could sense the fight that was coming. The "young'un" would probably be Cub Hale. He remembered that slim, erect, pantherlike young man in white buckskins and riding his white horse, that young, handsome man who loved to kill. Here it was, and there was no way a man could duck it. But no. It wasn't his fight. Not yet, it wasn't.

"How'd you kids happen to come here?" he asked kindly.

"We had to get away. Sally was gettin' wood for the house, an' when I met her we started back. Then we heard the shootin', an' when I looked through the brush, I seen the young'un finishin' Pap. I wanted to fight, but I ain't got no gun."

"Did they look for you?" Trent asked.

"Uh-huh. We heard one of 'em say he wanted Sally!" Jackie glanced at the girl, whose face was white, her eyes wide. "They allowed there wasn't no use killin' her-yet!

"You had horses?" Trent asked.

"Uh-huh. We done left them in the brush. We wasn't sure but what they'd come here, too. But we come here because, Pap, he done said if any thin' ever happened to him, we was to come here first. He said you was a good man, an' he figgered you was some shakes with a gun."

"All right." Trent dished them out some food. "You kids can stay here tonight. I got blankets enough. Then in the mornin' I'll take you down to Parson's."

"Let me fix that," Sally pleaded, reaching for the skillet. "I can cook."