Bounty Guns (22 page)

Buck said gravely, “And I don't care what you've done, Anna. Nobody needs to know you killed him. It was—It just had to be, I reckon.”

Anna looked down at him. “Killed who?” she asked in a tight voice.

“Blackie Mayfell.”

“But you did it, Buck, didn't you?” Anna asked.

Buck slowly raised himself up on one arm and stared at her. “No. I thought you did.”

Anna cried out with delight, and then held him.

Afterward, she called to Tip and Lucy, and they came over. Buck was grinning from ear to ear, and he had a firm clasp on Anna's hand.

“Tip,” Anna said, “you remember one night in town you asked me questions I wouldn't answer? I will now.”

Tip looked from her to Buck and back to her again.

“You see,” Anna said, “Buck and I have loved each other for a long time. But we knew that we'd never know peace until this fight was over. I—” she looked at Buck—“I guess we both were fools enough to think we owed loyalty to our own. Well, the last time we met, Blackie Mayfell, that big prospector, saw us together. We were sitting beside our horses in one of the canyons on our range, and he came around the bend, driving his burros. He knew us, and he knew our families.”

“And we ran,” Buck said grimly. “But we knew he saw us.”

“Buck was angry and so was I,” Anna said, “and we were both afraid of what might happen.”

“I was afraid of what Ben Bolling would do to her when he found out,” Buck said grimly.

“Two days later,” Anna went on, “I found Blackie Mayfell dead. I—I thought Buck had killed him, trying to protect me. I didn't touch him and I didn't tell anyone. Then Jeff found Mayfell and saw my tracks and thought I'd killed him. He and Dad talked it over with me and I denied ever having been there. I was a fool,” Anna said bitterly, “but I was afraid to admit any of it, for fear they would find out about me and Buck. They took his body and dumped it on Bridle Bit land.”

“The rest I've told you about,” Buck said to Tip. “I backtracked and saw Anna's tracks, and then I thought she'd killed Mayfell to keep him from going to her father.”

Anna looked eagerly at Tip, and Buck regarded him silently.

“Each of you thought the other did it,” Tip said quietly, “and now you find you didn't and you don't know who did kill him.” He smiled wryly, and came to his feet. He stared at the fire a long time, then shook his head. “Lynn,” he said quietly, “is Blackie's daughter. That leaves her just where she's always been. Nowhere.” He laughed shortly, looking at them.

“And you, too, doesn't it, Tip?” Anna said gently.

“Yeah, and me, too,” Tip said absently, almost as an afterthought. Lucy remembered that.

CHAPTER 15

The auction was to be held in the Masonic Hall above Sig's Neutral Elite, and the hour was set for ten. At a quarter to ten the hall was jammed, but in the front row of benches and in the corner Lynn had found a seat. Buck and Tip would want to know who bought the Bridle Bit and what they had paid for it. If it hadn't been for that, she wouldn't have come, for the idea of watching what Buck and Lucy had risked their lives for being split up and sold to the highest bidder made Lynn a little sick.

Joerns was behind the table on the platform, and he called the meeting to order.

“I haven't had handbills printed,” Joerns began, “because it wasn't worth it. None of the movable property on the Bridle Bit is for sale, only the buildings—a seven-room house, a wagon shed, a blacksmith shop, the corrals, and the land. Can you remember that?”

There was a murmur of assent, and Joerns went on in a businesslike, unemotional voice that galled Lynn. She shifted in her seat and listened dully to the recitation.

“The land is fifteen hundred acres, mostly in timber. The boundaries are posted on the back wall of this room. I might add that the western boundary adjoins several hundred thousand acres of open range, semidesert and desert. The Bridle Bit is amply watered and sheltered and the title”—he paused and looked belligerently around him—“is clear. It is guaranteed by this bank. One more thing. Anyone buying this place, unless his name is Shields, is assured of good neighbors with peaceful intentions.” He paused. “All right, who will open the bid?”

“Five thousand,” a voice said. The bid was kicked up to seven thousand five hundred, the offer coming from Murray Seth.

“Seven thousand five hundred,” Joerns said, adding, “This is cash, you understand.”

“That's what I'm givin',” Seth growled.

“Do I hear a higher bid?” Joerns asked, raising his gavel.

“Ten thousand.”

In a murmur of talk, everyone, including Lynn, tried to see who the bidder was. He sat against the wall on the second bench, a man almost in middle age, lean, with a long wedge of pale face topped by graying hair. His face was dissolutely handsome, and his clothes were an elegant black.

“I'm bid ten thousand,” Joerns said halfheartedly over the talk, then cracked his gavel and repeated the offer in the ensuing silence.

“Eleven thousand,” Murray Seth said sourly.

“Twelve,” the man in black said.

“Twelve thousand one hundred,” Murray said.

“Thirteen thousand.”

Joerns repeated the offer, and Murray Seth said, “Wait a minute, Joerns.” He turned to Jeff Bolling beside him and whispered something, and Bolling nodded.

“Thirteen thousand one hundred,” Seth said.

“Fourteen thousand,” came the lazy, drawling voice.

A babble of talk stopped the proceedings for a moment, while Joerns hammered futilely on the table. When order was restored, he repeated the bid. Suddenly the man in black stood up and raised his long-fingered, well-kept hands in good-natured protest.

“Gentlemen,” he said amiably, and looked at Seth, who was glaring at him. “I am not a cattleman, and do not intend to ranch this piece of property. I am looking for a place to rest, a home, a mountain home, and the Shields place has taken my fancy. If my opponent”—here he bowed to Murray Seth—“wants to lease all but a few acres from me, or even buy it from me, I am willing to sell.”

He paused, and Murray said nothing. “But I am determined to have the house and the park. If my opponent still wants to argue, let's double the price already bid and get down to business.” He looked at Murray and smiled faintly.

Jeff Bolling said curiously, “You ain't an agent for the Shieldses, are you, mister?”

The man in black turned his hands palms up. “I don't know a Shields, I never saw a Shields, and, unless I've been grossly misled, I don't ever want to see a Shields.”

That brought a laugh from the crowd, and Lynn bit her lip in anger. Whoever this man was, he understood the dramatic gesture, the right word, the winning affability, and the infectious smile of a born persuader. These people liked him already, Lynn could tell. And she didn't.

“That's a funny way to buy a ranch,” Murray Seth growled.

“Every man is entitled to his own eccentricity,” the man in black pointed out. “Yours is cattle. Mine is wanting a pleasant home in this pleasant place.”

He looked at Joerns. “All right, Mr. Auctioneer. Proceed.”

“Fourteen thousand,” Joerns said weakly. He stared at the man in black. “You understand the terms?”

“I have the cash with me,” the man replied.

Everyone looked at Murray Seth. He stood up and said, “Hell, ain't no sense in biddin' for a place I can lease or buy.”

“And for a lot less than you've already bid,” the man in black said. He laughed and came over and shook hands with Murray and then with Jeff Bolling. They followed him up to the table, where Joerns had the deed.

Lynn hung back while the man in black counted out the money and received the deed. When he was finished, Joerns put out his hand. “Might as well know each other, since we're neighbors now. My name's Joerns.”

“A pleasure, Mr. Joerns,” the man in black said.

“I didn't get the name,” Joerns said.

“It doesn't matter, gentlemen. I'm only an agent.” He turned to the crowd and said, “I owe you a drink for that deception. Let's go downstairs.”

Lynn went out with the crowd and headed for her rooms. She didn't even know the name of the man who had bought the Bridle Bit, and apparently, he wasn't going to tell it.

She walked back to her rooms, feeling discouraged. The fate of the Bridle Bit was signed and sealed, with Tip on the dodge, Buck dead or hurt, Pate in jail, and Jeff Bolling already friends with the new owner.

She opened the door and found Anna standing there.

“Hello, Lynn Mayfell,” Anna said, smiling. She laughed at the look of dismay on Lynn's face, then pulled her into a chair and told her of finding Buck, and of the reason that she had hidden what she knew of Blackie Mayfell's death.

Lynn listened with a sinking heart. In the back of her mind she had always believed that Anna, if she would talk, held the key to her father's death. And now she knew that Anna had never known. They were farther away from the truth than they had ever been. All these months had been wasted and lost. Anna understood a little of this, but not all of it.

“What did Tip say when you told him?” Lynn asked.

Anna laughed ruefully. “He acted just like you're acting now.”

Lynn smiled faintly. “It doesn't give us a chance to be very happy that you and Buck are clear.” She kissed Anna and went in to see Ball, and then went into her room. Sitting on the bed, she stared out the window. Everything was flat and dull and tasteless, and the drive had gone out of her. She was too dispirited to feel bad. Suddenly she thought of Tip and wanted to be with him. The feeling was overpowering, and she didn't try to master it. She went out and said to Anna, “I'm going to see—Buck. Will you stay here tonight?”

“I'll stay anywhere anytime,” Anna said happily. Then her face clouded. “You must be careful about covering your tracks.”

“I'll be careful,” Lynn said and smiled wryly. “I've covered them for you and Buck for several months, haven't I?”

They both laughed, but Lynn's laugh was only halfhearted. She wondered as she put on her riding-clothes if she would ever laugh again.

CHAPTER 16

Lynn was careful about leaving town, She went up the canyon, and turned in the opposite direction from where Buck was hidden. Then she pulled off the trail, circled, and went back and watched the canyon. She watched it for an hour, waiting to see if anybody would follow her, but nobody did.

Afterward, she crossed the canyon, climbed into the timber again, and headed down toward the place Anna had described.

It was dark when she saw the campfire, and only seconds after she saw it Tip challenged her from the dark. “Who is it?”

“Lynn, Tip.”

“Oh.” Tip rode up to her and put his horse beside hers.

“How's Buck?”

“Doin' fine,” Tip said lifelessly.

Lynn, on a sudden impulse, said, “Oh, Tip, I know how you feel. Anna told me about it.”

“I don't feel a tenth as bad as you do,” Tip growled. “I'm just—well, lost is the word for it.”

“I know.”

“Sure you do,” Tip said, and added vehemently, “It isn't the money, Lynn. Hell, I'd pay ten thousand if I had it to help you with this!”

“Don't talk about it,” Lynn said. “Don't let Buck know how I feel.”

They entered the circle of firelight and dismounted. Lucy was sitting by Buck, and Lynn went straight to him. He seemed cheerful, but he scanned Lynn's face anxiously. When Lynn sat down beside him, Buck said, “This is kind of a funeral for you, ain't it, Lynn?”

“A little bit.”

Buck looked over at Tip, who was squatted near the fire warming his hands. “Me and Anna are the only ones that've come out of this without grief.”

“Don't be too sure of that, Buck,” Lynn said.

Buck said quickly, “Has anything happened to Anna?”

“No, I didn't mean that. But Anna is homeless, and so are you, Buck. That's not much to be happy about.”

“She's enough to be happy about,” Buck said quietly.

Lynn said idly, “They sold the Bridle Bit at auction today.”

Buck looked interested. “To Bolling?”

“No. Murray Seth bid on it, but a stranger beat him out.”

Buck asked the price paid, and Lynn told him, and he lapsed into silence. Lynn described the queer arrangement agreed upon, that Murray Seth could have the graze if the house was left to the stranger. Tip raised his head at this bit of information and came over and sat down beside Lynn.

“That's a funny setup,” he remarked. “Who was it, some remittance man from the East?”

“No, he wasn't an easterner.”

“What was his name?” Buck asked.

“That was funny. He wouldn't give it. Said he was acting as an agent for somebody, and admitted, after the deal was cinched, that he'd lied about being taken by the beauty of the place.”

Tip scowled. “Lied, hunh? Did he lie to Seth about leasing the graze?”

“No. That stood.”

Tip looked over at Buck, puzzled. “Then what does he want the place for if he isn't going to live on it and leases out the rest of the land, except the prairie, to Seth?”

“I don't know,” Lynn said.

“What did he look like?” Buck asked. “An old-timer?”

Lynn said thoughtfully, “No, he had grayish hair and looked about forty-five. He had a long face and a very friendly manner, and he wore black clothes. He looked like a gambler, maybe.”

Lynn was suddenly aware that Tip was staring at her with an intent, waiting expression. His face had tautened expectantly.

“Why, Tip, what's—”

“Describe him again,” Tip said in a low voice, a strange voice.

Lynn did, trying to remember everything about the stranger, and Tip hung on her every word. When she had finished, he said hoarsely, “He had long thin hands, a card dealer's hands, didn't he? He had a habit of puttin' his hands on his hips, didn't he? He wore a black suit and a black vest with a little edge of black silk. He had—”