The tall man bit the end from a cigar and Harry Lott came up the street. “Who made that racket?” he demanded. “Who was shootin’?”
The reply came, ice-cold and domineering. “Those were my men, Marshal, and the shooting was harmless. They will come to town often, and we will have no trouble. Understand?”
Harry Lott’s eyes glowed. This man, Kilkenny saw, was a killer. Yet he saw more than that. The gray-faced man had moved to one side. The movement drew Kilkenny’s attention and for the first time he saw the man’s face in the sunlight. It was Dee Havalik.
In the Sonora cattle war his ruthless killings had won him the name of Butcher Havalik. Unassuming in appearance, he was deadly as a rattler and blurred lightning with a gun.
Harry Lott had not even noticed him. Lott was watching the older man, and Lott was in a killing mood.
Why he did it, Kilkenny would never know. Perhaps he wanted to see no man murdered. He spoke softly, just loud enough for Lott to hear. “Careful, Lott! The other one’s Havalik!”
Lott stiffened at the name, and Kilkenny saw his eyes shift, then return to Tetlow. “And who are you?” Lott demanded of the older man.
“You mark well the name.” The old man stood a little straighter. “I’m Jared Tetlow! And I’ve fifty riders, enough to sweep this town off the map!”
Harry Lott was no fool. And at that moment he saw the third man. It was the big man Kilkenny had seen earlier in the Westwater dining room. He was fifty yards away, only his face was rifle muzzle showing over the back of a horse. That rifle was leveled at Harry Lott.
It was a cold deck, and Lott knew it.
“Keep your men in line,” he said, “and we’ll have no trouble.” Turning on his heels he walked toward the Emporium, slanting his eyes toward Kilkenny.
Tetlow and Havalik went inside. The man with the rifle loafed in front of the barber shop.
Lott studied Kilkenny suspiciously. “You saved my neck,” he said. “They had me in a cross fire.”
“I don’t like to see a man murdered.”
“I heard about Havalik.” Lott had buck teeth and a heavy body. “Who are you?”
“I’ve been called Trent. Seems like a good name.”
When he had packed his supplies he swung into the saddle and rode out of town, taking the route across the bridge, past Dolan’s and turning right into the hills when he passed Savory’s.
The tall old man with the autocratic manner was Jared Tetlow, father of the man he had killed at Clifton’s! And such a man would be a desperate and implacable enemy. And this man commanded the guns of Dee Havalik!
Chapter 2
K
ILKENNY RODE WEST from Horsehead. The Valley of the Whispering Wind was almost due north but he had no intention of leaving a trail that could be easily followed.
One sight of Tetlow had indicated the nature of the man who would be his enemy. Once the cattleman knew the man who had killed his son was nearby he would not rest until that man was dead. Nor was Kilkenny unaware of the danger that lay in Harry Lott.
Several times he paused just over ridges to look back along his trail. As he suspected, he was followed. At dusk he turned into the head of Butts Canyon, riding down a switchback trail that was rarely used. He took his time entering and made sure there were visible tracks. Within the canyon it was black as a cavern, yet he trusted his horse, knowing the mountain-bred gelding would take him through safely. It was cool, almost cold at the canyon bottom.
At the first fork he rode into a narrow, cavernous passage that led back into the plateau to the northwest. He had no idea if there was any trail out, but it was a chance he must take.
When they had gone some distance up the branch canyon the buckskin pulled to the right. With carefully shielded matches Kilkenny studied the ground and found the buckskin had started into a trail apparently used by deer and wild horses. Swinging back into the saddle, he let the buckskin have his head. Nearly an hour later they emerged atop the mesa. A notch in the hills to the north promised a pass and he headed toward it.
The night was cool and the stars seemed amazingly close. Several times he paused to rest his horses, and when traveling stuck to rocky ledges whenever possible. Toward daybreak he made dry camp in a clump of juniper, picketing his horses on a small patch of grass.
He made breakfast over a fire of dry and smokeless wood at daybreak, but before he moved out he took his glasses and from a nearby rock devoted fifteen minutes to a careful survey of the country. He saw no sign of life, no trail of smoke.
Mounting, he rode into wilder and even more lonely hills. It was a desolate land, a jumbled heap of uptilted, broken ledges, enormous basins, knife-like, serrated ridges and toppling towers of sandstone. The sun climbed and grew hot, weirdly eroded sandstone danced like demons in the heat-waved air. Dust devils moved mockingly before him, and the distant atmosphere gathered splendid blue lakes in distant bottoms.
Sweat stained his shirt and got into his eyes. The buckskin turned dark with sweat and the red dust that shrouded the junipers began to cover him, but still he rode north, knowing nothing of the waterholes, into a trackless and forbidding land.
For almost ten miles he rode across windswept rock where no trail could be followed, and then suddenly as though weary of the heights it had been following, the plateau ended in a series of vast, gigantic steps that descended for several miles, dropping little by little into a basin. Coming upon a wild horse trail, Kilkenny followed until he came to a small, blue and beautiful lake where grew a few willows and cottonwoods. Here he watered his horses and rested, smoking a cigarette and relaxing.
It was dusk before he moved again, and now he turned east, for the Blues were abreast of him, and he found a wild horse trail that led across a great natural causeway into the Blues. He made camp at dark and only reached his valley in the early light of the following morning.
There was no evidence that anyone had been here in his absence. With coffee on, he went out and removed the saddles from the horses and rubbed both of them down. The buckskin was accustomed to this and stood patiently, but the paint was restive, uncertain of what this new master intended. But the scraping of the dry handful of grass was pleasing, and finally he grew still and waited, enjoying the ministrations.
After breakfast he sat on the step of the house and cleaned his guns, then went out and set several snares and deadfalls to trap small game. He had the hunted man’s hesitancy to shoot unless absolutely essential and the knowledge that much game could be captured without it. Donning moccasins, he walked off down the valley until he was a mile away from the house, well knowing a time might come when he would want game close around him.
Long accustomed to the wild, lonely life, Kilkenny moved like an Indian, and he could live like one. Few men knew the wilderness better, and although he appreciated the towns and the comforts they offered, he had grown accustomed to living in the wilds and could do it. He knew the plants for their nutritional or medicinal value, knew how to make many kinds of shelters and utensils for camp use, and given a hunting knife, or even without one, he could survive anywhere.
He had chosen a quiet life now, away from the centers of action, but even here trouble was building. A less experienced man could see what was about to happen. Despite the ranches and permanent homes, Horsehead was in no sense a settled community. Many were drifters who had come to get away, often capable men, and fiercely independent. Yet most were poor men, running a few cattle, and starting from scratch. Into this country Tetlow had come with his great herds and dozens of hard-bitten riders. Good range was scarce, insufficient to support his huge herds and the cattle they now carried.
Tetlow was arrogant, sure that his success gave him the right to demand and control. The ranchers were stubborn men, resentful of this outsider. The situation could scarcely have been more explosive.
From his own ranch in the Valley of the Whispering Wind, Kilkenny found nothing in the situation to insure hope. Tetlow’s manner to Lott showed the sort of man he was and that he would ride roughshod over all who got in his way.
Aside from the presence of Nita Riordan and the fact that he had killed Tetlow’s son, Kilkenny’s sympathies were with the small ranchers, the men who were building homes rather than empires. For one man to grow so large as Tetlow meant many men must remain small or have nothing. The proper level lay between the two extremes, and this was the American way.
Three years before Lance Kilkenny had taken the trail to the Live Oak country to help a friend. He had met Nita Riordan there, keeping a saloon inherited from her father. On the border and in outlaw country, she had elected to run the saloon herself when she found it impossible to sell. Jaime Brigo, the half-breed Yaqui who had been her father’s friend, had been her strong right hand. From the moment their eyes met there had been no doubt in either her mind or that of Kilkenny. And then Kilkenny had drawn back.
There was no place in his established life pattern for a woman. No day could pass when he felt free from danger, and any woman who loved him would go through a thousand private hells, never knowing when he might be killed by some reputation-hunting gunman. Despite her acceptance of this, Kilkenny had gone away.
The following year they met again in the cedar breaks of New Mexico where Kilkenny had been trying to establish a home. Trouble had come again, and Nita in the midst of it. Now she was here, ranching in this wild country.
Had she believed that because of its loneliness it would draw him? Or had she given him up and started her own life? Or was there, the thought brought a chill, another man? For three days he worked, thinking of this, with increasing restlessness. He used his adze to shape a plow for the share he had picked up in Horsehead, and when it was completed he broke ground for a small corn and vegetable garden.
In the evenings he rode and studied the country, becoming more and more familiar with all the canyons and mesas. There was no such cattle country anywhere around Horsehead.
On the fourth day he saddled the buckskin at day-break and took the trail down Mule Canyon. By the direct route he was nearing Horsehead by noon and he circled to enter town from the west.
A spring wagon was tied in front of the Emporium with a four-horse team hitched to it. The brands were 4T, the Tetlow brand. Down the street he saw three horses wearing the same brand. Beside them was a sorrel horse with three white stockings, branded KR.
He turned quickly to get off the street and went into the dining room of the Westwater Hotel. As he entered, a man with a square-cut face, iron gray hair and cool blue eyes looked up from his meal. His eyes quickened with interest and Kilkenny turned sharply away and seated himself at a table across the room.
The effort was useless, for the man with the gray hair crossed the room and sat down opposite him. Kilkenny liked the cool, self-possessed manner of the man, and the neatness of his clothing.
“My name is Dolan.”
“I’m Trent.”
“I’ve good cause to remember you,
Major
—Trent.”
Kilkenny’s expression did not change. He had ended the War Between the States as Major Kilkenny.
“I heard you were with Sheridan.”
“You’d not remember me, but I’ve cause to remember you. There was a bit of a skirmish in a little Mississippi village and you came in with ten soldiers to drive out some guerrillas who were looting. You were outnumbered five to one and had to pull out.”
“It was a rough go.”
“There was a Union soldier lying wounded in a barn. He had been trying to fight them off for more than an hour before you rode into town. You heard about him after you had pulled out.”
“I remember. Some village girl told me.”
“Through heavy fire you rode back, fought off an attack with six guns, and when they broke in, killed three men with a Bowie knife before they broke and ran.”
“Makes me sound a desperate character. Actually, it was mostly luck. They came into the darkness from the glare of the sun.”
He studied Dolan. “You seem well informed.”
“I was the soldier you carried out of there. But for you I’d be dead.”
“You owe me nothing. It was the chance of war.”
“Naturally, you’d feel that way.” Dolan bit the end from a cigar. “This is a new country. We have two large cattle outfits, the KR and the 4T, and they will soon be fighting. The situation could become prosperous for us all.”
“The 4T will spend money,” Kilkenny said quietly. “That should increase prosperity. It won’t make matters easier for the local rustlers. The 4T can take care of itself.”
“Possibly.”
“Dee Havalik is foreman for Tetlow.”
Dolan stiffened and glanced sharply at Kilkenny. “Havalik?
Here?
”
“Better look at your hole card, Dolan. And”—some change in his voice made Kilkenny meet his eyes—“don’t bother the KR.”
Dolan studied Kilkenny with careful eyes. “That means you want it left alone? I suppose you wouldn’t answer a question about it?”
“None.”
“And Tetlow?”
“If he interferes with the KR, I’ll see him.”
Dolan waved his cigar irritably. “You don’t leave me much.”
Kilkenny smiled. “You look prosperous. If you’re pushed you could always turn honest.”
Dolan chuckled. “It’s a desperate resort, but it may come to that.” He got up. “Nevertheless, I’m your friend.”
The 4T, or as it was called by its own people, the Forty, had established headquarters east of town. Tetlow sat by the wagon with his three sons, Phineas, Andy and Ben. Jared had been talking of his dead son. “I’ll find that man!” he promised. “I’ll see him die!”
“Dad,” Ben said quietly, “why hunt trouble? You know how the kid was. He was always on the prod. I don’t blame anybody but the kid himself.”
Tetlow’s eyes flamed. “He was your brother, wasn’t he?”
Dee Havalik squatted across from Tetlow. The older man wasted no time. With a stick he traced a crude map in the dust. “Carson runs cattle in Brushy Basin and east. He’s got a small lake that holds through the dry spell. We’ll go see him about sellin’ out.”
He looked up. “Dee, you’re to come. Andy will stay with the cattle. We’ll take Phin, Ben and two hands. Bring Cruz an’ Stilwell. We’ll go see this Carson.”
Reluctantly, although he knew better than to object, Ben mounted his sorrel and followed the others. They rode swiftly until they drew up before the door of the small adobe house. A man of fifty came from the house wiping his hands on a handkerchief. “Light an’ set, folks!” he invited. “Just got grub on, but there’s some extry an’ I can make more!”
“How much you want for this place?” Tetlow said abruptly.
Carson blinked. “This here?” He shook his head, smiling. “Why, I like it here. I don’t aim to sell. This here’s the first home I ever had. I got me a few head of cattle an’—”
“How much?” Tetlow repeated brusquely. “Speak up, man! I’ve no time to waste!”
Carson’s face stiffened, then his eyes grew wary as he looked from one to the other. “So that’s the way of it? I wondered what yuh figured on doin’ with that big herd. Well, I ain’t sellin’. That’s all there is to it.”
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars,” Tetlow replied shortly. “Take it an’ a horse an’ git!”
“You’re crazy!” Carson was angry now. “Why, I’m runnin’ four hundred head o’ fat stock! I got seven thousand acres o’ land under my own use an’ more to come! A thousand dollars? You’re crazy!”
The men said nothing and there was absolute silence for the space of two minutes. Then Carson drew a step back, then another. He was afraid now, seeing the stern faces of these men. “One more chance,” Tetlow said, “you get a thousand dollars an’ a horse. Then you get clear out of the country.”
“Go to hell!” Carson shouted. He wheeled and sprang for the door. A gun bellowed and he sprawled across the doorstep, his fingers grasping at the floor as if trying to drag himself inside.
“You seen it,” Havalik’s voice was casual, “he reached for a gun.”
Ben’s face was pale. He looked from his father to his brothers but their faces were blank, approving.
“Phin,” Tetlow suggested, “you ride to town. Look up that Macy feller an’ tell him what happened. Get on with it, now. We’ll ride on over to Carpenter’s place.”
Phin swung his horse around and went off at a fast trot. With Jared Tetlow and Havalik in the lead, the rest of them took off for the Carpenter place. It was all of an hour’s ride, and when they rode up to the door, Carpenter was walking up to the house with a bucket of milk.