Desert of the Damned (5 page)

Feverishly, in that split-second pause, Reifel scanned his chances and found them practically nonexistent. He was going to be discovered no matter what he did. This was the hard core of fact he was faced with. He fought the terrible urge to reach for his gun and then, gaunt-cheeked and tight of mouth, he took his hand from the gelding’s nostrils.

Bugler loosed one outraged snort and threw up his head in a trumpeting challenge. With that call still ringing through the startled silence Reifel kneed him from the screen of willows and into the moon washed brightness of the ford.

In the shallows of the creek six men sat their horses behind leveled rifles. A small five-pointed piece of tin gleamed coldly from the open vest of the one who was nearest.

B
EN REINED
up his horse in the middle of the stream and sat there a moment letting Bugler have his drink while he considered these men and said, without inflection: “Evenin'.”

The star packer nodded without lowering his rifle. He was a stocky looking man a little below average height, gray haired with lined features and shoulders sloped from the years he had spent herding other men’s cattle for thirty bucks a month. “Evenin',” he answered in the same brief manner with which Ben had spoken. “Mind tellin’ us where you come from, mister?”

Ben’s lips came apart in a remote and angular smiling. “Bein’ you have put the matter so politely I don’t mind sayin’ I have just come from Paradise.”

One of the others muttered something under his breath to the man beside him. Then the leader said, “Kind of a late time of night to be ridin’ through these mountains.”

Reifel let that pass and pulled the gelding’s head from water. The star packer’s mouth tightened. He said with a sharper edge to his tone: “Where you figurin’ to be headed for, mister?”

“I’m heading for home — ”

“And where would that be?”

They were watching him, all of them.

Reifel said testily, “Rocking Arrow. In case you don’t know, it’s a cow outfit that runs its cattle along the flanks of these mountains. And out on the desert when we get rain enough.”

“What were you doing in Paradise?”

Reifel wasn’t surprised by the questions but his expression implied he had got about enough of them. He let his reins sag and hooked a knee around the horn and sitting that way, slanch-hipped and unhurried, he fished tobacco sack and papers from one of Breen’s vest pockets. “You got a good reason for being curious about it?”

The lawman pecked his badge with a thumbnail. “You’re talkin’ to the Sheriff of Cochise County — ”

“So I gathered,” Reifel drawled. “Expect you boys are out hunting for bear, considering the amount of artillery you’re packin'. Or maybe — ”

“You’re pretty free with your lip,” the sheriff said angrily. “As a matter of fact we’re huntin’ a murderer — ”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” Reifel scowled. He looked at them irascibly. “A tall kind of feller on a buckskin horse?”

The sheriff’s mouth opened. “You’ve seen him?” he blurted. “Where was he? What’d he look like? Was he carry-in’ any — ”

“The man I saw was carrying a rifle. He’d come out of this country and was heading west like hell wouldn’t have him. Doing a heap of looking back across his shoulder.”

“That’ll be him, all right,” one of the possemen muttered, and several of the others grunted scowling agreement.

The sheriff’s tongue crossed his lips. He leaned forward excitedly. “Could you tell what he was wearin'?”

So far as he went Reifel told the exact truth. Without telling them where those clothes were now he described the things he had sunk behind Foley’s. The star packer nodded. “That checks. You make out what this bird looked like?”

Reifel lit his smoke and tossed the stick in the water. “I remember his eyes. They were yellow. Like a cat’s.”

The sheriff and his men exchanged glances. The nearest pair lifted their shoulders a little and a big fellow reined his mount close to Reifel’s. “How the hell could you tell what color his eyes was?”

“When I see a man’s lamps behind a .45-90 — ”

“You mean this guy throwed down on you?”

Reifel’s lips stretched flat against the whiteness of his teeth. “What the hell did you think a damned killer would be doing?”

While they swapped looks again he unsnaggled his leg from its perch round the horn and made to pick up his reins. He thought smoke from his quirley must have got in his eyes when the night and these shapes began to fog and go blurry, and he spat the thing out. Stream, riders, the whole moonlit world commenced to reel round in a kaleidoscope whirl and he clutched the horn desperately.

When he could see straight again he didn’t like the way these others were watching him. The big guy particularly.

The sheriff said dustily, “What did you do?”

“I threw a couple back at him. He’d got past by then but I think I nicked an elbow. What did this rannihan do — rob a bank?”

“He made a stab at the stage carryin’ the Crown King payroll. He had a bunch with him snugged out in the brush but the shotgun messenger didn’t know that. He was new to this run. They’d already thrown the box off when this new guy reckoned to take chips with his sawed-off. He never knew what struck him.”

Ben could see that dumb bastard falling again, pitching down between the wheelers. It was a picture he guessed he’d be seeing forever. The skin of his face felt stiff and hot and the roof of his mouth was parched dry as cotton.

“This whippoorwill forking the buckskin killed him?”

“It don’t make no difference which one of ’em done it. He was a deppity marshal an’ them skunks rubbed him out. The Law in this country ain’t goin’ to ferget it!”

There was a growl from his men and the sheriff’s eyes glinted. “Which way do you suppose that buckskin was headed?”

“Looked to me,” Ben said, “like he was headed for Paradise. Way he was feeding the steel to that horse he could be ten miles west — ”

“How do you know,” demanded one of the others, “that wasn’t a rusty he was cuttin’ to fool you? For all you can tell he may have choused off to Charleston.”

“What the hell would he waste time going over there for? Ain’t nothing at Charleston but a bunch of wrecked houses.”

“Mebbe that’s what he’s huntin'. Some place t’ hole up at.”

Why the hell,
Reifel thought,
should I argue about it?
All he wanted himself was to get away from them, a chance to get out of this country. If the fools wanted to go ramming over to Charleston why then so much the better for that would give him more leeway. But supposing they insisted he go over there with them? That big ox on the paint was still eyeing him, still weighing him inch by inch with a surly regard that was becoming more inimical with each passing moment. There was a bee in that bonnet and Ben reckoned he’d better take the play while he could.

He spoke to the sheriff. “How much would it be worth to get your hands on that jasper?”

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. The big fellow’s likewise. He shifted weight in his saddle and the leather screaked dismally. The star packer said, “You figure you could find him?”

“I’m asking you a question. If you don’t run him down there’ll be a reward posted, won’t there?”

“Be one offered anyway. Butterfield’ll put up somethin'. Federal gover’ment too, mebbe. But — ”

“If I take time off my regular work I ought to get paid for it. How much of that reward could I count on if you was to nab him?”

One of the other men growled. “All this damn jawin' — ”

“How much?” Reifel prodded.

“These other boys here, they got to get theirs too.”

“I’m looking out for Number One.”

Ben could see the sheriff was tempted. He was no more anxious to spend a month in these mountains than any of the others. He had sworn them in to help him round up this bunch but he had no way to hold them if they were minded to go home. The longer this job took the more they’d get to fretting. They were all for law and order, they wanted its protection, but the law was too new in these parts to very long override personal problems which were closer to their living than any theory of abstract justice. He’d be in a hell of a shape if they pulled out and left him.

Scowling, he said abruptly: “Would a — ”

But the big man cut in ahead of him. “Lafe,” he said around his chaw of tobacco, “I think this jigger knows a heap more’n he’s sayin'. He’s too cool a hand t’ be plumb honest.”

The sheriff’s surprised look — and there was a kindling suspicion building up a brightness in it — passed from Reifel to the big man and back again. With a narrowing stare searching Ben’s face he murmured, “Put your cards on the table, Chet. Say what’s in your mind.”

“It don’t strike me as likely he could of seen that bird’s eyes close enough t’ know their color an’ be talkin’ to us now. He says the guy throwed down on him — ”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Your own words do that. You must of met him more’n a hour ago. Moon’s higher now — stands t’ reason it must be brighter. Yet I can’t tell what color
your
eyes are though I’m close enough to you t’ see the sweat marks on your shirt.”

The sheriff spoke out of a tightening silence. “Mister, what Chet says shows some pretty straight thinkin'. Had you met that guy before?”

Reifel’s reluctant nod was forced through doubt. “If he’s the guy I’ve got in mind,” he said, “we’ve swapped looks three-four times this month.”

“Where?” Chet asked.

“In Paradise.” Reifel tried to see where this line might be taking him but the burning agony of that hole in his chest made thinking an irrational process right then and he said, hoping truth might bolster his position, “Mostly around Cy Turner’s livery.”

It was only after he had made this assertion that the folly of his words flew back to mock and scare him. But big Chet seemed not to notice. He was tramping through his own thoughts. Their doggedness was in his voice, the distrust they bred was in his stare. “If he was close as you make out, an’ comin’ right at you, I still can’t see how that coyote missed. That shot oughter knocked you hell west an’ crooked!”

An edge of scorn cut through Reifel’s glance and brightened with the leaping conviction that at last this quibbler had kicked the door wide open.

Relief pulsed through him like a heady wine. He could have laughed in their faces. For in his spiteful attempts to cut the ground from under Ben this blundering fool had shown the way to safety.

No longer was Reifel afraid to have the Law discover he’d been wounded. That wound, exposed now, would confirm his story. It would make this pumpkin-roller look like a ninny.

He grinned at them tightly. “It came near enough.” He yanked open the front of his shirt and pulled it back so the clumsy bandaging wrapped about his chest would be plainly visible. He sat back to enjoy the look on Chet’s face while those bloody rags did his talking for him.

But Chet didn’t goggle. His saddle creaked again as he abruptly leaned closer, intently staring. The expected bewildered chagrin didn’t touch him. No sign of disappointment reshaped his expression. With his eyes like fire opals he swept up the snout of his .45-90 and cried in a voice turned savage with triumph: “Lafe! Come alive an’ put a rope on this guy!”

Ben Reifel froze through an eternity of silence.

The sheriff was staring at big Chet stupidly. “Man, are you crazy?”

Chet’s laugh was an ugly sound in that stillness.

“You been complainin',” Lafe said, “because the guy wasn’t shot. Now he shows you he is — ”

“If his story was true I knew damn well he was shot. So I’ll ask you now what I been askin’ myself. How come there ain’t no blood on his shirtfront? How come there ain’t no bullet hole through it?”

T
OO LATE
Ben saw the jaws of the trap.

The sickness of fear was in his soul and the desperation born of his danger. Through crashing heartbeats every jungle instinct of the man who’s been hunted wildly urged him to claw for his gun and drop fighting. But the soft part of him, that careful part which did not like violence and had all its hopes wrapped up in reform, kept his hands tightly clamped to the horn of his saddle.

The sheriff’s gray mare moved up alongside and stopped. The stab of Lafe’s glance was bright and hard now as Chefs.

“Well?” He stared at Ben bleakly. “You heard the questions.”

Reifel managed to nod though he wished that he hadn’t. When the vibrant dance of those roundabout faces jerkily subsided into complete immobility he searched his mind for something to say — just anything at all which might tend to stave off for a few breaths longer the ugliness he saw taking shape behind the dark glitter of hostile eyes.

But that was his trouble. He’d talked too much already. These men hadn’t come along with Lafe for the ride. They had come to implement the Law’s retribution and were anxious to be done with it and rejoin their families.

They were anxious, he thought, to get at the fall planting; to round up their beef and trail their yearlings to market. They had come with Lafe because they’d put him in office, not because they shared or gave a damn about his problems. They had come because they felt they owed him that much allegiance. They had come to catch a bunch of marshal-killing crooks and saw in this lone stranger a fitting subject for example.

One of them took something off his saddle and the warning of that movement roared all through Ben’s arteries.

A voice cried harshly, “What the hell are we waitin’ on?” and a growl ran through those stiff black shapes like the snarl of a wolf pack scenting blood.

“Lafe,” Chet said, “get that polecat’s gun. We passed a tree back yonder that’s — ”

“Let’s keep our heads, boys …” The sheriff’s voice buckled and he stared uncertainly at Chet across a shoulder. He licked at dry lips. “Two wrongs won’t make a right. This gent’s got a right to explain — ”

“Why ain’t he doin’ it then?”

“If he ain’t mixed up with that stage-robbin’ crew — ”

The sheriff said nervously to Ben, “You better talk, boy. You better talk quick if you got anythin’ to say.”

And that was God’s truth.

But he had told them one story and to attempt to change it now would only be to dig himself in that much deeper. Nor would the actual facts of the matter help him — even an edited part of them. Anything he said now would have to be geared to fit what he’d already told them.

When he had led this bunch to believe he’d met Bo Breen on the trail he had committed himself and would have to stay with it. When he had shaped that story he had not intended to let them know he had been wounded, so the changed shirt hadn’t entered into his figuring. He’d been too intent then on directing their interest to a bastard who had earned the entire sum of their attentions.

It was big Chet’s talk which had sidetracked him into imagining that wound could get him out of this. He’d misread for a fool the sharpest thinker in this outfit.

Chet’s bull voice jumped out of the silence. “Whereabouts were you at when you caught that slug?”

“Silver Creek Canyon. A little west of Paradise — ”

“I thought you claimed the guy was
goin’
to Paradise!”

“He was when he left me. But he was coming from there when I — ”

“You told us
you
were comin’ from Paradise!”

“You want to tell this story?” Reifel said in the tone of a man hard tried.

The sheriff said to Chet, “You can’t be judge an’ jury, too — ”

Another voice cut in. “Got that rope handy, Curly?”

Lafe whirled his mare. “Next one of you boys makes a crack like that can hand in his badge an’ get the hell outa here!” He glowered a moment. He nodded curtly at Ben. “Go ahead.”

Ben tried to marshal his thoughts. “I ran into him just a little west of town, perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond the Squabble O Cafe. He was coming fast and had a gun in his fist — ”

“He had a .45-90 last time you told it.”

Ben said patiently, “That’s a gun, isn’t it?”

“Never heard it called — ”

“You’re hearin’ it now.” Ben clutched the horn harder. “I thought this bird was going to ride me down. Like I said, he was looking back over his shoulder. I yelled at him. He came around like a twister and whipped up his rifle. That first slug missed. I flung a couple back, not so much out of anger as to wake the fool up. That was when I seen the color of his eyes.”

Ben’s glance roved their faces. He said finally, desperately, “His next shot connected but he was already whirling when I piled from the saddle.”

There was no belief in the look Chet gave him. That sardonic stare was cold as a well chain. “An’ then?”

“I got on my horse again — ”

“Just climbed right up on him?”

“It took me a little while,” Ben said.

“But you finally got on him. Then what’d you do?”

Ben closed his eyes to try and clear his focus. “I stopped at a friend’s — ”

“What’s the name of this friend?”

“That won’t make any difference. He wasn’t home. I patched myself up and got into this shirt — ”

“Why’d you change your pants?”

Chet’s words hit Ben like the flat of a hammer. For one stunned moment he tried to consider what thoughts had prompted them. But their implications, like the man’s jeering face, danced out of his reach; and a gathering blackness rushed across his vision. He knew that he was falling but he couldn’t stop himself.