Falcon smiled and cut his eyes to the rancher, Ned. Ned paled and backed away from the Snake hands at the hitchrails. He headed for the livery stable at a fast walk.
“Yellow-bellied coyote,” Kip called after him.
Ned's back stiffened at that, but he did not stop walking nor turn around. A moment later, he was riding out of town at a trot.
“Kip,” Claude said. “Some friendly advice?”
“Long as it's free.”
Claude smiled. “We've known each other a long time, right?”
“That's right.”
“Nance Noonan and Stegman is on the way here with some of their men. It's gonna get real nasty real quick.”
“Showdown time, Claude?”
“Looks that way, Kip. You knew it had to come sooner or later.”
Kip sighed audibly. “And they're pushin' herds from their spreads west of here.” It was not put as a question.
“They need the grass, Kip.”
“What about the rest of us?”
“You're history, I reckon.”
“Not without a fight, we won't be.”
Claude shrugged, being careful to move only his shoulders. Kip was no gunfighter, but he was a crack pistol shot, and Claude knew even with lead in him, the foreman could still kill one or two men as he was going down. And one of those he would kill would more than likely be him.
“It's progress, Kip,” Claude said.
“It's nothin' but stealin', and you know it, Claude.”
Claude again shrugged his indifference. “That ain't the way we see it.”
Falcon had already picked out the two men he guessed would be the most dangerous when it came to a hook and draw. Those two were relaxed where the others were tense. Those two were watching him closely, the others were trying to watch the both of them on the boardwalk.
“Kip, this don't have to be,” Claude said. “Gilman's made Bailey a good offer for the land. He can push his beeves a hundred miles south or east or north and start over. There don't have to no more killin'.”
“The Rockingchair brand is here to stay, Claude. That's the way it's gonna be.”
“Your funeral, Kip.”
“Hell,” one of the nervous Snake hands said, a shrillness to his voice. “Let's start the buryin' now.”
He grabbed for his pistol.
Four
Falcon drew and fired before the cowboy could close his hand around the butt of his .45. He shot to wound, not to kill; the bullet slammed into the cowboy's shoulder and knocked him down. Before the startled Snake hands could blink, Falcon's left hand was filled with a .44 and Kip had jacked back the hammers on the double-barreled sawed-off and was ready to take out two or three riders.
“Hold it!” Claude shouted, his eyes on the Greener in Kip's hands, both muzzles pointed at him. Claude was just a little pale around the mouth, knowing that the shotgun would cut him in half. When he was reasonably sure Kip wasn't going to pull the trigger, he shifted his gaze to Falcon. “You ain't no gunslick I ever heard of, mister. Leas' not by the name you're usin'. But you're a gunhandler none the less. It must have cost John Bailey a pretty penny to bring you in. But you keep this in mindâas a matter of fact, you dwell on it considerable: For every gunslick John can buy, we can buy twenty.” He unbuckled his gunbelt, let it dangle, and deliberately turned his back to Falcon and Kip. “All of you boys hang your gunbelts on your saddle horn. Then some of you get Gates over to the Doc.” He hung his gunbelt on the apple and turned around. “It's over for this day. No more gunplay, Kip.”
“Suits me,” the Rockingchair foreman said.
“We're headin' over to the Stampede and we'll stay there till you and your gunfighter get gone.”
“That' ll be about forty-five minutes,” Falcon said. He still had not holstered his .44s.
“Suits us,” Claude said. “Let's go, boys.”
The Snake hands walked across the wide street and into saloon.
“What the hell are we gonna do for the next forty-five minutes?” Kip asked.
“You go down to the livery and rent a wagon and a team,” Falcon said, only then shoving his .44s back into leather. “Meet me in back of the general store. We're going to stock up on supplies.”
“Ol' prune-face Dean and his buffalo-butted wife won't sell us nothin', Val.”
Falcon laughed at Kip's description of the store owners. “I wouldn't bet on that, Kip. See you at the store.”
Falcon walked over to the huge general store, just opening for the day, and stepped inside. The owner, Dean, looked up from a ledger and frowned. “We're not open,” he said primly.
“Oh, yes, you are. Get a pad and pencil and take down this list I'm about to give you.”
“I saw what happened a few minutes ago,” Dean said. “I don't have to sell to Rockingchair trash. I'm under the protection of Miles Gilman.”
Falcon slapped him off the stool. The store owner hit the floor just as his wife entered from the living quarters. She let out a pig squeal and exited much faster than she'd entered. Falcon noticed the floor shook every time one of her not-so-dainty tootsies impacted against the boards.
Falcon bought every round of .44, .45, and .44-.40 in the store. He bought every stick of dynamite, every cap and fuse. Then he stocked up on dried beans, potatoes, bacon, coffee, salt, flour, new blankets for the handsâif they showed upâand anything else he could think of that they might need. Then, with a smile, he bought a box of peppermint sticks and some horehound candy.
Guessing they might be hauling a heavy load, Kip had rented a freight wagon and four big pullers. The wagon was piled full when they pulled out.
“Charge this to Gilman,” Falcon told the store owner. “In lieu of damages.”
Dean was sputtering like a fish out of water as they headed for the ranch. He stood on the loading dock behind the store and sputtered and muttered oaths and dark threats . . . but not too loudly. Kip was smiling as he drove the heavily loaded wagon back to the Rockinghorse spread, his horse tied behind.
After the supplies were off-loaded, the Bailey family listened to all that had transpired in town while Jimmy played outside and munched on hard candy.
After Falcon had finished, John poured another round of coffee for all and sat back down at the table beside his wife. “If Noonan and Stegman reach this country with their herds, we're finished. Together they're runnin' twenty-five or thirty thousand headâat least.”
“We could stretch wire, John,” Kip said.
John Bailey shook his head. “Wire won't stop that bunch, Kip.”
“We've got some time to think about that,” Falcon said. “It'll be two months or more before they get here. If they're even on the way.”
“What do you mean, Val?” John asked.
“It might be a bluff. I think it is a bluff, for the most part. Noonan and Stegman need to get cows to market. They're no different than any other rancher: They need to sell some beeves. Oh, they might be moving some of the younger stuff up here. That makes sense to me. But not twenty-five or thirty thousand head. Not all the way from their spreads in southern Wyoming.”
John and his foreman were silent for a moment. The ticking of the grandfather clock was the only sound in the pleasant and comfortable home. Kip broke the silence. “Spreads they killed small ranchers to get. But I think you're right, Val.”
John nodded his head in agreement. “I'll go along with it. And you're right about them needin' the money. Maybe not as bad as we do, but the word I get is that they need to sell some cattle.” He met Falcon's eyes. “I can pay fightin' wages for a few months, Val. After that, I'm broke.”
“Don't worry about that, John.”
The rancher grunted. “Well, if I don't worry about it, who will?”
Falcon smiled. “Just don't worry about money. I know a few people out here who would be glad to give you a loan.”
“You know a few more than I do then.”
Falcon laughed softly, pushed his chair back, and rose to his boots. “I'm going to take a ride around your range, John. Get to know it and look over the cattle. Maybe start heading a few toward that box you showed me. I'll be back in a couple of days.”
After Falcon had closed the door behind him, Martha said, “I wonder who that man really is?”
Kip shook his head. “I've seen him somewheres. I know I have. I just can't put a name to the face. I know it ain't Val Mack.”
“He's got some education and plenty of manners,” Angie said. “He had some good raising. He's a gentleman.”
“I agree,” her mother said.
“A gentleman he may be,” Kip said. “But he's the fastest gun I've ever seen. And he can be mean as a puma when he puts his mind to it.”
“You think Border's out of the game?” John asked.
“Oh, yeah. Val ruined his hands.”
“But he'll still be able to use a rifle.”
“In time. But not no time soon.”
“Gilman will just bring in more gunfighters,” Martha said.
John patted his wife's hand. “I'm afraid you're right about that.”
Angie was standing by a front window. “There he goes. Heading off toward the north. Riding like he doesn't have a care in the world.”
“Shore wish I could place that feller,” Kip mused.
* * *
“Who the hell is this Val Mack?” Gilman shouted at Claude.
The foreman shook his head. “I don't know, Miles. I never heard of no gunfighter named Val Mack.”
“He's comin' on like a one-man wreckin' crew,” the rancher groused. “And I want him stopped. Damn, Claude. He's just one man. Send some of the boys after him.”
“Well, there's a crowd of 'em itchin' to go, for a fact.”
“Cut 'em loose.”
“Against just this Val Mack?”
Miles looked at his foreman for a few seconds. “Take him out first, then we'll move against the Rockinghorse in force.”
“What about these telegrams he sent?”
“It's gibberish.” He waved copies of the wires Claude had given him. “I can't make any sense out of it. It's about a puma and a wildcat and a mustang and other silly stuff. I think it's some sort of trick just to throw us off.”
“I'll get the boys supplied up and moving.”
“Good. Let's get ourselves shut of this damn Val Mack and get back to business.”
After his forehand had left the main house, Miles Gilman sat in his study and pondered the situation. But he didn't give Val Mack much more than a couple of minutes' thought. Just another two-bit gunhand, he figured. Hell, he had twenty on his payroll. This Val Mack just got lucky, that's all. But it was too bad about Border.
Miles had to have the Rockinghorse range, and that was all there was to it. Miles was overgrazing his grass and John Bailey had the best grass and water anywhere around. How the old coot had managed to hang on this long was a mystery.
But he couldn't be allowed to hang on much longer. Not with Stegman and Noonan coming up with a herd of young stuff.
John Bailey had to be moved. Or buried. And that was that. And if his family got in the way and got hurt or killed? Well... too bad.
* * *
In Colorado, northern California, and New Mexico, attorneys read the wires from Falcon MacCallister and laughed, all of them wondering what in the world Falcon was up to. Within the hour, the attorneys had dispatched riders in all directions to find the men Falcon wanted. The riders carried money to outfit the men and get them on stagecoaches and trains. But why in the world Falcon MacCallister, a very wealthy man, wanted these disreputable old farts was a mystery.
The attorneys had already sent investigators into the town of Noon and were working to clear Falcon's name and have the federal warrants against him dropped. That would be done. It was just a matter of time. The legal process worked, but it was oftentimes very slow, the slowness something men of the west did not seem to understand.
The attorneys also wrote out bank drafts and got them moving toward Falcon, aka Val Mack.
The attorneys who handled some of Falcon MacCallister's considerable wealth, and who were located around the west, all chuckled, knowing that whatever Falcon was doing, there would be a considerable amount of excitement related to it. The man seemed to draw trouble quicker than a lightning rod.
* * *
Falcon knew he was being followed an hour after leaving the ranch. The man was pretty good, but Falcon was one hundred percent his father's son, and
nobody
was a better tracker than Jamie MacCallister.
Falcon had ridden through this country many times, but it had been a while, and his memory was busy trying to remember all the ins and outs.
After a few minutes, Falcon came to a spot he recalled. There was a tiny creek that flowed just behind a huge upthrusting of rock, if his memory served him correct. He quickly swung in behind the rocks and ran back to deliberately cover his trail as clumsily as possible. Then, staying on rocky ground, Falcon got his rifle and ran to a smaller outcropping of rocks about forty feet away and directly across from the rocks that lay in front of the creek.
He made himself as comfortable as possible and waited.
The minutes ticked past and the sun grew hotter. The soft murmuring of the cold waters of the tiny spring-fed creek grew mighty appealing to Falcon. His mouth felt as though it were filled with cotton.
“Gettin' thirsty, boy?” The voice and question came from behind him.
Falcon's hands tightened on his rifle and he waited for the shock of the bullet.