Ride the Man Down (15 page)

He heard a grunt and immediately afterward the solid thud of flesh on flesh and he heard Cavanaugh's cry, and then the shape of the dark mass was altered. Part of it was in the road now. It was Cavanaugh; Kneen had knocked him from the saddle.

Kneen said with a cold, wintry fury in his voice, “You'll take that gun if I have to strap it in your hand!” And again he moved away from Cavanaugh's horse.

Will saw Cavanaugh come to his feet, heard his terrified sob, and then he saw him lunge for the gun in the road.

Will waited, motionless, peering at the dark, sobbing shape in the road ahead of him. He saw Cavanaugh rise and run for his horse, and then the flash and the shot came.

Will waited another moment until he heard Cavanaugh hit the saddle, and then he roweled his horse and reached for his own gun.

Cavanaugh shot again and pulled his horse around and put it down the slope onto the grass, and Will, implacable, cut across the road, too, and was after him.

The race was wordless, desperate, and the urgency of it seemed communicated to the horses. The shape of Cavanaugh's horse ahead of him was distinct against the grass. Will pulled his horse to the left a bit, trying to head Cavanaugh off from the island of timber that bulked darkly to the south. But Cavanaugh had seen it and was heading for it.

Again Cavanaugh shot and again missed, and Will saw that his own horse was overhauling Cavanaugh's. He was twenty feet behind him now, and he raised his gun.

Cavanaugh, as if sensing Will's intention, shot again, and Will lowered his gun. Cavanaugh's dark shape ahead of him was too cunningly blended with the trees.

They hit the timber in a headlong gallop, Cavanaugh in the lead. He plunged his horse recklessly into it, and Will, hugging the neck of his horse, followed. He heard the breaking of brush ahead, heard the frightened snort of Cavanaugh's horse, and then came a sharp crack of a breaking limb and the smothered cry on the heel of it, and then the sound of Cavanaugh hitting the underbrush.

Will reined up violently, and the sound of crashing brush ahead of him he roweled his horse toward it.

The shot came then, and it was almost at the head of his horse, a blinding flash.

Will kneed his horse on with a savage violence, and he felt his horse hit Cavanaugh and he held his gun down and shot. It took his horse ten feet to check its run, and Will reined up and listened. Off somewhere to the left Cavanaugh's horse was moving around.

Will rode back and dismounted, and now he could make out Cavanaugh's lighter, shirt in the brush. He waited a moment, listening, and then reached for a match and wiped it alight with his fingernail.

He saw Cavanaugh then and put his match out immediately and turned away, fighting a sickness. His long shot had caught Cavanaugh in the face.

He mounted then and rode slowly back to the road. Kneen was sitting by the side of it, smoking. He threw away his cigarette and stood up as Will's horse climbed the shoulder of the road and halted beside him.

“He's back there in the timber,” Will said. “I made a mistake about you, Joe, and I'm sorry for it.”

“All right.”

Will's voice was troubled now. “They won't go easy on you, Joe.”

“Not on either of us,” Kneen said meagerly.

Will was silent a moment, and then he asked, “Did he tell you where he buried John?”

“On the north slope above the shack.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then Kneen sighed softly. “I feel better, Will. What kind of a man am I for saying that?”

“An honest one.”

“I think I am,” Kneen said quietly, and he mounted and put his horse down the slope.

Chapter 13

Red Courteen said, “When this starts, Mitch, you circle behind the bunkhouse and watch from the upside.”

He saw the two men standing in the door of Hatchet's bunkhouse in the late-afternoon sun. One was Ike Adams and the other, Red saw, was the brother of the fresh Texas kid he'd seen in town this morning, but he rode on, unimpressed.

His eight men spread out a little behind him, and Mitch dropped out to drift behind the bunkhouse. Red reined up in front of the bunkhouse steps where Ike stood.

“What do you want here, Red?” Ike asked sourly. He held a carbine slacked in his arm.

Red didn't answer immediately. The Texan was behind Ike. In the cookshack doorway, Red noted, the cook stood with a six-gun tucked in the top of his apron.

Red's glance settled now on Ike and he said, “Cattle.”

“If we got any of yours in there it's a mistake.”

Red smiled faintly. “You got a hundred of mine, Ike, and it's no mistake.” He reached in his shirt pocket for Priest's bill of sale and gave it to Ike, glancing lazily, indifferently, at the house as he did so. He was still looking at it as Ike unfolded the bill of sale and read it.

Only when he heard the paper tear did he look down at Ike. Carefully, disdainfully, Ike was tearing the bill of sale in quarters, eights, and finally sixteenths. Then he threw the pieces on the ground and said, “They stay in the pasture, Red.”

Red said unsmilingly, “All right, boys.”

Ike's carbine came up, cocked. “Just ride back the way you come, I'll follow you a ways.”

Red murmured dryly, “Eight to three, Ike. Pick out your man, because you won't get a second shot.”

Ike's gun swung over to cover him. “I'll take you then,” Ike said quietly.

For a moment nobody moved. Red waited patiently, watching Ike, gauging his intention. He knew Ike would shoot; he also figured that Mitch had had plenty of time to skirt the bunkhouse, cover Ike, and put a stop to this. He said then, “Ike, you're covered. Figure it out. Now put that gun down and shut up.”

Ike's rifle mounted to his shoulder, and for one wild instant of unbelief Red saw that he really intended to shoot. He rolled out of the saddle just as Mitch's gun blasted from the upper corner of the bunkhouse. Ike shot, too, but it was only reflex as he was driven to his knees by Mitch's bullet.

The whole thing exploded then, and Red saw it with a kind of horror, knowing it was too late to stop it. The Texan dodged back in the bunkhouse and slammed the door. The cook did the same in the cookshack. Half his men were shooting now at the door of the bunkhouse while they scattered for cover.

Red himself ran to the upper corner of the bunkhouse and came in beside Mitch.

“He was goin' to shoot you!” Mitch said excitedly.

Red said savagely, “Ah, you damn fool!” and peered around the corner. His men had taken to cover at the corral and the barn. The Texan now calmly walked out from the bunkhouse, picked Ike up, and went inside with him. Red cursed bitterly. This was all wrong, but it had gone too far now for him to back out. He might as well go through with it as planned. He went to the other corner of the bunkhouse and shouted orders for three of his men to drive all the cattle out of the pasture. He detailed two more to keep the cook and the Texan inside the bunkhouse and ordered the rest to make their way to the house. As he was calling he felt Mitch's hand on his arm and he shook it off impatiently. When he was finished, however, Mitch said, “Look,” and pointed to the house.

Red turned to see Celia Evarts, skirts lifted in both hands, running toward the bunkhouse.

Red waited in doubt only a moment, and then he ran out to intercept her. Celia saw him coming and tried to dodge, and Red caught her. Picking her up, arm around her waist, he started back to the house with her. Celia fought furiously, but Red covered his face with his free arm and went on. When he reached the porch he set her down just as two of his men who had ridden in a wide circle out of range of the cook's six-gun arrived at the house.

Celia looked at them wrathfully and said, “Ike's shot! I want to see him.”

Red said grimly, “Afterward. You're goin' to stay right here now,” and turned to two of his men. “Bring her along.”

Red strode past her and into the doorway of the living room. Celia, still struggling, was escorted into the living room by two of Red's men, who almost carried her between them.

But when Celia was inside she stopped struggling and only watched Red Courteen. With his gun Red smashed everything breakable that he could see in the room. He overturned chairs, kicking their backs out, put a boot through the back of the sofa, and threw the table through the window. Celia watched first with astonishment and then with furious contempt in her face, while outside the shooting kept up with a maddening regularity. Room by room Celia was forced to watch Red smash everything he could reach. He worked with the vicious concentration of a destructive child, and Celia was almost afraid of what she saw in his tough face. She didn't know why he was doing it, could not understand the almost fanatical pleasure he was getting out of this destruction. He saved her bedroom until the last, and when that was thoroughly wrecked he went back out onto the veranda.

He stood there, eyes alight with a wicked pleasure, breathing deeply from his exertion. Even his men, Celia noticed, were a little sobered by what they had seen. She kept silent, hoping they would go so she could see Ike. Mel Young in the bunkhouse and the cook in the cookshack were still futilely shooting.

Red glanced down toward the corrals and saw the cattle streaming out of the pasture, and then he turned to Celia.

“Give Will Ballard a look at that,” he said flatly, nodding toward the house. “Next time he wrecks Ten Mile for me he'll think twice.”

“He'll finish it next time,” Celia said scornfully. “I think, Mr. Courteen, you'll leave the country if you're wise.”

Red smiled thinly. “You can tell Will why Ike was shot too. I had a bill of sale for a hundred cattle I'd bought from Priest. Ike wouldn't honor it. Tell him that.”

Celia didn't answer, and her silence seemed to enrage Courteen. He said thickly, “I took a lot off your old man and Will Ballard when Hatchet was top of the heap. I aim to show you and Ballard how it feels.”

He turned and mounted his horse, and his two men followed him down to the corral. On the way he pulled off the two men who had kept Mel Young and the cook in the bunkhouse.

Celia hurried to the bunkhouse through the dusk now, and Mel Young opened the door for her. She went straight to Ike's bunk and knelt beside him. He was propped up on his elbows, his truculent face pale and twisted with pain, and he said angrily, “Mel said they cornered you up in the house.”

“It doesn't matter, Ike,” Celia said hastily. “Where are you hit?”

“The leg,” Ike said weakly.

She looked at the wound, which was a clean shot through the thick part of the thigh. While Mel Young lighted the lamp against the deepening dusk and then went for hot water with the cook, Celia set about dressing Ike's leg.

Neither of them talked, and Celia worked with a feverish concentration. trying to crowd out of her mind any memory of what had happened. But try as she might, she could not forget one thing. Red Courteen had told her. Ike was shot because he refused to honor Courteen's bill of sale from Lowell Priest. Celia, thinking of that and of Lottie, thought then of Will and pitied him.

Sam was roused by a racketing knock at his door, and he shouted sleepily, “Who is it?”

Before the answer came he noted irritably that it was daylight, and then someone shouted, “Russ Schultz, Sam.”

“Come in,” Sam said sullenly.

He swung out of bed, wincing against the soreness of his body, pulled on his pants, and then looked over at Schultz in the doorway.

Schultz was excited, but in spite of it he paused, staring at Sam's face. It was swollen and cut, both eyes purple and scarcely open. Sam flushed under his glance and said angrily through swollen lips, “What do you want?”

Schultz said, “Will got him.”

Sam came slowly off the bed, and Schultz began to tell of what happened. Kneen had left late last evening with Cavanaugh to take him to jail. He'd returned to Bib M after midnight with Cavanaugh's body. Kneen's story was that Cavanaugh had tried to escape and he'd shot him. Bide had doubted immediately that Cavanaugh even wanted to escape, and when he'd looked at Cavanaugh and seen where he was shot he was sure. At the crack of daylight this morning Bide had taken his crew and Kneen out to the scene of the shooting. Sure enough, there were the tracks of a third horse, which could only be Will Ballard's.

Sam listened carefully, his own troubles forgotten. His thick chest was bruised and red, but he made no effort to hide the marks as he became absorbed in Schultz's story.

Schultz finished, “So Bide wants you as a witness. He's waitin' down there with Kneen for you.”

Sam said, “Of course,” and picked up his shirt. He was so excited that he buttoned his shirt crookedly, did not think of breakfast, and did not bother after he was dressed to tidy his room, a chore he had not once neglected since he'd built this place. He felt only a growing elation; Will had gone too far at long last.

He stepped out into a gray morning. The smell of pine pitch and chips was strong in the air as he passed his new bunkhouse of peeled logs and saw that his crew had already scattered for the day's work.

Catching up his horse quickly, he saddled him and met Schultz in front of the house, and they rode out.

They came on Bide and his crew a half-hour later. Bide, with Kneen, was seated on the shoulder of the wagon road where it rounded the curve of a timbered slope. The horses of Bide's crew were all being held together down off the slope, the men with them.

Bide rose as Sam approached and called, “Pull off the road on the upside, Sam.”

Sam did so and came up to them and dismounted. He was grateful that nobody seemed to notice his bruised face. Kneen didn't rise, only nodded in quiet greeting. Bide's dark face held less anger than impatience, and he said grimly, “I didn't want you to spoil the tracks. Did Schultz tell you?”