Showdown at Yellow Butte (1983) (2 page)

Gunter turned on him nervously. "I'll tell you all you need to know, Tom. See you later!"

Kedrick shrugged, and picking up his
hat
, walked out. Donnie Shaw had already vanished. When he reached the veranda, Connie Duane still sat there. She was staring over the top of her book at the dusty, sun-swept street.

He paused, hat in hand. "Have you been in Mustang long?"

She looked up, studying him for a long minute before she spoke. "Why, no. Not long. Yet long enough to learn to love and hate." She turned her eyes to the hills, then back to him. "I love this country, Captain. Can you understand that?

"I'm a city girl, born and bred in the city, and yet when I first saw those red rock walls, those lonely mesas, the desert, the Indian ponies why, Captain, I fell in love! This is my country. I could stay here forever."

Surprised, he studied her again, more pleased than he could easily have admitted. "That's the way I feel about it. But you said to love and to hate. You love the country. Now what do you hate?"

"Some of the men who infest it, Captain. Some of the human wolves it breeds, and others, bred elsewhere, who come to it to feed off the ones who came earlier and were more courageous but are less knowing, less tricky."

More and more surprised, he leaned on the rail. "I don't know if I follow you, Miss Duane. I haven't been here long, but I haven't met any of those you speak of."

She looked up at him, her eyes frank and cool. Slowly, she closed her book and turned toward the door. "You haven't, Captain?" Her voice was suddenly cool. "Are you sure? At this moment, I am wondering if you are not one of them!" She stepped thought the door and was gone.

Tom Kedrick stood for a moment, staring after her. When he turned' away it was with a puzzled frown on his face. Now what did she mean by that? What did she know about him that could incline her to such a view? Despite himself, he was both irritated and disturbed. Coupled with the anger of the man Peters, it offered a new element to his thinking.
Yet, how could Consuelo Duane, John Gunter's niece, have the same opinion owned by Peten?
No doubt they stemmed from different sources. Troubled, he walked on down to the street of the town and stood there, looking around.

He had not yet changed into Western clothes, and. wore a flat-crowned, flat-brimmed black hat, which he would retain, a tailored gray suit, and black Western-style boots. Pausing on the corner, he slowly rolled a cigarette and lighted it. He made a dashing, handsome figure as he stood there in his perfectly fitted suit, his lean, bronzed face strong, intelligent, and alert.

Both men and women glanced at him and most of them looked twice. His military erectness, broad shoulders and cool self-possession were enough to mark him in any crowd. His mind had escaped his immediate problem now and was lost in the never-ending excitement of a crowded Western street. All kinds of men and women seemed jammed together without rhyme or reason.

For the West was of all things, a melting pot. Adventurers came to seek gold, new lands, excitement. Gamblers, women of the oldest and most active profession, thugs, gunmen, cow rustlers,
horse thieves
, miners, cowhands, freighters and just drifters all crowded the street. That bearded unshaven man in the sun-faded red wool shirt might, if prompted, start to spout Shakespeare. The slender young man talking to the girl in the buckboard might have graduated from Oxford, and the white-faced gambler might be the scion of an old Southern family.

All men wore guns, most of them in plain sight. Few of them would hesitate to use them if need be. The man who fought with his fists, although present, was a rarity.

A big man lurched from the crowd. Tom glanced at him, and their eyes met. Obviously, the man had been drinking and was hunting trouble. In Kedrick, he thought he found it. Sensing a fight, other passers-by became wary and stopped to watch.

"So?" The big man stood wide legged, his sleeves rolled about thick, hairy forearms. " 'Nother one of them durn thieves! Land stealers!" He chuckled suddenly. "Well, your murderer ain't with you now to save your bacon, an' I aim to git my share of you right now! Reach!"

Kedrick's mouth was dry, but his eyes were calm. He held the cigarette in his right hand near his mouth. "Sorry, friend. I'm not packing a gun. If I were, I'd still not kill you. You're mistaken, man, about that land. My people have a rightful claim to it."

"Have they, now?" The big man came a step nearer, his hand on the butt of his gun. "The right to take from a man the land he's sweated over? T
o
tear down his home? To run his kids out on the desert?"

Despite the fact that the man was drunk, Tom Kedrick saw beyond it a sullen and honest fury and fear. Not fear for him, for this man was not afraid, nor would he be afraid of Dornie Shaw. He was afraid for his family. The realization of that fact struck Kedrick and disturbed him anew. More and more he was questioning the course he bad chosen.

The crowd murmured
and was ugly. Obviously, their sympathies were with the big man, and against Kedrick.

A low murmur, then a rustling in the crowd, and suddenly: deathly silence. Kedrick saw the big man's face pale, and heard someone whisper hoarsely, "Look out, Burt! It's Dornie Shawl"

Kedrick was suddenly aware that Shaw had moved up beside him. "Let me have him, Cap'n," Shaw's voice was low. "It's time this here was stopped."

Kedrick's voice was sharp, cold. "
No!
Move back, Shawl I'll fight my own battles!"

"But you ain't got a gun!" Shaw's voice was sharper in protest.

Burt showed no desire to retreat. That the appearance of Shaw had shocked him was evident, but this man was not Peters. He was going to stand his ground. His eyes, wary now, but puzzled, shifted from Shaw to Kedrick, and Tom took an easy step forward, putting himself almost within arm's length of Burt.

"Shaw's not in this, Burt," he said quietly. "I've no quarrel with you, man, but no man calls me without getting his chance. If you want what I'v
e
got, don't let the fact that
I'm
not armed stop you. I wanted no quarrel, but you do so have at it!" Suspicion was in the big man's eyes. He had seen guns come from nowhere before, and especially from men dressed as this one. He was not prepared to believe that Kedrick would face him unarmed. "You got a gun!" he snapped. "You got a hideout, you durned coyote!"

He jerked his gun from the holster and in that instant, Tom Kedrick moved. The edge of his left hand chopped down on the rising wrist of the gun-hand, and he stepped in, whipping up his right in an uppercut that packed all the power in his lean, whipcord body. The punch was fast and perfectly timed, and the crack of it on the corner of Burt's jaw was like the snap of a teamster's whip. Burt hit the walk just one split second after his gun, and he hit it right on his shoulder blades.

Coolly then, Kedrick stooped and picked up the gun, an old 1851 Model Navy revolver. He stood over the man, his eyes searching the crowd. Wherever he looked there were hard, blank faces. He glanced down at Burt. The big man was slowly sitting up, shaking his big head. He started to lift his right hand, and gave a sudden gasp of pain. He stared at it, then looked up. 'You broke my wrist!" he said. "It's busted!
An' me with my plowin' to do. Better get up," Kedrick said quietly.
'You asked for it, you know."

When the man was on his feet, Kedrick calmly handed him his six-shooter. Their eyes met over the gun and Kedrick smiled. "Take it. Drop it down in your holster an' forget it. I'm not worried. You're not the man to shoot another in the back."

Calmly, he turned his back and walked slowl
y
away down the street. Before the St. James, he paused. His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he took out a paper and shook tobacco into it.

"That was slick." It was Dornie Shaw's soft voice. His brown eyes probed Kedrick's face curiously. "Never seen the like! Just slapped his wrist an busted it!"

With Keith, John Gunter had also come up, and he was smiling broadly. "Saw it all, son! That'll do more good than a dozen killings! Just like Tom Smith used to do! Old Bear Creek Tom who handled some of the toughest rannies that ever came over the trail with nothin' but his fists!"

'What would you have done if he had jerked that gun back and fired?" Keith asked.

Kedrick shrugged, wanting to forget it. "He hadn't time," he said quietly. "But there are answers to that, too!"

"Some of the boys will be up to see you tonight, Tom," Gunter advised. "I've had Dornie notify Shad, Fessenden and some of the others. Better figure on a ride out there tomorrow. Makin'
. A
start, anyway. Just sort of ride around with some of the boys to let 'em know we ain't foolin'."

Kedrick nodded, and after a brief discussion Went inside and to his room. Certainly, he reflected, the West had not changed. Things still happened fast out here.

He pulled off his coat, waistcoat and vest, then his boots. Stripped to the waist, he sat down on the bed and dug into his valise. For a couple of minutes he dug around and then drew out two well-oiled holsters and gun belts. In the holsters were two .44 Russian pistols, a Smith & Wesson gun, manufactured on order for the Russian Army, an
d
one of the most accurate shooting pistols on the market up to that time.

Carefully, he checked the loads, then returned the guns to their holsters and put them aside. Digging around, he drew out a second pair of guns, holsters and belts. Each of these was a Walch twelve-shot Navy pistol, caliber .36, and almost identical in size and weight to the Frontier Colt or the .44 Russian.

Rarely seen in the West, and disliked by some, Kedrick had used the guns on many occasions and found them always satisfactory. There were times when the added fire power was a big help. As for stopping power, the .36 in the hands of a good marksman lacked but little that offered by the heavier .44 caliber.

Yet, there was a time and a place for everything, and these guns had an added tactical value. Carefully, he wrapped them once more and returned them to the bottom of his valise. Then he belted on the .44 Russians, and digging out his Winchester, carefully cleaned, oiled and loaded it. Then he sat down on the bed and was about to remove his guns again and stretch out, when there was a light tap at the door.

`Come in," said Kedrick, and if you're an enemy, I'll be pleased to know you?"

The door opened and closed all in a breath. The man that stood with his back to it facing Kedrick was scarcely five-feet-four, yet almost as broad as he was tall. All of him seemed the sheer power of bone and muscle, and not an ounce of fat anywhere. His broad brown face might have been graved from stone, and the bristle of
short cropped
hair above it was black as a crow's wing. The man's neck sprea
d
to broad, thick shoulders. On his right hip he packed a gun. In his hand he held a narrow-brimmed hard hat.

Kedrick leaped to his feet. 'Dail" The name was an explosion of sound. "Dal Reid! What are you doing in this country?"

"Ah? So it's that you ask, is it? Well, it's trouble there is, much of trouble! An' you that's by way of bringin' it!"

"Me?" Kedrick waved to a chair. "Tell me what you mean."

The Welshman searched his face, then seated himself, his huge palms resting on his knees. His legs were thick muscled and bowed. "It's the man Bur-wick you're with? An' you've the job taken to run us off the land? There is changed you are, Tom, an' for the worse!"

"You're one of them? You're on the land Burwick, Keith and Guiter claim?"

"I am that. And a sight of work
I've
done on it, too. An' now the rascals would be put-tin' me off. Well, they'll have a fight to move me an' you, too, Tom Kedrick, if you're to stay one of them."

Kedrick studied the Welshman thoughtfully. All his doubts had come to a head now . . . for this man, he knew. His own father had been Welsh, his mother Irish, and Dai Reid had been friend to them both. Dai had come from the old country with his father, had worked beside him when he courted his mother, and although much younger than Gwilym Kedrick, he had come West with him, too.

"Dai," he said slowly, "I'll admit that today
I've
been having doubts of all this. You see, I knew John Gunter after the war, and I took a herd of cattle over the trail for a friend of his. There was trouble that year, the Indians holding up every herd and demanding large numbers of cattle for themselves, the rustlers trying to steal whole herds, and others demanding money for passage across land they claimed. I took my herd through without paying anything but a few fat beefs for the Indians, who richly deserved them. But not what they demanded
they got what I wanted to give.

"Gunter remembered me from that, and knew something of my war record, so when he approached me in New Orleans, his proposition sounded good. And this is what he told me.

"His firm, Burwick, Keith and Gunter, had filed
application
for the survey and purchase of all or parts of nearly three hundred sections of land. They made oath that this land was swampland, or overflowed and came under the General Land Office ruling that it was 'land too wet for irrigation at seeding time, though later requiring irrigation, and
therefore
subject to sale as swamp.'