the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986) (45 page)

"Want a pistol-whipping, man?" he asked harshly. "If I start on you, you'll never look the same again!"

"Leave me be," Ratcliff pleaded, his face yellow. "I'll talk."

"Get at it then."

"They done loaded up with grub. We let 'em get out of town. Then Sodermann ambushed 'em. Had about six men, I think."

"Who was killed?"

"We lost a man. We got Miller an' Tot Wilson in the first blast. It was Hatfield got our man. Nailed him dead center between the eyes."

"What happened to Hatfield an' Hight?"

"They got Hight. I seen him go down. He was shot two, maybe three times. We got Hatfield, too. But he got up an' he dragged Hight into some rocks. We couldn't get to 'em."

"Then what?"

A voice roared from the saloon. It was Sodermann. "Ratcliff! What in time are you doin' out there?"

"Answer me!" Kilkenny snapped. "Then what?"

"Sodermann said it'd serve 'em right. Leave 'em there to die with two men to see they didn't move out of them rocks. They been there two days now."

"On the Blazer trail?"

"Yeah, almost to the turnoff to the peaks."

With a swift movement, Kilkenny flipped Ratcliff's pistol from its holster. "All right, get goin'!" he snapped.

With a dive, Ratcliff started for the saloon door. And just at that instant, Sodermann thrust his huge bulk into the open space. He glimpsed Kilkenny as he released Ratcliff, and with a swift motion, palmed his gun and fired.

He fired from the hip, and he wasn't a good hip shot. His first bullet caught Ratcliff square in the chest, and the weasel-faced rider stopped dead still and then dropped. Kilkenny's gun swept up, and spraddle-legged in the open, he fired.

Sodermann's gun went off at the same instant, but Kilkenny's bullet hit him right above the belt buckle in the middle of that vast expanse. The blow staggered Sodermann, and his bullet clipped slivers from the building above Kilkenny's head and whined angrily away into the grass back of the saloon.

The big man looked sick, and then suddenly his knees gave way and he toppled face downward upon the steps. The pistol fell from fingers that had lost their life, and rattled on the boards below.

Kilkenny walked toward the saloon, keeping his gun in his hand. Stepping up beside the door, he saw Rye Pitkin and the short bartender, rifles in hand, crouched by the front window.

"Drop 'em!" Kilkenny snapped. He stepped quickly inside. "Unbuckle your belts and let those guns down-quick!"

Surprised into helplessness, the men did as they were told. "Rye, I've given you a break before. I'm givin' you one again. The same for Shorty. You two mount and ride. If I ever see either of you again, I'll kill you. I'll be back to Blazer, an' you be doggone sure you aren't here."

Backing them away, he scooped up the guns and then backed out the door. He hurried to the corner where the Hatfields waited. Quince was chewing on a straw. He looked at the weapons, grinned a little, and started for his horse.

"Lije may be alive," Kilkenny told him. Then he explained quickly.

Quince narrowed his eyes. "You won't be needin' us," he said. "We'll ride on."

"Go ahead," Kilkenny said, "an' luck with you."

With a rush of hoofs, Saul and Quince Hatfield swept off down the trail. Kilkenny watched them go. The Hatfields were hard to kill. Lije might be alive. It was like him to have thought of Hight, even when wounded. Those lean, wiry men were tough. He might still be alive.

He rode up to the wagon and saw Bartram's face flush with relief. Jackie was riding beside the wagon, his old Sharps ready. His face was boyishly stern.

"What is it?" Bartram asked. "What happened?"

"We've won another round," Kilkenny said. "We can come to Blazer for supplies now." . . .

Dust devils danced over the desert, and the mules plodded slowly along the trail. The wagon rumbled and bumped over the stones in the road, and Bartram dozed on the wagon seat.

To the left the mountains lifted in rocky slopes with many upthrust edges of jagged rock. To the right the ground sloped away toward Cedar Branch, which lay miles away beyond the intervening sagebrush and mesquite.

Jackie Moffitt rode silently, looking from time to time at Kilkenny. Lance knew the youngster was dying to ask him about what happened in Blazer, and he was just as loath to speak of it. He could understand the youngster's curiosity.

He moved the buckskin over alongside the boy. "Trouble back there, Jack," he said after a minute. "Men killed back there."

"Who was it? Did you kill 'em?" Jackie asked eagerly.

"One. I had to, Jack. Didn't want to. Nobody ever likes to kill a man unless there's something wrong with him. I had to get news out of somebody. I got it from Ratcliff and then turned him loose, but in tryin' to get me, Sodermann shot him. Then I shot Sodermann."

"What about the others?"

"Let 'em go. I told Pitkin an' Shorty to get out of the country. I think they'll go."

"We asked 'em in the store, but they was scared. They wouldn't talk, nohow. Saul, he asked 'em. They was afraid. But they was right nice with us."

They rode on through the heat. Occasionally they stopped to rest the mules. It was slower this way, as the road was longer, but there was no dust, and they had to come this way to make sure about Lije and the others.

Again and again Kilkenny found his thoughts reverting to Nita. How was she faring with Hale? Would she marry him? The thought came to him with a pang. He was in love with Nita. He had admitted that to himself long before this, but he knew too well what it would mean to be the wife of a gunman, a man who never knew when he might go down to dusty death in a lead-spattered street.

A man couldn't think only of himself. A few men seemed to be able to leave it all behind, but they were few. Of course, he could go east, but his whole life had been lived in the West, and he had no source of income in the East. He had been a gambler at times and had done well, but it was nothing to build a life upon.

His thoughts moved ahead to the Hatfields. What would they find? Would the men left behind have murdered the wounded Lije? Had Hight been dead? How many more would die before this war was settled? Why did one man see fit to push this bloody fight upon men who wanted only peace and time to till their fields? Why should one man desire power so much?

There was enough in the world for all to have a quiet, comfortable living, and what more could a man desire?

The wagon rumbled over the rocks, and he lifted his eyes and let them idle over the heat- waved distance. After the fire and blood there would be peace, and men could come to this land and settle these hills. Perhaps someday there would be water, and then grass would grow where now there were only cacti and sagebrush.

Cicadas whined and sang in the mesquite until the sound became almost the voice of the wastelands.

They camped that night in a hollow in the hills and pushed on at dawn toward the joining of the trails. The country was rockier now. The distance closed in, pushing the mountains nearer, and there was less breeze. The air was dead and still.

Jackie traded places with Bartram and handled the mules. Bartram rode on ahead, riding carefully. Kilkenny watched him go, liking the easy way the farmer rode, and liking his cleancut honesty.

It was morning of the third day when Kilkenny saw a horseman drawing near. He recognized him even before he came up with him. It was Saul.

"Found 'em," Saul said briefly, "both alive. Hight's plumb riddled. Lije was hit three times, one time pretty bad. They was holed up in some rocks, more dead than alive."

"Anybody around?"

"Yeah. One man. He was dead. Lije must've got him, bad off as he was. The other took out. Lije'll live. We Hatfield's are tough."

When they reached the cluster of rocks, they pulled the wagon close. Quince had both men stretched out and had rigged a shelter from the sun. Kilkenny knelt over the men. That Hight was breathing was a marvel, though all his wounds showed signs of care. Lije, wounded as he was, had cared for the other man. His wounds had been bathed and crudely bandaged. His lips seemed moist, and he had evidently not lacked for water.

Lije Hatfield was grimly conscious. There was an unrelenting look in his eyes, enough to show them that Lije meant to face death, if need be, as sternly and fearlessly as he faced life and danger.

His lips were dry and parched. Even the water that Quince had given him failed to reduce the ravages brought on by several days of thirst. Obviously, from the condition of the two men, Lije had been giving the little water they had to Jackson Hight.

The two men were lifted carefully and placed in the wagon, with groceries piled around them and sacks and blankets beneath them. Another blanket was placed over two barrels to form a crude awning over their faces. Then, with Bartram handling the mules, they started once more.

Chapter
XIV

"I'm A-goin to Kill Bill Hale!"

It was quiet in the Hatfield cup when the little group rode in. The Hatfield women did not cry. They gathered around, and they watched when the two men were lifted from the wagon and carried within.

Parson waited, grim-faced, for Kilkenny. "That's two more, Kilkenny. Two more good men gone, an' two that are like to die! I'm tellin' you man, I'm a-goin' to kill Bill Hale!"

"Not now. Wait." Kilkenny kicked a toe into the dust. "Any more trouble here?"

"Smithers ain't come back."

"Where'd he go?"

"To look at his crop. He sets great store by that crop. Says he'll be back to harvest it."

"When did he leave?"

"Yesterday mornin'. Shouldn't keep him that long, noways. I reckon he might hole up in the hills somewhere."

Talking slowly, Lance recounted all that had transpired. He told of the bitter crossing of the Smoky Desert, of the fight at Blazer, and of the death of Gaddis and the others.

"We can cross the desert anytime unless the wind is blowin' strong," he concluded. "They can't bottle us up. It's a miserable trip, an' if a man was to try it an' get caught in a windstorm, there's a good chance you'd never hear of him again. The same if he got into that quicksand."

"I knowed that Gaddis was a bad one. Glad he's gone. The same for Sodermann."

"There's something else," Kilkenny suggested after a minute. "We've proved we could get across, an' we slipped by their guards comin' back by the Blazer trail, but it won't take them much time to figure what happened. They may try comin' in our back door by that way."

Parson nodded shrewdly. "I was thinkin' of that. We'll have to be careful."

When morning came and Lance rolled out of his blankets, he looked quickly at the house. Then he saw Saul. The tall, lean boy was walking away from the house, and he looked sick and old. They saw each other at almost the same instant.

"Saul?" Kilkenny said. "Is-?"

"He's dead. Lijah's dead."

Kilkenny turned away, and for the first time something like despair welled up inside of him. One of the Hatfields had died. It seemed as though something of the mountains themselves had gone, for there was in those lean, hard- headed, rawboned men something that lived on despite everything. And Lije had died.

O'Hara came out to him later, and the big Irishman's face was sullen and ugly. "An' that doc down to Cedar. We sneaked in an' tried to get him to come. He wouldn't come, an' he set up a squall when we tried to take him. We was lucky to get away."

"We'll remember that," Kilkenny said quietly. "We can't use a doctor who won't come when he's called, not in this country."

Parson looked as him thoughtfully and then he looked away. "Lance, you ever think maybe we won't win? That maybe they'll wipe us out? Suppose you can't talk to them Santa Fe men? Supposin' if you do, they won't listen?"

Kilkenny looked down at the ground, and then slowly he lifted his head. "There's a man behind this, Parson," he said slowly, "a man who's gone mad with power cravin'. His son's a-drivin' him. Parson, I've seen men murdered because they wanted homes. There was no harm in Jody Miller, nor in Tot Wilson. They were hardworkin' men an' honest ones. Lije, well, he was a fine boy, a real man, too. He had strength, courage, an' all that it takes to make a man.

"There at the last, when they were holed up in the rocks, he cared for Hight when he must've been near dead himself. He must've had to drag himself to Hight's side, he must've had to force himself to forget his own pain.

"Those men are dead, an' they are dead because of one man, maybe two. Maybe I'm wrong, Parson, but if all else fails, I'm ridin' to Cedar, an' I'll kill those two men!"

"An' I'll go with you!" Parson stated flatly. His old face was grim and hard. "Lije was my son, he-"

"No, Parson, you can't go with me. You'll have to stay here, keep this bunch together, an' see they make the most of their land. I want homes in these high meadows, Parson. Homes, an' kids around 'em, an' cattle walkin' peaceful in the evenin'.

"No, it'll be my job down there. We all, we who live by the gun, we all die in the end. It's better for me to go alone an' then live or die by what happens then. At least, it'll be in a good cause."