NIGHT’S FULL DARKNESS obscured the high Mogul. Chavis thereupon decided to make his move. “Connie,” he said, “I still wish you’d stayed with Hal and Sara Majors.”
“I’ve found something out, Tracy. It’s my fight, too.” She swayed forward, near exhaustion. He caught her shoulders and held her. One long glance, full of meaning, passed between them, and then Bones Riley’s soft call came.
“I’ll be back,” he said, and stepped up. “Wait for me.”
He was gone.
While Chavis rode he thought quickly. Assumedly about this time Majors, or one of his far-roaming searchers, would have caught their trail and realized they had left the mountains. If that were not the case, Chavis knew Vivian well enough to be sure that by now Sid would have had his fill of this, and would have called off his part of the hunt. Then probably Majors would come back to Spur, leaving perhaps two or three riders to further comb the high country. If all these guesses were right, then Majors should be returning to Spur tonight or tomorrow. A reception would be arranged.
As close as they could get without exposing themselves, they came off their horses and made cautious way afoot toward Spur’s buildings. Earlier reconnaissance had told them that not more than two men had been left to guard the place. One of them was in the cook shack, evidenced from rising smoke at the chimney, and the other was either with the cook or in the bunkhouse, where one lamp gleamed. Chavis sent Bones around to the bunkhouse and himself crept to the cook house’s blind wall. McCaig and Gary Niles followed him, making no noise. Chavis motioned McCaig to flank the building on the left while he himself came past the right comer and stepped around, flattening himself against the outside wall beside the door, which stood ajar a few inches. Some metal object clanked inside – a pan or coffeepot – and a voice said, in a way lazy and bored, “They ought to’ve caught up with ’em by now.”
“Yellows is a big place to cover,” said the other.
Chavis waited no longer. He couldn’t place either voice, but for his plan to work he could not afford to be recognized. He reversed his bandanna and pulled it up across his nose in a road-agent’s mask. He whirled inside, gun up.
“Stand still.” He watched surprise lift their faces and spring their mouths open. He stepped fully into the room, catching, in the far edge of his vision, the watching snout of McCaig’s Colt lying on the back window sill. He took the one old puncher’s gun and made sure the cook had none. “Let’s take a walk.”
He prodded them into the yard. McCaig came into view around the corner, his own face masked, and Chavis whispered to him, “Tell Bones to stay out of sight. I don’t want these two to see him.”
McCaig nodded and walked rapidly to the bunkhouse. Chavis turned to the two Spur men. In a matter-of-fact tone he said, “Let’s get your horses. When you get on them, don’t stop short of New Mexico.” In a file of four – the kid had come out – they crossed to the biggest of the several corrals. “Kid, rope out two horses and saddle them.”
Niles did so. When the saddled animals were ready, Chavis told the two: “We see you around here again you’re dead. And if you see your boss, tell him his partner’s terminatin’. Now get the hell out.”
The two mounted hastily and roweled their horses out of the yard. McCaig and Bones appeared and drifted by him. “Think they’ll run?”
“The cook might,” Chavis guessed. “But that old boy’s got salt. He’ll find Ben as fast as he can and tell him Sid Vivian ran them off.”
“Smart,” said McCaig, grinning.
Chavis looked over the place thoughtfully. “We’ve got to leave a mark,” he said. He stepped into the main house and went through all the rooms, gathering all the lamps he could find. Then he went to the bunkhouse, cook shack, and barns. When he was through a sizable pile of lanterns littered the center of the yard.
“All right,” he said bluntly. “We’ve got to whip them. Ben might not believe it was Sid that ran his two men off—but one thing will make him mad enough to ride into the Yellows.” He removed the chimneys from all the lamps and poured the whole amount of kerosene from them into two water buckets. “Douse the barns,” he told McCaig, and took his own pail toward the house.
“Wait a minute,” Riley called. “What sense is there burnin’ down Spur?”
“Think of another way to get Ben mad enough to ride on the Flying V. This will get him so worked up he won’t stop to think. Besides, I promised Ben I’d do this if he kept hounding me.”
“Nobody here, that’s sure,” said Roy Durand.
Majors nodded. “Which raises another question. Where in hell is Keene?”
“Tomcattin’ around with Chavis, I reckon.”
“I’ve got half a mind to burn this dump down,” Majors said, his red-rimmed eyes studying Keene’s small house. He shook his head and turned full forward in the saddle; he leaned back a little as his horse dipped its head to drink from the yard trough.
Roy Durand said, “Rider comin’ up.” He spoke in a soft, melodic voice which barely lifted over the sounds of the night. When the rush of that single advancing horse became louder Durand drifted off a bit. He sank into the shadows beside Keene’s barn, not allowing himself to be exposed to the aim of a man he couldn’t see. They heard the horseman run impetuously forward, they heard his call: “Anybody down there?”
Majors let his own voice roar back in answer, and waited for the rider to rein his horse in among them.
“The ranch is burnin’, boss!”
“What? Who did it?”
“Flyin’ V. Three or four of ’em. They run me and Cookie out and set the whole place on fire.”
“You sure it was Sid’s boys?”
“One of ’em said something about the partnership bein’ over.”
Roy Durand worked his horse in out of the night and murmured, “Ben, you got too much trust in you.”
Majors swore and moved on so abruptly that he caught the rest of them flat-footed.
Bones Riley lay patiently against the ground at the hilltop with Spur’s full flaming destruction plain in his sight, some hundred yards downslope. He had watched the outfit roar in and swirl around not too long after he’d heard behind him the retreat of Chavis and his two men. Bones saw now the rushing activity in the yard below, the lines swung from well to fire, men passing buckets along that line and hurling their pitifully small few gallons of water against the blaze. Regret was an emotion rare to this fat man but he felt it now. He sighed and reached into his pocket, and carefully deposited beside him a handful of empty .45-70 shells. This was Pete Vird’s rifle, the one Chavis had stolen last night, and when Bones was through here tonight his acts would be blamed on Pete.
The fire had now spread through the whole yard, a thick and whipping blaze. His rifle hammer clicked—a clean and hungry echo. A strange calm went through him and he squeezed the trigger, scattering dust around the boots of the men in the bucket line. They jumped. Confusion became king down there for a time while he sent further shots at them. He saw Ben Majors’ unmistakable shape bobbing and heard Ben’s bull voice rallying them. Bones would kill no one here, not now and not from ambush. His shots fell harmlessly among them, in the ground and in the burning walls. When he saw two men going for their horses he decided that it was about time to move on.
He ran back to his horse. He swung straight toward Chainlink Pass and the Mogul—another bit of evidence pointing to Vivian as the cause of Spur’s new troubles.
Bones kept his horse to a high run crossing the silver desert, not sticking to any particular road, but riding purposefully through dusty portions so that Spur would have little trouble picking up the smell of his dust even at night. He reached Spur’s corner and crossed Keene’s and Chainlink in rapid order. He trotted around the looping switchbacks of Chainlink Pass and across the creek until finally he came out at its upper end on the Mogul and thought he caught the rumor of a running crowd far behind, way down on the desert. He rode directly to the old shack that stood abandoned against the rear slope. Riders converged on him, shadows coming out of deeper shadows and becoming friends.
“They’re not too far back of me,” Bones said. “I hooked ’em good.”
“Let’s go, then,” said Chavis, and rode out of the clearing on the run.
Bones glanced behind him at the other members of the party, riding in a small, bunched-in group. Connie rode tight-lipped and silent, carrying a light carbine she’d picked up somewhere. Old Bill Niles sat ramrod-stiff in his saddle, beside his grandson, whose face even in this uncertain light showed a pride to be riding with men. Behind these two Larry Keene sided McCaig, both of them grim.
The moon swiveled through the sky, a waning last-quarter. Finally Chavis held up his hand. “We’ll put the horses off the trail.” They dismounted and concealed their animals in a thick grove of pine, and set off afoot for the beginning of the forest that stretched upslope to the Flying V.
“We’ll wait here,” Chavis said. “Sam, sneak up and see how many men are in the house.”
McCaig whispered away through the trees. Chavis walked forward.
“All right. This is it. We’ll scatter on both sides of the trail. When Ben’s outfit gets close enough for accurate shooting we let them have it. But I want no one killed. Aim for the horses. They’ll think we’re Flying V, waiting for them. As soon as they start shooting back at us, we cut for the trees and act like we’re running back to fort up in the house. But instead we turn and get out to the sides. Ben will ram right through. Vivian will hear the shooting. He’ll be ready. Afterwards we’ll go in and pick up the pieces.”
Sam McCaig’s bantam shape slid in among them. “Looks like Sid’s pulled his whole crew in, and a couple of friends. It’ll be about an even fight, once Ben rides in here.”
“Scatter,” hissed Bones. “Here they come.”
“Fade,” Chavis ordered. “Bill, you and Gary and Bones spread out on the other side of the trail. The rest of us will cover this side.”
They moved off into the darkness, all of them, and he was left alone with the night and the faint, growing sound of determined hoofbeats. He rolled his gun out into his hand and cocked it, and crouched beside the trail, waiting that way.
The first vague shape to appear on the trail below was unmistakably Ben Majors. His square, military seat on the saddle was plain even in this night’s gloom. Behind him, to one side, rode Roy Durand; and then, all in a bunch, was Spur —a solid mass of advancing shadow, heads bobbing and bit chains jingling softly, hoofs churning up dust into little swirling devils that worried around the horses’ fetlocks Ten men came in a rush, a fast lope that drowned all other sound in its fury, beating against the ground, against rock and dust and eardrums. Chavis took a careful sight, held his breath, and let Majors get within thirty yards before he shot down Ben’s horse with a well-placed slug behind the jaw. Majors fell roaring and rolled free. The firing rose to a continuous noise and recurring flash of light that rose around him in deafening explosion. And then Bones let out a high, raucous imitation of Pete Vird’s laugh that was expert in its perfection. Chavis grinned at that and emptied his pistol into the trees off to either side of the Spur riders. The first of Spur’s replying fire came at the ambushers and on that sound Chavis sang out a clear call and whipped back into the trees, doing a good deal of crashing around, which he diminished in volume rapidly, to make it sound as if he were heading straight upslope to the buildings.
The others were with him, running up from behind and beside. He caught Connie’s arm and helped her over the rough ground. Someone shouted at the top of the hill and a door slammed—Vivian or one of his men coming out to investigate the racket. But to Majors that slamming door would signify Vivian forting up.
“What the hell?” said Sid Vivian. He slammed into the house and crossed in stiff-legged strides to the rifle rack. Thumbing cartridges into the magazine of a Winchester he said tersely: “God knows what’s goin’ on down there but I heard Ben crowin’ Best we not walk into anything until we find out what it is.”
The firing suddenly dropped away outside, and quit. Vivian, nervous before something unknown, went to his front window and waited. Tension built up with silence. Ray Corrigan and Pete Vird took up posts along the inside front of the room, by windows; and Vivian’s four other men moved quickly across the yard to the barn, rigging a crossfire on whoever might enter the space. The racket outside had been dead several minutes. Vivian was chewing a cigar savagely and had about made up his mind to go out when a single solid shape detached itself from the timber downslope and came walking forward with sure strides. It was Majors and he advanced halfway to the house before he stopped.
“Sid! I want to talk.”
Vivian considered it suspiciously. He shrugged and went to open the front door. He went outside. “Come on up.”
Majors walked forward, his hand well away from his holstered gun. “Come down here, Sid.”
“This will do,” Vivian said. “What’s all the shootin’?”
“That’s what I want to know. You started it.”
“The hell I did!”
“Damn it,” Majors shouted, “cut this, Sid! Where’s my girl?”
“Your girl? What about her?”
“She’s gone. You’ve got her.”
“I know nothin’ about it, Ben.”
“Give her over before I slaughter your whole damned bunch and pull your house down around you!”
Vivian cursed. “I don’t know what in hell this is all about, but there’s one thing I been waitin’ to do for too long now.”
His shoulder rolled up and his hand swept forward with his gun. Majors saw it coming; he dived and rolled and brought his gun up, cursing all the while and laying down his fire hot on the porch. Vivian fired his one shot and abruptly ignored Majors when Spur charged out of the timber below. He whirled back inside the house.
Majors rolled twice and lay quiet, dead.
They had pulled off well to the side and were now with their horses, standing thus with the reins and listening. There was a lull in the sound; somebody called again from Vivian’s; and then the shooting started up again, a full-throated roar of sound, crackling through the night. Chavis suddenly swung up and rode into the timber, saying, “Wait here.”
When the sound of firing continued for some time, Bones nodded his burly head; and when it steadied down to an occasional shot he allowed himself to smile. From the sound of it Ben and Sid were sniping at each other from their respective positions. This could last all night.
He remembered Chavis saying, ‘We can pick up the pieces,’ and he said to Connie: “I think maybe we better pull back a ways. There’s a small chance they may start talkin’ and put things together. We’ll stay within earshot.”
He waited for the others to mount, counted noses, and rode east, paralleling the trail they had used to come up. A mile or so from Vivian’s they reined in, stepped down, and tied their horses.
“I’ll ride back and wait for Tracy,” Bones said. “Anything funny happens, get out of here on the jump.”
He rode back the way he had come. Suddenly he heard someone approaching at a gallop. He pulled off and waited. Chavis appeared in the trail and Bones called out to him. “Where are the others?”
“Back a piece. Figured it might be safer.”
“Uh-huh.” Chavis rode on. Bones scratched his nose, puzzled, and followed.
Chavis found them and stepped down. “Ben’s dead,” he said shortly. “He’s lying out in the middle of the yard and they’re shooting over him. From where I was I could see pretty well. Spur’s lost a couple of men and so has Sid. Pete Vird let Corrigan have it in the back—I guess Ray was trying to squirm out. It looked like a couple of the men Sid had in his barn lit out when the shooting started. But Spurs lost the stomach for fighting with Ben gone.” He leaned his back against the bole of a pine, sitting with his knees bent up and his elbows resting on them while he fashioned a cigarette.
He knew how callous he must appear to Connie and the rest of them but just now he was too tired to care. He hadn’t had any sleep for over thirty-six hours. He saw Connie turn away, showing disgust, and he wished to get up and tell her he wasn’t that way, that he really did care, but he couldn’t. Muted by the forest slopes and’ the distance he could hear the erratic firing of the two miniature armies.
The shooting grew even more intermittent, but occasionally a shot startled them out of calm. The moon slid across the sky and disappeared over the Yellows’ highest peaks. Dawn would brighten the land soon, shedding light on a good deal of misery and death. It was a bitter thought to Chavis. It curled the edges of his lips down and made him think once more of men and their pride. He felt, just now, as tough and hard as he had ever felt; and it wasn’t a clean feeling. To sit calmly smoking while two groups of men did their best to kill each other wasn’t a thing to be proud of. But the truth of it was that this was none of his fault. It was a thing he had been driven to; and when he arrived at that truth he would feel clean again. But at this moment he couldn’t bring himself to believe wholly in that, and so he felt cheap, guilty and dirty.
A minute later they heard the clatter of his horse crossing rocks, and then he was gone. But presently the message of a group, three or four, came to them, following that first rider. Chavis and Keene waited in the brush. The riders passed in a silent, running group, paying no attention to the trail on either side, and were also gone.
“Ben’s boys,” said Riley, coming beside them. He spoke with some awe. “I never thought they’d, run out on him.”
“Hard to be loyal to a dead man,” Chavis said.
“Yeah,” said Bones, and swung slowly toward the horses. “I guess we can get out of here now.”
Chavis was about to follow him when Keene stopped him with his hand. “Sid won’t quit until he’s killed us—or at least you, Tracy. He’s been wrecked tonight and he won’t let any man wreck him. That man won’t sleep again until you’re dead. You hear me, Tracy?”
“I hear you.” Chavis was weary of all of it. He got into his saddle. “If they come after us, we’ll have to fight. But Ben’s out of it and Sid won’t ever round up another crew in this country after tonight. So I guess it’s about over. If Sid comes back, he’s committing suicide.”
“No,” said Keene. “If he comes down on the desert again it will be to kill you—to kill all of us. Sid’s a crazy man.”
Sid Vivian watched the last of the Spur riders whirl away. By now he had figured out what must have happened: Chavis had kidnapped Ben’s daughter and Ben, remembering Pete Vird’s comment of the previous night, had immediately suspected him. And so Ben was dead, his crew run off, and Spur was Vivian’s for the taking. But he had no crew and he knew the country well enough to realize that now that Ben was gone, they would not knuckle down again. He would hire no crew in this land and no one would allow imported gunmen. To hold Spur he would probably have to fight a continual battle and he was smart enough to know he couldn’t do that. Chavis was still somewhere in the country and he knew Chavis would oppose him at every move. And one thing he had never done was to underestimate the big man.
He would have to kill Chavis.