Swiftly moving black clouds and a fine mist in the dawn air were all that remained of the night’s savage storm as Cort Lacey rode through the muddy streets of Cliffordsville.
He went directly to the livery. Finding no one to care for the dun, he tended to the horse himself. The difference between life and death had often been determined by the durability of a well-cared-for mount. Weary though Cort Lacey was, he knew he’d need every advantage in the struggle that surely awaited him.
A bulging saddle-bag hung over his shoulder when he stepped out of the stable and walked toward the Chapman Hotel.
“I want the room on the second floor, end of the hall, overlooking the street,” he said quietly to the sleepy hotel owner sitting at the front desk. The man looked up to see steel-gray eyes staring down at him. He’d seen plenty of tough-looking men in his ten years as proprietor of the Chapman Hotel, and this one seemed tougher than most because he seemed so calm. Mr. Keith Chapman was awful curious as to who this man was and why he wanted that room, but, being a prudent man, he decided to let someone else do the asking.
“Just sign the register and give me a dollar in advance,” Mr. Chapman intoned, glancing at the stranger’s signature, wondering if the name might be a fake. “Mr. Daniel Evans ... well, Mr. Evans, how long do you plan to stay with us?”
“Can’t say. Maybe a day, maybe a week. I’ll let you know,” Cort mumbled. His twenty-four hours in the saddle were catching up with him.
Mr. Chapman could easily read the fatigue on his face. “I’ll have a boy carry your saddle-bag and ... ”
“No!”
It had just popped out of his mouth. Silently he cursed himself for drawing attention to his belongings. No one must know what he carried, and now he had gone and raised this man Chapman’s curiosity.
“No,” he repeated again in a more conciliatory fashion. “I’m just plain tired and want to go directly to my room. I can carry my own stuff—don’t care for people doing things for me—and I’ll find the room myself too. Here’s your dollar in advance.” The dollar spun on the counter-top. By the time it had settled to a stop, Lacey was already halfway up the stairs.
The room he had chosen allowed as much safety as possible. Someone would have to walk the length of the hallway to reach him. An overhang below his window afforded a quick escape. Added to this, the corner window gave him a view of the two main streets of Cliffordsville. In this room, he felt, he could sleep securely ... at least for a short while.
Sleeping securely is one thing. Sleeping well is quite another. Memories of crippling a friend plagued him in his wakeful hours, and then the violence he witnessed and performed during the last dozen years haunted him while he slept.
He had been on both sides of the law, killing with the license of a tin star pinned to his chest, and killing with the license of a man desperate to see the next dawn. He had never killed wantonly, but he had killed many. And each body that lay buried behind in the dirt made him that much more desperate for the killing to stop.
It never did.
Trouble had a way of finding him. Besides, he was extremely good with a gun, and a man does what a man knows how to do. But there is always a price to pay. For Cort Lacey, the price was a conscience that would not leave him be. Torn between life as it should be and life as it was, he slept in his own cold sweat.
Suddenly he awoke. The vision of a man shot in self-defense four years before disappeared with the bright afternoon sunlight.
He took a hot bath, then shaved the stubble from six days of riding off his face. “Beginning to look almost civilized,” he mused. Civilization ended, however, when he buckled his holster on, tied the leather strap above the knee, and spun the cylinder to check the load.
Stepping out onto the boards of the sidewalk, his glance took in the small town of Cliffordsville. It hadn’t been more than a couple of sticks in the earth when he left so long ago. Now there was a bank, a church, lots of small shops ... a regular little town. This place should have been his home. He yearned to find familiar landmarks, but it had changed too much. And so had he.
Cort Lacey stepped into the main thoroughfare of this strange town and walked toward the Mustang Saloon. The warm summer sun had dried the rain-soaked streets, but as yet, no dust hovered in the air. For a few hours yet the air would be clear ... as clear as Cort Lacey’s determination to right a wrong.
A free lunch was being offered at the Mustang. Lacey’s hunger would have to wait, however, until he could check the saloon’s means of entry and escape. Cort was thirty-one years old and he had every intention of making thirty-two.
Unlike other saloons, in other towns, there was one other item to be checked before entering. Peering through a window, he scanned the bar and the card tables for anyone from the Five Fingers. None of them were there. A look of relief passed briefly over his otherwise expressionless face. Then he walked into the saloon.
An overheard word here, a piece of conversation there ... a man could learn a lot by just drifting down the bar and then across to the table where the lunch meats lay. By the time Lacey had his second sandwich and a couple of beers under his belt, he knew where to find the information he sought and the trouble that would come with it.
They were three riders for the Double C, drinking it up pretty good and yelling at the bartender to throw them a deck of cards. Just as the barkeep was about to toss the cards, Cort took them from his hand. “I’ll be pleased to deliver ’em for you,” he said, and then walked over to the three Double C men.
“You fellers mind if I join in?” he asked amiably, placing the cards in the center of the table.
“If you have money, sit down, but if you’re busted, beat it,” came the response from the large cowboy directly across from Lacey.
As he sat down, Cort produced a handful of currency from the front pocket of his shirt and set it down in front of him. While they looked at his money, he looked at them. They’d be dangerous men, he could see, but dangerous in a brutal, unthinking sort of way.
The game was poker. Cort deliberately lost in order to build up a good humor among the others. Sometime later he dropped a baited hook into their conversation.
“Any of you boys own land in this valley?”
Their immediate answer was harsh laughter. Finally, the man on his left said, “If we did, we wouldn’t have it long, mister.” And then as an afterthought he added, “This whole valley is the property of one man—our boss.”
Was he too late?
Keeping his voice and expression detached and matter-of-fact, he asked, “One man you say? The whole valley?”
The three men looked at their cards, decided how many to keep, how many to throw away. No one answered his question for long, tortuous seconds.
Eventually the puncher on Cort’s right looked up from his cards and said absently, “No, not yet. Cliffords, that’s our boss, will own it all in a few days, few weeks at the most. But we sorta figure it’s as good as in the boss’ fat money belt right now.”
“Yeah,” the big man across from Cort chimed in, “as a matter of fact, mister, he’s buying out a small ranch just northeast of here. Getting it dirt cheap from an old lady whose husband died in a fair fight right over this table two nights ago.” The other two started snickering at the mention of the word “fair.” The big man kept a straight face and stared at Cort, trying to scare him into squirming. Cort just smiled.
The big man had taken a couple of cards. The other two and Cort had each taken three. Betting was heavy. The puncher on the right folded. The stakes were raised until there was ninety-five dollars in hard cash sitting in the middle of the table. This hand was far richer than the ones before and the winner would walk off with a sizeable piece of change. Still the betting continued until the man on Cort’s left dropped out, leaving just the big man and Lacey.
As the Double C man studied his cards and wondered what the stranger held, Cort, his head still hanging down over his cards, raised his eyes to his opponent and said, “I heard there was another feller killed in a ‘fair’ fight in this town just a few weeks ago. Any truth to the rumor?”
The big man was startled. There was a lot of money on the table—almost one hundred forty dollars—this was no time for chit-chat. “Sure,” he mumbled, not paying much attention to what he was saying, trying to concentrate on the game, “a crippled guy from the Five Fingers place ... ”
“You kill him?”
“What?”
“I asked if you killed him.”
The big man regained his composure, ignored the cards, and started acting the tough. “You bet I killed him. I’ll kill any man,” eyes blazing at Cort, “who gets in my way. Now if you’re through askin’ questions maybe we can settle this hand.”
“All right, what’ve you got?” Cort asked mildly. The big man, a satisfied grin on his face, set down three jacks. His two friends on either flank, smiled appreciatively ... until Cort showed three kings ... then their faces turned sullen and angry.
The Double C men exchanged glances. They were of one mind and only a fool would have been unable to guess their next move. Cort Lacey was no fool.
Before any of them could speak, Cort said quietly, “I hope none of you are going to start a ruckus, because if you do, I’ll kill the lot of you. And to my way of thinking, three to one is a ‘fair’ fight.”
None of them said a thing. The stranger had so startled the three men with his calm threat of death that they lost the edge of their courage. It didn’t take much. Face to face they’d always back down, because their kind of fighting was of the drygulching and back-shooting variety.
“Let me buy you fellers a drink,” Cort said as he rose. “I’ll meet you over by the bar after I put my winnin’s away. And while I’ve got my hands on the table pickin’ up this money, I don’t want to see any of you turnin’ my way. Just keep facin’ the bar, or I’ll have to spend some of this money buryin’ you. I wouldn’t want to throw good money after bad gamblers.”
The three Double C men scowled and walked to the bar, keeping their backs to Lacey. After putting the money inside his shirt, he walked up to the bar only to hear the big man mouthing off in an effort to repair his battered pride ... “That Bell widow, now, I’ll bet she’s ready for a real man after a dozen years married to a cripple. All I’ve got to do is catch her alone one time outside of Broken Rock Canyon and she’ll come crawlin’ back to me for more.”
Cort Lacey gritted his teeth. So far they didn’t know of his connection with the Five Fingers and he wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. But he was mad.
“Put up four whiskies,” he said to the bartender. The three men looked at him with a combination of fear and hatred as they waited for the four shot glasses to be filled.
“You said something about a place northeast of here being sold today to your boss. That happen yet?” Cort asked as the last glass was filled.
None of them touched their drinks.
“The deal on the Frank place will be over as soon as Cliffords gets into town and then rides over there with the money. The old battle axe that still lives there won’t give us any trouble. She knows the price,” the big man said defiantly, with pride for the ruthless way William Cliffords conducted business.
Cort Lacey had all the information he needed for the present. Raising his drink, he proposed a toast. “To the vermin of the earth!” and then tossed the contents of his glass into the face of the big man.
All was still as liquor dripped off his nose. His two friends watched and waited for the moment when the big man would go for his gun. That moment never came. Something inside told the loudmouth if he braced this stranger he would die. With as much bluster as he could manage despite his reddened face, the big man made a hollow threat ... “There’ll be another time!”
Cort Lacey smiled and backed out toward the rear door, which he knew was unlocked from his earlier scouting of the saloon. Then he paused. “I hope there will be another time ... even if it means you’ll be shooting at my back. I know your type. You’ll get scared and shoot too soon or too late. Then I’ll track you down and leave the remains for any buzzard with the gumption to pick at your rotten carcass. Yeah, I hope there will be a next time—I don’t like the way you mouth about women ... ” And then he disappeared out the back door.
Stealthily, like a desert cat, he made his way out the back alley of the saloon, through two side streets and another alley ’til he came upon the kitchen door of the Chapman Hotel. He had no time now to fight with the three men he left open-mouthed in the Mustang. While in the saloon, a plan of action had formed in his mind. He had to act quickly if it was to work.
If he remembered the valley correctly, only one tract of land in the northeast quarter wasn’t owned by the Five Fingers spread. That land would have to be the Frank place. Now if a rider—or riders—were unable to pass through the smaller Frank holdings, they’d have a hell of a time trying to gain entrance to Broken Rock Canyon. But it was even more crucial than that. Any Five Fingers people coming into town would find it impossible to return to their home if Cliffords owned and armed this strategically placed bit of real estate.
Without doubt, Cliffords would do it. If he had had John Bell and this feller Frank killed, he wouldn’t hesitate to blockade five families into starvation and ultimate submission.
Once entering the hotel, he went directly to his room. The contents of his saddle-bag formed the key to his plan, and he had to retrieve them before heading for the livery. With the heavy bags slung over his shoulder and his Winchester in hand, he walked carefully through the hotel to Mr. Chapman at the front desk.
“Here’s my key and two bits for the hot bath I took earlier this afternoon.”
“Leaving so soon, Mr. Evans? Why, you haven’t even been here overnight. Don’t you like our town?”
“I like your town just fine, but I’ve got a little business that needs attendin’ to.”
“You leaving the valley, Mr. Evans?” Chapman pumped.
Cort made a point of not answering. Chapman, therefore, made a point of not being so foolish as to repeat his question.
He had every intention of leaving the hotel by way of the kitchen as he had entered, but a commotion out on the main street drew his attention to the front door.
Three people in a buckboard in front of Clay’s General Store were being harassed by the Double C men Cort had previously faced down in the Mustang Saloon.
A knot formed in his stomach when he recognized the folks in the buckboard ... a grayer, older Thaddeus Clark, a young man Cort guessed to be Thaddeus’ son Mark, and Clare, sitting proud, straight, and as lovely as ever. Could it have been twelve years since he had seen her last? It seemed, at this moment, as if he had been watching her from a distance all his life.
Those hardcases from the Double C were finding their courage against an old man, a boy and a woman. Instinctively, he stepped out of the hotel to assure the safety of his old friends, but a combination of his reluctance to be recognized and just plain common sense stopped him. What if, while on the street, Cliffords and more of his riders came in to town, as they were expected to most anytime? No, there was a better way to do this.
Stepping back into the hotel, Cort motioned for the proprietor to join him. “Mr. Chapman,” he said soothingly, “I’d like you to do me a favor.”
“Why of course Mr. Evans, I’d be glad to assist you. What would you like me to do?”
“You see those fellers over there by that buckboard?’
“Yes, but, I didn’t think you meant ... I don’t want to get in the middle of ... ”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Chapman, you won’t be in the middle. All I want you to do is walk over there and tell those three gentlemen that Mr. Evans, the man who won the last pot, has this here rifle,” he said, pointing the barrel of his Winchester in Keith Chapman’s face, “and that if they don’t mosey on back to the Mustang, pronto, I’ll use it on ’em. Got the message?”
“Sure,” he said glumly, “I’ve got it.”
“Don’t look so sad. Here’s five dollars for your trouble. And don’t worry, nothin’s gonna happen to you. As soon as you deliver that message—and not a word more or less—you take a walk into the general store. Thanks for your help, Mr. Chapman.”
“Yeah, any time,” the hotel man sighed. Then he walked out the door to deliver Cort Lacey’s ultimatum.
After Mr. Chapman had walked twenty paces, Cort quietly slipped away from the front door of the hotel and exited, as he had planned, from the kitchen. Quickly, yet silently, he worked his way through back alleys and late afternoon shadows, weaving an indirect passage to his dun in the stable.
Halfway to his destination, he heard a buckboard’s creaking movement. Chancing a fleeting appearance on the street, he saw the welcome sight of Thaddeus and his son and daughter leaving Cliffordsville unmolested. As he had expected, his threat was enough to deter the Double C hardcases. Then it was back to the shadows.
Minutes later he was saddling his rested horse and securing his saddle-bag. He led the big raw-boned gelding out the back door and walked him toward the northeast, always keeping the stable between himself and the saloon ... until he heard the thunder of galloping horses. “That would be William Cliffords and his crew,” he told himself. “Not much time. I’d better get a move on.”
He mounted up and let the horse have its head. Like sagebrush in a windstorm, they moved effortlessly across the floor of the valley. Cort’s only precaution, finally, was to keep well behind the buckboard, which was also headed to the northeast.
Cliffords and his men, riding at an average pace, would arrive at the Frank place, Cort figured, about fifteen or twenty minutes after he would. He hoped he’d have enough time to state his proposition to old Mrs. Frank.