Dade Lockett raced into the yard, pulled the gelding to a sliding halt, and leaped from the saddle. Clint lay stretched out on a pallet of quilts, his eyes closed as if sleeping. Roxie, now clad in a coarse shirt and an old pair of her brother’s pants, was hunched beside him. Seemingly she was far off and wholly detached from the devastation that surrounded her. A dozen strides to her left was a blanket-covered figure. As Lockett hurried to her, the girl rose, turned to him. She stared at him in a sort of shocked wonderment, her eyes deeply remote, and then as if his appearance triggered a release to her locked-in emotions, she suddenly threw her arms about him and began to sob brokenly.
He held her close, soothing her as best he could while his gaze drifted about the confusion that had been the Raker Ranch. All but two of the horses had been shot, along with the Jersey cow. Chickens lay here and there, victims of target shooters, only a few escaping into the weeds where they soon would become prey for coyotes, hawks, and other animals. The yard was littered with clothing, boxes of personal belongings, several trunks of family possessions. All appeared to have been tossed from the house with little thought as to damage or care, but the fact that such had been removed from the building before the torch was applied indicated at least a small measure of consideration for Roxie and her brother.
Dade felt the girl stir, pull away from him. She had ceased weeping, and, brushing at her eyes, she looked out over the valley. “That’s the last time I’ll ever cry,” she said in a low voice.
He looked at her closely, aware of the firmness in her tone. “I’m hoping you won’t ever have to again,” he said. “You all right?”
She nodded, again brushed at her eyes. “Renzo’s dead. Clint’s bad hurt.”
“Shot?”
“No, one of them clubbed him with a rifle. I had a hard time bringing him to. I think he’s sleeping now.”
With the first moments of alarm and fear behind him, anger began to glow within Dade Lockett. He glanced at Clint and shook his head. “Ought to get him to a doctor. When did the raiders hit?”
“This morning, early,” Roxie replied. She had regained her composure fully and now was in complete command of herself. “It wasn’t even light yet…and we weren’t watching. We … Renzo and I … had been up until after midnight and I guess we were tired … and careless.” The girl paused, peered closely at him. “You’ve been hurt!” she exclaimed. “Was there trouble …?”
“Didn’t amount to much,” he said, pushing her hand away. Reaching into his shirt, he obtained the pouch of gold coins, passed it to her. “Money for the steers. You get a look at any of the raiders?”
Roxie cupped the money in her hands. “No, like before, they wore masks … sacks … over their heads.” Her fingers tightened about the gold. “Now I’ve something to fight with.”
Dade smiled. With Renzo dead, her brother in bad shape, the buildings of the ranch in ashes, and the yard livestock slaughtered, she was not giving up. This was a different Roxanne than the one he’d met earlier.
“I’ve still got the land and a herd,” she continued. “With this money I can start rebuilding … put up a small house of some kind, just enough to get by. And I’m through selling stock to Pogue or anybody else at a bottom price. Next year I’ll make my own drive.”
“You’ve still got Grosinger to deal with,” Lockett broke in quietly. “His bunch’ll be back.”
“I know they will but this time I’ll … we’ll … be ready for them. I know we said that before but now I mean it. This is my land … my property. Nobody is going to take it away from me.”
Lockett was looking about at the scatter of household goods. “They move all this stuff out before they set the place on fire, or was that you and Renzo?”
“It was them,” she replied. “Why?”
“Saw they left two horses alive, and by them saving your belongings for you it means they’re expecting you to pack up and move on fast. I had an idea that was what they had in mind.”
“Well, I’m not doing it. They’ll be back, I know, and I’ll still be here.”
“Could be I can change their thinking a little on that,” Lockett said. “I figure it’s about time I had another talk with Grosinger, sort of set him straight on a couple of things.”
“You mean you’re going to see him … warn him?”
“Only way I know to back him off. You think he might have been with that bunch this morning?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it all happened so early. They were breaking down the front door before we even knew they were here. Then Renzo grabbed one of the rifles and tried to stop them, but one of them shot him. That’s when Clint got hurt. He started in shooting. Hit one of them, I think, but two of them started beating him with their rifles. I drove one of them off, and then when I looked again, Clint was being dragged out into the yard. He was senseless and bleeding. I don’t remember much after that. I was busy trying to help Clint, keep him from losing so much blood and bring him to. All that time they were throwing our things out into the yard and setting fire to the sheds, and then to the house. They started it burning last of all. Dade, it’ll be too dangerous for you to go see Grosinger. You’d never leave his place alive. I won’t let …”
“Sometimes it’s the best way to handle a jasper like him … show plenty of brass and have a gun in your hand all the time you’re talking. I’m pretty sure it was his bunch that laid this bullet track across my skull and nicked me in the arm yesterday. I don’t like much getting shot at. I aim to tell him.”
“You were attacked?”
“Rode right into an ambush. Figured them for Pogue’s cowhands, turned out they weren’t. They got the herd away from me but I got it back. Something else we can chalk up to Grosinger’s credit, too. Pogue wanted to back out of the deal he’d made with you when I got there.”
Roxie frowned. “Why?”
“Grosinger’d got to him, I reckon. Told him not to buy your stock. We did a bit of yammering and he saw it my way. Grosinger’s doing everything he can to bust you, drive you out.”
“But he’s failed,” the girl said. “That’s going to make a difference in what he thinks. Your making Pogue go ahead with the deal and our staying here regardless of all he’s done is proof that we won’t quit.”
“I expect it is,” Lockett said, “but I figure it’ll take a little more than that.”
“You’re paying a visit to him, is that it?”
“It is,” Lockett said, turning and moving off into the scatter of boxes, trunks, and other articles. “And this time we’re going to play it safe. You figure your friend Cushman would put you and Clint up for a few days?”
“I expect so.”
“I’d like it to be that way until I get done what I’m thinking I ought to do.” Reaching down, he righted one of the trunks, began to collect its spilled contents. “It’d be a good idea to get all this stuff together, stack it over there in the brush somewhere.”
“You think Grosinger’s men will come back tonight?” Roxie asked, crossing to where he was and adding her efforts to his.
“More’n likely,” Dade said, picking up a tintype photograph that had slipped from its place between the pages of a leather bound Bible. “If they find the place clean, it’ll sort of make them ease off and …” Lockett’s voice trailed off. His eyes were fixed on the tintype, on the likenesses of a man and woman portrayed there while a deep frown corrugated his brow.
Roxie, aware of the break in his words, glanced up, smiled. “That’s a picture of my folks. It was made not long before my mother died.”
A coldness had spread through Dade Lockett, tightening his body, bringing a grimness to his lips. There was no mistaking the man in the tintype—that faintly derisive grin, the solid line of thick, overhanging brows, the squared-off chin—it was Pete Dillard. The truth was instantly apparent. Dillard and Charley Raker were one and the same.