THE NAME DROPPED like a bomb. Tana’s hands went to her throat, and her eyes were wide and startled. Webb Steele’s chair legs hit the floor again and his big hands slapped the table. Jim Weston backed up a little but, of them all, he seemed the least surprised.
Oddly, it was Victor Bonham, the man from New York, whom Lance Kilkenny happened to see at that moment. And he saw an expression of startled fury that vanished so suddenly as to make him believe that it might have been an hallucination.
“Did you say Kilkenny?” Webb Steele demanded. “The gunfighter?”
“My name is Kilkenny. I’ve never sought a reputation—with a gun or without one. Mort Davis happens to be a friend of mine, and I do not forget my friends when they are in trouble.” Lance glanced over at Steele. “I didn’t come in here hunting trouble, but Mort was attacked and his place was burned.”
“What happened?” Bonham asked.
“Four men were killed. None of them were men anybody could recall working for either Lord or Steele. But Mort is still alive and in good shape, and I intend to see he stays that way.”
“If so many people are involved,” Bonham commented, “it doesn’t seem likely that one man can make much difference.”
“Sometimes, Bonham,” Kilkenny commented, “one man can make all the difference.”
“Mort Davis burned out?” Steele shrugged. “Well, he’d no business there in the first place. I’d not have done it, but he got what he asked for.”
“The question you might ask yourself, Steele,” Kilkenny said, “is who burned him out, and why? You and Lord are pulling and pushing at each other to see who’s the biggest man, but while you’re doing it I’d suggest you think about who else has a finger in the pie.
“You and Lord think you’re ruling the roost. I think somebody is setting you up as a scapegoat. You and Lord will bluster around and make a fine show of things, and if you aren’t very careful you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, wondering what hit you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, it is not. I never make threats, nor have I any place in this fight except to help my friend.”
“Wasn’t there a story about Davis nursing you when you were sick? Or helping you through some kind of a bad time?” Bonham asked.
“There was.”
Kilkenny turned back to Steele. “You and Lord should get together with Davis, as I suggested. If you do, you’ll have peace around here.”
“You handle your affairs, Kilkenny, I’ll handle mine. When I need advice from you, I’ll go to you for it.”
Lance Kilkenny shrugged. “Your problem, Steele. I have nothing to lose. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Good night.”
Lance rose, went out the door and down the steps. Tana Steele was standing beside his horse. He had seen her when she left the room, but had not expected to see her here … or ever again.
“So?” Her voice was scornful. “I might have known it! A common gunman! A man who shoots down others less capable than he!”
“At least,” he smiled at her, “I give them a chance. I don’t run over them in the street.”
He paused. “You know, ma’am, you’re right pretty in the moonlight, where nobody can see the meanness in you. You’ve either got a streak of real devil in you to come out here just to say something unpleasant, or else you’re falling in love with me, and I don’t know which worries me the most!”
She stepped back angrily. “In love with you? Why, you conceited, contemptible—”
Lance had stepped into the saddle and turned the horse as she spoke. He bent quickly and scooped Tana up with one arm and kissed her soundly on the lips. Her lips responded almost in spite of themselves. But then he dropped her and rode off, singing:
Old Joe Clark has got a cow
She was muley born
It takes a jay-bird forty-eight hours
To fly from horn to horn.
It was an old song, a good song, and he felt like singing.
Tana Steele, quivering with anger or some emotion less easily understood, stood staring after him. She was still staring as his voice died away in the distance.
In less than forty-eight hours she had had a whip taken from her, had been threatened with a spanking, had been ignored, treated carelessly, told she had a streak of meanness in her, and that she looked pretty in the moonlight. She had also been swept off her feet and kissed soundly, kissed more thoroughly than at any time she could remember … and for such things her memory was very good.
She told herself she hated him, but her reasons were vague and unsound, and even in her own mind the statement had a hollow ring.
He was a gunfighter, a killer. A man known wherever western men gathered. How many stories had she heard of this man? The mysterious man who came from nowhere, and whom no man really knew—and who, after his killings, disappeared into the limbo from which he came.
Disappeared? Would he do that again? Where had he come from? Who was he? What was he? Where was he going?
She remembered the picture she had picked up of the elderly woman. Certainly, no average woman, no common woman. There had been both beauty and distinction in that face, the face of a cultured woman of the world, a woman of breeding.
Why would Lance Kilkenny carry such a picture? His mother? His aunt?
She remembered the dress, too. It was a dress from an earlier period, but fashionable for its time.
Who was Lance Kilkenny? There was a movement behind her and she saw Rusty Gates swing into his saddle to follow Kilkenny.
“Rusty?”
He drew up. “Ma’am?”
“Who is he?”
“Kilkenny, ma’am? Everybody knows who Kilkenny is, even those who’ve never seen him. He’s a gunfighter, ma’am, perhaps the fastest, deadliest man alive when it comes to a good gun battle.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean where does he come from? What was he?”
Rusty considered for a moment. He was restless and eager to be off. But the question was one he had often wondered about himself. “I don’t know, Tana,” he said frankly, “and I don’t believe anybody else does either.”
He lifted a hand and rode out of the yard, turning down the trail Kilkenny had taken.
Tana Steele stood alone then, looking into the night. She was puzzled and angry. It irritated her that there had been no immediate final answers. She was also disturbed by her own feelings, telling herself the man was a nobody. Probably an outlaw; no doubt vicious and dishonest. She told herself this, but she didn’t for one moment believe it. There was a certain quiet distinction about Kilkenny that spoke of breeding … The man had come from somewhere; he had been somebody.
Jim Weston came up to her. “Anything wrong, ma’am?”
“No, Jim, nothing.” Then she added, “That man worries me.”
“Kilkenny? Well, if Webb goes after Mort Davis, you’ve got cause for worry. If Webb leaves him alone, you haven’t. It’s that simple. I never heard of Kilkenny killin’ anybody that wasn’t askin’ for it. Usually, nobody even knows who Kilkenny is until the moment before he dies. Often enough he’ll just ride into a place under some other name, and he’ll punch cows or something of the kind and bother nobody. He’s a top hand … rides like a man born true to the saddle, and he’s an expert with a rope. Plus he’s not quarrelsome … never stirred up any trouble I know of.”
“Well! I’m surprised, Jim. You talk as if you were on his side.”
“Didn’t know there was any sides yet, ma’am. You asked and I answered. And I gave you an honest opinion.”
“I’m sorry, Jim. I know you did. I’m just not myself tonight.”
He turned and looked at her. “No? Somehow I thought you were.”
He walked away, and she stared after him, half-angry. Now what had he meant by that? She wondered.
IT WAS SEVERAL minutes before Rusty Gates caught up with Kilkenny. He found him waiting in the shadows, a Winchester in his hands.
“What do you want, Gates?”
Rusty leaned forward and patted his horse on the neck.
“Why, I reckon I want to ride along with you, Kilkenny. I’ve heard you were a straight-shooter, and I guess you’re the only one I know who can get into more trouble than me without tryin’.
“If you can use a good man by your side, I’d admire to ride along. I’ve a feeling that in the days to come you could use some help.”
“All right, Rusty. Let’s ride.”
WHEN LANCE KILKENNY rolled out of his blankets in the earliest dawn, he glanced over at Gates. The redhead was still snoring. Kilkenny took up his boots and shook them thoroughly to be free of any scorpions and tarantulas that might have taken refuge there during the night. Grimly, he contemplated a hole in his sock.
No time for that now. He pulled on his boots and stood up.
Carefully, he checked his guns.
Then he moved out from camp, keeping under cover, and for fifteen minutes he made a painstaking search of the area. Not until he was sure nobody was within the immediate vicinity did he lead his buckskin into camp and saddle up.
Lance and Rusty were encamped on a cedar-covered hillside with a wide view of Lost Creek Valley. Lance mounted the buckskin and rode quietly away, but he was back and had bacon frying before Rusty Gates awakened.
Coffee was bubbling in the pot when Rusty came over.
“Hey!” Rusty exclaimed. “You’ve got bacon!”
“Picked it up last night from the Mexican who gave us the frijoles. He’s got half a dozen hogs.”
“Hell, man, if he can get a half dozen more he’s got the key to the mint. Bacon is scarcer than minted gold in this country!”
Rusty rustled some wood for the fire, then saddled his horse. When he returned to the fire he squatted on his haunches, feeding sticks into the flames.
“How about this Bonham?” he asked suddenly. “Have you ever seen him before?”
“No.” Kilkenny paused a moment, then said, “How about you?”
“No. He ain’t from around here.”
“I wonder.”
“You wonder? Why? They said he was from New York City and he surely dresses like a pilgrim.”
“I agree to that, but you were curious yourself, Rusty. And he knew about Mort caring for me when I’d been shot.”
“Hell, that story’s been told time and again. Everybody knows about that. Just like they do about that supposed meeting between John Wesley Hardin and Bill Hickok. Stories like that are told around every campfire. And every time you hear them, they’re different. You’re just too suspicious.”
“I’m still alive,” Kilkenny commented, dryly.
“You’ve got something there.” Gates walked to the edge of the nearest cedar and picked some dead stuff off the ground to bring back to the fire. “Who do you think he is?”
Lance shrugged. “No idea.” He turned the bacon over. “Except that my name got a rise from him. I thought I caught a look in his eyes.… Well, no matter. Maybe I was seeing things.”
They were silent for awhile, listening to the bacon frying and enjoying the tantalizing fragrance as well as the smell of the burning cedar.
There were a few clouds in the sky that looked like rain, and occasionally the wind stirred the fire, blowing the flame.
“You came up with something last night when you implied this fight wasn’t simply Lord and Steele.”
“Do you think it is?”
Rusty shrugged. “Well, you started me thinking. We had all sorta taken it for granted that it was Lord and Steele, with one or both of them planning to rub out Mort Davis in the process. But if it isn’t just them, who is it? Who else is there?”
“You’ve been in this country longer than I have, Rusty. Who stands to gain, aside from them? Suppose they both get killed or their outfits get so crippled they can’t stay on top. Who wins then?”
“Nobody. Those two have got it all sewed up. There’s nobody close around who stands to gain anything … except maybe Mort Davis. If they got out of his hair, he might spread out himself.”
“Ever look at a map of this country, Rusty?”
“Map? Hell no. I didn’t know there was one. Who wants a map?”
“Maps are handy things, my friend. Sometimes you never know what a country looks like until you’ve seen it on a map. A bird’s-eye view can change a lot of things for you. A big country like this has a way of looking different on a map, and you can’t get a good idea of the relationship of one place to another without one. Look here.”
Squatting on his heels, Lance Kilkenny drew with his finger in the sand.
“That V,” he suggested, “represents the combined holdings of Lord and Steele.” Off to one side he drew in Lost Creek Valley. He indicated the valley with his finger. “Right where Lord and Steele’s holdings come together is Lost Creek Valley.”
“That’s what the fuss is about,” said Rusty. “They both want the valley and they both want the water.”
“I know. But look here … All this country that Lord and Steele control runs from the point of the V right into the widest cattle ranges in Texas.
“Up there are other cow outfits, many of them with far greater holdings than Lord and Steele combined. I rode through that country on the way down here, and saw some of the finest stock I’ve seen, with a lot of white-faced bulls that have been brought in to improve the grade of beef.
“In a few years this is going to be some of the finest stock-raising country in the world. The fences won’t make much difference, except to limit the size of the roundups. The stock will be better, more beef to the hoof than before, and there’ll be a bigger demand for the better beef.
“The small ranchers won’t be able to afford better bulls, and here and there they’ll cut fences as much to let the bulls get at their own stock as anything. But that’s only one small part of it.”
Rusty was paying close attention.
“Look at those vast miles of good range that lay north of Lord and Steele. That range will be covered with fat stock, thousands of head that will feed the range off little by little. They won’t be allowed to overgraze if the cattlemen are smart, and can be shifted from one area to another as the grass is eaten down to give the rest of the grass a chance to grow.
“Now most cowhands have rustled a few head—or at least been a little careless how they use a running-iron. A man works for the outfit, and if he finds stock on his boss’s land he brands it … It’s not supposed to be that way, but many a small outfit grew big just like that.
“Look here.” Kilkenny drew a line with his finger in the sand, a line that went from those vast ranges to the north down through the Lord and Steele range and into the country below.
“See?” he asked.
Rusty swore softly. “Sure enough, I do.”
Rusty put a finger on the crude map. “You mean whoever wound up holding Lord and Steele range could rustle cattle and take them right through to Mexico? What you’re tellin’ me is that whoever held Lord and Steele range could do as he damn well pleased, could appear to be honest ranchers with never a head of rustled stock on their range, yet profit from all the rustled stock?”
“It’s a possibility,” said Lance. “And right now it’s the only answer I can see to what’s happening.”
“And Bert Polti’s involved?”
“Seems so.”
They ate the bacon from the frying pan, strip by strip. For several minutes both were busy with their thoughts, but Lance Kilkenny got up then and walked away from the fire to listen.
It looked like rain, and they had some distance to go, yet he was in no hurry. He would be expected to be early on the trail, and if there were any hidden marksmen along the route they would begin to sense that he had taken another route.
He and Rusty had a long ride before them, but one they could manage well enough. He had learned long since that it was better to vary his time and pattern of travel as well as his route. Vigilance was the price of life, and not only of liberty.
He walked back to the fire. “There’s a lot of border down there on the Rio Grande, but look what’s at the point of the V that I drew?”
“Apple Canyon?”
“Right … And it’s a hangout for outlaws. It’s one of Bert Polti’s favorite places. The Lord and Steele ranches, with Apple Canyon, would provide a safe route for rustlers over the last forty or fifty miles of their drive. That route could be a huge funnel pouring stolen cattle into Mexico.”
“What do we do now?” Gates asked, as he began cleaning the frying pan.
Kilkenny spread the remains of their fire and kicked dirt over it, then threw the last of the water and the coffee over the coals that remained.
“Why, we mount up and ride down to Apple Canyon. We just go down and have a talk with this woman.… What did you say her name was?”
“Nita Riordan,” Rusty said. “And wait until you see her!”