CHET LORD SLUMPED in his chair, looking old and tired.
Tana Steele had an odd look in her eyes, her cheeks pale and drawn.
“I think,” Kilkenny said, “that Des King knew who the killer was. He was killed partly to keep him from exposing the killer but in part because the killer hated him.”
“If he knew who the killer was,” Steve protested, “why didn’t he tell anyone?”
Kilkenny looked up at Steve, smiling slightly. “Maybe he did,” he said slowly. “Maybe he actually did.”
“What do you mean by that?” Webb Steele demanded. “If he told anybody, I never heard of it!”
Tana’s face was tense, and Chet Lord closed his eyes tiredly, and said nothing. Steve glanced at his father, his own face stiff and hard.
“Des,” Kilkenny said slowly, “had him a little hangout in a box canyon west of Apple Canyon, and he kept a diary, an account of his search for the killer. He had an idea there might be an effort to kill him, so he dropped a line to tell Lee Hall, and Lee told me. Tomorrow I’m going to that cabin in the canyon and get that diary, if Lee hasn’t already got it. Then we’ll have the whole story.”
“I think—” Tana got up abruptly, but whatever she was about to say was lost in a burst of gunfire, a wild yell from the street and then a roll of heavy firing.
Kilkenny left his chair with a lunge and kicked the door open. There was a burst of firing just as he emerged and started down the steps. His foot caught on a broken step and he fell headlong, his head striking a rock lying at the foot of the steps.
Rusty and the others rushed after him and were just in time to see two big men running for their horses, while rifles and pistols began to bark from all over town.
One of the big men threw up his pistol and blazed away at the group on the porch. Rusty had just the time to grab Tana and thrust her to the floor, as bullets spattered the hotel wall.
Kilkenny, his head throbbing from the fall, crawled blindly to his feet with the instinctive drive of the fighting man to continue the battle.
There was a pound of charging hoofs, then horses charged by him. One caught him a glancing blow with its shoulder and he was again knocked flat. Another rattle of gunfire, and it was over.
Kilkenny got to his feet, wiping the dust from his eyes. There was a trickle of blood from a slight cut where his head had hit the rock.
“What was it? What happened?”
Old Joe Frame came running along the street from the general store carrying an old Sharps buffalo gun.
“The Brockmans! That’s who it was! Come to bust up your meetin’ and wipe you out! Jim Weston, Shorty and the other Steele rider tried to stop ’em.”
Webb Steele came down the steps, gun in hand, eyes hot with anger. “Damn’ near killed Tana! Boy,” he grabbed Rusty by the shoulder, “you’ve got a head on you! Saved her life! You can ride for me any time! Anytime at all!”
“Weston’s hurt bad,” Joe Frame said, “and Lewis is hurt. The other boy—O’Connor, his name is—he’s shot up. By now he may be gone. O’Connor never had a chance. He dropped his hand for his gun and Cain Brockman drilled him dead center. The boy was still alive … I don’t know how he did it.
“Abel took Lewis and they both lowered guns on Jim Weston. It was short and bloody, but I don’t think either one got a scratch.”
“This time they’ve gone too far!” Steele shouted angrily. “We’ll go out there to Apple Canyon and burn ’em out!”
Tana Steele, white-faced and shocked, got up shakily, helped by Rusty. “You saved my life!” She pointed at the wall behind her, where now there was a spattered line of bulletholes. “I would have been killed!”
Kilkenny saw blood on Rusty’s shirt. “You’d better take him inside, Tana. He’s been shot.”
“Oh!” Tana gasped. “You’re hurt!”
“It ain’t nothin’! Shucks, I—” He slumped against the wall.
Helped by Steele and Frame, Tana got Rusty Gates inside, and stretched him out on a sofa.
Kilkenny watched them go, then turned, as behind him he heard a board creak.
It was Bert Polti. “All right, Mr. Lance Kilkenny, here’s where you cash in your chips!”
Polti had a gun in his hand, and the gun flamed as Kilkenny turned. Lance felt the hot breath of the bullet, and then he fired.
Polti staggered, but caught himself. His head thrust forward sharply and his teeth bared in a kind of ugly snarl. He wanted desperately to get off another shot but his gun wouldn’t come up.
He tried. Bracing his feet he took both hands and attempted to lift the gun, but slowly lowered the muzzle, he took a staggering step and fell, all in one piece.
Steele came charging to the door, gun in hand. He took one look, then holstered his gun.
“Polti, is it? He’s had it comin’ for a long time.” Steele looked thoughtfully at Kilkenny. “Polti was a bad one. You must be just as good as they say.”
“Steele,” Kilkenny said, “you and Lord get your men and stand by. I’m going after the Brockmans myself, and when I come back we’re going to clean up Apple Canyon. Right now, the Brockmans come first.”
“You’re going after them alone?”
“I am. If you’ll see that Rusty is cared for.”
Steele chuckled. “Tana’s doin’ that. He’s quite a man, that Gates is.”
A half hour later, with a three-day supply of grub, Kilkenny hit the trail. For the first half mile the Brockmans had ridden hard. Then they had slowed down to save their horses, when they noticed no pursuit. They were shrewd riders and they could save their horses by confusing their trail.
Three miles out, they took to the rough country, crossing an outcropping of rock, weaving through clusters of boulders and around clumps of oak brush and trees.
They used every trick of wilderness men to hide their trail, and they were as good at it as any Apache. The trouble was that the man behind them was better. Nonetheless, it slowed him down.
Soon it was evident that the Brockmans were traveling in a wide circle. Picturing the country in his mind, Kilkenny decided they were headed for Cottonwood.
But why Cottonwood?
Could they by chance know of the wires he had sent? Were they afraid of what the answers might mean to them? Or were they watching the station on orders from the man in the cliff house?
On impulse, Kilkenny turned from the trail and cut right across country to the railroad line. Few rails were down yet, but the road had been surveyed, materials had been dropped along the route and work was beginning. Keeping to every bit of cover he could find, Kilkenny headed cross-country for the lonely station.
That night he bedded down on the same creek that flowed through Cottonwood, about six miles upstream from the village. He lit no fire, contenting himself with chewing on a piece of jerked beef and drinking from the stream.
At daylight he checked his guns. He knew the Brockmans and was under no misapprehension as to their abilities. They were good alone and almost unbeatable together.
If only by some trick, some stratagem, he could get them one at a time!
It was a good thought, but the two Brockmans ate together, worked together, slept together.
It was almost nine o’clock when Kilkenny rode into Cottonwood, and if his calculations were correct he was still ahead of the Brockmans.
Reaching the tiny cluster of huts, he tied the buckskin under some trees at the edge of the stream, then crossed the log footbridge to the street—if such it could be called.
There was nothing much to Cottonwood. At one side was the small stream, never more than six feet wide, and some cottonwoods and willows that lined its banks.
There was the station with its telegraph office—built ahead of the rails for the convenience of the surveyors—a saloon and general store, then four or five houses. That was all.
Kilkenny walked into the station.
“I’m Lance Kilkenny. Any messages for me?”
The station-keeper nodded. “Yeah. Just come in. Three of ’em. I didn’t know who you was.”
He handed the messages to Kilkenny, broke a straw from the broom and began to chew reflectively, glancing out of the window from time to time.
“Be some fireworks now,” he commented, indicating the messages. “It sure beats the devil.”
Kilkenny had pocketed the messages without reading them. After glancing into the saloon, he crossed the street to the willows. On the other side of the bridge, in a little hollow among the trees, he stretched out and began to doze.
An hour later the stationmaster called out loud enough to awaken him:
“Hossmen comin’ out of the breaks, Kilkenny. Look powerful like them Brockmans!”
Kilkenny got up, yawned and stretched. Then, leaning against a huge old cottonwood, he waited.