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Sheriff Cawley gave Lucifer a nudge and the black stallion crested the hill until Cawley could look down on the Bentley ranch house and its outlying buildings below. A large stable and bunkhouse sprawled behind the house. The stallion caught the scent of something below in the breeze that swept up to them. He nickered, low and restless. The horse had wanted to gallop most of the way here. Cawley wanted to lay low for a spell and just keep an eye out for any movement.
Cattle still ranged free on the land, even though old Captain Bentley had been dead for almost a year. Though Gabe Bentley was around, someplace, the other son, Esau, had bit the dust in the same cattleman feud that had taken down his dad. Neither death had caused Cawley to mourn a great deal, nor the townspeople either he’d noticed, even though the town was named after Bentley.
Cawley turned his horse and rode back to where he’d seen a low creek with water and thick stands of grass. Cattle were watering along the creek. He looked for, and found, a pool that formed in a bend in the shade of trees and with one wide shoal that opened into a stretch covered in grass. This would do as the kind of place he could stake out Lucifer and head back himself to watch the ranch. He stripped bark off cottonwood trees that would be better than the grass for Lucifer and brought it to the stallion. He left his saddle on, patted the horse’s neck, threw his saddlebags, canteen, and bedroll over his shoulder. Lastly, he took his rifle out of its scabbard, and headed back up the slope until he came to the crest.
He lowered himself as he came to the top, careful not to settle on a cactus, or worse a snake. Peering over a low stand of rock he felt more than a little like an Indian at the moment. The ranch house area below looked deserted. Cattle grazed right up to the edges of buildings. He was surprised no one had made an effort to round up the free ranging cattle and make off with them. That would come.
This could take a spell. He spread his bedroll and settled in, lying across it with his head low to the ground and peering out around the base of rocks so he could still see the house. He reached into his saddlebag and took out a half loaf of now stale sourdough bread he’d bought back in town. He washed down each bite with a sip of creek water from his canteen. Cawley watched as the sky grew gray and the stretch below grew gradually black.
He blinked his eyes open, must have dozed off. Below he saw a yellow glimmer, a tiny spot in the dark. He rubbed the crust from the corner of his eye, looked closer. The dim light was coming from one end of the bunkhouse.
Cawley stood. He looked around, let his eyes adjust to the night sky. Movement caught his eye and he glanced down, saw a dark, perhaps black, scorpion climbing up onto his saddlebags. He brushed it aside with the toe of his boot and crushed it in the gravely sand. He lifted his bedroll, shook it well, and rolled it tight and tied it. He put most of his gear close to the rock, carried only his rifle, and started down the hill.
Drawn curtains prevented him from looking inside. He went around to the door where many a cowhand had come and gone back in the heyday of the ranch. His hand was almost to the door, then he paused, worked the lever of his rifle as quietly as he could, shifting a bullet into the chamber. Now he was ready. Behind him he heard the click-click-click of a Colt’s hammer being pulled back. His head spun and he was staring into end of a .45 caliber pistol barrel, no more than an inch or so from his face. No one was likely to miss from that range.
“How ‘bout you lower the rifle to the ground for now?”
The barrel of the pistol followed him as he did. Cawley felt his own pistol being yanked from his holster. His chances of being alive five minutes from now weren’t high, but they’d have been lower if he’d have made a sudden move against the hand holding the pistol barrel so steady. In the dark he hadn’t made out a face yet, especially with the shadow from the hat brim adding to the darkness. He didn’t believe he’d heard the no-nonsense voice before. But he believed that the man would shoot.
“Open the door. Go on in. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Cawley took a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t going to be one of his last. He reached and opened the door, stepped inside. A single lantern at the far end of the row of cot beds lit that corner of the room. Gabe Bentley sat on the farthest bunk, slapping down playing cards from a worn deck into poker hands. Cawley took it all in. He was dying to know who was behind him. Each time he started to turn his head the pistol barrel prodded his head forward. Up this close, the end of the barrel looked as big as the open end of a pickle barrel.
“You don’t happen to have any money on you, do you,” Gabe said.
“No.”
“I did fancy a game of poker. I miss the good days when I could walk into the saloon and get up a game. Do you happen to have a cigar?”
“I neither smoke nor chew.”
“Prim. That’s the way I always heard you described back when you were a Texas Ranger lieutenant. You were cavalry before that, so I’ve heard. Darn good cavalry man. But here you are. The hunter has become the hunted.”
Cawley sensed the barrel that had been right behind him was no longer there. He dared a peek in that direction. The man who had disarmed him moved to lean against the wall, slid his gun into its holster and with one finger moved the brim of his hat up an inch. A straw hung down from the corner of his mouth. He chewed on one end of it thoughtfully. Oh, Cawley knew him now. Just seeing that face made him feel mule-kicked in the stomach. “You’re Lucas Brent, aren’t you?”
“That’s the name some know me by.”
Cawley knew him as one of the fastest draws on either side of the Mississippi, and north or south as well. The man was plain lightning, he’d heard. Though the ones who could testify to that were no longer around. How in blazes had Gabe become pals with someone like that?
“I see you’re scratching your head, Cawley,” Gabe said. “Lucas is a cowpuncher first and foremost, who just happens to be handy with that Peacemaker he’s wearing. He rode with our bunch when the Bentleys squared off against Kenedy and his hired guns who were posing as wranglers. That don’t mean Lucas has to like me, but we both just happen to be on the wrong side of the law at the moment.”
“I went all the way to Houston on your trail.” Cawley felt the emptiness of the holster at his side. He picked his words with care.
“I wasn’t in Houston. Haven’t been yonder that way in years. But I bet I know who sent you on that particular goose chase.” Gabe picked up the cards, shuffled them, and started dealing out hands again on the blanket beside him.
“That’s who we’ve been wanting to talk to you about. This Grintly fellow.”
“He wants me dead, but only so he can gobble up the land that was dad’s.” Gabe scooped the cards back up after taking only the briefest of peeks at what had been in each of the hands.
“I’m able to come to my own conclusions around here,” Cawley said.
“And how’re you coming along on this one?” Lucas asked.
Cawley walked back up the slope barely an hour later. He hadn’t checked the pistol Lucas had handed back to him. He had worked the lever of the rifle, found it empty. So they’d taken all his ammo before turning him loose. But set him free they had, and especially considering the number of kills Lucas Bent was credited with, that was a good thing, a very good thing. He took long deep breaths, glad to be alive.
Back at the rocky ridge that ran along the crest of the hill he swept up his canteen, saddlebags, and bedroll. He shook them, in case any friendly scorpions had climbed aboard. Then he started down for the creek where he’d staked out Lucifer.
As he got closer he slowed, then stopped in the dark, with barely enough light for him to see a short ways ahead except where the shadows from the trees made everything a black blur. Where Lucifer had been staked out alone two horses stood now, his stallion and a sorrel, also with its saddle still on.
He was more conscious than ever that he should have stopped and loaded his pistol and rifle with the bullets in his saddlebags. Making as little noise as possible, Cawley looked carefully around, then eased close to the base of a sycamore, lowered his gear, and dug in his saddleback for his spare ammo.
Click-click-click. There came that sound again, right at his ear.
“No. Don’t turn around. Just lower your shooting iron to the ground.”
Cawley sighed, did as he was asked.
“Let me guess, this is the second time tonight someone’s gotten the drop on you.”
“And this time isn’t any more fun than the first.”
“Aw, what the heck.”
Cawley heard the clicks as the hammer was lowered back down, then he made out the sound of the Colt sliding back into its holster.
“You can turn around, now, have a peek.”
He did, and there stood Vince Thomas.
“What the tarnation are you up to, Vin, scaring me like that?”
Vince Thomas, or Vin, more commonly known as the “Vinegar Kid,” had been a Texas Ranger captain once. Even by Texas Ranger standards he’d been one wild and crazy man back then, and the fastest of all of them, even faster than Lucas Brent some said, though that had never been tested.
“Why would you do a thing like that to a guy? I’m not the one who made the mistake of calling you Vinnie.”
“That only happened just the one time.”
Cawley remembered that moment, had been at the funeral.
“I suppose you know who’s down there in the bunkhouse with Gabe Bentley, don’t you? Lucas Brent.”
“Yep. That’s why I’m here. To keep an eye on him.”
“Thing I never understood is how you two brothers have different last names.”
“Same mother, different fathers.”
In the dim light from the moon and stars filtering down through the trees Cawley couldn’t make out if Vin was smiling or not. “Do I need to catch you up on why I’m letting those two alone for now?”
“I can think of a couple of reasons. But let’s say you’re just realizing that as the sheriff you’ve been playing into Grintly’s hands and you don’t like it.”
“Yeah, let’s say that.” Cawley reached for his pistol and started to load it.