CHRIS SAT FITFULLY smoking in his brother’s dark bedroom. He wondered what time it was and wished he had his pocket watch—it had been smashed the night he was beaten. He could hear Vera roaming around in the house, but he did nothing to let her know of his presence.
It had been easy to elude pursuit in the rain, which washed out his tracks. Shortly after dark, he had started down out of the hills, and by the time he had arrived at the Concho headquarters, it must have been at least ten o’clock. He did not know how long he had been waiting here in the pitch-dark bedroom, after climbing silently in through the window, but it couldn’t have been less than an hour and a half. He wished Boyd would hurry up.
The front door slammed, but there were no voices. A moment later, he heard a horse start up and ride away from the ranch. After that, the house was silent as a tomb. Vera had left, evidently, riding somewhere in the night.
After a stretching, indefinable interval of time, Chris got up and walked out into the hallway. The house seemed deserted. He cruised its once-familiar rooms and corridors, needing no light to guide him: he had grown up in this big, sturdy house.
Assuring himself that the place was indeed deserted, he settled down in the parlor, in the big brown-and-white cowhide chair his father had always used. He recalled Rafe: bantam, silver-eyed, smoking his after-dinner pipe in that very chair. Rafe had been poisoned, and Chris was all but positive who had done it. The thought made his flesh crawl.
Ghosts tramped through the empty house; the darkness and the endless stretch of time made him irritable, and he ignited another of the cigarettes Johanna had given him. Johanna: kind, strong, beautiful. His mind played over her image, and his spirit warmed.
A shadow loomed on the porch, and a man bent forward at the window, shielding his face with his hands to see inside. Chris said wearily, “Come on in, Clete.”
The shadow disappeared from the window, and a moment later came in the door. “That you, Chris?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got my gun shucked out, so don’t try nothing.”
“All right,” Chris said. “You can hold the gun on me if you want. Let’s both sit here and wait for Boyd. I can use the company.”
“I dunno,” Clete Sims said in a worried voice. “You’re supposed to be in jail, Chris.”
“My own gun’s right here, cocked,” Chris said. “I could take you with me, Clete, but there’s no reason for us to shoot each other. Lord knows this valley’s had enough killings. Let’s just sit until Boyd shows up. He ought to be along any time now.”
But it was several hours before Boyd made his appearance. During that time, Chris, glad to have someone to talk to, told Clete the whole story behind the valley’s mysteries. The only thing he left out was the last, vital fact that he had learned so recently.
The two men sat in the darkened house, talking amiably, long ago having holstered their guns. By Clete’s pocket timepiece, it was nearly four in the morning when hoofbeats rattled the hardpan outside and Boyd mounted the porch. The rain had quit hours ago. Boyd’s footsteps were slow and ponderous, as if a great weight hung on his shoulders.
Chris said, “We’re in here, Boyd.”
“Then light a lamp.”
A match exploded into light and Clete Sims bent to touch it to a lamp wick. In the yellow glow, Boyd’s features looked loose and old. He said, “I ran him down. Ramirez. You were right, Chris. He talked. I know who it is we want, now.”
“I pieced it out, too,” Chris said. “I’m sorry it had to turn out this way, Boyd.”
“Can’t be helped,” Boyd said. “I guess we’d better be riding.”
“All right,” Chris said, following him outside.
Boyd said, “Carson Denver’s still prowling around on the loose somewhere. Clete, you stay here with the horses and make sure he doesn’t come up behind us.”
“I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” Clete promised.
Chris and Boyd dismounted, handing the reins to the foreman. As they walked forward, Boyd said, “I tied Ramirez up and turned him over to Carlos Riva. Expect he’s in jail by now. Riva knows the whole story, got it from me. The manhunt’s off you, Chris. You’re free now.”
“That’s not very important right now.”
“I guess not,” Boyd said. “I wish to hell there was another way, Chris.”
“We’ve got to settle this ourselves.”
“Yeah.” It was a grunt—of desperation, of anger, of sadness and regret. They were two men of a tough and lusty breed, but tonight they were deadened to all but the dirty necessity that lay ahead of them.
“I didn’t tell Riva who we were after,” Boyd said. “It’s our chore, I guess.”
Chris made no reply. Reaching the foot of the stairs, they looked up. The dawn was just breaking; dampness from yesterday’s rain still hung in the air and made it chilly. A lonely lamp gleamed from the window at the head of the stairs. Shoulder to shoulder, the two brothers climbed the stairs.
When they achieved the top, both drew their revolvers. A glance passed between them. Boyd hunched his burly shoulders, tried the latch and found it locked, and threw himself against the door.
Something splintered and the door crashed inward. Boyd and Chris charged into the room, guns up.
Startled, her hair in disarray, Vera wheeled in the circle of Ford Cooke’s arms. Her eyes widened; her mouth fell open.
Ford Cooke stepped away from her, his eyes narrowing.
“I guess it’s all over,” Boyd said. His expression was icy cool; only the slight tremor of his hand showed the tremendous hurt inside him.
“Ramirez talked,” Boyd said tightly. “You’re finished. Both of you.”
Cooke’s friendly grin spread across his handsome face. “What are you talking about, Boyd? All right, maybe I was spending a little moonlight time with Vera. What of it?”
“No good,” Chris said, shaking his head. “You two planned both murders, Santee and Anse Fuller. And one of you poisoned Rafe.”
“You’ll have a tough time proving that,” Cooke said blandly. “What have you got? Ramirez’s word against mine and Vera’s.”
“When they autopsy the old man they’ll find the poison,” Chris said. “Why fight it, Ford?”
“Maybe they will,” Cooke said. “That doesn’t prove Vera or I had anything to do with it. Maybe Boyd poisoned the old man. Who knows?”
“No,” Chris said. He glanced at Boyd. Boyd was controlling his temper with a visible effort. Chris said, “You planned the whole thing, Ford, figuring that Boyd and I would take each other out. That would leave you with a clear field—to marry Vera and take over the Concho, and nobody the wiser.”
“Prove it,” Cooke said softly.
“I think I can,” Chris murmured. “Remember how I had you make out my will, leaving my share of the Concho to Anse and Johanna?”
“What about it?”
“That was another reason to kill Anse. Maybe Johanna was next—the last of my heirs. Was that the idea, Ford?”
“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”
“Not much more,” Boyd grated. “Not much more than this, or so help me I’ll shoot you both down in your tracks!”
“Simmer down, Boyd,” Cooke said with thinly concealed contempt. He was smiling slightly, but his eyes were a little glazed—a danger sign.
“Take it easy,” Chris murmured to his brother, and turned back to Cooke. “No, you couldn’t afford to kill Johanna. Nobody gets off with killing women in this part of the country, and you’d have had enough sense to see that. But you gambled I wouldn’t have said anything to Johanna about naming her my heir. She’d never be the wiser if that will never turned up, and I died intestate. Right, Ford?”
“You haven’t proved a damn thing,” Cooke told him.
“I’ve got two witnesses who work in the bank downstairs. They’ll remember signing the will. Unless you’ve killed them both?”
“I haven’t killed anybody,” Cooke said. “You’re out of your mind, Chris. Look, if you’ll just calm down, maybe we can talk this over and make some sense out of—”
“I’m not through,” Chris snapped harshly. “You want proof, Ford, and I’ll give it to you. I’m willing to bet the whole case that you’ve destroyed my will. Can you prove me wrong?”
Startled, Cooke said, “What?”
“Produce the will, Ford.”
“Why, I—”
“You’ve burned it up, isn’t that it? Without that will, the whole ranch falls to Vera. You couldn’t afford to have my will lying around where somebody someday might find it. No, you had to destroy it. But you can’t deny I made the will. It’s been witnessed. You’ve hung yourself, Ford.”
“Maybe I just misplaced it,” Cooke said with a show of glassy bravado. “People lose things, you know.”
“That fact, on top of Ramirez’s testimony, will send both of you to the gallows,” Chris said levelly. “Probably you figured to bribe those two downstairs—the ones who witnessed the will—never to say anything about its existence to Johanna. But it didn’t work out. Your scheme’s tumbled down around your ears, Ford. We all know what you’ve done. Why keep pretending?”
“If you think I’m going to admit anything,” Cooke said, “then you’re loco. You seem to forget I’m a lawyer, Chris. I’ll run rings around you two baboons in a courtroom. You haven’t got a leg to stand on when it comes to concrete proof against me. About all you’ve got, Boyd, is grounds for a divorce, and I’m sure Vera won’t stand in your way if that’s what you want.”
There was a rasp as Boyd cocked his revolver. Chris’ left hand whipped out, his thumb dropping under the hammer of Boyd’s gun, rendering it useless; Chris said, “Back off, Boyd. You can’t shoot them down in cold blood. That’d make us as bad as they are.”
Boyd was opening his mouth to speak when a single gunshot went off somewhere outside.
Chris stiffened. “Clete,” he murmured, and wheeled to the window.
From this angle, he could see nothing. He said, “Boyd, that may have been Carson Denver. Get out on the landing and see if he’s in sight.”
Confused, enraged, Boyd obeyed as though he were a child, swinging out onto the landing with his gun raised.
Vera’s hand had gone to her mouth; her eyes were bulging. All the beauty in her face was distorted into an ugly mask.
A sudden flurry of shots sounded from outside, some of them issuing from Boyd’s gun on the landing. The commotion diverted Chris’ attention, but out of the corner of his eye he detected a flash of motion, and swung back to face the room in time to see a wicked little nickel-plated gun coming up fast in Ford Cooke’s hand.
Light raced fragmentarily along its barrel. Swinging his gun to bear, Chris shot.
The bullet took Cooke high in the chest, spinning him half around; his gun went off, and Vera uttered a little cry as she lurched backward.
Boyd’s bellow rang through the air, coming in through the broken door. Ford Cooke was crumpling to his knees, turning, the gun still in his fist; Vera was sagging back across the desk. Cooke’s eyes gleamed and his gun came up, and Chris was forced to pull trigger again.
The shot echoed around the room, deafening. It slammed Cooke back against the corner of the room; his head hit the wall, flopped forward loosely. The gun dropped from his lifeless fingers.
Vera slowly collapsed over the desk, sliding to the floor. Boyd swung in through the door. “Denver’s dead, but he took Clete with him—Vera? Vera? My God!”
Boyd knelt by her, cradled her head against him. She was not dead, but she said nothing, and died in Boyd’s arms. Boyd’s head dropped over his chest, and he wept in great heaving gasps.
Unable to look, Chris turned away.
In the red-yellow wash of the dawn, twenty-four hours later, Chris dismounted stiffly before the Fuller house.
Johanna came out on the porch. Her eyes were rimmed with red. “Chris—I’ve looked everywhere!”
“I had to ride it out,” he mumbled. “Had to think, get it all straightened out inside.”
“You’re dead tired, Chris.”
She helped him inside. He let himself go slack in her grasp, lowered himself into a chair. Johanna said softly, “I’m glad you came to me, Chris.”
“I’ll always come to you,” he said, “if that’s the way you want it.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
Her eyes were shining when he pulled her down and sought her kiss