CHAPTER 8

Julian Tanner was the elected sheriff of Bear Harbor. What his qualifications were exactly, perhaps not even Tanner could say. He was handsome, in an off-center sort of way, with a drooping mouth and a sad pair of hound eyes. He had been Duggan’s man at election time.

In his youth Tanner had done some real sheriffing, fighting a time or two in those Lincoln County wars, standing beside men like Earp and Charlie Sayers. Yet he had found out he hadn’t the stomach for it. He had enemies, and he had no will to face them. Eventually he had tossed down his star and ridden west until he ran out of country.

Now he was Duggan’s pawn. Duggan knew it, Tanner knew it, and so did every citizen of Bear Harbor. Somehow Tanner no longer felt small about that fact.

Tanner rode slowly. He spoke slowly. His gun-hand, he well realized, was also slow. Yet it had not mattered—he was on the right side.

He swung down at the Double T ranch house.

“Miss Talleyrand.” Tanner removed his hat briefly and nodded at the pretty blonde woman. Pita he knew as well, but these other men—where had they come from? Duggan had assured Tanner that the girl was nearly alone, helpless. The blond kid with the conchoes on his hat hardly looked helpless. Nor did the giant.

“Good morning, Sheriff. Won’t you have some coffee with us?”

“No, ma’am. I come out officially.” Tanner frowned more deeply than usual. There was a tall dark man, another stranger, standing in the ribbon of shadow cast by the porch roof.

“Officially?” Sally Talleyrand untied her apron and placed it over the porch railing, stepping down to face the sheriff who was a head taller.

“First off, I got a note here. Comes from Portland. It seems, Miss Talleyrand, you owe considerable money to a firm name of ‘Pacific Title and Loan.’”

Sally blanched and counted hurriedly in her mind. Had it been six months already?

“I will be paying that note off shortly,” she said calmly.

“Yes, ma’am. It appears from this letter that it’s already a date or two overdue, however. They seem to be in a hurry about this.”

“I said I’ll pay it,” Sally snapped. “I’ve made arrangements.”

“All right,” Tanner said, spitting. “Second thing is an agent of this here—” he read the letter again—“Pacific Title and Loan Company, a Mr. George Hilton. Have you met such a man, Miss Talleyrand?”

“No,” she answered, eyes puzzled. “I’m sure not. Why do you ask?”

“Well, it seems this Mr. Hilton was in the area, checking on his company’s collateral, that is to say The Double T.”

“Yes?”

“Thing is, he never came back, nor wrote his people. I wish you’d keep an eye out for him,” Tanner said, swinging into the saddle once again, tipping his hat. “He’s kind of a tall fellow with a red beard and a bald head. Should be easy to recognize.”

Pita’s eyes flashed toward Ray who was gazing back coolly. So that was who the bald man was. A mortgage agent.

Tanner nodded to them, letting his eyes drift over all of them once more, then, pocketing the letter, he turned his blue roan and rode slowly off across the burned grassland.

“You owe money on the ranch, Miss Talleyrand?”

Sally turned to see the doctor standing in the doorway, a tall stooped old man with calm gray eyes.

“Yes,” she admitted. Nervously she brushed back an errant strand of hair and sighed deeply. “We needed supplies, wire. I wanted to pay the Coos. There was so much we needed.”

“But why Portland?”

“Who would I borrow from in Bear Harbor?” Her eyes flashed. “That crook Sam Duggan? Never!”

“I see. You told the sheriff that arrangements had been made to pay this loan back,” Spectros commented.

“Sort of. I mean I had hoped to. I wanted to drive some cattle through to Portland and settle up on the spot. But now, with the cattle scattered, my men gone…”

“Is it necessary to go through to Portland?” Spectros wanted to know. “That’s a long, hazardous drive.”

“It is necessary, yes. I can sell a few head from time to time in Bear Harbor, but there just isn’t a market for many beeves.”

“I’ve seen cattle being shipped,” Ray put in. “And from Bear Harbor.”

“Yes.” Sally nodded her head. “Yet Mr. Duggan controls the waterfront. He will not allow me to use holding pens there. I would be surprised if I could find a ship to take the risk.”

“The risk of violence?” Inkada asked.

“Yes. It is always there. Sam Duggan and my father were bitter enemies. Father led a boycott against Duggan’s bank, pointing out certain irregularities. If we had had an honest town, an honest sheriff, Sam Duggan would have gone to prison. Some even suggest that my father would be alive if not for Sam Duggan.”

“He wants this ranch?” Spectros asked.

“Wants it?” Sally laughed, bitterly. “For what? It’s a loss to me, it would be a loss to him. To anyone. No,” she said, wagging her head, “I don’t think so. He just doesn’t want me to have it.”

After Sally had gone Ray stood alone for a time, trying to sort it out. There were no easy answers. Inkada stepped up beside him.

“I don’t like this,” Ray said. “But I don’t know what we can do about it.”

“Little, Ray. We have other problems,” Inkada reminded him. “Our trail grows colder as we delay.”

“Pita,” Ray said slowly. “He might have killed that man Hilton.”

“Why would he?”

“Maybe he thinks he was protecting Sally. Maybe he figured that by eliminating the mortgage man he was eliminating the mortgage.” Ray shrugged. “Just thinking out loud.”

“Could he have known who Hilton was, Ray?” Inkada asked. Ray had no answer for him, as he had few answers for anything just then. Where was Blackschuster? What was that Oh-na-Tami? A trick, a joke, a reality?

The Coos had ridden out, trying to drive the cattle from the forests. Ray and Inkada could do little but wait. Spectros was strangely silent about his plans. Even Khamsin sensed this unusual delay. The big horse tossed his head, circled the corral endlessly and went to his hind legs, pawing the air.

From the interior of the house there was a sudden cry of joy, followed by the sound of water gurgling into a tin basin. Montak, at least, was doing something.

When they went in Sally was planting a kiss on the giant’s cheek. “He fixed it!” she said joyously. “Finally something is working right.”

She stood pumping the handle energetically a while. It was nearly pathetic. As if all else in her life had gone wrong, and only this water pump were a bright promise of a better future.

“You see,” Sally turned, a smile frozen on her face as she saw the tall stranger standing in the doorway.

Ray turned as Inkada did, seeing the look on Sally’s face. Montak simply broke into a huge grin.

“Kid!” Ray nearly shouted.

His hat was low over his eyes. He wore black jeans and a white shirt. On his hips were a pair of silver inlaid Colt revolvers. He did not smile; he was not a smiling man.

“Sally,” Ray said, “meet Kid Soledad.”

She nodded, started to stick out her hand then withdrew it. A somehow familiar-looking man, he had cold gray eyes, a hard chin and shoulders which strained the fabric of his white silk shirt. He was quite tall, somber, yet there were lines of laughter around his eyes. Where had he come from? Somehow she could not bring herself to ask.

“I thought we’d go looking around,” Soledad said to Inkada.

“All right. Where?”

“The south woods.”

Inkada nodded. That was the forbidden area, the area where men did not go, because of Oh-na-Tami. If there were anything to be hidden, it would be hidden there.

“There should be some cattle up there too,” Kid Soledad believed. “We can start them for home.”

The Kid turned and walked out, followed by Montak and Inkada. Ray was left alone for a moment with Sally. She took him by the shirt sleeve, her eyes curious, wide.

“You’re going to help with the cattle? But why? I thought you would be leaving when your friend arrived.”

“We’ll be leaving, Sally. But not for a time. I guess we’re not in that much of a hurry just now.”

“Well—thank you. But I wish you wouldn’t go to the south woods.”

“The beast.” Ray smiled faintly. “Don’t worry about that. It’s being done to frighten people off. There’s no beast.”

“I hope not. I’ll see if the doctor is comfortable. He shouldn’t stay alone in that wagon. He doesn’t look well.”

“He is well,” Ray said, putting his hands on Sally’s shoulders. “Spectros is resting. Let him rest.”

She studied Ray’s eyes, shaking her head slightly. There was something she did not understand about these men. Perhaps she did not wish to know.

Impulsively, she stood tiptoe and kissed Ray lightly. He smiled and turned, pulling his hat on. He could have told her, or tried to. Yet how could he explain that Dr. Spectros was not in the black wagon? That there was no Dr. Spectros just then?

Soledad was in Khamsin’s saddle when Ray came out. Inkada handed Ray the reins to his roan. He swung into the saddle, catching a glimpse of the pretty woman in the house who stood peering through the curtain.

They rode quickly and quietly through the crisp morning, their horses’ hoofs singing in the long grass. Here and there they found cattle and they were hazed back toward the ranch. No matter if they traveled only a few hundred yards; they were that much closer to home range and could be pushed home on the return.

Ray was beside the Kid, and they talked as they rode.

“What do you think of all this?” Ray wondered.

“I think a young woman is getting a raw deal, Ray,” the Kid said firmly. “And I wonder about this Hilton, the mortgage man. He was killed with a knife. I know a man who uses one well.”

“Wango?”

“Yes. It’s possible.”

“But why?”

“Simply because the man was in the wrong place. An area where no one is supposed to trespass.”

“You mean the woods. Right where we’re headed?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“And the beast,” Ray said. “It’s for the same reason. Blackschuster could have found out about the Indian myth, using it for his own gain.”

“It’s possible,” the tall man said, but he did not sound convinced.

They had crested a low grassy knoll. A silver rill ran through the sandy bottom where a trio of old, bowed cottonwoods grew. Pita came up out of the bottom, his horse lathered, his face smeared with blood.

His eyes were wide, he seemed scarcely to see them. He rode onward, his horse foundering.

“Pita!” Ray shouted. “Pita!” He managed to head off the Indian’s horse, grabbing the bridle.

“Featherskill,” Pita panted, yet his eyes were hard, distant. He caught sight of the man sitting the big black horse, but it seemed to make no impression. Soledad and Montak had ridden beside Ray, now they watched as Pita caught his breath.

“What was it?” Ray asked.

“Your damned trick! Your fake beast—it tore Sweet Sam’s head off!”