CHAPTER XX

 

LEADING ELIAS’ HORSE with the dead Mexican slung across the saddle, they swung back out of the pass. Dusk was weaving its slow gray thickening over the pale land when they came in sight of Rifle Gap.

In the wake of the storm the air was turning colder, crisping the snow lie. They left the dead man outside, too weary to bury him now, and after off-saddling in the barn they trooped into the big room.

The fireplace roared warmly and Michaela, quick to see the door open, came forward to within a pace of him and stood with her eyes wide, saying nothing.

“He’s dead,” Brand said.

The girl turned her face away and walked to the stove, clasping her hands together. George Zane came forward, making the gesture of helping him out of his mackinaw.

Lutz tramped forward, settling with a great sigh into a chair and talking immediately: “I could use a plate of grub.”

“I’ll fix you something,” Michaela said, and turned toward the kitchen with the saddening knowledge of death on her features.

“Thanks,” Lutz said to her, and as he sat down Brand noticed the courtesy in the big man’s tone. Lutz had mellowed a good deal in the last twenty-four hours.

Brand left his coat near the stove, got up again and tramped upstairs to the girl’s room. Billy McCasford sat propped up in bed; Brand said, “Elias didn’t make it.”

“Dead?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry then,” McCasford said. “He was a skunk, but I don’t wish death to anybody.”

Remembering that Elias had kidnaped Michaela, Brand was not inclined to be so charitable to Elias’ memory. But he said nothing of it; what he said was, “We’ll send you up something to eat,” and went back downstairs.

The old man sat wrapped in a buffalo robe, brooding into the fire. Lutz and Zane were talking idly at the table, awaiting their suppers, and at the bar Andrews stood with his hands wrapped around a bottle. Brand looked at them and his mind recalled the hours they had all come through; there was this last thing yet to be done, and so he walked as far as the near end of the bar and stood there facing Andrews, and said, “They haven’t brewed enough whiskey to drown it out of your mind.”

“What’s that?” Andrews looked up bleakly.

“You killed the deputy,” Brand said. “That’s what’s eating at you.”

Andrews looked down at the bottle, slowly lifted it to his lips and drank. When he put it down, his hands were unsteady. “What gives you that idea?”

“It narrowed down to you or Lutz. But Lutz had his chance at me this afternoon, and never took it. You shot Kirby and then, when you saw me packing him up the trail, it made you panic. You tried to bushwack me because you were sure I knew you’d killed him. When, that didn’t work, you tried it again last night, but it wasn’t me coming through the door, it was the kid. You hit him by mistake.”

“Got it all figured out, have you?” Andrews watched him emotionlessly through red-filmed eyes.

Around the room, Lutz and Zane were watching with wary interest. Lutz, Brand noticed, had not taken up the cue and begun to bluster; the big man remained silent. Brand said, “What did you do with the rifle, Andrews?”

“What rifle?”

“It’s too late for that,” Brand said, bluffing but sure enough of the truth of his guess to sustain the bluff. “You ditched the rifle somewhere. You might as well tell us where.”

“You can’t prove a thing.”

“There’s a pair of Californio spurs in the stable that will prove different,” Brand told him. “A little asking around, and we’ll find somebody who’ll identify them as yours. Those spurs left tracks by the body.”

Andrews again looked down at the bottle. Its liquid turned amber and brown under the shifting light. He touched the rim of the bottle tentatively and said, “This stuff tastes rotten.”

“It won’t do you any good.”

“No,” Andrews agreed. “I guess it won’t. All right. I killed Kirby.”

Zane stepped forward then, assuming his role as a peace officer. “Why did you kill him?”

Andrews lifted his bloodshot eyes toward Lutz. “Ask him.”

Lutz frowned at him. “You’re loco. I put no gun in your hand, Andrews.”

Brand said to Andrews, “What do you mean?”

Andrews shrugged; he pushed the bottle away and turned to face the room. Zane came forward and lifted the gun out of the homesteader’s holster, and Andrews made no objection. He said, “Somebody shot down half a dozen of Lutz’s cattle a few days ago. Lutz blamed it on my brother Clint. But Lutz found one of the hides at Clint’s place—I suspect one of the back-country rawhiders planted it there, to throw suspicion off.

“Anyway, Lutz said he was going to the law about it. Clint swore to me he’d had nothin’ to do with it, but that didn’t help any. Hell, we all knew if Clint went to jail, his wife and kids would have nothing to five on, nobody to support them. I’d do what I could, but I got my own family to feed and times have been tough. So when the deputy came and took Clint away, I saddled up and cut across country to head them off. I told the deputy to turn Clint loose, and he got mad. He turned his gun on me, and I let mine off first.”

“All right,” Brand said. “What happened to the rifle?”

“Clint took it home with him.”

“I guess,” George Zane said, “I’ll have to arrest your brother, too.”

Lutz was glowering at the table. “Andrews, how sure are you that it wasn’t your brother stole that beef of mine?”

“I just told you,” Andrews said.

Lutz worked his lips around. There was a struggle mirrored in his thick-joweled face. He looked up when Michaela entered the room; his glance locked with hers and the girl matched his look proudly. Lutz said, “Maybe he’s telling the truth, Zane.”

“Even if he is, he’ll have to stand trial for killing the deputy.”

“Well,” Lutz said slowly, it’ looks a little like I may have started the wheel turning. Listen, Andrews. If I can get an agreement from you and the other nesters to form a protective combine against those hill-country rawhiders, I might go you the price of a good lawyer.”

Andrews studied his knuckles. Brand said quietly, “You’ll need one, fella.”

Andrews nodded resignedly. “All right,” he said.

Brand turned to George Zane. “What about the kid upstairs?”

“I talked to him this afternoon. He’s surrendered the loot to me. I think they’ll probably let him off—there’s no real harm done, except to himself. The judge will probably figure that gunshot wound’s enough punishment.”

“That’s fine,” Brand said. “I’ll want a good wrangler.”

“Wrangler?” Lutz said. “What use have you got with a wrangler?”

“Why,” Brand said drowsily, “I’m thinking of starting up a little horse ranch back in the mountains where there’s plenty of good graze and mountain water. You get tired of drifting.”

He saw the girl’s startled glance; covering her confusion, she turned and retreated into the kitchen. Brand got up and followed her, letting the door swing shut behind him.

He cupped her face between his hands. Her eyes softened and an unsteady smile touched her lips, and she whispered, “Be gentle, Jim, please. I know you can be gentle.”

The world was warm, warm with fire-heat and her close-pressed body and lips and the sweet taste in his tongue and the scent of her hair, all of it tempered by the gentleness she had seen in him.