Morning. Clouds bellied over the Rio Chama country, ready to pour. Stryker sat in the Circle C kitchen after four hours’ sleep. Both his hands were wrapped around his cup.
Adriana looked around from her post at the stove.
“Don’t criticize the coffee. Someday you’ll be old and weak yourself.”
“Like that joke,” he said somberly.
He had no laughter in him. Howard Cotten and his son Vern sat bowed over their breakfast plates. Vern’s arm was bandaged and his face was sour. He had developed new creases around his mouth.
Stryker said, “I want the crew to practice a few shots with those new rifles this morning.”
Vern said, “Hell, they’re all weaned. They know one end of a gun from the other. Why waste cartridges?”
“A man’s got to learn to crawl before he can walk,” Stryker said. “How many of them ever fired a buffalo gun before?”
Howard Cotten said, “I don’t see how that matters. Seems to me damn foolishness. What are we going to do with three hundred dollars’ worth of buffalo guns?”
“Outrange Buck Madrid,” Stryker said.
“What?”
Adriana brought the coffeepot to the table and refilled the four cups. Stryker looked at her and saw her eyes shift stiffly away from him.
He said to Cotten, “Madrid has a crew of toughs that’s three or four times our size. The long guns can even up the odds for us if it comes to a fight. There’s just one thing to remember. We can’t afford to let him pick the field of battle if Madrid comes for Circle C with all his guns. We’ve got to control that choice. Let him come after us here—he’s got no cover to hide behind within half a mile of the house. Or let him fort up Rock Ford. There we can cut him to pieces while his men can’t shoot far enough to drive us back. He’s like a man with a shotgun coming after a man with a rifle. Let him get close and he’ll wipe us out. But keep him at his distance and we’ve got him whipped.”
Howard Cotten was watching him cautiously.
“There’s a hitch in that. It requires that we be the ones to open fire. Madrid sure won’t—not until he gets within the range of his own guns.”
“That’s right,” Stryker said flatly.
“And I have nothing to say about this?”
“You can turn your four-fifths of the property over to Madrid if you’ve a mind. You can always do that,” Stryker said. He leaned forward for emphasis. “I’m tired, old man, and I’m waiting for you to fish or cut bait.”
He heard the quick rush of Adriana’s indrawn breath, glanced at her and saw the angry challenge in her face. He returned his attention to Howard Cotten.
He said, “Whatever you do—I’m playing it out to the finish.”
Vern said, “You mean you’ll fight Madrid by yourself if we back out?”
“If I have to.”
Diego Cruz arrived in the yard, a dumpy graceless figure on horseback. The tarnished badge on his shirt reflected dully. A thin mist, almost rain, hung in air that was laden with the heavy scents of grass and manure drifting up from the corrals.
Vern came out of the house to greet him.
Cruz asked abruptly, “Where’s Stryker?”
“Right here.”
Stryker appeared in the doorway, coffee cup in hand. Cruz drew an oilskin pouch out of his shirt and opened the flap. He took out a folded paper.
“Warrant.”
Stryker lifted his cup and drank, watching Cruz over the rim of the cup. Cruz was still on his horse.
Stryker asked, “For me?”
“That’s it. For the murders of Pete Voss and that other hairpin.”
“Madrid swore it out?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He didn’t waste any time,” Stryker observed.
He lowered the empty cup, and let it dangle from his finger. Cruz, big-rumped and brown, made no hasty motions. He gigged his horse gently and bent forward to extend the warrant toward Stryker.
Stryker did not reach for it.
He said, “Knowing what we both know about that shooting, you still figure to enforce that?”
“That’s what I came for.”
Vern watched, silent and open-mouthed. Stryker felt weight behind him in the house and knew Howard Cotten and Adriana were there, listening. Two cowhands stopped in the stable door across the yard to watch.
Stryker asked, “What happens if I don’t ride back with you?”
“Then I ride back by myself. I don’t figure this piece of paper’s worth risking my life for.”
“How do you square that with the badge, Deputy?”
Cruz shrugged casually.
“I put it down in the book how I served the warrant on you and then turned you loose on your own recognizance. It’s legal.”
“Fair enough,” Stryker said. “Coffee?”
“Naw,” Cruz said. “I got to get back. Left that fishing pole waiting. You know, the one you was talking about yesterday.”
“All right,” Stryker said.
He watched the deputy hip around in the saddle, touch his hat brim in a general parting gesture and ride slouching out of the yard.
Echoes of the fifty-caliber shots rumbled across the plain like cannonballs rolling on clanking steel. The acrid stink of sulphur fumes bit into Stryker’s nostrils.
He leaned forward to touch a man’s shoulder.
“Keep both eyes open when you sight. And don’t yank the trigger. This is long-range stuff and you’ve got to squeeze your shots or you’ll miss by ten feet.”
He went down the line, stopping here and there to drop a word of advice. At the end he straightened.
“All right. Load ’em up and try it again.”
After some thirty minutes he called the shooting practice off.
“All right. Remember what I’ve told you. We’ll save the rest of the ammunition and hope we don’t need to use it. Get back to work but keep those long guns handy.”
He turned toward the house. Vern hurried to catch up before Stryker had taken many steps.
“I can shoot rings around the bunch of them. They’re cowboys, not gunslingers. You can’t count on them for much in a fight, Stryker. Which kind of leaves it to you and me. Even with this arm wrapped up I’m a better shot than the pack of them.”
Stryker glanced at him.
“You’re anxious as hell to get yourself killed, aren’t you? You’ve been picking fights you knew you couldn’t win ever since I met you.”
They walked almost the full distance to the house before Vern answered.
Finally he said in a subdued voice, “I got to prove I’m good for something, don’t I?”
The words made Stryker stop and watch, frowning, while Vern tramped into the house. Stryker followed. He saw Vern crossing the room to the whiskey sideboard. Old Howard—he was not an aged man but he looked old this morning—sat in his chair, staring down into the amber swirl of a half-full glass.
Vern seemed to change his mind as he looked at his father. He turned away from the bar without touching anything.
He said to Stryker, “Don’t I?”
“Kid,” Stryker murmured, “once you get the brand of the gun on you—it bums too deep to rub off.”
Howard Cotten stirred.
“Stryker knows what he’s saying, son.”
Vern shook his head.
At the window, looking out, he presently said, “This damn close weather makes a fellow impatient.”
His father said, “There’s time enough in life for everything, Vern.”
“Even dying,” said Stryker.
The old man looked up at him and lowered his eyes to the whiskey in his glass.
He drank it down, and said gravely, “I know what you think of me.”
“What makes you figure I think of you at all?”
The old man winced.
“I deserved that, I suppose. But I don’t like a fight. I don’t want anyone hurt. Maybe I’m getting old.”
Vern whipped away from the window. He snapped viciously, “Then lie down and die by yourself, damn it.”
His father did not rise in anger. He shook his head.
“I’m sorry, boy.”
“You’re sorry?”
“I’m sorry for you. Somewhere I made a mistake with you. You’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
Vern growled, “You think quoting the Bible is going to get us out of this fix? Or make something out of me that I ain’t?” Vern prowled around the room, an intense and angry young predator, too proud and too anxious. He shifted his attention to Stryker. “And you, taking on like you owned the whole place. How do we know you won’t get done with Madrid and then turn against us?”
“Shut up, boy,” Stryker said. “You’re wasting wind.”
He went back to a corner of the room Howard Cotten used as working space and settled down to clean the black-powder grit out of his rifle. Howard Cotten upended glass after glass without leaving his chair. His expression, did not change but presently he crumpled slowly.
Vern gave him a look of contempt, snorted and strode to the sideboard. He poured a drink for himself and drank it, standing over his unconscious father.
Stryker made no comment. He walked out with his clean rifle. In the stable he fitted the rifle into its saddle sheath. He saw Adriana taking advantage of a break in the rain. Under a frail patch of blue sky she walked across the yard with an armload of washing.
He allowed impulse to turn his steps after her and entered the wagon barn in time to see her stringing clothes across a line hung from rafter to rafter.
He asked, “Give you a hand?”
“I can manage,” she said coolly.
“Let me talk to you.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“What for? I remember you—you’re a fellow who likes to travel alone. Or give orders. You don’t need anybody to talk to.”
“Maybe you’re overestimating me.”
“Am I?”
She put her back to him and went on with her work. He stood and watched the way her supple body moved under her clothes when she stretched to hang garments over the clothes line.
Presently he said, “I didn’t want to make an enemy of you.”
“Did you expect me to take your side against my own family?”
He said, “You’ve got a quick temper. But you know well enough that I’ve done nothing against you or them. Whatever I’ve done to them has been meant to help them come through this fight with their lives and maybe their self-respect. What do you think it would have done to them if they’d let themselves abandon this place to Madrid and run away?”
She lowered her arms and turned slowly to face him. Stryker let her study her own uncertainties in the interval he used carefully to walk around her to the laundry basket, reach in and lift a faded pair of damp Levi’s to hang them from the line. He did not speak to her for some time. He let her bring her own quick mind to the confusion he had presented against her prejudices.
Stryker picked up the empty clothes basket when the washing was hung and walked her back to the house. He followed her into the pantry and let the door swing shut behind him.
He said, “Don’t confuse a man who doesn’t parade his feelings with a man who doesn’t have feelings.”
“No,” she said slowly, “I don’t think I should.”
But the brightness of her blue-green eyes reflected puzzlement. He waited.
She said, “Vern always had to have more toys than any other boy when we were children in San Antonio. He spent all his time whittling toy knives and guns. Do you think he can grow up, Stryker?”
“If he gives himself a chance to live long enough.”
“That’s an ugly thing to say.”
“The truth can be ugly, lady.”
“So can you.” But her eyes were warmer than they had been and a bit of a smile played around her mouth. “You’re as ugly as a cigar store Indian.”
“I reckon.”
She laughed softly.
“I love cigar store Indians.”
His eyes narrowed.
She said, “You were right out there. I’m a stubborn woman. I wanted to hate you, Stryker, and I gave it a good try.”
“Why?”
“Because when you came here I couldn’t pretend any longer. I’ve always wanted Vern to be a real brother to me instead of a little boy whose nose I’ve had to wipe. But when you came there was no more pretending that he’d ever be able to fill our father’s boots.” When he said nothing she went on: “That doesn’t mean much to you, I suppose. You’ve only seen my father the way he is now. He was a fine man, Howard Cotten. Major Howard Cotten—you didn’t know we were army brats, did you?”
“No.”
“Tenth Cavalry,” she said and he saw a troubled, faraway expression in her eyes. “That was our regiment. The last assignment Dad had. But one night when Vern was sixteen Dad had to go into The Flat—at Fort Griffin, in Texas, they called the post town The Flat—Dad had to go into town to get Vern out of some trouble in a card game. It was Dad’s night as duty officer and he let a friend take his place while he went looking for Vern. When Dad came back to the post one of the prisoners had broken out of the guardhouse and killed Captain Chapman, the man who’d taken Dad’s duty. Dad felt he should have been there—that if he’d stayed on his post maybe it wouldn’t have happened. He’s blamed himself for Jim Chapman’s death ever since. That was four years ago. We’d been building this ranch—Dad had planned to move here when the army retired him. After Jim Chapman was killed Dad just resigned. I tried to stop him. So did his commanding officer and all his friends. The Board of Inquiry cleared him of any blame. But he just took off his uniform and never put it back on—he kept saying he wasn’t fit to wear it. That was when he started to drink.” She stirred. Her eyes returned to immediate focus. “I’m sorry, Stryker. I didn’t mean to get started on that.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Makes a few things clearer to me.”
She said, “Be tolerant of my men, can you?”
He said gruffly, “First I’ll try to keep them alive. After that comes tolerance, lady. I wish you wouldn’t jump at me when I’m tough on them.”
“I’ll try not to.” Her smile turned mischievous. “I won’t promise. I’m changeable.”
“Like a butterfly in the sunset,” he answered.
Sobered, she looked away.
“No,” she said. “Not yet, Stryker. Things are too raw.”
“Sure,” he intoned. “But one day those scars will heal over. Would I look like a silly damn fool if I came courting you with my hat in my hand?”
She looked up. “I think you’d look just fine, Nat Stryker.”
Rain fell listlessly on Rafter Cross. Soaked and uncomfortable, Diego Cruz sat on his horse in the yard and listened while Buck Madrid gave him a tongue-lashing. Madrid’s strange, high-pitched voice slapped at him in piping sarcasm.
Madrid ended by saying contemptuously, “For God’s sake, if I had one man I could depend on. Just one man.”
Cruz said, “I ain’t your man, Buck. Maybe you got a few gents in your pocket here and there and maybe you don’t. But don’t make any mistakes about me.”
“The one mistake I made with you,” Madrid said, “was sending you to do a man’s job. Now get the hell off my land.”
The deputy clamped his mouth shut, reined his horse around and left at a canter, his shoulders elevated almost as if he were pouting.
When Cruz was gone Lloyd Handy stirred behind Madrid on the porch. Handy was chuckling deep in his chest.
Madrid swung ponderously on him.
“You’ve got nothing to laugh at, Lloyd. You had him last night and you let him get the better of you. It’s time you did penance for that.”
All the humor drained out of Handy’s cavernous face. His obsidian eyes became bleak. He said, “Sure. I want a crack at him as much as you do.”
“I’m giving you your chance. And don’t make a mess of it this time. I want you to take care of that homestead chore at Rock Ford. Cotten will be rounding up his cattle within a few days and I want him sealed off from the railroad.”
“Be faster if we went after Stryker. Get him out of the way and Cotten will fold up easy.”
“That’s what Stryker wants us to do,” Madrid said. “You’re a fool, Lloyd. Which is why I’m paying you to do what I want instead of the opposite. If you had half the brains of an ape you’d see that Stryker wants me to send my whole crew after him. He’d lead us to hell and gone for just long enough for Cotten to get his cows to market. Then he’d thumb his nose at us.”
“Not if we kill him first.”
“And risk prison sentences for all of us?” Madrid reached for the door latch. “Don’t think, Lloyd. Just do what you’re told. Put up your markers at Rock Ford and shoot anybody who tries to trespass. Don’t worry about Stryker. He’ll come to you. You won’t have to go to him.”
When Madrid had waddled into the house Lloyd Handy spread his gaunt spidery hands over the handles of his two black guns. His eyes worked into a sorrowful squint and he dropped off the porch, walked through the drenching rain toward the stable.