‘John Chisum’s coming, Colonel Charlie!’ the Ysabel Kid announced, entering the Yellow Stripe saloon where Goodnight sat with his trail hands waiting to start the evening’s festivities.
It was the second day after the drive’s arrival at Fort Sumner. The Army’s cattle buyer had expressed his complete satisfaction with the three thousand, three hundred and twenty-eight steers which had survived the journey from Young County. In addition to purchasing the whole herd at the promised eight cents a pound on the hoof, Colonel Hunter had agreed that Goodnight had fulfilled the contract made on the rancher’s last visit. Buffalo had not been sold, the crew refused to part with him.
Dusty and Dawn had stayed with de Martin until he died. During the hour or so he had lingered, the man cleared up everything which puzzled them; including how he simulated such grief at Barbe’s death. While burying his face against his dead wife’s body, he had rubbed sand into his eyes and achieved the desired effect. He had also signed a statement that implicated Hayden as his employer.
After de Martin’s death, the remainder of the trip had gone by without incident. Receiving payment for the herd, Goodnight had paid out to his crew more money than most of them had ever seen. It would be a long time before the town of Fort Sumner forgot the celebrations that followed.
Coming to his feet, the rancher looked at Dusty and Mark. All around the room, the trail hands moved towards their leaders with hands loosening revolvers in holsters.
‘Let’s go see him!’ Austin Hoffman suggested.
‘Hold it!’ Goodnight barked, halting the concerted movement towards the bat-wing doors. ‘John Chisum saved my life, way back. So if he hands over the Mineral Wells cattle, we take them and call it quits.’
That’s good enough for us, Colonel Charlie!’ Ahlen stated and the others of the various ranches concerned rumbled their agreement. ‘We’ll play it any way you say.’
Needing beef urgently to feed the reservation Apaches, Colonel Hunter had split up and dispatched the herd to various agencies as soon as he had completed the purchase. So there was nothing in the Army’s big holding corrals to warn John Chisum that he had been beaten to Fort Sumner. Tall, thickset, bald, with coldly calculating eyes which belied the jovial aspect of his face, he dressed like a saddle-tramp and wore no gun. Swinging open the gate of the nearest corral, he rode aside and allowed his men to drive the herd in.
That’s got ’em here!’ declared Chisum’s tough-looking segundo, watching two of the hands close the gate on the drag of the herd. ‘I wonder if that second bunch got through the Kweharehnuh?’
‘I sure hope so,’ Chisum answered with such sincerity that he might have been telling the truth. ‘Fact being, I hope ole Charlie Goodnight makes it—’
‘He has!’ the man ejaculated, pointing with a thumb.
Turning, Chisum stared to where Goodnight, Dusty, the floating outfit and Ahlen were walking from between two of the houses that stood about fifty yards from the corral. Not all the floating outfit, Chisum noticed, for the Ysabel Kid was absent. If Chisum felt any concern, either by the Kid’s absence or Goodnight’s presence, he gave no sign of it as he rode to meet the approaching party. Behind him, the hard-faced, well-armed trail hands followed like buffalo-wolves on the heels of their pack leader.
‘That’s not Targue, the segundo he had in Graham,’ Dusty remarked to Goodnight. ‘Nor any of that bunch he had along.’
‘They’re the same kind though,’ the bearded rancher replied.
‘Howdy, Charlie,’ Chisum greeted. ‘Well I swan if I ever expected to see you here. How’d you lick us?’
‘Could be we passed you on the trail one dark night,’ Goodnight answered.
‘You’re joshing me!’ Chisum chuckled. ‘It’s good to see you and right pleasing that you’d come to say “Howdy” to ole Uncle John after a long drive.’
‘That’s not all we’re here for,’ Goodnight warned. ‘We’ve come to take the Mineral Wells cattle off your hands.’
‘To—’ Chisum began, conscious of a stirring among the twenty hardcases—selected for gun-skill rather than cattle-savvy—at his back. ‘Now I know you’re joshing, Charlie. Even if I’d got them steers along, you’ve got no right to ’em.’
‘This’s Swede Ahten, segundo of the Double Two,’ Goodnight introduced. ‘He and I’ve got power-of-attorney notes to take possession of all Bench P, D4S, Lazy F, Flying H and Double Two cattle wherever we find them.’
‘That’s not funny, Charlie—’ Chisum began mildly.
‘It’s strange how different folks see things,’ Dusty put in, noticing the increased signs of hostility among Chisum’s hands and indicating the building from between which his party had appeared. ‘The Ysabel Kid and those fellers there thought it was.’
Muffled, startled exclamations and curses broke from the Chisum hands as they looked in the required direction. The Ysabel Kid and other men carrying repeating rifles had appeared on the roofs of the buildings. More cowhands, also toting shoulder-arms, came from between the houses and formed into an efficient fighting line that covered the Long Rail’s riders more than adequately. With sickening certainty the hardcases knew they were licked. At their first hostile move, the rifles by and on the buildings would pour a devastating hail of fire upon them. Although his men showed their alarm, Chisum retained his jovial poise. Yet he remained alert for a chance to escape from the trap in which he found himself.
‘You did say that you drove our stock here for us, Mr. Chisum,’ Ahlen drawled, after giving time for the realization of their position to sink into the Long Rail riders’ heads. ‘Now didn’t you?’
‘We’re allowed to pay you five dollars a head for doing it,’ Goodnight went on.
‘Five dollars?’ Chisum yelped, aware that each steer would bring upwards of sixty dollars at eight cents a pound on the hoof. ‘I’ll—’
‘Look at it this way, Mr. Chisum,’ Dusty interrupted. ‘The Army’s buyer knows none of the Mineral Wells ranchers have sold you any of their cattle. So Colonel Hunter’s going to be mighty suspicious when he finds more than a hundred head from each of those spreads in your herd.’
‘Five dollars ain’t much, Charlie,’ Chisum groaned, knowing that at least three-quarters of his herd belonged to the ranches Goodnight had named.
‘It licks getting hung as a cow thief,’ Ahlen stated bluntly.
‘And it’ll give you enough money to pay off your loyal hands,’ Dusty drawled.
At that moment Chisum almost reached bursting point and lost all control of his carefully-held temper. Dusty’s words had smashed the bald rancher’s last hope of goading the Long Rail crew into fighting. Faced with the threat of losing their pay, they might have taken a chance of going against the rifles. Without that inducement, they would be only willing to let things ride. Rage seethed and boiled inside Chisum, but he struggled to fight it down.
‘I sure admired to’ve brought your cattle for you, Swede,’ Chisum gritted in a feeble attempt to sound his usual jovial self.
‘Figured you would be, when you saw it our way,’ Goodnight said. ‘Colonel Hunter’s on his way here. So I’ll pay off your boys and let them go get a hard-earned drink or three. My crew’ve quenched their thirsts and they’ll tend to things from now on.’
‘One thing, you Long Rail gents,’ Dusty put in. ‘The town marshal’s appointed Mark, the Kid and me as deputies. We don’t mind what fun you have as long as you keep it as fun. Understand?’
‘Just in case you don’t know us,’ Mark went on. ‘I’m Mark Counter and this’s Dusty Fog.’
‘We’ll mind what you say, Cap’n Fog,’ Chisum’s segundo promised.
So departed Chisum’s last faint hope of turning the tables on Goodnight. With money in their pockets, his hold on the hardcases disintegrated. Burning with frustrated fury, he watched the men paid off and depart, then stood by while Hunter and Goodnight carried out the formalities for the sale of the herd.
‘Where’s Hayden, Mr. Chisum?’ Dusty asked as they gathered in the Golden Stripe saloon waiting for Goodnight to bring the other rancher’s money. ‘You know, the feller who paid you to pull that game on Uncle Charlie, and who you took on to drive for at Throckmorton?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chisum replied. ‘As soon as I figured he was working—’
‘Maybe I believe in fairies and Father Christmas, Mr. Chisum,’ Dusty cut in coldly. ‘But I’ve stopped believing in a whole lot of other things.’
‘We figured that nobody could handle three thousand head in one herd,’ Chisum said, only his eyes showing the hatred he felt for the small, soft-spoken young Texan. ‘Split the herd into his stuff and them I’d brought. I went ahead, with Hayden following a mite to the north. Up between the Clear Fork of the Brazos and the Pecos we only just managed to sneak by a big band of Kweharehnuh.’
‘And Hayden didn’t—’ Mark Counter suggested as he and the Kid listened to the conversation.
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Didn’t you try to find out, Mr. Chisum?’ inquired the Kid.
‘Hell no! Them danged Injuns—sorry, Kid—them Kweharehnuh was thicker’n fleas on a hound-dawg. I’d got my own men to think about and couldn’t risk lives sending to see what might be happening to Hayden’s herd. I sure hope they come through all right.’
‘I just bet you do,’ drawled the Kid.
The conversation lapsed and Chisum stood moodily staring around the room. No pleasure filled him at the scenes of celebration and merriment. Nor did his feeling of frustration lessen when Goodnight came over with the balance of the money for the herd. It made a pitifully small pile when compared with the amount the bearded rancher had received and which Chisum had fondly hoped would come his way.
Taking the money, Chisum stalked with what dignity he could muster across the room. With his head full of thoughts on how he might avoid a repetition of his misfortunes—the simple way of not taking other people’s stock never occurred to him—he failed to see the bat-wing doors open and three men enter to block his path.
‘So you made it, Chisum!’ said a cold, angry voice.
Jolted from his considerations of how he might use power-of-attorney notes to his own advantage, xxi Chisum stared at the three figures before him. Dirty, disheveled and hard-travelled they might be, but Chisum recognized them. Hayden no longer looked dapper, with his torn, filthy clothes and haggard face unshaven. Flanking him, big, burly Targue and Scabee looked mean as all hell. A bloody bandage encased the latter’s head and did little to make him appear any pleasanter. While the two hardcases wore belt guns, their hands were empty. Hayden held a Henry rifle before him and his forefinger entered its trigger guard as he addressed the bald rancher.
‘Joe!’ Chisum yelled. ‘Joe Hayden! Thank the merciful Lord that you got through.’
‘It’s no thanks to you that we did!’ Hayden snarled. ‘Why in hell didn’t you send back word to us about those Indians?’
Silence fell on the room and every eye turned towards the door. Slowly the customers and staff inched into positions that would allow them to take cover hurriedly in case of gunplay. Chisum was sickeningly aware that he did not have a man in the room who he might call ‘friend’. Not even Charles Goodnight, for the rancher had made it clear when handing over the money that he considered his debt paid in full. Maybe Chisum did not wear a gun, but cowardice had never been one of his many vices. So he showed no fear and prepared to play the game out to the tricky end.
‘I did send!’ Chisum declared in tones of sincerity, well-simulated shock crossing his face. ‘You mean that he didn’t get to you?’
‘You know damned well “he” didn’t!’ Targue spat out. ‘You let the Kweharehnuh jump us so’s you could push on clear while we fought ’em.’
‘Now would I do a meanness like that?’ Chisum wailed. ‘Lord, those words grieve me. Here I’ve been a-pining and sorrowing at the thought—’
‘Of how you’d spend the money you’d get for my herd!’ Hayden snarled. ‘Chisum, when I found out what you’d done on us, I swore I’d find you and kill you.’
Having helped fight off the Kweharehnuh raiders until rescued by an Army patrol, Hayden and his two men had set out after Chisum. They had lost their herd and wanted to get a share in the money for the bunch the bald rancher drove. Picking up his trail, they had read the story of his desertion and their purpose had changed to one of vengeance. Although Hayden had planned a more subtle way of dealing with Chisum, being confronted by the rancher holding money that must have come from selling the herd drove all thoughts of his plan from his head.
‘I—I’m not wearing a gun!’ Chisum announced.
‘Nobody’ll hold that against me when they learn why I killed you!’ Hayden spat back.
And the damnable part, to Chisum’s way of thinking, was that the other spoke the truth. Once told of his desertion, no western jury would convict Hayden for taking such extreme revenge. Something of an expert in killers, Chisum knew from the expression on Hayden’s face that the man intended to carry out his threat. For once—and what might be the last time—the bald rancher’s charm and smooth tongue had failed him. Given time, he might have been able to talk Hayden out of the murderous mood—
Only he doubted if the required time would be granted to him.
‘Mr. Hayden!’ Chisum heard somebody say and Dusty Fog’s voice had never sounded so pleasant to the rancher’s ears.
Turning his head slightly, Hayden glared angrily at the three young men who came towards him. While he failed to recognize Dusty, Mark or the Kid, his companions rapidly and correctly identified all three of the Texans.
‘Well?’ Hayden demanded.
‘I’ve business with you,’ Dusty stated while the Kid at his left and Mark on his right allowed him to do the talking.
‘Make it later,’ Hayden ordered. ‘I don’t know you.’
Taking advantage of the interruption, Chisum began to edge away from the men at the door and clear of the three Texans. He had learned enough since his arrival to figure why Dusty had intervened and meant to make the most of the chance presented to him.
‘No,’ Dusty agreed, coming to a halt and conscious of Chisum’s actions. ‘You don’t know me, but we had a mutual acquaintance. De Martin he called himself, but you’d know him better as Soskice.’
Shock jolted Hayden’s attention from the bald rancher to the small Texan. While he did not know what his visitor at the Throckmorton hotel had planned to call himself while working against Goodnight, the man’s name had been Soskice. Mastering his surprise, Hayden gave a disinterested shrug.
‘I’ve never heard of either of ’em.’
‘He’d heard of you,’ Dusty said. ‘Fact being, he took an oath on his death-bed that you’d paid him to make trouble and bust up Colonel Goodnight’s trail drive. I don’t reckon he lied.’
‘He sure as hell didn’t!’ Chisum screeched, estimating that he was in a position from which he could safely start things popping. As he spoke, he flung himself towards the nearest customers and caused a hurried scattering among them.
‘Damn you, Chisum!’ Hayden screamed and started to swing the Henry’s barrel in the rancher’s direction.
On either side of Hayden, Targue and Scabee sent hands fanning down to their revolvers. No less promptly, the floating outfit went into action. Ahead of all the others, before the Henry completed its turn and spoke, Dusty’s matched Colts roared. He shot at Hayden. Not to save Chisum, but to prevent the financier from committing wholesale murder. In his crazed condition, Hayden would have sprayed the Henry’s magazine around the room without regard for who or what he hit. So Dusty sent his bullets the only way possible under the circumstances. Both of them drove into Hayden’s head, spinning him through the bat-wing door with the rifle unfired and dropping from his hands.
A split-second later, Mark’s revolvers echoed the double crash. Caught in the chest by the lead from the blond giant’s guns, Targue pitched backwards to collide with wall then tumble lifeless to the floor.
Neither the Kid nor Scabee could count themselves in the class of gun-skill shown by Dusty and Mark. While their hands closed on the waiting guns’ butts simultaneously, the Kid’s old Dragoon cleared leather and spoke first by a slight margin. Slight, maybe, but it proved just fast enough to save Dusty’s life. Out of a sense of self-preservation, Scabee had selected the small Texan for his target. The sledgehammer impact of the Dragoon came while the hardcase was still squeezing off his trigger. Knocked sprawling by the force of the blow, Scabee fired with his gun out of line. Passing between Mark and Dusty, the bullet ended its flight among the bottles behind the bar. Torn open by the round, soft lead ball, Scabee collapsed on to Targue’s body.
‘You saved my life, Cap’n Fog!’ Chisum gasped and his gratitude was not entirely assumed.
‘Saved you hell!’ Dusty spat back and, thick-skinned though he was, the rancher writhed under the icy contempt in the small Texan’s voice. ‘They could have killed you by inches for all I cared. I was thinking of two young cowhands who didn’t finish the drive. But for Vern Sutherland and Burle Willock, I wouldn’t’ve lifted a finger against Hayden until he was through with you.’