The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: Vol 3 Part 37

No man ever spoke so matter-of-fact. And the colonel's gun covered Shiloh now, not me.

Shiloh was quiet for a long minute, and then he smiled. "You won't shoot me, Metcalf. You wouldn't dare chance it. Some of that crowd is mighty suspicious already, the way you held us back from catchin' him the other night. If I was to die now, along with him, they'd hang you."

Colonel Andrew Metcalf sat very still. Shiloh was smiling, and me, I sat there, wishin' I dared grab for that gun. But first I had to get my hand on it, make the first grab sure without lookin' toward it, then swing it into line. Time enough for a fast man to fire two, maybe three shots.

Then the colonel stood up. He was smiling a little. "Shiloh," he said quietly, "situations like this have always appealed to me. I've always been curious about what people do when the chips were down . . . well, the chips are down now."

Shiloh Johnson's face was a study. He didn't dare take his eyes from me, and the colonel was to his right and out of his line of vision. He stood there, his boots wide apart, his cruel little eyes locked on mine, his long jaw covered with beard. He wanted to look, but he didn't dare chance it.

"Tyler shouldered my responsibility when he killed Lipman. I'm not going to see him suffer for it. So I'm going to kill you."

Shiloh had it up in him now. He was cornered and he didn't like it. Not even a little.

"You shoot me in the back," he started to say, "and-" "It won't be in the back," Metcalf said quietly. "I'm going to move right over in front of you. You may get one or even both of us-but one thing is dead certain. We'll get you."

Now I could see what the colonel meant about liking situations, and this was one. I wouldn't want to play poker with him . . . and Shiloh stood there with his face working, his eyes all squinched up, and ready to kill as he was, he wasn't no way ready to die.

It took a lot of cold nerve to do what the colonel said he would do-step over in front of a man ready to kill-but n.o.body would ever be able to say which of us had killed Shiloh, then.

"Now, look here . . ." Shiloh said. "I-"

"You have one other choice." Colonel Metcalf's voice was hard now, like a commanding general. "Drop your gun belts, get on your horse, and ride clear on out of the country. Otherwise, you die right here."

As he spoke, the colonel began to shift around to get in front of Shiloh. There was panic in Johnson's voice. "All right! All right. . . ."

He holstered his gun, then unbuckled his belts. There, was plain, ugly hatred in his face when he looked at me. "But this ain't the end."

He stepped away from his belts and started toward his horse, which had walked up through the trees from where he had left it ground-hitched when he heard our voices.

Colonel Metcalf watched him go, then turned to me. He held out his hand. I ignored it.

His voice went cold. "Tyler, what's-"

Shiloh Johnson had reached his horse. He put a hand to the pommel, then wheeled, whipping a gun from the saddlebag. It was fast and it was smooth, but I was on my feet with a gun in my hand, and as he turned I shot him through the body. He fired . . . and then I triggered my gun for two quick shots and he folded, his horse springing away as he fell.

"At Wild Horse Camp," I said, "he always carried a spare."

The colonel stood there, very white and stiff. "My boy," his voice was strange and sort of old, like I'd never heard it sound, "I've sent her to Fort Worth. Go to her."

"But-"

"Ride, boy!" The old crack came back into his voice. "They'll have heard the shots!"

He stood there, not moving, and when I was in the saddle he said, "Fort Worth, son. She'll be waiting. Rosa loves you."

As he said it I'll swear there were tears in his eyes, but the bay was running all out and away before I recalled something else. There had bee n a dark splotch on his shirt front. That one shot-that wild shot Shiloh got off-it had hit him.

He carried it well that day, afraid I'd not leave him if I knew . . . but he carried it well for ten years, and was carrying it on our Texas ranch, when he held his grandchild on his knee.

West of Dodge Lance Kilkenny looked across the counter at the man with the narrow face and the scar on his jaw. "Watch; yourself," Hillman said. "This is Tom Stroud's town, He's marshal here, and he's poison for gunfighters."

"I'll be all right." Kilkenny paid for his sh.e.l.ls and walked to the door, a tall, spare man looking much less than his two hundred pounds. His was a narrow, Hamletlike face with high cheekbones and green eyes.

His walk was that of a woodsman rather than a rider, but Hillman had known at once that he wore the two Colts for use rather than for show.

It disturbed Kilkenny to find himself known here, as a gunfighter if not by name. Here he had planned to rest, to hunt a job, to stay out of trouble.

Of Marshal Tom Stroud he knew nothing beyond the bare fact that some two months before Stroud had killed Jim Denton in a Main Street gun battle.

Yet Kilkenny needed no introduction to reputation-hunting marshals. There had been Old John Selman and others who fattened their records on killing gunfighters- and were rarely particular about an even break.

At the hitch rail Kilkenny studied his gaunt, long-legged buckskin. The horse needed the rest, and badly. Torn between dislike for trouble and consideration for his horse, the needs of the horse won.

He headed for the livery. Glancing back at the store, he saw a slope-shouldered man with dark hair and eyes step awkwardly into the doorway to watch him ride away. Something about the way the man stood, one hand braced against the wall, made Kilkenny think that he was a cripple.

Hillman had not guessed his name. That was fortunate. A man of his sort might guess if given time ... of his sort . . . now where had that thought come from? Rubbing down the buckskin, Kilkenny gave consideration to the idea. What was Hillman's sort?

Something about the storekeeper had marked him in Kilkenny's mind, and it left him uneasy that he could not make a proper estimate of his instinct about the man, yet something disturbed him, left him wary and uncertain.

Hillman was a man in his thirties, as tall as Kilkenny, and only a little bulkier, but probably no heavier. He had a careful, measuring eye.

From the door of the livery stable Kilkenny studied the street, still thinking of Hillman and Stroud. Usually, a storekeeper would want to avoid trouble in a town. Maybe he believed a warning would cause Kilkenny to move on. Building a smoke, he considered that.

Like many western towns, this one was divided into two sect ions. One was a rough collection of saloons, shanties, and bawdy houses along the railroad and backed by a maze of corrals and feed sheds where cattlemen put up their herds while waiting for shipment east. This was the old town, the town that had been built by the hard-drinking track crews and cattle buyers in the wild days before the town had ever thought to build a church or a schoolhouse.

Running at right angles to the tracks was the newer Main Street. Away from the smell and the flies of the holding pens, it had been built by the merchants who came as the town grew. There were carefully built buildings made of whitewashed planks or brick, with boardwalks connecting one to the next so that the shopper or businessman only occasionally had to brave the rutted mud of the street. There was only one saloon in this part of town, and it was a pretentious affair situated on the ground floor of the new two-story hotel. Behind the stores of the street were grids of one- to five-acre lots where the townspeople lived. Most of the houses had vegetable gardens growing corn and tomatoes, and each had a carriage house, stable, or barn. At the bottom of Main Street was the livery, where Kilkenny now stood, and opposite him, the marshal's office . . . abridge, or a barrier, separating one world from the other.

Kilkenny crushed out his cigarette. He wore black chaps and a black, flat-crowned, flat-brimmed hat. Under his black Spanish-style jacket he wore a gray flannel shirt. They were colors that lost themselves in any shadow.

He was weary now, every muscle heavy with the fatigue of long hours of riding. His throat was dry, his stomach empty. His mind was sluggish because of the weariness of his body, and he felt short-tempered and irritable because of it.

Normally, he was a quiet, tolerant man with a dry humor and a liking for people, but in his present mood he was wary of himself, knowing the sudden angers that could spring up within him at such times.

Darkness gathered in the hollows of the hills and crept down into the silent alleys, crouching there to wait their hour for creeping into the empty streets. Kilkenny rolled another smoke, trying to relax. He was hungry, but he wanted to calm himself before walking into the company of strangers.

A stray dog trotted up the street ... a door slammed. The town was settling down after supper, and he had not yet eaten. He dropped his cigarette, pushing it into the dust.

There was a grate of boot soles on gravel. A low sentence reached his ears from the bench outside the door. "Reckon Stroud knows?"

"Who can tell what he knows? But he was hired to keep the peace, an' he's done it."

"In his own way."

"Maybe there ain't no other."

"There was once. Stroud shut down the gambling and thievein', but he stopped the Vigilance Committee, too. They'd have strung the worst of them and burnt the old town to the ground. There's some say we'd be better off."

As he crossed the street Kilkenny did not turn to look at the men who had spoken behind him. He could feel the rising tensions. Something here was still poised for trouble. Alive to such things, currents that could mean death if un-watched, he was uneasy at remaining, yet he disliked the idea of going on. Towns were scarce in this country.

It was no common frontier-style boardinghouse he entered, but a large, well-appointed dining room, a place suited to a larger city, a place that would have a reputation in any city.

There was linen on the tables and there was silver and gla.s.s, not the usual rough wood and crockery. A young woman came toward him with a menu in her hand. She had a quiet face and dark, lovely eyes.

He noticed the way her eyes had seemed to gather in his dusty clothes and rest momentarily on the low-hung guns. She led him to a corner table and placed the menu before a place where he could sit with his back in the corner, facing the room.

His eyes crinkled at the corners and he smiled a little. "Does it show that much?"

Her own eyes were frank, not unfriendly. "I'm afraid it does."

"This," he indicated the room, "is a surprise."

"It is a way of making a living."

"A gracious way." She looked at him more directly as he spoke. "It is a way one misses."

A small frown gathered between her eyes. "I wonder- why is it that most gunfighters are gentlemen?"

"Some were born to it," he said, "and some grow into it. Men are rude only when they are insecure."

He was eating his dessert when the door opened and a man came in. It was, Kilkenny guessed at once, Tom Stroud.

He was a square-faced man with the w.ide shoulders and deep chest of mountain ancestry. He was plainly dressed and walked without swagger, yet there was something solid and indomitable about him. His eyes were blue, a darker blue than that usually seen, and his mustache was shading from brown to gray.

Stroud seated himself, glanced at the menu, and then his eyes lifted and met those of Kilkenny. Instant recognition was there . . . not of him as a name, but as a "gun-fighter. There was also something else, a narrow, measuring gaze.

The slope-shouldered, limping man that he had seen at Hillman's earlier entered the room and crossed to Stroud's table. Stroud's face indicated no welcome, but the man sat down and leaned confidentially across the table. The man talked, low-voiced. Once, Stroud's eyes flickered to Kilkenny. Deliberately, Kilkenny prolonged his coffee.

The woman, Laurie Archer, walked over to him. "Will you be with us long?"

"A day . . . perhaps two."

"You would be wise to move on-tonight."

"No."

"Perhaps you would take a job outside of town? I have cattle, and I need a foreman."

"How many hands?"

"Two . . . now."

In reply to his unspoken question she added quietly, "I had a foreman-Jim Denton."

Neither spoke for several minutes and then, knowing he needed the job, he said, "I would only hire to handle cows. Denton was none of my affair."

"I want it no other way."

"My name's Lance. By the way, what about him?" He indicated Stroud. "What will he think about you hiring me?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea."

At the ranch two men awaited him, a capable, tough-looking man of past fifty named Pike Taylor, and a gawky youngster of seventeen, Corey Hatch. There was a small cabin where Laurie Archer stayed when on the ranch, a bunkhouse, a stable, and corrals. There was a good bit of stacked hay, and several thousand acres of unrestricted grazing, much of it bottom land.

For a solid week, Kilkenny worked hard. He rode the fence, repaired broken stretches, put in new posts. He fenced off some loco weed, cleaned several water holes, dug out a fresh one where the green gra.s.s indicated water near the surface. He found some fifty head of mavericks and branded them, moving all the cattle to lower ground for the best gra.s.s. And he thought about Laurie Archer.

Corey Hatch liked to talk. "Some folks don't take much to Stroud," he said. "Hillman an' them, they hired him to clean up the town, but some figure he done too good a job. The gamblers an' them, they'd like to get a shot at him."

When he rode into town he stabled his horse and then dropped in at the store. Hillman filled his order, then said, low-voiced, "Watch yourself. There's been talk."

"Talk?"

"That you're takin' up for Denton. Stroud will be watchin' his chance."

The warning made him angry. Why couldn't people let well enough alone? No doubt Stroud was getting the same sort of talk . . . was it planned that way? Deliberately, to build it into trouble?

But Hillman had been the man who hired Stroud, so that made no sense. He himself did not want trouble. He had a good job on the ranch, and was earning sorely needed money. He wanted no trouble. He considered going to Tom Stroud, having it out.

Yet that might precipitate that very trouble he was attempting to avoid. He crossed to the restaurant and was scarcely seated before Stroud came in. Two men at an intervening table got up and left without finishing their meals.

After dinner he walked down the street and across the tracks to a saloon. He sat at a table, apparently lost^ in thought but keeping an ear on the conversations around him. "Used to be a live town," a man said, "before they hired Stroud."

"Whyn't they fire him?"

"Them across the way hired him. Hillman, an' them shopkeepers. They want to keep him."

Restless, and disturbed by the feeling in town, he walked outside. From up the street there was a sudden shot, then a wild yell and pounding hoofs. A rider came down the street and slid from his horse. He was swaying and drunk, waving a drawn pistol. It was Pike Taylor, from the ranch.

"Where's that murderin' son? I'll kill-!"

Tom Stroud materialized from a dark alley beside the saloon. Pike's side was toward the marshal. Pike had fired a gun, still held it gripped in his fist, had threatened to kill. Stroud had only to speak and shoot.

It would be murder, cold-blooded, ruthless, efficient. Kilkenny stepped out on the street, waiting. His mouth was dry, his hands loose and ready.

Stroud did not see him, yet he knew that if Stroud moved to kill the old man, he would kill Stroud.

Stroud had hesitated an instant only, then he walked through the soft dust toward Pike. Taylor started to turn but the marshal was swift, incredibly so. His left hand dropped to the old man's wrist with a grasp of iron, while his right hand came up under the barrel and broke the gun back against Pike Taylor's thumb.

Death had stalked the street, and then Pike stood disarmed and helpless. Seizing the old man's arm, Stroud started him toward the jail. And as he turned he saw Kilkenny.

Thirty yards apart their eyes met. Stroud's gun hand gripped the old man's arm.

Kilke nny heard a sharp intake of breath, then from the shadows a voice. "Now's your chance-take him"

Kilkenny walked slowly forward. "Havin' trouble, Marshal?"

Stroud's eyes, wary but faintly curious, met his in the light from the windows. "Careless shootin'. Are you going to take him back to the ranch, or does he sleep it off in jail?"

"In jail-it will keep him out of trouble."