The Devil's Roundup Part 7

"Yes."

"What's the difference, if you kill him or the law kills him? He'll be dead."

"It would make a difference to me," Saber replied.

Willie sent a long, searching glance his way but said nothing more.

Bodry sat on the porch, the stocky Dent beside him. Saber dismounted by the watering trough. Cardigan and the Kerry boys remained mounted. Willie Kerry had shifted his .44 conveniently on his hip, and Burt laid his Spencer casually across the saddle.

Saber stopped with his foot on the bottom step of Bodry's porch. Bodry watched him with undisguised hatred.

"You've been a busy man since you got here," Bodry said. "You shot up my line shack, killed Lurch and Stiles, and run off with my wife. Look around and see if there's anything else you want."

"I'm placing you under arrest, Bodry, on the charge of cattle rustling."

Bodry stood up, rage crowding into his face. Dent stepped away from the wall. "And I'm charging you with wifestealin'!" Bodry shouted. "Now who's guilty?"

"Are you going to submit to proper authority?" Saber asked tightly.

"I don't submit to nothin'," Bodry said. "You got all men tallied in that mind of yours, ain't you? Well, you got a lot to learn. A man ain't born mean or greedy.. .it's people that make him like that. You think I'm mean to Edith 'cause 1 hate her? Well, 1 don't. You don't know what it's like to get a woman, then find out she don't love you. It can change a man."

"You're under arrest," Saber repeated.

"No," Bodry said. "Ten years ago 1'd probably have come along peaceful, but now 1'd rather try my luck one more time." His hand made a dull slap as he hit his holster, pulling his gun.

Saber stood motionless, making no move to draw his weapon. Dent and Bodry moved together with great speed, but it seemed as though minutes pa.s.sed before the muzzles cleared the lips of the holsters, as if they moved stiffly in a deep dream. Dent's gun leveled, as did Bodry's, and, behind Saber, Cardigan's shot blended with the report of Willie Kerry's .44.

Dent went backward, driven off the porch by Cardigan's bullet. Bodry braced himself on the railing, trying for a shot he never got off. Saber saw the bewildered expression on Bodry's face as he let out a long sigh and slid down. Voices cried out, and the Spencer let out a hoa.r.s.e cough, and the yelling subsided.

Burt Kerry raised a young voice and called: "Come out of that cook shack with your hands up!"

They filed out, sullen-faced. Saber asked Cardigan: "Do you want to press charges?"

"No," Cardigan said. "Let Burt and Willie drive my beef back, and they can go to the devil." He slid his revolver back in its holster, and asked: "Coming, John?"

Saber considered it a long moment. He knew now that his understanding of men had been cursory, incomplete. There were no rules, no iron-clad forms in which to place men and have them fit. He saw Bodry as lawless, but now he understood that lawlessness. Most of all he understood himself He was at best like the others, and it kicked at the foundation of his pride. He knew now that he had never walked above other men, but in the same dirt as they.

"No," Saber said. "I'll stay here. Send Edith home with Ed-John, will you?"

"Sure," Cardigan said, and smiled.

Saber looked at Willie Kerry then, and saw that there was no boldness, no arrogance in the boy's face. Worry had as yet failed to line it, and the down of adolescence still clung to his cheeks, but a man's eyes looked back at him. He stepped close to Willie's horse, and lifted his hand. Willie took it solemnly. "You knew 1 couldn't kill him, didn't you?"

Willie said: "I knew it." He wheeled his horse, and he and Burt and Cardigan rode from the yard.

Saber watched them until they became three small dots on the sea of burned gra.s.s. The expression on Willie's face remained with him. Kerry was a Texas man, but the killing had not touched him, had not colored his life one iota.

He's more of a man than 1 am, Saber thought. He realized then that he could face the townspeople and their talk, and this new knowledge of himself gave him heart. He settled himself on the porch, waiting for Edith to come home.

I.

The sun had just completed its golden arc toward the western rim of the land when Willie Kerry stepped from the open door of Nusbaum's barbershop, cast a careful glance along the sprawled strip of loose dust that was Hondo's main street, then walked diagonally across it to enter Keno Charlie's saloon.

It was one of those summer evenings when the cool breath of a sage-scented breeze made a soothing interruption to the scorching heat of the desert's edge. On the south rim of the town a man yelled, and cattle lowed by the Texas Pacific loading pens. Toward the residences, a church bell sent up a melodious call, beckoning the gentry to an early worship. Willie halted on the gallery, hearing these sounds, soothed by them, and filled with a sense of peace that had been absent when he entered town two hours before.

Keno Charlie's was mildly crowded at this hour. A group of ranchers from the desert's edge made a clannish knot at the far end of the long bar. Frock-coated townsmen were mixing business with friendly drinking.

Willie eased himself in beside a tall, blond man with a sweeping mustache and wiggled his finger for his customary beer. Keno Charlie mopped his streaming face, sliding the schooner before him. Willie drank with a deep satisfaction.

The blond man smiled faintly. "How are things on Pewter Creek, Willie.. .a little dry?"

"Could stand some rain," Willie acknowledged, setting the beer down. He was a tall man, touching thirty, and hard work had hardened him. The loneliness of the land had worked on him until he carried a half-severe expression around a normally tolerant mouth. "Shipping much this fall, John?"

"Eight hundred head," John Saber said. "Market's down, and 1 want to hold them over on winter feed and ship next year."

Willie shook his head in mock sadness. "You big money cattleman.. .if 1 had eight hundred head, 1'd be rich." He finished his beer, and turned to hook his elbows on the edge of the bar and survey the room. His jeans and brush jacket were patched and faded, still carrying the wrinkles of the clothesline.

Saber noticed this and remarked: "Dance tonight over at the Masonic Hall ...or had you heard about it?"

"I heard," Willie said, and lapsed into silence.

Saber grinned behind his mustache. "When 1 was a kid back in Tennessee, 1 used to have a Redbone hound... d.a.m.nedest dog you ever saw. All the time wanting something he couldn't have. 1 remember the time when that fool dog went all the way over into Arkansas after a Walker he took a fancy to. That dog never did amount to much... couldn't settle down and realize he was getting out of his cla.s.s all the time."

Willie stiffened and kicked his temper into place. "You're a friend of mine, John. You can say it plainer than that and get away with it."

Saber licked a cigar into shape with great care. "That desert bunch is a strange lot, son. This time you've got your sights set `way too high." He held up a hand as Willie tried to interrupt. "Louise Dulane is a beauty, I'll admit that, but old Jesse's got his back humped against you. You're just asking for trouble by playing around with her. You're foolish to think otherwise."

Willie shoved himself away from the bar. "Some men are just naturally born fools." He pulled his battered hat at a rakish angle and sauntered from the saloon.

Long, black shadows lay between the close-set buildings. Buggies were wheeling into town. They pulled into the lot to the rear of the courtyard, parking in a solid row by the west side of the Masonic Hall. Willie watched this with a studied casualness, coming stiffly alert as three riders boiled into Hondo from the east. They nodded curtly as they trotted by, lean and saddle-pounded, a large anchor brand blazoned on their horses' flanks. He watched them dismount in the archway of the stable and waited as they crossed the street toward him. He was all caution but masked it behind the casual motions of his blunt fingers as he fashioned a cigarette. Lamplight now threw strong fingers of pale light onto the street. The three riders stopped near the bottom step.

Willie lifted his head as one of them spoke: "Long way from home, ain't you?" He had a flat, bold face, and he stared at Willie with a naked brazenness.

"Just in to dance with the pretty girls," Willie told him.

They stood there in a solid knot-Strang, Pecos, and Valverde.

Strang said: "Be careful who you dance with, Kerry."

Willie's eyebrows lifted belligerently. "You pickin' 'em for me?"

"Maybe," Strang said. He mounted the steps, Valverde and Pecos at his heels. Willie waited until the swinging doors blocked them from his view, then moved off the porch. Music filtered out from the Masonic Hall as the musicians struck up a ragged chord, and Willie walked toward the gaunt figure lounging in the shadows of Keno Charlie's saloon.

A match flared with a sudden brightness, and George Rudy advised: "Watch out for those three."

"I'm not blind," Willie Kerry told him. He looked up and down the street. A half block away, Loyal Surrency and his wife rounded the corner of the Opera House, the woman turning to speak to the girl behind her. Her soft laugh came to Kerry, a melodious, ringing note, and he glanced at Rudy swathed in the shadows.

There was a rigid expectancy in the tall man, a searching in his pale eyes as the trio drew nearer. As they came abreast, a lamp was lighted in Keno Charlie's, and Rudy and Kerry were no longer hidden by the night. Loyal Surrency's head swung around quickly. The girl's laughter died, and she studied Rudy in frank appraisal until her mother nudged her. Surrency's voice was even, with no hint of friendliness when he said: "'Evening, Kerry." He gave George Rudy a curt nod.

They moved on.

Kerry studied Rudy's face as he followed Marilee Surrency with his eyes. Then Kerry dropped his gaze quickly, somehow feeling that he was intruding. Rudy's cigar lay dead between his long fingers. He smiled wanly. "Even in Hondo we have a dividing line."

"1 didn't know it included piano players," Kerry said.

Rudy applied another match to his cigar. The light shone on his embroidered vest and white silk shirt. He whipped the match out. "Surrency isn't tone deaf. In fact, he comes into Keno Charlie's often to hear me play Chopin and Beethoven, in off hours. However, he has an aversion to my sitting in his parlor to play for his daughter. My place is in the saloon. That was established the first evening 1 tried to call."

"This is a free country," Willie maintained. "A man can take what he wants... and earns."

"is that what you have in mind?"

"Maybe," Willie admitted. "When 1 get ready."

"You're very elemental," Rudy said admiringly. "Unfortunately 1 am a thinker... p.r.o.ne to lengthy mental dissertation. I've wondered if a girl like Marilee... or Louise... could take it. Suddenly finding themselves without luxuries, I mean."

"One way to find out," Willie murmured.

"A serious step," Rudy counseled. "And if you found out you'd made a mistake, how would you correct it?"

"Never gave it much thought," Willie said, and stepped from Keno Charlie's porch. A block away, the band swung into "Dixie," announcing the beginning of the dance. Willie paused to listen for a moment, then asked Rudy: "Comin' over?"

"Later, perhaps," Rudy said, and turned back into the saloon.

Willie crossed to the other side of the street and walked toward the hall. The building was ablaze with light and colored j.a.panese lanterns. Dancers made a bobbing ma.s.s on the cleared floor, and Willie paused in the doorway to watch them. The music pulsed, a deep throbbing beneath the noise of capering feet and laughing women.

Sam Harms's bulk half blocked the door as Willie shouldered past him. He touched the young man on the arm. "No trouble tonight now, Willie." Harms was all stomach beneath the star pinned to his parted vest.

"I just came to have a good time," Willie said, brushing past. He crossed to the west wall, halting near the fringe of the stag line. He saw Saber in the middle of the floor, dancing with his wife, and searched the crowd until he found Strang and Pecos in a far corner. Willie stared at them for a long moment, until their heads came up, then he moved onto the floor toward Louise Dulane.

Valverde swung her wide as Kerry stepped quickly between them to take her hand and whirl her among the other dancers. She gave Kerry that puzzling half smile when he looked at her. Her smooth shoulders rose, round and bare, from her billowing white gown. She was a full-breasted girl, with skin gleaming like pale ivory in the lamplight. Her dark eyes glowed from the piquant frame of her face. Her l.u.s.trous brown hair was coiled high on her head.

Willie murmured: "1 don't guess 1 ever seen you look prettier."

She flushed beneath his candid gaze. "1 don't think you've ever done anything more foolish. Valverde will settle this before the night's over."

He pulled her against him and laughed, a joy and a recklessness blending within him. This night had no end for him. No danger was as real as the girl in his arms. He came to the side door and wheeled her toward it. Then they were outside with the clear night around them, shadows bathing them.

Louise didn't pull away from the arm that encircled her waist. "This is insane, Willie. Father will be furious." Her voice said one thing while her tone told him something else.

Willie Kerry laughed, and kissed her. She surrendered to him, answering him with the pressure of her arms. Kerry drew away, and pulled in a ragged breath. He took her arm, and led her back to the hall.

"1'm sure in the mood for dancin'," he told her, and whirled her blithely away to the beat of the music.

They threaded their way among the dancing couples. Willie ignored Jesse Dulane's heavy-browed scowl. Valverde had taken a place along the wall, shoving himself away as the music stopped. People eddied around them. Marilee Surrency brushed by him with a quick smile, and pa.s.sed on.

Louise Dulane gripped Willie's arm tightly as Valverde broke off a conversation with her father and shuffled through the crowd toward them. Sam Harms moved then, but Valverde had already stopped before Kerry. "That's my girl you're dancin' with." His voice was low, filled with that hushed tightness that carries below louder voices, bringing with it a ring of chopped silence.

Willie asked Louise: "Are you his girl?"

"No.

Willie's good humor faded. "Drag your picket then. If...."

Sam Harms shoved his bulk between them, and pushed Valverde back with a stiffened arm. "Let's just have a nice, quiet time... shall we?"

Valverde wanted to make a fight of it, but he shot a glance at Jesse Dulane, and the old man shook his head imperceptibly. The squat rider mumbled under his breath, and moved away. Willie watched this with a quiet attention. Harms warned: "You better go, Willie. You're just pullin' the lion's tail."

"Sure," Willie agreed. He took Louise by the arm, leading her outside again. There was a haste in him then, the pressure of time against him. He blurted: "You know I love you, and 1 know you love me, too. Let's ride out of here and go to Winegla.s.s and get married."

Louise made a vague motion toward her father.

Willie said: "I'm not marryin' him. I'm marryin' you! To h.e.l.l with his permission. You got to get away from him sometime."

She wanted to. He could see that. She opened her mouth, suddenly confused and said haltingly: "Willie, 1..."

"Fine," Willie said quickly. "I like a woman who can make up her mind." He took her hand then and led her from the porch, cutting across the lawn. Trees blocked out the faint night light, making the growth of sycamores a solid blackness. Willie halted abruptly as a cigar glowed, and died.

John Saber stepped from the shadows and said softly: "So, you're going to do it anyway?"

Willie made no immediate answer.

Saber chuckled. "Take my rig, over at the livery stable. I'll rent one for Edith and me when we get ready to leave."

"Thank you," Louise said breathlessly, and they left the darkness to cross the street.

A solitary lantern hung in the stable's arch. Willie left her in the shadows while he hitched up Saber's team. He emerged a moment later, leading them, and handed her into the buggy. Comanche Street was bare when he turned out onto it. He drove toward the north road that led to his place in the badlands, whipping the team into a brisk trot as they pa.s.sed the hall. There was a burst of excitement in the yard, a flurry of brief action, and the strident call: "Fight... fight! George Rudy's fightin' the banker!"

Lights and sound faded behind them. The night swallowed them as he tooled the team over the rutted road. He listened to the clatter of the rig, the solid beat of the horses' hoofs, and pondered that call about a fight.

"What did it mean?" Louise asked.

"1 don't know," Wes admitted. "George is about at the end of his rope. Love makes a man do foolish things."

"Does it make you do foolish things?"

Willie shot her a quick look and saw the smile on her face. "Your dad has about ten thousand dollars. I have less than twenty dollars, yet 1 want his daughter for a wife. Is that foolish?"

"Very," Louise told him, "but 1 love you for it." She fell silent then, letting the miles drift past them, letting the night wear on.

They climbed higher until the desert lay below them, white and stark in the faint moonlight. Three hours later they came to the fork in the road leading to Cardigan's Sunrise spread, the other to Saber's Leaning Seven, and beyond, in the badlands, the Broken Spur, Willie Kerry's one-man ranch.

The alt.i.tude lent a chill to the air, and Willie halted to throw a robe around her bare shoulders. An hour later they left the road as it cut toward Saber's ranch house, taking a winding course that twisted and slashed its way through rock and scrub pine.

It was after eleven when Willie pulled close to his cabin and dismounted, lifting Louise to the ground. She sagged against him for a moment.

He said: "This is as far as we can take the buggy. There's some of my brother's clothes in the cabin. You get into 'em and I'll saddle a couple of horses for us."

He pulled her against him then, and she came willingly, their lips meeting for a long moment. She was breathless when she broke away. He turned with her to enter and light the lamp.