The Stranger from Abilene Page 11
A lizard ran along the porch rail, then stopped, its sides heaving.
Kelly watched the lizard for a while, then said, “Cage, ain’t you bored with it yet?”
“Bored with what?”
“This town . . . waiting for a man to reveal himself so you can kill him.”
“I’m running out of money,” Clayton said.
“Maybe Lissome Terry, whoever he is now, knows that. Maybe he figures he can wait you out.”
Clayton shook his head. “No, Nook, he’ll make a move. He’s just been lying low, biding his time.”
“Well, I sure hope so. I’m getting bored all to hell again.”
Irritated slightly, Clayton said, “If I got shot, would that help?”
Kelly brightened. “It sure would. Give me something to do.”
Clayton decided not to fill in the silence that followed, but Kelly did it for him.
“Emma likes you,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“She told me so.”
“I thought I bored her like I bore you.”
Kelly nodded. “Yeah, strange, that, but you don’t. All she talks about is Cage. Cage said this and Cage said that and Cage—”
“I get the picture.”
“Well, she likes you.” Kelly turned his head. “I thought you should know.”
After a while, Clayton said, “I’m too old for her. I’m used up and I’m broke. Hell, I don’t even own a horse. What do I have to offer her?”
“Get a job.”
“I’ve got a job.”
“I mean a regular job. A forty-dollar-a-month job.”
“Yeah, forty a month is going to keep Emma in style.”
“Some married couples have done with less.”
Kelly held his beer glass to the light.
“Damn, I’m sure I saw a fly in there,” he said. “I guess not.”
He looked at Clayton. “Cage, get married and hang that gun you’re wearing on a nail. Use it to shoot coyotes.”
“After my work here is done, I’ll think about it.”
“Think hard, because you aren’t cut out to be a gunfighter. You’ve killed two men and crippled another, so let it go at that.”
Kelly took the makings from Clayton’s pocket. “You know why I’m bored, Cage?”
“Because nobody’s killed me yet?”
“That, and because my time is over and I know it. Most of the men I rode with back in the old days are dead or in jail. America doesn’t need gunfighters anymore. She needs engineers, road builders, factory workers, men to plow the land. Fellas like me are going—what’s the word?—extinct.” Kelly smiled. “I walk around this town with its church and school like yesterday’s ghost. My gun skills are in such high demand, Mayor Quarrels pays me two bits a head to shoot stray dogs.”
Kelly’s chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “I’m hauling my freight, Cage. The French are paying big money for laboring men to help dig a canal down Panama way, and there’s talk our own government will soon get involved.”
“Nook, I can’t see you using a shovel and swinging a pick,” Clayton said.
“Maybe not, but I’m going to give it a try.”
Kelly finally lit his cigarette. “You ever think that Lissome Terry might be dead?” he said.
“He’s not.”
“How do you know? All men die, some sooner than others.”
“He’s here, in Bighorn Point. I can feel him, smell his stink.”
Kelly’s breath sighed through his chest like a forlorn breeze. “Cage, marry Emma. Build a new life for yourself.”
Chapter 39
The day was shading into evening when Angus McLean returned to Bighorn Point.
Moses Anderson dropped him off at the hotel where Clayton and Kelly still sat on the porch, content, for this day at least, to let the world go on without them.
To Clayton’s surprise, McLean staggered a little as he stepped down from the gig; then he saw the reason. Moses tilted back his head and drained the last drop from a whiskey bottle before tossing it into the street.
McLean looked at the black man and made a small, unsteady bow.
“A robbing Hindoo ye may be,” he said, “but you’re a bonnie lad and you’ve done me a great service this day.” The little Scotsman hiccupped. “If you’re ever in Edinburgh, pay me a visit and I’ll give ye the best my poor hoose has to offer.”
He turned and, with that stiff-kneed dignity possessed by only the truly drunk, negotiated the two steps to the porch.
“Well, Mr. McLean,” Kelly said, “do you own a ranch?”
“That I do, Constable,” McLean said. “The lassie drove a hard bargain and the land and cattle cost me a lot of silver, but the bargain was made and the deed was done and there’s an end to it.”
He waved a hand, unsteadying himself, and Kelly rose quickly and helped him remain on his feet.
“Thank ye, Constable. Thank ye kindly.” The Scotsman waved his hand again. “Yon black laddie is a robber through and through, but he knows the land and he knows cattle and he taught me much.”
McLean hiccupped again. “I mean, aboot the grass and the water and the coos. And another thing, he can stand his whiskey like a man. Like a Scotsman, if I’m no mistaken.”
Smiling, Kelly said. “Moses has been up the trail a few times. He knows cattle and grass.”
McLean nodded. “That he does. Benighted Hindoo he may be, but he’s a clever lad.”
“When will you move onto the Southwell Ranch, Mr. McLean?” Kelly said.
McLean reared back as though he’d been slapped. “Never, I say! My home is in Edinburgh in bonnie Scotland. No, laddie, this wilderness of dust and drought is not for Angus McLean.” He tapped the side of his nose with a long forefinger. “I’ll hire a manager. He’ll run the place for me.”
“Do you have one in mind?”
“No, not in mind. But my lawyers in Boston will find a likely lad. I’m sure of that.”
“There’s a likely lad right here, Mr. McLean. This is Mr. Cage Clayton and he owned his own ranch at one time. Now he’s looking for work.”
Before Clayton could object, Kelly said, “And he’s getting married soon.”
“Is that right?” McLean said. He looked at Clayton like a molting owl. “What happened to your own ranch?”
“Three years of drought and poor cattle prices,” Clayton said. “But I’m not looking for a job.”
“Do ye know coos and grass and water?”
“Yes, I do, and a lot more besides. But, as I told you, I don’t need a job.”
“And getting wed too.” McLean shook his head. “Ah, weel, you’re a fine young man and you look a person in the eye, and that’s all to the good. So, if you change your mind . . .”
“I won’t.”
McLean nodded. “It’s me for my bed. The drive out to the ranch and the bargaining has fair wore me out.” He lifted his hat. “Good night to ye both, gentlemen.”
After McLean was gone, Kelly said, “Marry Emma and take the ranch manager’s job. Settle down, Cage, and forget Lissome Terry.”
Clayton smiled. “Maybe I’d consider it if I thought for one moment that Terry’s forgotten me.”
Chapter 40
“Think of it, Shad. We can go east—Boston, New York, even Europe. All the wonderful places I’ve only dreamed about,” Lee Southwell said.
“Until the money runs out,” Vestal said. “What then?”
“I don’t care. By then we’ll have lived, Shad, lived my dream. And you by my side, sharing it with me.”
Vestal smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll have thought of a way to make money by the time ol’ Park’s dough is spent.”
Lee put her hand on his arm. “Of course you will, my darling.”
“Before we leave, I have a little job to do for the Hog.”
The woman was alarmed. “Not me, Shad. Please say it’s not me.”
“No, it’s not you.”
A shudder s
hivered through her and she pulled her shawl closer. “I couldn’t bear that sweating pig grunting on top of me again.”
“He paid us well enough.” Vestal smiled. “We’ll spend his money in Paris.”
Lee lifted her beautiful eyes to Vestal’s face. “It was worth it, Shad, wasn’t it? All the times I let him ride me like a mare?”
“Of course it was worth it. Count the money in your dresser drawer if you need convincing.”
“You don’t mind? I mean, that I was with him for so long?”
Vestal shook his head. “No, I don’t mind. It was only business, just like gunning Park was business.”
The moonlight caught in Lee’s hair and cast one side of her face in shadow. “I thought Parker would never die,” she said.
“Me too. That’s why I helped him along. He rode my bullet into hell.”
The woman laid her head on Vestal’s chest. “You’re so good to me, Shad, and I love you so much.”
“You proved that today, Lee. You proved that when you told the Scotsman that we were the co-owners of the ranch.”
The woman smiled, her mouth still close to Vestal’s chest. “You suppose his check is good?”
“It’s good all right. That little man still has the first penny he ever earned.” Vestal grinned, his voice affecting McLean’s accent. “Dealing with you two rrrobbers will put me in the poorrrhouse.”
Lee drew her head back and laughed. “Let’s go back to the house, darling, and make some plans.”
“No, it’s nice out tonight. Let’s walk some more.”
“I’m getting tired, so only to the cottonwood and back.” She smiled at Vestal. “Where will we go first? Boston? New York? Or should we spend a few weeks in Denver before heading east?”
Vestal smiled. “Well, Lee, I can’t answer that because we have a problem.”
The woman stopped walking and showed alarm again. “What sort of problem?”
“The Hog wants me to kill Cage Clayton first.”
Lee sighed her relief. “Oh, for a moment there, I thought it was something serious.”
“Killing a friend of Kelly’s could be serious.”
“You can take care of Kelly.”
“Sure I can.”
“Then there is no problem.”
They stood under the cottonwood, the moon bright enough to cast skeletal fingers of shadow on the grass. The wind was rising, blowing a tendril of hair across Lee’s forehead.
“We have a bigger problem,” Vestal said.
Lee looked up at him and smiled. “Shad, now you’re just being silly. You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”
Vestal shook his head. “When I was a boy, my ma didn’t stick around for long, but before she left she taught me how to read and do my ciphers.”
Lee’s perplexed face asked the question that Vestal now answered.
“I can add, subtract, and divide real well. After the Scotsman left, I added up the money for the ranch, the money we saved, and what I’ll get for killing Clayton.”
His voice like death, he said, “Then I divided by two.”
Lee shrank from him, her back bumping against the trunk of the cottonwood.
“Shad,” she said, her words trembling, “what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that there’s only enough money for one person—me.”
“But I love you, Shad. We’ll make the money last. We’ll be happy.”
“Sorry, Lee. It just wouldn’t work out.”
Vestal slid a carving knife from his waistband and in one fast, fluid motion, rammed it into the woman’s chest to the hilt, just below her left breast. She slid down the tree trunk, her eyes on him, a mix of disbelief and horror. Blood stained the front of her white dress like a scarlet heart.
“Why . . . how . . . how could you . . . Shad . . .”
“It’s only business,” Vestal said. “Nothing personal.”
But he was talking to a dead woman, and out among the shadowed hills the coyotes were already singing Lee Southwell’s desolate elegy.
Chapter 41
The lone rider sat his paint among the shadows cast by the moon glow upon the pines. He’d watched the Hunter and the woman for a long time before the man pulled his knife and killed her.
When he saw the flash of moonlight on the blade, and heard it plunge home, the rider grunted deep in his chest. The woman meant nothing to him, but the thought came to him again that the Hunter was a dangerous and ruthless enemy. To kill a woman was to kill without honor, but the Hunter’s heart was bad and he did not care.
The rider had thought about shooting at him with his rifle, but the light was uncertain and he was old and his hands shook. He would have missed. He knew that. After the Hunter left, the old man rode down the slope to the cottonwood where the woman sprawled in death, her eyes open.
She was pretty in the face and body and could have borne many sons.
Aaaiii, it was a waste.
Lamps were lit in the Hunter’s house, but the old man could not see him. No matter, he would not try to kill him now.
He spat in the direction of the ranch house, his eyes ablaze with black fire.
The Hunter’s time would come.
Soon. Before the next dawn.
Chapter 42
Cage Clayton woke to the hammering on his door. He slid the Colt from the holster hanging from the bedpost and said, “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Emma.”
It took a few moments for the significance of that to penetrate Clayton’s sleep-fuddled brain, and finally he said, “I’m not decent.”
The girl silvered a laugh. “Then get decent. I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
“Why?” Clayton cursed under his breath. A pretty girl at my hotel room door and all I can say is “Why?”
“You’re taking me to breakfast,” Emma said. “And I don’t have much time before I start work.”
Clayton swung his legs off the bed and put on his hat. “I’ll be right down.”
“Don’t be too long.”
He found one sock, but couldn’t locate the other, and when he slipped his canvas suspenders over his shoulders, he discovered that he’d buttoned up his shirt wrong. His left boot pulled on just fine, but the other stuck on his heel, then twisted, and he had to start all over again.
Clayton wet down his hair, ran a comb through it, and wished he’d had time to trim his mustache. When he glanced in the mirror, he wasn’t pleased by what he saw—a man with age lines in his face, wearing scuffed down-at-heel boots and a shirt and pants that had faded to no color at all. Thank goodness his hat looked fine, a new gray Stetson that had cost him a month’s wages.
Clayton had seen enough. He opened the door and walked downstairs to the lobby.
Emma Kelly took his breath away. She wore a pink gingham dress, ribbons of the same color in her hair. She was as fresh and pretty as a May morning, stepping into the day clean, like sunlight.
Suddenly, Clayton felt big and awkward, all hands and feet, shabby in his clothes, fumbling for words like a man sorting through a pile of rags.
“You look real pretty, Miz Emma,” he said finally.
“And you are as handsome as ever, Mr. Clayton.” The girl smiled.
Again Clayton drew back, baffled by her praise.
Emma saved him. “Will you give me your arm?”
“Yes,” he said. It was the only word he could find.
The restaurant was busy so early in the morning, and Ma poured them coffee while they waited on their orders.
Emma’s smile was bright. “So, I hear you were offered a job,” she said.
“You’ve been talking to Nook,” Clayton said.
“Ranch manager,” Emma said. “You’re coming up in the world.”
“I wasn’t offered the job. Nook volunteered me for it.”
“He says it’s yours if you want it.”
“Nook talks too much.”
“Well, is it?”
“Is it what?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. McLean didn’t even mention what he’s paying.”
“You should ask him.”
Clayton was silent for a while. The steamy heat of the restaurant made sweat trickle down his back. Emma on the other hand seemed unaffected by it.
“You know why I’m in Bighorn Point,” he said. “I’ve made no secret of that.”
“Nook says he thinks Lissome Terry is dead.”
“I don’t. I believe he’s here in town. He paid a couple of grub line farm boys to kill me. Nook Kelly knows that.”
“He thinks maybe he was mistaken, that the bushwhackers only wanted your horses and guns.”
“Nook doesn’t really believe that.”
Now Clayton waded into water he knew was too deep for him. “He wants me to take McLean’s job and marry you, settle down.”
To his surprise, Emma took that in stride. “You could do worse, Cage Clayton,” she said.
He matched Emma’s honesty with his own. “Yes, I know I could. But I don’t want McLean’s job. At least, not yet.”
When their breakfasts arrived, they ate in silence. When she was finished eating, only a few bites here and there, Emma rose to her feet.
“I must be getting to work.”
Clayton dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “I’ll come with you.”
“No, stay and finish your food.” Emma tried to smile, failed, then said, “I have some thinking to do.”
When the girl reached the door, Clayton called out, “Emma, I’ll talk to Angus McLean, hear what he has to say.”
He didn’t know if she’d heard him or not.
Chapter 43
“Eighty dollars a month, Mr. Clayton, and there’s my best offer,” Angus McLean said.
“I was paying my top hand that much,” Clayton said.
“Aye, and look what happened to you.”
“Add a twenty to the wage.”
“A hundred a month? Are ye daft, man?”
“You won’t find a better ranch manager, not around these parts or in Boston either.”
McLean rocked back and forth on the hotel porch, nursing a hangover, his mood as sour as curdled cream.