Dead Man's Ranch Read online

  Now, you take Rory MacMawe. He’d been a good fellow. Junior would freely admit that, but there was no way he was a businessman. Just look at the ranch, the state of the buildings. Sure, the house was solid enough, but it wasn’t even a quarter the size of the Grindle home. That was the mark of a man who didn’t have his priorities in order.

  Junior was still a few hundred yards from the camp when he checked his pistol, the .36 Remington model, the same one that Brandon MacMawe owned. Another reason his plan would work. It was easy enough when you looked at it like that—eliminate one problem and shift the blame of it on the other problem. Two problems gone and done for. He planned on gunning down the big, sappy stranger. Then with any luck, Brandon would be blamed. Made sense, as the kid had the motive and the pistol. Having him here was just plain lucky. The good fortune was enough that Junior almost giggled.

  He stepped slow and low now, for he was but a few yards from the two humped forms of the sleeping men. And judging from the heavy breathing rising from each, this would be easier than he guessed it might. Brandon first, then the damned interloper. Maybe it would look as if they did each other in. Junior grinned in the dark. He had a head for such thinking; he was convinced of it.

  MacMawe or no, neither of them was worthy of owning the Dancing M. His father wouldn’t be around forever and Junior knew that he could do the job as good as his old man, maybe even better. Far as he was concerned, he was the only one capable of doing that ranch justice, just as he’d told that little foreigner at the bar.

  Junior bent low and squinted at the sprawled form to his right. Had to be Brandon—it was a foot shorter than the other and about half as wide. He was on the small side, as was Junior, but Brandon was scrappy, as Junior well knew. Though the boy was a few years younger, he had whipped Junior in a couple of wrestling matches, horsing around at the river on hot summer days. But that was before things changed, before life required them to be men, not kids playing at being men.

  The breathing from both sleepers came in ragged counterpoint, like a pair of pulling mules after a steep grade. The fire was little more than dulled, orange embers, and the crescent moon a fingernail offering little help. Junior bent low, now two feet from Brandon’s head. He saw the faint outline of the boy’s cheek, nose, chin, one closed eye, his hat tipped to the side. This would be the easiest and the most difficult part of the entire night.

  Though he held no great hate for Brandon, Junior knew that there was nothing about to happen for which the boy would truly be guilty. But sometimes being born into the wrong family is the biggest crime of all. At least that’s what Junior imagined his father might say about the matter. It warmed him to know that he was thinking like his old man.

  Junior drew in a lungful of cool night air and held it. He drew his pistol and wrapped his hand around the barrel, raised it high over Brandon’s head, but a grunted shout from behind him stilled his pose.

  “What’s that? Who’s there? Who…?” Junior spun, and there was Middleton, raised on one elbow and leaning toward him, trying to see through the night air. Beneath him Brandon MacMawe stirred, squinted up just as Junior looked down at him. No thought at all came to Junior as he drove downward with the pistol’s clublike handle at the boy’s temple. MacMawe was stilled with the single blow—it felt to Junior like a death blow—and he turned back to who he hoped was the lesser of the two adversaries.

  “Say, what’s the matter here?”

  As Junior spun, he swung the pistol low and hard and connected with nothing but chill night air. The force of his swing spun him backward and over Brandon’s unmoving legs. The big stranger was nearly on his feet now, and Junior managed to rise to his knees. He grabbed the pistol with his left hand and spun it in his palm, the deadly end pointing at the dark hulking mass in front of him.

  “What is the matter, Brandon? I thought we agreed…for tonight…but if you take another swing at me, so help me…”

  Junior’s mind flashed on the idea handed him. “You just keep away,” he said, hoping in the frenzy that he sounded somewhat like Brandon.

  “Or what? You little fool. I’ve had enough of your games. Pretend you’re asleep, then attack me when I’m sleeping!” The big man lunged forward.

  “No!” Junior thumbed back the hammer and before thought could play a role, he squeezed a shot straight at the big man. The boom filled the night air for what seemed miles. Brian Middleton groaned, a long, gasping sound, like air leaving a train engine’s boiler, then slumped to his knees and fell to the ground, faceup, inches from the nearly dead campfire.

  Young Grindle froze, smoke curling from the short barrel of his pistol. He’d only really meant to make it look as if one man attacked the other—maybe sully their reputations a bit. Enough perhaps to have them both driven from the area, forced to sell up. But not this, not gunfire. Not a shooting. Or was this what he had wanted all along? Why bring the gun, then? He shivered at the thought. No! Now that he was faced with his foul act, he realized he did not want a shooting, not a death. He stiffened as if seized, and stumbled backward to land, seated, on a wind-smooth rock, and the lousiness of his plan pressed down on him like a wagonload of boulders. The booze, good God, but he had let it get the better of him again. Up to now it had only been money lost at cards. Up to now….

  Snatches of words flew at him like bats in the night, and in them he heard his father’s voice as if the old man were sitting beside him. “No son of mine would act that way….Land is all…Where have you been, boy? What have you been up to?”

  Junior spun, shouting, “No!” and swinging his fists in the dark. No one was there. “Get a hold of yourself, Junior,” he muttered, clenching his teeth and shaking his head to dispel the lingering blurring feeling of the damnable whiskey. The old man was home in bed and could never, would never find out about this.

  He sat still for a moment more, breathing deep and thinking. He knew he’d been lying to himself. He’d meant exactly what had happened. In fact, it couldn’t have played out better. The one stranger, the interloper, shot dead by Brandon MacMawe, the man who had the most to lose should the stranger invoke his rightful claims to the Dancing M.

  Now with the one man surely dead, the other, if he too wasn’t dead, was sure to swing for his murder. And what of Esperanza, the mother of a killer, the grieving widow—no, not even that!— the mistress of a man who left his estate in ruins. Why, Junior and his father, as the most logical, not to mention the most law-abiding, well-respected ranch owners in the region, were sure to find the path to ownership of the Dancing M a smooth and unchallenged one. After all, who else in the valley could afford the price of such a ranch, even at the reduced rate it was sure to bring?

  Junior shook himself out of his daze and took stock of the situation. He had shot a man who was even now bleeding out into the grit and soil of this hard plain. The boy, Brandon, would need to be dealt with. Check him first to see if he was dead, then…the gun!

  Junior crouched down over the boy and fumbled at his waist. Nothing. Then by his side, then the saddle horn by his head, where a man might coil a gun belt with the grip of his pistol at the ready. But there was no gun. He groaned, forcing his rising panic down. Of all the times for MacMawe to leave his gun at home. He squeezed tight his chattering jaws and paused, his hands gripping nothing but dirt.

  What would it matter? He knew the boy carried a pistol, just like half the men in the territory. And who would believe the boy anyway? Everyone who knew him knew he had been an unreliable pup since MacMawe died. And everyone also knew—or soon would, if Junior had any say in the matter—that this boy had every reason to kill the stranger, especially if the boy had assumed he was the sole heir to the ranch. So, thought Junior, it was possible that Brandon threw away the pistol after shooting his half brother.

  He leaned closer, to within inches of the boy’s face, and even through his own boozy breath, he smelled the rank curdle of whiskey on the boy’s ragged exhalations. Brandon was still unconscious, out cold.
Junior knew it had been but a few minutes since he’d shot the big stranger, but still it felt as if half his life had passed by.

  He clenched his fists and looked into the darkness to orient himself, then strode with purpose back toward the snag of brush where he’d left his mount. Within him, the stone-cold feeling of guilt at having forever altered other people’s lives sat heavy and deep in his guts and warred with a cautious anticipation of pride in knowing that his father would be pleased with the outcome. At least he hoped the old man would approve.

  Junior scissored his legs wider, eager now to reach his horse and be away from the scene. The odds of anyone out and about were slim to none, but with each passing month newcomers were making their way into the region, squatting for a time on any land that suited them, until they were driven off. No telling if any around these parts heard the shot. It wouldn’t do to be seen, for even on a half-lit night like this, eyes were everywhere. He pulled his hat brim down low over his forehead and picked up the pace.

  Chapter 26

  “Picolo, are you as tired of riding as I am? Still, I had to follow that loudmouth boy rancher. ‘My father this’ and ‘my father that.’ What an idiot. Doesn’t he know I will gut him and his entire family like fishes? Hey, Picolo, are you listening?”

  The horse nickered and Darturo smiled, nodded once. “I am impressed, my friend. All these years and I thought you were ignoring me. Besides, a decent bed in town is no match for the firm bosom of Mother Earth, eh? Oh, who am I kidding? Give me the bed any night. But still, it pays in the end to learn more about this young wealthy boy and his family. He might be a way to the money.” Mort watched the roan’s ears perk as he spoke. He reined up short at the same time and leaned low on the horse’s neck. “I heard it too,” he whispered, his eyes scanning left and right. “You see? We are close to something, eh?”

  Ahead, just over a rise between his route and the road south, he heard a man’s voice, deep, bellowing about something. Ah yes, there was another voice, softer and younger, but also a man. Could there be more than one? And more importantly, thought Darturo, would they have anything of value about them? Of course, he knew that everyone carried something of value, but since Denver he felt he could afford to be choosier, and perhaps only take those things that would be of personal interest to him. Like a fine watch or a good knife. One could always use a good knife. Small items such as these might also be useful should he feel forced to buy his way in or out of a situation.

  He slipped from his horse’s back and ground-tied the beast. Crouching low and taking care not to raise dust or sound from the graveled rise to his left, Mort made his way to just below the top of the low ridgeline. It would be full dark in less than an hour. If I want to see who these men are, thought Mort, I will have to peek now or wait for morning.

  He removed his hat and set it beside him; then as slow as he dared, he raised his head. He knew that people rarely paused to consider anything that was motionless or nearly so. But something that moved invariably attracted the eye. The descending dusk should conceal him from them. And there they were, a big man wearing what looked as if at one time it had been a bowler hat. The other wore his own hat low. But there was something about the two that seemed familiar. He took in what other details he might, while the light allowed, then eased himself back down to a sitting position and listened.

  Mort had planned on making a small fire, just enough flame for coffee, and making do with jerky and biscuits he’d bought in town. But that could wait. Long ago he’d trained himself to take advantage of that fickle lady known as Fortune when and where she smiled on him. He sensed she was maybe planning to grin.

  He leaned back against the hill and listened to the two men arguing. It was more interesting than he expected it to be and soon his eyebrows rose in recognition of the drama playing below as having something to do with the reason he intended for this scouting visit to the Dancing M ranch. Mort smiled in the near dark and played with the curled ends of buckskin tassel that swung from his right holster. Forgoing hot coffee and jerky for a few hours was a small price to pay considering the maudlin saga that floated up to his ears from the two men below. So, these must be two brothers, judging from their conversation. And what’s more, they must be the heirs to the Dancing M, the inheritors of all that land. The pity of it, from what he could hear, was that neither of them sounded particularly competent or even interested in such a rich holding. He smiled again and settled back, enjoying more with each minute what he heard, several possible plans forming, curling in his mind like tendrils of smoke twisting together, drifting apart.

  Some time later, Picolo raised his head and nickered low, his ears perked forward. Mort roused from his half doze and waved a hand toward the horse somewhere below him in the dark, not that it mattered, for he knew that the receding peal of the gunshot would cover the reactions of ten horses. Mort could scarcely believe what he saw—a new man, who looked to be that idiot kid from the bar, had stumbled into the camp less than an hour after the two men had finally dozed off. The small campfire, with each passing minute, had lost more of its vital glow.

  Mort was left squinting into the dark, desperate to see the intruder’s face, to verify that it was indeed that foolish ranch boy. But even with the heavy moon, he could not. And he dared not climb down closer. From the look of the intruder, his staggering gait, his shouts like those of a man crazy in the head, and his wild arm-swinging actions, it was obvious the fool was drunk—drunker than when he had left the bar. All the more impressive, thought Mort, considering he’d bested two men. Though he knew that they too had hit the whiskey bottle themselves before turning in, and had been asleep when he crept upon them.

  In the rolling silence that followed the gunshot, Mort heard the uneven clopping of two horses running hard in different directions. He had seen no other men around and he wondered if they were the horses of the sleeping men. Not hobbled, then, and probably headed for their home corrals, he thought.

  Finally the man stumbled off into the dark, mumbling and shouting low oaths. Mort was able to only pick out a few words. Among them he heard “old man” and “land.” These meant nothing to him. But he chose to keep them and not to forget them, for he might have use of them yet. At the very least, if all else failed him, Mort knew he could blackmail this rich boy about what he had just witnessed. Surely the young fool would not want anyone to know he had just attacked, perhaps even killed, two sleeping men. Yes, Picolo, thought Mort. Skipping the soft bed in town tonight had proved to be a wise move, eh?

  With each passing minute, the small campfire withered. Mort waited long minutes before he slid up and over the gravel ridge he’d hunkered behind, just above the camp. He descended, sliding and scraping, step by slow step, until he was less than twenty feet from the wounded men. Here was a mess. He smiled and bent low, keeping his right hand poised above his gun, his legs well back from any arms that might belong to a man playing at death, biding his time to grab and trip Mort. This and more he had seen in the past, and he had no intention of giving in to such pathetic, wounded fools.

  He approached the smaller of the two men and pushed his forehead aside with the toe of his boot. Even in the dim firelight and half-clouded moon, he saw the dark, matted mess of the man’s hair, the pooled blood beneath the man’s head. He pushed with the bottom of his boot and moved the man’s head back and forth as if he were disagreeing with Mort. But the man made no sound. If this one wasn’t dead, he soon would be.

  He turned to the other, bigger man and toed him in the side. The man spasmed and groaned, which surprised Mort, since the man’s light-colored shirt glistened with blood from his gut wound. Perhaps the shot hadn’t been as bad as it might have been.

  “I’m no doctor, eh?” Mort toed the man again, heard the groan, and smiled. “But I do know that you will probably die if no help comes.” He sighed and looked around the meager little camp. “Besides, from what I heard you saying, it might not be so bad if you did die. For you deserve to if
you are complaining about money and ranches and land and mothers. Ah, if these are your problems, then you have no right to complain, eh?” Mort headed back up the gravel bank. “I don’t really care. There is other money in this for me. And perhaps more if I leave you to your fates, much as I would like to speed you along your probable journeys. We’ll leave you be, for now. Arrivederci!”

  Mort slid down the opposite side of the ridge and mounted his horse. “It’s time we move in some other direction, Picolo. Someone will find these fellows, dead or alive.” One of them was a local; that much Mort was sure of, given the content of the conversation he’d heard earlier between the two men. “You know these small-town people…always thinking the worst of strangers. Come on, Picolo. We will head back to town, slip in quietly. After all, who would have thought that young loudmouth rancher boy would do our work for us, eh? We can keep from being bitten if we are in the nest, right, my friend?”

  The horse, barely a shadow in the dark, tossed its head as Mort guided him northward. He was silent for a mile, thinking of the possibilities of all he had seen and heard in the last few hours—from the fool boy in the bar to the fools dying at the campsite. He concluded that he would think about these three men some more as he rode. A lot of land such as they all were talking of, he thought, surely would be worth a lot of money. Perhaps his blackmail should include more than money. Perhaps land would be wiser. Perhaps it was time to settle down. He wasn’t getting any younger, after all. It was worth considering, surely. Slowly a smile spread on Mortimer Darturo’s face and he urged the horse into a trot.