Dark Canyon (1963) (6 page)

He drew up, listening.

The coming of darkness had brought coolness; not a breath of air seemed to be stirring. He listened for several minutes, and heard nothing more, yet he was positive there had been something down in that canyon . . . something not an animal, but a man. He could not have explained why he was sure that what he had heard was a man, but his every instinct warned him that it was so.

When he rode back to the ranch site there was a good fire going. Cruz was sitting near it, tending the supper. Darby Lewis was working at a data he was braiding from thin strips of cowhide.

Cruz glanced up at Riley, but offered no
cornmeal
. It was Darby who spoke. "Ridin' late," he said. "I was hopin' you'd shoot us a deer."

"Only saw one-too far off."

Riley dismounted and stripped the gear from his horse. He would have to ride into Rimrock, he was thinking. They needed more horses, and he wanted to look around for cattle.

Marie Shattuck was curious. She had met Gaylord Riley for only a moment, but he kept coming back to her mind . . . and he was good-looking.

Peg Oliver met her as she was leaving her buckboard. "Marie, didn't you tell me you'd met Gaylord Riley? That new rancher?"

"Yes, I met him."

"We're having a party at the ranch. Why don't you invite him?"

"I don't know him that well." She hesitated. "Anyway, I don't think Uncle Dan would like it." "You're the only one who has met him, and all the girls have been hoping he would come over. He hasn't been to a party yet."

"He's pretty busy, I expect. Anyway, it is a long way from his place to yours."

"Marie, you know darned well that never stopped anybody! Why, some of the boys ride thirty or forty miles for a dance."

"Well ... if I see him."

Larsen sat in the Bon-Ton with Sampson McCarty, and the newspaperman knew that, no matter how placid Larsen might look to others, he was worried.

"Peaceful community," Larsen mumbled, at McCarty's question. "I want to keep it that way."

McCarty glanced at him sharply. "Is something in the wind?"

"Too much riding arount at night," Larsen sai
d
grumpily. "And no sign of the Colburn outfit. Dey dropped clean off the edge of the worlt."

Just then Darby Lewis opened the door and walked in, waving a hand. McCarty gestured to the chair opposite. "Sit down . . . buy you a cup of coffee."

Darby grinned. "I'll do that-although I will say that Mex makes good coffee."

"Cruz? He's a good man." McCarty paused. "How d' you like your new job?"

"Ain't bad-but he ain't got enough cows to make it a good ridin' job. To much damn handwork. Buildin' the house, fences, and the like."

"Fences?"

"Uh-huh-he's fencin' off some of the plateaus. That way he can keep track of his stock until they get to know where home is."

Darby Lewis sipped the coffee appreciatively. "That Riley knows cattle," he said.

He went on to tell them about the house, the corrals, the dams. Larsen listened, but asked no questions. It was obvious that this Riley was a man who had come to stay. He was doing work that would have long-range effect.

"Has he said anything about mining?" Larsen asked, trying to find out more about him.

"Not much. He's done some placer minin'-he mentioned that, one time."

McCarty's back was to the door, but Larsen was watching when the two strange riders drew up before Hardcastle's saloon. They were dusty, and their horses were weary. When the two riders stepped down from the saddle they stood for a moment, straightening their backs, as men are apt to do who have ridden far.

The men were strangers to Rimrock and one of them wore two guns. Their brands were strange
,
and both rode double-cinched saddles of the Texas kind.

Gunmen . ..?

"Ain't seen Spooner around for a few days," McCarty commented suddenly.

"He's here now," Darby said. "He rode in just after we did."

Gaylord Riley walked slowly along the short street of Rimrock. He had seen Strat Spooner ride into town, and he had seen him take his horse to the livery stable. And that horse had seen some riding. Was it coincidence that Spooner had arrived so soon after Riley and Darby Lewis had reached town? Or had Spooner been following him?

His two years on the outlaw trail and his years before that of hunting down the men who killed his father had made him wary. He watched his back trail always, and he was suspicious of sounds, of motives, of movements.

So far as he knew he was not a wanted man, but Colbum and the others were, and Spooner might be a bounty hunter. Undoubtedly there were reward offers on all four of them.

Hardcastle was the town's stock dealer and it was to him that Riley went to buy horses. Stepping through the bat-wing doors into the saloon, he noticed two men deep in conversation with Spooner and Hardcastle at the far end of the bar. When he came in, Hardcastle looked up, then walked up the bar toward him.

"How are you, Riley? What'll you have?"

The two men glanced his way. Spooner said something to them in a low tone, and they looked once more. One of the men shook his head.

"I'll have rye whiskey, and then we'll talk horses -if you have any to sell."

Hardcastle took a bottle from beneath the bar and filled two glasses. "You'd do better to buy the
m
yourself," he said affably. "It would save you money. I haven't anything you'd be likely to want, but I hear Oliver out at the Boxed 0 has a few head."

He lifted his glass. "Luck," he said, and then commented, "Too bad Shattuck wouldn't sell you some of his Herefords. You're going to need more cattle." "I'm in the market."

"About those horses," Hardcastle said. "Oliver might not want to sell. I hear that Shattuck has put the word out."

"What do you mean . . . 'the word'?"

"Not to sell to you. He wants to be the only man around with any Herefords. He's afraid if anybody else has them there'll be some rustling of his stock." "He needn't worry."

Riley finished his drink and went outside, pausing on the street. The words of Hardcastle had made almost no impression, in part because Riley rarely took for granted what he was told about other people, finding most gossip malicious or irresponsible, and based on the most fragile of rumors. What he was thinking about was the two men at the end of the bar; he had seen neither of them before, but he knew their type.

Their horses, tied at the hitch-rail, supplied what he had only guessed. They were from Texas-he recognized one of the brands; and the double cinch was still almost a Texas monopoly-and they were gunhands for hire. The horses they rode were too good, their saddles and other gear were too expensive for ordinary cowhands.

But why here . . . in Rimrock? Such men followed the tides of cattle wars, and feuds, and there was nothing of the kind in northern Arizona or southern Utah.

Bounty hunters? They could be.

Absently, he noticed the Boxed 0 on a buck
b
oard in front of the general store, and turned that way.

Peg Oliver was little, plump, and attractive, one of those merry, friendly; outgoing girls, liked by everyone. She was talking to Darby Lewis when he saw them.

Darby turned to greet him. "Boss, this here's Peg Oliver. They're throwing a wind-ding out at their place, an' we're invited."

She turned to Riley, her eyes bright and eager. "Will you come, Mr. Riley? After all, you'll want to get acquainted with your neighbors, and they'll all be there."

He hesitated, then nodded. "Yes, we'll come, and thank you." He started to speak about the horses, then decided against it. That could wait until he met her father.

Sampson McCarty came to the door of his office and motioned to Riley.

"Will you excuse me, Miss Oliver? I'll see you at the dance."

McCarty's eyes twinkled. "See you've been roped -be careful she doesn't hog-tie you."

Riley grinned. "No danger. I'm right skittish around womenfolks. Never had much experience thataway."

"Then you're in more trouble than I thought. If you're going to escape women, you have to know something' about them-and even that doesn't help."

"You wanted to see me?"

"Uh-huh. You were looking for white-face or Shorthorn cattle. I've got a tip for you." He went inside and Riley followed him.

"I like to see a young man try to better himself, and I just heard about this. You've been asking about Herefords and Durhams-or Shorthorns, if you want to call them so. Well, do you know where Spanish Fork is?"

"Yes."

"A tenderfoot named Beaman heard about the Texas trail drives, and he decided to make one from Oregon. He bought up three thousand head of mixed Durhams and Herefords, with a few odds and ends of dairy cattle among them, and started east for Kansas.

"His trail drivers quit him in Spanish Fork. They heard about the Sioux outbreak in Wyoming and Nebraska, and they wanted no part of it. He's holding those cattle outside of Spanish Fork at least he was last week. And he's ready to sell."

Riley thought of the country between Rimrock and Spanish Fork, much of which he knew. The Outlaw Trail led through that country a trail known to none but outlaws and Indians; and a wild, wild country it was. Bringing cattle down the main trail would be sheer insanity, for there were farms, hayfields such a herd could do more damage than they were worth. But if a man knew the water holes . . .

"Hadn't you heard?" he said. "Shattuck doesn't want anybody to sell to me or so they tell me." McCarty shrugged. "Shattuck's a good man, but he's a dog-in-the-manger about those Herefords of his. Anyway, he had his chance and turned it down." Riley stared at him, waiting.

"He turned it down because he said the man didn't live who could bring those cattle down here without paying damages to every farmer between here and there."

"So why tell me?"

McCarty smiled faintly. "I thought you might have some other ideas."

Chapter
7

The Boxed 0 ranch house was wide and sprawling. Oliver was a Gentile from Illinois, and one who had been friendly to the Mormons through their difficulties there and in Missouri; as a result had been disliked by some of his neighbors. Migrating west, he had settled among the Mormons, and his ranch had for fifteen years been a headquarters for the settlers in the vicinity and a hotel for travelers through the country.

At first these had been very few, then the flow of travel increased, but settlers were few and far between in the vast, wide-open country where he had chosen to live. Dan Shattuck had been his first actual neighbor, and their ranches were miles apart. From the first, Oliver's ranch had been different from others in the Southwest, for, like his Mormon friends, he did not rely strictly on beef cattle. He had planted corn, wheat, and rye, and he had grown vegetables, raised chickens, and kept bees. From the beginning, the operation had been successful, self-supporting after the first year, and a money-making venture in most of the years, that followed.

Gaylord Riley stopped in a cottonwood grove a few miles from the ranch and peeled off his range clothes. He took a dip in the stream, then dressed in the black broadcloth suit he had bought on his last trip to California. He packed his range clothe
s
in his slicker and rolled them behind his saddle, remounted, and rode on to the Oliver ranch.

Half a dozen buckboards already stood in the ranch yard, and the hitch-rail and corral fences were lined with the mounts of the cowhands and others who had ridden in from around the country.

He hesitated in the darkness after tying his horse. He brushed his clothes with his hand, tried the crease in his sombrero, and ran a finger around inside his shirt collar. It was a long time since he had worn a collar and tie.

The last time had been in Los Angeles when the Colburn gang had ridden into town for a celebration. Unknown there, they had passed themselves off as ranchers and horse buyers from Arizona, and had taken rooms at the fashionable Pico House. They had come to town to relax, smoke good cigars, eat meals they did not have to cook, and drink the best of wine.

Now, standing there in the darkness, looking at the laughing, talking groups on the wide verandas, Riley was glad he had had those few weeks on the coast. It had given him one of the few chances in his life to meet people other than cowhands or outlaws.

There had been little enough to do but attend the new Merced Theatre next door to the hotel or stand on the walk outside and watch the stages come in from Wilmington, but it had given him the chance to meet people. Surprisingly, it was Kehoe who taught him what he needed to know, for the tall Irish outlaw had the manners of a gentleman when in company, and carried himself with a certain elegance that Riley had done his best to imitate.

It was Kehoe with his easy, friendly ways and polished manner who made friends, and they were invited, Kehoe and himself, to some of the best homes in town.

Nevertheless, he had never gotten over a certain shyness when among strangers, and now he walked slowly toward the house, realizing he would know no more than one or two of the people here.