From Hide and Horn (A Floating Outfit Book Number 5) (27 page)

‘
Now would I do a meanness
like that?’
Chisum wailed. ‘Lord, those words grieve me. Here I’ve been
a-pining and sorrowing at the thought—’

‘
Of how you’d spend the money you’d get
for my herd!’ Hayden snarled. ‘Chisum, when I found out what you’d
done on us, I swore I’d find you and kill you.’

Having helped fight off
the
Kweharehnuh
raiders until rescued by an Army patrol, Hayden and his two
men had set out after Chisum. They had lost their herd and wanted
to get a share in the money for the bunch the bald rancher drove.
Picking up his trail, they had read the story of his desertion and
their purpose had changed to one of vengeance. Although Hayden had
planned a more subtle way of dealing with Chisum, being confronted
by the rancher holding money that must have come from selling the
herd drove all thoughts of his plan from his head.

‘
I—I’m not wearing a gun!’ Chisum
announced.

‘
Nobody’ll hold that against me when
they learn why I killed you!’ Hayden spat back.

And the damnable part, to
Chisum’s way of thinking, was that the other spoke the
truth.
Once
told of his desertion, no western jury would convict Hayden for
taking such extreme revenge. Something of an expert in killers,
Chisum knew from the expression on Hayden’s face that the man
intended to carry out his threat. For once—and what might be the
last time—the bald rancher’s charm and smooth tongue had failed
him. Given time, he might have been able to talk Hayden out
of the murderous
mood—

Only he doubted if the
required
time
would be granted to him.

‘
Mr. Hayden!’ Chisum heard somebody say
and Dusty Fog’s voice had never sounded so pleasant to the
rancher’s ears.

Turning his head slightly,
Hayden glared angrily at the three young men who came towards
him.
While he
failed to recognize Dusty, Mark or the Kid, his companions rapidly
and correctly identified all three of the Texans.

‘
Well?’ Hayden demanded.

‘
I’ve business with you,’ Dusty stated
while the Kid at his left and Mark on his right allowed him to do
the talking.

‘
Make it later,’ Hayden ordered. ‘I
don’t know you.’

Taking advantage of the interruption, Chisum
began to edge away from the men at the door and clear of the three
Texans. He had learned enough since his arrival to figure why Dusty
had intervened and meant to make the most of the chance presented
to him.

‘
No,’ Dusty agreed, coming to a halt
and conscious of Chisum’s actions. ‘You don’t know me, but we had a
mutual acquaintance. De Martin he called himself, but you’d know
him better as Soskice.’

Shock jolted Hayden’s attention from the bald
rancher to the small Texan. While he did not know what his visitor
at the Throckmorton hotel had planned to call himself while working
against Goodnight, the man’s name had been Soskice. Mastering his
surprise, Hayden gave a disinterested shrug.

‘
I’ve never heard of
either of
’em.’

‘
He’d heard of you,’ Dusty said. ‘Fact
being, he took an oath on his death-bed that you’d paid him to make
trouble and bust up Colonel Goodnight’s trail drive. I don’t reckon
he lied.’

‘
He sure as hell didn’t!’ Chisum
screeched, estimating that he was in a position from which he could
safely start things popping. As he spoke, he flung himself towards
the nearest customers and caused a hurried scattering among
them.

‘
Damn you, Chisum!’ Hayden screamed and
started to swing the Henry’s barrel in the rancher’s
direction.

On either side of Hayden, Targue
and Scabee sent hands
fanning down to their revolvers. No less promptly,
the floating outfit went into action. Ahead of all the others,
before the Henry completed its turn and spoke, Dusty’s matched
Colts roared. He shot at Hayden. Not to save Chisum, but to prevent
the financier from committing wholesale murder. In his crazed
condition, Hayden would have sprayed the Henry’s magazine around
the room without regard for who or what he hit. So Dusty sent his
bullets the only way possible under the circumstances. Both of them
drove into Hayden’s head, spinning him through the bat-wing door
with the rifle unfired and dropping from his hands.

A split-second later, Mark’s revolvers echoed
the double crash. Caught in the chest by the lead from the blond
giant’s guns, Targue pitched backwards to collide with wall then
tumble lifeless to the floor.

Neither the Kid nor Scabee could count
themselves in the class of gun-skill shown by Dusty and Mark. While
their hands closed on the waiting guns’ butts simultaneously, the
Kid’s old Dragoon cleared leather and spoke first by a slight
margin. Slight, maybe, but it proved just fast enough to save
Dusty’s life. Out of a sense of self-preservation, Scabee had
selected the small Texan for his target. The sledgehammer impact of
the Dragoon came while the hardcase was still squeezing off his
trigger. Knocked sprawling by the force of the blow, Scabee fired
with his gun out of line. Passing between Mark and Dusty, the
bullet ended its flight among the bottles behind the bar. Torn open
by the round, soft lead ball, Scabee collapsed on to Targue’s
body.

‘
You saved my life, Cap’n Fog!’ Chisum
gasped and his gratitude was not entirely assumed.

‘
Saved you hell!’ Dusty
spat back and, thick-skinned though he was, the rancher writhed
under the icy contempt in the small Texan’s voice.
‘They could have
killed you by inches for all I cared. I was thinking of two young
cowhands who didn’t finish the drive. But for Vern Sutherland and
Burle Willock, I wouldn’t’ve lifted a finger against Hayden until
he was through with you.’

And so one of the earliest large
trail drives ended, paving the way for
Goodnight’s dream to come true. On
their return to Texas, the trail crew used their knowledge to
organize and carry out other shipments. Word of Goodnight’s success
passed across the Texas ranges, along with his belief in the
possibility of a market at the Kansas railroad towns. In the years
that followed, almost a quarter of a million longhorns walked the
trail carved by the Swinging G to Fort Sumner. More than double
that number went north to Kansas and further herds spread across
the western plains. The money brought in by the longhorn herds
helped the Lone Star State to throw off the poverty and desolation
left by the War. Truly it could be said that, guided by men of
vision like Colonel Charles Goodnight, Texas grew … from hide and
horn.

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EDSON