Law Of the Desert Born (Ss) (1984) (18 page)

Carefully, he knotted the black string-tie on the soft gray shirt and then slipped on his coat. When he donned the black, flat-crowned hat, he was ready. His appearance was perfect, with just a shade of studied carelessness. For ten years now, Morgan Clyde's morning shave and dressing had been a ritual from which he never deviated.

He slid the two guns from their holsters and checked them carefully. First the right, then the left. On. the butt of the right-hand gun there were nine filed notches. On the left, three. He glanced at them thoughtfully, remembering.

That first notch had been for Red Bridges. That wa
s
the year they had run his cattle off. Bridges had come out to the claim when Clyde was away, cut his fence down, run his cattle off, and shot his wife down in cold blood.

Thoughtfully, Morgan Clyde looked back into the mirror. He had changed. In his mind's eye he could see that tall, loose-limbed young man with the bronze hair and boyish face. He had been quiet, peace-loving, content with his wife, his homestead, and his few cattle. He had a gift for gun-handling, but never thought of it. That is, not until that visit by Bridges.

Returning home with a haunch of antelope across his saddle, he had found his wife and the smoking ruins of his home. He did not have to be told. Bridges had warned him to move, or else. Within him something had burst, and for an instant his eyes were blind with blood. When the moment had passed, he had changed. He had known, then, what to do. He should have gone to the governor. with his story, or to the U
. S
. Marshal. And he could have gone. But there was something red and ugly inside him that had not been there before. He had swung aboard a little paint pony and headed for Peavey's Mill.

The town's one street had been quiet, dusty. The townspeople knew what had happened, because it had been happening to all homesteaders. Never for a moment did they expect any reaction. Red Bridges was too well known. He had killed too many times.

Then Morgan Clyde rode down the street on his paint pony, saw Bridges, and slid to the ground. Somebody yelled, and Bridges turned. He looked at Morgan Clyde's young, awkward length and laughed. But his hand dropped swiftly for his gun.

But something happened. Morgan Clyde's gun swung up first, spouting fire, and his two shots centered over Bridges's heart. The big man's fingers loosened, and the gun slid into the dust. Little whorls rose slowly fro
m
where it landed. Then, his face puzzled, his left hand fumbling at his breast, Red Bridges wilted.

He could have stopped there, Now, Morgan Clyde knew that. He could have stopped there, and should have stopped. He could have ridden from town and been left alone. But he knew Bridges was a tool, and the man who used the tool was Erik Pendleton, in the bank. Bridges had been a gunman; Pendleton was not. The banker looked up from his desk and saw death. It was no mistake. Clyde had walked up the steps, around the teller's cage, and opened the door of Pendleton's office.

The banker opened his mouth to talk, and Morgan Clyde shot him. He had deserved it.

The posse lost him west of the Brazos, and he rode on west into a cattle war. He was wanted then and no longer cared. The banker hadn't rated a notch, but the three men he killed in the streets of Fort Sumner he counted, and the man he shot west of Gallup.

There had been trouble in St. George, and then in Virginia City. After that, he had a reputation.

Morgan Clyde turned and stared at the huge old grandfather's clock. It remained his only permanent possession. It had come over from Scotland years ago, and his family had carried it westward when they went to Ohio, and later to Illinois, and then to Texas. He had intended sending for it when the homestead was going right, and everything was settled. To Diana and himself it had been a symbol of home, of stability.

What could have started him remembering all that? The past, he had decided long ago, was best forgotten.

He rode the big black down the street toward Sher-man's office. He knew what was coming. He had
been taking money for a long time from men of Sherman's stripe. Men who needed what force could give them but had nothing of force in themselves.

Sherman had several gunmen on his payroll. He kept them hating one another and grew fat on their hatred.. Tom Cool was there, and the Earle brothers. Tough and vicious, all of them.

Perhaps it Vas this case this morning that had started him thinking. Well, that damned fool nester should have known better than to settle on that Red Basin land. It was Sherman's best grazing land, even if he didn't own it. But a kid like that couldn't buck Sherman. The man was a fool to think he could.

The thought of that other young nester came into his mind. He dismissed it with an impatient jerk of his head.

The Earle brothers, Vic and Will, were sitting in the bar as he passed through. The two big men looked up, hate in their eyes.

Sherman was sitting behind the desk in his office and he looked up, smiling, when Morgan Clyde came in. "Sit down, Morg," he said cheerfully. He leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. "Well, this is it. When we get this Hallam taken care of, the rest of the nesters will see we mean business. We can have that range clean by spring, an' that means I'll be running the biggest herd west of the Staked Plains." Tom Cool was sitting in a chair tilted against the wall. He had a thin, hatchet face and narrow eyes. He was rolling a smoke now, and he glanced up as his tongue touched the edge of the yellow paper.

"You got the stomach for it, Morg?" he asked dryly. "Or would you rather I handle this one? I hear you was a nester once yourself."

Morgan Clyde glanced around casually, one brow lifting. "You handle my work?" He looked his contempt. "Cool, you might handle this job. It's just a cold-blooded killing, and more in your line. I'm used to men with guns in their hands."

Cool's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Yeah?" his voic
e
was a hoarse whisper. "I can fill mine fast enough, Clyde, any time you want to unlimber."

"I don't shoot sitting pigeons," Morgan said quietly.

"Why, you-" Tom Cool's eyes flared with hatred, and his hand dropped away from the cigarette in a streak for his gun.

Morgan Clyde filled his hand without more than a hint of movement. Before a shot could crash, Sherman's voice cut through the hot tensity of the moment with an edge that turned both their heads toward the leader. There was a gun in his hand.

Queerly, Morgan was shocked. He had never thought of Sherman as a fast man with a gun, and he knew that Cool felt the same. Sherman a gunman! It put a new complexion on a lot of things. Clyde glanced at Tom Cool and saw the man's hand coming away from his gun. There had been an instant when both of them could have died. If not by their own guns, by Sherman's. Neither had been watching him.

"You boys better settle down," Sherman said, leaning back in his swivel chair. "Any shooting that's done in my outfit will be done by me."

He looked up at Clyde, and there was something very much like triumph in his eyes. "You're getting slow, Morg," Sherman said. "I could have killed you before you got your gun out."

"Maybe."

Sherman shrugged. "You go see this Hallam, Clyde. I want him killed, see? An' the house burned. What happens to his wife is no business of yours. I got other plans." He grinned, revealing broken teeth. "Yeah, I got other plans for her."

Clyde spun on his heel and walked outside. He was just about to swing into the saddle when Tom
. C
ool drifted up. Cool spoke low and out the corner of his mouth. "Did you see that, Morg? Did you see the way he got that gun into action? That gent's poison. Why'
s
he been keepin' that from us? Somethin' around here smells to high heaven."

He took his belt up a notch. "Morg, let's move in on him together. Let's take this over. There's goin' to be a fortune out there in that valley. You got a head on you. You take care of the business, an' I'll handle the rough stuff. Let's take Sherman out of there. He's framin' to queer both of us."

Morgan Clyde swung into the saddle. "No sale, Tom," he said quietly. "Riding our trail, we ride alone. Anyway, I'm not the type to sell out or double-deal. When I'm through with Sherman I'll tell him so to his face."

"He'll kill you!"

Clyde smiled wearily. "Maybe."

He turned his horse and rode away. So Sherman was a gunman.

Tom Cool was right, there was something very wrong about that. The man hired his fighting done, rarely carried a weapon, and no one had ever suspected he might be fast. That was a powerful weapon in. the hands of a double-crosser. A man who was lightning with a gun and unsuspected--

After all, where did he and Cool stand? Sherman owed him ten thousand dollars for dirty work done, for cattle run off, for forcing men to leave, for a couple of shootings. Tom Cool was in the same position. Now, with Hallam out of the way and the nesters gone, he would no longer need either Cool or himself.

Suddenly, Morgan Clyde remembered Sherman's broken teeth, his sly smile, his insinuating manner when he spoke of Hallam's wife. Oddly, for the first time, he began to see himself in a clear light. A hired gun for a man with the instincts of a rat! It wasn't a nice thought. He shook himself angrily, forcing himself to concentrate on the businessat hand.

Vic Hallam was young, and he was green. He was
,
they said, a fine shot with a rifle, and a fair man with a gun when he got it out, but by Western standards he was pitifully slow. He was about twenty-six, his wife a mere girl of nineteen, and pretty. Despite his youth, Hallam was outspoken. He had led the resistance against Sherman, and had sworn to stay in Red Basin as long as he wished. He had every legal right to the land, and Sherman had none.

But Morgan Clyde had long ago shelved any regard for the law. The man with the fastest gun was the law along the frontier, and so far he had been fastest. If Sherman wanted the Red Basin, he'd get it. If it was over Hallam's dead body, then that's how it would be. He had never backed out on a job yet, and never would. Hallam would be taken care of.

Morgan rode at a rapid trot, knowing very well what he had to do. Hallam was a man of a fiery temper, and it would be easy to goad him into grabbing for a gun. Clyde shook his head, striving to clear it of upsetting thoughts. With the ten thousand he had coming, he could go away. He could find a new country, buy a ranch, and live quietly somewhere beyond the reach of his reputation. * Yet even as he told himself that, he knew
it was not true. A few years ago he might have done just that, but now it was too late. Wherever he went there would be smoking guns, split seconds of blasting fire and the thunder of shooting. And wherever he went he would be pointed out as a killer.

The heat waves danced along the valley floor, and he reined in his horse, moving at a walk. In his mind he seemed to be back again in the house he had built with Diana, and he remembered how they had talked of having the clock.

Then he was riding around the cluster of rocks and into the ranchyard at Red Basin. Sitting warily, with his hands loose and ready, he rode toward the house. A young woman came to the door and threw out some water. When she looked up, she saw him.

He was close enough then, and her face went deathly pale. Her eyes widened a little. Something inside of him shrank. He knew she recognized him. "What-what do you want?" she asked.

He looked down at her wide eyes. She was pretty, he decided.

"I wanted to see Mr. Hallam, ma'am."

She hesitated. "Won't you get down and sit on the porch? He's gone out now, but he'll be back soon. He---he saw some antelope over by the Rim Rocks."

Antelope! Morgan Clyde stiffened a little, then relaxed. He had hard work to make believe this was real. The girl-why, she was almost the size of Diana and almost, he admitted, as pretty. And the house--there was the wash bench, the homemade furniture, just like their own place. And now Hallam was after antelope.

It was all the same, even the rifle in the corner. . . . Something in him leaped. The rifle! A moment ago it had stood in the corner, and now it was gone! Instinctively, he threw himself from his chair-a split second before the shot blasted past his head.

Catlike, he came to his feet. He had twisted the rifle from the girl's hands before she could shoot again. Coolly, he ejected the shells from the rifle and dropped them on the table. He looked at the girl, smiling with an odd light of respect in his eyes. He noted there wasn't a sign of fright or tears in hers.

-Nice try," he said quietly.

"You came here to kill my husband," she said. It wasn't an accusation; it was a flat statement.

"Maybe." He shrugged. "Maybe so."

"Why do you want to kill him?" she demanded fiercely. "What did he ever do to you?"

Morgan Clyde looked at her thoughtfully. "Nothing, of course. But this land is needed by someone else. Perhaps you should move off."

"We like it here!" she retorted.

He looked around. "It's nice. I like it too." He pointe
d
to the corner across the room. "There should be a clock over there, a grandfather's clock
.

She looked at him, surprised. "We--we're going to have one. Someday
.