Milo Talon (20 page)

“Folks will be comin’ for supper,” German said. “It’s early, but this here’s an early town.” He sat down between Molly an’ me. “Got me an idea.”

“We can use it,” I said. “I’m coming up empty.”

“Maggie,” he said.

We just looked at him.

“Maggie’s got horses. She’s got a half dozen of the best horses you ever put eyes on. Used to be a rider, Maggie did. Ain’t no horses around like hers, and those fellers, Henry, Pride Hovey, and John Topp and their like, they wouldn’t think of them. They’re all newcomers. They wouldn’t know about Maggie’s horses.”

“Would she let us have them?”

“Ah? That’s the rub. Maybe. Just maybe … if she saw you. If she took a liking to you. Maggie’s more jealous of her horses than anything.

“She don’t ride no more but she likes to watch them out on the meadow behind the house. Sets there watchin’ them all day long. Likes to see them run and play, likes the sun shining on their coats—

“If you could get up there, and if she cottoned to you … that’s a lot of ifs.”

“What’s she like?”

“Maggie?” German paused, thinking about it. “She’s no youngster. Been around a long time. Some folks say she was a dance-hall girl one time. I wouldn’t know about that. Lives alone and likes it. She’s got a couple of dogs, a parrot, and a big Indian.”

“Indian?”

“A Kickapoo. He’s big and he’s old. Face looks old enough to have worn out two bodies, but he’s strong. Anything he lays hold of
moves
. Most Indians I’ve seen have long, slim muscles. Not him. He’s built like a wrestler and so he used to be. He was one of the best wrestlers in the tribes. Never beaten, so I hear. He wandered in here one time, Maggie fed him, then put him to work with her horses.

“Maggie lives up there with her gee-tar and her
books. Reads. Reads most of the time, sings a lot, too, but just for herself. Gets wound up sometimes and talks about London, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Weimar—I don’t know what all. She must’ve been quite a girl when she was younger.”

“Do you think she’d lend us her horses?”

German shrugged. “No telling. She’s notional. Takes whims. She’s mighty shrewd about business, knows where every cent goes, and how to make every cent pay double. If she takes a liking, she’ll let you have them, but she never has loaned a horse to anyone, for any reason.”

“Topp’s coming.”

Well, I sat up and turned a little to face the door. He opened the door and stepped in. He was alone. I looked at him again. He was even bigger than I thought and he had an easy way of moving.

For the first time he looked directly at me. “Nice,” he said, “that was nice, what you did. Cost you, though. I didn’t like it.”

He looked over at Molly. “Too bad,” he said. “She’s young, too.”

“So are you, John,” I said, “and you’re a strong, healthy man. Better stay that way.”

He just looked at me and German crossed to his table. “Can I get you something, Mr. Topp?”

“Beef,” he said, “roast beef, and some of that you make up out of potatoes, onions, and such.”

He glanced out of the window and seemed to have forgotten about us. I reached over and squeezed Molly’s hand. “We’ll make it,” I whispered and wished I felt sure.

The town was so open. The river offered a chance,
but elsewhere it was wide open country. Even if we got horses and started we’d have to run for it, and I wouldn’t kill a horse for any man.

“You never know about Maggie,” German said, stopping by. “Don’t count on her.” He spoke softly so only we would hear.

Others were coming in to supper now. Four men, whom I recognized as Rolon Taylor’s men. I thought of that. Taylor’s men in town, and some of Jefferson Henry’s, and both of them wanted us.

“Might as well eat,” I said.

Molly went to the kitchen and returned with my supper. Then she got a plate for herself and sat down close to me where we could talk without speaking out. The walls of the building across the street would soon be flushed red with the setting sun.

How could we ever get out of town? Or even manage to see Maggie? The riverbed offered the only cover and they would be watching that.

Suddenly John Topp pushed back his chair and got up and started for the door. He reached it and it started to open under his hand. I looked around. “All right, John,” I said, “the deal’s on.”

He paused, staring at me, puzzled. He had no idea what I was talking about and I had not expected him to. Rolon Taylor’s men were listening, as I’d hoped.

It would be dark soon. One of Taylor’s men got up, walking outside with a toothpick in his teeth. He looked after Topp, then strolled along behind him.

Leaning across the table to Molly, I said, “Why not? If we’re selling out, why not to the highest bidder? He will arrange everything. You’ll see.”

I spoke just loud enough and hoped they heard me.

“If there’s trouble,” I said. “Topp and his men will take care of those others. You’ll see.”

Molly stared at me, wondering if I’d gone insane. I smiled at her, then shrugged.

“You left something in my room, Molly.” This time nobody but she could hear.

“Under the shelf-paper, top shelf,” she said.

“Wish me luck.” I got up suddenly and started for the door. Just beside their table I stopped. “I hope nobody comes out,” I said. “It would be just too easy.”

R
OLON TAYLOR’S MEN might have planned to take John Topp from the beginning, or maybe my words had brought it on, but as I opened the door the Taylor man who followed John started diagonally across the street. As he did so, another man stepped from the barbershop with a rifle in his hands.

They thought they had him treed but you don’t bet against a man like John Topp. A gunfighter isn’t just a man with a gun who can shoot, he’s a man who knows when to shoot, who to shoot at, and who has lived through or thought his way through so many situations he knows exactly what he wants to do.

The man from the barbershop started to lift his rifle, and, instead of stopping or trying to get away, Topp ran right at him putting himself between the two men. If either shot, he must endanger the other man; both hesitated.

The man with the rifle tried to sidestep to get out of line with his friend, but Topp was too fast and too close. He fired, saw the man with the rifle start to fall, and he caught the awning-post with his left hand and used it as a pivot to swing himself around. The man who had been behind him fired as he saw his friend fall, and John Topp, swinging around the post, fired as his right foot hit the ground. The man who had been
behind him raised on his toes and took two tiptoe steps forward and plunged on his face in the dust.

John Topp stood where he was, looking at the door where I stood. He did not know I was there or if anyone was, but if anyone had stepped from that door at that moment he would have died in the next.

Taking a step back, I glanced toward the table of Rolon Taylor men. Two of them had started to their feet, one still gripped his knife and fork, the fourth was slowly lowering his cup to the tabletop.

“Your boys didn’t do so good,” I told them, “but I’d finish my breakfast if I were you.”

Several people had come from stores. One woman was staring, shocked, her hand to her mouth. A man in a white apron walked from the butcher shop. “I saw it,” I heard the words loud and clear, “they tried to kill him. It was self-defense.”

“That man Topp’s been around for days. Never bothered nobody. Quiet sort of man, minded his own affairs.”

“Taylor men,” somebody else was saying, “they’re a sorry outfit.”

“Gettin’ tired of those Taylor men comin’ into town, raisin’ hell. What we need’s some vigilantes with a rope.”

The door stood open and the men at the table could hear, as I could.

Walking back to the table where Molly still sat, I said, “German? How’s about another cup of coffee? That street is no place to be right now.”

One of the Taylor men said, “I’ll kill him. If it’s the last thing I do—”

Looking across the room at them, I said, “You try it and it
will
be the last thing you do. You boys better get wise. That’s an ol’ he-coon from the high country.”

A crowd had gathered in the street and there was angry talk about “citizens being assaulted” and “running them out of town.”

Me, I was through listening. With everybody distracted, we had our chance. Getting up, I took my cup and walked to the kitchen. From the shelter of the door I motioned to Molly.

The sunlight was already fading when we slipped from the door, me wearing an old coat of German’s. We cut across lots heading for Maggie’s. It was the chance I’d hoped for and we might not get another.

When we were a hundred yards off, we stopped to listen. There was no sound of pursuit, only of loud talk from the street. Turning, we went on around the patch of trees and finally into the road leading up to Maggie’s.

It was a log house, two-storied at one end where a light showed in two lower windows that faced the town. At the other end there was also a light, and as we approached, a woman came to the door and threw out a pan of water. Then she paused, staring toward the town, evidently wondering about the gunshots. She was turning back toward the wide open kitchen door when she heard us coming. Pausing, she looked our way.

“Ma’am? Maggie?”

“She’s inside,” the woman replied, “she ain’t to be disturbed.”

“It’s very important,” I said, “important to the safety of this young lady. There’s trouble in town.”

“Heard some shootin’,” the woman agreed.

“I’ve got to get this young lady away,” I insisted. “We wanted to borrow some horses.”

“Horses? You must be crazy. Mrs. Tyburn wouldn’t lend a horse to anybody. Not to anybody, believe me.”

“May we see her? Will you tell her we wish to speak to her?”

Grudgingly, the woman turned toward the house. When we reached the door’s light she turned and looked at us carefully. “Well,” she hesitated, “I’ll see. But mind you, I promise nothin’. She ain’t seen anybody in weeks and ain’t wishful of it.”

She untied her apron and put it across the back of a chair and opened an inner door. Through it came sounds of an instrument and a woman’s voice singing “The Golden Vanity.”

The door closed and we waited. Molly was frightened. “Milo? If she won’t let us have horses, what will we do?”

With the door closed we heard no noise from the town, yet even now they might have missed us and begun searching. If they were smart they’d proceed carefully because the people of a western town would tolerate only so much, and so far as I knew there was no law officer in the town. Folks are apt to handle their own affairs in such cases and they could be almighty impatient with evildoers.

It was pleasant, waiting there. The room was filled with the warmth and smells of baking bread and of coffee. The kitchen was spotlessly clean.

Suddenly the outer door opened and the big Indian came in. And he was big. Now I’m tall, and said to be
mighty strong, but this Indian would make two of me. Old he might be, but his hands were huge and what I could see of his forearms showed no signs of age.

“I am Milo Talon,” I said.

He stared at me for what seemed a long time, then he said, “I know you.” He paused, then added, “Sometime you ride spotted horse.”

Now I hadn’t ridden that Appaloosa in several years, and it was far from here.

Before I could ask him where he’d seen me on a spotted horse, the woman opened the inner door and beckoned.

She led us along a hallway lined with bookshelves and then through what must be the living room and into the far wing. She rapped lightly, then opened a door, and waving us in, closed it behind us.

Maggie sat in a huge chair on a dais, and at first I thought it was ego that had her poised upon what appeared to be a throne. Then I saw that by having her chair some eight inches above the rest of the floor she had a clear view of the town and the surrounding area.

Her ranch was on a bench perhaps a hundred feet higher than the town itself and her view was superb, if one had a liking for one-street towns on a bald plain. Close beside the chair was a telescope on a tripod. Not only could she see the town but she could even pick out faces.

She was a small woman, not over five-two, but quite plump. Moreover, she was pretty. Her hair was dark, streaked with gray, and her skin remarkably young for what her years must have been. I noticed, with appreciation, that fastened to the right side of her
chair was a permanent holster containing a .44 Colt pistol.

For several minutes she said absolutely nothing, just studying us, then she indicated a couple of chairs. “Please be seated.”

She looked up and said, “Edith? Will you bring us some coffee? Yes, for me, too.”

Then she looked at me. “You will be Milo Talon. I have heard quite a bit about you, young man.”

Without waiting for any acknowledgment from me, she turned to Molly. “And you’ve been a great help. You are just what we needed. You’re young and you’re very pretty, and those cowboys will ride fifty miles just to look at a girl like you, and ride another fifty without touching the ground if you smile at them.