Novel 1956 - Silver Canyon (v5.0) (11 page)

There is a magic about the desert at night. Until you have seen it, stood alone in the midst of it, you cannot know what enchantment is. There is a stillness there and a nearness of stars such as no other place on earth offers.

I rode quietly and steadily, not hurrying, but feeling the coolness of the night, and remembering the girl I had left behind me, remembering Moira.

Mulvaney was waiting for me. “Knew the horse's walk.” He nodded toward the hills. “Too quiet out there.”

We turned in then, and rested, but during the night I awakened with the sound of a shot ringing in my ears. Mulvaney was sleeping soundly so I did not disturb him, nor was I even sure that I had heard it. A real shot? Or something in a dream? All was quiet, and after listening for a while I crawled back into the warmth of my blankets, of no mind to go exploring in the middle of a chill desert night.

In the morning I mentioned it to Mulvaney.

“Did you get up?”

“Yes, but I didn't hear anything. It might have been one of the Benaras boys. Sometimes they hunt at night.”

Two hours later I knew better. Maverick Spring lay in that no man's land where the Boxed M bordered the Two-Bar, and I had ridden that way, for there was bog on one side of the spring and twice I'd had to pull steers out of there.

The morning was fresh and clear as I was coming up out of the wash. Heading across for the spring, I saw a riderless horse.

He was standing his head down and, suddenly worried, I picked my horse up to a canter.

Drawing near, I saw that a dark bundle lay on the ground near the horse. The dark bundle was a man, and he was dead. Even before I turned the body over, I knew it was Rud Maclaren.

He had been shot twice from behind, both times in the head.

He was sprawled on his face, one knee drawn up, both hands lying in sight, on the sand. His belt gun was tied down. Rud Maclaren had been shot down from behind without an instant of warning.

After that one quick look, I stepped back and, drawing my rifle from the scabbard, I fire three quick shots as a signal to Mulvaney.

When he saw Maclaren his face went three shades whiter.

“This is trouble, lad. The country respected him. A man will hang for this.”

“Feel of him, Mulvaney. The man's cold. It must have been that shot I heard last night.”

Mulvaney nodded. “You'd best rig a story, Matt.” It was the first time he had ever called me by name. “This will blow the lid off.”

Of that there was no doubt, and I needed no argument to convince me that I was the logical suspect.

“No rigging. I'll tell the truth.”

“They'll hang you. He's on your place, and the two of you had been feuding.”

Standing over the body with Mulvaney's words ringing in my ears, I could see with clarity the situation I faced. Yet why had Maclaren come here? What was he doing on my ranch in the middle of the night? And who could have been riding with him?

Somebody wanted Maclaren dead badly enough to shoot him in the back, and had lured him here on some pretext. He certainly was not a man given to midnight rides. It had been late when I left his ranch and at that time he had been there. But so had Morgan Park.

The morning was cool, with a hint of rain. Mulvaney started for the Boxed M to report the killing to Canaval. It would be up to Canaval to break the news to Moira. And I did not want to think of that.

My luck broke, in one sense, Jolly Benaras came riding up the Wash, and I sent him off to town to report the shooting to the sheriff and to Key Chapin.

When they had gone, I mounted my horse and, careful to obscure no tracks, scouted the area. There was a confusion of hoof prints where his horse had moved about during the night, and at that point the sand was soft and there was no definition to any of the tracks.

One thing puzzled me. I had heard only one shot, yet there were two bullet holes. Crouching beside the body, I studied the setup. Strangely enough, only one bullet hole showed evidences of bleeding.

There were no other tracks that I could identify. They were mingled and overlapped each other, and all were indefinite because of the soft sand.

When I saw riders approaching I walked back to the body. The nearest was Canaval, and beside him, Moira. The other three were Boxed M cowhands. One glance at their faces and I knew there was no doubt in their mind as to who had killed Rud Maclaren.

Canaval looked at me, his eyes cold, calculating, and shrewd. Moira threw herself from the horse and ran to the still form lying on the sand. She had not looked at me or acknowledged my presence.

“This looks like trouble, Canaval. I think I heard the shot.”

“Shot?”

“Only one…and he's been shot twice.”

Nobody said anything, but all kept their eyes on me. They were waiting for me to defend myself.

“When did he leave the ranch?”

“No one knows, exactly.” Canaval sat very still in the saddle, and I knew he was trying to make up his mind about me. “He turned in after you left—it must have been around two. Maybe later.”

“The shot I heard was close to four o'clock.”

The Boxed M riders had moved out, casually, almost accidentally it seemed, but shutting me off from any escape. Behind me was the spring, the bog, and a shoulder of rock. Before me, the riders formed a semicircle.

These were men who rode for the brand, men loyal, devoted, and utterly ruthless when aroused. The night before they had given me the benefit of the doubt, but now the evidence seemed to point at me.

“Who was with him when you last saw him?”

“He was alone. And if it's Morgan Park you're thinking of, forget it. He left right after you did.”

Tom Fox, a lean, hard-bitten Boxed M rider, took his rope from his saddle.

“What we waitin' for, men? There's our man.”

“Fox, from all I hear you're a good hand, so don't throw your loop over any quick conclusions I didn't kill Rud Maclaren, and had no reason to. We made peace talk last night and parted on good terms.”

Fox looked over at Carnaval. “Is that right?”

“It is—but Rud changed his mind afterward.”

“What?”

That I could not believe, yet Canaval would not lie to me. Rud Maclaren had been only half won over to my thinking, I knew. But that he could have changed his mind so fast I was not willing to believe.

“Anyway, how could I know that?”

“You couldn't,” Canaval agreed, “unless he got out of bed and rode over to tell you. He's the sort that might do just that—I can think of no other reason why he would ride out durin' the night.”

The one thing I had been telling myself was that I'd be in the clear because I had no motive. And here it was, the perfect motive. My mouth was dry and my hands felt cold…sweat broke out on my forehead.

Fox began to shake out a loop. I tried to catch Moira's eye, but she refused to look at me. Canaval seemed to be studying over something in his mind.

Nobody had drawn a gun, yet that loop in Fox's hand could snake over me quicker than I could throw a gun and fire. And if I moved toward a gun, Canaval would also. I didn't know whether I could beat Canaval or not…and he was a man I didn't want to kill.

Fox moved his horse a step forward, but Moira stopped him.

“No, Tom. Wait for the men from town. If he killed my father I want him to die, but we'll wait.”

Reluctantly, Fox waited, and then we heard the horses coming. There were a dozen riders, with Key Chapin in the lead.

He threw me a quick, worried glance, then turned to Canaval. Briefly and to the point, the foreman of the Boxed M explained the situation.

Maclaren and I had talked, we had made a tentative peace agreement. Then Rud had changed his mind. Now he was dead, and I had been found with the body.

The evidence as he summed it up was damning. There was motive and opportunity for me, and for no other known person.

Looking at their faces, I felt a sinking in my stomach. You are right up against the wall, Matt Brennan, I told myself. You've come to the end, and you'll hang for another man's crime.

Mulvaney had not returned after informing the Boxed M of Maclaren's death. And there was no sign of Jolly Benaras.

“One thing,” I said suddenly, “I'd like to call to your attention.”

There were no friendly eyes in those that turned to me.

“Chapin,” I said, “will you turn Maclaren over?”

He looked from me to the body, then swung down and walked over. In looking at Maclaren's face. I had lifted the body but had let it fall back in place. I heard Moira's breath catch as Chapin stooped to turn the dead man. He rolled him over, then straightened up.

He looked at me, puzzled. The others simply waited, seeing nothing, understanding nothing.

“You accuse me because he is here, on my ranch. Well, he was not killed here.
There's no blood on the ground!
”

Startled, their eyes turned to the sand upon which Maclaren had been lying. The sand was ruffled, but there was no blood.

“One wound bled badly and there must have been quite a pool where he was lying because his shirt is covered with it. The sand would be bloody if he was killed here.

“What I am saying is that he was killed elsewhere, then carried here and left.”

“But why?” Chapin protested.

“You suspect me, don't you? What other reason would there be?”

“Another thing,” I added, “the shot that I heard was fired into him after he was dead!”

“How d'you figure that?” Fox was studying me with new eyes.

“A dead man does not bleed. Look at him! All the blood came from one wound.”

Suddenly, we were aware that more horsemen had come up behind us. It was Mulvaney and the Benaras boys, all of them.

“We'd be beholden,” Jolly said, “if you'd all move back. We're friends to Brennan and we don't believe he done it. Now move back.”

The Boxed M riders hesitated, not liking it, but they had been taken from behind and there was little chance to even make a fight of it if trouble started.

Carefully, the nearest riders eased back. The situation was now at a stalemate and I could talk. But it was Moira I most wanted to convince, and how my words were affecting her I had no idea. Her face was shadowed with sadness, nothing more.

“There are other men who wanted Maclaren out of the way. What had I to fear from him? I had already showed I could hold the ranch…I wanted peace.”

Then more horses came up the trail and I recognized the redhead with whom I'd had trouble before. With him was Bodie Miller.

Chapter 15

B
ODIE MILLER PUSHED his horse into the inner circle, and I could see that the devil was riding him again. His narrow, feral features seemed even sharper today; his eyes showed almost white under the brim of his tipped down, narrow-brimmed hat.

Bodie had never shaved, and the white hair lay along his jaws mingled with a few darker ones. These last, at the corners of his mouth, lent a peculiarly vicious expression to his face.

He was an ugly young man, thin and narrowshouldered, and the long, bony fingers seemed never still.

He looked up at me, disregarding the body of Maclaren as if it was not there. I could respect the feeling of Tom Fox, for his eagerness to destroy me was but a reflection of his feudal loyalty for Maclaren. There was none of that in Miller. He just wanted to kill.

“You, is it? I'll kill you, one day.”

“Keep out of this, Bodie!” Canaval ordered, stepping his horse forward. “This isn't your play!”

Miller's hatred was naked in his eyes. In his arrogance he had never liked taking orders from Canaval, and that fact revealed itself now.

“Maclaren's dead,” he said brutally. “Maybe you won't be the boss any more. Maybe she'll want a
younger
man for boss!”

The leer that accompanied the words gave no doubt as to his meaning, and suddenly I wanted to kill, suddenly I was going to. In the next instant I would have made my move, but it was Canaval's cool, dispassionate voice that stopped me.

“That will be for Miss Moira to decide.” He turned to her. “Do you wish me to continue as foreman?”

Moira Maclaren's head came up. Never had I been so proud of anyone.

“Naturally.” Her voice was level and cold. “And your first job as my foreman will be to fire Bodie Miller.”

Miller's face went livid with fury, his lips bared back from his big, uneven teeth, but before he could speak I interfered.

“Don't say it, Bodie. Don't say it.”

So there I stood in the still, cool morning under the low gray clouds, with armed men around me in a circle, and I looked across the body of Rud Maclaren and stood ready to draw. Within me I knew that I must kill this man or be killed, and at that instant I did not want to wait for the decision. I wanted it now…here.

The malignancy of his expression was unbelievable. “You an' me are goin' to meet,” he said, staring at me.

“When you're ready, Bodie.”

Deliberately, I turned my back on him.

Standing beside the spring, I rolled a smoke and watched them load the body of Maclaren into the buckboard. Moira was avoiding me, and I made no move to go to her.

Chapin and Canaval had stood to one side talking in low voices, and now they turned and walked over to me.

“We don't think you're guilty, Brennan. But have you any ideas?”

“Only that he was killed elsewhere and carried here to throw suspicion on me. And I don't believe it was Pinder. He would not shoot Rud Maclaren in the back. Rud was no gunman, was he?”

“No…definitely no.”

“And Jim Pinder is…so why shoot him in the back? The same thing goes for me.”

“You think Park did it?”

Again I repeated the little I had learned from Lyell, and those few words in Booker's office.