Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986) (17 page)

Dunn took a quick step back and grabbed for his gun, but Jim was already moving, expecting him to reach. Sandifer's left hand dropped to Art's wrist and his right smashed up in a wicked uppercut to the solar plexus.

Dunn grunted and his knees sagged. Jim let go of his wrist then and hooked sharply to the chin, hearing Dunn's teeth click as the blow smashed home. Four times more Jim hit him, rocking his head on his shoulders; then he smashed another punch to the wind and grabbing Dunn's belt buckle, jerked his gun belt open.

The belt slipped down and Dunn staggered and went to his knees. The outlaw pawed wildly, trying to get at Jim, but he was still gasping for the wind that had been knocked out of him.

The bunkhouse door opened and Sparkman stepped into the light. "What's the matter?" He asked. "What goes on?"

Sandifer called softly, and Sparkman grunted and came down off the steps. "Jim! You here?

There's the devil to pay up at the house, man! I don't know what came off up there, but there was a shootin'! When we tried to go up Mont was on the steps with a shotgun to drive us back."

"Take care of this hombre. I'll find out what's wrong fast enough. Where's Grimes an' Rep?"

"Rep Dean rode over to the line cabin on Cabin Creek to round up some boys in case of trouble. Grimes is inside."

"Then take Dunn an' keep your eyes open! I may need help. If I yell, come loaded for bear an' huntin' hair!"

Jim Sandifer turned swiftly and started for the house. He walked rapidly, circling as he went toward the little-used front door, opened only on company occasions. That door, he knew, opened into a large, old-fashioned parlor i that was rarely used. It was a showplace, stiff His and uncomfortable, and mostly gilt and plush. His The front door was usually locked, but he remembered that he had occasion to help move some furniture not long before and the door had been left unlocked. There was every chance to that it still was, for the room was so little used as to be almost forgotten.

Easing up on the veranda, he tiptoed across to the door and gently turned the knob. The door opened inward, and he stepped swiftly through and closed it behind him. All was dark and silent, but there was light under the intervening door and a sound of movement. With the thick carpet muffling his footfalls, he worked his way across the room to the door.

"How's the old man?" Martin was asking.

His mother replied, "He's all right. He'll live." i Martin swore. "If that girl hadn't bumped me, I'd have killed him and we'd be better off. We could easy enough fix things so that Sandifer would get blamed for it."

"Don't be in such a hurry"... Rose Martin intervened.

"You're always in such a fret. The girl's here, an' we can use her to help. As long as we have her, the old man will listen, and while he's hurt, she'll do as she's told."

Martin muttered under his breath.

"If we'd started by killing Sandifer like I wanted, all would be well"... He said irritably. "What he said about the Katrishen trouble startin' with our comin' got the old man to thinkin'. Then I figure Bowen was sorry he fired his foreman."

"No matter"... Rose Martin was brusque.

"We've got this place, and we can handle the Katrishens ourselves. There's plenty of time now Sandifer's gone."

Steps sounded. "Lee, the old man's comin' out of it. He wants his daughter."

"Tell him to go climb a tree"... Martin replied stiffly. "You watch him!"

"Where's Art?" Klee protested. "I don't like it, Lee! He's been gone too long. Somethin's up!"

"Aw, forget it! Quit cryin'! You do more yelp in' than a mangy coyote!"

Sandifer stood very still, thinking. There was no sound of Elaine, so she must be a prisoner in her room. Turning, he tiptoed across the room toward the far side. A door there, beyond the old piano, opened into Elaine's room. Carefully, he tried the knob. It held.

At that very instant a door opened abruptly, and he saw light under the door before him. He heard a startled gasp from Elaine and Lee Martin's voice, taunting, familiar.

"What's the matter? Scared?" Martin laughed.

"I just came in to see if you was all right. If you'd kept that pretty mouth of yours shut, your dad would still be all right! You tellin' him Sandifer was correct about the Katrishens an' that he shouldn't of fired him!"

"He shouldn't have"... The girl said quietly. "If he was here now, he'd kill you. Get out of my room."

"Maybe I ain't ready to go?" He taunted.

"An' from now on I'm goin' to come an' go as I like."

His steps advanced into the room, and Jim tightened his grip on the knob. He remembered that lock, and it was not set very securely. Suddenly, an idea came to him. Turning, he picked up an old glass lamp, large and ornate.

Balancing it momentarily in his hand, he drew it back and hurled it with a long overhand swing through the window!

Glass crashed on the veranda, and the lamp hit, went down a step, and stayed there. Inside the girl's room, there was a startled exclamation, and he heard running footsteps from both the girl's room and the old man's. Somebody yelled, "What's that? What happened?" And he hurled his shoulder against the door.

As he had expected, the flimsy lock carried away and he was catapulted through the door into Elaine's bedroom. Catching himself, he wheeled like a cat and sprang for the door that opened into the living room beyond. He reached it just as Mont jerked the curtain back, but not wanting to endanger the girl, he swung hard with his fist instead of drawing his gun.

The blow came out of a clear sky to smash I Mont on the jaw, and he staggered back into the I room. Jim Sandifer sprang through, legs spread, I hands wide.

I "You, Martin"... He said sharply. "Draw!"

I Lee Martin was a killer, but no gunman.

White I to the lips, his eyes deadly, he sprang behind his I mother and grabbed for the shotgun.

I "Shoot, Jim"... Elaine cried. "Shoot!"

He could not. Rose Martin stood between him I and his target, and Martin had the shotgun now and was swinging it. Jim lunged, shoving the I table over, and the lamp shattered in a crash. He I fired and then fired again. Flame stabbed the I darkness at him, and he fell back against the wall, I switching his gun. Fire laced the darkness into a stabbing crimson crossfire, and the room thunI dered with sound and then died to stillness that was the stillness of death itself.

No sound remained, only the acrid smell of gunpowder mingled with the smell of coal oil and the faint, sickish-sweet smell of blood. His guns ready, Jim crouched in the darkness, alert II for movement. Somebody groaned and then sighed deeply, and a spur grated on the floor.

From the next room, Gray Bowen called weakly, "Daughter? Daughter, what's happened? What's wrong?"

There was no movement yet, but the darkness grew more familiar. Jim's eyes became more accustomed to it. He could see no one standing.

Yet it was Elaine who broke the stillness.

"Jim? Jim, are you all right? Oh, Jim are you safe?"

Maybe they were waiting for this.

"I'm all right"... He said.

"Light your lamp, will you?" Deliberately, he moved and there was no sound within the room only outside, a running of feet on the hardpacked earth. Then a door slammed open, and Sparkman stood there, gun in hand.

"It's all right, I think"... Sandifer said. "We shot it out."

Elaine entered the room with a light and caught herself with a gasp at the sight before her.

Jim reached for the lamp.

"Go to your father"... He said swiftly. "We'll take care of this."

Sparkman looked around, followed into the room by Grimes. "Good grief"... He gasped.

"They are all dead! All of them!"

"The woman, too?" Sandifer's face paled. "I hope I didn't his "You didn't"... Grimes said. "She was shot in the back by her own son. Shootin' in the dark, blind an' gun crazy."

"Maybe it's better"... Sparkman said. "She was an old hellion."

Klee Mont had caught his right at the end of his eyebrow, and a second shot along the ribs.

Sandifer walked away from him and stood over Lee Martin. His face twisted in a sneer, the dead man lay sprawled on the floor, literally shot to doll rags.

"You didn't miss many"... Sparkman said grimly.

"I didn't figure to"... Jim said. "I'll see the old man and then give you a hand."

"Forget it."... Grimes looked up, his eyes faintly humorous. "You stay in there. An' don't spend all your time with the old man. We need a new setup on this here spread, an' with a new son-inlaw who's a first-rate cattleman, Gray could set back an' relax!"

Sandifer stopped with his hand on the curtain.

"Maybe you got something there"... He said thoughtfully. "Maybe you have!"

"You can take my word for it"... Elaine said, stepping into the door beside Jim. "He has! He surely has!"

LIT A SHUCK FOR TEXAS.

In the old days, when a man was going through the brush to another campfire or another cabin he lit a handful of cornshucks to light his way.

So he "lit a shuck."... Wh became the phrase used to say somebody was going or had gone.

And many times when a man went west they just wrote after his name "GTT"... WH meant "gone to Texas"... Wh was as good as saying he'd gone completely out of the known world, that he had vanished into limbo, and many did disappear in just that way.

A lot of men were picking up and leaving. In fact, the expression "gone west"... Was one way of saying a man was dead, although a lot of those who went west did not die and a lot of them did not go home, either. They just kept on lighting a shuck for somewhere else. The West was a wandering man's country. There was always something to be seen just around the bend or over the hill, and all a man had to do to get there was get onto the middle of a horse and keep looking between its ears.

Lit a Shuck for Texas.

The Sandy Kid slid the roan down the steep bank into the draw and fast walked it over to where Jasper Wald sat his big iron-gray stallion.

The Kid, who was nineteen and new to this range, pulled up a short distance from his boss.

That gray stallion was mighty near as mean as Wald himself.

"Howdy, Boss! Look what I found back over in that rough country east of here."

Wald scowled at the rock the rider held out. "I ain't payin' yuh to hunt rocks"... He declared.

"You get back there in the breaks roundin' up strays like I'm payin' yuh for."

"I figgered yuh'd be interested. I reckon this here's gold."

"Gold?" Wald's laugh was sardonic, and he threw a contemptuous glance at the cowhand.

"In this country? Yuh're a fool!"

The Sandy Kid shoved the rock back in his chaps pocket and swung his horse back toward the brush, considerably deflated. Maybe it was silly to think of finding gold here, but that rock sure enough looked it, and it was heavy. He reckoned he'd heard somewhere that gold was a mighty heavy metal.

When he was almost at the edge of the badlands, he saw a steer heading toward the thick brush, so he gave the roan a taste of the diggers and spiked his horse's tail after the steer. That old ladino could run like a deer, and it headed out for those high rocks like a tramp after a chuck wagon, but when it neared the rocks, the mossyhorn ducked and, head down, cut off at right angles, racing for the willows.

Beyond the willows was a thicket of brush, rock, and cactus that made riding precarious and roping almost suicidal, and once that steer got into the tangle beyond he was gone.

The Kid shook out a loop and hightailed it after the steer, but it was a shade far for good roping when he made his cast. Even at that, he'd have made it, but just as his rope snagged the steer, the roan's hoof went into a gopher hole, and the Sandy Kid sailed right off over the roan's ears. bar As he hit the ground all in a lump, he caught a bar glimpse of the ladino. Wheeling around, head down with about four or five feet of horn, it started for him.

With a yelp, the Kid grabbed for his gun, but it was gone, so he made a frantic leap for a cleft in the ground. Even as he rolled into it, he felt the hot breath of the steer, or thought he did.

The steer went over the cleft, scuffling dust down on the cowboy. When the Kid looked around, he saw he was lying in a crack that was about three feet wide and at least thirty feet deep. He had landed on a ledge that all but closed off the crack for several feet.

Warily he eased his head over the edge and then jerked back with a gasp, for the steer was standing, red-eyed and mean, not over ten feet away and staring right at him.

Digging out the makings, the Kid rolled a cigarette.

After all, why get cut up about it? The steer would go away after a while, and then it would be safe to come out. In the meantime it was mighty cool here and pleasant enough, what with the sound of falling water and all.

The thought of water reminded the Kid that he was thirsty. He studied the situation and decided that with care he could climb to the bottom without any danger. Once down where the water was, he could get a drink. He was not worried, for when he had looked about he had seen his horse, bridle reins trailing, standing not far away. The roan would stand forever that way.