the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) (14 page)

His horse was gone!

Trapped, he turned swiftly, reaching for his gun. In front of Bon Caddo a red eye winked, then winked again. Thunder roared in John Daniel's ears and a terrible flame seemed to rush through him. He did not see the red eye wink again for he was falling, falling, already dead, into the broken branches of a manzanita.

There is a place in the Ton to Basin where a long, low ranch house looks out upon a valley. Cottonwood leaves whisper their secrets around the house and on the veranda a woman watches her husband walking up from the barn with his two tall sons. Inside the house a daughter sings songs more haunting than those her mother sang in the Palace, long ago. The big man whose hair is no longer rust red, pauses by her side.

Before them, die peace of the meadows, and the tall sons washing for supper in the doorside basins. Inside, the song continues.

"It's been a good Me, Mother, a good life," he says quietly.

Far to the north there is an adobe wall with a bullet buried in it, a bullet nobody ever saw. A smashed elbow bone, covered now by the sand of the wash, lies among the debris of a pack-rat's nest, and where the manzanita grew there is a whitened skull. In the exact center of that skull are two round bullet holes, less than a half inch apart.

*

DUFFY'S MAN

Duffy's man had been on the job just six days when trouble started.

Duffy, who was older than the gnarled pin-oak by the water hole, knew there would be trouble when he saw Clip Hart riding up to the stable. Duffy had covered a lot of miles in his time, and had forgotten nothing, man or animal, that he had seen in his travels.

Clip Hart had killed a man seven years before in El Paso, and Duffy had seen it happen. Since then there had been other killings in other towns, and three years in the state pen for rustling. From time to time Hart had been investigated in connection with robberies of one kind or another.

Hart was older, heavier, and harder now. He had the coldly watchful eye of a hunted man. There were two men with him and one of them rode across the street to the Pine Saloon and stood alongside his horse, watching the street.

Hart looked at the sign on the livery stable and then at the fat old man in the big chair. "Your Duffy?" Hart measured him as he spoke.

"I'm Duffy." The old man shifted his bulk in the polished chair. "What can I do for you?"

"The use of your stable. I've seven horses coming in tonight. They'll be kept here in your stable, saddled all the time."

Duffy shifted himself in his seat. "None of that here. I'll not want your business. Not here."

"You'll keep them. You don't move very fast, Duffy." Clip Hart struck a match on the seat of his pants and held up the flame. "Your barn can't move at all." He lifted the flame suggestively. "Where's your hostler?"

Duffy turned his head on his fat neck. He was no fool, and he knew Hart was not bluffing. He opened his mouth to call for his hostler, and as he turned his head he saw him there, standing in the door, his hands on his hips.

Duffy's man was tall, lean, and wide-shouldered. His face was still. Sometimes his eyes smiled, rarely his lips. The stubble of beard he had worn when Duffy hired him was gone now, but he wore no hat and he still wore the worn, badly scuffed shoes, unusual foot gear in a country of boots and spurs.

There was a small scar on one cheekbone and sometime long ago his nose had been broken. He was probably twenty-five but he looked older, and the years behind him had probably been rugged years.

Clip Hart stared at him. "There'll be seven horses brought here tonight. Keep them saddled and ready to go. Understand?"

Duffy's man jerked a thumb at Duffy. "I take my orders from him."

Hart's anger flared. He was a man who could not accept resistance of any kind. It drove him to a killing fury and Duffy knew it, and was worried. "You'll take my orders!" Hart said. "Get back inside!"

Deliberately, the hostler glanced at Duffy and the old man nodded. Duffy's man turned on his heel and went back inside.

"You'll get paid, and plenty," Hart was telling Duffy, "but no arguments, understand?" Then, his tone thick with contempt, he added, "Who in this town could make trouble for us?"

When Hart crossed the street to the saloon, Duffy's man returned to the door. "You goin' to take that?"

"We've no choice. I'm no gunslinger. There'sno more than seven men in town right now, all quiet, peaceful men. Anyway, their womenfolks would be scared. We've been expectin' something of the kind for a long time." He looked around. "You're new here. Those men are bad, real bad." Duffy's man merely looked at him. "Are they?"

he asked.

He walked back into the stable and climbed to the loft, forking hay into the mangers, then put corn into seven feed boxes. Walking out he said, "I'll eat now," slipping into his coat as he spoke. He did not look at Duffy. The three horses were still across the street.

There was a sign that saidma's kitchen and when he went inside there were two tables eight feet long with a bench along each side and at each end. Clip Hart was sitting at the end of one table with his back to the wall. Duffy's man sat down alongside the table near the opposite end.

He had been born in the West but left with his mother when he was ten and had grown up in the streets of New York. At fifteen, after two years working on a fishing boat he had shipped out around the Horn. He dealt monte in a Barbary Coast dive, fought a series of bareknuckle fights, and won them. He had become friendly with Jem Mace and learned a lot about fighting from him, the master boxer of his time. At seventeen he was on a windjammer in the China Sea. Back in New York again he fought several more bareknuckle fights and won each time.

Discontented with his life he found an interest in books and began to study with an eye to bettering himself, although without any definite idea. Running out of money he worked his way West on the railroad and finally, dead broke, he dropped off the stage in Westwater.

Westwater had one restaurant, one saloon, a livery stable, a blacksmith shop, a crossroads store, and a stage station which doubled as a post office.

Julie came around the table and put a platebefore him. He thanked her and watched her fill the cup. She was a slender girl with Irish blue eyes, black hair, and a few freckles. She left him and went around the table, picking up several dirty dishes. It looked like at least three men had left without finishing their meals when Hart came in.

"More coffee!" Hart looked at the girl as he spoke, boldly appraising. When she went to fill his cup he slipped an arm around her waist.

She stepped away so quickly that it jerked Hart off balance and his face turned ugly with anger. "Put that pot down and come here I" he said. "Keep your hands to yourself!" Julie flared. 'I'll serve you, but I won't be pawed by you !"

Clip started to rise but Duffy's man grabbed the table and shoved hard. The end of the table hit Hart's hip as he was turning to rise, and it caught him off balance. He staggered, the bench behind tripped him. He fell hard, his feet flying up.

Duffy's man stood over him. "Let her alone," he said. "A man in your business can't afford to fool around."

"You're tellin' me my business?" He gathered his feet under him but he was in no position to argue, and something in the face of Duffy's man warned him.

At the same time he realized that what the hostler said was true. He could not afford trouble here and now. He could wait. He got carefully to his feet. "Aw, I was just foolin'!" he said. "No need for her to be so persnickety."

Then as he started to brush himself off, his anger flared again. "You shoved that table I" he exclaimed.

"You catch on fast." Duffy's man spoke calmly, standing there with his hands on his hips, just looking at Hart. The outlaw grew more and more angry. At the same time he felt an impulse to caution. No trouble here and now. That could wait. Without another word he drew back his bench and sat down. When he had finished eating he threw a half-dollar on the table and went out without so much as a backward glance.

Julie filled his cup again. "He won't forget that."

"I know."

"He'll kill you. He's killed other men."

"Maybe."

Duffy's man finished his meal in silence, ever conscious of her presence. When he got up he dropped two bits on the table to pay for the meal, then went to the door. "You be careful," she warned.

He crossed the street and saw the horses the men had ridden into town were gone. It was dark now, but he could still see Duffy seated in his big old chair.

"Horses come?"

"Not yet." Duffy's chair creaked. "What happened over there?"

"He got fresh with Julie, and I shoved him down with a table. He didn't like it very much."

"He'll kill you."

"I'm not ready to die."

"Take a horse," Duffy advised. 'Take mat little bay. If you ever get the money you can send it to me. If not, forget it. I like you, son."

"I don't need a horse."

"You won't have a chance."

"You go home, Mr. Duffy, and don't come out tomorrow. Leave this to me. It's my fight."

Duffy's chair creaked as he got up. "The bay's in the box stall if you want it." He paused near me corner of the bam. "Have you got a gun?"

"No, I don't think I'll need one." He was silent, and he was aware that the old man had not moved, but stood there in the shadows.

"The way I see it," he said, "they've got this town treed. They can do as they please. First they Will use it as a way station for fresh horses, thenthey'll take over the town's business, then the people. Men will be killed and women taken."

"Maybe."

"You go home now, Mr. Duffy. You stay out of this."

Duffy's man listened to the slow, retreating steps. Duffy must be nearly eighty. The storekeeper was well past sixty. The tough young men of the town were all gone on a cattle drive. They would be back next year, or maybe they would never come back. The hardships of a cattle drive being what they were. It made no difference now. He was a man who knew what had to be done and he was not accustomed to asking for help.

He sat down in Duffy's chair and waited. There had been a man in a railroad construction camp who was always quoting, and those quotations had a way of sticking in the mind. Duffy's man stirred in the chair, remembering one the fellow had loved to quote. Time and again he had said it.

They tell us, Sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week? Will it be next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed and a guard stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Sir, we are not weak if we make proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power.

The words had a nice sound and he said them aloud, but softly, listening to the smooth sound of them on his lips. He had the Irishman's love of fine sounding words and the Irishman's aptitude for rebellion. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. The fellow in the construction camp who quoted that, he had been better than a book, and all he needed to start him off was a bit of rye whiskey.

It was past midnight when the horses came. Two riders led them up under the trees and then

across the street to the stable. One man remained outside in Duffy's chair while the other helped Duffy's man tie them in the stalls. They were all fine, beautifully built animals.

The man was stocky and not very tall. He lifted the lantern to the hostler's face. "New?"

"Drifting."

"You take good care these horses are ready. You do that and you'll have no trouble. You might even find a few extra bucks in your kick when this is over. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you."

The man walked back to the door but did not step out into the light. There was a lantern over the door that was kept burning all night, and it threw a pale glow around the stable door.

Duffy's man watched the glow of their cigarettes and then he went to the harness room. There were several old saddles, odds and ends of harness, and in a corner, behind a dusty slicker there was something else.

It was a Colt revolving shotgun.

He peered out a crack of the door, then put the lantern on the floor between himself and the door. Taking up the shotgun he wiped it free of dust, then he took it apart and went to work on it

Several times he went to the door to peer out After almost two hours of work he had the shotgun in firing condition. The cylinder would no longer revolve of itself but could be turned by hand. Duffy's man fed shells into the four chambers. They were old brass shotgun shells, and he had loaded them himself. Then he stood the shotgun back in the corner and hung the slicker over it

The short, stocky man was in the chair now and the other one was asleep on the hay just inside the door. Duffy's man stopped inside the door. "What time tomorrow?" he asked.

The fellow looked around at him. "Maybe noon. Why?"

"Wonderin' if I should feed them again. They won't run good on a full stomach."

"Say, that's right. Feed 'em now, I s'pose. All right?"