West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) (26 page)

Koons shifted his feet. "Then," he took his pipe fronj his mouth, suddenly disturbed, "you must be Clete Ryan's nephew."

"Yes," he said.

Peg Fulton looked across the fire at Koons, and she started to speak, then stopped, looking helpless. Koons got up and walked toward the back of the cave. Peg would know, of course. Peg was a Gillis, and they had lived neighbors to the Ryans. Gillis worked for Clete, time to time, for Dave, too, before Mary got married and Dave went east.

He did not remember Roundy, but he remembered the story. The boy's father had been an Army officer, and he had taken the boy to Fort Brown, Texas. After that they never heard of them again.

The man with the Spencer rifle brought in an armful of fuel from outside and sat down near the fire, keeping back a little, and giving the others room. Despite the cold, the stone cabin was tight and the place was wanning up.

Peg moved around and took over the coffee making from Avery. Koons watched her, his eyes angry. This was a good girl. What else could she have done when that gambler left her? People had talked . . . thought the worst of her long ago.

"Warmin' up, Peg," he said suddenly. "Can I take your coat?"

She looked up, surprise changing to a softness and warmth. "Thank you, Alec," she said. "I was warm."

Koons took the coat into the shadows. He was surprised to feel himself blushing. He had not blushed in years. When he came back to the fire, Gagnon had a faintly knowing smile on his face. Koons felt a sudden murderous fury. Say something, he said under his breath. Make one snide remark and I'll hurt you so badly--/

The coffee was hot, and Armodel was sitting close beside Scott Roundy. Koons squatted down near Peg Fulton and accepted the cup she handed him. He could hear his mules stomping in the cave. They were eating their oats from the feed bags, and already content. It didn't take much for a mule to be happy ... or a man either, come to that.

An hour later all were fast asleep except for Alec Koons and Peg. He sat up, tending the fire and she tossed and turned, finally giving in to wakefulness. He smiled at her shyly, wanting to speak but feeling clumsy and tongue-tied. Finally he cleared his throat and, without looking up from the fire, spoke.

"Peg," he said, "four years ago I came nigh to askin' you, but I figured I was too old for you. I'm older now, but . . . well, so are you.

"Will you marry me?" He looked up at her, finally, seeking out her eyes in the firelight. She reached out her hand and took his and held it tightly.

"Of course, Alec. I wanted you to ask me, but I thought you never saw me like that. I'd be proud to marry you."

She fell asleep not a half hour later, comfortably in his arms.

The stage to Willowspring swung into the street at a spanking trot, almost twelve hours late. The wind was down and the sun was out and the little snow was going fast ... a crowd waited for the stage.

Koons swung his mules up to the stage station and started to get down. Todd Boysee stood off to one side, straight and tall, aloof and lonely in his threadbare black coat.

Koons started to swing down--he wanted to get to Todd first--but something made him look up. The man with the Spencer rifle was sitting unmoved atop the stage. He was half behind Armodel Chase's trunk, and,he had his rifle in his hands. He was smiling.

Scott Roundy got down from the stage and handed Armodel to the ground. Roundy felt rather than saw the crowd draw back, and he looked up to see Todd Boysee facing him.

"Roundy!" Boysee's voice was stern. "You huntin' me?"

Scott took a step forward, sensing the old man's feelings. He put up a hand. "No, I--"

Todd Boysee's hand dropped to his gun. Scott distinctly heard his palm slap the walnut butt.

A dull boom slammed against the false-fronted buildings, and Todd Boysee felt the bullet that would kill him. He took a step back--Scott Roundy had not drawn!

Boysee felt a sickness in his stomach. Something had hit him hard in the chest, and the boom was heavy in his ears. Then he saw Scott Roundy was shooting, but not at him. Boysee was on the ground, holding his fire. His eyes found focus.

Over the top of a trunk was the muzzle of a Spencer, and behind it and left of the gun a white spot of brow, eye, and a hat. Todd Boysee fired, and there was a spot over the eye and red on the face. Roundy fired again and then the man with the Spencer rifle humped up and rolled over, falling flat and dead into the dust alongside the stage.

Todd Boysee was down and dying. He was no fool. He had shot enough men and seen enough of them shot. "Who . . . who was it?"

"Johnny Cole," a man from the crowd said. "I guess he come to get you for killin' Lew."

"Boysee." Roundy got his arm under the old man's shoulders. "I was huntin' you. You're my uncle. My mother was Mary Ryan's sister."

Todd Boysee was feeling better than he had expected. He always figured to die alone. With Mary's nephew here it was different, somehow. There was a girl beside him. . . . Why, she even looked like Mary. A sight like her, in fact.

His eyes shifted to the girl and his hand gripped her wrist. "You love this boy?" His mind was slipping, he was backing down a dark corridor whose walls he couldn't see. "You stick with him, no matter what. It's all he'll ever have, what you can give him.''

Scott Roundy moved back from the walk and stood near Armodel. Todd Boysee had been carried away. The blood was on the boardwalk.

"Where were you goin?" He turned to look into her eyes.

"Just . . . west."

"Is this far enough?" he asked.

"It has to be ... He gave me a job to do."

"I was going to ask you," he said, "only--"

"I know," she said quietly, and she did know. She knew what she had read in the eyes of a lonely old man, and what had been in her heart since the night by the fire. There would be times of gladness and times of sorrow, there would be fear, doubt, and worry ... but no matter what, they would not be alone, not ever again.

*

To Hang Me High
.

He was a fine-looking man of fifty or so, uncommonly handsome on that tall bay horse. He turned in his. saddle like a commanding general, and said, "We will bivouac here, gentlemen. Our man cannot be far and there is no use killing our horses."

It wasn't the first time I had seen Colonel Andrew Met-calf, who was easily the most talked-about man in WilloW Springs. He alone did not have to worry about his mount-- he had brung one of his hands along, leading a beautiful Tennessee Walker, and twice a day he switched off from one t'other, so as not to tire either of them out. Those horses, I thought, had a better life than some people. Them with a master given to allowin' his horses rest, even on a posse.

My name is Ryan Tyler, a stranger in this country, and by the look of things not apt to live long enough to get acquainted. The colonel had nine men with him and they had just one idea in mind: to ride me down and hang me high.

Only two of them fretted me much. The colonel was a hard-minded man, folks said, with his own notions about right and wrong. The other one who worried me was Shiloh Johnson.

Three weeks ago Shiloh and me had us a run-in out to Wild Horse Camp. He was used to doin' just about whatever he pleased, for the reason that most everyone was scared of him. Only me bein' a stranger an' all, he tackled more than he figured on.

Johnny Mex Palmer seen it, and he said I done wrong. "You should have killed him, Rye. He'll never let it rest now until you're buried deep."

He had seen me beat Shiloh 'til he couldn't stand up, and me never get any more than some skinned knuckles. Well, folks had the saying around that Shiloh was the toughest man in a fight, the fastest on the draw, and the best man on a trail from Willow Springs to the Mesquite Hills.

He set some store by that reputation, Shiloh did, and now he had been beaten by a youngster, and easy-like to boot.

The colonel was a hard-minded man and a driver. Once started after a man, he wouldn't be likely to stop. Shiloh was an Injun on a trail, with his meanness to keep him at it. Up there in those rocks, cold as it was, it didn't look good for me.

The colonel, he swung down like on a parade ground, his fine dark hair almost to his shoulders, those shoulders so square under that blue cavalry overcoat.

They went to building a fire, all but Shiloh. He commenced to hunger around, tryin' to make out my trail. Shiloh smelled coon, he did. He had it in mind that I was close by, and he was like an old hound on the hunt.

Colonel Metcalf, he watched Shiloh, and finally, sort of irritable-like, he said, "Let it go, Johnson. Time enough at daybreak."

"He's close by, Colonel," Shiloh said. "I know he is. That horse of his was about done up."

The colonel's tone was edged a mite. "Let it wait!" He turned then, abruptly, and walking to the fire he put his hands out to the blaze. Shiloh Johnson, he stood there, not liking it much. But Colonel Metcalf ran the biggest brand in the Willow Springs country and when he spoke, you listened. He was no man to cross.

Shiloh was right about my horse. That Injun pony had plenty of heart but not much else. He did all he could for me, and died right up in the rocks not far off the trail. They would find him in the morning, and then they would know how close they had been.

They would know they had come within a few minutes of takin' the man who walked up to Tate Lipman and shot him dead on his own ranch. Shot him dead with half his ranch hands a-standin' by.

Only they never heard what I said to him in that one particular instant before I did it. Only Tate Lipman heard me, which was the way it had to be. It was only that I wanted him to know why he was dyin' that I spoke at all.

In that partic'lar instant, I said to him, "Rosa Killeen is a good girl, Tate. She ain't the kind you called her. An' you ain't going to worry her no more." Then he died there on the hard-packed clay, his blood covering his shirt and the ground. Before his men knew what was happenin' I threw down on them. Then I locked the passel o' them in the bunkhouse and throwed my leg over a saddle.

Me, I ain't much account, I reckon. I'm a driftin' man, a top hand on any man's outfit, but too gun-handy for comfort. Twenty-two years old and six men dead behind me, not any home to my name, nor place to go.

But Rosa Killeen was a good woman, and nobody knowed it better than me, who was in love with her.

She lived alone in that old red stone house back of the cottonwoods, and she had her a few chickens, a cow or two, and she lived mighty nice.

Once I fetched her cow for her, and she gave me eggs a couple of times, and now or again I'd set my saddle and talk to her, tellin' her about my family back in Texas and the place they had. I come of good stock, but my line played out of both money and folks just when I was passin' ten. Whatever I might have been had my pa lived, I don't know, but I became a lonesome boy who was gun-handed and salty before I stretched sixteen.

Rosa was the best thing in my life, and soon it seemed she set some store by me. Only she had education, and even if she was alone, she lived like a lady.

Folks said she had night visitors ... an' folks ought to be left to their opinions, but once a subject's been raised a couple of times it goes to bein' a rumor, and when the rumor is about a good girl like Rosa and it's bein' spread intentional-like--well, that tries my temper. That time with Shiloh, he saw that it riled me and so he kept it up. I told him to stop and 1 told him what kind of yellow dog I thought he was, and he grinned that mean grin of his and put his hand on the butt of that Navy Colt, so I hit him. He was set for a gunfight and it took him by surprise. He went down and I snatched his pistol away and tossed it out where the horses were picketed.

He got up and we' fought. I knocked him down 'til he didn't have the wind nor the will to get up. Then I told him there, and the rest of them, too. "She's a lady, an' nobody talks one word again' her. If he does, he better come a-smokin'. You understand that, Shiloh?"

It went against him, standin' there like that with four men lookin' on, four who saw me beat him down, an' him fighting dirty, too. Johnny Mex Palmer was right, I knew he was right ... I should have got at him with a gun and killed him then and there, but Shiloh was still alive, and now it was his turn.

Not only Shiloh knew Rosa had a night visitor. Me, I knew it, too. One night I had stopped my horse to watch her window light and wish . . . well, things I shouldn't be wishin'. I saw that horse ride up and saw a man with a wide hat go in. He stayed more than two hours and rode away . . . oh, I saw that, all right. But Rosa was a good girl, and nobody could make me feel different.

I asked her about it. Maybe I shouldn't have, it bein' none of my business, but there was a certain way that I felt about her an' I knew if I didn't ask I'd be worryin' and goin' crazy. So I asked but she didn't tell me, least not straight up like I wanted.

"I can't tell you, Rye," she said. "I'm sorry. I promise you if s not ... a romance." She blushed, an' wouldn't look me in the eye. "You've got to believe me, but that's all I can say." Well, I can't say I was satisfied, but I was surprised how much better I felt. I believed her and I loved her and that's all that mattered.