Ride the Dark Trail s-18 Read online

If Logan Sackett was hurt and holed up in the hills, he must find him. Despite his claims to the contrary ma could not have held out alone for long. It was Logan who had saved her and saved the ranch as well.

  The road to the ranch had changed little. Longingly, he waited for his first glimpse of the old house, and when it came he sighed deeply, excited to see it, to find it still standing. He had heard his mother was dead and the land scattered among many owners, but now he knew that story must have been started by Flanner himself in an attempt to keep them away by offering no reason to come back.

  Johannes Duckett had stood very quietly at the bar, his beer resting on the polished surface, scarcely tasted. He had listened to Milo Talon, keeping his eyes averted after that first glance. When Milo backed to the door and went out he made no attempt to follow, for be was thinking back to his first days with Jake Flanner.

  Flanner had not hired Duckett, merely suggested they ride on together, and Duckett, essentially a lonely man, had done so. Flanner was a talker, an easy, gracious talker who won most of his battles with his smooth tongue. Somehow Flanner always had money, and Duckett, who had more often than not lived from hand to mouth, had found it easier to just ride along with Flanner. Soon Flanner was suggesting things he might do, and Duckett had done them. Occasionally Flanner had said, "Here, you must be short of cash," and then had handed him a twenty, a half dozen twenties, or whatever. Johannes Duckett found himself living better than he had ever lived, and found himself with more ready cash than ever before.

  Flanner had not noticed, although he would not have cared, that Johannes Duckett had few needs, but he would have been surprised at the quiet little hoard Duckett had accumulated. A man with few or no wants and a fairly steady flow of cash can gather together a nice sum, and Johannes Duckett accumulated several thousand dollars of which nobody was aware. Neither did they know where Duckett kept it hidden.

  Duckett was a lean, quiet man whom some of the hands around Siwash did not consider overly smart. Others who knew him better did believe him smart, but the fact was that the thoughts of Johannes Duckett moved narrowly in only a few deeply grooved channels. He had no particular feelings about good and evil, but he had his own odd compulsions and beliefs. No amount of money or argument could have brought him to kill a child, yet he would have killed a woman without the slightest hesitation, and he had killed several. He had no moral or religious feelings about this, nor could he have explained why he did any of the things he did. He simply had no more scruples about killing a human being than about shooting a snake or a coyote.

  He had no loyalty for Jake Flanner, although Flanner believed Duckett followed him from nothing but loyalty. Jake had provided a kind of traveling companion that Duckett liked. He liked Flanner's smooth-talking ways and he liked that Flanner made his life easier. Also, Duckett had decided that Jake Flanner was shrewd ... he was a winner. And Johannes wanted to be associated with a winner.

  Now for the first time he had doubts.

  The doubts began when he looked at the great house on the MT. To him it was awesome, astonishing. It seemed impregnable. Emily Talon had seemed the same. In the time before the shooting started he had seen her on the trail or in Siwash and there was something about the gaunt old woman that shook him. When she looked at him he averted his eyes, and had she reason for scolding him he would have stood quietly and accepted it.

  Yet he was not one to argue. Had Flanner been less full of his own plans he would have seen that Johannes Duckett was hesitant. Yet the battle had begun, and the time drew on with no decision in view. From time to time Duckett heard gossip around the town about Milo Talon and his brother. A vague feeling of unease worked itself into those deeply channeled furrows within his brain, and for the first tune he grew restless.

  "Ever been to the western slope?" he asked Flanner once.

  "What? No ... I never have been." Flanner was irritated. "What brought that up?"

  "It's a good country, so they say. There's a place named Animas City. Down in a big park around the Animas River."

  "We've got enough to do right here," Flanner replied. "Why ride away from a sure thing?"

  "Is it?"

  Jake Flanner was startled. He had become so accustomed to Duckett's ready acceptance of any of his ideas that the comment startled him. "Of course, it is. Once that old woman is out of there we've got the finest setup ever. We'll just move in, and - "

  "There's more of them now. There's that girl, and there's Logan Sackett, and now there's that one with the rifle who helped Logan, and some of the boys say there's another man out there."

  "Look, Duck, I wouldn't be in this if I didn't know we can win and win big. When the time comes that girl will just go off by herself or one of the boys will take her. And Logan Sackett's dead. No man can soak up the lead he caught without dying. Why, he must have been hit seven or eight times, and as for that other one, I think he caught some lead, too."

  "You want to kill that old lady because she busted your knees."

  Flanner's face grew red with anger. He stared at Duckett. "All right," he said softly, "I do ... and I will. But that's beside the case. It is the place we want."

  Duckett listened but his thoughts were on this other man ... Milo Talon. Duckett talked little but he listened a lot, and he knew more about Milo Talon than any other person in Siwash. He knew, for example, that Milo was a lone wolf, that he was amazingly swift and accurate, and that even men known as dangerous avoided him.

  The odds were piling up. From now on every shot fired would increase the risk, as there were more people to fire back. Johannes Duckett's thinking was simple. He knew that two and two made four. He also knew that where there had been one old woman on the place in the beginning, although even then some suspected there were more, there were now two women and probably four men, for he had not for a moment accepted Logan Sackett's death. Hurt, maybe, but not dead. Johannes Duckett counted the dead when he saw the bodies.

  The odds had risen, and who was to say they would not continue to rise? Sackett was one of the feudal clans from Tennessee ... who was to say the others might not ride in?

  For the first time Duckett doubted the sagacity of Jake Flanner. For the first time he began to think of that money he had put away. He had enough to live as he lived for a year, perhaps two ... and two years was an almost immeasurable distance in the day-to-day living of Johannes Duckett.

  "I'm going to ride," he told himself.

  Once formulated, the idea established itself in its own groove and began to develop.

  Jake Flanner would have been surprised to discover that to Johannes Duckett he, Jake Flanner, meant no more than a horse Duckett might have ridden for a time. He had been a convenience over the last few years, but no more than that.

  Flanner believed Duckett to be loyal to the death. Duckett considered Flanner a source of income ... and now that source of income was endangered.

  And, of course, there was the western slope of the Rockies.

  Chapter 17

  My mouth was dry and my head was hot - the trip down the mountain had taken a lot out of me. I crouched there among the rocks and brush and studied the layout below. I still couldn't make it out.

  That spot on the back step was blood, sure as shootin'. Somebody had caught one there, and I was praying it wasn't the old woman or Pennywell. Search as I might I couldn't find anybody hid out, but they'd be hard to find until they moved ... if they were there.

  I'd lost a lot of blood and from the way I felt I knew I was worse off than I'd thought A couple of times there my eyes kind of glazed over until I couldn't see except through a mist. Leaning over I rested my arm on a boulder and my head on my arm. My breathing was hoarse and rasping and I was sick.

  Nothing moved down below, and I must have passed out there for a few minutes. When I came out of it I was still there, my head resting on that rock, but I felt like I was dying. That made me mad.

  Die? With that old lady in trouble? With that girl I'd brought to
the house in danger because of me? With my friend's ma down there, maybe about to get killed? And yes, I'll sure be honest with myself - a whole lot of the reason I was mad and surely determined to live was Jake Flanner. I could hear his voice again, tellin' them to do me in. All right, Jake, I said to myself. You want Logan Sackett dead. You want him dead but you're going to have to go all the way to make it happen.

  So I forced my head up and slid down to a better way of sittin'; through that brush, I watched the house. Below me I could see a sort of slide through the rocks. It was too steep to walk down, but a man lyin' flat on his back could maybe drop down fifteen or twenty feet lower, if he was careful.

  Easing myself around, I got my legs stretched out. With a rifle in one hand and the crutch in the other I moved myself between two bushes and under the edge of a boulder and slid, using the crutch and rifle to keep me from going too fast. As it was I stopped with a hard jolt against a slab of rock and, worst of all, I'd made some dust

  Now I was closer down. I checked my guns to be sure I had them loaded, then I felt of my cartridge belt and didn't like what I found. I had eleven cartridges left for my pistol, and in my pockets I had a couple more rounds for the rifle. This here was not going to be any long fight.

  Fogged though my thinkin' was, the more I studied that layout, the more sure I was that there was somebody inside who shouldn't be, that ma and them were dead or prisoners. Surely somebody would have come out that door otherwise.

  Or else there was somebody on the hill behind me.

  Now that was a thought. Maybe somebody back yonder had me right in their sights. Turning my head, I peered back up the mountain, but if they were right above me they couldn't see me at all. Suddenly I saw something I couldn't have seen from where I'd been until I slid.

  There was a man's body - alive or dead there was no way of knowing - sprawled in front of the bunkhouse. I couldn't see it well but it surely looked like Al Fulbric. Regardless of who it was, there'd obviously been a fight. If that was Al, and I was sure it was, then somebody would have come for him.

  The day had drawn on, and the sun was warm on my shoulders, but I wasn't feeling much but the warmth and the sickness that was in me. The house and the corrals down there seemed to waver, like there was heat waves between us. From time to time I ran my hands over the rifle. It was reality, it was something tangible, something I knew. Squinting my eyes I peered down there. Somebody had to come down, somebody had to come out of the house. Then I'd know.

  Suddenly my eyes caught movement, something out there on the road. Turning my head stiffly I peered, scowling, trying to see through the delirium that was in me.

  It was a horse. It was a black appaloosa.

  Only one man sat a horse like that, only one horse I'd ever seen looked like that. Far enough off so's I could just make him out, Milo Talon was riding up to a trap. Riding to his death from the guns that waited inside. Somehow he had to be warned, somehow he had to be told. I had no idea who was inside or how many there were, but I was sure there were too many. There'd been eight men including Flanner in the group that jumped me. Eight men in there with guns, just waiting for Milo or me.

  If I fired a shot the chances were I'd never get off that slope alive. The only reason I'd made it so far was that they didn't know I was there, and if I moved they'd nail me instantly. But I knew I was surely going to do it because Milo was my friend and I wasn't about to see him shot down as he rode up, unsuspecting.

  Unsuspecting? Well, maybe not. Milo never rode anywhere without being alert. He was like me, like a wild animal. He was always ready to cut and run or to fight.

  He was only some three hundred yards off now, and you could bet they had him in their sights. My rifle tilted and I fired into the air. He slapped spurs to his horse, went down on the far side, and left there with bullets kicking all around him. And me, I went down off that mountain.

  Nobody needed to tell me that I was walking into hell, nobody needed one word to tell me that ridge where I'd been holed up was going to be split wide open with rifle fire. If I died it was going to be gun in hand, boots on and walking, so I half ran, half slid off that hill, coming down like a madman.

  I hit ground knees bent, heels dug in, with bullets kicking dust all around me. My mind was a blur but I went for that door and hit it with my shoulder. Like I said, I'm a big man and strong, and even weak as I was I tore that door loose and plunged into the kitchen. A sandy-haired man with a double-barrel shotgun was right square in front of me and I banged a shot at him, then lunged on in, jerking up the muzzle of my rifle. It missed his throat and tore his nose wide open and he screamed like a scared woman. I came around with the butt and there was a dull thunk as he hit the floor under my feet.

  In the next room there was a sudden explosion, a yell, and I shifted the rifle to my left hand, grabbed up the shotgun, and plunged into the living room.

  There were four men there and Em Talon and Pennywell lying in a corner. Pennywell seemed to have a bloody lip. I swung that shotgun around and let go with both triggers at twelve-foot range. She boomed like a cannon and the room was so full of smoke that my eyes stung with it. My head was buzzing and my knees felt like they were going to go any minute but I levered shot after shot into the smoke where those men were.

  A man rushed through the smoke, six-gun in hand, his hat gone, hair wild, his blue eyes staring. I was to his right and he looked at me and swung the gun at me. I threw the shotgun at his face and followed it in. I had the rifle but I forgot it. I just taken a swing with my big right fist and clobbered him right over one of those blue eyes. His knees started to go and I taken that rifle in both hands and took a full swing at his belly with the butt. He folded like a wet sack and when he hit the floor on his knees I booted him in the face.

  Staggering, I went down. My knees hit, and I lunged to get up and fell down. I tried to get up and rolled over in time to see a man come busting in from the front door.

  He was a square-built man in a red-checkered shirt and he had a gun. He seen me and he throwed down on me. I figured he had me dead to rights. I looked square into that pistol and knew I'd bought it, but my whole life didn't pass in front of me. All I could think of was getting up and at him, knowing I'd never make it in time.

  Behind me a gun boomed, then boomed again. That man stood up on his tiptoes, his gun dribbled from fingers gone rubber, and he fell all in one piece. As I turned my head, there was Em Talon holding a big Dragoon Colt she'd had hid somewhere in the folds of her dress.

  Next thing I knew Pennywell was beside me, hauling me over to the wall, and the room was quiet. After a bit there was a moan ... and it was me. Then somebody said, "Don't shoot! For God's sake, don't shoot!" And a man, bloody and dying, staggered past me to the door.

  A window opened and the smoke started to suck out and the air cleared up. Three men were on the floor, but what shape they were in I don't know. They just laid there as Em knelt alongside of me and stared down at me. "You come just right, boy, you surely did. They got Barnabas tied up and they've shot Al."

  "Milo's here. I shot to warn him."

  "Milo? Then they better hunt cover."

  They never tried to move me. They fetched a pillow for my head and they bathed my wounds that had tore loose and after a while they fed me some broth. Part of my weakness was just sheer hunger, but the blood I'd lost had done me no good.

  Of the three men on the floor two of them were dead. One of them had caught most of the shotgun blast and the other had taken two forty-fours from Em's Dragoon Colt.

  The man I'd hit in the belly with the rifle butt was still alive although he was in bad shape. The others, one way or another, got out of the house and we never did know what became of them. Anyway, they were gone and there was no sign of Flanner. He'd been there, but crippled or not, he was gone before the shooting was over.

  Em told me three of them had been down on their knees at loopholes letting Milo ride up. Somebody among them knew who he was and Flanner wante
d him dead. With Em and Barnabas prisoners they expected to force one or the other to sign over the MT to them.

  Three weeks I lay abed, waited on by Pennywell and Em. Three weeks when I lay mighty weak and came close to cashing in. Barnabas, Milo, and Al Fulbric rode into town but the Flanner outfit had scattered.

  Albani Fulbric had been shot, all right, and had him a concussion, but no more than that and a minor flesh wound that gave him no trouble.

  With Barnabas and Milo around things were back to normal. Al taken it easy a few days and then he set to and worked like the hand he was. I was the only one laid up, and I was sick enough so I scarcely knew where I was or what was keeping for the first ten days.

  With the return of the Talon boys the house took on a new air. It surely didn't seem like that house was too big for them. They sang and roughhoused and told stories of the years between when they had been apart. Barnabas had traveled in Europe, had served in the army of France, and he was an educated man. Lyin' there in bed I listened to the easy flow of his talk and for the first time felt envy of another man.

  When I was a boy yonder in the mountains we had to walk or ride miles to the nearest school, and often enough there was work to keep us from it, and nobody to make us go when there wasn't. We youngsters tried to duck out of school whenever possible, and it shamed me to think there were now youngsters who knew more than me, who could write better and read better.

  I had never given thought to it before, and I could work as well as any man, but then I began to notice men like me ending up setting by with nothing to live on while others had a-plenty. Barnabas had plenty of schooling, and even Milo had a good bit I didn't know nothing but how to use a gun, ride a horse, and track game ... or men.

  Jake Flanner had disappeared. So had Johannes Duckett. Nobody had seen either one, and that tough lot who were hired by Flanner had all shaken the dust of the country from their hocks. The Flanner saloon and hotel had been taken over by Dorothy Arribas, while Con Wellington had opened his store full blast and was doing a good business.