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  The movement threw her off-balance and she fell forward into his arms. He caught her, looking down into her astonished eyes, blazing with frustrated anger, and at her parted lips. He smiled again.

  “I’d kiss you,” he said, “because it looks most inviting, and likely it would be fun, but I won’t. Your kind kisses much better if you have to come and beg for it.”

  She tore herself free. “Beg?” Her eyes were blazing. “I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last man alive!”

  “No, ma’am, I reckon you wouldn’t get to. You’d be standin’ in the line waiting, standin’ away back toward the end.”

  A hard voice behind Lance cut the conversation short.

  “Seems like you’re takin’ in quite a lot of territory around here, stranger. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  It was the thin-faced man, his thumbs hooked in his belt. Two of the other men had spread out, one right and one left. Another man was out of sight, behind him, no doubt. Or across the buckboard from him.

  “Why, of course!” Lance said calmly. “Let’s have your questions, and then I’ll ask a few myself.”

  “I want to know where you was the day before yesterday.”

  Lance was puzzled. “The day before yesterday? I was riding, a good many miles from here.”

  “Have you got witnesses? You’re going to need them.”

  “What’s on your mind?” Lance felt the gathering of people about them, all listening.

  “I suppose you’ll claim you never heard of Joe Wilkins?”

  At the mention of the name, there was a muttering from the crowd.

  “You’re right, of course,” Lance agreed. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He was killed on Lost Creek Trail the day before yesterday. You were on that trail then, and there’s some of us think you done him in. Do you deny it?”

  “Deny it? I’m afraid I never heard of Joe Wilkins. I had no reason to kill him, and certainly do deny it.”

  “They found Wilkins,” the thin man’s eyes were on Lance, confident he had him where he wanted him, “drilled between the eyes. Shot with a six-shooter. You was on that road, an’ he was carryin’ money! You robbed him!”

  Lance was thinking calmly. There was more behind the man’s accusation than appeared on the surface. Either an effort was being made to force him to attempt a getaway—so they could kill him—or they were making an effort to discredit him. If he made a flat denial, it could be considered that he was calling the man a liar. This might trap him into a shoot-out. Yet what worried him most of all was the gathering crowd, none of whom knew him, and many of whom might have known Wilkins.

  Lance chuckled. “How’d you know I was on Lost Creek Trail?”

  “Because I seen you!”

  “Then,” Lance said gently, “you must have been on the trail, too. Or perhaps, since I didn’t see you there, you might have been hiding off the trail. And if you were hidden in the brush, why were you hidden? Did you kill Wilkins?”

  The man’s eyes widened a little and there was a shadow of panic in them.

  The crowd had expected Lance to say something that would provoke a fight. He was sure of that now—something that would make it possible for a legitimate killing. Instead, Lance had turned the accusation around on his accuser.

  “No! I didn’t kill him! He was my friend!”

  “I never noticed you being so friendly, Polti,” a big farmer interrupted. “If you were his friend, I figure you kept it a secret!”

  Somebody laughed and Polti turned sharply. “You keep your mouth shut! I’ll do the talkin’ here!”

  “You’ve talked enough,” Lance said, “to make a man mighty suspicious. Why are you so anxious to pin this shooting on a complete stranger? Why were you hiding off the trail? No honest man needs to hide!”

  “You killed Wilkins!” Polti insisted, and there was the look of sudden triumph in his eyes. “Everyone knows Wilkins had some gold dust he used to carry around. Here, I’ll search those saddlebags you’re carryin’! I’ll show you!”

  “You seem almighty sure.” Lance kept his voice low and composed. “Did you put it in my bags while I was in the trail house?”

  “Tryin’ to weasel out of it?” Polti sneered. “Well, you won’t! I’m goin’ to search those bags here an’ now!”

  Lance held himself very still, but his eyes were cold.

  “No! If anybody searches those saddlebags it won’t be you. But it will be done here, now, in the presence of these witnesses.”

  “I’ll search ’em myself!” Polti declared. “Now!”

  He turned, but before he could take a step, Lance moved. He grabbed Polti and spun him around. With a whining cry of fury, Polti went for his gun, but his hand never reached the holster. Lance’s left fist clipped Polti’s chin with a crack like that of a black-snake whip, and Polti went to the dust.

  “This don’t look good for you, stranger,” the big farmer said fearlessly. “Let’s just have a look at those bags!”

  “Of course,” Lance spoke quietly. “Although it wouldn’t surprise me to find the dust there.”

  He led the way to his horse. Then, suddenly, he stopped. “No,” he said, “a man might palm the dust if the sack is small.”

  He turned to the girl who had driven the buckboard. “Ma’am, my apologies for our earlier difficulty, and will you go through the bags for me?”

  Her eyes snapped. “With pleasure! And I hope I find the evidence to hang you!”

  She removed, one by one, the articles from the saddlebags. They were few and simple. A sack of .45-calibre ammunition, some cleaning materials, and a small coil of rawhide. Then a packet of pictures. And as she drew them out, one slipped from the pack and fell to the ground. She stooped quickly and retrieved it. She looked at the photograph. It was the face of an elderly woman, obviously a lady, and obviously, also, a person of dignity and poise. The girl glanced curiously at Lance, and then looked away.

  “There is no gold here,” she said quietly. “None at all.”

  “Well,” Lance turned, “I guess—”

  Polti was gone!

  “Leaves you in the clear, stranger,” the farmer said. “I wonder where it leaves Polti?”

  “Probably planned to slip it into the saddlebags when he searched ’em,” somebody said. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  Lance glanced at the speaker. “That implies he has the gold dust. If so, he probably killed Wilkins himself.”

  Nobody said anything, but the crowd began to dwindle away. The big farmer shrugged. “Nobody can say that Jack Pickett lacks nerve,” he said, “but I’m not going to tackle Polti and that crowd he runs with. They’re gunmen and cow thieves, but it’s not an easy thing to prove.”

  “You better watch your tongue, Jack,” somebody said. “You’ve got a wife and family to think of.”

  Then they were all gone and only the red-haired girl remained.

  “I’m still not convinced,” she said. “You could easily have buried the gold dust.”

  “That’s right, ma’am, I could have done that.”

  He turned his back on her then, untied the buckskin and walked away toward the livery stable. He walked because he wanted to think, and he thought pretty well on his feet.

  He was beginning to have a rough outline of what was happening here. But where did Polti belong? On whose side was he? And why try to trap a stranger with no known ties?

  Did somebody know for sure?

  First, there had been a deliberate attempt to frame him—and then, no doubt, to kill him. Perhaps their first plan had actually been to stampede him into a gun battle. They had been boxing him in very neatly, to catch him in a crossfire.

  He did not know Polti. Lance had neither seen nor heard of him before. Why was Polti out to get him?

  Who could know why he had come to the Live Oak country and why he was in Botalla?

  He had ridden in, had talked to no one, had scouted around a little to familiarize himself w
ith the country, but had deliberately avoided human contacts and the possibilities of trouble.

  The trouble seemed to have begun with his meeting with Steve Lord. It was then, so far as he knew, that the thin man had seen him for the first time, and yet the man had gone into action at once.

  In the livery stable, a long and lofty building lined outside with stalls and corrals, he led the buckskin to a dark stall, then climbed the ladder to the loft and forked down hay.

  There must have been thirty stalls to a side, and the stable smelled of hay and harness leather. Taking a handful of the hay, Lance proceeded to give the buckskin a good rubdown.

  Suddenly a voice spoke from the darkness of a stall.

  “Busy little feller, ain’t you?”

  The speaker stepped from the shadows of the stall—a man with a battered hat, patched jeans and a hickory shirt. Powerfully built, he had brick-red hair, and a glint of humor in his eyes. His face was square-jawed and strong. He wore a six-shooter and carried a Winchester.

  “I go by the name of Gates,” he said. “They call me Rusty.”

  “I’m Lance.”

  Lance took Rusty Gates in with a quick glance. He knew the type instantly. Gates was obviously a cowpuncher, and the kind of man who was hardworking, honest and relatively fearless. Rusty was the sort of man to whom you could assign a job and then forget it, for the job would be done; perhaps even better than you had hoped. There were many such in the West, of all shapes and sizes, but all were men to ride the river with.

  “So I’ve heard.” Rusty squatted on his heels and began to build a smoke. “Like I say, you’re pretty busy. You almost had a shootin’ party with Steve Lord. Then you sidestep and let him off the hook. Some folks think you did that because you’ve decided to throw in with Chet Lord.”

  Rusty lit up. “Then you tangle with that wildcat of a Tana Steele—”

  “Webb Steele’s daughter? I might have known it. They’re cut from the same mold.”

  “She’ll never forgive you, friend. You took her too lightly. And nobody does that with Tana Steele. She’s the queen of the Live Oak country and you’d better believe it. She’ll get even somehow.… She always does.”

  “What about Polti?”

  “Bert Polti? He’s a sidewinder. Kill you quicker’n scat. Always has money, never seems to do anything. He’s mean, dangerous, and smart. He acted the fool with you, but then he didn’t know you’d be smart. But don’t underrate him. He’s good with that gun.”

  “He hangs out at the Spur?”

  “Mostly. Him an’ that crooked outfit he trails with. Joe Daniels, Skimp Ellis and Henry Bates. They’re a bad lot. And that bartender at the Spur is tough as a boot and a friend of theirs. Polti has connections on both sides of the border, and when the Rangers came in for a clean-up, he pulled his freight and wasn’t seen around for months.”

  “I think I’ll go talk to him,” Lance said. “Straighten him out a little.”

  “Like I said, he’s good with a gun.”

  “A lot of men are, I think.”

  Slow to anger, irritation had been mounting within Lance. Why should Polti choose him? Lance resented being pushed around. He always resented a bully, and Polti had made a deliberate move at him. And having failed once, it was unlikely he would stop. To avoid an issue had never been Lance’s way, and he would not begin now. Move … Never let the other fellow choose the ground.

  He left the livery stable and crossed the street to the Spur. Pushing open the doors, he walked in.

  Rusty Gates was close behind him. “I just want to see this,” Gates called out.

  Lance had come to Botalla with a debt to pay, and had found the situation even worse than he expected—and even more serious for his friend.

  With two big, aggressive outfits against him, he had small chance of surviving. And neither side seemed to have any thoughts on the real rights and wrongs of the situation. As Napoleon had said, and as the two sides believed, God was on the side of those with the most artillery.

  Both Lord and Steele had big artillery … and so did Polti. And where did Polti stand?

  A half-dozen men loitered at the bar and a couple were seated at tables when Lance walked in.

  They may not have expected him, but they were ready.…

  CHAPTER 4

  THEY TURNED AND looked at him, their faces expressionless.

  “Where’s Polti?” Lance demanded.

  One of the men who had been in the street with Polti was at the bar, another sat at a table, his legs stretched out, an expression of contempt on his face. Neither moved, and there was no reply.

  “I asked, ‘Where’s Polti?’ ” Lance said, more sharply.

  “You won’t get any answers here, mister,” the seated man said, his voice taunting. “When Polti wants you, he’ll come to get you.”

  Lance took a quick step toward him, then glimpsed the flicker of triumph in the man’s eyes and half turned his head to catch a glimpse of an upraised bottle, poised for throwing.

  The man threw the bottle. Lance’s pistol leaped from his scabbard to his hand and the gun roared. The bottle and fragments scattered.

  Holstering his gun, Lance stepped in quickly before the shock of the sudden drawing and firing had reached the men. He caught the man by the shirt front. Jerking him into the punch, he threw his right fist into the man’s belly. The unexpected blow knocked the wind from his body, and Lance shoved him away. Then he uppercut hard to his face, straightening the man up to take a fast left and then a high, hard one. The bottle-thrower hit the floor and rolled over. He did not get up.

  The action had come so swiftly that not a single onlooker had moved. Spinning quickly, Lance kicked the outstretched legs of the man seated at the table, swinging his legs over and high. The man came off the chair and hit the floor on his rump with a thud that shook the building.

  With no further hesitation, Lance stepped in. As the man gathered himself to rise. Lance kicked him in the face.

  “I came in here,” he said gently, “for a little polite conversation. But if you like it this way, you can have it.”

  Nobody moved. The first man down was beginning to groan. He tried to push himself up, then slid back to the floor. The man Lance had kicked was on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose in big, slow drops.

  “You know,” Lance continued, “the word is that you boys like to play rough. Now let me tell you something. You don’t even know the name of the game. This is for babies. But if I have to, I can be rough.”

  He turned his head to look at the bartender, a thick-shouldered man who leaned with both big hands on the bar as if he planned to leap over.

  “If you want to come over, Bottles,” Lance said, “come on. They can always carry you back, if there’s enough left to carry.”

  The bartender hesitated—and didn’t jump. He was not afraid, but if he jumped there would be a moment when he was in the air, and he had seen how fast that pistol broke the bottle. Whether this man would use the pistol or his hands was a question, but the bartender decided he did not want to find out the answer. He stayed where he was.

  “Now, once more. Where’s Polti?”

  “Apple Canyon,” the bartender replied viciously, “and I hope you find him!”

  Lance backed off. Then, seeing Rusty Gates at the door, his hand on his gun, Lance turned and went out, Gates following.

  “For a stranger,” Gates said, “you pick up country customs mighty fast.”

  “Where’s Apple Canyon?” asked Lance.

  “Apple Canyon is a draw that opens into Espada Creek, right close to the border. That’s where Nita Riordan hangs out her sign.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Queen of the Border, they call her. Half-Irish, half-Mexican, and all wildcat. She’s the best-looking woman in the southwest and a tiger when she gets started, but she’s only a part of it. The other part is Jaime Brigo. He’s a big Yaqui half-breed who can sling a gun as fast as the Brockmans. He can
track like a bloodhound, and he’s as loyal as a St. Bernard. Also, he weighs about two pounds less than a ton of coal.”

  “What is Apple Canyon? A town?”

  “That it ain’t. Apple Canyon is a saloon, dance hall, and a bunkhouse that’ll sleep forty men. It is also a big barn, some corrals, and half a dozen houses. It is a place where the law never goes, where anybody passing across the border can rest up. And it’s also where Bert Polti hides out when he wants to be alone—or when he’s got some deal on both sides of the border.”

  “What’s between here and there?”

  Gates shrugged. “A few buzzards, a lot of rattlesnakes, more thick brush than you ever saw, and a scattering of centipedes, tarantulas, and scorpions. Everything that moves will bite or gore you, and everything that grows in the ground has thorns.

  “There are trails through the brush, if you know where they are. And if you don’t get lost and die there, you might, and I say might, find Apple Canyon.

  “If you find Apple Canyon, you’ll get yourself killed. Everybody down there is a friend to Polti except maybe Jaime Brigo, and nobody is a friend to outsiders, including Jaime Brigo.”

  “Tell me about Nita Riordan.”

  “First thing, she’s straight … You try to lay a hand on her and you’ll lose the hand—before they kill you. She runs a few thousand head on both sides of the border and nobody … but nobody … steals a cow with her brand.

  “She owns and operates Apple Canyon. In her dance hall, she always has three or four girls—for dancing or conversational purposes only—and she operates the bunkhouse as a sort of hotel. And you pay and pay well.

  “She can charge what she wants because it’s either that or sleep in the brush. And you drink at her bar or you drink river water.

  “Jaime Brigo works for her, and that’s all. If she says ‘Kill him,’ he would. Anybody. He moves like a cat, and nobody wants any part of him.

  “She has connections in Mexico City, in Saltillo and Monterey, as well as in Austin. Just what they are, nobody knows—or when she uses them, if ever.”