Collection 1995 - Valley Of The Sun (v5.0) Page 2

  “Only that Johnny had it coming. He was the kind who might be hired to dry-gulch a man or burn him out.”

  Tap glanced at me quickly, but before he could speak, Betty hurried up to us.

  “You two had better go,” she whispered. “There’s some talk around and some of the men are hunting trouble.”

  She spoke to both of us, but she looked at me. Tap shifted his feet. “What do you expect us to do?” he demanded. “Run?”

  “Of course not!” she protested. “But why not avoid trouble until I can talk some sense into Dad?”

  “That’s reasonable, Tap. Let’s go.”

  “If you want to back down”—his voice was irritable and he spoke more sharply than he ever had to me—“go ahead and go! I say face ’em and show ’em they’ve got a fight on their hands!”

  The contempt in his voice got to me but I took a couple of deep breaths before I answered him. “Don’t talk like that, Tap. When a fight comes, I’ll be ready for it, only why not give Betty a chance? Once the shooting starts there’ll be no more chance.”

  * * *

  TWO MEN SHOVED through the door followed by a half dozen others. My pulse jumped and I grabbed Tap’s arm. “Let’s get out of here! There’s Chet Bayless and Jerito Juarez!”

  How could I miss that lithe, wiry figure? Betty Lucas gave me a swift, measuring look of surprise. Tap shook my hand from his arm and shot me a glance like he’d give to a yellow dog. “All right,” he said, “let’s go! I can’t face them alone!”

  What they must be thinking of me I could guess, but all I could think of was facing Bayless and Jerito in that crowded room. And I knew Jerito and what would happen when he saw me. The crowd would make no difference, nor the fact that innocent people might be killed.

  Betty avoided my eyes and moved away from my hand when I turned to say good-bye, so I merely followed Tap Henry out the door. All the way home he never said a word, nor the next morning until almost noon.

  “You stay away from Betty,” he said then, “she’s my girl.”

  “Betty’s wearing no brand that I can see,” I told him quietly, “and until somebody slaps an iron on her, I’m declaring myself in the running.

  “I don’t,” I continued, “want trouble between us. We’ve rode a lot of rivers together, and we’ve got trouble started here. We can hold this place and build a nice spread.”

  “What about last night?” His voice was cold. “You took water.”

  “Did you want to start throwing lead in a room full of kids and women? Besides, fightin’ ain’t enough. Anybody with guts and a gun can fight. It’s winning that pays off.”

  His eyes were measuring me. “What does that mean?” That I’d fallen in his estimation, I knew. Maybe I’d never stood very high.

  “That we choose the time to fight,” I said. “Together we can whip them, but just showing how tough we are won’t help. We’ve got to get the odds against us as low as we can.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” He was reluctant to agree. “I seen a man lynched once because he shot a kid accidental in a gunfight.” He sized me up carefully. “You seemed scared of those three.”

  We looked at each other over the coffee cups and inside I felt a slow hot resentment rising, but I kept it down. “I’m not,” I told him, “only Chet Bayless is known for eight square killings. Down Sonora way Jerito is figured to have killed twice that many. That Jerito is poison mean, and we can figure on getting hurt even if we win.”

  “Never figured them as tough as all that,” Tap muttered. Then he shot me a straight, hard glance. “How come you know so much about ’em?”

  “Bayless,” I said carefully, “is a Missourian. Used to run with the James boys, but settled in Eagle Pass. Jerito—everybody in Sonora knows about him.”

  The next few days followed pleasant and easy, and we worked hard without any words between us beyond those necessary to work and live. It irritated me that Tap doubted me.

  On the fourth afternoon I was stripping the saddle off my steeldust when I heard them coming. A man who lives like I do has good ears and eyes or he don’t live at all. “Tap!” I called to him low but sharp. “Riders coming!”

  He straightened up, then shot a look at me. “Sure?”

  “Yeah.” I threw my saddle over a log we used for that and slicked my rifle out of the scabbard and leaned it by the shed door. “Just let ’em come.”

  They rode into the yard in a compact bunch and Tap Henry walked out to meet them. Bayless was there, riding with Jim Lucas, but Jerito was not. The minute I saw that I felt better. When they first showed I had stepped back into the shed out of sight. There were a dozen of them in the bunch and they drew up. Bayless took the play before Lucas could get his mouth open.

  “Henry!” He said it hard and short. “You been warned. Get your stuff. We’re burning you out!”

  Tap waited while you could count three before he spoke. “Like hell,” he said.

  “We want no nesters around here! Once one starts they all come! And we want nobody with your record!”

  “My record?” Tap had guts, I’ll give him that. He stepped once toward Bayless. “Who says I—!”

  “I do!” It was Red Corram. “You rode with that Roost outfit in the Panhandle.”

  “Sure did.” Tap smiled. “I reckon not a man here but ain’t misbranded a few head. I ain’t doing it now.”

  “That’s no matter!” Bayless was hard. Bayless was hard. “Get out or be buried here!”

  Lucas cleared his throat and started to speak.

  Tap looked at him. “You feel that way, Lucas?”

  “I’m not for killing,” he said, “but—!”

  “I am!” Bayless was tough about it. “I say they get out or shoot it out!”

  Tap Henry had taken one quick glance toward the shed when they rode up, and when he saw me gone he never looked again. I knew he figured he was all alone. Well, he wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Now it was my turn.

  Stepping out into the open, I said, “That go for me, too, Chet?”

  * * *

  HE TURNED SHARP around at the voice and stared at me. My hat was pulled low and the only gun I wore was that .44 Russian in my waistband. I took another step out and a little bit toward the trail, which put Bayless in a bad spot. If he turned to face me his side was to Tap. “Who are you?” Bayless demanded. He was a big blue-jowled man, but right now the face under those whiskers looked pale.

  “The name is Tyler, Chet. Ryan Tyler. Don’t reckon you ever heard that name before, did you now?” Without turning my head, I said to Tap, but loud enough so they could all hear me, “Tap, if they want to open this ball, I want Bayless.”

  They were flabbergasted, you could see it. Here I was, an unknown kid, stepping out to call a rancher known as a gunman. It had them stopped, and nobody quite knew what to say.

  “Lucas,” I said, “you ain’t a fool. You got a daughter and a nice ranch. You got some good boys. If this shooting starts we can’t miss Bayless or you.”

  It was hot, that afternoon, with the clouds fixing up to rain. Most of the snow was gone now, and there was the smell of spring in the air.

  “Me, I ain’t riding nowhere until I’ve a mind to. I’m fixing to stay right here, and if it’s killing you want, then you got a chance to start it. But for every one of us you bury, you’ll bury three of you.”

  Tap Henry was as surprised as they were, I could see that, and it was surprise that had them stopped, not anything else. That surprise wasn’t going to last, I knew. Walking right up to them, I stopped again, letting my eyes sweep over them, then returning to Bayless.

  “Why don’t you get down, Chet? If you go for that gun you better have solid footing. You don’t want to miss that first shot, Chet. If you miss it you’ll never get another.

  “You aimed to do some burning, Chet. Why don’t you get down and start your fire? Start it with a gun like your coyote friend did?” Without shifting his eyes, Bayless stared, and then slowly he kicked on
e foot out of a stirrup. “That’s right, Chet. Get down. I want you on the ground, where you don’t have so far to fall. This hombre”—I said it slow—“paid Kiowa Johnny to burn us out. I heard ’em. I gave Johnny a chance to drop his guns and would have made him talk, but he wanted to take a chance. He took it.”

  “You killed Johnny?” Lucas demanded, staring at me. “He was supposed to be a fast man with a gun.”

  “Him?” The contempt was thick in my voice. “Not even middling fast.” My eyes had never left Bayless. “You want to start burning, Chet, you better get down.”

  Chet Bayless was bothered. It had been nigh two years since he had seen me and I’d grown over an inch in height and some in breadth of shoulder since then. My face was part shaded by that hat and he could just see my mouth and chin. But he didn’t like it. There was enough of me there to jar his memory and Chet Bayless, while fast with a gun, was no gambler. With Jerito or Red there, he would have gambled, but he knew Red was out of it because of Tap.

  “Lucas,” I said, “you could be riding in better company. Bayless ain’t getting off that horse. He’s got no mind to. He figures to live awhile longer. You fellers better figure it this way. Tap and me, we like this place. We aim to keep it. We also figure to run our own cows, but to be fair about it, anytime you want to come over here and cut a herd of ours, come ahead. That goes for you—not for Bayless or any of his gun-handy outfit.”

  Chet Bayless was sweating. Very careful, he had put his toe back in the stirrup. Jim Lucas shot one glance at him, and then his old jaw set.

  “Let’s go!” He wheeled his horse and without another word they rode away.

  Only Red looked back. He looked at Tap, not me. “See you in town!” he said.

  Henry called after him. “Anytime, Red! Just anytime at all!”

  When the last of them had gone he turned and looked at me. “That was a tough play, kid. S’pose Bayless had drawed on you?”

  “Reckon he’d of died,” I said simply enough, “but I didn’t figure he would. Chet’s a cinch player. Not that he ain’t good with that Colt. He is—plenty!”

  Walking back, I got my rifle. “Gosh amighty, I’m sure hungry!” I said, and that was all. What Tap thought of it, I had no idea. Only a couple of times I caught him sizing me up. And then the following night he rode off and I knew where he was riding. He was gone a-courting of Betty Lucas.

  That made me sore but there was nothing I could do about it. He sort of hinted that Margita was my dish, but that wasn’t so. She was all wrapped up in some vaquero who worked for her old man, although not backward about a little flirtation.

  One thing I knew. Chet Bayless was going to talk to Jerito and then they were going to come for me. Jerito Juarez had good reason to hate me, and he would know me for the Laredo Kid.

  Me, I’d never figured nor wanted the name of a gunfighter, but it was sort of natural-like for me to use a gun easy and fast. At sixteen a kid can be mighty touchy about not being growed up. I was doing a man’s job on the NOB outfit when Ed Keener rawhided me into swinging on him. He went down, and when he came up he hauled iron. Next thing I knew Keener was on the ground drilled dead center and I had a smoking gun in my hand with all the hands staring at me like a calf had suddenly growed into a mountain lion right before them.

  Keener had three brothers, so I took out and two of them cornered me in Laredo. One of them never got away from that corner, and the other lived after three months in bed. Meanwhile, I drifted into Mexico and worked cows down there. In El Paso I shot it out with Jerito’s brother and downed him, and by that time they were talking me up as another Billy the Kid. They called me Laredo for the town I hailed from, but when I went back thataway I went into the Nueces country, where the third Keener braced me and fitted himself into the slot of Boot Hill alongside his brothers.

  * * *

  AFTER THAT I’D gone kind of hog-wild, only not killing anybody but some ornery Comanches. Howsoever, I did back down a sheriff at Fort Griffin, shot a gun out of another’s hand in Mobeetie, and backed down three tough hands at Doan’s Crossing. By that time everybody was talking about me, so I drifted where folks didn’t know Ryan Tyler was the Laredo gunfighter.

  Only Chet Bayless knew because Chet had been around when I downed the Keeners. And Jerito knew.

  After that I quit wearing guns in sight and avoided trouble all I could. That was one reason this out-of-the-way ranch under the Pelado appealed to me, and why I avoided trouble all I could.

  It must have been midnight and I’d been asleep a couple of hours when a horse came hell a-whoppin’ down the trail and I heard a voice holler the house. Unloading from my bunk, I grabbed my rifle and gave a call from the door. Then I got a shock, for it was Betty Lucas.

  “Rye! Come quick! Tap killed Lon Beatty and a mob’s got him! They’ll hang him!”

  No man ever got inside of his clothes faster than me, but this time I dumped my warbag and grabbed those belted guns. Swinging the belts around me, I stuck my .44 Russian into my waistband for good measure and ran for my horse. Betty had him caught and a saddle on him, so all I had to do was cinch up and climb aboard.

  “They are at Cebolla!” she called to me. “Hurry!”

  Believe me, I lit a shuck. That steeldust I was on was a runner and chock-full of corn. He stretched his legs and ran like a singed cat, so it wasn’t long until the lights of Cebolla showed. Then I was slowing down with a dark blob in the road ahead of me with some torches around it. They had Tap, all right, had him backward on his horse with a rope around his neck. He looked mighty gray around the gills but was cussing them up one side and down the other. Then I came up, walking my horse.

  “All right, boys!” I let it out loud. “Fun’s over! No hanging tonight!”

  “Who says so?” They were all peering my way, so I gave it to them.

  “Why, this here’s Rye Tyler,” I said, “but down Sonora way they call me Laredo, or the Laredo Kid. I’ve got a Winchester here and three loaded pistols, and I ain’t the kind to die quick, so if some of you hombres figure you’d like to make widows and orphans of your wives and kids, just start reaching.

  “I ain’t,” I said, “a mite particular about who I shoot. I ain’t honing to kill anybody, but knowing Tap, I figure if he shot anybody it was a fair shooting. Now back off, and back off easylike. My hands both work fast, so I can use both guns at once. That figures twelve shots if you stop me then, but I got a Winchester and another gun. Me, I ain’t missed a shot since I was eleven years old, so anybody fixin’ to die sure don’t need to go to no trouble tonight!”

  Nobody moved, but out of the tail of my eye I could see some change of expression on Tap’s face.

  “He reached first,” Tap said.

  “But he was just a kid!” Who that was, I don’t know. It sounded like Gravel Brown, who bummed drinks around Ventana.

  “His gun was as big as a man’s,” Tap said, “and he’s seventeen, which makes him old as I was when I was segundo for a fighting outfit driving to Ogallala.”

  Brown was no fighter. “Gravel,” I said, “you move up easylike and take that noose off Tap’s neck, and if you so much as nudge him or that horse they’ll be pattin’ over your face with a spade come daybreak.”

  Gravel Brown took that noose off mighty gentle. I’d walked my horse up a few steps while Gravel untied Tap’s hands, and then restored his guns.

  “You may get away with this now, Tyler,” somebody said, “but you and Tap better take your luck and make tracks. You’re through here. We want no gunslingers in this country.”

  “No?” That made me chuckle. “All right, amigo, you tell that to Chet Bayless, Red Corram, and most of all, Jerito Juarez. If they go, we will. Until then, our address is the Pelado, and if you come a-visiting, the coffee’s always on. If you come hunting trouble, why I reckon we can stir you up a mess of that.” I backed my horse a couple of feet. “Come on, Tap. These boys need their sleep. Let ’em go home.”

  We sat there si
de by each and watched them go. They didn’t like it, but none of them wanted to be a dead hero. When they had gone, Tap turned to me.

  “Saved my bacon, kid.” He started riding, and after a ways he turned to me. “That straight about you being the Laredo gunfighter?”

  “Uh-huh. No reason to broadcast it.”

  “And I was wondering if you’d fight! How foolish can a man be?”

  * * *

  IT SET LIKE that for a week, and nobody showed up around South Fork and nobody bothered us. Tap, he went away at night occasional, but he never said anything and I didn’t ask any questions. Me, I stayed away. This was Tap’s play, and I figured if she wanted Tap she did not want me. Her riding all that way sure looked like she did want him, though. Then came Saturday and I saddled up and took a packhorse. Tap studied me, and said finally, “I reckon I better side you.”

  “Don’t reckon you better, Tap,” I said, “things been too quiet. I figure they think we’ll do just that, come to town together and leave this place empty. When we got back we’d either be burned out or find them sitting in the cabin with Winchesters. You hold it down here.”

  Tap got up. His face was sharp and hard as ever, but he looked worried. “But they might gang you, kid. No man can buck a stacked deck.”

  “Leave it to me,” I said, “and we’ve got no choice anyway. We need grub.”

  Ventana was dozing in the sun when I walked the steeldust down the main alley of the town. A couple of sleepy old codgers dozed against the sun-backed front of a building, a few horses stood three-legged at the tie rail. Down the street a girl sat in a buckboard, all stiff and starched in a gingham gown, seeing city life and getting broken into it.

  Nobody was in the store but the owner himself and he was right pert getting my stuff ready. As before, I was wearing three guns in sight and a fourth in that shoulder holster under my jacket. If they wanted war they could have it.

  When my stuff was ready I stashed it near the back door and started out the front. The storekeeper looked at me, then said, “You want to live you better hightail it. They been waiting for you.”