The Man from Battle Flat Read online

  Flitch was in town. His mouth tightened a little, but at that it would be better than Pa’s going. Pa always said the wrong thing, being outspoken like. He was a man who spoke his mind, and to speak one’s mind to Flitch or Loss Degner would mean a shooting. It might be he could get Sam out of town all right. If he was drinking, it would be hard. Especially if that redhead had her hands on him.

  “You reckon you could handle it?” Pa asked doubtfully.

  “Sure,” Johnny said, his voice a shade hard, “I can handle it. I doubt if Sam’s in any trouble. Later, maybe. All he’d need is somebody to side him.”

  “Well,” Pa was reluctant, “better take your Winchester. My six-gun, too.”

  “You hang onto it. I’ll make out.”

  Johnny turned the gelding and started back toward the ranch, his eyes cold. Seventeen he might be, but four years on the frontier on your own make pretty much of a man out of you. He didn’t want any more shooting, but he had six men dead on his back trail now, not counting Comanches and Kiowas. Six, and he was seventeen. Next thing, they would be comparing him to Billy the Kid or to Wes Hardin.

  He wanted no gunfighter’s name, only a little spread of his own where he could run a few cows and raise horses, good stock, like some he had seen in east Texas. No range ponies for him, but good blood. That Sprague place now . . . but that was Sam’s place, or as good as his. Well, why not? Sam was getting Else, and it was little enough he could do for Pa and Ma, to bring Sam home safe.

  He left the gelding at the water trough and walked into the barn. In his room he dug some saddle gear away from a corner and, out of a hiding place in the corner, he took his guns. After a moment’s thought, he took but one of them, leaving the .44 Russian behind. He didn’t want to go parading into town with two guns on him, looking like a sure-enough shooter. Besides, with only one gun and the change in him, Flitch might not spot him at all.

  Johnny was at the gate, riding out, when Else rode up. Else looked at him, her eyes falling to the gun on his hip. Her face was pale and her eyes large. “Be careful, Johnny. I had to say that because you know how hot-headed Pa is. He’d get killed, and he might get Sam killed.”

  That was true enough, but Johnny was aggrieved. He looked her in the eyes. “Sure, that’s true, but you didn’t think of Sam, now, did you? You were just thinking of Pa.”

  Her lips parted to protest, but then her face seemed to stiffen. “No, Johnny, it wasn’t only Pa I thought of. I did think of Sam. Why shouldn’t I?”

  That was plain enough. Why shouldn’t she? Wasn’t she going to marry him? Wasn’t Sam getting the Sprague place when they got that money back safe?

  He touched his horse lightly with a spur and moved on past her. All right, he would send Sam back to her, if he could. It was time he was moving on, anyway.

  The gelding liked the feel of the trail and moved out fast. Ten miles was all, and he could do that easy enough, and so he did it, and Johnny turned the black horse into the street and stopped before the livery stable, swinging down. Sam’s horse was tied at the Four Star’s hitch rail. The saddlebags were gone.

  Johnny studied the street, and then crossed it and walked down along the buildings on the same side as the Four Star. He turned quickly in to the door.

  Sam Redlin was sitting at a table with the redhead, the saddlebags on the table before him, and he was drunk. He was very drunk. Johnny’s eyes swept the room. The bartender and Loss Degner were standing together, talking. Neither of them paid any attention to Johnny, for neither knew him. But Flitch did.

  Flitch was standing down the bar with Albie Bower, but none of the old Gila River outfit. Both of them looked up, and Flitch kept looking, never taking his eyes from Johnny. Something bothered him, and maybe it was the one gun.

  Johnny moved over to Sam’s table. They had to get out of here fast, before Flitch remembered. “Hi, Sam,” he said. “Just happened to be in town, and Pa said, if I saw you, to side you on the way home.”

  Sam stared at him sullenly. “Side me? You?” He snorted his contempt. “I need no man to side me. You can tell Pa I’ll be home later tonight.” He glanced at the redhead. “Much later.”

  “Want I should carry this stuff home for you?” Johnny put his hand on the saddlebags.

  “Leave him be,” Hazel protested angrily. “Can’t you see he don’t want to be bothered? He’s capable of takin’ care of himself, an’ he don’t need no kid for gardeen.”

  “Beat it,” Sam said. “You go on home. I’ll come along later.”

  “Better come now, Sam.” Johnny was getting worried, for Loss Degner had started for the table.

  “Here, you.” Degner was sharp. “Leave that man alone. He’s a friend of mine, and I’ll have no saddle tramp annoying my customers.”

  Johnny turned on him. “I’m no saddle tramp. I ride for his pa. He asked me to ride home with him . . . now. That’s what I aim to do.”

  As he spoke, he was not thinking of Degner, but of Flitch. The gunman was behind him now, and neither Flitch, fast as he was, nor Albie Bower was above shooting a man in the back.

  “I said to beat it.” Sam stared at him drunkenly. “Saddle tramp’s what you are. Folks never should have took you in.”

  “That’s it,” Degner said. “Now get out. He don’t want you nor your company.”

  There was a movement behind him, and he heard Flitch say: “Loss, let me have him. I know this hombre. This is that kid gunfighter, Johnny O’Day, from the Gila.”

  Johnny turned slowly, his green eyes flat and cold.

  “Hello, Flitch. I heard you were around.” Carefully he moved away from the table, aware of the startled look on Hazel’s face, the suddenly tight awareness on the face of Loss Degner. “You lookin’ for me, Flitch?” It was a chance he had to take. His best chance now. If shooting started, he might grab the saddlebags and break for the door and then the ranch. They would be through with Sam Redlin once the money was gone.

  “Yeah.” Flitch stared at him, his unshaven face hard with the lines of evil and shadowed by the intent that rode him hard. “I’m lookin’ for you. Always figured you got off easy, made you a fast rep gunnin’ down your betters.”

  Bower had moved up beside him, but Loss Degner had drawn back to one side. Johnny’s eyes never left Flitch. “You in this, Loss?”

  Degner shrugged. “Why should I be? I was no Gila River gunman. This is your quarrel. Finish it between you.”

  “All right, Flitch,” Johnny said. “You want it. I’m givin’ you your chance to start the play.”

  The stillness of a hot mid-afternoon lay on the Four Star. A fly buzzed against the dusty, cobwebbed back window. Somewhere in the street a horse stamped restlessly, and a distant pump creaked. Flitch stared at him, his little eyes hard and bright. His sweat-stained shirt was torn at the shoulder, and there was dust ingrained in the pores of his face.

  His hands dropped in a flashing draw, but he had only cleared leather when Johnny’s first bullet hit him, puncturing the Bull Durham tag that hung from his shirt pocket. The second shot cut the edge of it, and the third, fourth, and fifth slammed into Albie Bower, knocking him back step by step, but Albie’s gun was hammering, and it took the sixth shot to put him down.

  Johnny stood over them, staring down at their bodies, and then he turned to face Loss Degner.

  Degner was smiling, and he held a gun in his hand from which a thin tendril of smoke lifted. Startled, Johnny’s eyes flickered to Sam Redlin.

  Sam lay across the saddlebags, blood trickling from his temples. He had been shot through the head by Degner under cover of the gun battle, murdered without a chance!

  Johnny O’Day’s eyes lifted to Loss Degner’s. The saloonkeeper was still smiling. “Yes, he’s dead, and I’ve killed him. He had it coming, the fool. Thinking we cared to listen to his bragging. All we wanted was that money, and now we’ve got it. Me . . . Hazel and I. We’ve got it.”

  “Not yet.” Johnny’s lips were stiff and his heart was cold. H
e was thinking of Pa, Ma, and Else. “I’m still here.”

  “You?” Degner laughed. “With an empty gun? I counted your shots, boy. Even Johnny O’Day is cold turkey with an empty gun. Six shots . . . two for Flitch, and beautiful shooting, too, but four shots for Albie, who was moving and shooting, not so easy a target. But now I’ve got you. With you dead, I’ll just say Sam came here without any money, that he got shot during the fight. Sound good to you?”

  Johnny still faced him, his gun in his hand. “Not bad,” he said, “but you still have me here, Loss. And this gun ain’t empty.”

  Degner’s face tightened and then relaxed. “Not empty? I counted the shots, kid, so don’t try bluffing me. Now I’m killing you.” He tilted his gun toward Johnny O’Day, and Johnny fired once, twice . . . a third time. As each bullet hit him, Loss Degner jerked and twisted, but the shock of the wounds, and death wounds they were, was nothing to the shock of the bullets from that empty gun.

  He sagged against the bar and then slipped toward the floor.

  Johnny moved in on him. “You can hear me, Loss?” The killer’s eyes lifted to his. “This ain’t a six-shooter. It’s a Watch twelve-shot Navy gun, thirty-six caliber. She’s right handy, Loss, and it only goes to show you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  Hazel sat at the table, staring at the dying Degner.

  “You better go to him, Red,” Johnny said quietly. “He’s only got a minute.”

  She stared at him as he picked up the saddlebags and backed to the door.

  Russell, the storekeeper, was on the steps with a half dozen others, none of whom he knew. “Degner killed Sam Redlin,” he said. “Take care of Sam, will you?”

  At Russell’s nod, Johnny swung to the saddle and turned the gelding toward home.

  He wouldn’t leave now. He couldn’t leave now. They would be all alone there, without Sam. Besides, Pa was going to need help on that dam. “Boy,” he touched the gelding’s neck, “I reckon we got to stick around for a while.”

  The Rider of the Ruby Hills

  I

  There was a lonely place where the trail ran up to the sky. It turned sharply left on the very point of a lofty promontory overlooking the long sweep of the valley below. Here the trail offered to the passerby a vision at this hour. Rosy-tipped peaks and distant purple mountains could be seen, beyond the far reach of the tall-grass range. Upon the very lip of the rocky shelf sat a solitary horseman. He was a man tall in the saddle, astride a strangely marked horse. Its head was held high, its ears were pricked forward with attention riveted upon the valley, as though in tune with the thoughts of its rider. Thoughts that said there lay a new country, with new dangers, new rewards, and new trails.

  The rider was a tall man, narrow-hipped and powerful of chest and shoulder. His features were blunt and rugged, so that a watcher might have said: “Here is a man who is not handsome, but a fighter.” Yet he was good-looking in his own hard, confident way. He looked now as Cortez might have looked upon a valley in Mexico.

  He came alone and penniless, but he did not come as one seeking favors. He did not come hunting a job. He came as a conqueror. For Ross Haney had made his decision. At twenty-seven he was broke. He sat in the middle of all he owned, a splendid Appaloosa gelding, a fine California saddle, a .44 Winchester rifle, and two walnut-stocked Colt .44 pistols. These were his all. Behind him was a life that had taken him from a cradle in a covered wagon to the hurricane deck of many a hard-headed bronco.

  It was a life that had left him rich in experience, but poor in goods of the world. The experience was the hard-fisted experience of cold winters, dry ranges, and the dusty bitterness of cattle drives. He had fought Comanches and rustlers, hunted buffalo and horse thieves. Now he was going to ride for himself, to fight for himself.

  His keen dark eyes from under the flat black brim of his hat studied the country below with speculative glint. His judgment of terrain would have done credit to a general, and in his own way Ross Haney was a general. His arrival in the Ruby Valley country was in its way an invasion.

  He was a young man with a purpose. He did not want wealth but a ranch, a well-watered ranch in a good stock country. That his pockets were empty did not worry him, for he had made up his mind, and, as men had discovered before this, Ross Haney with his mind made up was a force to be reckoned with. Nor was he riding blindly into a strange land. Like a good tactician he had gathered his information carefully, judged the situation, the terrain, and the enemy before he began his move.

  This was a new country to him, but he knew the landmarks and the personalities. He knew the strength and the weaknesses of its rulers, knew the economic factors of their existence, knew the stresses and the strains within it. He knew that he rode into a valley at war—that blood had been shed, and that armed men rode its trails day and night. Into this land he rode a man alone, determined to have his own from the country, come what may, letting the chips fall where they might.

  With a movement of his body he turned the gelding left down the trail into the pines, a trail where at this late hour it would soon be dark, a trail somber, majestic in its stillness under the columned trees.

  As he moved under the trees, he removed his hat and rode slowly. It was good country, a country where a man could live and grow, and where, if he was lucky, he might have sons to grow tall and straight beside him. This he wanted. He wanted his own hearth fire, the creak of his own pump, the heads of his own horses looking over the gate bars for his hand to feed them. He wanted peace, and for it he came to a land at war.

  A flicker of light caught his eye, and the faint smell of wood smoke. He turned the gelding toward the fire, and, when he was near, he swung down. The sun’s last rays lay bright through the pines upon this spot. The earth was trampled by hoofs, and in the fire itself the ashes were gray but for one tiny flame that thrust a bright spear upward from the end of a stick.

  Studying the scene, his eyes held for an instant on one place where the parched grass had been blackened in a perfect ring. His eyes glinted with hard humor. A cinch-ring artist. Dropped her there to cool and she singed the grass. A pretty smooth gent, I’d say. Not slick enough, of course. A smarter man, or a less confident one, would have pulled up that handful of blackened grass and tossed it into the flames.

  There had been two men here, his eyes told him. Two men and two horses. One of the men had been a big man with small feet. The impressions of his feet were deeper and he had mounted the largest horse.

  Curious, he studied the scene. This was a new country for him and it behooved a man to know the local customs. He grinned at the thought. If cinch-ring branding was one of the local customs, it was a strange one. In most sections of the country the activity was frowned upon, to say the least. If an artist was caught pursuing his calling, he was likely to find himself at the wrong end of a hair rope with nothing under his feet.

  The procedure was simple enough. One took a cinch ring from his own saddle gear and, holding it between a couple of sticks, used it when red-hot like any other branding iron. A good hand with a cinch ring could easily duplicate any known brand, depending only upon his degree of skill.

  Ross rolled and lighted a smoke. If he were found on the spot, it would require explaining, and at the moment he had no intention of explaining anything. He swung his leg over the saddle and turned the gelding downtrail once more.

  Not three miles away lay the cow town known as Soledad. To his right, and about six miles away, was an imposing cluster of buildings shaded beneath a splendid grove of old cottonwoods. Somewhat nearer, and also well-shaded, was a smaller ranch.

  Beyond the rocky ridge that stretched an anxious finger into the lush valley was Walt Pogue’s Box N spread. The farther ranch belonged to Chalk Reynolds, his RR outfit being easily the biggest in the Ruby Hills country. The nearer ranch belonged to Bob and Sherry Vernon.

  “When thieves fall out,” Ross muttered aloud, “honest men get their dues. Or that’s what they say. Now I’m not laying any cl
aim to being so completely honest, but there’s trouble brewing in this valley. When the battle smoke blows away, Ross Haney is going to be top dog on one of those ranches. They’ve got it all down there. They have range, money, power. They have gun hands riding for them, but you and me, Río, we’ve only got each other.”

  He was a lone wolf on the prowl. Down there they ran in packs, and he would circle the packs, alone. When the moment came, he would close in.

  “There’s an old law, Río, that only the strong survive,” he said. “Those ranches belong to men who were strong, and some of them still are. They were strong enough to take them from other men, from smaller men, weaker men. That’s the story of Reynolds and Pogue. They rustled cows until they grew big and now they sit on the housetops and crow. Or they did until they began fightin’ one another.”

  “Your reasoning”—the cool, quiet voice was feminine—“is logical, but dangerous. I might suggest that, when you talk to your horse, you should be sure his are the only ears!”

  She sat well in the saddle, poised and alert. There was a quirk of humor at the corners of her mouth, and nothing of coyness or fear in her manner. Every inch of her showed beauty, care, and consideration of appearances that were new to him, but beneath them there were both fire and steel—and quality.

  “That’s good advice,” he agreed, measuring her with his eyes. “Very good advice.”

  “Now that you’ve looked me over,” she suggested coolly, “would you like to examine my teeth for age?”

  He grinned, unabashed. “No, but now that I’ve looked you over, I’d say you are pretty much of a woman. The kind that’s made for a man!”

  She returned his glance, then smiled as if the remark had pleased her. So she changed the subject. “Just which ranch do you plan to be top dog on when the fighting is over?”

  “I haven’t decided,” he said frankly. “I’m a right choosy sort of man when it comes to horses, ranches, and women!”