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  Again there was the heavy boom of the buffalo gun. That must be Mort Davis again. Somebody had probably tried to get water.

  Gravel rattled on the trail, and Kilkenny saw the skin tighten around Barnes’s eyes.

  Then, in almost complete silence, the heavy boom of a shotgun in a confined space!

  Royal Barnes went for his gun. He had been half facing Kilkenny. As he drew he shoved the table toward him.

  The floor was slippery and the table, prepared for just such a move, shot toward Kilkenny across the hardwood floor.

  But Barnes had not calculated Kilkenny’s incredibly quick reaction. The same leap that took him from behind the table, enabled the bullet to miss.

  Kilkenny palmed his gun and fired twice, so rapidly the shots blended into one sound. Through the smoke he could see Royal Barnes’s eyes, blazing with some strange light, his lips drawn in a snarl of fury.

  Then all sight and all other sound was lost in the thunderous roar of heavy guns in the confined space.

  He was shooting. He was hit. He felt his back smashed against the wall, and through the smoke he could see the stab of crimson flame.

  His own guns were firing. He stepped left, then right. Barnes sprang backward through a doorway, and Kilkenny paused, thumbing cartridges into his guns.

  He was breathing hoarsely, and the room was filled with the acrid smoke of black powder. He crossed the room and went through the door, low and fast. A bullet smashed into the doorjamb near his face. Another tugged at his sleeve with invisible fingers.

  He stepped over, saw Barnes, and fired on the instant. Flame blossomed from Barnes’s guns and Kilkenny felt his knees give way. He went down. Royal Barnes was backing away, his eyes wide and staring, his shirtfront bathed in blood.

  Pulling himself erect with his left hand, Kilkenny fired again. He started to shoot once more but Barnes was gone.

  Stumbling on into the next room, he stared about him. He was sick and faint, weaving on his feet, and blood was running into his eyes.

  The room was empty. A gun fired behind him and he turned in a stumbling circle and saw a shadow weaving before him through the gunsmoke. Kilkenny opened up with both guns, and then he fell. He went down hard.

  He must have blacked out briefly, an instant only, but when his senses returned the room was acrid with the smell of powder smoke. He got his knees under him, retrieved his left-hand gun and, using the fingers of that hand, helped himself erect before resuming a full grip on the pistol.

  All sense of time and space was gone. He had but one thought. Royal Barnes was here, and Royal Barnes must die.

  Then he saw him, propped against the opposite wall. A bullet had gone through one cheek, entering below the nose and coming out under the ear. Blood was flowing from the wound. Barnes was cursing through bloody, foam-flecked lips, cursing in a low, ugly monotone.

  “You got me, damn you! But I’m taking you with me!”

  His gun swung up. Kilkenny’s guns seemed to fire of their own volition. Barnes’s body winced and jerked with the impact, then he lunged off the wall, his guns roaring. He was wild, insane, and desperate, but his guns no longer fired with the will of the man behind them. They simply fired, and the shots went wild.

  He was toe-to-toe with Kilkenny when Kilkenny finished with four shots, two from each gun, at three-foot range. Then Barnes fell, tumbling across Kilkenny’s feet and almost knocking him down.

  For what seemed an eternity, Kilkenny stood erect, his guns dangling and empty. He stared blankly at the dead man at his feet, then at the weird pattern of the Navajo rug across the room. He could hear the hoarse rasp of his own breathing. He could feel the warm blood on his face. He could feel weakness mounting within him.

  Suddenly, he heard a sound. He had dropped one of his guns. He stared down at it, uncomprehendingly. Abruptly, he seemed to have let go of everything and he fell, tumbling across Barnes’s body to the floor. He felt warm sunlight on his face, then nothing more.

  A LONG TIME later he felt hands touching him, felt his own hand reaching for his gun. A big man loomed over him. He was trying to lift his gun when a woman’s voice spoke softly, and something in him listened. He let go of the gun.

  He seemed to feel water on his face, and then pain throbbing inside him like a thing alive, tearing at his vitals. Then he went away again into a dark world where there was no thought or memory or pain.

  When finally he again became conscious he was lying on a bed in a sunlit room. Outside there were flowers and he could hear a bird singing. There was a flash of red as a cardinal flirted past the window.

  It was a woman’s room, a quiet room, A curtain stirred in a cool breeze. He was lying there, barely awake, when Nita came in.

  “So you’re awake at last!” Her relief was obvious. “We were about to believe you’d never come out of it.”

  “What happened?” he mumbled.

  “You were badly shot up. Six times in all, but only one of them really serious.”

  “Barnes?”

  “He’s dead. He was almost shot to pieces.”

  Kilkenny was quiet then. He closed his eyes and lay without moving for what seemed a long time. In all his experience he had never known a man with such vitality as Royal Barnes. Kilkenny rarely missed, and even in the wild and hectic battle in the cliff house he had known his shots were scoring. Yet Barnes had kept coming, had kept shooting.

  He opened his eyes again. Only a moment had passed, because Nita was still standing there.

  “Steve Lord?” he asked.

  “He was killed by a spring gun, trying to get at Barnes. It was a double-barrelled shotgun loaded with soft lead pellets. He must have died instantly.”

  “The outlaws?”

  “Wiped out. A few escaped during the last minutes, but not many. Webb Steele was wounded but not too badly. He’s been up and around for several days.”

  “Several days? How long have I been here?”

  “You were badly hurt, Lance. The fight was two weeks ago.”

  Kilkenny lay quiet for awhile, absorbing that. Then he remembered.

  “Lem Calkins?”

  “He was killed, he and two of his family. Jaime did it. Then Steele told the others either to leave us alone or fight them all, and they backed down.”

  THE TWO WEEKS more that Kilkenny spent in bed drifted slowly by, but toward the end, as his strength returned, he became restless and worried.

  He remained in Nita’s room, cared for by her, visited almost daily by Rusty, Tana and Webb Steele. Joe Frame dropped by from time to time, as did some of the others.

  Lee Hall came by with Mort Davis, but Kilkenny kept thinking of the buckskin and the long, lonely trails.

  Then one morning he got up early and went to the corral. Rusty and Tana had come in the night before and he saw their horses in the corral with Buck. He saddled up and led the yellow horse outside.

  The sun was just coming up and the morning air was cool and soft. He could smell the sagebrush and the mesquite. He felt restless and strange. Instinctively he knew that he faced a crisis more severe than any brought on by his recent gun battle. Here, his life could change, but would it be for the best?

  “I don’t know, Buck,” he said, caressing the yellow horse, “maybe we’d better take a ride and think it over. Out in the hills with the wind in my face I can think better.”

  He turned at the sound of a footstep and saw Nita standing behind him. She looked fresh and lovely in a print dress, and her eyes were gentle as they met his.

  Kilkenny looked away quickly, cursing inwardly at his weakness.

  “Are you going, Kilkenny?” she asked.

  “I reckon I am, Nita. Out there in the hills I can think a sight clearer. I got a few things to figure out.”

  “Kilkenny,” Nita asked suddenly, “why do you not always talk like an educated man?”

  She paused. “Tana told me you once dropped a picture of your mother, and there was an inscription on it—something about it be
ing sent to you in college.”

  “I can speak like an educated man, Nita, but a lot of us out here have sort of taken on the vernacular of the country.” He hesitated, then added, “I’d better be riding now.”

  There were tears in her eyes but she lifted her head and smiled at him.

  “Of course, Kilkenny. Go, and if you decide you wish to come back … don’t hesitate. And Buck,” she turned quickly to the yellow horse, “if he starts back you bring him very fast, do you hear?”

  For an instant Kilkenny hesitated again, then he swung into the saddle.

  The buckskin wheeled and they went out of Apple Canyon at a brisk trot. Once he looked back and Nita was standing as he had left her. She lifted her hand and waved.

  He waved in return, then faced away to the west. The wind came over the plains, fresh with morning, and he lifted his eyes, scanning the horizon. The buckskin’s ears were forward, and he was quickening his pace, eager to move into the distance.

  “You ’an me, Buck,” Kilkenny said, “we just ain’t civilized. We’re wild, and we belong to the far, open country where the wind blows and a man’s eyes narrow down to distance.”

  Kilkenny glanced back. There was no sign of Apple Canyon now, there was only the horizon … it might have been any horizon.

  He lifted his voice and sang.

  I have a word to speak, boys, only

  one to say,

  Don’t never be no cow-thief,

  don’t never ride no stray.

  Be careful of your rope, boys,

  and keep it on the tree,

  But suit yourself about it,

  for it’s nothing at all to me!

  He sang softly, and the hoofs of the buckskin kept time to the singing, and Lance could feel the air on his face. A long way ahead the trail curved into the mountains.

  A Bantam Book

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam edition published May 1978

  Bantam reissue / September 1997

  Bantam reissue / December 2004

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  Visit our website at www.bantamdell.com

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 1978 by Louis & Katherine L’Amour Trust

  Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  eISBN: 978-0-553-89951-1

  v3.0_r2

  Contents

  Master - Table of Contents

  The Mountain Valley War

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  CHAPTER 1

  SMOKE LIFTED FROM the charred timbers where once the house had stood, and curled wistfully in memory of the great barn Moffit had built to store hay and grain against the coming winters. The corral bars were down and the saddle stock had been run off. Where Dick Moffit’s homestead had been that morning there was now only desolation, emptiness, and death.

  Dick Moffit lay sprawled on the hard-packed earth of his barnyard, the earth deeply clawed in the agony of death. Even from where he sat on the long-legged buckskin, the man known as Trent could see Moffit had been shot at least six times. Three bullets had gone in from the front, the other three fired directly into his back by a man who stood over him. And Dick Moffit had been unarmed.

  The small green valley lay still in the lazy afternoon sun, a faint heat emanating from the burned timbers.

  So this was the way a dream ended! Dick Moffit had sold a good business back East to try his luck at stock-raising in the far West, something for which he had longed since boyhood.

  The man who called himself Trent walked his horse slowly around the burned-out farm. Four or five men had come here, one of them riding a horse with a split right-rear hoof. They had shot Moffit down, then burned his layout.

  Yet, where were his children? What about Sally Crane, who was sixteen? And young Jack Moffit, who was but fourteen? There was no evidence of them here, and although the killers might have taken Sally away, they would undoubtedly have killed Jack.

  There were no other bodies, nor were there any recent tracks of the children. Those that remained and could be distinguished at all were several days old.

  Thoughtfully Trent turned away. The buckskin knew the way they turned was toward home and quickened his pace. There were five miles to go, five miles of rugged trails through mountains and heavy timber and with no clear trail. For this was the way of the man called Trent, that he leave no definite trail wherever he went, and each time he came or went from his mountain hideaway he used a different route, so far as was possible.

  He did not expect to be trailed by anyone at this time, but then, many a good man was now dead who had not expected to be followed.

  This could be it. Always, of course, he had known the day would come, for trouble had a way of seeking him out, try as he would to avoid it. For too many months now everything had gone too well. The rains had come when needed, the grass had grown tall, his few cattle were growing fat. When in town, he had completed his business and bought his supplies then returned home. Of course, there had been rumors that King Bill Hale climbed the high meadows, and there was surprise that he had not moved to drive them out.

  Slightly more than a year ago he had moved into this high green valley and built his cabin. He found no cattle ranging there, nor signs of them, nor were there sheep. It was a high, lonely place, and the places the others had chosen were much the same, although lower down than his own place. No drifting cowpunchers came this high, and only rarely a lion or bear hunter. His only neighbors were other nesters like himself—Moffit, the Hatfields, O’Hara, Smithers, and a scattering of others.

  In the vicinity of Cedar Bluff there was but one ranch. One, and only one. On that ranch and in the town, one man ruled supreme. He rode with majesty, and when he walked, he strode with the step of kings. He never went out unattended, and he permitted no man to address him unless he chose to speak first. He issued orders and bestowed favors like an eastern potentate, and if there were those who chose to dispute his authority, he crushed them without hesitation. With some the pressure of his disfavor was enough. With others he simply offered them a price and their choice was simple: sell out or be forced out.

  King Bill Hale had come west as a boy, and even then he was possessed of capital. In Texas he bought cattle, hired the best available men, and drove his herd to Kansas, where he sold at a handsome profit. He learned to fight and to use a gun, and that often a man had to fight to hold what was his. He learned to drive a bargain that was tight and cruel, and to despise weakness. He saw the strong survive and the weak fail, and he determined then to be not only strong but strongest.

  He had come to Cedar Bluff, which was on the ragged edge of nowhere, and he drove off those who peddled whiskey to the Indians and the cattle rustlers who used it as a hideout. He drove off the few Indians in the area, and when one honest rancher refused to sell, Hale promptly reduced his offer to half, then bought the one supply store and refused credit. When that was not sufficient, he refused to do business with the rancher under any conditions.
/>   Cedar Bluff and Cedar Valley lived under the eye of King Bill Hale, a strong man and an able one. His ranch prospered, his trading post did well, and he built the Cedar Hotel, a gambling house and saloon he called the Mecca, and then he started a stage line.

  He owned sixty thousand acres of good grazing land, which he had bought for prices ranging from a few cents to a dollar an acre. He controlled, by virtue of holding all accessible water, at least a hundred thousand more acres.

  He had, aside from enough inherited money to begin at the top, almost unbelievable luck. Of the three trail drives he made to Kansas, not one stampeded, the weather was always good, and the Indians far away. King Bill Hale, however, did not believe in good fortune and was sure he possessed some inherent quality that accounted for his success.

  He had been astute, but so had others. He had come along at a time when the cattle business was booming and even some stupid men were making money as a result. He bought beef cattle in Texas for three or four dollars a head and sold them in Kansas for twenty-eight to thirty-five dollars.

  In a chancy business where stampedes could scatter cattle all over the range, and where lack of good grazing and water could turn them to little more than hide and hair, he had experienced only success. Now that he was surrounded by those whose success depended upon him, he was free with his money and favors granted, and harsh to all who were not subservient.

  He thought of himself as a good man and would have been shocked at the implication of anything otherwise. Those not as successful as himself were “saddle tramps,” “nesters,” or those who worked for him, who were tolerated if not praised.

  Whenever he rode out, he had tough, hard-scaled Pete Shaw, an excellent cattleman who rode for the brand, and his son, “Cub” Hale.