Novel 1970 - The Man Called Noon (v5.0) Page 6

  The door of the station was on the latch. He opened it, and stepped inside. There was a pot-bellied stove, a woodbox, a bench, and a few faded magazines. He went back outside and raised the stop signal, and settled down to wait.

  The fly-speckled schedule told him the train would be along in two hours—a freight train.

  All was quiet. Somewhere out on the flat he heard a bird call, but there was no other sound. He looked off across the flat country toward the farthest mountains.

  Soon he might know. Somewhere there would be a clue. If he was Ruble Noon now, he might always have been Ruble Noon—but what if he had been somebody else before that? What was he? Who was he?

  In the distance he heard the train. He could hear the rails humming.

  Chapter 7

  *

  THE TRAIN CAME in sight, whistled, and rolled down the track, the drivers pounding. It consisted of a locomotive, two freight cars, three stock cars, and a caboose.

  The brakeman swung down. “Climb aboard,” he said. “We’re runnin’ behind time.”

  “How about my horse?”

  He gave a look at the roan, then indicated an empty stock car. “Load ’im up, but get a move on.”

  An improvised ramp, three planks nailed together, lay against the building. Noon took one end, the brakeman the other, and they placed it in position. The horse went into the stock car, and in a matter of minutes they were rolling.

  Back in the caboose the brakeman went to the stove and took up the coffeepot. “How about it?” he said.

  “Sure,” Noon said.

  The railroader handed him a cup. The coffee was hot, black as midnight, and strong.

  “Can’t figure you out,” the brakeman said. “I’ve made this run fifty times, maybe, an’ nobody ever gets on at that stop but you.”

  “It’s a lonely country.”

  “Yeah…it is that. But there’s a lot of lonely country, and you’re the on’y one I know with your own railroad station.”

  Noon shrugged. “I’m not complaining. Saves time.”

  The brakeman finished his coffee and went out to check the train. Ruble Noon put down his cup and stretched out on the settee.

  Some hours later he was awakened by the brakeman. “You hungry? We’re makin’ a stop up ahead. The grub’s pretty good.”

  “Thanks.”

  It was night. He heard the train’s long whistle, looked ahead, and saw the finger of light from the locomotive pushing its way through the darkness. Behind it was the red glow from the firebox. The long whistle sounded again, calling into the night.

  He sat for some time in the window, looking into the darkness. Then he saw the lights of a town ahead, a fairsized town. He took out his watch—it was just past eleven o’clock.

  The train ground to a halt. “We’ll be here about twenty minutes,” the brakeman said. “Don’t get too far away.”

  Noon swung down, following the brakeman, and walked to the station. There was a lunchroom there, and several men were already eating at the long table. Two men who appeared to be cowhands were standing at the bar nursing their beers.

  As the brakeman entered they turned, glancing from the brakeman to Noon. One of the cowhands said something in a low tone to the man beside him, who gave a sharper look.

  Ruble Noon sat down, helped himself to a piece of overdone steak and some mashed potatoes, and started to eat. He was, he discovered, very hungry.

  The brakeman spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I don’t know you, mister, but it looks like you’ve got trouble.”

  Noon was listening, but he did not look up. “All right,” he said, and then added, “keep out of it. Let me handle it.”

  “There’s two of ’em,” the brakeman protested, “and I ain’t had a good fight in months.”

  “Well,” Noon said, “if they use their fists. But if it’s guns, leave it to me.”

  He could hear the low talk at the bar. One man was protesting to the other, but the first was having none of it. Suddenly, he spoke aloud. “You over there! You with the blue coat! Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “You might.” Ruble Noon spoke easily. “I’ve been there.”

  The man was just drunk enough not to understand. “You been where?” he demanded.

  “There,” Ruble Noon said gently.

  For a moment there was silence, and in the silence somebody chuckled. The man at the bar grew irritated. “I know you from somewhere,” he insisted.

  “I don’t think you know me,” Ruble Noon said. He finished his coffee and got to his feet. “If you did you’d keep your mouth shut.”

  He stepped outside and the brakeman followed, glancing over his shoulder. “I think they’re comin out,” he said. “They ain’t goin’ to leave it lay.”

  “Let’s get aboard.”

  “You scared?”

  Ruble Noon turned his head sharply to look at the brakeman. “No, I’m not scared, but I have too much sense to get into a shooting match with a couple of half-drunken cowhands over nothing.”

  At that moment the train whistled.

  Ruble Noon walked along, caught the handrail, and swung up to the step. The two cowhands had emerged from the restaurant and were staring after him. The brakeman hesitated, then swung aboard, completing a hasty signal with his lantern.

  One of the cowhands started after them. “Hey, you! You can’t get away with that! You—”

  Ruble Noon went inside, followed by the brakeman, who gave him a surly look. “What did you mean back there? I mean when you said if he knew who you were he’d keep his mouth shut?”

  “I was just talking.”

  “I thought so,” the brakeman said. But he seemed unsure, and kept staring at Noon. “I don’t get this,” he said at last. “There’s somethin’ here I just don’t get.”

  “Forget it,” Ruble Noon stretched out on the settee. “Call me before we get to El Paso.”

  “It’ll be daylight.” The brakeman hesitated. “You gettin’ off at the same place? This side of town?”

  “Naturally,” Noon said, and closed his eyes. He heard the brakeman leave to go about his business, and after a while he fell asleep.

  The siding where they let him off was in a thick growth of brush and trees near a deserted ranch on the outskirts of town.

  When he had unloaded his horse at the chute, he watched the train pull away. The brakeman was staring after him, obviously puzzled.

  Ruble Noon himself was puzzled. Apparently he had made this trip before and was known to the trainmen, but they did not know his business nor why he should be accorded such privilege. Undoubtedly there was some official connection. Perhaps some of his “work” had been for the railroad. It would take somebody with considerable authority to arrange such a situation.

  There was nobody around the small adobe. He saw a well, lowered a bucket, and got water for himself and his horse.

  The door of the adobe was closed, but it opened under his hand. The place was dusty, but otherwise it was clean and in good shape. There was a bed, and a cupboard devoid of supplies. It was cool and quiet, and was hidden by mesquite thickets and a few cottonwoods.

  He went outside again, and noticed a couple of stacks of hay near the corral. He put some down for the roan, and squatted on his heels in the shade, considering the situation. It would be better, he decided, to wait until dark before entering the town.

  As he sat there he found himself thinking back to the two cowhands at the restaurant near the station where they had stopped. For the first time he thought about the one who had tried to avoid trouble. That one, he decided, had not been drinking. Moreover, there had been something peculiar in his attitude, some particular caution. Was he imagining it, or had that cowhand been overeager to avoid trouble?

  Was it mere chance that they were there? Suppose one of them was there for a purpose, and the other had just joined him by accident? Suppose one was a spy, an outpost, as it were, to notify somebody of Noon’s approach to El Paso? />
  He was imagining things. Knowing nothing for sure, he was finding suspicious items everywhere.

  But the one man’s attitude, the way he had looked at Ruble Noon, would not leave him. That man had known who he was looking at, but he had not wanted to attract attention.

  All right…take it from there. Suppose that somebody in El Paso had discovered that Ruble Noon used that approach. Suppose that somebody had a man posted to watch for him at the logical place—the restaurant and bar where all train crews stopped.

  The one who wanted such information might be one of two types. He might be somebody who wanted to hire him for a job, or somebody who wanted him killed…who, for one reason or another, feared him.

  If they knew about this route into the town, they might also know about this place. He might, even now, be right in the middle of a trap.

  He sat very still, his hatbrim pulled low. Under it his eyes were busy, searching out places of possible concealment.

  The pile of wood yonder…possible, but unlikely—too hard to get at or get away from. Under the mesquite? His eyes searched that spot, and suddenly all his senses were alert. Was some sixth sense, or perhaps all his other senses together, trying to warn him of something? Or was it only his imagination that made him suspect he might be under observation?

  Were they waiting for him to move? If so, why? If they wanted to kill him, why hadn’t they tried it already?

  He went over his every move. He had approached under cover of the brush and trees; he had been only momentarily in the open when he fed the horse and when he went into the house.

  If somebody was waiting here, that somebody was waiting for him to do some expected thing he had not yet done. He evidently had not put himself in the line of fire yet; but why didn’t the man move into a different position? If he had not done so, it must be because he could not without attracting attention. Which indicated that the unseen man, if there was one, was in a position where he would draw attention to himself if he moved. It would, no doubt, be a position with an easy escape route, in case his shot was a miss.

  Suppose he himself had arrived at this place with a memory that was not confused? What would he have done? As there were no supplies in the adobe, and no sign of occupancy, it was likely he would have ridden away. No doubt that was exactly what he had done in the past. If the marksman believed that to be the case, where would he be? Obviously, somewhere along the road that led away from the ranch, in some place that did not allow him to cover the ranch yard itself.

  Was he imagining all this? Or was there actually someone hidden nearby, someone primed and ready to kill?

  If there was a man waiting, he must be growing nervous and restless by now. It might be that he could be provoked into a move. But on the other hand, he might have the patience of an Indian and lie quiet, knowing that Noon must sooner or later leave the place.

  He got up and went into the adobe, and crossed to the back room. He did not want to kill anyone, but neither did he want to be killed. He looked out the back window.

  A dozen yards away there was a ditch masked by undergrowth. He studied it for a long moment. It looked inviting, too inviting. Glancing around, he saw a large olla such as the Mexicans use to cool water. On the bed lay an old blanket. He took it up, wrapped it around the olla, put his hat over the top, and thrust it up to the window. It looked like a man about to climb through. A rifleman, tense with waiting, might—

  The olla had not been in position an instant when there was the crash of a volley…more than two rifles…three, at least. The olla shattered under his hand.

  He raced for the front of the adobe and was in time to see a man running from behind the stable toward Noon’s horse. If they got his horse he was trapped…to be killed at leisure.

  He never knew when he drew. The sight of the running man, the realization of what this meant, and his own draw must have been simultaneous. He heard the bellow of his gun in the close confines of the room as he shot through the open door.

  The runner took two steps, then stumbled and hit the ground. And then silence…

  The bare, hard-packed earth of the yard was empty, except for the dead man and the horse. Nervously, the roan had moved nearer.

  Keeping his voice low, Ruble Noon called to the horse, which looked toward him uncertainly.

  A boot grated on gravel behind the adobe. They were coming for him. The roan was nearer now, no more than fifteen or twenty feet off. The long stable was a wall between the yard and the thickets beyond. There were at least three men out behind, and they were hunting him now. He could try for the horse.…

  Suddenly he knew he was not going to run. Not yet. They had planned for that, were ready for it. He backed into a corner where he could watch the door and the windows at the same time.

  He thumbed back the loading gate of his Colt and thrust out the empty shell, then added a fresh cartridge. Moving the cylinder, he added another. The six-shooter was now fully loaded.

  He could see a shadow at the window. Somebody was looking into the room, but the corner where Noon stood could not be seen.

  Someone else was at the door. Would they be so foolish as to try a rush?

  “Now!”

  The word came sharply, and three men leaped into the room, two through windows, one from the door. It was their first mistake.

  They came out of the bright sunlight into the dim light of the room, and one man stumbled as he landed from the window. All held guns, but only one got off a shot. He fired as he was falling, the gun blasting its bullet into the floor.

  Ruble Noon shot as they came, and held the gun in his hand and waited a slow minute while he watched the windows and the door. One of the men on the floor stirred and moaned. Noon squatted on his heels and stayed quiet.

  Outside nothing stirred, and then he heard a magpie. Following that he heard the pound of hoofs racing away…one rider.

  They had thought to surprise him, not thinking of the dimness inside, and he was in the darkest corner, the last place on which their eyes could focus.

  Now the wounded man was staring at him through wide, pain-filled eyes. “You goin’ to shoot me?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “They said you was a killer.”

  “Who said so? Who hired you?”

  “I ain’t goin’ to tell you that. They said you was a back-shootin’ killer.”

  “I don’t need to shoot men in the back.”

  “No,” the wounded man admitted, “I guess you don’t.…But there’s one still out there.”

  “No. He rode away—I heard him.” Ruble Noon was thinking hard. He said, “What will he do? Will he bring others?”

  “Him?” The wounded man spoke bitterly. “That there louse? He’ll run his hoss’s legs off gittin’ away. Never was no fight in him!”

  Ruble Noon holstered his gun and moved over to the wounded man. He had hit twice, once through the shoulder, the second time through the leg. Working as swiftly as he could, Noon plugged the wounds and wrapped them with bandages torn from a dead man’s shirt.

  “Where’d you leave your horse?” he asked.

  The man stared at him. “You goin’ to run me out of here?”

  “I’m going to get you out of here. Or do you want to explain those?” He gestured to the dead men. “You came here to murder me…remember?”

  “We sure didn’t cut the mustard,” the man said. “You outfoxed us.”

  Noon collected the guns from the dead men, and packed them outside. He collected their horses and tied the dead men on them. He pinned on each one a paper which read:

  He tried to dry-gulch

  Ruble Noon

  Then he turned the horses loose.

  The wounded man raised up on an elbow. “What was them papers you pinned on them?”

  “It makes no difference,” Noon answered, and sat down. “Now you and I are going to have a little talk.”

  The gunman looked at him warily. He was a grizzled, hard-faced man with a broken
nose. “About what?”

  “About who hired you.”

  “An’ supposin’ I ain’t of a mind to?”

  Ruble Noon shrugged. “I’ll just pull out those plugs I put in you and I won’t tell anybody where you are. You might manage to walk a mile, but I doubt it. You’d start bleeding again and before dark you’d be buzzard meat.”

  The gunman lay back and closed his eyes. “Mister, I don’t know who it was. These boys an’ me was in a joint…the Acme Saloon, it was. There was a gent come in we knew as Peterson. It wasn’t his real name, but that’s of no matter. Anyway, he said we could pick up fifty dollars apiece and he wanted five of us, for a little shooting.

  “He said this was a known man, and there’d be no worry about the law if we done it. This here Peterson had been in the Rangers at one time, and he knowed a lot of folks around about town. We taken his word for it. We’d seen him talkin’ with some high-powered men around El Paso, like A. J. Fountain, the Mannings, Magoffin, and the like of that.

  “He laid it out for us, but all the time we knowed he was talkin’ for somebody else and not for himself. You see, this Peterson knowed a lot of folks on both sides of the fence, and he’d been a sort of go-between before this. If a man wanted to sell stolen cattle, Peterson could always put him in the way of it.

  “Fifty dollars now, that’s near two months’ wages for a cowhand, so we taken him up on it. Who paid the money to him, I don’t know.”

  Ruble Noon considered. The man seemed to be telling the truth, and the story sounded right.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ve got your horse outside. I’m going to load you up and take you out a ways. When I get you within easy distance of El Paso I’ll turn you loose.”

  He stood for a moment thinking about Peterson. It was unlikely that he could make Peterson talk, for the man sounded like a tough one. He had served in the Rangers, and had probably gone bad after leaving them…or been kicked out, as was often the case if they found they had a bad egg in the basket.