Flint Read online

  Pete Gaddis took out the makings and started to build a smoke. He knew it was impossible, and yet it had to be that way.

  And after all this time, too.

  Chapter 6

  HE AWAKENED in a cold sweat, awakened suddenly and sharply, chilled through and through, and when he fought himself to a sitting position and crawled from the bunk to the fireplace, his teeth were rattling with cold.

  Desperately, his hands shaking, he threw together the materials for a fire. The match flickered briefly and then went out.

  Almost crying with cold, he struck another, shielded it in his hands until the flame caught. The yellow tongue reached out, lapped curiously at the pine bark, then, catching hold, it crackled with excitement.

  The fire brought weird shadows to the cold walls, shadows that made grotesque thumbs at him, but the cold retreated and warmth came as he crouched before the fire, wrapped in blankets. And then the retching started.

  He went outside into the white moonlight and clung to the door post and vomited terribly, and there was blood mingled with the vomit. He clung to the door for a long time, too weak to get back inside, and the sweat dried on his body and the white moon looked down upon the jagged black lava that walled his home.

  After a while he staggered back to the fire, replenished it, and dozed before it until day came.

  At dawn Flint made the beef broth that seemed better for him than anything else. The pain in his stomach grew less but it did not leave and he rested the day through, reading from a book of poetry.

  The horses were accustomed to his presence now. Even Big Red failed to blow his warning. Sometimes they would feed up to within a few feet of him, and the mare was always around, begging for sugar. Today he even teased the stallion into taking sugar. The red horse refused it from his hands but, after he left it on a flat rock, came to get it.

  He had no regrets for the shooting. He had wanted to avoid trouble, but they had brought it to him, and they had intended to kill Flynn as well as himself.

  The warm sun felt good. He read, dozed, then awakened to read again. There was so much he had always wanted to read…

  Later he spaded up a small garden patch, and planted several rows of vegetables, beans, carrots, onions, and potatoes. He might not live to enjoy them, but he might become so weak before he died he could not leave the hideout for more food.

  Soon he must go to Alamitos.

  ****

  NANCY KERRIGAN sat at her desk. Flynn was still unconscious and she had no idea whether he had filed the claims or not. But she had started work on the cabins, and one of her hands who had been a farmer would break the ground for crops.

  Gaddis was seated nearby. In reply to a question he replied, “No, ma’am, I ain’t seen him since that day and, whoever he is, I figure he wants to be left alone.”

  “I have a feeling I have seen him before.”

  “Yes, ma’am, he has that look about him. He looks familiar to me, too. My advice is to leave him alone.”

  “Why hasn’t he been seen? Where is he?”

  “I been puzzling about that. Johnny and me, we tried to trail him.” He took out the makings. “Mind if I smoke, ma’am?” He built a cigarette. At the blacksmith shop somebody was working and the afternoon was made more pleasant by the distant ringing of the hammer. “Lost his trail, and he meant that we should. He drops clean out of sight when he takes a notion.”

  “He talks like an educated man.”

  “He’s educated, all right. He educated them riders of Port Baldwin’s, too. I hear talk around town, and they say he got that gun out so fast he caught them flat-footed. And once he got it out he didn’t waste no time talking.” Gaddis drew on his cigarette. “Interesting thing. He picked up a package and some mail down to Horse Springs that day.”

  “Have you heard his name?”

  The crunch of a boot on gravel was Johnny Otero in the office door. “I can tell you that. Sulphur Tom told me. His name is Jim Flint.”

  Flint!

  Pete Gaddis came half off his chair. So there it was, then. Red Dolan … he must get Dolan a chance to see Flint. It was impossible, though. Flint must have had ten or twelve bullets in him.

  “Two of Nugent’s hands quit him,” Johnny volunteered. “Said they weren’t drawing fighting pay and to hell with it.”

  “Tom Nugent’s in for trouble, bucking Baldwin. This Baldwin isn’t wasting no time.”

  “And Baldwin started. He pushed five thousand head on to Nugent range today.”

  Nancy listened, thinking of what she could do if five thousand head were pushed on her range. She was sure that Baldwin had paid the men who squatted on Nugent range, and for the purpose of alienating the squatters and land-seekers coming West. When that got around there would be small sympathy for Tom Nugent.

  Yet her thoughts would not remain on the ranch problems or ranch work. She kept remembering the tall young man on the old mare. He had seemed so alone. Long after Johnny and Pete returned to the bunkhouse she sat watching the sunset. He had said so few words, and then had ridden away. She detected some strangeness in Pete’s reaction to him that puzzled her.

  It had been a long time since she had thought about a man, but she told herself that she was merely curious. Yet he was good-looking. Even more — strikingly handsome, and without any softness in him. He looked cold, hard… yet was he?

  ****

  MILES AWAY Jim Flint was watching that same sunset from the hidden pasture. Big Red was feeding close by and seemed glad of the company. He was determined to ride the stallion, but knew his stomach would not stand the pounding of a hard ride, even if he was rider enough to handle such a horse. But there was another and better way. That was with proximity, with gentleness, and casual handling.

  His thoughts turned to Nancy Kerrigan. She was the girl he had seen on the tram, but sitting her saddle out there on North Plain, she had seemed even more poised and beautiful.

  Yet she was right in the middle of a first class range war where no girl of her years had any right to be. It was lucky she had Gaddis. He was a fighter. He was also a steady man and no fool. Yet how much of a tactician was he?

  Port Baldwin was an old he-coon from the high-up hills when it came to fighting. He had been one of Tom Poole’s shoulder-strikers in the old gang-war days of politics — a brutal, confident man who fought to win and would stop at nothing.

  That he had brains was obvious by the fact that he had risen from the crowd. There were few shady practices in which Baldwin had not taken a hand. Now he looked and acted the gentleman when it served his purpose, but he had won many a bloody brawl in the streets when he was getting started. At forty, Baldwin was as dangerous and cold-blooded an opponent as a man could find.

  On the morning of the third day after the shooting on North Plain, Flint awakened with an itch to get out, to see the newspapers. By now it would be known that he had vanished and questions would be asked.

  This time he would go to Alamitos and get the boxes he had there. Besides, he must bring in more supplies. Any day he might become too weak to get out, and he did not want to starve to death.

  He saddled the mare and led her through the tunnel. He checked the loads in his rifle and his pistols, for there was every chance that he was riding into trouble.

  For a moment he remembered the talk of Buckdun. The man was somewhere around, and it had probably been he who shot at Ed Flynn, and wounded him. There might be others.

  Fortunately, he and Baldwin had never met, and Baldwin would not recognize him if they came together on the street.

  There were a dozen horses tied to the hitch rail in Alamitos, and two big freight wagons stood near the supply store. Leaving his mare at the rail in front of the stage station which also did duty as a post office, he went inside.

  He knew the minute he stepped through the door that the big man in the black suit was Port Baldwin. He was huge, towering inches over six feet, and massively built. His face was wide and there was an old scar
on his cheekbone. He looked exactly what he was, a New York tough who had come into money.

  Twice in recent years he had taken beatings in stock manipulations, once from Jay Gould, and again from Kettleman. Yet he had forged ahead, using blackmail, threats, and even beatings to frighten his enemies or business rivals.

  Walking to the corner, Flint said, “Mail for Jim Flint?” He was aware that Baldwin turned sharply around.

  Several letters were awaiting him and he recalled that in the excitement over the shooting on North Plain he had forgotten the mail received on that occasion. The agent said, “There’s two big boxes, too.”

  The door closed behind him and Flint was aware that the man with Baldwin had gone out. Baldwin stepped up to the counter and turned to face him. “Flint? My name is Port Baldwin, and I want to talk to you.”

  “Go ahead. You’re talking.”

  “Outside, not here.”

  Flint turned and looked into Baldwin’s cold blue eyes. “Why, sure!” he said. At the door he paused, “You first.”

  Baldwin hesitated, then stepped through the door. Outside Flint glanced swiftly up and down the street. Three belted men were moving down from the right, two more from the left. A man leaned against a store front across the street.

  “You killed one of my men.”

  “He asked for it.”

  Baldwin took a diamond-studded cigar case from his pocket and selected one, then handed the case to Flint, who took one. “I want you to work for me,” Baldwin said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll pay better than anyone else.” Baldwin clipped the end from his cigar and put it between his teeth. “I need a man who doesn’t waste time. A man who can use a gun.”

  “No.”

  Baldwin was patient. “Flint, you simply don’t understand. All the rest” — he waved a hand — “they’re finished. There’s room here for one big outfit, and I’m it.”

  “Cattle?” Flint asked mildly. “Or is it land?”

  Baldwin’s pupils shrank, and the muscles around his eyes tightened. “That’s no affair of yours. If you work for me you do as you’re told.”

  “I am not working for you,” Flint said quietly. “Nor do I intend to.”

  “All right.” Flint, half-turned to meet the men coming up on him, and too late he saw Baldwin swing. He had not expected Baldwin to take a hand himself, but the big fist caught him behind the ear and Flint fell against the hitch rail, stunned.

  Before he could recover his balance or even turn they moved in on him. One man swung viciously at his kidney and a boot toe caught him on the kneecap. He felt the wicked stab of pain and his knee buckled and when Flint threw out an arm to protect himself a man grabbed it and bore down with all his weight. Another grabbed his other arm, and two swung on his unprotected stomach.

  Viciously, they pounded him to his knees, and when he fought to his feet, they battered him down again. There was a roaring in his skull and a taste of blood in his mouth. He was falling in the dirt and they were beating, pounding, and kicking him. Yet he could not quit.

  Once his fist caught a jaw and knocked a man sprawling. Once he got his toe behind a man’s ankle, kicked him on the kneecap with his other heel, and felt the leg bone snap. He grabbed a man behind the neck and butted him in the face. He stabbed a man’s nostril with a stiff thumb and felt the flesh tear. But at last they beat him into the dirt and left him there, bloody and broken.

  One man remained loafing nearby and, when a cowhand would have come to Flint’s assistance, warned him off.

  For more than an hour, Flint lay in the street. Slowly consciousness returned, and with it, pain — a heavy thudding in his skull, and a stabbing in his side. He lay still, aware only of pain, then of the smell of dust, the warmth of the sun on his back and the chill of the ground beneath him, and the taste of blood.

  Somehow he knew enough to lie still. He could hear the passing of boots on the boardwalk, the jingle of spurs, a rattling of harness.

  Could he move? One hand lay on the ground beneath him, and he tried moving the fingers. They stirred, but stiffly. The back of the hand felt raw, and he seemed to remember it being stamped on. His hand must have been lying on the soft earth near the water trough or the bones would have been broken.

  He was in bad shape, but how bad? Had they taken his gun? If he moved now, would he be killed?

  Through the fog in his brain, he fought to work out a plan. His head throbbed and his stomach was hot with agony. He worked the fingers in his right hand some more, and opened his eyes to the merest slits.

  He was lying just off the walk and because of it he could not see the watcher, although he could hear the creak of the boards when he moved, and the rustle of his clothing. Then Flint remembered the gun in his waistband. Out of sight beneath his coat, they might not have seen it. He worked his hand over to it and grasped the butt.

  He did not know whether he could rise or not, but he was going to try. Fury was beginning to build within him. He had always been slow to anger, yet terrible in his rages, for he never ceased to think when angry. He was going to make them pay.

  A few faces he remembered, a few hands. Those he wanted. As for Baldwin, there was a better way for him. To such a man defeat is worse than death.

  As he was gathering his muscles, a buckboard rounded into the street. He heard the rattle of trace chains, the wheels on the gravel, and then the team drew up.

  “What is wrong with that man?” It was Nancy Kerrigan’s voice. “Why doesn’t somebody do something?”

  The watcher replied lazily. “Because he’s a man tried to buck Port Baldwin, ma’am. This is the least that happens.”

  Flint heard the buckboard creak. Then the watcher said, “I wouldn’t try that, ma’am. You touch him and I’ll have to be rough.”

  “You are fighting women now?” There was a chill in her voice. “How very brave you must be!”

  “We ain’t playin’ favorites.” The man’s voice was uneasy. “When he comes out of it, we give it to him again. We keep on doin’ that until train time, and then we put the rest of him on the train — if anything is left to put on.”

  “If you put a hand on me,” Nancy Kerrigan said sharply, “I will see you hanged before sundown.”

  Knowing the watcher’s eyes would be on Nancy, Flint rolled swiftly to his knees, gun in hand.

  The guard turned swiftly, drawing. Flint fired.

  He shot to kill, but his hand was unsteady, his gaze blurred. The bullet struck the man on the hip, ripping his empty holster loose and knocking him sidewise.

  Flint lunged to his feet, swayed dizzily, and caught himself on the hitching rail to prevent a fall.

  Another Baldwin man sprang into the street and Flint fired. The bullet ripped splinters from the walk at the man’s feet, and another struck the door jamb as he dove for shelter.

  The guard was getting up and Flint, swaying drunkenly, cut down with a sweeping blow of his gun barrel that flattened him into the dust. Flint’s other pistol was in the gunman’s belt. He retrieved it, and took the guard’s pistol.

  Nancy Kerrigan ran to him. “Oh, please! You’re hurt! Get into the buckboard!”

  “There isn’t time,” he said.

  He blinked slowly against the pain in his skull, and he swung his head like a huge bear.

  The street was emptied of people. Yet they were there, all those who had beaten him. He shifted guns and thumbed shells into the Smith & Wesson.

  With a queer, weaving, drunken gait he started up the street. Every breath he took brought a twinge of pain in his side. His head felt like a huge drum in which pain sloshed like water as he moved. He was going to die, and he no longer cared. What he wanted now was to find them. And he knew their faces.

  He swayed, half-falling, then pushed himself erect and staggered through the swinging doors of a saloon. The Baldwin riders, some of them at least, were there.

  Their laughter died, their half-lifted drinks stopped in mid-air, and Flint fir
ed. He opened up in a blinding roar of gunfire, fanning his gun, for the range was close and there were a number of them.

  One man grabbed for a gun and was caught by a bullet that knocked him sprawling. Panic-stricken, another man leaped through a window carrying the glass, frame, and all with him. Another bullet smashed a bottle from a man’s hand, and another — it was a face he remembered — struck a man in the spine as he dove for the back door.

  Flint staggered to the bar, catching a glimpse of a bloody and broken face in the mirror. He picked up a bottle, took a short drink, and started for the door.

  Out on the street he peered right and left. He realized his gun must be empty and holstered it for the guard’s pistol.

  A window glass broke and a rifle barrel came through. Flint flipped the six-shooter up and snapped a shot through that window. A man sprang from a doorway and fired a quick shot that struck an awning post near Flint.

  Flint fired, missed and fired again. The man’s knee buckled under him and he scrambled for the door, but Flint fired again and the man cried out sharply and fell forward.

  From door to door he went, half-blind with pain and his own blood, dribbling from a lacerated scalp. Twice he almost fell. The men he faced seemed panic-stricken at the sight of him, and they shot too fast or simply ducked out and ran.

  Somehow he was back in front of the stage station and his own horse was there. So was Nancy Kerrigan. He had to try twice before he could get a foot in the stirrup and pull himself into the saddle. He swung the mare and started up the street. He began to feed shells into the guard’s gun, but it slipped from his fingers and fell into the dust.

  He slid forward on the mare’s neck, the horizon seemed to bob and vanish into wavering mist, and he felt himself falling. Nancy was beside him. He fell half into the buckboard, and she got down quickly and tipped him over into the back. Tying the mare on behind, she started for the ranch, driving at a rapid clip.

  ****

  WHEN FLINT opened his eyes he was lying in bed between white sheets and staring up at a sunlit ceiling. Slowly, because his neck was stiff, he turned his head.