The Man from Battle Flat Read online

  “I agree that it is not right. I agree that it should be different, but this is yet a raw, hard land, and we must have our killers, not punished, but prevented from killing again. Vin Carter was my friend. Of that I can say nothing, only that because he was my friend, I must act for him. He was not a gunfighter. He was a brave young man, a fair shot, and, on the night he was killed, he was so drunk he could scarcely see. He did not even know what was happening. It was murder.

  “So I have come here. It so happens that I am like some of these men. Perhaps I am ruthless. Perhaps in the long run I shall lose, and perhaps I shall gain. No man is perfect. No man is altogether right or altogether wrong. Pogue and Reynolds got their ranches and power through violence. They are now in a dog-eat-dog feud of their own. When that war is over, I expect to have a good ranch. If it leaves them both alive and in power, I shall have my ranch, anyway.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully. “Where, Ross?”

  His pulse leaped at the use of his first name, and he smiled suddenly. “Does it matter now? Let’s wait, and then I’ll tell you.” The smile left his face. “By the way, as you left me the other day, a man told me you were a staked claim, and to stay away.”

  “What did you do?” She looked at him gravely, curiously.

  “I told him he was a fool to believe any woman was a staked claim unless she wanted it so. And he said, nevertheless you were staked. If it is of interest, you might as well know that I don’t believe him. Also, I wouldn’t pay any attention if I did.”

  She smiled. “I would be surprised if you did. Nevertheless”—her chin lifted a little—“what he said is true.”

  Ross Haney’s heart seemed to stop. For a full minute he stared at her, amazed and wordless. Then he said: “You mean . . . what?”

  “I mean that I’m engaged to marry Star Levitt. I have been engaged to him for three months.” She arose swiftly. “I must be going now.” Her hand dropped suddenly to his with a gentle pressure, and then she was gone.

  He stared after her. His thoughts refused to order themselves, for of all the things she might have said, or that he might have expected, this was the last. Sherry Vernon was engaged to Star Levitt.

  “Some hot coffee?” It was May, smiling down at him.

  “Sure.” She cleaned up the table, then left him alone. Sure, he mused, that’s the way it would be. I meet a girl worth having and she belongs to somebody else!

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  He looked up to see Allan Kinney, the hotel clerk, standing by the table. “Go ahead,” he suggested, “and have some coffee.”

  May delivered the coffee, and for a few moments there was silence.

  “Ross, you’d do a lot for a friend, wouldn’t you?”

  Surprised, he glanced up and something in Kinney’s eyes told him what was coming. “Why, sure!” But even as he said it, he was thinking it over, thinking over what he knew Kinney had on his mind.

  “Do you regard me as a friend? Of course, I haven’t known you long, but you seem like a regular fellow. You haven’t any local ties that I can see.”

  “That’s right! I just cut the last one. Or had it cut. What do you want me to do? Get him out of town?”

  Kinney jerked up sharply. “You mean . . . you know?”

  “I guessed. Where else would he go? Is Burt hurt bad?”

  “He can ride. He’s a good man, Ross. One of the best. I had no idea what to do about him because I know they will think of the hotel soon.”

  “You’ve got him here?” Haney was incredulous. “We’d best get him out tonight. That Box N crowd will be in hunting for him, and I’ve got a hunch the RR outfit won’t back him the least bit.”

  “He’s in the potato cellar. In a box under the potatoes.”

  “Whatever made you ask me?” Ross demanded.

  Kinney shrugged. “Well, like I said, you hadn’t any ties here, and seemed on the prod, as they say in Soledad. Then, May suggested it. May did, and Sherry.”

  “She knows?”

  “I thought of her first. The VV is out of this fight so far, and it seemed the only place. She told me she would like to, but there were reasons why it was the very worst place for him. Then she suggested you.”

  “She did?”

  “Uhn-huh. She said, if you liked Burt, she knew you would do it, and you might do it just as a slap at Reynolds and Pogue. She didn’t seem to believe Reynolds would help, either.”

  Haney digested this thoughtfully. Apparently Sherry had a pretty good idea of just what undercurrents were moving the pawns about in the Soledad chess game. Of course, she would have heard at least part of Bergue’s talk with Kerb Dahl and the others.

  “We can’t wait,” Haney said. “It will have to be done now. The Box N hands should be getting to town within the hour. Have you got a spare horse?”

  “Not that we can get without everybody knowing, but May has one at her place,” Kinney answered. “She lives on the edge of town. The problem is to get him there.”

  “I’ll get him there,” Haney promised. “But I’d best get mounted myself. I know where to take him, too. However, you’d best throw us together a sack of grub from the restaurant supplies so there won’t be too many questions asked. After I come back again, I can arrange to get some stuff.”

  Ross Haney got to his feet. “Get him ready to move. I’ll get my horse down to May’s and come back.” He listened while Kinney gave him directions about finding her house, and then hurried to the door.

  It was too late.

  A dozen hard-riding horsemen came charging up the street and they swung down at the hotel. One man stepped up on the boardwalk and strode into the hotel. Haney knew him by his size. It was Walt Pogue himself, and the man at his right was the man who had been with Berdue at the springs!

  “Kinney! I want to search your place! That killer Rolly Burt is somewhere in town, an’ by the Lord Harry we’ll have him hangin’ from a cottonwood limb before midnight!”

  “What makes you think he’d be here?” Kinney demanded. He was pale and taut, but completely self-possessed. He might have been addressing a class in history, or reading a paper before a literary group. “I know Burt, but I haven’t seen him.”

  VIII

  Unobtrusively Ross Haney was lounging against the door to the kitchen, his mind working swiftly. They would find Burt, and there was no earthly way to prevent it. The only chance would be to avert the hanging, to delay it. He knew suddenly that he was not going to see Rolly Burt hang. He didn’t know the man, but Burt had won his sympathy by winning a fair fight against two men.

  “What are you so all fired wrought up about, Pogue?” he drawled.

  Walt Pogue turned squarely around to face him. “It’s you! What part have you got in this?”

  Ross shrugged. “None at all. Just wonderin’. Everywhere I been, if a man is attacked an’ kills two men against his one, he’s figured to be quite a man, not a lynchin’ job.”

  “He killed a Box N man!”

  “Sure.” Ross smiled. “Box N men can die as well as any others. It was a fair shake from all I hear. All three had guns, all three did some shootin’. I haven’t heard any Reynolds men kickin’ because it was two against one. Kind of curious, that. I’m wonderin’ why all the RR men are suddenly out of town?”

  “You wonder too much!” It was the man from the springs. “This is none of your deal! Keep out of it!”

  Ross Haney still leaned against the door, but his eyes turned to the man from the springs. Slowly, carefully, contemptuously he looked the rider over from head to heel, then back again. Then he said softly: “Pogue, you’ve got a taste for knick-knacks. If you want to take this boy home with you, keep him out of trouble.”

  The rider took a quick step forward. “You’re not running any bluff on me, Haney!”

  “Forget it, Voyle! You get to huntin’ for Burt. I’ll talk to Haney.” Pogue’s voice was curt.

  Voyle hesitated, his right hand hovering over his gun, but Ross d
id not move, lounging carelessly against the doorpost, a queer half smile on his face.

  With an abrupt movement then, Voyle turned away, speaking quickly over his shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later, Haney!”

  “Sure,” Ross Haney said, and then as a parting he called softly: “Want to bring Dahl with you?”

  Voyle caught himself in mid-stride, and Voyle’s shoulders hunched as if against a blow. He stopped and stared back, shock, confusion, and puzzlement struggling for expression.

  Haney looked back at Pogue. “You carry some characters,” he said. “That Voyle now. He’s touchy, ain’t he?”

  “What did you mean about Dahl? He’s not one of my riders!”

  “Is that right? I thought maybe he was, although I’ll admit I didn’t know.”

  Walt Pogue stared at him, annoyed and angry, yet puzzled, too. The big man walked back to the restaurant stove, got a cup, and poured coffee into it from the big coffee pot. He put sugar in it, and then cream. He glanced over his shoulder at Ross.

  Haney felt a slight touch on his shoulder and glanced around and found May at his shoulder.

  “He’s gone!” she whispered. “He’s not there.”

  There was dust on her dress and he slapped at it, and she hurriedly brushed it away. “Where was he shot?” he asked, under his breath.

  “In the leg. He couldn’t go far, I know.”

  Pogue turned around. “What are you two talking about?” he demanded. “Why the whispering?”

  “Is it any of your business?” Haney said sharply.

  Walt Pogue stiffened and put his cup down hard. “You’ll go too far, Haney! Don’t try getting rough with me! I won’t take it!”

  “I’m not askin’ you to,” Ross replied roughly. He straightened away from the door post. “I don’t care how you take it. You’re not running me or any part of me, and you might as well learn that right now. If I choose to whisper to a girl, I’m doin’ it on my own time, so keep out of it.”

  Pogue stared at him, and then at the girl, and there was meanness in his eyes. He shrugged. “It’s a small matter. With all this trouble I’m gettin’ jumpy.”

  Voyle came back into the room accompanied by two other men. “No sign of him, boss. We’ve been all over the hotel. Simmons an’ Clatt went through the vegetable cellar, too, but there ain’t a sign of him. There was an empty box under those spuds, though, big enough to hide a man.”

  Allan Kinney had come back into the room.

  “What about that, Kinney?” Pogue demanded.

  “Probably somethin’ to keep the spuds off the damp ground, much as possible,” Haney suggested carelessly. “Seems simple enough.”

  Pogue’s jaw set and he turned swiftly. “You, Haney! Keep out of this! I was askin’ Kinney, not you!”

  This time Voyle had nothing to say. Ross glanced at him, and the man looked hastily away. He’s scared, Ross told himself mentally. He’s mixed in some deal and doesn’t want his boys to know it. He’s afraid I’ll say too much.

  Pogue turned and strode from the restaurant, going out through the hotel lobby, his men trooping after him. When the last man was gone, May turned to Kinney. “Allan, where can he be? He was there, you know he was there!”

  Kinney nodded. “I know.” He twisted his hands together. “He must have heard them and got out somehow. But where could he go?”

  Ross Haney was already far ahead of them. He was thinking rapidly. The searchers would probably stop for a drink, but they would not stop long. Voyle was apparently in on the plot to have Burt killed, for he had been at the springs, and this had happened too swiftly. Too little noise had come from the RR for it to be anything but a plot among them. Or so it seemed to Haney. For some reason Rolly Burt had become dangerous to them, and he was supposed to die in the gunfight the previous night, but had survived and killed one of their men and wounded another. Now he must be killed, and soon.

  Yet Haney was thinking further than that. His mind was going outside into the darkness, thinking of where he would go if he were a wounded man with little ammunition and no time to get away. He would have to hobble or to drag himself. He would be quickly noticed by anyone and quickly investigated. He would not dare go too far without shelter, for there was some light outside even though it was night.

  Then Haney was recalling the stone wall. It started not far from the hotel stables and went around an orchard planted long ago. Some of the stones had fallen, but much of it was intact. A man might make a fair defense from behind that wall, and he could drag himself all of a hundred yards behind it.

  Ross walked swiftly out of the hotel through the back door. There in the darkness he stood stockstill at the side of the door, letting his eyes become accustomed to the night. After a minute or two he could pick out the stable, the orchard, and the white of the stones in the wall.

  Walking to the stable, he took the path along the side, then put a hand on the stone wall, and dropped over it with a quick vault. Then he stood still once more. If he approached Burt too suddenly, the wounded man might mistake him for an enemy and shoot. Nor did he know Burt, or Burt him.

  Moving silently, Haney worked his way along the stone wall. It was no more than three feet high and along much of it there was a hedge of weeds and brambles. He ripped a scratch on his hand, then swore. Softly he moved ahead, and he was almost to the corner when a voice spoke, very low.

  “All right, mister, you’ve made a good guess but a bad one. Let one peep out of you an’ you can die.”

  “Burt?”

  “Naw!” The cowhand was disgusted. “This is King Solomon an’ I’m huntin’ the Queen of Sheba! Who did you think it would be?”

  “Listen, an’ get this straight the first time. I’m your friend, and a friend of May’s and Kinney’s from the hotel. I’ve been huntin’ you to help you out of here. There’s a horse at May’s shack, an’ we’ve got to get you there just as fast as we can make it. You hear?”

  “How do I know who you are?”

  “I’d have yelled, wouldn’t I? If I found you?”

  “Oncet, maybe. No more than oncet, though. This Colt still carries a kick. Who are you? I can’t see your face.”

  “I’m Ross Haney. Just blew in.”

  “The hombre that backed down Syd Berdue? Sure thing. I know you. Heard all about it. It was a good job.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I can take a stab at it if you give me a shoulder.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  With an arm around Burt’s waist, Haney got him over the fence and then down the dark alleyway between it and the stone house next to it. They came out in an open space, and beyond it there was the trail, and then the woods. Once in the shelter of the trees they would have ample concealment all the way to May’s house.

  Yet once they were started across that open space, any door opened along the backs of the buildings facing them from across the street would reveal them and they would be caught in the open. There would be nothing for it then but to shoot it out.

  “All right, Burt. Here we go! If any door opens, freeze where you are!”

  “Where you takin’ me?” Supporting himself with a hand on Haney’s shoulder, and Haney’s arm around his waist, he made a fair shift at hobbling along.

  “May’s shack. If anything delays me, get there. Take her horse an’ light out. You know that old trail to the badlands?”

  “Sure, but it ain’t no good unless you circle around to Thousand Springs. No water. An’ that’s one mighty rough ride.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll handle that. You get over there and find a spot to watch the trail until you see me. But with luck we’ll make it together.”

  Burt’s grip on Haney’s shoulder tightened. “Watch it! Somebody openin’ that door.”

  They stopped, standing stockstill. Ross felt Burt’s off arm moving carefully, and then he saw the cowhand had drawn a gun. He was holding it across his stomach, covering the man who stood in the light of the open door. It was
a saloon bartender.

  Somebody loomed over the fat bartender’s shoulder. “Hey! Who’s that out there?”

  “Go on back to your drinks,” the bartender said. “I’ll go see.” He came down the steps and stalked out toward them, and Haney slid his hand down for his left gun.

  The fat man walked steadily toward them until he was close by. He glanced from one face to the other. “Pat,” Burt said softly, “you’d make a soft bunk for this lead.”

  “Don’t fret yourself,” he said. “If I hadn’t come, one of those drunken Box N riders would have, an’ then what? You shoot me, an’ you have them all out here. Go on, beat it. I’m not huntin’ trouble with any side.” He looked at Haney. “Nor with you, Ross. You don’t remember me, but I remember you right well from your fuss with King Fisher. Get goin’ now.”

  He turned and strode back to the door.

  “What is it?” A drunken voice called. “If it’s Rolly Burt, I’ll fix him!”

  “It ain’t. Just a Mex kid with a horse. Some stray he picked up, an old crow-bait. Forget it!”

  The door closed.

  Ross heaved a sigh. Without further talk, they moved on, hobbling across the open, then into the trees. There they rested. They heard a door slam open. Men came out into the street and started up the path away from them. They had been drinking and were angry. The town of Soledad would be an unpleasant place on this night.

  When Haney had the mare saddled, he helped Rolly up. “Start down the trail,” he said. “If you hear anybody comin’, get out of sight. When I come, I’ll be ridin’ that Appaloosa of mine. You’ve seen it?”

  “Sure. I’ll know it. I keep goin’ until you catch up, right?”

  “Right. Keep out of sight of anybody else, and I mean anybody. That goes for your RR hands as well. Hear me?”

  “Yeah, an’ I guess you’re right at that. They sure haven’t been much help. But I’ll not forget what you’ve done, a stranger, too.”

  “You ride. Forget about me. I’ve got to get back into Soledad an’ get my horse out without excitin’ comment. Once I get you where I’m takin’ you, nobody will find you.”

  He watched the mare start up the road at a fast walk, and then he turned back toward the town.