Savage Range (10 page)

Will-John Cruver thought so, too. When squat Mitch Boyd removed the water bucket from the bench and sat down on it as the only seat left, Cruver rose and spit in the fire.

“You're a fine damn collection of brush rabbits,” he observed with hefty sarcasm, regarding each face as he spoke. “I can't see how you worked up the guts to leave your holes and come here tonight.”

“You know damn well why we did,” Mitch Boyd said.

Cruver grinned, and his beard did not part enough to show his teeth. “I do. All I got to do is rattle that old skeleton and you all step into line.”

“What do you want of us?” Mako Donaldson asked, his gentle eyes resigned.

“To fight,” Cruver replied bluntly.

“With what?” Boyd asked dryly.

“With a little more guts than you're showin' now,” Cruver retorted. He walked over to the deal table and sat on it. It sagged under his muscled weight.

He said bluntly, “How many of us are there here tonight that killed Jim Buckner?”

It was intentionally brutal, for Cruver could not be otherwise. He enjoyed the winces of the older men, Donaldson, Boyd, Slocum, Harmony, and Reed. The younger ones were impassive; this was too old a secret to impress them, but it was one that cemented them together, old and young.

Mako Donaldson said bitterly, “Cruver, you're goin' to wave that flag once too often. You'll get a slug in the back.”

“Not from you yellowbellies,” Cruver said.

Mitch Boyd said, “Get to the point, Cruver. I ain't got a man at my place. Bonsell could burn it down and I wouldn't know it for a day.”

“There you got it,” Cruver said. “You pack of Nellies sit home at a window with your cattle bawling out in the corrals for feed. You got a shotgun beside you, a rifle on your knees, a week's grub on the table, and, if you're lucky, a few sticks of dynamite on the floor. You're too damn scared to sleep, even.”

“I built my place,” Boyd snarled, his broad Irish face flushing. “I'm damned if I'll let that bunch burn me out without a fight.”

“What fight?” Cruver retorted. “You haven't fought yet. You just hope you won't have to.”

Mako Donaldson put in dryly, “Just because they've wiped you out, Cruver, let the rest of us do it our way. If we don't guard our places, they'll burn 'em.”

“And what if they do? There's more logs in the mountains, ain't there? There's more cattle to steal!” He swore tauntingly at them. “Bonsell's got maybe fifteen men. There's thirteen of us left. That's fairly even, ain't it?”

When they didn't answer, he went on, his voice hard and sneering. “What you jugheads don't savvy is that if we're to stay here, we got to carry the fight to Bonsell. What does it matter if he cleans our range and burns us out, as long as we down him? Because if we don't down him we're leavin' this country—if we got enough life in us to walk. He aims to kill so many of us that the rest of us will high-tail it. He's come near to doin' it now.”

“But I spent ten years gettin' that place of mine and my herds!” Boyd snarled.

“All right. You might's well face the fact you've got to do it again,” Cruver retorted. “Here or somewhere else. Would you rather start farther south in a country you don't know, or would you rather start here in a country you do know?”

“Here,” Mako Donaldson said.

“Then fight!” Cruver said. “Just fight! This ain't goin' to be settled in the courts. Harvey Buckner is smart enough to know that he'd better stay out of a lawsuit or we might tell the court who he is. And we can't tell who he is without tellin' that we murdered Jim Buckner. So it'll be settled with guns. We hold the place now. The only way we can keep on holdin' it is to band up and wipe out Bonsell or anybody else Buckner sends in here. But we can't do it by takin' pot shots from our own windows at any jasper that rides onto the place.”

Mako Donaldson listened in silence, his lined face bitter. After Cruver finished, none spoke. Mako said suddenly, “I wish to God we'd tried peaceful means with Jim Buckner instead of the way we did! I've regretted it all my life.”

“Just part of your life,” Cruver sneered. “You still got some more regrettin' to do.”

Mako looked up at him, his glance unafraid. “You're a brute, Cruver. You haven't a heart or a mind or a conscience.”

“Just the kill-or-be-killed instinct,” Cruver agreed blandly. “Only this time my instinct happens to need you, Mako—and all the rest of you.”

“And if we don't?”

Cruver smiled more broadly now, showing strong yellow teeth. “It ain't far to a U.S. marshal. And after I've told him who killed Jim Buckner, it ain't far to a new country. And I ain't afraid to start again, either, like the lot of you.”

Mako said quietly, “I don't think we ought to let you leave this house, Will-John.”

Cruver really laughed then. “Let me!” he echoed. “Hell! You can't stop me. If you put a slug through my head, I'd stand here long enough to nail five of you. And you're too damned afraid of your yellow hides to take the chance.”

Mako regarded him with quiet bitterness, and then dropped his glance. “That's true—only too true, and you know it.”

Cruver nodded cheerfully. It didn't matter a whit to him whether these men hated or liked him, as long as they did his bidding. And he had been patient with them up till now. But that would stop.

“I think I will go,” he drawled, rising, “and when I go out that door you better start thinkin' how you can gang up on a U.S. marshal.” He looked around. As he turned, a gun appeared in his hand. He cocked it loudly and said, “Anybody aim to stop me?'

None answered. He strode toward the door. One of the young men, Mako Donaldson's son, made a tentative grab for his gun, but Cruver only swiveled his weapon toward him and grinned.

“Come back here, Will-John,” Mako said. “You've got us licked and you know it.”

“Have I, Boyd?” Cruver asked.

Boyd nodded. “I never thought I'd see the day when I'd fight for you, Cruver, but I guess it's come,” Boyd said quietly.

“I guess it has,” Cruver agreed. “But not only—”

He ceased talking, cocking his head to listen. “Someone just rode in,” he announced.

They were silent, a little tense, listening to the approaching footsteps of a man walking rapidly. The door opened to admit a young man in dusty Levi's.

“Well, what's happened, Custer?” Cruver asked.

“Plenty,” Custer said. “There was a scrap went on over there.”

Custer was the lookout posted by loose agreement of the squatters to report any activity at the Excelsior. It seemed that there had been a fight at the Excelsior. After the massacre of the squatters, it was common knowledge among them that Bonsell had cached five men in the second story of the Ulibarri house and had sent the rest into the hills, to make good his word to the sheriff. That these men were up there only temporarily, everyone knew. The five were there to guard Bonsell until, under the pretense of hiring an entire new crew, he could recruit more renegades. But something had happened. It was dark when it began. Bonsell was in the cookshack talking to the cook. Custer had seen that through his glasses.

Then all of a sudden a rifleman hidden down by the barn had begun to pour lead into the cookshack. He broke the lamp on the second shot. Another rifleman over by the stacks joined in. The five men up in the house tried to go to Bonsell's help, but a third rifleman stopped that. He poured lead into the door of the house so fast a rabbit couldn't have got out. Furthermore, he kept it up all the time the other two were harrying Bonsell.

“It looked to me,” Custer continued, “as if some of those Excelsior boys out in the hills had it in for Bonsell. They waited until he was by himself, away from his guards, and then jumped him.”

“Then what happened?” Cruver asked impatiently.

“Why, there was only one gun in the cookshack. While Bonsell was trying to reach the man in the stacks with it, the other man down by the barn snuck up and fired the shack.”

What happened after that was a pretty close thing for Bonsell, Custer said. He stayed in the cookshack until it was nearly burned up. The Chinese cook decided he'd rather die by a slug than have the building fall in on top of him. He made a run for the house.

“And they never even shot at him,” Custer said. “It was pretty plain they was savin' their bullets for Bonsell. They waited until it looked like Bonsell was goin' to be buried under burning timbers. And then he made a run for it.”

“Did he make it?”

“He did,” Custer said. “But I bet he thinks he's dead right now. His shirt was on fire, and he slapped at it as he ran. They shot his hat off. They shot the gun out of his hand. I'd swear they took both heels off his boots. He fell down once, and the slugs threw dirt in his eyes. He dodged like an Indian, but they kept kickin' up dirt in front of him. He made the door in one long dive and got splinters shot into his face from the doorframe. He stood in there and cussed so hard at them that all the grass died. After that, the three of them pulled out.”

Cruver said slowly, “They did, eh? They could have killed him but they just wanted to scare him. That means they want more wages, and if I know Bonsell, he'll take his time givin' it to them.” He looked around at these men. “Well, if you're goin' to fight, now's the time to do it, while they're fightin' among themselves.”

“And that makes sense,” Mako Donaldson said.

“Then hit the saddle,” Cruver announced briefly.

Chapter Nine:
RIVER OF DEATH

Jim, Ben Beauchamp, and Phil Scoville met at the appointed place above the Excelsior. Jim was the last to come, and he was grinning when he crept behind the screen of cedars.

Scoville said, “I've heard considerable cussin' in my time, but Bonsell's made my hair a little curly.”

“He didn't like it much, did he?” Jim asked.

“Do you think we hit him?” Ben asked.

Jim shook his head. “He could run all right. A hit man doesn't run, not even if he's scared.”

They smoked while discussing the probabilities as to what Bonsell would do. Scoville believed he would call the crew together and mop up on the squatters, providing he believed that the ambush was at Cruver's direction. As for his suspecting Jim, it was improbable, simply because there were three attackers. Even if word of Jim's breaking out Ben last night had reached Bonsell—an unlikely thing, for Bonsell had not been in town this day—that would account for only two of the three attackers. And Scoville was certain that Bonsell did not know of his own desertion. The men in the hills came and went as they pleased, their safety being their own lookout. No, Bonsell would believe the attack was made by three squatters and he would strike immediately.

Jim listened to Scoville's opinion and disagreed with it, simply because he thought Bonsell was a more cautious man. He'd wait for daylight to strike, Jim thought.

Finished with their smokes, they separated, each to watch the house from a different angle, for it was imperative that no move of Bonsell's be missed.

Alone, picking his way through the cedars, alert for any sound, Jim took stock of his fortunes so far. This was the first move in his plan. Scoville's advent was plain luck. Jim had taken him to Cope's and ordered him to shave his beard. Here was a man who, unrecognizable with different clothes and smooth-shaven features, could circulate without drawing suspicion. Moreover, here was the man Harvey Buckner would seek out. Besides that, Jim found himself liking the man. His sincerity Jim never questioned. When he was cleaned up, he had the gentle features of a man harried by circumstance, quiet to moroseness, but possessed of a dry wit and quick, aggressive mind. Tonight, with a brand of sharpshooting that amazed Jim, he had proven invaluable. But with only Scoville and a green kid, he had to buck Bonsell's crew and Cruver's. Could he do it? And the image of Mary rose in his mind to strengthen him and confound him. He had to do it!

He slipped into a piñon thicket on the ridge to the north of the house. By daylight he would know if his ruse to goad Bonsell into open war had worked or whether he must cast about for some other plan.

The lamps were lighted in the second story of the big house, behind pulled shades. The cookshack was entirely burned, an unsightly pile of dull-glowing ashes and twisted metal where it had once stood. Evidently, a conference was in session, for only a lone guard squatted by the big house's doorway.

Presently a man came down from upstairs and went down to the corral. He saddled and rode off west, toward the hills. That would be a messenger to the rest of the crew, and at the sight of him Jim's hopes kindled.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait. Jim squatted down against a piñon, rifle across his knees, and dozed and started and dozed again.

It was in waking from one of these dozes that he heard the sound of someone walking behind him. It was a man, for he could hear the uncertain steps he was taking on the rocky ground.

Jim sat utterly still, his nerves taut. This couldn't be Ben or Scoville, or they would have whistled. The man came on, and in that thick darkness passed no less than five feet from Jim. He was making no great effort to be quiet, nor was he crashing brush. When he sky-lined himself, Jim could see he was carrying a rifle slacked in his arms.

When he was past, Jim came to attention. He saw the man down the slope now, bellied down behind a boulder facing the house. The cigarette of the guard at the door glowed and faded in the night.

Jim watched an interminable while. And then, down by the creek, an owl hooted. It was a good imitation, but it wasn't the real thing.

The man understood, however. He raised his gun, sighting it for a long time on the rock. He fired then, the shot crashing the night down. The cigarette the guard was smoking arched slowly to the ground, and Jim knew the shot had killed him.