Feud On The Mesa (7 page)

Without a word, Caleb and Jack left Marshal Holt’s office. On the plank sidewalk outside, Jack’s smoky eyes were narrowed a little. He pulled his coat a little closer about him. The rain was starting again and its tiny fingers were cool on the back of
his neck. “I’ll be damned if I like what’s comin’, Caleb. That marshal’s a gun hawk if I ever saw one. Oh, hell”—he turned up the walk toward the Long-horn Saloon—“let’s go get a drink.”

Caleb pulled the flat, stiff brim of his low-crowned hat down over his eyes. The rain didn’t bother him half as much as the brusque town marshal did. They walked among the huddled people on the sidewalk and edged into the saloon. A rancher was loudly praising the rain over a tin cup of lukewarm beer. He raised the cup with one hand, his luxurious mustache with the other, and drank with loud, gurgling sounds. There were about fifteen Lodgepole townsmen and cattlemen in the place. A sprinkling of younger cowboys, flushed and alert, were scattered through the crowd. In a far corner, a poker game was going full tilt, the players impassively smoking and ignoring the rest of the room.

“What’ll it be, gents?”

“Couple o’ beers, Sam.”

The tin cups slid before Caleb and Jack, and the bartender looked at them anxiously. “Trouble’s brewin’, boys.”

Jack drank a little and nodded sourly. “You ain’t tellin’ us nothing, Sam.”

“No? Well, there was three o’ them Texans in here a while back, an’ one of’em was a big
hombre
with tied-down guns. They didn’t stay long, just looked us over an’ left.”

Caleb was surprised that they were in town so early. He said nothing and drank his beer slowly, eyes on the backbar mirror. Jack Britt shrugged. “Most o’ the cowmen been in, Sam?”

The bartender nodded wryly. “Hell, yes. I reckon
every cowman fer a hundred miles been here once or twice this mornin’.” He shook his head. “They’re wanderin’ aroun’ town like lost dogs, lookin’ to be in the right place at the right time, I reckon.”

“You there, at the bar. Squawman!”

The room got suddenly quiet enough to hear men breathing. Caleb had seen them come in while the bartender and Jack had been talking. He had seen the lanky foreman of the Texans single him out to the crowd of cold-eyed, bronzed-faced men behind him. Caleb set the beer cup down easily and answered without turning around. “If you mean me,
Tejano
, remember what I told you about callin’ folks squawman up in this country.”

The big man’s hands were poised to swoop for his tied-down guns and his even, white teeth were visible through the flat lips. “Turn aroun’, squawman!”

Caleb didn’t move. He calmly studied the hard faces behind the foreman. “How many men you got there,
gringo salido?”

The insult was worse than being called a squaw-man, and the Texans all knew it. The foreman ripped out an obscene oath. “Enough to take care of any Lodgepole cowmen who want to buy into this game.”

“Well, Texan, tell’em to get out from behind you,’cause these boys aren’t doin’ my fightin’ for me an’ I don’t want to hit some man I don’t have nothin’ against.”

The Texan crouched a little lower. His voice was soft and deep. “All right, squawman, it’s just between us, then. Turn around an’ take your medi-cine.”

Out of all the witnesses to that fight, none could ever swear that they saw what happened. There was
a blur of action, a swish of fringes, and the Long-horn Saloon was rocked by two deafening explosions that were magnified by the four walls and roof. There were no second shots. This was a gun-fight between two thoroughly experienced gunmen. One shot each; that is all it took. For a long moment, there was a deathly silence, then the bartender spoke up in a rasping, small voice: “See if he’s dead, boys.”

None of the local men went forward and two of the Texans, hesitatingly, looking uneasily at the Lodgepole cowmen and the cowboys, walked gingerly over and bent over their foreman’s sprawled, still form. One of the riders looked up at Caleb, still standing against the bar, his voice small with awe. “Plumb through the head.” There was a rash of movement at the batwing doors and Marshal Holt, savage eyes slitted in his hawk-nosed face, hat brim low and menacing, stood just inside the opening. “Who done it?”

Caleb nodded. “I did.”

“Witnesses?”

Holt’s hard, flat voice broke the spell and the room buzzed as some men turned to the marshal while others turned to their neighbors and began talking in strained voices. Holt came over beside Doom. “Must’ve been self-defense, from what ever’body says.” He let his cold eyes travel the full length of the scout and back. “I knew that
hombre
, once. He was Powder Hudson, one of the killingest gunmen in the Southwest.” Marshal Holt shook his head slightly. “Don’t see how ya done it. There’s goin’ to be trouble here,
hombre
, an’ I don’t want you in town when it hits. Git your horse an’ slope.”

Caleb’s thoughtful gaze was direct and calm. “You’ve made a mistake, Marshal. That man asked for what he got, an’ I’m not leavin’ Lodgepole be-cause I defended myself.”

Holt’s eyes blazed suddenly with a crazy light. “I say you are,
hombre.”

Jack Britt stepped up, red-faced. “Holt, you’re the marshal here, not the governor. You don’t order any respectable citizen outen Lodgepole, now or any other time.”

For a second, Holt’s body tensed and his face went white. Caleb was watching for the little telltale tightening around the edges of the mouth. Several of the other Lodgepole men came forward. Three of them were prominent cowmen.

“Jack’s right, Marshal. This here man’s got as much right here in Lodgepole as you have. He stays.”

Holt looked at the tight knot of angry cowboys and ranchers around him, estimated his chances at nil, and relaxed with a savage smile. “Can’t argue with the whole damned town.” He swung back to Doom. “What I said still goes,
hombre.
You got till midnight tonight.”

Doom smiled softly. “That’s all the time I’ll need, Marshal.”

Marshal Holt held the door open for two of the Texans who struggled through with the remains of Powder Hudson, ramrod of the Texas trail herd. Several of the Texans tossed hard looks at the Lodgepole cowmen as they went out. Jack Britt tossed off the rest of his beer with a big sigh. “Well, boys, unless I’ve got these Texans sized up all wrong, hell’s goin’ to pop loose any minute now.”

The old white-headed man, who had argued with Holt over Doom’s leaving town, shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet on it, Jack. Them coyotes are pretty much all air, and now, with their foreman shot down, they just might take their damned critters an’ head out around the Lodgepole country an’ go on up north by way of Canon del Muerto.”

Jack was looking thoughtfully at the older man when the bartender spoke up. “Here, you fellers, have a beer on the house. Gawd that was the quickest gunfight I ever seen. Two shots an’ it’s over. Did’ja see where that Texan’s shot went?”

Caleb shook his head dryly. “No. As long as it didn’t go through me, I don’t care.”

“Right here. Look. Man that was awful close.” Caleb and the others looked down at the front of the bar. The dead man’s slug had missed Caleb’s body by a fraction of an inch and had gone through the bar front and out through the back wall. “Close, damned awful close, I’d call it.”

“Where ya goin’, Caleb?” Britt’s grizzled eye-brows were creased with a worried look.

“Down to the livery barn an’ check on my horse. Back in a few minutes.”

As Caleb emerged from the saloon, the people on the plank sidewalk looked at him oddly, and the buzz of excited voices trailed in his wake from the saloon all the way down to the livery barn. The half-breed hostler flashed a brilliant smile at him as he walked back and looked in at his drowsing black horse, sleek and shiny and comfortable, a big flake of fragrant timothy hay still untouched in the worn manger.

“Good fight. I heard about it.”

Caleb was mildly irritated that the news had
traveled so quickly. He nodded and ignored the quick look of anticipation. “Saddle my horse and hang the bridle on the saddle horn. Tie him in his stall. I may have to use him in a hurry. Understand?”

The half-breed nodded importantly. He now had a secret that the other loungers would know nothing about.

Caleb turned and walked out of the wide opening of the barn. Somewhere a rifle cracked and Caleb heard the ripping tear of the heavy slug as it plowed its way into the wall beside him. He threw himself backward, ran into the barn again, down the long, dirt-paved aisle between the stalls, past the startled hostler, and out the back end. It was beginning to rain again and a freshet of cool, invigorating air blew into his face, fragrant with the smell of wet, moldy earth and sage.

Caleb’s fringed hunting shirt darkened as the rain fell on it. He stalked slowly, warily around in back of the stores and avoided the rubbish and refuse piles, alive with shiny bluebottle flies, with effortless grace. The Texans were back for blood. He was opposite the Longhorn Saloon when the throbbing rumble of loping horses came to his ears. He stepped around in front of the building he had been using as a screen as a large host of heavily armed men swung up to the hitch rail and dismounted. Two tight-faced men were left to watch the horses and the rest of the riders surged into the saloon. Caleb stepped out into plain sight and both the Texans left with the horses saw him at the same time. One made a slight, bird-like jerk toward his gun and growled. The second man said something in a breathless voice and the first man stopped his dip. Caleb held them both with his cold stare and neither man moved. The
speed of the scout’s draw had made a deep impression on the Texan who had been present at the recent killing, and he had stopped the green cowboy just in time.

A
ll of Lodgepole, it seemed, had expected the Texans to return. There was only the gentle whisper of the light drizzle to break the awful silence in the town. Even as far away as Caleb was, he could hear the stentorian roar of a big, deep-chested man in the saloon.

“Ah want the squawman who done shot mah fo’-man an’, b’ Gawd, iffen y’all don’t produce him right naow, I’ll tear this heah li’l dung heap daown aroun’ yuah ears.”

There was the brittle silence again, then Caleb heard the scuffling boots and tinkling spurs as the Texans came through the batwing doors. They were beside their horses before the horse guard pointed at him and yelled in a high, hysterical voice: “Thar he stan’s! Over thar ag’in’ that store. He’s the feller as shot down Powder Hudson.”

The Texans all went into action at the same time. It was a fair certainty that they were letting off pent-up steam, because at least a dozen of them couldn’t have seen the horse guard point to him. Caleb singled out a massive, flashily dressed man with an ex-plosive, blustering face. His gun was clear of its holster before the horse guard had stopped speaking. The big man swore thunderously and filled his
hand. Caleb’s shot sent the big pistol flashing back-ward out of his hand, then Caleb disappeared down the slim alley between the two buildings. The Texan roared in rage and pain and leaped on his horse. “Comb th’ town. Teah th’ damned thang daown, but get me thet squawman. Ah’ll give a hunnert dollars gold to th’ cowboy that brings me that
hombre
daid or alive.”

Marshal Holt had heard the firing and was just emerging from his office when a covey of the red-eyed cowboys swung past. One of them turned sideways in the saddle and fired a careless shot at the marshal. With one smooth motion, the marshal’s gun was flaming. The rider went off over backward and his frightened horse ran after the others, stirrups flapping and head high.

All hell broke loose. Lodgepole seemed finally to let go its pent-up emotion. Rifles cracked and pistols roared. The Texans, embattled and savage, shot indiscriminately at anything that moved. Two stray dogs and one saddle horse lay where they had been cut down in the deserted street, not far from the cowboy who had been shot off his horse by Marshal Holt. From the Longhorn Saloon, spiteful pistol fire erupted. The Lodgepole cowmen sought targets with little chance of success. The fight had swirled almost out of range. With a sizzling oath, one of the younger Lodgepole riders darted through the batwing doors while the others watched. They all wanted to get out-side, but feared the consequences of leaving as long as the Texans were loose on the town. The rider ran about fifty feet, when a ragged volley of rifle fire rattled up and down the road. He crumpled in a heap, and the drizzling rain diluted the little pools of blood that formed around his dead body.

Britt wagged his head. “Not that way, boys. It’s murder goin’ out the front. See if they ain’t a back way.”

There was, the bartender showed it to them, and singly and in pairs the Lodgepole men got away from the besieged saloon. With the scattered de-fenders slipping through town, the fight became general. Marshal Holt was very effectively bottled up in his office, however, and his furious oaths rang over the intermittent gunfire. Storming and fuming, the fighting lawman challenged one and all of the malcontents to fight him. All he got in the way of replies was a bouquet of bullets that kept him indoors.

Caleb had scaled the back wall of the general store. He could hear the spurs of the running Texans below him. In the smattering of gunfire, he heard one Texan swear plainly and another laugh. Squirming along, prone, Caleb risked a peek over the edge of the building. One Texan was exploring his rump, which had been grazed by a rifle slug. He had holstered his gun and was alternating between swearing with feeling and groaning. The second cowboy was hunkered low behind a half-filled water barrel. Even as Caleb watched, the man levered his rifle and pumped a shot into the window of Sally Tate’s café.

Caleb eased his .44 over the edge of the roof and spoke: “You, there, pull up your britches an’ help your pardner climb up here.”

To say the Texans were startled would be putting it incorrectly. They were dumbfounded. Awkwardly they clambered up to Caleb, who kept them covered. Once on the roof, he ordered them both to lie down, then disarmed and tied them with their own
belts. Gags were made from their neckerchiefs and handkerchiefs, and the frontiersman smiled saturninely at them as he dropped off the roof.