Cover from the collection The End of the Trail: Western Stories (2005).
Background Colour: -White- -NavajoWhite- -Wheat- -Beige- -AntiqueWhite- -LightGray- -Silver- -BurlyWood- -Tan- -Black- -Blue-
Text Colour: -Black- -Brown- -Blue- -Green- -Red- -Yellow- -White- -Orange- -Silver-
Published in The Last Ride, 1978.
This version is taken from Howard’s typescript.
Cover from the collection The End of the Trail: Western Stories (2005).
John Kirby suddenly straightened in his saddle, and his whole body went taut as he stared after the figure which had just vanished around the corner of a horse-pen. There was a tantalizing familiarity about that figure, but his glimpse had been so brief he was unable to place it. He turned his glance away to the cluster of houses that marked San Juan, a huddle of raw board houses breaking the monotony of the prairie. Crude, primitive in its newness, it was a smaller counterpart of other prairie towns he had seen. But the rails had not yet reached it, nor the trail herds that came up the long road men called the Chisholm.
Three saloons, one of which included a dance hall and another a gambling dive, stables, a jail, a store or so, a double row of unpainted board houses, a livery stable, corrals, that made up the village men now called San Juan.
Kirby turned into the stable. He was a hard-bodied man, somewhat above medium height, darkened by the sun and winds of many dim trails. The scabbard at his right hip hung low, and the butt that jutted from it was worn smooth from much handling. Something in the man’s steely gaze set him apart from the general run of the cowboys who rode up the trail yearly in increasing hordes.
Kirby left his horse at the stable, and emerging, halted in response to a gesture from a thick-bodied man, dark faced, who wore a silver-plated star on his dingy shirt.
“I’m Bill Rogers, the marshal of San Juan,” said he. “This is my deputy, Jackson,” jerking a thumb at a nondescript-looking individual who accompanied him. “Just hit town?”
“Yeah; my name’s Kirby; I was ridin’ with a trail herd headin’ for Ellsworth, and turned off this way, havin’ business in San Juan.”
“You’ll have to hand over that gun to me,” said Rogers, apologetically. “We got a law against wearin’ guns in town. When you start to leave, come around to my office and I’ll give it back to you. That’s it, down there in the front part of the jail.”
Kirby hesitated instinctively. It was no light matter to ask a man of his caliber to disarm himself. Then he shrugged his shoulders. This was not the Texas border country, where each clump of chaparral might conceal a feudist enemy. He had no enemies in Kansas, to the best of his knowledge. One man had come up the trail whom he would have to kill if he met, but that man was dead. Unbuckling his gun-belt, he handed it to the marshal. Rogers grunted what might have been thanks or an expression of relief, and hurried away, the scabbarded sixshooter swinging from his hand, trailed by his silent deputy.
Kirby felt his empty thigh curiously, aware of a strange unrest at the absence of the familiar weight there. Then with a shrug, he strode up the dusty street toward a saloon, in which a light had just sprung up against the gathering darkness. The town seemed quiet, in contrast with those towns that had already received the rails and become shipping centers for the Texas herds. Only a few figures passed along the street, vague in the deepening dusk.
Kirby entered the saloon, which was really a dance hall provided with a bar. It was the biggest building in town, and really elaborate for a village of that size. It boasted two stories, the second floor being occupied by the girls who worked in the establishment. San Juan expected an eventual boom.
Voices rose in altercation from within: a feminine voice, strident with anger, holding a hint of hysteria, and a deeper voice, masculine, and slightly alcoholic.
“Aw, leave me alone, Joan. I told you I was through. Get away from me.”
“You can’t throw me down like this!” the voice broke in a sob that sounded more like rage than grief. “You can’t! I won’t—”
There was the sound of an open-handed blow, and a shriek.
“Now will you lemme ’lone?”
“You filthy breed!” the woman was screaming like a virago. “Throw me over and knock me around, will you? Damn you, Jack Corlan, you won’t live to see the sun come up again!”
“Aw, shut up!” The swinging doors opened as Kirby reached a hand for them, and a lithe figure lurched through, brushing against the cowboy: a slender, darkly handsome youngster, whose aquiline features bore more than a suggesion of Indian blood. Beyond him, in the saloon, Kirby saw the woman, a supple, black-haired girl in the costume of the dancing halls. Abruptly she ceased her shrill tirade, turned and fled up the stair, sobbing. Kirby’s eyes narrowed; not at the violence of the scene, but at the holstered gun he had noted swinging at the man’s hip. Why had he not been disarmed, if the law required it?
The dance hall was empty, save for one bartender, and the slender figure mounting the stair. The night rush had not begun—if there ever was one in San Juan. Kirby leaned on the bar and ordered whiskey; the barkeep began polishing the bar with a cloth. He worked with a preoccupied air, but Kirby, who missed little of what went on about him, noted that the man was watching him sidewise, and was moving further away from him all the time, toward the other end of the bar.
Booted feet stamped on the threshold, and the door was flung open. Natural alertness made Kirby turn; and he froze, his whiskey glass half lifted. A dozen steps away stood a big, black-bearded man, leering at him. This man stood on wide braced legs, his thumbs hooked into his sagging belt, just above the jutting butts of his pistols.
“Jim Garfield!” Kirby hissed the name, in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible.
“Yeah, Jim Garfield!” jeered the bearded man, his whiskers bristling in a savage grin. “Your old friend! Aintcha glad to see me, Kirby?”
“I thought you was dead,” growled Kirby. “Your old man said you were.”
“That was the idee!” Garfield showed yellowed teeth as his grin broadened, grew more venomous. “I wanted you damned Kirbys to think that. I come up here on business that concerned you all, and I didn’t want nothin’ known about it. I thought you was trailin’ me when Red Donaldson here brought me word you had rode into town; but I reckon it’s just one of them there coincidences!” He guffawed loudly.
Kirby looked beyond him at a tall lean man whose cold eyes contrasted with his flaming mop of hair.
“So it was you I saw duck behind that corral. I thought I knew you.”
“So we arranged a welcome committee,” Garfield spread his legs wider and seemed to hug himself with glee. “Before we give you the keys to the city, though, I want to tell you why I come up here. See them boys there?” He indicated half a dozen men clustering behind him—men whose sinister profession was stamped on their features. “Them boys work for me now, Kirby. I’ve done hired ’em. They’re ridin’ back to Texas with me when I go, them and maybe a dozen more. When they get through with the Kirbys—” again he guffawed, but there was no mirth in the laughter, only a saw-edged threat.
Kirby said nothing, but he was white under his bronze. For a dozen years merciless feud had waged between the Kirbys and the Garfields, down there on the lower reaches of the Rio Grande. Ambushes in the brush had followed on the heels of terrible gun-battles in the streets of little border towns. The original reason for the feud was immaterial. At last the Kirbys had seemed to triumph. But now John Kirby stood face to face with a threat that bade fair to wipe his very name off the earth in blood. He knew the type of the men who stood behind Jim Garfield: barroom gladiators, two gun men, cowtown killers, who slew for pay, and sold their guns to the highest bidder. It was these that Jim Garfield planned to loose on Kirby’s unsuspecting kin. John Kirby felt suddenly sick, and his skin was beaded with cold sweat.
Garfield perceived this. “Hey, John, what you sweatin’ about? Don’t you like your licker?” He guffawed at his own humor, then suddenly went hard and grim as steel. “I got somethin’ that’ll fix it,” he muttered, his eyes beginning to burn like coals of blue fire. He drew his gun and cocked it, and took deliberate aim at Kirby’s breast. Behind him his henchmen likewise drew. Kirby stood frozen with fury, helplessness, and the horror of dying like a sheep. His hand twitched at his empty hip. Where in God’s name was the marshal? Why had he, John Kirby, been disarmed, when every outlaw that rode up the trail was allowed to swagger through the streets armed to the teeth? In unnatural clarity he saw the whole scene: the booted figures, guns in hand, the dark faces leering at him, the girl at the head of the stair above, leaning over the railing, frozen with dreadful fascination. The one lamp that lighted the place hung just above her, and bathed her features in its light. All this John Kirby saw without exactly realizing that he saw it. His whole consciousness was focussed on that burly, menacing figure that half crouched before him, head bent down, squinting along the dull blue barrel.
“Just takin’ toll now, John,” mumbled Garfield. “You remember my brother Joe you killed in Zapata? You’re goin’ to meet him right away—”
Crash! The lamp splintered; Garfield, startled, yelped and fired blindly. Kirby heard the bullet smash into the bar close by. But he was already moving. Galvanized into frantic action, he raced down along the bar, wheeled and dived headfirst through a window, limned faintly in the blackness. Behind him guns banged wildly in the dark, men yelled, and the bull-like voice of Jim Garfield dominated the clamor, intolerable with blood lust and primitive disappointment.
Scrambling up, Kirby ran around the corner of the building. Just as he did, he caromed into a dark figure which was emerging from a back door. He caught at it savagely, checked his grip as his fingers encountered flesh too soft for a man.
“Don’t!” a voice gurgled. “It’s only me—Joan!”
“Who the devil’s Joan?” he demanded.
“Joan Laree!” There was haste and urgency in the tone. “I smashed the lamp—saved your life!”
“Oh, you’re the girl that was on the stair!” muttered Kirby.
“Yes—but don’t stop. Come on!”
She seized his hand and pulled him away from the building. He followed. He was bewildered, and a stranger in the town. She had aided him already; there was no reason to distrust her.
She led him out on the bald prairie that ran up the very back stoops of San Juan. Behind them the clamor increased as a light was lit. Doors crashed as vengeful men ran out into the street. Kirby cursed his lack of weapons beneath his breath. He was not used to flight. The girl panted, urged him to increased efforts. He saw her goal—a shack a short distance from any other house. They reached it, and she fumbled at the door, opened it, and beckoned him in. He stepped into the darkness and she followed and threw something—a cloak perhaps, over the one window. She pushed the door shut, which creaked on thick leather hinges. There was the scratch of a match, and her face was limned in its yellow glow as she lighted a coal oil lamp. Kirby gazed at her, fascinated. She reminded him of a young panther—slim, supple, youthful. Her black hair caught burnished glints in the lamplight. Her dark eyes glowed. She raked back her locks with a nervous hand as she faced him.
“Why did you do this?” he demanded. “They’ll skin you for breakin’ that lamp.”
“They weren’t noticing me,” she answered scornfully. “They don’t know I did it. Why did Jim Garfield want to kill you? Why did you come here?”
“I came here to see a friend of mine I heard was tendin’ bar,” he answered. “Bill Donnelly; know him?”
“I did know him,” she answered. “He’s dead.”
“Somebody shoot him?” Kirby’s grey eyes narrowed.
“No,” she laughed hardly. “He shot himself—in the back. Quite a few men have committed suicide that way. Those that wouldn’t take orders from Captain Blanton.”
“Who’s he?”
“He owns this town. Never mind. It isn’t a good idea to talk about Blanton, even when nobody’s listening. Sit down. Don’t worry. Nobody’ll think of you coming here. This is my shack. I sleep here when I get fed up with the racket at the Silver Boot.”
“If I could get hold of a gun I wouldn’t need to bother you,” he muttered, seating himself on a raw-hide bottomed chair.
“I’ll get you a gun,” she promised, seating herself on the opposite side of the rough hewn table. She cupped her chin in her hands, rested her elbows on the table, and stared closely at him.
“There’s a feud between you and Jim Garfield?”
“You heard what he said.”
“He’d have killed you if it hadn’t been for me.”
He assented, but stirred restlessly; he had learned that such a remark from a woman generally preceded a demand for services of some kind.
“Would you do something for me?” she asked bluntly.
“Anything in reason,” he answered warily.
“I want a man killed!”
His head snapped up angrily, just that blunt, naked statement, as if he were a hired gunman, a thug ready to do murder for a price.
“What man?” he asked, controlling his resentment.
“Jack Corlan. He passed you as you came into the Silver Boot. The dirty half-breed—” Her white hands clenched convulsively.
“Didn’t look like he had that much Indian in him to me,” said Kirby.
“Well, he’s got Cheyenne blood, anyway,” she said sullenly; “his father was white, and he’s been raised white, but—well, that’s got nothing to do with it. He’s done me dirt. I was fool enough to think I loved him. He threw me over for another woman. Then he cursed me and hit me. You saw him hit me. I want you to kill him.”
Revulsion swept over John Kirby and he rose, picking up his hat.
“I shore appreciate what all you’ve done for me, Miss,” he drawled. “I wish I could do somethin’ for you some time.”
She sprang up, white.
“You mean you won’t help me?”
“I mean I’ll catch this fellow and beat him to a pulp,” said Kirby. “But I’m not killin’ a man that never harmed me, just because a jealous woman wants me to. I’m not that low.”
“Low!” she sneered. “Who are you to talk of being low? I know you. I’ve heard of you. You’re a gunman, a killer! You’ve killed half a dozen men in your life.”
“I live in a land where men have to fight,” he answered somberly. “If I wasn’t quick with a gun, I wouldn’t have lived to get grown. But I never killed a man that wasn’t threatenin’ my life, or the lives of my kin. If I saw you bein’ threatened by a man, I’d blow his light out. But I don’t consider that there’s sufficient cause to kill the man you mentioned.”
She was livid and shaking with fury; she gasped and panted.
“You fool! I’ll tell Garfield where you’re hiding!”
“Surely you didn’t think I’d stay here?” he retorted. “I’m leavin’; I thank you for what you did tonight, and I aim to repay you some time, but in a decent way.”
He turned away; and with a cry of ungovernable fury, she caught up a pistol from the table, threw it down with both hands. He whirled just in time to hear the crack of the shot, and to get the lead on the side of the head instead of the back. He did not feel the impact, but the light went out like the snuffing of a candle.
John Kirby regained consciousness slowly, but with perfect realization of where he was and what had occurred. The oil lamp still burned on the table. The shack was empty except for himself; the door stood open a crack. He gripped the table and reeled up, sick, weak and dizzy. He lifted a hand to his scalp, discovered a ragged tear. The bullet had grazed him. He cursed, holding on to the table. His head throbbed, and his movements had started the wound bleeding afresh. The heat of the oil lamp nauseated him. He reeled to the door, threw it open and passed out into the starlit night. Walking sent waves of agony through his bruised brain. He weaved around the corner of the house, blind and dizzy. Suddenly his stumbling feet met empty air and he plunged downward to strike the earth with sickening force.
The jolt brought the blood down his face in streams, but cleared his head. He shook himself and sat up, seeing more clearly. He realized that he had fallen into a ravine at the back of the house. That ravine, he believed, was the same one that meandered around one end of the town, skirting the back of the building which served as a jail. He started to pull himself up, then halted as voices reached him. Somebody was approaching the shack. He recognized a clear feminine voice.
“I tell you, I don’t know how he got in my shack! He was there when I opened the door. He jumped for me, and I screamed and shot him. I lit the lamp and saw he was the fellow that was in the Silver Boot.”
“Blast it, gal,” that was Jim Garfield’s plaint, “if you’ve robbed me of the pleasure of killin’ John Kirby—”
“I don’t know whether he’s dead or not! I shot him in the head. He was still breathing when I left. I ran to the Silver Boot as fast as I could—”
“Alright, alright,” that was a deeper, unfamiliar voice which carried a tone of command. “Here’s the shack; get your guns ready; if he isn’t dead he might be laying for us—here, McVey, open the door.”
Almost instantly followed a yelp of animal disappointment.
“He ain’t here!”
The deep voice broke in. “Joan, are you lying to us?”
Red Donaldson cut in. “You drop that tone, Captain Blanton. I don’t like it. No, she ain’t lyin’. See that blood on the floor? And there’s the mark of bloody fingers on that table. He was here alright, but I reckon he come to and left.”
Garfield broke into violent profanity.
“Well, we’ll find him,” assured Blanton. “Get out of here, you fellows, and scatter through town. He can’t have gone far, if he’s wounded. Go to the stable first, and see if his horse is still there. Joan, go with them; get back to the Silver Boot and tend to the customers. That’s where you belong, anyway.”
“Captain Blanton,” it was Red Donaldson’s voice, dangerously silky, “if I was you, I’d be more polite to a lady. Come on, Miss Laree, I’ll see you back safe.”
Boots clumped away, and Kirby, momentarily expecting a search of the ravine, heard Blanton, still in the shack, say: “Corlan, what are you doing here? I thought I told you fellows—”
“I don’t care what you told them fools!” the voice rose with the petulancy of intoxication. “I ain’t your dog to order around. I do more work than any of your men, and you treat me like a dog. I rode fifty miles between midnight last night and this noon, and you know what I did before I made that ride!”
“Shut up, you fool!” exclaimed Blanton.
“I won’t shut up unless you give me some more money!” shouted Corlan. “I’m the only man that can do your dirty work in that direction, because any other man of yours would lose his scalp if he tried it! You can’t treat me like you treat the rest! I want more money!”
“I’d have given you more if you’d asked for it with some decency,” snapped Blanton. “But you can’t bulldoze me, Corlan. Not another cent tonight.”
“No?” mouthed the inebriated one. “Suppose I tell what I know? Oh, I ain’t talkin’ about Bill Donnelly. Everybody knows I killed him for you, and nobody cares. I’m talkin’ about Grizzly Elkins. What do you think them buffalo hunters would do if—”
“You cursed fool!” There was fear and blood-lust too in Blanton’s voice, and then came the sound of a heavy blow, the stumbling fall of a heavy body. Corlan mouthed a shrieking curse: “I’ll kill you!” Then there was the reverberating report of a .45. Kirby glared at the tiny square of light that was the window, wishing he could see through the solid walls.
Then came Blanton’s voice: “You’ve killed him!”
“Well,” it was Garfield speaking, “if I hadn’t drilled him, he’d have got you. You know how them Indians and breeds is when they’re drunk. Come on; leave him lay; we’ll send some of the boys after him. Let’s get out and look in that gully.”
Electrified, Kirby began to grope his way along the winding bank. The floor of the ravine was narrow, but fairly even, and he made good time. Evidently Garfield and Blanton had halted to indulge in some other discussion or argument. He heard Blanton say: “Garfield, I don’t like the idea of your taking so many of my men down into Texas to fight out your feud. We have too good a thing of it here.”
“Well,” answered Garfield, “I like your idee of rakin’ in the trail herds and controllin’ the buffalo hide trade, and all, but money ain’t everything. We’ve went over that before.”
“And another thing,” grated Blanton; “that fellow Donaldson is too brash. I don’t like him.”
“Oh, he’s stuck on the Laree gal,” replied Garfield. “Red’s a good sort.”
“He’ll be a dead man if he don’t watch his step,” ground Blanton. “I don’t have to endure the insolence of your companions, just because I have to put up with your society—”
“You bet you have to put up with me!” exclaimed Garfield. “You needn’t to be so high and mighty. I know you was with the Cullen Baker gang in Arkansas . ”
“Shut up, curse you!” exclaimed Blanton.
“Well,” said Garfield, “the Federal Government paid ten thousand dollars for Baker’s body at Little Rock, in ’69, and it’s my understandin’ that there’s a equal sum on your head, provided they ever catch you. You’re safe, after all these years, that is if somebody—like me, for instance—don’t bring up the matter to the government. Or if somethin’ was to happen to me, my brother Bill’s got a letter down in Texas I writ him, tellin’ him what to do.”
“You’ve got me in a cleft stick,” muttered Blanton. “Say no more about it. You have no cause to complain; you’ll be rich as I am, if you’ll deal square with me.” Then they left the shack.
Stumbling and groping along the ravine, Kirby suddenly realized that the building that loomed up against the stars was the jail. A light was burning there, and Kirby crawled out of the ravine, stole around the corner and looked in through the window. In the small room which was separated from the cells—now empty—by iron bars, and which served as marshal’s office, the deputy Jackson was sprawled in a chair, reading what looked like a paper back novel. Kirby’s eager gaze rested on a familiar object glinting dully on a table. His gun!
He slipped around the corner of the house, then crying out incoherently, he threw open the door and staggered in. Jackson bounced out of his chair like a jumping jack, a gun flashing into his hand. Then he gaped stupidly, evidently not recognizing Kirby; the cowboy’s features were masked with half-dried blood, he was dusty and disheveled.
“What in hell—”
“I’ve been robbed!” gasped Kirby. “Somebody slugged me back of a saloon and robbed me—call the marshal—”
He reeled and fell against the table. Jackson glared at him, his sixshooter hanging limp.
“Robbed?” he mouthed. “Slugged? Who done it?”
“I dunno; I couldn’t see him,” mumbled Kirby, slumping further over the table.
“Well what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to drop that gun and reach high!” snapped Kirby coming up with his gun cocked in his hand. Jackson’s mouth flew open; his pistol thumped on the floor; his hands went up like a puppet’s on a string.
Kirby caught up a bunch of keys from the table.
“Into that cell! Hustle!”
“You can’t do this!” mouthed Jackson, obeying with automaton-like steps. “I’m a law—you can’t do this!”
Kirby grunted and snapped the lock. Jackson grabbed the bars and glared wildly through them; his “You can’t do this!” came faintly to Kirby’s ears as he hurried out on the street.
The cowboy glided into the shadows of the houses. It was later than he had supposed. All lights were out in the dwellings; only the saloons were illuminated. Staying in the shadows he approached the stable, when he heard the pounding of hoofs down the road. The rider came into sight, in the light streaming across the street from the saloons—a big man on a reeling horse. He pulled up before the Buffalo Horn, and fell, rather than descended, from his saddle. He was surrounded by a crowd which streamed out of the bars. Excited voices rose in a babble, over which the stranger’s voice dominated—a bull’s bellow, gasping and panting.
“Plumb wiped out,” Kirby heard him say. “Old Yeller Tail’s braves—dunno hardly how I got clear—been ridin’ and hidin’ for a night and a day, and this night—gimme a drink, dammit!”
He was half-carried, half-guided into the bar; as he passed through the door, Kirby got a glimpse of him—a burly giant clad in buckskins; somebody addressed him as Elkins.
The cowboy turned away and hurried to the stable. His instinct caused him to glide around behind and peek through a knot hole. Three men, with Winchesters across their knees, squatted in the stall where his horse was confined. They chewed tobacco, spat and conversed in low monotones.
“I don’t believe that puncher’s goin’ to show up,” quoth one. “I bet he’s stole a horse and lit a shuck.”
“Well, we stay here till mornin’, anyhow,” answered another. “Say, didn’t Joan Laree carry on when she saw Jack Corlan?”
“Yeah,” said the other, “she was plenty sweet on him. Doggone, that was a dirty trick—shootin’ a man through the winder that way. He must have been aimin’ at Garfield, don’t you reckon?”
“Well,” opined the first speaker, “he’ll be aimin’ for Glory at the end of a rope if the boys catch him. Bringin’ his Texas feuds up here and killin’ Jack Corlan just for nothin’. Dern him!”
“I liked Jack,” said another. “He was all white, even if he did have Injun blood in him.”
“Yes, he was!” snorted another in disgust. “You mutts make me sick; just because a man’s croaked, you got to make him out a saint. Corlan was a yellow dog and you know it; he’d sell his soul for a drink to the highest bidder.”
Voices rose in fresh squabbling as Kirby turned and moved silently away, bewildered. It became evident to him that Garfield and Blanton had accused him of Corlan’s murder. After all, they were the only witnesses.
He stood, hesitant. They were taking no chances of his escaping. Doubtless every horse in town would be well guarded. And if he did not get away at once, it would be too late. When daylight came, they would find him, wherever he hid. The bare prairie offered no hiding place. If he started on foot, it would be suicide. And it was imperative that he ride south, to warn his kin of the impending doom. But was it? He was galvanized by a sudden realization. If Jim Garfield died, the gunmen would never ride south. Better that he finished Garfield here and now. If he died in the attempt—well, his was the fanatical clan spirit of the Scotch-Irish Southwesterner. He was willing to sacrifice his life for the good of his family, if need be.
He took half a dozen steps, then a dim form rose in the shadow. Instantly he covered it, his finger quivering on the trigger; then he saw it was a woman; dark eyes, reflecting the starlight, looked levelly at him.
“Joan Laree!” he hissed. “What are you doin’ here?”
“I’ve been waiting here,” she answered in a low voice. “I thought you would come for your horse. I wanted to tell you he was being guarded, but you came from the other end of the stables.”
“But why—?” he was uneasy and suspicious.
“I wanted to thank you!” she whispered. “You—you killed him, after all!”
“No, I didn’t!” he protested. “I—”
“Oh, they told me!” she exclaimed. “I saw him—and the broken window through which your bullet came. Garfield said you were aiming at him—but I don’t care. I’m sorry I shot you. I owe you a debt.”
“My God, this is awful.” He shuddered slightly in revulsion. “What kind of a woman are you, anyhow? I tell you, though, I didn’t—”
“Don’t talk,” she murmured. “We’ll be overheard; men are looking for you everywhere. Come with me; trust me once more.”
He hesitated, with a feeling of being caught in a web of fantasy and illusion. This part of it was like a dream; the rest, the violence of men, the trickery, the murder, he could understand; but this strange, beautiful, evil woman moved through the skeins of the pattern like a cryptic phantom, inscrutable, inexplicable. He realized that he was in her power; a scream would fetch a horde of armed men. He must trust her, or pretend to trust her; she spoke of a debt; perhaps she really sought to pay the grisly debt she seemed to consider she owed him. He looked at her as at a being more and yet less than human; he was repelled by her strange, bloody nature, yet drawn powerfully by her beauty. Like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake, he followed her.
There was a hint of dawn in the air. It was the darkness that precedes dawn. Not a light burned in San Juan. Even the saloons were dark. She led him behind the houses, and as they went, he was impelled to ask: “Who was that fellow who rode into town an hour or so ago, yellin’?”
“Grizzly Elkins, the buffalo hunter,” she answered. “His outfit was one that Captain Blanton grub-staked. They’d gotten a load of hides, and sent them on into San Juan with Blanton’s drivers. The wagons got here yesterday morning. Elkins and his men stayed in camp to get another load; the wagons were to return with supplies, and get the other hides. But after the wagons left, a band of Comanches swooped down on the hunters and killed them all except Elkins. They couldn’t kill him. He’s a brute of a man. Here’s the place.”
She fumbled at a door, opened it, and stepped inside into total darkness. With her lips close to his ear, she whispered: “I’ll hide you here until I can steal you a horse.”
“Alright,” he grunted. “A fast horse for a getaway—but I’m goin’ to kill Jim Garfield before I leave here, whether I get away or not.”
She led him across a room, groping in the dark, to another door.
“In here,” she whispered. He entered, and she shut the door. He stood for a few moments in the dark, thinking she had entered with him. He spoke to her. There was no answer. Somewhere he heard an outside door close softly. In a panic he turned to the door. His hands slid over it, he thrust strongly against it. It was solid oak that might balk a bull; and it was bolted on the other side. There was no lock to blow off. Turning, he stumbled about the room, groping for other doors. He found neither doors nor windows. But he discovered one thing; the room was built of square-cut logs; the only log hut in San Juan; doubtless it had been at one time used for a jail. There was no bursting out of it. He was trapped. A wave of frantic fury swept over him. Trapped, after all the warnings he had had! Dawn begin to steal through the cracks between the logs.
He stood upright, in the middle of the floor, waiting. Nor did he have to wait. A door was thrown up, boots stamped on the dirt floor, and voices he knew and hated boomed.
“In that room,” said Joan, her voice cold and deadly as steel.
“You was mistook once tonight,” rumbled Jim Garfield. “You sure he’s in there?”
“Sure, he’s in there.” She lifted her voice and it was like the slash of a keen knife edge. “Open the door, Kirby! Here are friends of yours!”
The cowboy made no reply.
“What’s this all about, anyway?” complained a bull-like voice that Kirby recognized as that of Grizzly Elkins.
“We have a criminal trapped in that room, Elkins,” answered Blanton; “that is, if this girl isn’t lying.”
“I’m not lying,” she answered. “He’s in there. I led him here, telling him I was going to help him. He killed the man I loved.”
And inside the silent room, John Kirby shook his head in bewilderment at the everlasting paradox that was woman; she had tried to kill him because he refused to kill the man who had jilted her; now she trapped him to his doom, because she thought he had killed that man. It was fantastic, impossible, yet it was the truth.
“Yes, he killed Jack Corlan,” said Blanton. “Killed your friend, Bill Donnelly, too.”
“He did?” It was a roar of wrath. “Why, the low-down hound! I’ll go in and drag him out myself!”
“No, wait!” Blanton lifted his voice. “Kirby, are you coming out and surrender?”
Kirby made no reply.
“Aw, hell!” snorted McVey; “le’s bust it down.” He threw the bolt, hurled his shoulder against the door. Kirby shot at the sound. The heavy bullet splintered through the oak, and McVey cried out and fell heavily. An answering volley sent lead ripping through the panels, but Kirby was flattened out against the wall, out of range.
“Get back there, you dern fools!” bellowed Jim Garfield. “You don’t know that hombre like I do. Aw, shut up!” This last to the groaning McVey; “man with no more sense’n what you got oughta be shot.”
“Well, what are we goin’ to do?” demanded another voice—that of Hopkins. “He can’t get out without runnin’ into our lead—but no more can we get in at him. Le’s burn his out.”
“No, you won’t,” exclaimed Blanton. “This cabin is my property, and it’s too close to the saloons. Start a fire here and the whole town might go.”
“Water, for God’s sake, Captain, get me some water!” moaned McVey.
“Shut up,” snarled Blanton; “we can’t help you, laying right in front of that door; want to get us killed? Crawl out of range if you want help.”
“I can’t crawl!” sobbed McVey. “My back’s broke. For God’s sake, somebody, get me some water!”
“You don’t need water,” snapped Blanton. “Go ahead and die, can’t you?”
“That ain’t no way to talk to a dyin’ man, Cap’n,” protested Grizzly Elkins. He raised his voice: “Hey, Kirby, I’m goin’ to haul McVey away from that door! I ain’t got no gun, and I ain’t makin’ no move at you till I get McVey out of the way. If you want to shoot me through the door, shoot and be damned!”
With which defiance the burly buffalo hunter rolled forward on his moccasined feet, grasped the dying man and lugged him over by the wall. Kirby did not fire. Elkins laid McVey down, and drawing a whiskey flask from his pocket, put it to the man’s lips.
“You’re crazy, risking your life for a fool like that,” sneered Blanton.
McVey’s glazing eyes flamed with a brief fire and he hitched himself painfully on his elbow. “Fool?” he cried, his voice breaking in a sob of pain and hysteria. “That’s the thanks a man gets for doin’ your dirty work! You wouldn’t give me a drink of water when I’m dyin’! You damn’ blood-sucker, you take everything a man’s got, and give him nothin’. I hope Kirby kills you, too, just like you killed Jack Corlan!”
“What!” It was a scream from Joan Laree. She sprang forward, caught the dying man in a frantic grasp. “What are you talking about? Kirby killed Jack Corlan!”
“He didn’t, neither!” The gasp was growing fainter. “Corlan owed me money and was goin’ to get it from Blanton and pay me; when Blanton sent us off, I sneaked back. I heered ’em arguing, and a shot. It come from inside the shack, not from the outside. Either Blanton or Garfield killed Corlan.”
Blood welled from his lips, his head sank back. Joan Laree started up, a mad woman. She rushed at Blanton, beating frantically on his breast with her clenched fist, screaming: “You lied! You killed Jack! You killed him! You devil! You killed him!”
Garfield squirmed guiltily and said nothing. Blanton, face contorted with anger, caught her wrist and slung her away from him.
“Well, what of it?” he snarled. “What does it matter who sent the dirty breed to hell? What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll show you!” she screamed, whirling on the gaping Grizzly Elkins. “You want to know why Yellow Tail knew where to find your camp?” she shrieked.
“Shut up!” roared Blanton. “Don’t listen to her, Elkins; she’s mad as a hare!”
“I’m not!” she screamed, terrifying in her frenzy. “Corlan talked to me before he left San Juan the other day! He talked after he came back, yesterday. He’d been to the Cheyenne camp! He was a friend with old Yellow Tail, because he was kin to the chief, on the Indian side! He betrayed you, Elkins, and set the Indians on to you—”
“What?” roared the giant hunter, electrified.
“She lies!” screamed Blanton, livid.
“I don’t lie!” she cried. “Blanton did this so he’d own all the hides you’d shipped into San Juan! They amount to a small fortune, and they’re his if you were all blotted out! It’s part of his plan—cows, hides, land—he means to steal all—”
There was a crashing report, a burst of flame and smoke. Joan staggered, catching at her breast. Blanton ran out of the door, the gun smoking in his hand. The girl slid to her knees, holding out one hand toward the petrified hunter in agonized appeal.
“Believe me!” she gasped. “Blanton betrayed you—had your friends murdered—”
She sank sidewise and lay still. And suddenly the buckskin-clad giant exploded into a deafening roar. His hand swept to his hip and up, with a broad glimmer of steel. Garfield yelped and fired pointblank, but the great body was in motion with a blur of quickness, induced by coiled steel muscles. Garfield missed as Elkins bounded into the air and the hunter’s butcher knife was sheathed to the hilt in Hopkins’ breast. Ashley plunged frantically away from the threat of that dripping blade, and caromed into Garfield, staggering him, and making his second bullet fly wild. And then a new factor entered the brawl.
The door flew open and framed in the opening stood John Kirby, his gun burning red. Ashley dropped; Sterling shot once, missed, and sank to his knees, shot through the belly and breast, vainly groping for his left hand gun. Garfield yelled and fired, and Kirby’s hat leaped from his head. The next instant Garfield howled as a bullet ripped along his ribs, and turning, fled from the cabin. As he went through the door, Elkins’ knife, hurled with vengeful force, flashed by his head and sank deep into the log jamb. Spouting blood, Garfield ran across the street into the Silver Boot.
Kirby came out into the room, reloading his empty gun. The place was like a shambles. Elkins, snorting like a buffalo, blood trickling from a nicked ear, tugged his knife out of the wood, and turned to Kirby: “No use in us scrappin’. Come on; out this way!”
Kirby made no reply; chance had made allies of them, and it was useless to waste words. They ran out a side door, darted across the space that lay between the cabin and the next house. From across the street Winchesters cracked and bullets whined past. Then they reached the house and flung themselves inside. They were met by a frightened woman who sobbed: “Oh my God, what kind of goin’s on is these: We’ll all be murdered! Here I am, tryin’ to run a respectable boardin’ house—”
“You better pike it out the back door, Mizz Richards,” boomed Elkins. “We got to use your house for a spell, and they’s liable to be some lead floatin’ around in the air. Gwan, beat it, before they start shootin’ into here. I’ll pay you for whatever damage is done.”
A .45-90 slug, ripping its way through the thin wall, was more convincing than the buffalo hunter’s eloquence. Mrs. Richards gave vent to shrill lamentations and scurried out the back door and across the prairie as if the Sioux were on her trail.
“This here’s my room,” grunted Elkins, kicking open a door; “here, grab this!” He thrust a Winchester repeater into Kirby’s willing hands, and himself picked up a Sharps .50—one of the single shot buffalo guns used by the hunters. “Now we’ll fix ’em. These walls won’t stop bullets, but neither’ll theirs.”
Crouching each at a separate window, the fighters gazed slit-eyed across the street. No one was in sight; the town might have been deserted; but every now and then, belying the thought, there sounded the vicious crack of a rifle, a wisp of smoke curled upward, and there was the splintering impact of lead on wood.
“Garfield’s in the Silver Boot,” muttered Kirby, squinting along the Winchester barrel. “Don’t know how many men there are in there with him. I just caught a glimpse of Blanton. He’s in the Big Chief bar; seems to be just one gun speakin’ there.”
“Nobody in there but the bartender,” said Elkins, “and I know him; he’d high tail it the minute the shootin’ started.” He pressed the trigger and the thundering crash of the heavy gun was answered by an angry yelp from the Silver Boot.
A puff of smoke jetted from a window in the Big Chief, and a bullet ploughed across the sill, showering Elkins with splinters. Kirby answered the shot, but without success. Blanton was alone in the saloon. Four rifles were cracking over in the Silver Boot, and feminine shrieks of protest from the second floor told that the dancing girls had awakened and were not enjoying the sport.
“Wish these walls was logs,” grumbled Elkins. “Damn this high falutin’ style of board houses. Wouldn’t stop bird shot. Le’s make a break back to the cabin.”
“Wait!” exclaimed Kirby. “Who’s that ridin’ down the street? By God, it’s Red Donaldson!”
He threw up his rifle and fired, and with the crack of the shot, the redhaired gunman shot from the saddle, and ran into the cabin. Kirby cursed.
Then there sounded a cry from inside the cabin so poignant that the gunfire stopped. Donaldson ran madly into the open, and something about him halted Kirby’s finger.
“Who killed her?” Red was shrieking. “Joan Laree! She’s shot! Who did it? Who did it?”
A disheveled head stuck out of an upstairs window of the Silver Boot, and the owner shrilled: “Blanton did it! I heard the shot and saw him run out with a gun in his hand, just before all the shooting started—”
She yelped and vanished as a bullet from the Big Chief smashed the window above her head.
Red Donaldson yelled bloodthirstily, whipped out his gun and charged recklessly across the street, eyes glaring. Even as he mounted the low porch in front of the saloon, a shotgun thundered inside and the blast knocked him down, to lie writhing in the dirt. At that Jim Garfield yelled vengefully.
“By God, Blanton!” he howled. “You can’t kill my friends that way!”
As reckless as Donaldson had been, he charged out of the Silver Boot, shotgun in hand. He yelped in exultation as he got a view of his former companion through a window, dropped to one knee and threw the shotgun to his shoulder—and at that instant a sixshooter cracked in the doorway behind him and the bullet smashed between his shoulders. He bellowed like a wounded bull, his shotgun futilely blasting the air. He fell writhing, half-raised himself and sent the contents of the second barrel roaring through the doorway out of which he had just come. A howl told that some of the pellets were fleshed.
Kirby fired at the glimpse through a window, and a man crashed down heavily across the sill and lay there twitching. He missed Elkins, then saw him. The buffalo hunter, while the attention of the fighters was held by the killing of Garfield, had slipped out of the boarding house, run down the street, dashed recklessly across, and gained the back of the Silver Boot. Kirby got a glimpse of him, running, stooped, like a great bear, grotesque in his swiftness, a flaming mass of rubbish in his hands.
Soon smoke began to rise. Elkins yelled in primitive exultation, ran hither and yon, ducking the slugs, firing the buildings. First the girls, then the men ran from the Silver Boot. Kirby let them go. The fight was taken out of them. They forked their mustangs and headed out of town on the run. The Big Chief began to blaze, and Blanton charged out. Kirby fired and saw him stagger, but he came on, a shotgun in his hands. Elkins was before him, charging him recklessly with his knife. The shotgun went up, covered the hairy giant. Behind Blanton the tattered shape that was Red Donaldson moved, life still in it. A gun came up, wavered, exploded. Blanton staggered to the impact of the lead in his back, and his charge went wild. Elkins covered the distance between them in one long bound and drove his knife to the hilt in Blanton’s breast.
San Juan was burning; smoke mounted in the morning sky; together Elkins and Kirby rode southward.