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Authors: Louis L'Amour

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Chapter XIV

Rusty Gates was sitting inside the Trail House, holding himself stiffly, but grinning. Webb Steele was there, too. He looked up keenly as Kilkenny came in.

“Can’t keep a good man down!” Rusty said. “Tana bandaged my side, and I wanted to give you a hand with the Brockmans, but she wouldn’t let me. She’s got a mind of her own, that girl!”

“What happened?” Frame demanded, stepping up.

“Got Abel,” said Kilkenny. “Cain got thrown from his hoss. Knocked out, I think. Another
hombre
dragged him around a corner and got him aboard a hoss. They lit out, and I let ’em go.”

Frame shook his head, his eyes dark with worry. “Cain will go crazy when he finds out Abel is dead and you’re still alive. He’ll come gunnin’ for you, Kilkenny.”

“He might.” Kilkenny shrugged. “Got to take that chance. We’re after bigger game now. We’ve got to
wipe out that bunch at Apple Cañon. There’s at least forty outlaws there.”

“Probably more,” Steele said. “Clyde Wilder was down there a few days ago, and he says there was anyways fifty, and might have been seventy.”

“Don’t make no difference,” Frame declared. “We’re ready. Even Duval at the hotel is goin’. Everybody wants to lend a hand.”

Down the main street of Botalla there was suddenly a pounding of hoofs, then a rider threw himself from saddle in front of the Trail House. He thrust the batwing doors open with his shoulder.

“Kilkenny!” he yelled. “Chet Lord’s dyin’! Wants to see you, the worst way!”

“What happened?” Steele demanded.

“Gored by a crazy steer. Don’t reckon he’s got long. Askin’ for Kilkenny. Don’t know what he wants of him!”

“Steele,” Kilkenny said, “get the men together, plenty of arms an’ ammunition. Nobody leaves town to warn Apple Cañon. Get set to move, and, when you’re ready, start her rollin’!”

He swung into saddle and turned the buckskin toward the Lord Ranch. His mind was working swiftly. What could Chet Lord have to say? That something had been worrying the big rancher for days was obvious enough, for the man had lost weight, he looked drawn and pale, and seemed to be under great strain.

Was he the unknown killer? As soon as that idea occurred, Kilkenny shook his head. The man was not the type. Bluff, outspoken, and direct, he was the kind of man who would shoot straight and die hard, but his shots would be at a man’s face, not behind his back.

Kilkenny let the buckskin take his own gait. The long-legged horse knew his rider, and knew the mountains and desert. He knew that on many days he would be called on for long, hard rides, and had learned to pace himself accordingly. While cow ponies were held in light esteem, good as they might be, most cowpunchers had their favorites. Yet they were the gunmen and outlaws, the men whose lives might depend on the horses they rode, who really knew and cared for their horses. It was a time when a few such horses were to acquire almost as much fame as their hard-riding, straight-shooting masters. Sam Bass, for instance, was to become no more famous than the Denton mare he rode. And Black Nell, Wild Bill Hickok’s horse with a trick of “dropping quick,” was to save Hickok’s life on more than one occasion. Kilkenny knew his buckskin, and Buck knew Kilkenny. During the years they had been together, they had learned each other’s ways, and Buck had almost human intelligence when it came to knowing what his master wanted of him. He knew the ways of the frontier, and seemed to sense when there he could husband his strength, and when it must be used. Buck’s ears were as perfect a guide to danger as a rifle shot. A flicker of movement, even miles ahead, and his ears were up and alert. And when he sidestepped, it was always with reason.

The Lord Ranch was strangely still when the buckskin cantered across the yard and came to a stop before the ranch house. Kilkenny swung to the ground and, leaving Buck ground-hitched, went up the steps at a bound.

Steve met him at the door. The young fellow’s eyes were wet, and his face looked pale.

“He wants you,” he said. “Wants you bad.”

Kilkenny stepped through the door into the room where Chet Lord lay in bed. A sharp-eyed man with a beard stood up when Kilkenny walked in.

“I’m Doc Wentlow,” he said softly, then smiled a little wryly. “From Apple Cañon. He wants to talk to you”—he glanced at Steve—“alone.”

“Right.”

The doctor and Steve went out, and Kilkenny watched them go. He saw Steve hesitate in the door as though loath to leave. Then the young cowboy stepped out, and Kilkenny turned to the old man lying on the bed. Lord’s breathing was heavy, but his eyes were open. His face seemed to have aged, and he looked up at Kilkenny for a moment, then reached over and took his hand.

“Kilkenny,” he whispered hoarsely, “I got a favor to ask. You got to promise me, for I’m a dyin’ man. Promise me you’ll do it. It’s somethin’ you can do.”

“Shore,” Kilkenny said gently. “If it’s anything I can do, I will. You know that.”

“Kilkenny,” the old man’s voice faltered, then his grip tightened on Kilkenny’s wrist until the gun expert almost winced with the strength of it, “Kilkenny, I want you to kill my son.”

“What?” Kilkenny stared. Then his eyes narrowed slowly. “Why, Lord?”

“Kilkenny, you got to. Kilkenny, I’m an old man, and, wrong or right, I love my boy. I love him like I loved his mother before him, but, Kilkenny, he’s a killer! He’s insane! I’ve knowed it for months now! Des told me. Des King told me before Steve killed him. Long time ago, Steve had a bad fall off a buckin’ hoss, and was unconscious for days and days. He was
kind of queer when he got well, for a spell, then it looked like he was all right again, and didn’t take pleasure in torturin’ things no more. So when folks began to get killed around here, I never thought of the boy. Then I had a feelin’, and one day Des come to me, and said he knowed Steve had done it, and that he’d have to be put away. He couldn’t go on killin’ folks. But then Des was killed, an’ I couldn’t bear to put Steve away. He…he…was all…I had, Kilkenny.”

Kilkenny nodded slowly, looking down at the old man, seeing the pleading in his eyes, the plea for understanding, for sympathy at least.

“I done wrong. I knowed I was doin’ wrong, but I hoped the boy would change. Sometimes he would be a good boy, then he’d get to moonin’ around, then off he’d go.”

For a long time the old man was silent, then his chest heaved and he turned his head.

“Kilkenny, you got to kill him. I won’t be around no more to look after him, and you’ll kill him decent, Kilkenny. You’ll shoot him, and he won’t suffer. I don’t want him to suffer, Kilkenny. He’s a baby for pain. He can’t suffer. I don’t want him hung, neither, Kilkenny. Go shoot him down. I left a paper. It’s in a envelope, in case I die. Frame has got it. It tells all about it. Kilkenny, you got to kill him. I can’t die thinkin’ I’ve left that passel of evil behind me. An’ but for that, he’s been a good boy.”

Kilkenny still stood staring down at old Chet Lord. Yes, it all fitted. Everything fitted. Steve had a Winchester 1873, and he could have done any of the shootings. Kilkenny had suspected something of the kind, which was why he had wired.

Wired?

Kilkenny clapped a hand to his pocket. Why, the wires! He’d had them in his pocket all the time! Hurriedly he dug into his pocket and pulled them out, unfolding the sheets.

The first was from San Antonio, and it was a verification of what Chet Lord had just told him, a few scattered facts about Steve’s boyhood actions after his bucking horse accident, before his father had taken him away, all indicative of what might later come. That was unnecessary now. There would be evidence enough. His father’s letter with Frame, and a few dates and times would piece it all together.

He unfolded the second message, from El Paso. As its message struck him, his hands stiffened.

TYSON SAW ROYAL BARNES AT APPLE CAÑON. HE KNEW BARNES FROM HAYS CITY AND ABILENE. BARNES MURDERED TYSON’S BROTHER, AND HE HEARD BARNES SWEAR TO KILL YOU FOR GETTING THE WEBERS. BE CAREFUL, KILKENNY, HE’S COLD AS A SNAKE, AND LIGHTNING FAST!

Kilkenny crumpled the message into a ball and thrust it into his pocket. The third message no longer mattered. It had only been an effort to learn what gunslingers were where, in an effort to learn who was at Apple Cañon. Now he knew.

Royal Barnes! The name stood out boldly in his mind, and, even as he turned away from the old man on the bed, he saw that name, the name of a man he had never seen, the name of one of the most ruthless, cold-blooded killers in the West. A man as evil and vicious as any, yet reputed to be handsome, reputed to
be smooth and polished, yet known to be a man filled with the lust to kill and of such deadly skill that it was said that Wes Hardin had backed down for him.

Kilkenny opened the door and stepped outside. Instantly Doc Wentlow got up.

“How is he?” he demanded.

“Pretty low.” Kilkenny hesitated. “Where’s Steve?”

“Steve? That was funny. He stood by the door a minute after you went in. Listening, I guess. Then all of a sudden he turned and got on a horse and took off, riding like the devil.”

Despite himself, Kilkenny felt relieved. He had never killed a man unless the man was attempting to kill him. To walk out of the old cattleman’s bed chamber and shoot Steve had been the furthest from his thoughts. Just what he had hoped to do, he was not sure. He did know that Steve Lord must be stopped.

Thinking back, he could remember the curious light, the blazing of some inner compulsion, which he had seen in Steve’s eyes that first day in the Trail House. Yet Steve had not wanted to shoot it out with him, face to face. The young fellow was a man with an insane urge to kill. It grew from some inner feeling of inferiority. What Steve Lord would do now, Kilkenny could not guess. He knew killers, but the killers he knew were sane men, men whose thoughts could be read, and whose ways could be known. He did know that even the craziest man had his moments of sanity, and he knew that Steve Lord must have listened at the door, probably suspecting what his father intended to tell Kilkenny. So he had mounted and ridden away—to what? Where could he go? Yet even as the question came, he knew its answer. Steve Lord would go to Apple Cañon.

However insane the boy might be, there was some connection between him and the events stemming from the cañon rendezvous. And Kilkenny suspected that Steve had more than a little interest in Nita Riordan. But he would be riding now with fear in his heart, with desperation. For now he was in the open, the place he dreaded to be, where there was no concealment. He must fight, or he must die, and Kilkenny knew that such a man would fight like a cornered rat. Yet he had promised a dying man, and regardless of that it was something that had to be done.

Why should he feel depressed? Steve was a killer, preying upon the lonely and the helpless, a man who shot from ambush, who killed from sheer love of killing. So he must be stopped. It was his own father, the man who sired him, who had passed sentence upon him.

Kilkenny turned off into the thick brush, unrolled his poncho, and was asleep almost as soon as he lay down.

Chapter XV

Botalla’s Main Street was crowded with horsemen when Kilkenny rode back to the town. They were in for the finish, the lean, hard-bitten, wind- and gun-seasoned veterans of the Texas range. Riders from the Steele and Lord ranches, men who had ridden the long cattle trails north to Dodge and Abilene, men who knew the ways of cows and Indians and guns. Men who had cut their teeth on six-shooters.

Yet, as Kilkenny rode up the street, eyes alert for some sign of Steve Lord, he wondered how many of these men would be alive when another sundown came. For they were facing men as tough as themselves, as good, and as dangerous as cornered rats are always dangerous. Vicious as men can be who find themselves faced at last with justice and the necessity of paying for their misdeeds. They would fight, shrewdly and well. They were not common criminals, these men of Apple Cañon. A few, yes. But many
were just tough young men who had taken the wrong trail or liked the hard, reckless life. A different turn of events and they might have been satisfied cowhands, trail bosses, or they might have been Rangers. They would ask no quarter, and they would give none. They would fight this out to the last bitter ditch, and they would go down, guns blazing. They might have taken the wrong trails, but they had courage.

And for him? There was none of that; there was just one man. He had to mount that cliff and take Royal Barnes, the mysterious man in the cliff house. How would he know him? He did not know, but he did know that when he saw the man he would know him. Instinctively he knew that. When a man looked at another across a space of ground, with guns waiting, then he knew whether a man was fast and whether he would kill or not.

This would be different. Lance Kilkenny understood that. The Brockmans had been good but he had timed his chances to nullify their skill as a twin fighting combination. He had killed Abel Brockman as he had killed many another man, and most of them fast. But—and this he knew—he had never drawn against a man like Royal Barnes. Blinding speed. Barnes had that. Barnes had killed Blackie Slade, and Kilkenny recalled Slade only too well. He had seen Slade in action, and the man had been poison. Yet Barnes had shot him down as if he were an amateur.

Yet Kilkenny could feel something building up inside himself, and recognized what it was. It was his own compulsion, his own fire to kill. Every gunman had it. Without it, he was helpless. It was a fiery
drive, but with it the cold ruthlessness of a man who knew he must kill, or he must die himself.

He swung down from his horse and walked into the Trail House.

“We’re all set,” Webb Steele said, walking forward. “All set, and rarin’ to go. The boys wanted to wait and see how Chet is.”

Kilkenny looked up. “Steele,” he said slowly, “Chet’s dyin’. He told me about the killin’s. It’s Steve. Steve’s a killer!”

Webb Steele stared, and Frame rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.

“Huh!” Steele said. “I might of knowed it! He was always a strange ’un.”

“That ain’t all,” Kilkenny said quietly. “The man up in the cliff house is Royal Barnes.”

“Barnes?” Rusty Gates’s face tightened, then turned gray as he looked at Kilkenny. “One of the slickest
hombres
that ever threw a six-gun.”

In the stillness that followed, men stared at one another, and into the mind of each came stories they had heard of Royal Barnes and of the men who had gone down before his roaring guns. In the mind of each was a fear that he might be next.

The silence was shattered by the crashing of a door, and as one man the crowd turned to stare at the rear door of the Trail House. Several steps inside that door, his head thrust forward and his eyes glaring with killing hatred, stood a huge, broad-jawed man in a checked shirt and black jeans stuffed into heavy cowhide boots.

“Cain Brockman!” Frame yelled.

The big man strode forward until he stood only
three paces from Kilkenny. Then, with cold, merciless hatred in his eyes, he unbuckled his belt and shed his guns.

“I’m goin’ to kill you, Kilkenny! With my bare hands!”

“No!” Webb burst out, thrusting himself forward. “We got us a job to do, Kilkenny!”

“Keep out of this,” Kilkenny said quietly.

Without further word and without taking his eyes from Cain’s, he unbuckled his own belt and passed his guns to the big rancher.

With a hoarse grunt, Cain Brockman lunged, swinging a ponderous right fist. Kilkenny stepped inside and snapped a lightning left to the face, then closed with the big man, slamming both fists to his midriff. Cain grabbed Kilkenny and hurled him across the room so that he brought up with a crash against the bar. Cain lunged after him.

Kilkenny pivoted away, stabbing a left that caught the bigger man on the cheek bone, then Brockman swung and caught Kilkenny with a hard right swing that knocked him to his knees. A kick aimed at Kilkenny’s shoulder just grazed him as he was starting to rise. He lost balance, toppling over on the floor. He rolled away and came up swinging, and the two sprang together.

Brockman’s face was savage with killing fury and an ugly glee at having his enemy and the man who had slain his brother actually in his hands. Another right caught Kilkenny a glancing blow, but he weathered it and stepped under a left, slamming a right to the ribs. Then he hooked a left to the chin, leaping away before Cain could grab him.

It was toe-to-toe, slam-bang fighting, and neither
man was taking any precaution. Both fought like savages, and Kilkenny’s face became set in a mask of fierce desperation as he met charge after charge of the huge Brockman. They stood, straddle-legged, in the middle of the floor and swung until the smacking sound of their blows sounded loudly in the room and blood streamed from cut and battered faces. Brock-man was a brute for strength, and he was out for a kill, filled with so much fury that he was almost immune to pain.

Kilkenny stepped inside a right and ripped his own right to the heart. He hooked both hands to the body, then they grappled and went to the floor, kicking and gouging. There were no rules here, no niceties of combat. This was fighting to maim, to kill, and there was only one possible end—the finish of one or the other.

Blood streaming from a cut on his cheek, Kilkenny lanced a left to the mouth, then missed a right and took a wicked left to the middle. But he took the punch going in, punching with both hands to the head.

Cain’s big head rocked with the force of the blows and he spat a tooth onto the floor, and swung hard to the head, staggering Kilkenny. The gunman came back fast, ripping a right uppercut to the chin, then a left and right to the head. Kilkenny was boxing now. Long ago he had taken lessons from one of the best fighters of the day, and he found now that he needed every bit of his skill.

It was not merely a matter of defeating Cain Brock-man. After that, and perhaps soon, he would be meeting Royal Barnes, and his hands must be strong and ready. He stepped inside of a right and smashed a right to the bigger man’s body, then hooked a left to
the heart, and drummed with both hands against the big man’s torso. Body punches stood less chance of hurting his hands, and he must be careful.

He stepped around, putting Brockman off side, and then crossed a right to Cain’s bleeding eye, circled farther left, and crossed the right again. Then he stabbed three lefts to the face, and, as Cain lunged, he stepped inside and butted him under the chin with his head.

Brockman let out a muffled roar and crowded Kilkenny to the bar, but Lance wormed away and slugged the big man in the ribs. Brockman was slowing down now, and his face was bloody and swollen. His eyes gleamed fiercely, and he began to move slowly, more cautiously, moving in, watching for his chance.

Cain backed up, backed slowly, trying to keep away from that stabbing left, then suddenly he brought up against the wall. Putting a foot against the wall, he shoved himself off it like a huge battering ram and caught Kilkenny fully in the chest with his big head. Kilkenny went crashing to the floor!

Brockman rushed close, trying to kick him in the ribs, but Kilkenny got to his hands and knees and hurled himself against Brockman’s legs. The big man tumbled over him, then spun on the floor with amazing agility and grabbed Kilkenny’s head, groping for his eyeballs with his thumbs!

Mad with pain and fear for his eyes, Kilkenny tore loose and lunged to his feet. Brockman came up with him and Kilkenny stabbed a powerful left into that wide granite-hard face. Blood flew in every direction, and he felt the nose bone crunch under his fist. With a cry of pain, Cain Brockman lunged forward, and his
mighty blows pounded at Kilkenny’s body. But the lighter man blocked swiftly and caught most of the blows on his elbows and shoulders. Driven back, the gun expert swayed like a tree in a gale, fighting desperately to set himself, to stave off that terrific assault. There was the taste of blood in his mouth and he felt his lungs gasping for breath, and their gasping was a tearing pain.

Brockman closed in and thrust out a left that might have ended the fight, but Kilkenny went under it and butted Cain in the chest, staggering the bigger man. Missing a right hook to the head, Kilkenny split Brockman’s cheek wide open with his elbow, ripped the elbow back, slamming the big man’s head around.

Despite the fierceness of the fighting, Kilkenny was not badly hurt. Most of the bigger man’s blows had been wasted. One eye was cut, and he knew his jaw was swollen, but mainly he was fighting to stave off the big man’s fierce attacks. They swept forward with tremendous power, but little skill. Yet Kilkenny was growing desperate. His punches seemed to have no effect on the huge hulk of Cain Brockman. The big man’s face was bleeding from several cuts. His lips were battered, and one eye was badly swollen, but he seemed to have got his second wind, and was no less strong than when he had thrown his first punch. On his part, Kilkenny had one eye almost swollen shut. He could taste blood from a cut inside his mouth, and his breath was coming in those tearing gasps.

Brockman bored in, swinging. Kilkenny pushed the left swing outward and stepped in, bringing up a hard left uppercut to the wind that stopped Brockman in his tracks. But the big man bowed his head
and lunged. Kilkenny dropped an open palm to the head and shoved the fellow off balance, and, as his guard came down for an instant, he stabbed a left to Brockman’s cut eye. Then he circled warily.

Cain lunged, kicked at Kilkenny’s middle. The lighter man jerked back, then stepped off to the left, and dived in a long flying tackle. He hit Brockman at the knees, grabbed, and jerked hard! Brockman came down with a
thud
, his head bouncing on the wood floor. Kilkenny rolled free and scrambled to his feet. Brockman was getting up, but he was slow. Half up, he lunged in a long dive himself, but Kilkenny jerked his knee into the big man’s face. Cain rolled off to one side, his face bloody and scarcely human. Yet even then he tried to get up.

He made it. Kilkenny was sick of the fight, sick of the beating he was giving the bigger man. He stepped in, measured him with a left, and, when Cain tried to lift his hands, Kilkenny slugged him in the solar plexus. The big man went down, conscious, but paralyzed from the waist down.

Kilkenny stepped back, weaving with exhaustion. Grimly he worked his battered, stiffened hands.

“You ain’t in shape for that raid now, Kilkenny,” Rusty expostulated. “Better call it off or stay behind.”

“To thunder with that,” Kilkenny replied sharply. “I want Royal Barnes myself, and I’ll get him.”

Walking back to the wash basin, he dipped up water from the bucket and bathed his cut and bruised face. He turned his head as Frame walked up, his face grave.

“Get me some salts,” Kilkenny said.

While he waited, he bathed his hands and replaced his torn shirt with one brought him by Gates.

When he had the salts, he put them in hot water one of the men brought and soaked them. He knew there was nothing better for taking away soreness and stiffness, and it was only his hands he was worried about. He was bruised and battered, but not seriously. Although that one eye was swollen, he could still see through the slit.

Finally he straightened. He turned and looked at the men around him. They would never ride without him, he knew, or, if they did, their hearts wouldn’t be in it. He laughed suddenly.

“All-l-l set!” he yelled. “Let’s ride!”

BOOK: Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0)
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