Riders Of the Dawn (1980) (6 page)

"Still here an' stayin', Katie O'Hara," I said, grinning a t her, "and I've just said that and more to Morgan Park."

"There's been men die, and you've had the killin' o f some."

"That's the truth, Katie. I'd rather it never happened , but it's a hard country and a small chance for a man wh o hesitates to shoot when the time comes. All the same, it's a good country, this. A country where I plan to stay and gro w my children, Katie. I'll go back to the Two Bar, and build m y home there."

"You think they'll let you? You think you can keep it?"

"They'll have no choice."

Behind me a door closed and the voice of Rud Maclare n was saying, "We'll have a choice. Get out of the countr y while you're alive!"

The arrogance in his voice angered me, so I turned an d faced him. Canaval and Morgan Park had come with him.

"The Two Bar is my ranch," I said, "and I'll be staying there.

Do you think yourself a king that you can dictate terms to a citizen of a free country? You've let a small power swell you r head, Maclaren. You think you have power when all you hav e is money. If you weren't the father of the girl I'm to marry , Maclaren, I'd break you just to show you this is a free countr y and we want no barons here.-

His face mottled and grew hard. "Marry my daughter?

You? I'll see you in hell first!"

"If you see me in hell, Maclaren," I said lightly, -you'l l be seeing a married man, because I'm marrying Olga and yo u can like it or light a shuck! I expect you were a good ma n once, but there's some that cannot stand the taste of power , and you're one."

My eyes shifted to Morgan Park. "And there's anothe r beside you. He has let his beef get him by too long. He use s force where you use money, but his time is running out, too.

He couldn't break me when he had the chance, and when m y time comes, I'll break him."

More than one face in the room was approving, even i f they glared at me, these two. "The trouble is obvious," I c ontinued. "You've never covered enough country. You thin k you're sitting in the center of the world, whereas you're just a couple of two-bit operators in a forgotten corner.-

Turning my back on them I helped myself to the Iris h stew. Maclaren went out, but Park came around the tabl e and sat down, and he was smiling. The urge climbed up i n me to bat the big face off him and down him in the dirt as h e had me. He was wider than me by inches, and taller. Th e size of his wrists and hands was amazing, yet he was not al l beef, for he had brains and there was trouble in him, troubl e for me.

When I returned to my horse, there was a man sittin g there. He looked up and I was astonished at him. His fac e was like that of an unhappy monkey, and he was without a hair to the top of his head. Near as broad in the shoulders a s Morgan Park, he was shorter than me by inches. "By the loo k of you," he said, "you'll be Matt Sabre."

-You're right, man. What is it about?"

"Katie O'Hara was a-tellin' me it was a man you neede d at the Two Bar. Now I'm a handy all-around man. Mr. Sabre , a rough sort of gunsmith, hostler, blacksmith, an' carpenter , good with an ax. An' I shoot a bit, know Cornish-styl e wrestlin', an' am afraid of no man when I've my two hand s before me. I'm not so handy, with a short gun, but I've a couple of guns of my own that I handle nice."

He got to his feet, and he could have been nothing ove r five feet four but weighed all of two hundred pounds, and hi s shirt at the neck showed a massive chest covered with blac k hair and a neck like a column of oak. "The fact that you've th e small end of a fight appeals to me.- He jerked his hea d toward the door. "Katie has said I'm to go to work for you, an'
s he'd not take it kindly if I did not."

"You're Katie's man, then?"

His eyes twinkled amazingly. "Katie's man? I'm afrai d there's no such. She's a broth of a woman, that one.- H
e grinned up at me. "Is it a job I have?"

"When I've the ranch back," I agreed, "you've a job."

"Then let's be gettin' it back. Will you wait for me? I'v e a mule to get."

The mule was a dun with a face that showed all th e wisdom, meanness, and contrariness that have been the trait s of the mule since time began. With a tow sack behind th e saddle and another before him, we started out of town. "M
y name is Brian Mulvaney," he said. "Call me what you like."

He grinned widely when he saw me staring at the butt s of the two guns that projected from his boot tops. "These,"
h e said, "are the Neal Bootleg pistol, altered by me to sui t my taste. The caliber is thirty-five, but good. Now this"--f rom his waistband he drew a gun that lacked only wheels t o make an admirable artillery piece--"this was a Mills seventy--
f ive caliber. Took me two months of work off and on, but I'v e converted her to a four-shot revolver. A fine gun," he added.

All of seventeen inches long, it looked fit to break a man's wrists, but Mulvaney had powerful hands and arms.

No man ever hit by a chunk of lead from that gun would nee d a doctor.

Four horses were in the corral at the Two Bar, and th e men were strongly situated behind a long barricade. Mulvane y grinned at me. "What'd you suppose I've in this sack, laddie?" he demanded, his eyes twinkling. -I, who was a mine r also?"

"Powder?"

"Exactly! In those new-fangled sticks. Now unless i t makes your head ache too much, help me cut a few o' thes e sticks in half." When that was done he cut the fuses ver y short and slid caps into the sticks of powder. "Come now, m e boy, an' we'll slip down close under the cover of darkness, a n you'll see them takin' off like you never dreamed!"

Crawling as close as we dared, each of us lit a fuse an d hurled a stick of powder. My own stick must have lande d closer to them than I planned, for we heard a startled exclamation followed by a yell. Then a terrific explosion blaste d the night apart. Mulvaney's followed, and then we hastil y hurled a third and a fourth.

One man lunged over the barricade and started straigh t for us. The others had charged the corral. The man heade d our way suddenly saw us, and wheeling, he fled as if the devi l was after him. Four riders gripping only mane holds dashe d from the corral, and then there was silence. Mulvaney got t o his feet chuckling. "For guns they'd have stood until hel l froze over, but the powder and the flyin' rocks an' dust scare d 'em good. An' you've your ranch back."

We had eaten our midday meal the next day, when I sa w a rider approaching. It was Olga Maclaren. "Nice to see you,"

I said, aware of the sudden tension her presence alway s inspired.

She was looking toward the foundation we had laid fo r the new house. It was on a hill with the long sweep o f Cottonwod Wash before it. "You should be more careful,"
s he said. "You had a visitor last night."

"We just took over last night," I objected. "Who do yo u mean?"

"Morgan. He was out here shortly after our boys go t home. They met the bunch you stampeded from here.-

"He's been puzzling me," I admitted. "Who is he? Di d he come from around here?"

"I don't know. He's not talkative, but I've heard hi m mention places back east. I know he's been in Philadelphi a and New York, but nothing else about him except that h e goes to Salt Lake and San Francisco occasionally."

"Not back east?"

"Never since we've known him."

"You like him?"

She looked up at me. "Yes, Morgan can be very wonderful. He knows a lot about women and the things that pleas e them." There was a flicker of laughter in her eyes. "H
e probably doesn't know as much about them as you."

"Me?" I was astonished. "What gave you that idea?"

"Your approach that first day. You knew it would excit e my curiosity, a man less sure of himself would never hav e dared. If you knew no more about women than most wester n men you would have hung back, wishing you could meet me , or you would have got drunk to work up your courage."

"I meant what I said that day. You re going to marr y me."

"Don't say that. Don't even think it. You've no idea wha t you are saying or what it would mean."

"Because of your father?" I looked at her. "Or Morga n Park?"

"You take him too lightly, Matt. I think he is utterl y without scruple. I believe he would stop at nothing."

There was more to come, and I was interested.

"There was a young man here from the East," she continued, "and I liked him. Knowing Morgan, I never mentioned him in Morgan's presence. Then one day he asked m e about him. He added that it would be better for all concerned if the man did not come around anymore. Inadvertently I mentioned the young man's name, Arnold D'Arcy.

"When he heard that name he became very disturbed.

Who was he? Why had he come here? Had he asked an y questions about anybody? Or described anybody he might b e looking for? He asked me all those questions, but at the sam e time I thought little about it. Afterwards I began to believ e that he was not merely jealous. Right then I decided to tel l Arnold about it when he returned."

"And did you?"

There was a shadow of worry on her face. "No. He neve r came again." She looked quickly at me. "I've often thought o f it. Morgan never mentioned him again, but somehow Arnol d hadn't seemed like a man who would frighten easily."

Later, when she was mounting to leave, I asked her , "Where was D'Arcy from? Do you remember?"

"Virginia, I believe. He had served in the Army an d before coming west had been working in Washington."

Watching her go, I thought again of Morgan Park. H
e might have frightened D'Arcy away, but I could not shake of f the idea that something vastly more sinister lay behind it.

And Park had been close to us during the night. If he ha d wanted to kill me, it could have been done, but apparentl y he wanted me alive. Why?

"Mulvaney," I suggested, "if you can hold this place, I'l l ride to Silver Reef and get off a couple of messages."

He stretched his huge arms and grinned at me. "Do yo u doubt it? I'll handle it or them. Go, and have yourself a time."

And in the morning I was in the saddle again.

Chapter
6

High noon, and a mountain shaped like flame. Beyond th e mountain and around it was a wide land with no horizons, bu t only the shimmering heat waves that softened all lines t o vagueness and left the desert an enchanted land withou t beginning and without end.

As I rode, my mind studied the problem created by th e situation around Cottonwood Wash. There were at least thre e and possibly four sides to the question. Rud Maclaren wit h his Bar M, Jim Pinder with his CP, and myself with the Tw o Bar. The fourth possibility was Morgan Park.

Olga's account of Arnold D'Arcy's disappearance ha d struck a chord of memory. During ten years of my life I ha d been fighting in foreign wars, and there had been a militar y observer named D'Arcy, a Major Leo D'Arcy, who had bee n in China during the fighting there. It stuck in my mind tha t he had a brother named Arnold.

It was a remote chance, yet a possiblity. Why did th e name upset Park? What had become of Arnold? Where di d Park come from? Pinder could be faced with violence an d handled with violence. Maclaren might be circumvented.

Morgan Park worried me.

Silver Reef lay sprawled in haphazard comfort along a main street and a few cross streets. There were the usua l frontier saloons, stores, churches, and homes. The sign o n the Elk Horn Saloon caught my attention. Crossing to it I p ushed through the door into the dim interior. While th e bartender served me, I glanced around, liking the feel of th e place.

"Rye?" The smooth-pated bartender squinted at me.

"Uh-huh. How's things in the mines?"

"So-so. But you ain't no miner." He glanced at m y cowhand's garb and then at the guns in their tied-dow n holsters. 'This here's a quiet town. We don't see many gu n handlers around here. The place for them is over east o f here."

"Hattan's?"

"Yeah. I hear the Bar M an' CP both are hirin' hands.

Couple of hombres from there rode into town a few days ago.

One of 'em was the biggest man I ever did see."

Morgan Park in Silver Reef! That sounded interesting , but I kept a tight rein on my thoughts and voice. "Did he sa y anything about what was going' on over there?"

Not to me. The feller with him, though, he was inquirin'
a round for the Slade boys. Gunslicks both of them. The bi g feller, he never come in here atall. I seen him on the street a couple of times, but he went to the Wells Fargo Bank an d down the street to see that shyster, Jake Booker.

"You don't seem to like Booker?"

"Him? He's plumb no good! The man's a crook!"

Once started on Booker, the bartender told me a lot.

Morgan Park had been in town before, but never came to th e Elk Horn. He confined his visits to the back room of a div e called the Sump or occasional visits to the office of Jak e Booker. The only man who ever came with him was Lyell.

Leaving the saloon, I sent off my telegram to Leo D'Arcy.