The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (40 page)

Red Eason was behind the bar himself this morning. He looked up as Mahone entered, and Finn noticed the change in his eyes.

“Rye,” Finn said. He waited, his hands on the bar while the drink was poured. He was conscious of low voices in the back of the saloon and glanced up. Two men were sitting there at one of the card tables. One was a slender man of middle age with a lean, high-boned face. He was unshaven, and his eyes were watchful. The other was a big man, even bigger than Mahone was himself. The man's face was wide and flat, and his nose had been broken.

The big man got up from the table and walked toward him. At that moment the outer door opened and Dean Armstrong came in with Doc Finerty and Judge Collins. They halted as they saw the big man walking toward Mahone.

Armstrong's quick eyes shifted to Banty Hull. The small man was seated in a chair half behind the corner of the bar. If Mahone turned to face the big man who Armstrong knew to be named Leibman, his back would be toward Hull. Dean Armstrong rarely carried a gun, but he was glad he was packing one this morning.

Leibman stopped a few feet away from Mahone. “You Finn Mahone?” he demanded. “From back in the Highbinders?”

Mahone looked up. “That's my name. That's where I live.” He saw that the other man had shifted until he was against the wall and Leibman was no longer between them.

“Hear you got a lot of cattle back in them hills,” Leibman said. “Hear you been selling stock over to Rico.”

“That's right.”

“Funny thing, you havin' so many cows an' nobody knowin' about it.”

“Not very funny. I don't recall that anybody from Laird has ever been back to see me. It's a pretty rough trail. You haven't been back there, either.”

“No, but I been to Rico. I seen some of them cows you sold.”

“Nice stock,” Mahone said calmly. He knew what was coming, but Leibman wasn't wearing a gun.

“Some funny brands,” Leibman said. “Looked like some of them had been altered.”

“Leibman,” Finn said quietly, “you came over here huntin' trouble. You'd know if you saw any of those cattle that none of them had but one brand. You know nobody else has seen them, so you think you can get away with an accusation and cover it up by trouble with me.

“You want trouble? All right, you've got it. If you say there was an altered brand on any of those cattle,
you're a liar
!”

Leibman sneered. “I ain't wearin' a gun!” he said. “Talk's cheap.”

“Not with me, it isn't,” Mahone said. “With me talk is right expensive. But I don't aim to mess up Brother Eason's bar, here. Nor do I aim to let your pal Alcorn slug me from behind or take a shot at me.

“So what we're going to do, you and me, is go outside in the street. You don't have a gun, so you can use your hands.”

Without further hesitation he turned and walked into the street. “Judge,” he said to Collins, “I'd admire if you'd sort of keep an eye on my back. Here's my guns.” He unbuckled his belts and passed them to the judge.

Alcorn and Banty Hull, watched by Doc Finerty and Armstrong, looked uneasily at each other as they moved into the street. Mahone noticed the glance. This wasn't going the way they had planned.

Leibman backed off and pulled off his shirt, displaying a hairy and powerfully muscled chest and shoulders.

Remy Kastelle came out of the Emporium and, noticing the crowd, was starting across the street when Pierce Logan walked up to her.

He was a tall man, perfectly dressed, suave and intelligent. “How do you do, Miss Kastelle!” he said, smiling.

She nodded up the street. “What's going on up there?”

Logan turned quickly, and his face tightened. “Looks like a fight starting,” he said. “That's Leibman, but who can be fighting him?”

Then he saw Mahone. “It's that fellow from the Highbinders, Mahone.”

“The one they're calling a rustler?” Remy turned quickly. She failed to note the momentary, pleased response to her reference to Mahone as a rustler. Her eyes quickened with interest. “He tricked me. I hope he takes a good beating!”

“He will!” Logan said dryly. “Leibman is a powerful brute. A rough-and-tumble fighter from the East.”

“I'm not so sure.” Texas Dowd had walked up behind them. He was looking past them gravely. “I think your man Leibman is in for a whipping.”

Logan laughed, but glanced sharply at Dowd. He had never liked the Lazy K foreman. He had always had an unpleasant feeling that the tall, cold cattleman saw too much, and saw it too clearly. There was also a sound to Dowd's voice, something in his way of talking that caught in Logan's mind. Stirred memories of … someone.

“Wouldn't want to bet, would you?” Logan asked.

“Yes, I'll bet.”

Remy glanced around, surprised and puzzled. “Why, Mr. Dowd! I would never have imagined you to be a gambling man.”

“I'm not,” Dowd said.

“You think it's a sure thing, then?” Logan asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” Dowd replied.

“Well, I think you're wrong for a hundred dollars,” Logan said.

“All right.” Dowd looked at Remy. “I'll be inside, buying what we need, Miss Remy.”

“Aren't you even going to watch it?” Logan demanded.

“No,” Dowd said. “I've seen it before.” He turned and walked into the store.

“Well!” Logan looked at Remy, astonished. “That foreman of yours is a peculiar man.”

“Yes.” She looked after Dowd, disturbed. “He sounded like he had known something of Mahone before. Now let's go!”

“You aren't going to watch it?” Pierce Logan was shocked in spite of himself.

“Of course! I wouldn't miss it for the world!”

 

Finn Mahone knew fighters of Leibman's type. The man had won many fights. He had expected Mahone to avoid the issue, but Mahone's calm acceptance and his complete lack of excitement were disturbing the bigger man. Mahone pulled off his shirt.

Leibman's face hardened suddenly. If ever he had looked at a trained athlete's body, he was looking at it now. With a faint stir of doubt he realized he was facing no common puncher, no backwoods brawler. Then his confidence came back. He had never been whipped, never …

He went in with a rush, half expecting Mahone to be the boxer type who might try to evade him. Finn Mahone had no intention of evading anything. As Leibman rushed, he took one step in and smashed Leibman's lips into pulp with a straight left. Then he ducked and threw a right to the body.

Stopped in his tracks, Leibman's eyes narrowed. He feinted and clubbed Mahone with a ponderous right. Mahone took it and never even wavered, then he leaped in, punching with both hands!

Slugging madly, neither man giving ground, they stood spraddle-legged in the dust punching with all their power. Leibman gave ground first, but it was to draw Finn on, and when Mahone rushed, Leibman caught him with a flying mare and threw him over his back!

Finn hit the ground in a cloud of dust, and as a roar went up from the crowd, he leaped to his feet and smashed Leibman back on his heels with a wicked right to the jaw. Leibman ducked under another punch and tried to throw Mahone with a rolling hip-lock. It failed when Mahone grabbed him and they both tumbled into the dust. Finn was up first, and stepped back, wiping the dust from his lips. Leibman charged, and Finn sidestepped, hooking a left to the bigger man's ear.

Leibman pulled his head down behind his shoulder. Then he rushed, feinted, and hit Mahone with a wicked left that knocked him into the dust. He went in, trying to kick, but Finn caught his foot and twisted, throwing Leibman off balance.

Finn was on his feet then, and the two men came together and began to slug. The big German was tough; he had served his apprenticeship in a hard school. He took a punch to the gut, gasped a long breath, and lunged. Then Finn stepped back and brought up a right uppercut that broke Leibman's nose.

Finn walked in, his left a flashing streak now. It stabbed and cut, ripping Leibman's face to ribbons. Suddenly, Judge Collins realized something that few in the crowd understood. Until now, Mahone had been playing with the big man. What happened after that moment was sheer murder.

The left was a lancet in the shape of a fist. The wicked right smashed again and again into Leibman's body, or clubbed his head. Once Finn caught Leibman by the arm and twisted him sharply, at the same time bringing up a smashing right uppercut. Punch-drunk and swaying, Leibman was a gory, beaten mass of flesh and blood.

Finn looked at him coolly, then measured him with a left and drove a right to the chin that sounded when it hit like an ax hitting a log. Leibman fell, all in one piece.

Without a word or a glance around, Finn walked to his saddle and picked up his shirt. Then he dug into his saddlebags and took out a worn towel. Judge Collins came over to him. “Better put these on first,” he said.

Finn glanced at him sharply, then smiled. “I reckon I had,” he said. He mopped himself with the towel, then slid into his shirt. With the guns strapped on his lean hips, he felt better.

His knuckles were skinned despite the hardness of his hands. He looked up at Collins. “Looks like they were figurin' on trouble.”

“That's right. There's rumors around, son. You better watch yourself.”

“Thanks.” Mahone swung into the saddle. As he turned the horse he glanced to the boardwalk and saw the girl watching him. Beside her was a tall, handsome man with powerful shoulders. He smiled grimly, and turned the horse away down the street, walking him slowly.

Texas Dowd appeared at Logan's elbow. Pierce turned and handed him a hundred dollars. “You'd seen him fight before?” he asked.

Dowd shrugged. “Could be. He's fought before.”

“Yes,” Logan said thoughtfully, “he has.” He glanced at Dowd again. “What do you know about him?”

Texas Dowd's face was inscrutable. “That he's a good man to leave alone,” he said flatly.

Dowd turned stiffly and strode away. Nettled, Logan stared after him. “Where did you find him?” he asked.

Remy smiled faintly. “He came up over the border when I was away at school. Dad liked the way he played poker. He started working for us, and Dad made him foreman. There was a gunman around who was making trouble. I never really got it straight, but the gunman died. I heard Dad telling one of the hands about it.”

Behind them Texas Dowd headed down the street. He made one brief stop at Lettie Mason's gambling hall and emerged tucking a single playing card into his breast pocket. Then he mounted his horse and rode hard down the trail toward the Highbinders.…

 

Finn Mahone walked the black only to the edge of town, then broke the stallion into a canter and rapidly put some miles behind him. Yet no matter how far or fast he rode, he could not leave the girl behind him. He had seen Remy Kastelle, and something about her gave him a lift, sent fire into his veins. Several times he was on the verge of wheeling the horse and heading back.

She was his nearest neighbor, her range running right up to the Rimrock. But beyond the Rimrock nobody ever tried to come. Finn slowed the black to a walk again, scowling as he rode. His holdings were eighty miles from Rawhide where Alcorn and Leibman lived. There was no reason for them jumping him, unless they needed a scapegoat. The talk about rustling was building up, and if they could pin it on him, there were plenty of people who would accept it as gospel.

People were always suspicious of anyone who kept to himself. Nobody knew the Highbinder country like he did. If they had guessed he had nearly five thousand acres of top grassland, there might have been others trying to horn in.

Crystal Valley, watered by Crystal Creek, which flowed into the Laird, was not just one valley, it was three. In the first, where his home was, there were scarcely three hundred acres. In the second there were more than a thousand acres, and in the third, over three thousand. There was always water here, even in the driest weather, and the grass always grew tall. Three times the number of cattle he now had could never have kept it down.

High, rocky walls with very few passes made it impossible for cattle to stray. The passes were okay for a man on foot, or in one or two cases, a man on a mountain horse, but nothing more.

After a while he reined in and looked off across the rolling country toward the Kastelle spread. It was a good ranch, and Remy was making it a better one. She knew cattle, or she had someone with her who did. He smiled bitterly because he knew just who that someone was.

Finn Mahone got down from his horse and rolled and lighted a cigarette. As he faced north, he looked toward the Kastelle ranch with its Lazy K brand. Southwest of him was McInnis and his Spur outfit. The McInnis ranch was small, but well handled, and until lately, prosperous.

East of him was the town of Laird, and south and just a short distance west of Laird, the P Slash L ranch of Pierce Logan.

Northeast of town was Van Brewster's Lazy S, and north of that, the hamlet of Rawhide. Rawhide was a settlement of ranchers, small ranchers such as Banty Hull, Alcorn, Leibman, Ringer Cobb, Ike Hibby, Frank Salter, and Montana Kerr. It was also the hangout of Byrn Sonntag.

He had not been joking when he suggested the best way to look for rustlers was with a pen and ink. There are few brands that cannot be altered, and it was a curious thing that the brands of the small group of cattlemen who centered in Rawhide could be changed very easily into Brewster's Lazy S or McInnis's Spur.

Finn Mahone was a restless man. There was little to do on his range much of the time, so when not reading or working around the place, he rode. And his riding had taken him far eastward along the ridge of the Highbinders, eastward almost as far as Rawhide.

Mounting, Finn turned the stallion toward the dim trail that led toward the Notch. It was a trail not traveled but by himself. A trail no one showed any desire to follow.