the Rider Of Lost Creek (1976) (22 page)

"So? Somebody talked, did they? Well, it is time I got new men, anyway. But you're a fool, Kilkenny. This little affair is not going to stop me, or even slow me down.
I'll
have to recruit a new bunch of men, but you will lose men, too. Today some of the best men in the Live Oak country will
die and
there will be just that many I will no longer have to plan for.

"Next time it will be much easier, and I intend to reorganize, recruit the men I need and come back. I'd have succeeded this time but for you.

"Steele will fight but, if he isn't killed today, I will see him dead before the week is out. That goes for your friend Rusty Gates and for Joe Frame, as well. Gates isn't dangerous alone, but he might find another man like you with whom to work.

"Usually there are only a few men in any community who are dangerous to efforts like mine. Eliminate them, and the rest are afraid to step out of the crowd."

The tempo of the firing had increased. Without looking, Kilkenny knew his men were in and out among the buildings now. Yet Barnes did not allow his eyes to shift for one instant. He was wary as a crouched tiger. In the quiet, well-ordered room, he seemed aloof from all down below. He seemed like someone from another world, another lifetime. Only
his
eyes showed what was in him.

"Have you seen Steve Lord?"

"Lord"..."... Barnes" eyes seemed to change a little.

"He never comes here."

"He worked with you."

Barnes shrugged. "Of course. One has to use the tools at hand, so I held out Nita as bait.

Nita and power. I promised him the Steele ranch. He is a fool."

"Do you know how many men he's killed?"

"Steve"..."... Barnes was incredulous. "He's yellow.

He didn't
kill anybody."

Kilkenny smiled, shaking his head. "Barnes,"" he said, "that just shows how wrong you can be. Steve is crazy. There's something inside him that's driving him to kill, and hell never stop now until somebody kills him. He killed Des King. He killed Sam Carter and he's killed a half-dozen others. Now he's gunning for you!"

Royal Barnes was annoyed. "Don't be foolish! He isn't dry behind the
ears yet
!

He'd never Mil anyone!"

Nonetheless, Kilkenny could see that the idea that he could make such a mistake had annoyed and irritated him.

Royal Barnes got up suddenly. "Somebody is on the trail now!"

"That could be Steve
... Kilkenny replied, suddenly aware that Barnes was awaiting some sound, some signal. If there was a spring gun on the main trail, it would stop Steve in his tracks.

Somewhere he could hear water
dripping slowly
, methodically, as if counting off the seconds.

Royal Barnes put his hand to a deck of cards on the table and idly riffled them. The spattering sound of the cards was loud in the room.

Again there was the heavy boom of the buffalo gun. That must be Mort Davis again. Somebody had probably tried to get water.

Gravel rattled on the trail, and Kilkenny saw the skin tighten around Barnes's eyes.

Then, in almost complete silence, the heavy boom of a shotgun hi a confined space!

Royal Barnes went for his gun. He had been half facing Kilkenny. As he drew he shoved the table toward him.

The floor was slippery and the table, prepared for just such a move, shot toward Kilkenny across the hardwood floor.

But Barnes had not calculated Kilkenny's incredibly quick reaction. The same leap that took him from behind the table, enabled the bullet to miss.

Kilkenny palmed his gun and fired twice, so rapidly the shots blended into one sound. Through the smoke he could see Royal Barnes's eyes, blazing with some strange light, his
lips
drawn in a snarl of fury.

Then all sight and all other sound was lost in the thunderous roar of heavy guns in the confined space.

He was shooting. He was hit He felt his back smashed against the wall, and through the smoke he could see the stab of crimson Same.

His own guns were firing. He stepped left, then right Barnes sprang backward through a doorway, and Kilkenny paused, thumbing cartridges into his guns.

He was breathing hoarsely, and the room was filled with the acrid smoke of black powder. He crossed the room and went through the door, low and fast. A bullet smashed into the
doorjamb
near his face.

Another tagged at his sleeve with invisible fingers.

He stepped over, saw Barnes, and fired on the instant Flame blossomed from Barnes's guns and Kilkenny felt his knees give way. He went down. Royal Barnes was backing away, his eyes wide and staring, his shirt-front bathed in blood.

Pulling himself erect with his left hand, Kilkenny fired again. He started to shoot once more but Barnes was gone.

Stumbling on into the next room, he stared about him.

He was sick and faint, weaving on his feet, and blood was running into his eyes.

The room was empty. A gun fired behind him and he turned in a stumbling circle and saw a shadow weaving before him through the gunsmoke. Kilkenny opened up with both guns, and then he fell. He went down hard.

He must have blacked out briefly, an instant only, but when his senses returned the room was acrid with the smell of powder smoke. He got his knees under him, retrieved his left-hand gun and, using the fingers of that hand, helped himself erect before resuming a fun grip on the pistol.

All sense of time and space was gone. He had but one thought Royal Barnes was here, and Royal Barnes must die.

Then he saw him, propped against the opposite wall. A bullet had gone through one cheek, entering below the nose and coming out under the ear. Blood was flowing from the wound. Barnes was cursing through bloody, foam-flecked lips, cursing in a low, ugly monotone.

"You got me, damn you! But I'm taking you with me!"

His gun swung up. Kilkenny's guns seemed to fire of their own volition. Barnes's body winced and jerked with the impact, then he lunged off the wall, his guns roaring. He was wild, insane, and desperate, but his guns no longer fired with the will of the man behind them. They simply fired, and the shots went wild.

He was toe-to-toe with Kilkenny when Kilkenny finished with four shots, two from each gun, at three foot range. Then Barnes fell, tumbling across Kilkenny's feet and almost knocking him down.

For what seemed an eternity, Kilkenny stood erect, his guns dangling and empty. He stared blankly at the dead man at his feet, then at the weird pattern of the Navajo rug across the room.

He could hear the hoarse rasp of his own breathing.

He could feel the warm blood on his face. He could feel weakness mounting within him.

Suddenly, he heard a sound. He had dropped one of his guns: He stared down at it, uncomprehendingly. Abruptly, he seemed to have let go of everything and he fell, tumbling across Barnes's body to the floor. He felt warm sunlight on his face, then nothing more.

A long time later he felt hands touching him, felt his own hand reaching for his gun. A big man loomed over him. He was trying to lift his gun when a woman's voice spoke softly, and something in him listened. He let go of the gun.

He seemed to feel water on his face, and then pain throbbing inside him like a thing alive, tearing at his vitals. Then he went away again into a dark world where there was no thought or memory or pain.

When finally he again became conscious he was lying on a bed in a sunlit room. Outside there were flowers and he could hear a bird singing. There was a flash of red as a cardinal flirted past the window.

It was a woman's room, a quiet room, A curtain stirred in a cool breeze. He was lying there, barely awake, when Nita came in.

"So you're awake at last
... Her relief was obvious. "We were about to believe you'd never come out of it."

"What happened"..."... He mumbled.

"You were badly shot up. Six times hi all, but only one of them really serious."

"Barnes?"

"He's dead. He was almost shot to pieces."

Kilkenny was quiet then. He closed his eyes and lay without moving for what seemed a long time. In ail his experience he had never known a man with such vitality as Royal Barnes. Kilkenny rarely missed, and even in the wild and hectic battle in the cliff house he had known his shots were scoring. Yet Barnes had kept coming, had kept shooting.

He opened his eyes again. Only a moment bad passed, because Nita was still standing there.

"Steve Lord"..."... He asked.

"He was killed by a spring gun, trying to get at Barnes. It was a double-barrelled shotgun loaded with soft lead pellets. He must have died instantly."

"The outlaws?"

"Wiped out. A few escaped during the last minutes, but not many. Webb Steele was wounded but not too badly. He's been up and around for several days."

"Several days? How long have I been here?"

"You were badly hurt, Lance. The fight was two weeks ago."

Kilkenny lay quiet for awhile, absorbing that Then he remembered.

"Lem Calkins?"

"He was killed, he and two of his family.

Jaime did it. Then Steele told the others either to leave us alone or fight them all, and they backed down."

The two weeks more that Kilkenny spent in bed drifted slowly by, but toward the end, as his strength returned, he became restless and worried.

He remained in Nita's room, cared for by her, visited almost daily by Rusty, Tana and Webb Steele. Joe Frame dropped by from time to time, as did some of the others.

Lee Hall came by with Mort Davis, but Kilkenny kept thinking of the buckskin and the long, lonely trails.

Then one morning he got up early and went to the corral Rusty and Tana had come in the night before and he saw their horses in the corral with Buck. He saddled up and led the yellow horse outside.

The sun was just coming up and the morning air was cool and soft. He could smell the sagebrush and the mesquite. He felt restless and strange.

Instinctively he knew that he faced a crisis more severe than any brought on by his recent gun battle. Here, his life could change, but would it be for the best?

"I don't know, Buck
... He said, caressing the yellow horse, "maybe we'd better take a ride and think it over. Out in the hills with the wind hi my face I can think better."

He turned at the sound of a footstep and saw Nita standing behind him. She looked fresh and lovely hi a print dress, and her eyes were gentle as they met his.

Kilkenny looked away quickly, cursing inwardly at his weakness.

"Are you going, Kilkenny"..."... She asked.

"I reckon I am, Nita. Out there in the hills I can think a sight clearer. I got a few things to figure out."

"Kilkenny
... Ationita asked suddenly, "why do you not always talk like an educated man?"

She paused. "Tana told me you once dropped a picture of your mother, and there was an inscription on it
,
something about it being sent to you in college."

"I can speak like an educated man, Nita, but a lot of us out here have sort of taken on the vernacular of the country."... He hesitated, then added, "I'd better be riding now."

There were tears in her eyes but she lifted her head and smiled at him.

"Of course, Kilkenny. Go, and if you decide you wish to come back . . . don't hesitate. And Buck
... She turned quickly to the yellow horse, "if he starts back you bring him very fast, do you hear?"

For an instant Kilkenny hesitated again, then he swung into the saddle.

The buckskin wheeled and they went out of Apple Canyon at a brisk trot. Once he looked back and Nita was standing as he had left her. She lifted her hand and waved.

He waved in return, then faced away to the west.

The wind came over the plains, fresh with morning, and he lifted his eyes, scanning the horizon. The buckskin's ears were forward, and he was quickening his pace, eager to move into the distance.

"You "an me, Buck
... Kilkenny said, "we just ain't civilized. We're wild, and we belong to the far, open country where the wind blows and a man's eyes narrow down to distance."

Kilkenny glanced back. There was no sign of Apple Canyon now, there was only the horizon ... it might have been any horizon.

He lifted his voice and sang.

I have a word to speak, boys, only one to say, Don't never be no cow-thief, don't never ride no stray. Be careful of your rope, boys, and keep it on the tree, But suit yourself about it, for ifs nothing at all to met He sang softly, and the hoofs of the buckskin kept time to the singing, and Lance could feel the air on his face. A long way ahead the trail curved into the mountains. f I

"still think of myself in the oral traditionas a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be
remembered as
a storyteller. A good storyteller."