the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986) (4 page)

"That," said the tall man, gesturing after Sherry Vernon, "is a staked claim!"

Ross Haney was getting angry. Men who were bigger than him always irritated him, anyway. "It is?" His voice was cutting. "If you think you can stake a claim on any woman you've got a lot to learn!"

He shoved by toward the door, but behind him the voice said, "But that one's staked. You hear me?"

Soledad by night was a tiny scattering of lights along the dark river of the street. Music from the tinny piano in the Bit and Bridle drifted down the street, and with it the lazy voice of someone singing a cow camp song. Ross Haney turned up the street toward the two-story frame hotel, his mind unable to free itself from the vision that was Sherry Vernon.

For the first time, the wife who was to share that ranch had a face. Until now there had been in his thoughts the vague shadow of a personality and a character, but there had been no definite features, nothing that could be recognized. Now, after seeing Sherry, he knew there could be but one woman in the ranch house he planned to build.

He smiled wryly as he thought of her sharing his life. What would she think of a cowhand, a drifting gunhand? And what would she say when it became known that he was Ross Haney? Not that the name meant very much, for it did not. Only in certain quarters where fighting men gather had he acquired something of a reputation. The stories about him had drifted across the country as such stories will, and while he had little notoriety as a gunfighter, he was known as a hard, capable man who would and could fight.

He was keenly aware of his situation in Soledad and the Ruby Hills country. As yet, he was an outsider. They were considering him, and Pogue had already sensed enough of what he was to offer a job, gun or saddle job. When his intentions became known he would be facing trouble and plenty of it. When they discovered that he had actually moved in and taken possession of the best water in the valley, they would have no choice but to buy him out, run him out, or kill him.

Or they could move out themselves, and neither Walt Pogue nor Chalk Reynolds was the man for that.

In their fight Ross had no plan to take sides. He was a not-too-innocent bystander as far as they were concerned. When Bob and Sherry Vernon were considered, he wasn't too sure. He scowled, realizing suddenly that sentiment had no place in such dealings as his. Until he saw Sherry Vernon he had been a free agent, and now, for better or worse, he was no longer quite so free.

He could not now move with such cold indifference to the tides of war in the Ruby Hills. Now he had an interest, and his strength was lowered to just the degree of that interest. He was fully aware of the fact. It nettled him even as it amused him, for he was always conscious of himself and viewed his motives with a certain wry, ironic humor, seeing himself always with much more clarity than others saw him.

Yet, despite that, something had been accomplished. He had staked his claim at Thousand Springs and started his cabin. He had talked with Scott, and won an ally there, for he knew the old man was with him, at least to a point. He had met and measured Walt Pogue, and he knew that Emmett Chubb was now with Reynolds. That would take some investigation, for from all he had learned, he had been sure that Pogue had hired Chubb to kill Vin Carter, but now Chubb worked for Reynolds.

Well, the allegiance of such men was tied to a dollar sign, and their loyalty went no further than their next payday. There might have been trouble between Pogue and Chubb, and that might be the reason Pogue was so eager to have him killed.

He directed his thoughts towards the Vernons. Bob was all man. Whatever Reynolds and Pogue planned for him he would not take. He would have his own ideas, and he was a fighter.

What of the other hands whom Scott had implied were loyal to Levitt rather than Vernon? These men he must consider, too, and must plan carefully for them, for in such an action as he planned, he must be aware of all the conflicting elements in the valley.

The big man in the white hat he had placed at once. Carter had mentioned him with uncertainty, for when Carter left the valley Star Levitt had just arrived, and was an unknown quantity.

With that instinctive awareness that the widely experienced man has for such things, Ross Haney knew that he and Star Levitt were slated to be enemies. They were two men who simply could not be friends, for there was a definite clash of personalities and character that made a physical clash inevitable. And Haney was fully aware that Star Levitt was not the soft touch some might believe. He was a dangerous man, a very dangerous man.

Chapter
IV

Bold Challenge

Ross Haney found that the hotel was a long building with thirty rooms, a large empty lobby, and off to one side, a restaurant open for business. Feeling suddenly hungry, he turned to the desk for a room, his eyes straying toward the restaurant door.

When Haney dropped his war bag a young man standing in the doorway turned and walked to the desk. "Room?" he smiled as he spoke, and his face was pleasant.

"The best you've got." Ross grinned at him.

The clerk grinned back. "Sorry, but they are all equally bad, even if reasonably clean. Take fifteen, at the end of the hall. You'll be closer to the well."

"Pump?"

The clerk chuckled. "What do you think this is, New York? It's a rope-and-bucket well, it's been almost a year since we hauled a dead man out of it. The water should be good by now."

"Sure." Ross studied him for a moment. "Where you from? New York?"

"Yes, and Philadelphia, Boston, Richmond, London, and San Francisco, and now-Sole- dad."

"You've been around." Ross rolled a smoke and dropped the sack on the desk for the clerk. "How's the food?"

"Good. Very good-and the prettiest waitress west of the Mississippi."

Ross smiled. "Well, if she's like the other girls around here, she's probably a staked claim. I had a big hombre with a white hat tell me tonight that one girl was staked out for him."

The clerk looked at him quickly, shrewdly. "Star Levitt?"

"I guess."

"If he meant the lady you had the race with today, I'd say he was doing more hoping than otherwise. Sherry Vernon," the clerk spoke carefully, "is not an easy claim to stake!"

Ross pulled the register around, hesitated an instant, and then wrote, "Ross Haney, El Paso."

The clerk glanced at it and then looked up. "Glad to meet you, Ross. My name is Allan Kinney." He looked down at the name again. "Ross Haney. I've heard that name from somewhere.

"It's funny," he added musingly, "about a name and a town. Ross Haney, from El Paso. Now you might not be from El Paso at all. You might be from Del Rio or Sanderson or Uvalde. You might even be from Cheyenne or from Fort Sumner or White Oaks.

"What happened to you in El Paso or wherever you came from? And why did you come here? Men drift without reason sometimes, but usually, there is something. Sometimes the law is behind them, or an outlaw ahead of them. Sometimes they just want new horizons or a change of scene, and sometimes they are hunting for something. You, now. I'd say you came to Soledad for a reason-a reason that could mean trouble."

"Let's drink some coffee," Haney suggested, "and see if that waitress is as pretty as you say."

"You won't think so," Kinney said, shaking his head, "you won't think so at all. You've just seen Sherry Vernon. After her, all women look washed out-until you get over her."

"I don't plan on it."

Kinney dropped into a chair. "That, my friend, is a large order. Miss Vernon usually handles such situations with neatness and dispatch. She is always pleasant, never familiar."

"This is different." Ross looked up, and suddenly he knew with a queer excitement just what he was going to say. He said it. "I'm going to marry her."

Allan Kinney gulped and put his cup down carefully. "Have you told her? Does she know your intentions are honorable? Does she even know you have intentions?" He grinned. "You know, friend, that is a large order you have laid out for yourself."

The waitress came up. She was a slender, very pretty girl with red hair, a few freckles, and a sort of bubbling good humor that was contagious.

"May," Kinney said, "I want you to meet Ross Haney. He is going to marry Sherry Vernon."

At this, Ross felt his ears getting red and cursed himself for a thickheaded fool for ever saying such a thing. It may have been startled from him by the sudden realization that he intended to do just that.

"What?" May said quickly, looking at him. "Another one?"

Haney glanced up, and suddenly he put his hand over hers and said gently, "No, May. The one!"

Her eyes held his for a moment, and the laughter faded from them. "You know," she said seriously, "I think you might!"

She went for their coffee. Kinney looked at Ross with care. "Friend Haney," he said, "you have made an impression. I really think the lady believed you! Now if you can do as well with Miss Vernon, you'll be doing all right."

The door opened suddenly from the street, and two men stepped in. Ross glanced up, and his dark eyes held on the two men who stood there.

One of the men was a big man with sloping shoulders, and his eyes caught Haney's and narrowed as if at sudden recognition. The other man was shorter and thicker, but obviously a hard case. With a queer sort of premonition, Ross guessed that these men were from the Vernon ranch-or they could be. At least, they knew about Ross Haney and were more than casually interested.

These could be the men who worked for Star Levitt, and as such they merited study, yet their type was not an unfamiliar one to Ross Haney or to any man who rode the borderlands or the wild country. While many a puncher has branded a few mavericks or rustled a few cows when he needed drinking money or wanted a new saddle, there was a certain intangible yet very real difference that marked those who held to the outlaw trail, and both of these men had it.

They were men with guns for hire, men who rode for trouble and for the ready cash they could get for crooked work. He knew their type. He had faced such men before, and he knew they recognized him. These men were a type who never fought a battle for anyone but themselves.

Without warning, the door pushed open and two more men came into the room. Ross glanced around and caught the eyes of a short, stocky man who walked with a quick, jerky lift of his knees. He walked now-right over to Haney.

"You're Ross Haney?" he said abruptly. "I've got a job for you! Start tomorrow morning! A hundred a month an' found. Plenty of horses! I'm Chalk Reynolds an' my place is just out of town in that big clump of cottonwoods. Old place. You won't have any trouble finding it."

Ross smiled. "Sorry, I'm not hunting a job."

Reynolds had been turning away, but he whipped back quickly. "What do you mean? Not looking for a job? At a hundred a month?

When the range is covered with top hands gettin' forty?"

"I said I didn't want a job."

"Ah?" The genial light left the older man's face, and his blue eyes hardened and narrowed. "So that's it! You've gone to work for Walt Pogue!"

"No, I don't work for Pogue. I don't work for anybody. I'm my own man, Mr. Reynolds!"

Chalk Reynolds stared at him. "Listen, my friend, and listen well. In the Ruby Hills today there are but two factions, those for Reynolds and those against him. If you don't work for me, I shall regard you as an enemy."

Haney shrugged. "That's your funeral. From all I hear you have enemies enough without choosing any more. Also, from all I hear, you deserve them."

"What?" Reynolds' eyes blazed. "Don't sass me, stranger!"

The lean, whip-bodied man beside him touched his arm. "Let me handle this, Uncle Chalk," he said gently. "Let me talk to this man."

Ross shifted his eyes. The younger man had a lantern jaw and unusually long gray eyes. The eyes had a flatness about them that puzzled and warned him.

"My name is Sydney Berdue. I am foreman for Mr. Reynolds." He stepped closer to where Haney sat in his chair, one elbow on the table. "Maybe you would like to tell me why he deserves his enemies."

Haney glanced up at him, his blunt features composed, faintly curious, his eyes steady and aware. "Sure," he said quietly, "I'd be glad to.

"Chalk Reynolds came west from Missouri right after the war with Mexico. For a time he was located in Santa Fe, but as the wagon trains started to come west, he went north and began selling guns to the Indians."

Reynolds' face went white and his eyes blazed. "That's not true!"

Haney's glance cut his words short. "Don't make me kill you!" Ross said sharply. "Every word I say is true! You took part in wagon train raids yourself. I expect you collected your portion of white scalps. Then you got out of there with a good deal of loot and met a man in Julesburg who wanted to come out here. He knew nothing of your crooked background, and-"

Berdue's hand was a streak for his gun, but Haney had expected it. When the Reynolds's foreman had stepped toward him, he had come beyond Haney's outstretched feet, and Ross whipped his toe up behind the foreman's knee and jerked hard just as he shoved with his open hand. Berdue hit the floor with a crash and his gun went off with a roar, the shot plowing into the ceiling. From the room overhead came an angry shout and the sound of bare feet hitting the floor.