West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) (21 page)

It was past midnight when he heard the walking horse. Swiftly he moved from under his blankets and, pistol in hand, he waited, listening.

The night was cold. Wind stirred down the canyon and rustled softly among the aspen. The stars were bright, and under them the walking horse made the only sound. A weary horse, alone and unguided.

It came nearer, then, seeming to sense his presence, the horse stopped and blew gently through his nostrils. Tanneman got cautiously to his feet. He could see the vague outlines of a man on the horse, a man slumped far forward, and something behind him ... a child.

"What's wrong, kid?" He walked from the deeper shadows.

"It's my father." The voice trembled. "He's been shot."

Gently, Bill Tanneman lifted the wounded man from the saddle and placed him on the blankets.

He heated water from his canteen, and while the child looked on, he bathed the wound. It was low down and on the left side. From the look of the wound it had been a ricochet, for it was badly torn. Tanneman made a poultice of prickly pear and tied it on, yet even as he worked he knew his efforts were useless. This man had come too far, had lost too much blood.

When at last the wounded man's eyes opened, they looked at the dancing shadows on the rock wall, then at Tanneman.

"The kid?"

"All right." Tanneman hesitated, then said deliberately, "Anybody you want to notify?"

"I was afraid ... no, there's nobody. Take care of the kid, will you?"

"What happened?"

The man breathed heavily for several minutes, then seemed to gather strength. "Name's Jack Towne. Squatted on the Centerfire. Big outfit burned me out, shot me up. It was all I had . . ."

Tanneman built a fire and prepared some stew, and when it was finished he dished some up for the child. He looked again at the dying man's run-down boot heels, the worn and patched jeans, the child's thin body. "I'll get your place back," his voice was rough, "for the kid."

'Thanks, anyway." The man managed a smile. "Don't try it."

"What was the outfit?"

"Tom Banning's crowd. It was Rud Pickett shot me."

Rud Pickett ... a money-taking killer. But a dangerous man to meet. And Banning was a tough old hide-hunter turned cattleman, taking everything in sight.

"Your kid will get that ranch. I'm Bill Tanneman."

"Tanneman!" There was alarm in the man's eyes as he glanced from the big gunfighter to the child.

The big man flushed painfully. "Don't worry, he'll be all right." He hesitated, ashamed to make the confession even to a dying man. "I always wanted a kid."

Jack Towne stared at him, and his eyes softened. He started to speak, but the words never came.

Bill Tanneman turned slowly toward the child. "Son, you'd better rest. I--"

"I'm not a son!" The voice was indignant. "I'm a girl!"

Tanneman watched the child with growing dread. What was he going to do? A little girl would take special treatment, but he didn't even know where to start. A boy, now . . . but this was a girl. How did one talk to a girl kid? He spoke seldom, ari'd when he did his voice was rough. This was a situation that was going to take some thought.

Thompson's Creek was a town of two hundred and fifty people, two saloons, one rooming house, one restaurant, and a few odds and ends of shops, and at the street's end, a livery stable.

Betty Towne and Bill Tanneman rode to town the next evening. Tanneman remained cautious, as was his nature, but his mind was stubbornly set on the problem of the little girl. Their horses stabled, he brushed his coat and hat while the child gravely combed her hair, then joined him to bathe her hands at the watering trough.

"Let's go eat," he said, when she had dried her hands.

Her little hand slipped confidently into his and Bill Tanneman felt a queer flutter where his heart was, followed by a strange glow. A little more proudly he started up the boardwalk, a huge man in black and a tiny girl with fine blonde hair and blue eyes.

This had been her father's town, and it was near here that he had been shot, driven from the ranch where he had worked to create a home. And in this town were men who would kill Tanneman if they knew why he had come.

The life of Bill Tanneman had left him with few illusions. He knew the power of wealth, knew the number of riders that now rode for Tom Banning, and knew the type-of man he was, and the danger that lay in Rud Pickett. Yet Tanneman was a man grown up to danger and trouble, knowing nothing else, and for the first time he was acting" with conscious, deliberate purpose.

On the street near the cafe were tied several horses, all marked with the Banning brand. Tanneman hesitated for a moment, then led the girl toward the door. As they entered the cafe, he caught the startled glance of a woman who was placing dishes on the table. The glance went from the child to the weather-beaten man with white hair who sat at the end of the table. The man did not look up.

Also in the room there were three cowhands, one other man more difficult to place, and a tall, graceful girl with a neat gray traveling dress and a composed, lovely face.

At the sight of the man at the head of the table, Betty drew back and her fingers tightened convulsively. She looked up at Tanneman with fear in her light blue eyes.

Deliberately, Tanneman walked around the table and drew back the two chairs on Banning's right.

The rancher glanced up irritably. "Sorry, that seaf s reserved." His glance flickered to the girl and then back to Tanneman, his eyes narrowing. . . .

Ignoring him, Tanneman seated Betty, then drew back the chair nearest the rancher. For an instant their eyes met, and Tom Banning felt a distinct shock. Something within him went still and cold.

Reassured by the presence of Tanneman, Betty began to eat. Soon she was chattering away happily. She looked up into the lovely gray eyes opposite her. "This is my Uncle Bill," she said. "He's taking me home. At least, where we used to live. Our house was burned down." She glanced nervously toward the head of the table, fearful that she had said too much.

Tanneman was stirred by a grim humor. "Don't worry, honey. The men who burned it are going to build you a new house, a much bigger, nicer one. It will belong to you."

One of the cowhands put down his fork and looked up the table. Banning's eyes were on Tanneman, a hard awareness growing in them. The cowhand started to rise. "You work for Banning?" "Yeah."

"Then sit down. If you figure on lookin' up Rud Pick-ett, don't bother. I'll hunt him myself."

Coolly, Tanneman helped himself to some food. "I despise a man," he stated calmly, "who hires his killing done. I despise a man who murders the fathers of children. A man like that is a white-livered scoundrel."

Tom Banning's face went white. He half started to rise, then slid back. "I'm not packin' a gun," he said.

"Your kind doesn't." Tanneman gave him no rest. "You hide behind hired guns. Now you listen to me: I'm here to take up for Jack Towne's daughter. You rebuild that house you burned, you drive his stock back. You get that done right off, or you meet me in the street with your gun. Not your hired men--you, Tom Banning."

He forked a piece of beef and chewed silently for a minute, and then he looked up. It was obvious that he had everyone in the cafe's attention. "This here little girl's father was murdered by riders, at Tom Banning's orders. That will be hard to prove, so I don't aim to try. I know it, an' everybody else around here does, too.

"He robbed this little girl of her daddy and her home. I can't give back her father, but I can give back her home."

Tom Banning's face was flushed. The girl was looking at him with horror, and he quailed at the thought of what she must be thinking. In his youth a fire-eater, Banning had come more and more to rely on hired guns, yet this man had called him personally, and in such a way that he- could not avoid a meeting. That the stranger had done so deliberately was obvious. And now Tanneman pointed it even more definitely.

"Ma'am," Tanneman glanced up at the older woman, "give that fellow some more coffee." He indicated the cowhand who had started to rise. "He's worked for Banning awhile, I take it, and now he's got him a chance to see who his boss is, whether he's ridin' for a coward or a game man."

The directness of the attack took Banning by surprise, and once the surprise was over, he began to worry. This was no brash youngster, but a mature and dangerous man. If he tried to leave the man might order him to sit down, and then he must submit or risk actual physical combat.

Tanneman turned to the child and began cutting her meat. He talked to her quietly, gently, and the girl across the table was touched by the difference in his voice.

Kate Ryerson, who owned the restaurant, offered to give the child a bed. Slipping from her chair, Betty slipped her arms around him and kissed his rough cheek. "Good night, Uncle Bill."

The tall girl at the table met his eyes and smiled. "You seem to have a way with children."

Bill Tanneman felt himself blushing. "Don't guess I do, ma'am. It's that youngster. She has a way with me."

When the child was gone, the girl with the gray eyes filled her cup. "I think this should be investigated by the United States Marshal, and if these charges are correct Mr. Banning should be charged with murder and theft."

Tom Banning started to speak, then held his peace. For the first time he was really frightened. Guns, even turned against him, were something he understood and against which he could take measures. Explaining his ruthless killings to a jury and being torn apart by a prosecuting attorney was another thing.

When he finished his meal he got up quietly, but Bill Tanneman ignored him. With his cowhands, Banning walked from the room.

Penelope Gray studied the big, hard-featured man across the table with attention. She remembered with warmth the queer wonderment in his eyes when he looked at the child. Instinctively, she knew this man was lonely for a long time.

"You've never been married?"

"I reckon no woman would want my sort of man."

"I think you're a very good man." She touched her fingers to his sleeve. "A man who would risk his life for the rights of a child who was no kin to him--that's a pretty fine sort of man."

Bill Tanneman remained seated after the girl retired, one thing holding his attention. Skilled at reading men, he had seen that Penny's threat of the law had frightened Ban- ning much more than his own warnings. Asking for pen and paper, he sat down and wrote a letter to Dan Cooper.

It had been long since he had seen Cooper. A sheriff then, Cooper had been pursuing him after a shooting until the sheriffs horse put a foot in a prairie dog hole and broke a leg. It was wild country and the Comanches were riding. Tanneman had turned back, disarmed Cooper, and let him ride double until within a mile of town. Cooper was a judge now, and a power in Territorial politics.

At daybreak, he routed out the storekeeper and bought an express shotgun and fifty rounds for it. He loaded the shotgun and stuffed his pockets with shells. Then he saddled his horse and headed for the Towne place.

It was still early . . . quail called in the mesquite as he rode by at a space-eating canter. He found the Towne place as Kate Ryerson had described it, a flowing spring, a small pool, the weed-grown vegetable garden, and the charred ruins of a cabin.

His fighter's eyes surveyed the terrain. An old buffalo wallow could be a rifle pit ... that pile of rocks . . . but he must not think in terms of defense, but of attack.

He was tying his horse in the brush behind the spring when he heard approaching hoofs. He turned swiftly, his rifle lifting. It was Penny Gray.

His voice was rough when he stepped into the open. "You shouldn't have come. There may be trouble, and this is no place for a woman."

"I think it is, Bill. Banning and his men are coming. Anyway"--a half smile played on her lips--"you need a woman . . . more than you know."

The words caught him where he lived and he turned away angrily. How did women know where to strike? How to hurt? Even when they did not want to hurt.

And then he heard horses, many of them.

Tom Banning and a dozen riders came into the little valley and rode toward them. With something like panic, Bill saw Penny get her rifle from its scabbard. "Stay out of this!" he ordered.

Banning drew up. The presence of the girl disconcerted him. He had never killed a woman, nor did he believe his riders, other than Rud Pickett, would stand for it. Had it just been the two of them, now . . .

"Send that girl back to town!" he demanded angrily. "I'm fightin' men, not women!"

"Then don't fight, Mr. Banning." Penny's voice was serious. "Although it seems that your morals are not so pure as you'd like to let on. You took away everything that little girl had!" She glanced at Tanneman. "I came of my own free will. You do what you have to."

Banning chewed his mustache, and then Tanneman said, "You try any killing here today, Banning, and you'll never live to see it. My first bullet tears your heart out." He raised his rifle and took the slack out of the trigger.

"He may not believe me, Tascosa." Tanneman's eyes flickered briefly to a raw-boned cowhand behind Banning. "Tell him who I am."