Текст книги "Desert Death-Song: A Collection of Western Stories"

Автор книги: Louis L'Amour

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Darkness found him suddenly. At the moment the horizon range had grown darker, its crest tinted with old rose and gold, slashed with the deep fire of crimson, and then it was night, and a coyote was yapping myriad calls at the stars.

In the coolness he might make many miles by pushing on, and he might also miss his only chance at water. He hesitated, then his weariness conformed with his judgment, and he slumped down against a boulder and dropped his chin on his chest. The coyote voiced a shrill complaint, then satisfied with the echo against the rocks, ceased his yapping and began to hunt. He scented the man smell and skirted wide around, going about his business.

There were six men in the little cavalcade at the base of the cliff, searching for tracks. The rider found them there. Jim Morton calmly sitting his horse and watching with interested eyes, but lending no aid to the men who tracked his friend, and there were Pete Daley, Blackie, Chuck Benson and Burt Stoval. Farther along were other groups of riders.

The man worked a hard-ridden horse and he was yelling before he reached them. He raced up and slid his horse to a stop, gasping, “Call it off! It wasn’t him!”

“What?” Daley burst out. “What did you say?”

“I said . . . it wa’n’t Bodine! We got our outlaw this mornin’ out east of town! Mary Bodine spotted a man hidin’ in the brush below Wenzel’s place, an’ she come down to town. It was him, all right. He had the loot on him, an’ the stage driver identified him!”

Pete Daley stared, his little eyes tightening. “What about the sheriff?” he demanded.

“He’s pullin’ through.” The rider stared at Daley. “He said it was his fault he got shot. His an’ your’n. He said if you’d kept your fool mouth shut nothin’ would have happened, an’ that he was a another fool for not lettin’ you get leaded down like you deserved!”

Daley’s face flushed, and he looked around angrily like a man badly treated. “All right, Benson. We’ll go home.”

“Wait a minute.” Jim Morton crossed his hands on the saddle horn. “What about Nat? He’s out there in the desert an’ he thinks he’s still a hunted man. He’s got no water. Far’s we know, he may be dead by now.”

Daley’s face was hard. “He’ll make out. My time’s too valuable to chase around in the desert after a no-account hunter.”

“It wasn’t too valuable when you had an excuse to kill him,” Morton said flatly.

“I’ll ride with you, Morton,” Benson offered.

Daley turned on him, his face dark. “You do an’ you’ll hunt you a job!”

Benson spat. “I quit workin’ for you ten minutes ago. I never did like coyotes.”

He sat his horse, staring hard at Daley, waiting to see if he would draw, but the rancher merely stared back until his eyes fell. He turned his horse.

“If I were you,” Morton suggested, “I’d sell out an’ get out. This country don’t cotton to your type, Pete.”

Morton started his horse. “Who’s comin’?”

“We all are.” It was Blackie who spoke. “But we better fly some white. I don’t want that salty Injun shootin’ at me!”

It was near sundown of the second day of their search and the fourth since the holdup, that they found him. Benson had a shirt tied to his rifle barrel, and they took turns carrying it.

They had given up hope the day before, knowing he was out of water, and knowing the country he was in.

The cavalcade of riders were almost abreast of a shoulder of sandstone outcropping when a voice spoke out of the rocks. “You huntin’ me?”

Jim Morton felt relief flood through him. “Huntin’ you peaceful,” he said. “They got their outlaw, an’ Larrabee owes you no grudge.”

His face burned red from the desert sun, his eyes squinting at them, Nat Bodine swung his long body down over the rocks. “Glad to hear that,” he said. “I was some worried about Mary.” “She’s all right.” Morton stared at him. “What did you do for water?”

“Found some. Neatest tinaja in all this desert.”

The men swung down and Benson almost stepped on a small, red spotted toad.

“Watch that, Chuck. That’s the boy who saved my life.” “That toad?” Blackie was incredulous. “How d’ you mean?” “That kind of toad never gets far from water. You only find them near some permanent seepage or spring. I was all in, down on my hands and knees, when I heard him cheeping.

“It’s a noise like a cricket, and I’d been hearing it sometime before I remembered that a Yaqui had told me about these frogs. I hunted, and found him, so I knew there had to be water close by. I’d followed the bees for a day and a half, always this way, and then I lost them. While I was studyin’ the lay of the land, I saw another bee, an’ then another. All headin’ for this bunch of sand rock. But it was the toad that stopped me.”

They had a horse for him, and he mounted up. Blackie stared at him. “You better thank that Morton,” he said dryly. “He was the only one was sure you were in the clear.”

“No, there was another,” Morton said. “Mary was sure. She said you were no outlaw, and that you’d live. She said you’d live through anything.” Morton bit off a chew, then glanced again at Nat. “They were wonderin’ where you make your money, Nat.”

“Me?” Bodine looked up, grinning. “Minin’ turquoise. I found me a place where the Indians worked. I been cuttin’ it out an’ shippin’ it east.” He stooped and picked up the toad, and put him carefully in the saddlebag.

“That toad,” he said emphatically, “goes home to Mary an’ me. Our place is green an’ mighty purty, an’ right on the edge of the desert, but with plenty of water. This toad has got him a good home from here on, and I mean a good home!”

RIDING FOR THE BRAND

CHAPTER ONE: The Lone Wrecked Wagon

He had been watching the covered wagon for more than an hour. There was no movement, no sound. The bodies of two of the animals that had drawn the wagon lay in the grass, plainly visible. Farther away, almost two miles, stood a lone buffalo bull, black against the gray distance.

Nothing moved near the wagon, but Jed Ashbury had lived too long in Indian country to risk his scalp on appearances, and an Indian could lie ghost-still for hours on end. He had no intention of taking a chance, stark naked, and without weapons.

Two days before he had been stripped to the hide by Indians and forced to run the gauntlet, but he had run better than they had dreamed, and had escaped with only a few minor wounds.

Now, miles away, he had reached the limit of his endurance. Despite little water, and less food, he was still in good traveling shape except for his feet. They were lacerated and swollen, and caked with dried blood.

Finally, he started to move warily, taking advantage of every bit of cover, and moving steadily nearer the wagon. When he was no more than fifty feet away he settled in the grass and studied the situation.

Here was the scene of an attack. Evidently the wagon had been alone, and the bodies of two men and a woman lay stretched on the prairie.

Clothing, papers, and cooking utensils were scattered, evidence of hasty looting. Yet Jed saw relief for himself. Whatever the dreams of these people, they were finished now, another sacrifice to the westward march of empire. And they would not begrudge him the things he needed.

Rising, he moved cautiously up to the wagon, a tall, powerfully muscled young man, unshaven and untrimmed.

He avoided the bodies. Oddly, they were not mutilated, which was unusual. The men still wore their boots, and as a last resort, he would take a pair of them. First, he must look over the wagon.

Whatever Indians had looted the wagon had done so hurriedly. The wagon was in the wildest state of confusion, but in the bottom of a big trunk he found a fine black broadcloth suit. Also a new pair of handworked leather boots, a woolen shirt, and several white shirts.

“Somebody’s Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes,” he muttered. “Hadn’t better try them boots now, the way my feet’s swole.”

He found some clean underwear, and got into the clothes, pulling on the woolen shirt. When he was dressed he got water from a half-empty barrel and bathed his feet, then bandaged them with strips of clean white cloth torn from a freshly laundered dress.

His feet felt better then, and as the boots were a size larger than he wore, he tried them. There was some discomfort, but he decided to wear them.

With a shovel that was tied to the side of the wagon he dug a shallow grave, laid the three bodies in it side by side, covered them, and said a hasty prayer. Then he returned to the wagon. The savages had made only a hasty search, and there might be something they had overlooked that would help him.

There were some legal papers, a will, and a handful of letters. He put these aside over a poncho he found, then spotted a sewing basket. Remembering his grandmother’s habits, he emptied out the needles and thread aind sewing. In the bottom was a large sealed envelope.

Ripping it open, he gave a grunt of satisfaction. Wrapped in carefully folded tissue paper were twenty twenty-dollar gold pieces. He pocketed them, then delved deeper into the trunk. At the bottom were some carefully folded clothes. The Indians had not gone this deep.

Several times he returned to the end of the wagon for a careful survey of the prairie, but it remained empty and still.

Then, in the very bottom of the trunk, he struck pay dirt. He found a steel box and, with a pick that was strapped to the wagon, he broke it open. Inside it, in some folded cloth, was a magnificent set of pistols. They were silver-plated and beautifully engraved, with pearl stocks and black leather holsters and belt, inlaid with mother of pearl. What was more to the point, there were several boxes of shells!

Grinning, he strapped on the guns, then filled the loops of the belt with shells, and pocketed a box of loose cartridges. The remaining two boxes he placed on the poncho.

In another fold of the cloth was a pearl-handled knife of beautifully tempered steel—a Spanish fighting knife, and a splendid piece of work. He slung the scabbard around his neck, the hilt just below his collar. Then he packed two white shirts, a string tie, and the black broadcloth coat in a bundle. He wrapped the poncho around it, and slung it over his shoulder.

In an inside pocket of the coat he had stowed the papers and letters he had found, while in his hip pocket he stuffed a small, leather-bound book that had been among the scattered contents of the wagon. He read little, but knew the value of a good book.

He had had three years of intermittent schooling, and had learned to read and write, and to solve sums, if not too intricate.

There had been no hat around the wagon, but he could do without one. What he needed now was a good horse.

There had been a canteen, and he had filled that, and slung it over his shoulder. Also, in his pack, he had put a tin cup and some coffee that had been spilled on the ground. He glanced at the sun, and started out.

Jed Asbury was accustomed to fending for himself. That there could be anything wrong in appropriating what he had found never entered his head. Likely it would not have entered the head of any man, at that time when life was short and hard, and one lived as best one might. Nor did one man begrudge another what he needed.

Jed had been born on an Ohio farm, but when his parents had died when he was only ten years old, he had been sent to a crabbed old uncle in a Maine fishing village. For three years his uncle had worked him like a slave, then he had gone out to the banks with a fishing boat, but on its return to New Bedford Jed Asbury had abandoned the boat, his uncle, and deep sea fishing.

He had walked to Boston, and then by devious methods, got to Philadelphia. He had run errands, worked in a mill, and finally got a job as a printer’s devil in a small shop. He had grown to like a man who came there often, a quiet man with black hair and large gray eyes, his head curiously wide across the temples. The man wrote stories and literary criticism for some magazines, and occasionally loaned Jed books to read. His name was Edgar Poe, and he was reported to be the foster son of John Allan, the Virginia millionaire.

When Jed left the print shop he had shipped on a windjammer and sailed around the Horn. From San Francisco he had gone to Australia for a year in the gold fields, then to South Africa, and finally back to New York. He had been twenty then, and a big young man, over six feet tall and hardened by the life he had lived. He had gone West on a river boat, then down the Mississippi to Natchez and New Orleans.

In New Orleans an Englishman named Jem Mace had taught him to box. Until then all the fighting he had known had been learned the hard way. From New Orleans he had gone to Havana, to Brazil, and back to the States. In Natchez he caught a card shark cheating and both had gone for their guns. Jed Asbury had been the quickest and the gambler had died. Jed got a river boat out of town a few minutes ahead of the gambler’s irate friends, and left it in St. Louis.

On a Missouri river boat he had gone to Fort Benton, then overland to Bannack, where he had joined a wagon train to Laramie, then gone on to Dodge.

In Tascosa he had run into a brother of the dead gambler and two friends, and in the battle that followed, had come out with a bullet in the leg. He had killed one of his enemies and wounded the other two. He had left town for Santa Fe.

He had been twenty-four, weighing almost two hundred pounds, and known much about the iniquities of the world. As a bull whacker he made one roundtrip to Council Bluffs then started out with a wagon train to Cheyenne. The Comanches had interfered, and he had been the sole survivor.

He knew approximately where he was now—somewhere south and west of Dodge, but closer to Santa Fe than to the Kansas trail town. However, not far away was the trail that led north from Tascosa, and he headed that way. Along the creek bottoms there might be stray cattle, and at least he could eat until a trail herd came along.

It was hot, and his feet hurt. Yet he kept going, shifting his burden from shoulder to shoulder.

On the morning of the third day he caught sight of a trail herd, headed for Kansas. As he walked toward the herd, two of the three riders riding point swung to meet him.

One was a lean, red-faced man with a yellowed mustache and a gleam of quizzical humor in his blue eyes. The other was a stocky, friendly rider on a paint horse.

“Howdy!” the older man said pleasantly. “Out for a mornin’ stroll?”

“Sort of,” Jed agreed, and noticed their curious glance at his new broadcloth suit. “Reckon it ain’t entirely my choosin’, though. I was bullwhackin’ with a wagontrain out of Santa Fe for Cheyenne, and run smack into the Comanches.”

Briefly, he explained.

The old man nodded. “Reckon yuh’ll want a hoss,” he said. “Ever do any ridin’?”

“A mite. Yuh need a hand?”

“Shore do. Forty a month and all yuh can eat!”

“The coffee’s tumble!” the short rider said, grinning. “That dough wrangler we’ve got never could learn to make coffee that didn’t taste like strong lye!”

CHAPTER TWO: Casa Grande

Wearing some borrowed jeans, and with his broadcloth packed away, Jed Asbury got out the papers he had found the moment he was alone. With narrowed eyes he read the first letter he opened:

Dear Michael:

When you get this you will know George is dead. He was thrown from a horse near Willow Springs last week, and died next day. The home ranch comprises 60,000 acres, and the other ranches twice that. This is to be yours, or your heirs if you have married since we last heard from you, if you or the heirs reach the place within one year of Georges death. If you do not reach here on time, it will fall to the next of kin, and you may remember what Walt is like, from the letters.

Naturally, we hope you will come at once for all of us know what it would be if Walt came here. You should be around twenty-six now, and able to handle Walt, but be careful. He is dangerous, and has killed several men around Noveno.

Things are in good shape, but there is bad trouble impending with Besovi, a neighbor of ours. The least thing might start a cattle war, and ifWalt takes over, that will happen. Also, those of us who have lived here so long will be thrown out. Can you come quickly?

Tony Costa

The letter was addressed to “Michael Latch, St. Louis, Mo.” Thoughtfully, Jed folded the letter, then glanced through the others. He learned much, yet little.

Michael Latch had been the nephew of George Baca, a half-American, half-Spanish rancher who owned a huge hacienda in California. Neither Baca nor Tony Costa had ever seen Michael. Nor had the man known as Walt, who seemed to be the son of George’s half-brother.

The will was that of Michael’s father, Thomas Latch, the deed was to a small California ranch.

From other papers, and an unmailed letter, Jed learned that the younger of the two men he had buried was Michael Latch. The man and woman had been two friends of Michael’s—Randy and May Kenner. There was also a mention in the letter of a girl named Arden who had accompanied them.

“Them Indians must have taken that girl with ’em,” Jed thought.

He considered trying to find her, but dismissed the idea as impractical. Looking for a needle in a haystack would at least be a local job; searching for the girl captured by a roving band of Indians could cover a couple of thousand square miles.

Then he had another idea.

Michael Latch was dead. A vast estate awaited him—a fine, comfortable life, a constructive life which young Latch would have loved. Now the estate would fall to Walt, whoever he was– unless he, Jed Asbury, took the name of Michael Latch and claimed the estate!

The old man who was his new boss rode in from a ride around the herd. He glanced at Jed, squatting near the fire.

“Say, stranger,” he said, “what did yuh say your name was?”

Only for an instant did Jed hesitate. “Latch,” he said quietly. “Mike Latch. . . .”

Warm sunlight lay upon the hacienda at Casa Grande. The hounds sprawling in drowsy peace under the smoke trees scarcely opened their eyes when a tall stranger turned his horse in at the gate. Many strangers came to Casa Grande, and the uncertainty that hung over the vast ranch had not reached the dogs.

Tony Costa straightened his lean frame from the door where he leaned and studied the stranger from under an eye-shielded hand.

“Senorita,” he said softly, “someone comes!”

“Is it Walt?” Sharp, quick heels sounded on the stone-flagged floor. “If he comes, what will we do? Oh, if Michael were only here.”

“Today is the last day,” Costa said gloomily.

“Look!” The girl grasped his sleeve. “Turning in the gate behind him! That’s Walt Seever!”

“Two of his boys with him,” Tony agreed. “We will have trouble if we try to stop him, senorita. He would never lose the ranch to a woman.”

The stranger on the black horse swung down at the steps. He wore a flat-crowned black hat and a black broadcloth suit. His boots were almost new and hand-tooled, but when the girl’s eyes dropped to the guns, she caught her breath.

“Tony!” she gasped. “The guns!”

The young man came up the steps, swept off his hat, and bowed. She looked at him, her eyes curious and alert.

“You are Tony Costa?” he said to the Mexican. “The foreman of Casa Grande?”

The three other horsemen clattered into the yard and the leader, a big man with bold, hard eyes, swung down. He brushed past the stranger and confronted the foreman.

“Well, Costa,” he said triumphantly, “today this becomes my ranch! You’re fired!”

“No!”

All eyes turned to the stranger, the girl’s startled. This man was strong, she thought incongruously. He had a clean-cut face, pleasant gray eyes, hair that was black and curly.

“If you’re Walt,” the stranger continued, “you can ride back where you came from. This ranch is mine. I am Michael Latch!”

Fury and shocked disbelief shook Walt Seever. “You? Michael Latch?” Anger and disappointment struggled in his face as he stared. “You couldn’t be!”

“Why not?” Jed spoke calmly. Eyes on Seever, he could not see the effect of his words on the girl or Costa. “George sent for me. Here I am.”

Mingled with the baffled rage there was something else in Walt’s face, some ugly suspicion or knowledge. Suddenly Jed had a suspicion that Walt knew he was not Michael Latch. Or doubted it vehemently.

Tony Costa shrugged.

“Why not?” he repeated. “We have been expecting him. His uncle wrote for him, and after Baca’s death, I wrote to him. If you doubt him, look at the guns. Are there two such pairs of guns in the world? Are there two men in the world who could make such guns?”

Seever’s eyes dropped to the guns, and Jed saw doubt and puzzlement replace the angry certainty.

“I’ll have to have more proof than a set of guns!” he said.

Cooly, Jed drew a letter from his pocket and passed it over.

“From Tony, here. I also have my father’s will, and other letters.”

Walt Seever glanced at the letter, then hurled it into the dust. He turned furiously.

“Let’s get out of here!” he snarled.

Jed Asbury watched them go, but he was puzzling over that expression in Walt Seever’s eyes. Until Walt had seen the letter he had been positive Jed was not Mike Latch; now he was no longer sure. But what could have made him so positive in the beginning? What could he know?

The girl was whispering something to the foreman. Jed smiled at her.

“I don’t believe Walt is too happy about my bein’ here!” he said.

“No—” Costa’s face was stiff—“he isn’t. He expected to get this ranch himself.” He turned toward the girl. “Senor Latch. I would like to introduce Senorita Carol James, a—a ward of Senor Baca’s, and his good friend!”

Jed acknowledged the introduction.

“You must give me all the information,” he said to Tony Costa. “I want to know all you can tell me about Walt Seever.”

Costa exchanged a glance with Carol. “Si, senor. Walt Seever is a malo hombre, senor. He has killed several men, and the two you saw with him—Harry Strykes and Gin Feeley—are notorious gunmen, and believed to be thieves.”

Jed Asbury listened attentively, wondering about that odd expression in Carol’s eyes. Could she suspect he was not Michael Latch? If so, why didn’t she say something? He was a little unsure of himself because they had accepted him so readily. For even after the idea had come to him suddenly that he might take the dead man’s place he had not been sure he would go through with it. He had a feeling of guilt, yet the real Mike Latch was dead, and the heir was a killer, perhaps a thief. All the way on his wild ride to reach here before the date that ended the year of grace Latch had been given, Jed had debated with himself.

At one moment he had been convinced that it was the wrong thing to do, yet he could not see how he could be doing Latch any harm. And certainly, Costa and Carol seemed pleased to have him there, and the expression on Seever’s face had been worth the ride even if Jed did not persist in his claim.

Yet there was another undercurrent here that disturbed him. That was Walt Seever’s baffled anger.

“You say Seever seemed sure he would inherit?” Jed asked.

Carol looked at him curiously. “Yes, until three months ago he was hating George Baca for leaving his ranch to you, then he changed and became sure he would inherit.”

It had been three months ago that Jed Asbury had come upon the lone covered wagon which had been attacked and three people, one of them Michael Latch, had been killed. Could Walt Seever have known of that?

The idea took root. Seever must have known. If that was so, then those three people had not been killed by Indians, or if so the Indians had been set upon the wagon. A lot remained to be explained. How had the wagon happened to be out there alone? And what had become of the girl, Arden?

If it had not been Indians, or if it had been Indians operating for white men, they must have taken Arden prisoner. And she would know the real Michael Latch! She would know Jed Asbury was an imposter, and might know who the killers were.

Walking out on the wide terrace that overlooked the green valley beyond the hacienda, Jed stared down the valley with his mind filled with doubts and apprehension.

In the valley, trees lined the banks of the streams, and on the higher mountains the forest crept down almost to the edge of the valley. It was lovely land, well-watered and rich. Here, with what he knew, he could carry on the work that old George Baca had begun. He could do what Michael Latch might have done. And he might even do it better.

There was danger, but when had he not known danger? And these people at the ranch were good people, honest people. If he did no more than keep Seever and his lawless crowd away, it would be adequate reason for taking the dead man’s place. Yet he knew he was only finding excuses for something that might be entirely wrong.

The guns he wore meant something, too. The girl and Costa had recognized them, and so had Seever. What significance had they?

He was in deep water here. Every remark he made must be guarded, also making sure that he did not unconsciously fall into western idiom. And even though they had not seen him before, they would have memories or knowledge in common. He must watch for any trap.

CHAPTER THREE: The Interloper

A movement behind Jed Asbury made him turn. In the gathering dusk he saw Carol. He could hear Costa whistling as he walked toward the corrals.

“You like it?” Carol gestured toward the valley.

“It’s splendid!” he said. “I reckon I never seen—saw anything prettier.”

She glanced up at him, but said nothing. Then after they had stood there for a few minutes, she said:

“Somehow you’re different than I expected.”

“I am?” He was careful, waiting for her to say more.

“Yes, you’re much more assured than I’d ever expected Mike Latch to be. Mike was quiet, Uncle George used to say. Read a lot, but didn’t get around much. That was why you startled me by the way you handled Walt Seever.”

He scarcely knew what to say. He shrugged finally.

“A man grows older,” he said. “And coming West, to a new life, makes a man more sure of himself.”

She noticed the book in his pocket.

“What’s the book?” she asked curiously.

It was the battered copy of Plutarch he had found in the wagon. He drew it from his pocket and showed it to her. He was on safe ground here, for inside the book was inscribed, “To Michael, from Uncle George.”

“It was a favorite of his,” Carol said. “Uncle George used to say that next to the Bible more great men had read Plutarch than any other book.”

“I like it,” Jed agreed. “I’ve been reading it nights.”

He turned to face her more directly. “Carol, what do you think Walt Seever will do?”

“Try to kill you, or have you killed,” she said honestly. She gestured toward the guns. “You had better learn to use those.”

“I can, a little,” he admitted.

He did not dare admit how well he could use them. A man did not come by such skill as his in a few weeks. It would be better to retain such knowledge until time to display it. “Seever has counted on having this place, hasn’t he?”

“He has made a good many plans, and a good deal of big talk.” She glanced up at him again. “You know, Walt was no blood relation of Uncle George. Walt Seever was the son of a woman of the gold camps who married George Baca’s half-brother.”

“I see.” Actually, Jed decided, Walt’s claim was scarcely better than his own. He added tentatively, “I know from the letters that Uncle George wanted me to have the estate, but never having seen my uncle, or not within any reasonable time, I feel like an outsider. I am afraid I may be doing wrong to take a ranch that has been the work of other people. Perhaps Walt has more right than I have. Perhaps he is not as bad as you believe and I may be doing wrong to assert my claim.” He was aware of her searching gaze. When she spoke it was deliberately, and as though she had reached some decision.

“Michael, I don’t know you. But you would have to be very bad indeed, to be as dangerous and as evil as Walt Seever. I would say that no matter what the circumstances, you should stay and see this through.”

Was there a hint that she might know more than she was implying? No, it was only natural that he should be looking for suspicion behind every bush. But he had to do that, to keep from being trapped.

“However,” Carol went on, “it is only fair to warn you that you have let yourself in for more than you bargained for. Uncle George understood what you would be facing, for he knew the viciousness of Walt Seever. He was doubtful if you were strong enough and clever enough to defeat Walt. So I must warn you, Michael Latch, that if you do stay, and I believe you should, you will probably be killed.”

He smiled into the darkness. Since his early boyhood he had lived in proximity to death. He was not foolhardy nor reckless, for a truly brave man was never reckless. Yet he knew that he could skirt the ragged edge of death, if need be, as he had in the past.

He was an interloper here. He was stealing, and there was no other way to look at it. Yet the man whose place he had taken was dead, and perhaps he could carry on, taking that man’s place, making this ranch safe for the people who loved it. Then after a while, he could step out and leave the ranch to this girl.

He turned very slowly. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’ve been riding hard, and I think I’ll go to bed. But I’m going to stay. . . .”

Jed Asbury was fast asleep when Carol went into the long dining room and stood looking at Tony Costa. Without him, what would she have done? He had been with her father for thirty years, and was past fifty now, but he was as erect and slender as a young man. And he was shrewd.

Costa looked up as she walked to where he sat drinking coffee by the light of a candle.

“Well, senorita,” he said, “for better or worse, it is begun. What do you think now?”

“He told me, after I warned him of what to expect, that he was staying.”

Costa studied the coffee in his cup. “You are not afraid?” he asked finally.

“No,” she said honestly. Her decision had been made out there in the darkness. “He faced Walt Seever, and that was enough for me. I think anything is to be preferred to Seever.”