Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"What of it? You're one yourself, you dog!"

"That's right," said Denver slowly. "As black and dirty-handed as any other. When a man starts on this business he swallows his conscience and closes his mind. And before I'm finished you and your kind, as well as a lot of other people, will consider me worse than you ever considered another human bein'. This is war, girl. And I'm deliberately forgettin' there ever was such a thing as a white man in your tribe of cutthroats. Get in that wagon, you people, and clear out of here. I don't care which way."

High flames shot from the pitch-dry buildings. The men who had set the blaze dodged through the street, shielding themselves from the increasing heat. Denver looked grimly at the black giant.

"I said you'd be too slow. Redmain, wherever he is, will see my message in a few minutes. Come on, boys."

He gathered his party and spurred up into timber. Lyle Bonnet quartered down from a remote angle of the trees, where he had been drawn by his ferreting curiosity.

"I think that outfit hit for the country back of Leverage's place. Tracks indicate it."

"Well," snapped Hominy, "we've burned the rat out, anyhow. That's one detail."

"Just one place we won't have to look for him," agreed Denver. "But it's a long hunt yet. Redmain's got a talent for this business. Close in here and listen to me careful. I want these things done exactly like I tell you."

He looked behind. As they ran along the pine-cramped trail he talked to Hominy and Bonnet in subdued phrases.

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Denver cantered down Prairie Street and racked his horse before Grogan's around the middle of the afternoon. Dismounting, he slipped the cinch of his saddle a trifle and proceeded toward the saloon; but he was arrested on the threshold by sound of his name. He swung to find Fear Langdell leaning out of a second-story window.

"Dave, would you mind dropping up to my office a minute?"

Denver crossed the street and circled the last building on that side. When he climbed the stairs and entered the hot little cubicle he found Langdell pacing the floor. Without preliminaries he broke into a kind of nervous talk entirely at variance with his usual self-control.

"Good God, man, I haven't had a decent minute since your rider came in with word that Steele was done up! Why, I talked to him in this very room less than twenty-four hours ago. We discussed our plans for the next few months. Now he's gone—like that. Who killed him, Dave?"

"The ground was full of tracks," said Denver. "A big party. Use your own judgment."

"You've made up your mind as to the killer, ain't you?" insisted Langdell, stopping in the center of the room.

"Yeah."

"Always a close-mouthed man, Dave," grunted Langdell. "You got no call to be cagy with me. You know what I stand for. You know my shoulder's to the wheel with Leverage."

"I'd still like you to use your own judgment," said Denver. "My guess might be wrong."

"So?" retorted Langdell. "I observe you consider it a good enough guess to act on it."

"Who told you?"

"That mess of no-accounts come in from the Wells. They'll be kicked out of town before sun sets if I've anything to say."

"Let 'em alone, Fear. We're not fighting them. We're shootin' for big game, not sparrows."

"So you fired the Wells?"

"Yeah," said Denver impassively.

Langdell threw his cigar out the window. "Ain't that a sort of sweepin' thing to do?"

"If so," replied Denver, "I'm prepared to stand the consequences. My way of doin' business is to make up my mind and then move. I don't call a meetin' of the county and try to pass the buck. If these big ranchers had stopped belly-achin' and done their dirty chores long ago, Cal Steele would be alive today."

Langdell's face turned sour. "For some queer reason," he blurted out, "you set yourself against every idea I bring up. I'm free to say I don't like it. I expect more of you, Dave."

"You expected me to lead the vigilantes once," pointed out Denver. "But now that I do the logical thing, which is hit at Redmain wherever I can, you back water. What do you want, anyway?"

"I know, I know. But this is different. You're laying yourself open to a charge of lawlessness."

"I don't see any particular legality in the acts of the vigilantes," was Denver's cynical rejoinder.

"It's got the approval of every important rancher in Yellow Hill," argued Langdell. "It's got the weight of the Association behind it."

"Then my acts ought to have the same approval. I'm doing neither less nor more than the vigilantes would do."

"Different altogether," insisted Langdell. "You're actin' as an individual. If there was somebody mean enough to stand on due form he could hook you bad at law."

"Was I you," drawled Denver, "I'd forget about law for a while. It's been pretty feeble around here lately."

"Oh, hell," exclaimed Langdell, "I was just trying to point out something for your own protection. Now it looks like I'm crawfishing on my published sentiments, which I'm not. But since you intend to go after Redmain you ought to throw in with Leverage."

"Disagree."

"Why?"

"I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. More than that, I know the kind of men riding with me. That's more than I can say for the vigilantes. I still maintain some party or parties unknown are grindin' axes with the vigilantes. I don't propose to help 'em. I fight my own way."

"Of all the cursed nonsense!" broke in Langdell, shaking his arm violently. "You ought to know better, Denver! You're the same as questioning my honesty. Good Judas!"

A wagon and a group of riders came clattering down Prairie Street. Denver rose and went to the window. Leverage, with a dozen or more men, made a sort of escort to the wagon, which was driven by Doc Williamson. In the bed of it lay a figure covered with blankets. Denver turned sharply away.

"Never mind how I go about this business," he said. "The point is, I'm after Redmain. And I'll get him if I go down in ruin. Never think I won't!"

"Have it your own way," grunted Langdell. "Now that you've burned out his quarters, what comes next?"

"I don't know," muttered Denver.

"You mean you're not telling," corrected Langdell.

"Leave it like that if you want."

Langdell's cold, hard formality returned to him. Denver lifted his shoulders and turned to leave, halting at the sound of somebody coming rapidly up the stairs. Leverage walked into the room. Seeing Denver, he nodded his head vigorously. "Good boy, Dave. I hear you burned the Wells. Now we can work together. Here, let me give you this confounded job of mine. I'm too old. I think I've aged ten years in the last two weeks."

"You waste your breath," interrupted Langdell. "Dave wishes to be the big toad in his own small puddle. He doubts the virtue of everybody but himself."

"Maybe," was Denver's laconic reply. "Or maybe I ain't built to dangle on the end of somebody's string. I'll leave the Christian charity to you, Fear. You seem to be drippin' with it."

Leverage caught the strained situation immediately. He had entered the office expectantly, but when he saw Denver still to be unchanged of opinion, that expectancy died. However, he made haste to ease off the tension.

"Well, I believe I've got wind of Redmain now. I've been ridin' fifteen and sixteen hours at a stretch. So's some of my men. And we've got a smell."

"Where?" asked Langdell with swift interest.

"Up behind my place. Across the Henry trail in the high meadows. I got a rumor he's makin' a run for the valley tonight with part of his bunch. I aim to ambush him, cut him off."

"Do it," snapped Langdell and pressed his lips together.

"Don't want to join me, Dave?" asked Leverage.

"I'm workin' it a little different," replied Denver. "Better for us to go separate. But for your own sake, trust no rumor and don't walk into any traps. Redmain's an Indian for that sort of hocus-pocus."