Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

Yet he had changed. Through the years he had been denied a full fellowship with the range people. Hating these people because of that, and hating himself because he understood better than any living soul the rotten streaks in him, he had lived in solitary rebellion, cursing a society he could not enter and could not destroy. He had drifted to the Wells, despising the brutally degraded human beings he necessarily was forced to call his friends. The Wells became his town, the outlaws in it his henchmen. So inevitably the passions guiding Lou Redmain led him step by step into organized thievery. Now he stood on the summit of the ridge, inflamed with the knowledge he had met the best force society could launch against him and tricked it to defeat; hardened and made desperately dangerous by knowing that in the black night just gone he had forfeited every right to mercy and publicly branded himself with the one brand no human being can ever erase—murder.

His gaze traveled as far as the mouth of Starlight. A rider emerged from Starlight, turning west; whoever it was, he went slowly and seemed to sway in the saddle. Redmain whipped a pair of glasses from his coat and bent them on the road for a long interval. Perceptibly the corners of his mouth tightened. Then obeying a cagy impulse, he ran the glasses along the trees fringing Starlight's mouth and on ahead of the rider to where dark angles of the hill country abutted upon the road. He replaced the glasses, and went down to the resting men.

"Up and ride," said he, and spurred ahead without waiting. He threaded the pines, swung to avoid an open meadow, and fell upon a narrow trail. His men strung out, murmuring. He turned and spoke with stinging calm. "Choke off that noise and quit straggling."

Dann drew nearer. "Stage comin'?"

"Never mind," grunted Redmain. He departed from the trail so unexpectedly that Dann shot past him and had to swing back. Some hundred yards down a rocky glen Redmain paused and motioned the party to collect. In front lay a screen of trees; just beyond was the road. He had judged his distance well, for the sound of the rider came around a point of rocks. Redmain tightened his grip on the reins, motioned his men to stand fast, and suddenly shot out of the pines. Eve Leverage, traveling slowly and slackly, saw him. She roused herself to defensive action. The horse sprang forward, her quirt flashed down. Redmain laughed, ran beside her, and got a grip on her pony's bridle cheek piece. Never uttering a sound, she slashed him desperately across the face with the quirt, leaving her mark definitely on him before he jerked it out of her hands. A queer, glittering grin stamped his features.

"Like to cut me, don't you? Words or quirt, it's all the same to you."

"If I had a gun I'd kill you!"

"Considerin' the condition of the country," was his even rejoinder, "you ought to carry one."

She was dead white. She had been crying. Her eyes were blurred, her fists clenched, and she seemed to be fighting for breath.

"You creeping, savage beast! Get away from me—I don't want to touch you!"

"The good, nice people of Yellow Hill," said Redmain, coldly bitter, "have taught you the proper lessons, I see."

"Keep your tongue off folks you're not fit to cringe in front of! I pray God will strike you dead!"

"When your men folk go out to kill it's right and proper. When I use my gun in self-protection I'm nothin' more to you than a savage. Think straight. When the pack is out to destroy it's just as crazy and inhuman as anything on earth. I'm fightin' to live as I want to live! To be let alone—to keep from bein' broke in the damned treadmill! What's wrong with that? I'm a man, and I'm darin' to do what a lot of other men would like to do but ain't got the courage! Because I don't want to follow the pack and think as it thinks—because of that the pack outlaws me. Makes me a target! I'm an animal—but they don't even give me the benefit of a closed season like they would other animals. No, I've got to be destroyed. And you condemn me for wantin' to live!"

"I believe nothing you say!" cried Eve. "You slink in the dark, stealing what belongs to other people! You shot my father, never remembering that years ago he defended you and gave you another chance after you had stolen some of his cows! And you have killed a man who broke with all the ranchers in this country because he wanted you to have every chance a human being could have! A man who publicly said he believed in you—long after you had lost the right to be believed! Stay away from me—you're—you're unclean!"

He was still. But the words ripped him apart, destroyed the sham glory he had built around his bloody acts. Fury leaped in his eyes. "I thought you'd be comin' from Denver's. Been up there to grieve over the hero of the hills, uh? He will never wear a tin crown again!"

She lowered her head, turned it away from him. Redmain laughed harshly at the agony he saw.

"Thought you was mighty kind in giving me your pity that day in Sundown. I'll show you what I think of pity."

He wrapped her reins in his free arm. She struggled for them, but Redmain slapped her hands away. "Stay still—or I'll make you wish you never'd been born."

She slumped in the saddle. "Nothing can hurt me more than I've been hurt," said she dully.

"Pretty talk," jeered Redmain and started west on the road. A gesture of his arm brought the rest of the party from the trees. Gathering speed, Redmain followed the road for a quarter mile and then swept into the trees once more, this time on the south side. Twenty minutes through the forest he paused and rode alone to a break in the greenery. Leverage's ranch quarters drowsed in the sunshine, here and there a puncher idling at chores. Redmain beckoned the party to him and led it along a circle—approaching the ranch from another quarter and closing quietly in. Redmain took Eve's reins and muttered at the waiting riders.

"No shooting unless it's necessary. Circle the house. Get all hands out in the yard and strip 'em. Dann, you're in charge of that. I'll be going inside. Torper, you watch the road for anything coming this way. Let's go."

He shot into the clearing and bore down on the main house with Eve beside him. A Leverage hand discovered the raid and yelled at the top of his lungs. "Redmain!" Men sprang from all directions. Dann boomed stridently.

"Cut that out or yuh'll shoot the girl! Pitch up, you galoots, and do it quick!"

Redmain was sure enough of his strength to ride straight to the porch, jump down, and haul Eve from her saddle. Mrs. Leverage appeared in the doorway and screamed. She ran for her daughter, striking at Redmain. The outlaw laughed and let the girl go. "Oh, she's not hurt, woman. Where's Leverage?"

Mrs. Leverage backed away, spreading her arms across the door. "Stay out of here! You've done enough harm!"

He pushed her aside. Knowing the arrangement of the house very well, he went directly to Leverage's bedroom. The rancher lay between the sheets, body battened up with pillows. When he saw Redmain he turned his head very slightly, and his lids narrowed. Mrs. Leverage ran over and put herself by the bed.

Redmain had a thin grin. "Got curious, Jake. Wanted to see what I'd done to you. Next time you'll probably know enough to mind yore own business. In the first place, you're too old to take chances. Also, you ain't quite bright enough to get me. I've known every move you made for two weeks."

"You wet-faced little rat!" snapped Mrs. Leverage. "Let Jake alone! Get out of here and go away. I always did know you were treacherous, but I thought you drew the line somewheres. What did you come here for, anyhow?"

"To let the Leverage family know I ride when and where I please," droned Redmain. "Nothing's going to stop me."

"Well, you've made your brag. Now clear out."