Nelson Nye: Rafe

Rafe looked back into that dead face and thought of all the times he had covered for the boy, all the scrapes he'd pulled Duke out of, all the risks so recently grappled—wasted, gone like a gutted candle.

Firm steps drew near, an arm came out, a hand clamped warm and hard on Rafe's shoulder. "You've nothing to reproach yourself with," Pike wheezed. "You done more than most would—"

Rafe shook off Pike's arm. "Who killed him?"

Sparks said, coming, "That damned crooked Spangler. We're well rid of both of them; and you sure cut the ground out from under Alph Chilton. He's still in there lookin' like the sky fell on him. Mebbe we can have a little peace around here now." His glance cut from Rafe to Pike and back. "Wouldn't consider a job as my deppity, would you?"

Rafe pushed past him, walking away from them. Sparks, looking after him, shook his head. "Still thinkin' about that worthless brother." He fetched his scowl to the pair with their hands up. "All right, you two, find your horses an' drift. I don't want to see your ugly mugs again."

*****

But Sparks was wrong about Rafe. His mind was on Spangler. Even hollowed out like he was and half groggy, the range boss' killing of Duke made a kind of queer sense.

The guy had had to hit something, and to him it must have seemed Duke had been party to the terms of Bender's will. The thing that kept banging around in Rafe's head was Spangler clearing out like that while the man responsible for most of his hard luck was still above ground. It wasn't natural.

He said as much when Bunny, a little breathless, caught up with him.

She looked at him big-eyed. "But he did—I saw him! Right after he shot Duke and Sheriff Ed knocked that second fellow, Kramer, out of the saddle. Spangler flung himself flat on his horse and dug steel; it was him quitting that way that took the heart out of the rest of them. He's gone, all right. He's probably halfway to Carlsbad."

"I dunno," Rafe said, continuing to scowl while his scrinched-up stare smoldered into the southern distance.

"Is killing all you can think of?" Bunny cried. She jerked her hand from his arm with a withering look. "Go on! Take after him! I don't know why I should be worrying about you!" Wheeling away she went off, stiff-backed, to join her father who stood talking by the Mercantile with Bender and the sheriff.

Rafe guessed with a shrug she likely had the truth of it. Spangler, whatever else, was certainly no fool. He would have seen the cards weren't coming his way with Duke's big brother sitting tall in the leather. He probably figured what he had from stealing Gourd and Vine horses was at any rate better than a hole in the head.

Peering around for Brownwater, Rafe appeared pretty disgusted when he spotted Bill and Luce with their heads bent together. Godfrey Moses! More of that love gush!

But when Luce stepped back, straightening, he could see she had the rock in her fist, the one he'd tossed Bill in the woods this morning while they'd waited for Bunny to fetch her pa to the bank. Luce, he thought, looked pretty excited as, arm linked in Bill's, they struck off for the augmented group around Bender. Most folks, Rafe reminded himself sourly, rather tended to get their wind up when gold came into the conversation.

He reckoned he might as well go hunt Bathsheba and head for the ranch.

*****

The low-hanging clouds bulged fatly, dark with rain. The dank pungent smell of it grayly clung to the town's grimy buildings, the warped false fronts, the spur-scarred planks and hoof-tracked dust of the windless street.

Too tired really to sort out his thoughts, Rafe decided this weather was enough to depress anyone, and let it go at that. He whistled two or three times the signal he'd taught the skewbald to answer and, when this failed to fetch her, set off for the bosque. She'd either gone too far to hear, seemed like, or was too busy foraging to pay him any mind.

He couldn't remember when he'd been so whipped out. This clammy air stuck the shirt to his shoulders and brewed a discomfort where the belts crossed his belly, and the dreary look of that droopy woods pressed down like the lid of a coffin.

God, he was cheerful!

Luce, he reckoned, would probably marry that puncher. With what she'd come into when the Old Man kicked off they'd be pretty well fixed—a heap better than most in these parlous times. Not that he envied them! He'd traveled too long by himself, been too free, to look with much favor on being pinned down with the problems of as ranch—not to mention the gold or the burdens—he grimaced—of double harness! Nope, he sure wasn't cut out for that.

He rasped stubbly cheek, thought of Bunny, and scowled.

The brush of the bosque and the half-stripped trees, conjuring as these did the other times he'd been in them, were harder on his mood than that depressing damn street. The leaves hung as limp as a parson's coat tails. He had no idea where to look for the mare. He whistled again, shoving on through the brush, half-minded to settle for a bed at the hotel. Then he heard a faint whicker and pulled up to let her find him.

After three or four minutes he remembered what he was standing there for and whistled again. When she still didn't come he started testily after her; sometimes she could be about as obstinate as a mule. The spindling trees grew thicker in here. He was beginning to work up a sweat with all this bumbling around. Once more he whistled and heard her answer off to the left. Pushing through a scratchy thicket he broke into a forty-foot clearing and saw her, tied with a cotton rope around her neck.

While he was staring a gun went off. The clearing spun dizzily. Rafe didn't hardly know he was hit till he found himself peering up off the ground into the blurred grinning face of Jess Spangler. He saw the gun tip again and frantically rolled. Spangler fired twice before Rafe got his own pistol out of its holster. Desperately Rafe raised it, feeling the bite of fresh pain along his ribs, hearing screams somewhere back of him and suddenly remembering he'd forgotten to reload. Spangler crazily was running toward him when Rafe squeezed the trigger. Six feet away he saw Spangler crumple; and then Bunny Pike had him tight in her arms and he knew everything was going to be all right.

THE END