The Devil's Roundup Part 3

"Why aren't you in bed?" he asked.

He lit the lamp, and turned her so that she faced the light. He saw the tired lines around her mouth and the dark shadows beneath her eyes. He watched her lips change, and folded her in his arms with a quick hunger. Her lips moved under his, and she moaned softly. When they parted, he said: "You should go home now."

Lila shook her head stubbornly. "I'll never leave this house, Wes, not unless you tell me you no longer love me, or don't want me."

He compressed his lips, not liking the thought. "Well, send him in."

The door closed behind her, then opened again.

Turkey Jack leaned against it, and said sourly: "Takin' orders from a woman 1 don't like. Askin' her can I see you, I like even less."

Cardigan swung to face him, his face heavy with temper. "There's things about you that 1 find d.a.m.ned little pleasure in." He took hold of himself and asked: "What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

"Got a message a while ago," Turkey said. "From Julia."

"So?"

"So, I'm goin' to her. She asked for me."

"Don't be a fool!" Cardigan said heatedly. "You can't trust her now!"

Turkey Jack shoved his gaunt old frame away from the door, his whiskers bristling. "You said enough! 1 don't have to take that kinda talk from no man...not about her!"

"Get some sense," Cardigan cautioned. "You've been a fool about Julia ever since I've known you."

"And before I knowed you," Turkey supplied. "1 work for this brand, but that don't give you the right to tell me my business or how to pick my friends."

"Wait just a minute," Cardigan said. "You hanged a man without my say-so after 1 told you to bring him in. I let that go because 1 can see where a man's hate is sometimes something he can't help. I'm telling you now, Turkey.. .don't leave this ranch."

"I'm goin'," Turkey Jack insisted. "She asked for me, and I'm goin'."

Cardigan moved a step toward his bolstered gun hanging from the back of a chair.

Turkey pulled his .44 with practiced speed. "Hold it, Wes. 1 had a hunch you'd be stubborn." He backed toward the door. "See you around, cowboy," he said, and closed the door behind him.

Cardigan listened to the fading drum of hoofs, and a moment later the soft steps of Lila as she came to his door. She entered as he sat on the edge of his bed, his head down, and she went to sit beside him. He looked at her, his eyes bleak. "He's a dead man, Lila, a dead man. 1 couldn't do a thing about it."

She gathered him to her, pillowing his head against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "He had a right to choose. Grant him that right."

He raised his head suddenly and exclaimed: "Now, 1 can understand it!"

She watched him closely. "Understand what?"

"About Julia.. .why she was in a rage after Bitter Creek was killed." He stood up and paced the room. "They were always together... in town, even out here on the old man's ranch. There was always something between them, something sly, like they had a joke that no one else knew." His voice was incredulous. "She must have been in love with him."

She sat there, facing him, and her voice was calm. "I'd guessed that, too. There isn't much one woman can hide from another. I also had guessed that she loved you."

"1 don't believe it," Cardigan snorted. "You can't be in love with two women, or two men at the same time ...it just ain't natural." He shook his head, not understanding it, and moved toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

He stopped. "To sit on my front porch and wait for Turkey Jack to come back, tied across his saddle." He saw the hurt mount in her eyes, and added softly: "Get some sleep, Lila. I'll call you if anything happens."

He moved to the kitchen, pumping a tin cup full of water, and cut a wedge of stale pie. He ate half of it before his appet.i.te left him. He glanced at the mirror, then spent a half hour shaving and carefully tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his full mustache. He wandered into the yard, and back to the house. The hall clock struck two, and he crossed the carpeted room to wind it. When a dog barked out by the barn, he shuffled across the room to peer through the darkness at the disturbance. He broke out his cleaning gear and dismantled his .44, spending an impatient hour on the task. The clock chimed, and he rubbed his eyes as he crossed to sit on the porch.

He realized he had been dozing when his chin b.u.mped his chest. He pulled himself awake with a start. He heard the horse snort by the watering trough and identified the dark shape before he left the porch. He crossed the dusty yard at a dead run and yelled when he touched the body lashed across the saddle. Men poured from the bunkhouse, half-clad figures with wildly waving lanterns.

Cardigan heard a door slam inside the house and knew he had awakened Lila with his yell. Harry and Joe cut the ropes holding Turkey Jack, and slid him to a blanket spread on the ground. Cardigan gave the pony a sharp slap on the rump, and the horse trotted toward the barn. Someone held up a lantern. Lila pushed her way between Slab and Joe to look at the dead man. She s.h.i.+vered and pulled her woolly robe tighter, leaning against Cardigan. He looked at her, and the lantern light made her face appear unnaturally pale, with deep shadows against her cheeks, in the soft V between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Cardigan motioned her away. She crossed to wait on the porch, her bare feet padding in the dust.

Slab cleared his throat and said to no one in particular: "They shot him through and through. He never got off a round." He handed Turkey's .44 to Cardigan, and he sniffed the barrel.

They were watching Cardigan, waiting for him to make the first move, but he only said-"Bury him."-and walked toward the house.

Lila on the porch pulled the robe tighter around her legs. "Well, it happened like you said."

Cardigan touched a match to his cigar. "Small comfort in being right," he said, then lapsed into silence.

"Why do you want to be the conscience of the world?" she asked softly.

Cardigan took the cigar from his mouth, surprised. "I didn't know 1 was."

"Aren't you? You let the homesteaders have land because you feel guilty about the way other cattlemen have treated them. You want to breed shorthorns because you feel you owe something to the destiny of Texas. You defied Ackerman, and yet you shouldered the responsibility of Bitter Creek's death without a murmur. Now, it's Turkey Jack. You're blaming yourself for that, too. What else can you call it, Wes?"

"Get some sleep," he said.

She nodded, knowing him well, realizing that there was nothing she could say to ease him. He was that kind of man, and she accepted it. He made his mistakes as he lived, unafraid, without apology to anyone, even himself.

Cardigan waited until he heard the door of her room close, then crossed to the barn. He spread the blanket carefully and drew the cinch. He mounted, letting the horse buck until the ginger left him, and swung out across the land.

He had no plan in mind, only the driving desire to put an end to death. He thought of Turkey Jack and smiled wryly, realizing the girl was right-he was blaming himself. He could see the places clearly, the times when he should have given way to Ackerman and avoided this fight. He felt no fear, only a deep sense of responsibility toward the innocent people who were now embroiled in his troubles.

Finally he cut out of the timber to pause overlooking the Ackerman ranch buildings. He thought of Lila, wondering if she would be awake now. He pa.s.sed the corner of the bam as Julia Ackerman emerged from the front door, stopped for a heartbeat to stare at him, and then yelled for her father.

Wes Cardigan watched her, seeing the pale fright stamped on her face, and the rigid pose of her curved body. The screen door slammed, and Amos Ackerman stood with his back against it, his rifle held loosely in his hands. Cardigan halted as the old man raised the Winchester and said to him: "I've had enough, Amos. Let's settle it between us now."

Old Amos snarled, and worked the lever as Julia stood there in wide-eyed fascination.

Cardigan felt his heart hammer wildly, but made no move toward his holstered gun. "I want peace, Amos," he said. "Even if 1 have to die for it."

"You will at that!" Amos yelled. He drew a bead. Then Cardigan saw Julia struggling with her father, heard the m.u.f.fled explosion followed by her sharp scream. She staggered to the edge of the steps and went off in a sprawling tumble.

Amos cried out, and stumbled from the porch, fired rifle forgotten, and gathered the girl in his arms. He folded her tenderly against him and rocked her back and forth, tears coursing down the creases of his face.

Wes knelt beside Ackerman, straightened the girl's dress. Julia rolled her head weakly. "1'm so sorry, Wes. I never stopped loving you."

Cardigan felt the tears sting his eyes. "No, no, don't talk. We'll get a doctor."

She shook her head faintly. "it's all right, Wes. You were right the first time you came here. It would have been better to have left Bitter Creek unavenged. There has been enough killing." She turned to her father, pain causing her slim body to arch. She coughed, and Cardigan wiped the b.l.o.o.d.y foam from her lips with his handkerchief.

The Leaning Seven hands made a tight circle around them. Amos murmured, dazed: "What have 1 done... what have 1 done?"

"Don't cry, Papa, it's better this way. It's ...it's ended now." Her eyes moved to Cardigan, and she whispered: "Would it help you to understand if 1 told you Bitter Creek was my brother?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but she slumped back, and died in the old man's arms.

Amos raised his eyes to Cardigan at last. "He was no good. 1 knew that, but I loved him...and she loved him, enough to betray an old friend to avenge him. He cost me my life's work once, and 1 forgave him. Now, he's cost me my daughter." His chin sank down on his chest, and he was silent. Cardigan touched him, and the old man stirred beneath his hand. "Go home, Cardigan, and let's try to live like men again."

Cardigan wanted to speak, to say something that would ease the old man's grief, but he knew there were no words. He stood up, turned quickly, then mounted his horse.

He rode from the yard, not looking back because he knew there was nothing for him to see that he wouldn't see a thousand times before he died. There was his land ahead of him, stretching as far as his eyes could see. He saw his cattle grazing on a far slope, and he knew that it had not changedonly he had changed.

He thought of Lila, waiting at his house. The thought bolstered him in this hour of revelation. He touched the blue with his heels, and lifted him excitedly into a hurried lope.

I.

Somewhere along the trail of John Saber's thirty-two years, the lure of easy money had endowed him with sufficient perception to understand a thief. The man who lied was no longer a mystery to Saber for he could recall times in his life when he had felt a deep reluctance to face the truth about himself. This wisdom affected John Saber until he held himself aloof from other men, walking among them, but somehow feeling that he walked above them.

He waited while the train pa.s.sed him, to disappear down the twin ribbons of steel, leaving only the memory of noise, the smell of hot oil, and the unsteadiness in his long legs produced by three days on the swaying coach. He carried no luggage, which caused the station agent to give him a cursory inspection. He had blond hair, nearly white at the temples, and blue eyes set deeply above an aquiline nose. A tawny mustache hid his mouth, and a thin cigar jutted from between his clenched teeth. Loungers by the Texas Pacific Express Office gave him a careful scrutiny. The flat hat sat evenly on his head, and a black coat covered an immaculate white s.h.i.+rt. The gun their eyes probed for lay under his left armpit in an upside-down holster.

John Saber raised a finger in a perfunctory gesture, and said: "Direct me to Wes Cardigan's ranch."

The urge to refuse was plain on the face of the man he addressed, but some light in Saber's level eyes held his tongue. "First road south of town... follow it for fifteen miles. You can't miss it."

Saber nodded his thanks, an almost imperceptible movement of his head, and turned toward the livery, two blocks away.

The man watched him until he disappeared around the end of the building, then turned to another lounger.

"Think it's him?"

"Maybe. Wes said he'd bring in a man if things got worse. Didn't see no gun, though."

"Go get a horse and tell Bodry," the man said, and settled down again as his friend scurried toward Comanche Street.

John Saber studied Hondo's main street as he paced its length. The Alamo House sat on the corner, and across from it Rutherford's store. Keno Charlie's saloon made a widefronted splash in the middle of the block, and small, slabsided buildings filled out the town.

Bob Harris's Livery Stable set at the end of the street. Saber paused in the archway, the Texas sun beating down, intense and hot. Harris straightened in his chair, laying the magazine aside.

"A horse," Saber said.

Harris retreated into the stable, the sound of thras.h.i.+ng coming mildly amid his good-natured cursing. He emerged a few minutes later leading a close-coupled bay.

Saber walked around the horse, examining it thoroughly, and said at last: "A little rabbit-breasted, isn't he?"

Harris's eyes showed shock. "The idea!"

Saber placed a foot carefully in the stirrup, and mounted. He paused, looking down at Harris, saying: "Put this on Wes Cardigan's bill."

"Friend of his?" Harris pried.

"Regardless, he will pay for the use of the animal."

Saber smiled faintly at the frustration that flitted across Harris's face, and swung the horse south, lifting him into a trot as the last building of Hondo faded behind him.

He rode for an hour, studying the land as it climbed ever higher. Behind him now lay the flatness of the desert, and the color of the soil beneath the horse's hoofs changed from a red loam to a rich black-brown. As he moved higher, small trees appeared in isolated patches, thickening as the road wound upward. He paused, two hours from town, on a high bench overlooking the country below, and dismounted to ease the horse and build himself a smoke.

There was that studied patience in Saber that came out in the little things he did. His fingers worked on the paper holding the loose tobacco. Gently, slowly, the cylinder formed, ready at last for the flick of his tongue that would complete it. Saber rolled it between his blunt fingers, and, satisfied at the evenness of the pack, the parallel lines he had formed, he laid it between his lips and applied a match.

He drew long on the cigarette, content with his thoughts, coming alert only when he heard the distant rattle of a harddriven buckboard. He watched the rig careen around a bend in the road, and his face changed, his lips thinning, his pale eyes growing sharp. He saw that a man was driving, and a woman clung to the pitching seat with one hand, the other clutching a bonnet that threatened to fly off.

John Saber made a trim, high shape there in the road, his fawn trousers tucked neatly in polished half boots, and the man sawed the blowing horses to a halt. Dust billowed up, and a faint irritation crossed Saber's face.

The man mopped the sweat from his face and asked bluntly: "Lost?" He was nearing fifty, graying at the temples, with a face that was criss-crossed with well-used wrinkles.

"No," Saber said. "Just resting the horse."

Saber glanced at the woman and saw that she was regarding him levelly, a faint flush in her cheeks. She was young, with a ripely molded body, and lovely dark eyes.

"1'm Buck Bodry," the man said. "This is my woman, Edith. I've made that ride from Hondo to the rim in an hour and a half flat many times." The man's voice was loud, and a strong current flowed below the surface of it. The woman turned her head and silendy regarded her folded hands.

"You must have a great many horses," Saber said.

"1 do things sudden," Bodry said. "Horses, a fight, or a woman. I like 'em fast." He laughed loudly at his own humor, and slapped the woman resoundingly on a rounded thigh. She glanced at Saber, blood mounting her face, then moved to the far edge of the seat, staring fixedly at the floorboards.

Bodry grunted, lifted the reins, then lashed the team into a plunging run. Saber watched. The woman turned in the seat, giving him a long look. He read the appeal in her eyes-it was that plain-and raised his hat before she turned back to stare over the horses' rumps.

He waited until the dust spiral dwindled before the breeze, then placed his foot carefully in the stirrup and mounted. He rode on slowly, thinking of the woman who was Buck Bodry's wife. He remembered her as clearly as though she were before him still-that faint apology in her eyes, the haunting sadness around the corners of her mouth. Saber let her occupy his thoughts until he came to the fork in the road and the fence that announced his entrance to Sunrise graze.

He gave the cattle a careful scrutiny. The land, rich and lush, lay in the high valleys and watersheds formed by a glacier cut a million years before man. It was the land of the shorthorn Hereford. They lolled, grazed, dotting the land with their uniform red hides, white faces, and white-lined backs. Saber lifted the reins, urging the bay into a trot, and held that pace until he saw the scattered ranch buildings a mile ahead.

Wes Cardigan was on the porch and stood up as Saber rounded the corner of the bunkhouse to dismount by the watering trough. A cowpuncher came from the barn at a lope and led the bay away. Cardigan stepped down, a tall man with lead-gray eyes and a full, reddish-brown mustache. He shook Saber's hand warmly.

"A long time, Wes," Saber said. "A d.a.m.ned long time." He smiled then, wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes, but the gravity never quite leaving his face.

"1 expected you last week," Cardigan said. "Come on into the house."

Saber followed him onto the porch and said evenly: "A man travels slow but gets where he's going."

Cardigan halted then, and turned. He regarded Saber for a moment. "Maybe, John... maybe. But this is turning into a sudden country."

"You're a sudden man, Wes. You don't really need me to handle your troubles."

"Maybe," Cardigan said again, and opened the screen door.

Saber stepped into the cool of the room, sweeping off his hat as Cardigan's wife turned from the dining room table to face him.

"Lila," Cardigan said, "this is John Saber. John, my wife, Lila."

"A pleasure, ma'am," Saber said.