bobbed up and down convincingly. “We come in here an’ shoved the redskins out. That’s what we call progress. I ain’t sayin’ we shouldn’t’ve done it. Dammit, we had to. But then when the Injuns fight back, an’ we gotta beat’em off…well, dammit all, just like this feller says, we’re only puttin’ out a fire we started ourselves. That’s plumb right, too, an’ ain’t no one got no call to try an’ gang up on a man’cause he speaks out after thinkin’ things over. Not here in Jock Leclerc’s saloon, the Southern Cross, no siree. Not by a damned sight.”
One of the cattle drovers, a tall, lean, thin-faced man with pensive, sad eyes, cleared his throat. “I allow there’s somethin’ to what you say at that.” He tossed his head a little under the hard, stiff brim of his low-crowned hat. “I’m sorry, stranger, reckon it’s the eternal waitin’ an’ knowin’ that a bunch of cattle are eatin’ ya into bankruptcy, while them troops are supposed to be comin’ up to clear the redskins offen the desert so’s a man can move on again.”
Doom flashed a rare, shy grin at the big man and nodded. “My fault, too, I reckon. Shouldn’t’ve said anythin’.”
The freighter began to moan and the bartender went around and poured half a water glass full of green whiskey down his throat. The man jerked up to a sitting position with a strangled oath and sprayed the acid-like liquor half across the room. Someone laughed, and others took it up. The tension was bro-ken. The freighter got unsteadily to his feet, white-faced and beaded with nauseous sweat. He held onto the bar next to Doom, gagged eloquently a couple of times, raised his head, looked straight into Doom’s eyes, blanched a little, and forced up a very ill-looking, lopsided grin. “Gawd,
The laughter was explosive and the bartender, even, white teeth flashing sympathetically, released his hold on the wagon spoke under the bar. Doom ordered another drink for the man and the episode was closed, but Caleb had learned one thing. Denton was nerve-raw and red-eyed after a month of being cut off from the rest of the frontier by the Apache cordon. It was better to say nothing than to argue.
Just before Jock Leclerc closed his rude saloon for the night, an old, wizened barfly was staring with watery eyes into the amber liquid on the bar in front of him. He and Leclerc were the only ones left in the saloon and the bartender was watching the customer sip his rotgut whiskey with an impatient, jaundiced eye.
The oldster screwed up his bloated face and spoke softly. “I seen him somewhere, I dang’ well know it, but I can’t recollect where.”
“Who?”
“That there scout with the Kiowa Apache scalpin’ knife that whupped that there freighter this after- noon.”
The bartender said nothing and finished wiping up the last of the strong smelling, sticky tin cups. He turned abruptly, his day’s labors completed.
Before he could speak, however, the old man slammed down his mug with an oath. “Now I recollect. He’s Caleb Doom.”
The bartender leaned heavily on the backbar and frowned at the oldster with a critical look. “Y’sure?”
“Yep, shore as shootin’. I was in Santa Fe when he was court-martialed an’ drummed offen the post for refusin’ to lead a squadron o’ cavalry inter a Comanche ambush.” The old head wagged on its scrawny neck. “Army called it insubordination, whatsoever that means. Anyway, they run him offen the post, yes siree.”
The bartender shifted his weight a little and looked, long and steadily, at the old fellow without seeing. Caleb Doom was a name to conjure with. An ex-soldier who had refused to leave the frontier after his disgrace and had mingled with Indians and whites indiscriminately ever since. There were almost incredible legends of his feats with a .44 and his big scalping knife with its weighted, forked, deer-horn handle.
He nodded thoughtfully. Yes, that would be Doom all right. He’d level a foe with a knee-dropped uppercut into the belly like that. Well, he had seemed to be every bit as good a man as the frontier stories made him out to be. Leclerc yawned prodigiously and looked at the triangular little piece of gold coin that the old man had left on the bar. He pocketed it owlishly, swabbed out the tin mug, and took off his apron with another big yawn.
Dawn was a chilly pink mist on the horizon when Jock Leclerc came out of his back room, puffy-eyed and sober-faced, and lifted down the big door bar. He started slightly when he opened the doors to look at the clear, pale sky, which was a habit contracted in his youth when a hint about the weather told him more than he needed to know now. He blinked rapidly at the lean, fresh-eyed man leaning indolently against the hitch rail, a big black horse, saddled and with full saddlebags, behind him.
“‘Mornin’.”
Doom nodded with a wisp of a grin in his eyes. He had seen Leclerc’s quick start at seeing him standing there. “‘Mornin’. Can a man get a little breakfast with you before he leaves Denton?”
Leclerc started to say something, hesitated, and nodded. “Sure, come on an’ I’ll whip up a little fried meat. Ain’t eaten yet myself.”
Doom was relaxed on a hard, hand-hewn bench against the shadowy north wall of the hovel when Leclerc came out of the back room with two huge, thick platters of greasy food. Somehow—probably through much practice—he managed to hold two steaming hot tin mugs of deep brown tea without spilling.
Arranging the victuals with a calm, ham-like paw, Leclerc sighed heavily and dropped onto the bench across from Doom, who was eating with a patent hunger. “Leavin’ Denton, right now…an’ especially alone…is pretty risky business.” Leclerc sprayed a thick mist of pepper over his food as he spoke, without looking up.
Doom nodded briefly. “I reckon. Still, I came in here yesterday alone an’ no one bothered me. No one, that is, that had a red skin.”
It was an oblique reference to the belligerent freighter and Leclerc smiled. “He didn’t mean nothin’. Just a case o’ bein’ cooped up too long.” Leclerc tried to act casually when next he spoke. “Got a destination, this trip?”
“Yep. Goin’ to see old Red Sleeves an’ see what I can do about gettin’ your siege lifted.”
“Damn! Them hostiles’ll massacree ya.” He wagged his head solemnly. “It ain’t that important. The soldiers’ll be along one o’ these days.”
Doom looked up for the first time, and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Y’see, that’s what brought me down here in the first place. I was scoutin’ fer a detachment of dragoons out o’ Lauder. They were whipped and driven back by a big confederacy of Apaches…Tontos, Chiricahuas, Mescaleros, Tres Pinos, and the rest.” At Leclerc’s wide-eyed stare, Doom shrugged. “So, ya see, this is more than a few irate bucks thirstin’ for hair and loot. It’s a carefully organized confederacy of Southwestern Apaches making their big holy war against the
“Well, I’ll be damned. Never thought they had it in’em.”
“You know’em?”
Leclerc shrugged eloquently and resumed his eating. “Used to trap an’ trade with’em. Matter of fact, this here saloon used to be a tradin’ post until the freighters started comin’ by here regular, then I went in for rotgut instead of trade goods. More ready money an’ steadier customers. Less tension, too. Never could depend on them Injuns. Might come an’ trade today, then not show up again for a year.” He stuffed his mouth, and leaned back thoughtfully. “But I never thought they had the brains to join together in their fightin’.”
Doom pushed away his empty plate. “To tell the truth, I never did, either. In fact, the main reason I’m goin’ over to’em is to see if an idea I’ve got is right…about this here uprisin’.”
“What idea?”
“I figure it’s Mexicans or whites behind this thing. Maybe gunrunners or dishonest traders buyin’ their loot.” He arose and dug into a small pocket in the wide hem of his hunting shirt.
Leclerc guessed the frontiersman’s intentions and shook his head firmly. “Ferget it. We just had breakfast together.” Doom looked down at him and hesitated. “When you come back, if you do, stop in an’ let me know whether your idee is right or not, an’ we’ll call it square on the breakfast.”
II
The sun was coming lazily over the shrouded mountains, far to the east, by the time Caleb Doom’s big, sleek black horse was a small speck in the drowsing prairie that faced north and east from
