Les Tallant wagged his head back and forth a little and the opaque black eyes were impassive. “’Course, Dodge carried money on him, usually more than was wise…but, dammit all, it’s hard to think of anyone who’d kill him to get it.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Tallant. They’s two kinds of owlhooters. They’s the kind that’ll hold a man up fer his
Tallant was soberly quiet for a few seconds before he answered. “Yeah, I reckon you’re right.” He shrugged slightly. “Well, what you want me to do with the critter?”
Dugan was shuffling out of the livery barn as he spoke. “Jus’ leave him there. I don’t allow he’ll make it, anyway, from the looks of them holes, so jus’ leave him where he can die in peace.” He was out of the barn when he finished speaking and he turned toward his office without a backward look. Les Tallant watched him go thoughtfully, then walked slowly over to the Royal House for his breakfast.
There was a huge old wooden gate that had the D-Back-To-Back burned deeply into its crossbar where the road swung past and the Vermilion Kid rode through it. His big black horse was ambling along sleepily and the Kid appraised the little bunches of cattle he saw here and there as he followed the well-worn ranch road. The beef looked good. Of course, there were a few old cows whose bones showed, but they all had big, fat calves by their sides. Mostly, though, the cattle were fat as ticks and placidly contented.
The buildings were old, weather-beaten, but well kept up. The house alone was painted and its verandah ran completely around it, shading the outer walls. An assortment of old, cane-bottomed chairs and a hammock or two were in the shade. There was the clear, clarion ringing of a man working at an anvil and the sound, musical and strident, rode down the hot summer air to the Kid as he rode up to a log hitch rail before the house, swung down, and tied up.
There was no sign of human activity among the buildings, and, except for the unseen smithy, the ranch might have been deserted. The Kid’s spurs tinkled softly as he walked across the cool, shadowy verandah and knuckled the door. While he waited, the Kid looked at the gray old pole corrals and the huge log barn, all tight and solid. He felt a glow of appreciation. Here was a Western ranch where you didn’t have to strain your innards every time you opened a gate. That was as it should be, but all too seldom—it wasn’t the way things were kept, generally speaking. His musings were interrupted and he turned back as the door swung open. The Kid’s hat came off and he was standing face to face with a small, full-bodied, and red-eyed woman. Toma Dodge. For an instant she looked up at him blankly, then recognition swept over her face. He could feel the wall of antagonism building up between them.
“Please, Miss Dodge, I’m sorry about yesterday. It won’t happen again.”
“Is that what you rode all the way out here to say?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. I heard about your father an’ I came out to offer my help in any way you want to use it.” He said it exactly as he had rehearsed it. It was better to be diplomatic than to come right out and say he was a lethal killer and would gladly gun down the murderers of her father. This way she might let him help.
There was a flash of anger through the anguish in her face. She tossed her small, taffy-colored head in that mannerism he remembered so well and the words cut deeply. “Thank you, Mister Vermilion Kid, but I think one encounter with renegades, in the past twenty-four hours, has proven disastrous enough for my family. I don’t think I want to chance another accident.” The way she said “accident” made the Kid squirm inwardly. He stood in silent anger for a long moment, just looking down into the wide violet eyes. Then the anger dropped away and he nodded twice, curtly and softly.
“I knew it was foolish to come out here and offer my services. I knew you’d say something like that.” He put his dusty black Stetson on with an unconscious gesture. “Well, Miss Dodge, I hope someday you learn to judge people better.”
He turned abruptly and started across the verandah toward his horse. He knew she was watching him, because he didn’t hear the door close. A man’s gruff voice came to him as he untied the horse, and, despite his resolve not to look up, he did anyway.
A blunt-jawed individual was standing next to the wisp of a girl in the doorway, glowering down at him. The Kid flipped his reins, turned his horse a little, and had one foot in the stirrup when he heard the man’s spurs ringing across the verandah, coming toward him.
He was about to swing aboard when a surly voice spoke behind him: “Don’t let me catch you trespassin’ on the D-Back-To-Back again, mister.”
The Kid’s foot slid easily out of the stirrup and he turned slowly. His eyes were level with the angry brown eyes when he spoke softly: “I don’t believe I know you,
“Jeff Beale, foreman of the D-Back-To-Back. I’m the one who gives the orders hereabouts,
Normally the Kid might have overlooked the man’s big talk, but now there were two reasons why he didn’t. One was the girl still standing in the shadowy doorway, and two was the discomfort and hurt of her words. In short, the Vermilion Kid had absorbed about all the unpleasantness a man could accommodate in so short a space of time. He didn’t answer at all, but his gloved fist dropped behind the slope of his shoulder in a flashing fraction of a quick second, then arose with the mauling, bruising weight of his whipcord body behind it. If the foreman saw it coming, he made no move to get away. The fist chopped and popped like a bullwhip when it connected with his square jaw. Jeff Beale went over backward like a poleaxed steer.
The Kid swung back toward the girl. “I don’t know why, Miss Dodge, but every time I try to talk to you there’s trouble.” His voice was calm and his smokegray eyes were mildly puzzled. “I’m sorry about this”—he jutted his chin toward the inert form of Beale—“but you’re a witness that I didn’t start it.” Seeing that the girl was listening and looking at him in silence, he took another plunge. “I wish you’d let me help you. I’ve been around things like this before an’ maybe I could do some good. At any rate, I’d sure like to try.”
For the first time since he’d known her, her voice wasn’t ringing with pure contempt when she spoke. “And if I agreed, what would your pay be?”
He admired her common sense and couldn’t help but smile a little lopsidedly. “Nothin’, ma’am. I don’t want your money. Just agree to let me sleep in the bunkhouse an’ eat with the other D-Back-To-Back men, that’s all.”
Her eyes went to the gently stirring form of Jeff Beale. “Help him up and we’ll talk about it.”
Beale stood on wobbly legs and ran an exploratory hand over his bruised jaw. He was listening to Toma Dodge, but his squinted eyes were thoughtfully on the blank, unsmiling face of the Vermilion Kid. Finally he nodded. “All right, Toma, if that’s what you want, we’ll try it, but…” The brown eyes were perplexed and Beale shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. I guess we can try him out, anyway.”
The Kid rode back to Holbrook, stuffed his scanty gear into his saddlebags, paid his bill at the Royal House, and returned to the D-Back-To-Back. When he was putting up his horse, three cowboys sauntered over to the corral and watched him in impassive silence. He nodded, and the riders nodded back. The Kid had been a cowboy once and he knew what the men were doing. They were appraising him—evaluating his appearance, his tack and his horse; from these things they would deduce his status among them.
Apparently the silent judgment was favorable because he was gradually included in the men’s jokes and hazing until, after two days on the ranch, the Vermilion Kid was more at home than he had been in many years. Jeff Beale introduced him to the men. At the sound of his name, there was a startled, awkward silence that, strangely enough, Beale himself filled in with casual talk until the riders got over their furtive stares and sudden silence.
For two days the Kid worked the cattle with the men. He saw neither Toma Dodge nor Beale, except in the early morning when the foreman would line out the work. The Kid was anxious to work on the murder, and the
