entered the big hotel corral and went to one of the stalls containing a red horse.
It was sleek and fat, and when it turned its head in answer to Kerrigan's low-spoken voice the eyes showed as clear and as bright as a new moon. Gastric juices working on the oats the animal had finished eating rumbled its stomach loudly as Kerrigan spoke in a low voice again and then gently shoved aside a sleek red hip and moved into the stall beside it.
A big red horse. Four inches taller than average but more there in the blocky body, the short deep barrel. No saddle scars, no wire cicatrices marring the hair around fetlocks above freshly shod hoofs. This horse was sleek and well groomed. Ready for travel.
LeRoy was smoking a thin black cigar, watching with interest as Kerrigan checked the big red animal point by point.
'You don't have to buy him at all, Mr. Kerrigan,' he said. 'I'm more interested in you. I liked the way you handled Donnelly with a gun barrel where most men in your position would have shot a couple of bullets through his heart. You're already in trouble with the law again over here on the Arizona side of the river, but that won't hold on the west bank of the Colorado. How about going to work for me?'
'Sorry, not interested,' was the reply as Kerrigan stepped back out of the stall.
'Then suppose we put it this way. I need a good man like you to help me protect a pretty heavy investment in good horses that certain gentlemen are intending to take from me on the return drive to the California desert. Help me get those horses safely through and I'll do more than give you a percentage of the profits. We'll return to northern Arizona as pardners on a horse-buying trip, and you'll have enough men at your back to make the odds even against a certain Colonel Thomas Harrow. Take the horse, Kerrigan, and get across the river with him and wait for me. He's yours.'
Lew Kerrigan looked at the man with the cigar and a chill came into his brown eyes. 'What do you know about Harrow?' he asked quietly.
'That man Ace Saunders,' LeRoy said as quietly. 'From the looks of him he's certainly not a drinking man. Perhaps he was a little nervous about the job of meeting you this morning. But last night he had a bit too much to drink, and he talked in one of the bars. If you don't get shot down this morning before you get out of Yuma, you still face odds of a dozen to one when you get back north. I can get you across the river on the planks of the unfinished railroad bridge. I can make the odds even when we go north as pardners a few weeks from now. Saddle up Big Red, Kerrigan. He's yours.'
Lew Kerrigan wasted no time. He brought out the big red and saddled him hurriedly, lashing warbag and food pack back of the cantle. He then reached into his hip pocket and brought forth the long leather snap purse and counted out ten more of the twenty-dollar goldbacks.
'Thanks for the offer, LeRoy, but I play my own hand. If you ever get up around Pirtman on a buying trip, look me up. Joe Stovers, the sheriff, might be able to tell you where I can be found.'
A cowpuncher strolled into the corral from the back door of the new hotel, breakfast toothpick roaming from side to side in his mouth. He came over to LeRoy. 'Mornin, Hannifer.' He grinned sheepishly and clapped a hand to his forehead in mock woe. 'I ain't never goin' to drink no more of this border whiskey from Mexico.' He looked at Kerrigan, a question in his blue eyes. 'He's ridin' Big Red. He goin' to California with us?'
'No,' LeRoy answered in disappointment, shoving the goldbacks into a pocket of the grey coat. 'You get on down to the river and see about the horses while Old Cap comes up for breakfast. And I'd better not find an empty bottle around when I get there,' he warned sharply.
He turned to Kerrigan as the puncher left, apparently still not without hope that Lew would throw in with him at the last minute. But a horse came loping past the hotel with mud flying from its hoofs and Bud Casey, on his way home to a day of soggy sleep, beckoned from outside the gate. Kerrigan, thinking of Jeb Donnelly, led the red horse over and opened and went through.
Bud's sandy-whiskered face registered complete and sudden relief.
'I'm damn' glad I got here in time to see you on a good horse, Lew,' he said in an undertone.
'What's up, Bud?'
'Something pretty plain. Wood Smith boasted to me just a little while ago, when I got ready to go off shift, about how he beat up your gun arm and elbow. 'Pulled your fangs,' was the way Wood put it. He said there was a pretty good chance you was too full of cussedness to accept the conditions of a parole to any man, so he set you up for an easy kill. Get out of town quick, Lew!'
'You're a little late, Bud.' Kerrigan swung a leg high up over the warbag humped back of the cantle. 'Jeb Donnelly has already tried it.'
'Jeb? Hell he did!' Bud stared in amazement. 'Never gave him credit for having that much nerve.'
LeRoy had followed over and closed the corral gate. He looked up at Bud and smiled. 'Neither did I, Mr. Casey. I didn't know Kerrigan had been hurt, but apparently the marshal did. Unfortunately for the blubbery Mr. Donnelly, he completely overlooked the fact that Mr. Kerrigan is ambidextrous with a hideout gun. An oversight that cost him a caved-in jawbone and the loss of several teeth. Good luck to you, Kerrigan, and if you're ever over in the Mojave Desert country of California, and the sheriff isn't hunting
After he was gone, Casey reined over beside Lew Kerrigan, a quizzical look on his long face. 'So you busted him in the jaw? Why the devil didn't you kill him, Lew?'
'I only wanted to square up in return for what I got from Donnelly the day I slipped into a ditch with a wheelbarrow and he clubbed me while I was down.'
Casey snorted and the sound bespoke his indignation. He said worriedly, 'What are you figgering on doing now? You're same as an outlaw, and from the looks of things you'll have a bunch of rough buckos after you, to boot. Wood said something about a professional gunman named Ace Saunders in town and another around with him called Stubb Holiday. You hitting back to Texas?'
Kerrigan nodded, his eyes searching the panorama of the town and the river beyond. 'That's right, Bud. Back to Texas. But I'm going by way of Pirtman and Dalyville.'
'To get that girl—but kill a man or two first, huh? Dammit, Lew, if they catch you and bring you back here, I lose my job. I'll resign rather than—'
'Take good care of Kadoba. Smith seems to be getting ready to resign and you're slated for his job. Try to keep him from clubbing the Apache to death before then. So long, Bud, and if I get back to Texas in one piece, maybe you won't need that better job. I square up the other kind of debts, too.'
They shook hands with a brief, firm grip and Kerrigan reined over and rode west toward the prison; to cut across the railroad grade and swing north along the east bank of the Colorado River.
A red coach with six sleek black horses was trotting into view over there near the prison, coming back from a swing around town.
Kerrigan wanted to send a message to Tom Harrow and this looked made to order. He rode to meet the coach and its lovely occupant.
He held up a hand and the chunky driver, not knowing what to expect, hauled up on the lines. Stubb Holiday sat with his hands occupied with leather; a short man with the strength of a full-grown black bear in arms and shoulders. Ironically, it made Kerrigan think of old Bear Paw Daly, the eccentric prospector who'd lost an arm in a powder accident and made a big strike in bronco Apache country because of it. And then lost his life by a probable bullet from Tom Harrow's gun.
Kerrigan saw Carlotta Wilkerson's tricorne hat emerge from a door opening, her clear grey eyes looking at him quizzically.
'Mr. Kerrigan,' she smiled at him as he lifted fingers to the wide brim of the brown hat peaked high and sharp on top, 'I assume you've had quite a talk with Thomas?'
'We talked a bit,' he admitted.
'Everything is now… understood between you?' she asked hesitantly.
'All clear, I reckon, Miss,' he answered. 'I'm leaving. I rode over this way to have Holiday take a message back to Tom.'
