Kilkenny told them what he knew of Tetlow and the thousands of cattle they were bringing over the trail, and he hinted that he had an interest, purely personal, in the KR. Carpenter chuckled and his wife smiled. “I reckon,” he said, “it don’t take no wizard to figure out why. That Nita Riordan is a wonderful girl.” “Don’t mention me to them,” Kilkenny requested, “that will come in good time. But I know Brigo an’ you can count on him to stick. You should have a talk with her.”
“Good advice,” Carpenter agreed. “Talkin’ with old Dan an’ some others wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”
Kilkenny returned to his horse and drew it back into the trees. For several minutes he watched and listened with care natural to him after the years of his life. Then he mounted and took another route homeward. It was customary for him to do that, also. It could have been merest chance that the trail he took skirted the holdings of the KR and neared the house at one place. He drew up when he saw the lights and he sat there a long time, looking at them. There, where those lights glowed softly in the evening, was the only girl he had ever loved. There, no more than two hundred yards away, with all her warmth, her beauty, her tenderness and her humor. A girl to walk beside a man, and walk with him, not behind him. He rolled a smoke and lighted up, and spoke softly to Buck. “She’s there, Buck, old boy, there in that house. Remember her, Buck? Remember how she looked the first time we saw her? Remember the light in her eyes and the way her lips parted a little? Remember her, Buck?” The horse stirred under him, and he spoke to it softly, then rode on, and riding on, he did not look back. Had he looked back he would have seen a big man, broad and powerful, step from the darker shadows and stare after him. A man who carried a rifle, and who after a moment of waiting, lighted his own cigarette revealing a strongly handsome, yet savage face. And when he walked away with the cigarette cupped in his palm, his feet made no sound, but moved silently through the brush and grass, silently even over the gravel. He walked up toward the house, and nearing it, saw another man seated in the black opening of the bunkhouse door. “It’s me, Cain.” The man’s voice was low, a soft, fluid tone. “He was out there tonight, Cain.” Cain Brockman came to his feet, a huge man, bulking an easy two forty in jeans and a hickory shirt. Twin guns were belted to his hips. “You mean … Kilkenny?” “Si, amigo.” Jaime Brigo drew deep on his cupped cigarette. “And I am glad.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
Brigo shrugged. “Who knows? I have not thought. Maybe he does not wish it.” “Yeah, although he’s crazy not to. What man in his right mind would run away from such a woman as that?”
Brigo did not answer, taking another deep drag on the cigarette and then crushing it out in the earth at his feet. “Perhaps, amigo, he does well. Who knows when such a man may die? He thinks of that.” “Anybody who kills him,” Cain said gruffly, “will have to shoot him in the back!
Nobody ever lived could drag a gun like him.”
“They shot Wild Bill so. Have you forgotten? Be sure that he has not. But I am glad he is here, for there will be trouble with the Forty.” Brockman agreed to that. “When wasn’t there trouble with the Tetlows? Don’t I know? I was in Uvalde when they started that fight with the McCann outfit.” He sat down again, then he wondered aloud, “Where’s he livin’? Suppose he’s got him a place?”
Brigo did not reply, and Brockman turned to repeat the question and saw the big Yaqui was gone. He had slipped away with no more sound than a ghost. Jaime Brigo tapped softly on the door of the ranch house and he heard the reply. Opening the door, he stepped in, a huge man, big-chested and yet moving like a cat.
Nita Riordan smiled quickly, a tall girl with long green eyes and very black lashes. “Come in, Jaime! It’s good to see you. What has been happening?” Briefly, the big Yaqui explained to her about the shooting of Carson and the threatening of Carpenter, of which he had heard almost at once. They had talked of this before, and he had been working for the family long before her father’s death and knew how this girl felt about such things. He told her what he had been able to find out about the Tetlows and how they had come into the country with their immense herds, many wagons, and Tetlow’s four sons—of whom but three were left.
“The other?”
“He was killed at Clifton’s.” Brigo hesitated and Nita looked up quickly, her face suddenly white.
“Jaime! Was it… was it Lance?”
The Yaqui shrugged. “I do not know, senorita. It was a tall man in black. He was riding through. It was young Tetlow who began it. He forced the fight on the other man, who was already wounded.”
“Do you think we’ll ever see him again, Jaime?” Brigo hesitated, tempted to tell her of what he had seen this night, yet he was torn between two loyalties, that to his employer and friend, and that to the man she loved—who was also his friend. And whom he understood as few men could. “I think—yes, I think so,” he said at last. “He will come back one day, when you need him he will come.”
“You sound so sure.”
“And you?” Jaime asked shrewdly. “Are you not sure?” “Yes, I guess I am.” She got up quickly. “Jaime, is Cain out there on watch? If he is, why don’t you have him come in? I’ll make some coffee for both of you. Marie has gone to bed.”
Brigo nodded and turned to the door. He was gone almost without a sound. Nita walked through the short hallway to the kitchen. Had she been imagining it, or had Jaime seemed too sure? Had he seen Kilkenny? She shook her head, dismissing the thought. No, he would not be here, of all places. Yet deep within her she knew it was not only possible but probable, for Kilkenny moved in the loneliest places, and the newest countries, and this one was new. Then her mind turned to the threat implied by the coming of Tetlow. Accustomed to border warring, she understood what that threat meant as well as any cowhand or rancher in the country. She knew much of men such as he, and knew that he must have not a little land, not a little range, but lots of it. All there was here would not be too much. Realistic as she was, she also foresaw the influence the buying power would have on the businessmen of Horsehead. They would be reluctant to make any move that would in any way displease so big a potential customer, never foreseeing what he could mean to them with his grasping and autocratic way.
What should she do? That alone she did not know. Within a few days she would be faced with the problem and it was not one that pleased her. Better able to resist than the others, because she not only had made friends in town but she had several very able men who were not only excellent hands but who were gun handlers as well. As far as Cain Brockman and Brigo were concerned, she knew that with the possible exception of Havalik the Forty outfit had nobody who could equal them, let alone top them. The Forty had many more, but remembering the lessons learned from her own experiences and those learned from Kilkenny, she had built here with the realization that a time might come when the place would have to be defended, and it could be. Moreover, behind her was the towering wall of Comb Ridge, practically shutting off all advance from that direction.
The four hands that she now employed other than Brigo, who acted as foreman, were all good men and personally known to her. Cain Brockman was not only a good fighting man and cunning, but he was loyal to the death. It was strange the influence that Kilkenny had had upon the former outlaw. That Brockman had been a killer she knew. How many men lay behind him she did not know, but it was generally estimated that he had killed over a dozen before meeting Kilkenny. Pacing the floor nervously, she waited for them to come in, and when the door opened, she looked up smiling. Cain came in first, a burly, clumsy-looking man with huge fists, a thick, muscular neck and a hairy chest visible through his opened shirt. His nose had been flattened and he had heavy cheekbones and a heavy jaw, one of the toughest-looking men she had ever seen. “Evenin’, ma’am,” he said, “sure is nice o’ you to have us in for coffee. You make the best coffee I ever did drink.”