And now, riding beside me, Kate jarred me from my memories. “Conn! Look!”
It was a dust cloud, which meant a herd of buffalo or cattle, or a large party of horsemen, and they were following a route that would shortly cross our path.
I turned swiftly, rode down into a draw, and headed out of it at a gallop, with Kate Lundy close behind me.
We could hear the thunder of the approaching hoofs, and we slowed down and walked our horses. The riders went through the draw not fifty yards behind us … but out of sight.
It could only have been McDonald and his men, bound for Hackamore.
When we came up out of the draw, I resumed my original route. Kate, hanging on by sheer nerve, rode up beside me. “Where are we going? This is the wrong direction for Hackamore.”
It was not in me to lie to her. “You wouldn’t last to Hackamore. You’d pass out and take a fall. We’re riding back to town.”
“To town?”
“You need help. There’s a doctor there, and there’s a bed. I shall see that you have both.”
For a moment she did not speak, and then she said, “Conn, they’ll kill you back there. It’s you they want now. You, and perhaps me.”
“Me, anyway,” I agreed; “but the worst of them will have gone west toward Hackamore, and your arm is in bad shape. If it is cared for, it will be all right. You’re going to have care.”
“It was only a flesh wound.”
“From a greasy bullet? Carried, you’ve no idea, how nor where? That wound needs cleaning.”
When we approached the town they did not see us coming, for I used every bit of low ground possible, and the first thing they knew, we were riding up the street.
John Blake stepped out to meet me.
“Hello, John,” I said. “You didn’t ride with them?”
“I am the town marshal, not a hired gun hand.”
“Glad to hear it. Where’s the doctor?”
He glanced quickly at Kate, and I saw his face stiffen. He turned around sharply. “This way … Doc’s in his office.”
The doctor looked up as we entered. His eyes went quickly to Kate, and he leaped for her and caught her just as she started to crumple up. But she was still conscious, still fighting.
We put her on the settee, and John Blake turned away toward the window. His face seemed carved from stone.
“How did that happen? Accident?”
“It was no accident, Mr. Blake.” Kate spoke clearly. “That shot was fired with every intention of tailing me, by someone who knew who I was.”
“Who?”
“A man in a cowhide vest – black and white cowhide.”
Blake showed that he was shocked. He said to me, “What sort of man was he? Did you see him?”
“Kate saw him. I was nowhere around. Thin, she said. He was some distance off, but if he could see well enough to score a hit, he could see who he was shooting at. And we don’t have any cowhands who ride side-saddle.”
Doctor MacWhite was sponging off Kate’s arm. It was dark and swollen, except around the wound itself, which was raw and red.
“John,” I said, “I am going to find the man who wore that vest.”
He was silent, and his expression puzzled me. There was still that shocked, almost stupefied look to him.
“You know who owns that vest,” I said, “and I want to know who it is.”
“No.”
“I’m going to find out, John.”
“Leave it alone,” he urged, almost pleading. “Leave it alone, Conn. She’s not badly hurt – she’ll be all right.”
There was a sound of boots on the boardwalk, and then the door was thrust sharply open.
Linda McDonald stepped in. Behind her were a dozen of the townsmen, with rifles. “There they are!” she said. “I told you they were here.”
“All right,” the leader of the men said. He was a man I remembered seeing standing near Tallcott that day outside the bank. “Come on, you. Drop those guns.”
John Blake stepped between us. “What’s the matter with you, Burrows? Dury brought Mrs. Lundy in – she’s been shot.”
“That makes no difference. He’s one of them, and he’ll hang. And her, too,” he added defiantly.
“Not while I am marshal,” John Blake replied quietly.
Linda McDonald turned on him. “Pa told me you’d join them, given half a chance. He never did like you.” Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. “And he left me this!”
She was enjoying herself, that much was sure. In a sense, her father was now telling off the great John Blake. It was, to her, another illustration of his power, and she was glorying in it.
“He left me this,” she repeated-“the right to tell you that you’re fired!”
“What!” John Blake exclaimed in astonishment.
“That’s right, Blake,” Burrows said. “He told me he’d left word with Linda. If you crossed us up, you were to be fired.”
Burrows liked it, too. He was a small man despite his size, and he was enjoying the putting down of a man who had so long been held up as a power in the town.
“You’re not the law, Blake. You’re out of it.”
Kate lifted herself on her good elbow. “Do you want a job, John? I’ll offer you one.”
He hesitated. “No,” he said finally, “I know nothing about cows.”
“Then take this,” Kate said. “The first thing, when this trouble started, I sent for it. I knew if anybody could keep the peace it would be you. The trouble was, I held it off. I didn’t give it to you. I didn’t see you, but I didn’t look for you, either, and for that I am to blame.”
He took the telegram, and all eyes were on him. He read it, and then he looked up at her. “You understand this? It leaves me free. No strings.”
“That’s the way it should be, Marshal. That’s why I used what influence I had to get the appointment for you. I want no favors, nor do I want favors for anyone else.”
Burrows looked from one to the other, trying to figure it out. “He ain’t no marshal,” he protested. “He was fired.”
Linda McDonald’s eyes were bright and hard. “Of course he’s a marshal, Mr. Burrows,” she said. “Probably a United States deputy marshal. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Lundy?”
“Yes, it is,” Kate replied.
John Blake turned around slowly to face Linda McDonald. “Miss McDonald,” he said very clearly, “where is your cowhide vest?”
Chapter 11
She turned her eyes on him, her face without expression. “I do not understand you, Mr. Blake.”
“You own a cowhide vest. A black and white cowhide vest. Where is it?”
She shrugged. “At home, I suppose. Where else would it be?”
“We’re going there,” he said; “and I’ll ask the doctor to accompany us, if he is no longer needed here. I want to see that vest.”
It seemed to me that she was tossing a loop inside her mind, trying to put a rope on the reason for his request. At first I thought – just for a minute – that she might have done the shooting herself. Now I was not sure.
John Blake did think so, I was sure of that. But as he started for the door, he paused. “Now let me tell you something, Mrs. Lundy. And this goes for you too, Conn. This war is over, do you hear?”
“You’d better tell that to Aaron McDonald,” I suggested. “He’s already killed some of my men – men defending leased land.”
“That makes no difference to me,” he said. “The fighting stops … everything else will be settled in good time.”
“Will that stop the men attacking Hackamore?” He did not answer that, but turned away from me and went out the door after Linda. It was she who paused, and her eyes looked directly into mine; then she looked away from me and at Kate.
“You will see,” she said. “My father is a better man than any of you, and a stronger one. By now he has burned your silly town, and when he comes back he will show you who is in charge!”
Kate smiled at her, and for the first time Linda seemed to lose that coldness that was so much a part of her.
“I wonder what you will do,” Kate said, “when your father dies.”
It was not meant to be cruel. Kate was musing, as I’d seen her do before, and was genuinely curious, but Linda’s expression made me wonder if the thought had ever occurred to her before. Then she was out of the door and gone, and Kate and I were alone in the doctor’s office.
“You’d better get some rest,” I said. “I’ll sit down outside.”
“Sit here,” she said. She was silent for a minute, then she went on. “Conn, I’d no business starting all this. We’ve lost some good men.”