Without another word, Russ Chito left the room. From her window Cherry saw him go and divined his purpose. Filled with terror she rushed to the door but hulking Bernie Lee stood there. “You ain’t goin’ no place. Get back inside.”
She stepped back. There would be no chance to warn Caddo. Chito would be halfway there by now, and he would kill without warning, and from ambush.
At the Palace John Daniel stared from the window, thinking. The boom was over here, anyway. He would sell out and go away. Within the past few months the population had fallen by a third. It was time to move. With the gold from Caddo’s claim he could leave all this behind. He would go to San Francisco as they had planned, and he would take Cherry with him. Once away from all this the foolish notions would leave her head. She would be his woman again.
During the months they had been associated he had never won her love, and it galled him to think that Bon Caddo had, or so it seemed.
John Daniel hated all that resisted him; anything he did not or could not possess and control.
The afternoon wore on, and he paced the floor. Chito had not returned. Of course, he was a careful man. He was taking his time. Still —
In her own cabin, Cherry packed her belongings and waited. She feared, she doubted, yet inside there was a kind of stillness. Terror there was, and fear for the man she now loved, but through it all there was something else, a kind of confidence, a belief that somehow, some way, Bon Caddo would triumph.
At the Palace Saloon John Daniel was no longer patient. He lit a black cigar and muttered under his breath. He walked to the door and looked down the street. There was no sign of Chito.
Darkness came and he went to his office. The saloon business began but in a desultory fashion. The whole town seemed to be waiting, watching, wondering. Seven o’clock passed, then eight. John Daniel walked into the saloon and looked quickly around. Many of the familiar faces were missing. Nine came and went and suddenly there was a crash of glass. Men sprang to their feet, staring. Where the alley window had been was a gaping hole, and sprawled on the floor inside was Russ Chito. He had taken a shotgun blast through the chest.
Men rushed to him, and only John Daniel remained where he was, white-faced, his cigar clamped in his teeth.
Then the swinging doors parted and Bernie Lee tottered into the room and fell sprawling on the floor. He was alive, but brutally beaten.
John Daniel reached behind the bar and took up a spare pistol. Methodically, he checked it, then tucked it behind his belt. His own gun in his hand, he strode down the street.
Cherry was gone.
Her house was lighted, the door stood open, but Cherry was gone.
John Daniel swore, shifted the cigar in his teeth. “Pete! Dave! Ed! Cherry’s gone and I want her back, and I want Bon Caddo dead!”
Suddenly, from down the street a voice shouted “Fire!” John Daniel rushed to the door. One glimpse was enough, down the street, in a direct line with his saloon, a deserted shack was ablaze.
A glance told him that with the wind there was no chance. That whole side of the street must go, and he owned every building there.
Suddenly he became aware that nobody was moving to fight the blaze. They were watching, and a few were throwing water on buildings across the street, buildings he did not own. He yelled at them, but there was no response.
Cursing, he turned on his heel and went into the Palace. Rage filled him, a bitter, futile rage.
He was whipped … whipped. But he still had the money.
He went to his secret drawer and took out the gold. He went to his safe for more, carefully changed into bills for easier carrying. There was more gold under the foundation but that could wait. Now, while the others watched the fire, he would go.
From his room he brought a pair of saddlebags, kept handy for the purpose, and into them he stuffed bills and gold. Straightening up he turned swiftly and started for the back door. A few steps beyond was the stable and his black horse.
He stopped abruptly. Bon Caddo stood in the door. “Going some place, John?” he asked mildly.
John Daniel stood stock-still, caught in mid-stride. For the first time he knew fear.
He was alone. Russ Chito was dead. Bernie Lee was beaten within an inch of his life. The others were scattered, hunting for Caddo. And Caddo was here.
John Daniel had always accounted himself a brave man. He was not afraid, but there was something indomitable about Caddo.
“All your life, John Daniel, you’ve lived by murder and robbery, and you’ve gotten away with it. Now your town is burning, Daniel, and you’re going with it.”
John Daniel’s hand reached for a bottle at the end of the bar and threw it. The bottle missed, shattering against the wall. Bon Caddo started for him.
John Daniel moved to meet him, since there was no escape. He struck out viciously, and Caddo took the blow coming in without so much as a wince. Then Caddo struck in return, and the blow made Daniel’s knees buckle.
Caddo moved after him, coolly, relentlessly. “Like hitting women, John? How does it feel to be hit? Do you like killing, John? How does it feel to die?”
In a wild burst’ of panic-born strength, John Daniel struck out. The blow caught Caddo coming in again but the power of it staggered him and he tripped over a fallen chair, falling to the floor.
John Daniel lunged for the back door and made it. With Caddo coming after him he reached the stable.
His horse was gone!
Trapped, he turned swiftly, reaching for his gun. In front of Bon Caddo a red eye winked, then winked again. Thunder roared in John Daniel’s ears and a terrible flame seemed to rush through him. He did not see the red eye wink again for he was falling, falling, already dead, into the broken branches of a manzanita.
There is a place in the Tonto Basin where a long, low ranch house looks out upon a valley. Cottonwood leaves whisper their secrets around the house and on the veranda a woman watches her husband walking up from the barn with his two tall sons. Inside the house a daughter sings songs more haunting than those her mother sang in the Palace, long ago. The big man whose hair is no longer rust red, pauses by her side.
Before them, die peace of the meadows, and the tall sons washing for supper in the doorside basins. Inside, the song continues.
“It’s been a good life, Mother, a good life,” he says quietly.
Far to the north there is an adobe wall with a bullet buried in it, a bullet nobody ever saw. A smashed elbow bone, covered now by the sand of the wash, lies among the debris of a pack-rat’s nest, and where the manzanita grew there is a whitened skull. In the exact center of that skull are two round bullet holes, less than a half inch apart.
DUFFY’S MAN
Duffy’s man had been on the job just six days when trouble started.
Duffy, who was older than the gnarled pin-oak by the water hole, knew there would be trouble when he saw Clip Hart riding up to the stable. Duffy had covered a lot of miles in his time, and had forgotten nothing, man or animal, that he had seen in his travels.
Clip Hart had killed a man seven years before in El Paso, and Duffy had seen it happen. Since then there had been other killings in other towns, and three years in the state pen for rustling. From time to time Hart had been investigated in connection with robberies of one kind or another.
Hart was older, heavier, and harder now. He had the coldly watchful eye of a hunted man. There were two men with him and one of them rode across the street to the Pine Saloon and stood alongside his horse, watching the street.
Hart looked at the sign on the livery stable and then at the fat old man in the big chair. “You’re Duffy?” Hart measured him as he spoke.
“I’m Duffy.” The old man shifted his bulk in the polished chair. “What can I do for you?”
“The use of your stable. I’ve seven horses coming in tonight. They’ll be kept here in your stable, saddled all the time.”
Duffy shifted himself in his seat. “None of that here. I’ll not want your business. Not here.”
“You’ll keep them. You don’t move very fast, Duffy.” Clip Hart struck a match on the seat of his pants and held up the flame. “Your barn can’t move at all.” He lifted the flame suggestively. “Where’s your hostler?”