Two days he rode the hills, for two days shifting camp each night. For two days he was irritable. It was none of his business, he kept telling himself. The old man had sent him packing, Kitty had turned him down. Nevertheless, he could not settle down. He rode back to Pima Canyon and looked around.
Their tracks were everywhere. They had found this place, and had without doubt come looking for 91 him. So he was a hunted man now. It was good to know.
Yet he did not leave. Without reason for remaining, he remained.
And on the third day he rode to Hanna’s Station. Kitty was not there, but her father was. Hanna looked at him carefully. “Maria huntin’ you. Come in here ridin’ a mule. Acted like she didn’t aim to be seen. Left ^w you was to see her.”
“All right,” he said.
Hanna brought him coffee and a meal. “Ain’t
Kitty’s grub,” he said. “She’s to town.”
The older man sat down. Dutch Gerlach was in with two men, he told Ryan, hunting for him. Or maybe, he added, hunting Fred Hitch.
“Hitch?”
“He’s gone. Dropped out of sight.
Nobody knows why.”
A rattle of horses’ hooves sounded and Matt Ryan came to his feet quickly.
Outside were four men. Dutch Gerlach, two hands … and Lee Dunn.
Ryan turned sharply. He had left his horse in the trees and there was a chance it had not been seen. Stepping into the kitchen, he moved back to a door on his right. He opened it and stepped through. He was in Kitty’s room.
There was a stamp of boots outside and a distant sound of voices, then a rattle of dishes.
What had happened? If Lee Dunn and Gerlach were together, then—
Suddenly he was conscious of a presence. In the shadowed room he had seen nothing. Now his hand dropped to his gun and he started to turn.
“Don’t shoot, Ryan. It’s me.
Hitch.”
In a quick step Ryan was at the bedside. Fred Hitch lay in the bed, his face drawn and pale. His shoulder and arm were bandaged.
“It was them.” He indicated the men outside. “Gerlach egged me into sellin’ some of the KY cows for gamblin’ money, said it would all be mine, anyway. Then he began sellin’ some himself, dared me to tell the old man.
“Lee Dunn was in it with him, and I was scared. I went along, but I didn’t like it. Then, when you saw the old man, they got worried. They couldn’t find you, and they decided to kill the 93 old man, then to take over. I wouldn’t stand for it, and made a break. They shot me down, but I got to a horse. Kitty hid me here … she went after medicine.”
“They’ll wonder why she isn’t here now,” Ryan said half aloud. Then he looked down at the man on the bed. “What about Tom? Did they kill him?”
“Don’t think so. They want me for a front … or him. Then they can loot the ranch safely. After that, other outfits.”
Ryan stepped to the window. With luck he could make the trees without being seen. He put a hand on the window and slid it up.
“Ryan?”
“Yeah.”
“I ain’t much, but the old man was good to me.
I wouldn’t see no harm come to him. Tell him that, will you?”
“Sure.”
He stepped out the window and walked swiftly
into the woods. There he made the saddle and started for the KY. He had no plan, he had not even the right to plan. It was not his fight. He was a stranger and … but he kept riding.
It was past midnight when he found the KY. He had been lost for more than an hour, took a wrong trail in the bad light … there were no lights down below. He rode the big horse down through the trees and stepped out of the saddle.
There were a dozen saddled horses near the corral. He could see the shine of the starlight on the saddles. He saw some of those horses when he drew closer, and he knew them. They were riders from Thumb Butte … so, then, they had the ranch. They had moved in.
And this ranch was the law. There were no other forces to stand against Gerlach and Dunn now. There were ten thousand head of cattle in the hills, all to be sold. It was wealth, and a community taken over.
He stood there in the darkness, his face grim, smelling the night smells, feeling the danger and tension, knowing he was a fool to stay, yet unable to run.
The old man might still be alive. If he could
move in, speak to him once more … with just the
shadow of authority he might draw good men around
him and hold the line. He was nobody now, but with the
authority of old Tom Hitch, then he could
move. 95
He loosened his gun in his belt, and taking his rifle walked across the clearing to the back door. He saw a man come to the bunkhouse door and throw out a cigarette. The man started to turn, then stopped and looked his way. He kept on walking, his mouth dry, his heart pounding. The fellow watched him for a minute, barely visible in the gloom, and then went back inside.
Matt Ryan reached the back of the house and touched the latch. It lifted under his hand and he stepped in. Carefully, he eased across the room, into the hall. When he made the old man’s room, he hesitated, then spoke softly. There was no reply.
He struck a match … it glowed, flared. Matt looked at the old man, who was slumped back against the headboard of his bed, his flannel nightshirt bloody, the eyes wide and staring. They had murdered Tom Hitch. Killed him without a chance.
Matt drew back, hearing a noise at the bunkhouse. The match died and he dropped it, rubbing it out with his toe.
A faint rustle behind him and he turned, gun in hand.
A big old form loomed in the dark, wide, shapeless. “It me … Maria. He say give you this.” A paper rattled and he took it. “You go … quick now.”
He went swiftly, hearing boots grating on the gravel. They were suspicious, and coming to look. He stepped out the back door and a man rounded the corner. “Hey, there!” the fellow started forward. “Wait …!”
Matt Ryan shot him. He held the gun low and he shot at the middle of the man’s body, and heard the other man’s gun blast muffled by his body.
He started by him, and a light flared somewhere and its light caught the man’s face. He had killed Indian Kelly.
Rifle in hand, he ran, ducking into the trees. There were shouts behind him, and he saw men scatter out, coming. He could see their darker shapes against the gray of the yard. He fired four fast shots from the hip, scattering them across the yard. A man stumbled and went down, then the others hit the dirt.
He ran for the bay, caught the bridle 97 reins, and stepped into the leather. “Let’s get out of here!” he said, and the big red horse was moving … fast.
Day was graying when he neared Hanna’s Station. He saw no horses around, so he rode boldly from the woods to the back door. In the gray of the light, he swung down and knocked.
Kitty opened the door. He stepped in, grim, unshaven. “Got some coffee?” he said. “And I want to see Fred.”
“You … they killed him. Gerlach and Dunn.
They found him.”
“Your father?”
“He’s hurt … they knocked him out.”
He looked at her hungrily, anxious
to feel her need of him. With his fingers he spread the paper Maria had given him.
Matt Ryan: Take over.
Tom Hitch
The signature was big and sprawled out, but a signature known all over the Slumbering Hills.
So … there it was. The problem was his now. Looking back, he could remember the old man’s eyes. Hitch had known that if he had shown the slightest willingness to listen to Ryan, they would both have been killed. But now the battle had been tossed to him.
Kitty looked at him, waiting. “There it is, Matt. You’re the boss of Slumbering Hills.”
The boss … and a hunted man. His only supporters an old man with an aching head, and a girl.
One man alone … with a gun.
They would be combing the hills for him. They would come back here. Kitty had been left alone, but then they were in a hurry to find him and Tom Hitch was living. Now it would be different.
“Saddle up,” he said. “You and your dad are riding. Ride to the ranches, get the men together.”