Reckoning at Lansing's Ferry Read online

  Bass was ready to ride long before Owen Wallace came in. He took his saddled horse with him to the cook fire and got a cup of black coffee. That was when Bass saw Ruben sitting there, watching him.

  “What the hell?” he said, astonished. “How come you’re up so early?”

  Ruben made an impish smile and pursed his wet lips in a secretive way. He did not answer.

  Bass sipped and gazed downward. He lowered the cup, stepped over closer, and bent down. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he exclaimed quietly, straightening back up. “Ruben, you’ve been drinking again.”

  Ruben’s smile faded. His leathery old range riders’ cheeks showed Bass nothing but a settled melancholy. He still said nothing. He did not wish to speak. Also, at that particular moment, he did not like Bass Templeton, either. He was certain Bass would tell Ben Albright about this, and the sparks would fly again.

  Bass swished his coffee dregs and remained a while longer, watching old Ruben. Out where the rope corral was, horses stomped the hard-packed earth, crunched their teeth over willow shoots, and milled expectantly with the coming of dawn.

  Bass said: “Ruben, you give me half an hour to get out with the herd, then you wake Case Hyle and send him out there to me.”

  Ruben looked up. There was something feline, something sly and scheming in Templeton’s face.

  All right,” Ruben replied, and afterward watched Bass mount up and rein clear of the camp in a slow walk westward. Something, Ruben told himself, is shaping up here. Something is building up between those two. He bent over to get himself a cup of coffee. It was hot and bitter and it had a disgustingly sobering effect upon him almost at once. He made a face and threw the dregs into the fire. A hissing arose accompanied by steam. Ruben nodded wisely at this, saying aloud: “You see, god-dammit...that stuff’ll even kill a fire.” Then he fumbled for his tobacco sack and made a cigarette. He would have just time for this before his day’s work began.

  From inside the wagon, he heard Atlanta turn on her pallet. A little moan escaped her.

  Ruben looked solemnly at his cigarette, mumbling to it: “That’s how it is, my friend. I seen ’em walk together last night, and that’s how it is with ’em at their age. It hits ’em hard and it hurts worse’n a stab wound.” He shook the cigarette and frowned at it. “Don’t you tell me I don’t know, consarn you. I know all right. Memories may be ashes in a man’s heart but they’re always there.” He threw down the cigarette, stamped upon it fiercely, and pushed himself upright, flinching from a hot pain in his bad leg, and, teetering there, looking beyond his fire for the bedroll of Case Hyle. Then he started toward it, limping as he moved.

  Case Hyle, Ruben discovered, was an inordinately light sleeper. Ruben had barely reached out his hand to nudge Hyle when, in a split second, a six-gun barrel was whipped up to halt inches from the cook’s face. Ruben’s breathing hung up; he froze there on his haunches.

  Then Hyle lowered the gun and sat up. He said, as though nothing had happened: “Time for me to go relieve Bass?” Then, with clearing vision, he looked in a mildly puzzled way at Ruben. “How come you to wake me instead of Templeton?”

  Ruben was breathing again. He rocked back on his heels and looked indignant. “What the hell you point that gun at me for?” he demanded indignantly. “All I was tryin’ to do....”

  “Habit,” Hyle explained, pushing back his blankets and springing up. “I apologize, Ruben. I learned to sleep like a cat during the war. It was just habit.”

  Hyle smiled. He was a handsome man and his smile had a good effect upon people. He patted Ruben’s shoulder and scooped up his hat.

  He was rolling his sougans with his back to the cook when Ruben, entirely mollified, said: “Listen, Case...Bass told me to waken you and send you out to him at the herd.”

  Hyle made the final lashing on his blankets and looked around. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  Ruben ran a hand along his bristly jaw. He squinted at the slumbering camp around them, then he lowered his voice to a whisper: “Pardner, he’s goin’ to tear you limb from limb.”

  Hyle said nothing but he was considering Ruben in a careful way. The humor, the easy poise, and the comradeship was completely gone from his face now.

  Ruben was reminded of Ben Albright the way Hyle stood there waiting for an explanation. Ben had that identical way about him.

  “Case, I dunno ’bout this, but I think he saw you and Miss Atlanta walk down by the creek last night.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Ruben squinted. “Don’t you remember him askin’ her to go walkin’ and her not answerin’ him?”

  “No,” said Case. “I don’t remember that at all.”

  “Well, maybe he didn’t ask her in so many words, but he went over to her at supper last night and said what a bee-utiful night it was...and all.”

  Case recalled that incident all right, but he had not then thought much of it. “You’re putting meaning into something where I don’t think any such meaning was intended,” he told the cook.

  Ruben turned sly and knowing in his expression. “Case, you don’t know Bass like I do. I been up this consarned trail with him a good many times. He don’t say anything he don’t mean to say. Bass don’t make any idle talk...ever. He meant that exactly the way I just told you. She didn’t go walkin’ with him but she did go walkin’ with you. Now he’s out there burnin’ up inside and waitin’ to beat you to a pulp.” Ruben inclined his head. “You deserved a warnin’ and now you’ve had it.”

  Ruben turned and walked away. He only went as far as the wagon’s far side. There, he swiftly turned and peeked out to watch Case get a horse, saddle up, and ride in a stiff jog out into the pre-dawn, star-showered silence. Then Ruben went sprinting after him in a crabbed way, face bright with anticipation, entirely forgetting it was time for him to start breakfast.

  * * * * *

  Albright’s steers were grunting up out of their beds and beginning to browse. There was a good coolness to this small hour time of dark morning. Off in the dim east the earth’s far crust was beginning to loom solid against a very faint brightening.

  Case rode slowly in a northerly direction to the farthest extremity of the herd, then began the customary encircling movement that took each night hawk around and around those two thousand animals. When he was a mile out, a little red glow of flame showed where Bass Templeton sat his horse, smoking. Case made for that spot and saw Templeton lift his head and swing it quickly at the sound of his coming. Case went on, then drew rein fifty feet off.

  “Bass, I understand you want to see me,” he said.

  Ruben, near out of breath from hurrying, heard this. He also heard Templeton’s heavy answer.

  “Yeah. I want to give you a chance to change your ways.”

  “All right,” came Hyle’s quiet reply to this. “Go on.”

  “Stay away from Ben’s niece, Hyle. Stay plumb away from her.”

  Case sat his saddle for a moment after Bass said this, then he swung out and down. He walked to the head of his animal, holding the reins in his hands, and looked up at Bass. “I don’t think you mean that,” he said. “I don’t think you’re that unreasonable, Bass.”

  Templeton unloaded in a quick rush. He balanced forward on his toes. There was a fierce brightness in his hazel eyes, and Case knew in that savage second just how correct old Ruben had been. Shock went through him. It was a raw flash of warning striking every nerve and leaving him feeling entirely cold and loose in every inch of his body.

  Templeton said hoarsely: “I’ve had all night to think this out, Hyle. I saw you two go walking. Now I’m giving you one second to make up your mind.”

  Something ancient and primeval stirred in Case Hyle. He knew what Templeton meant to do. It was like a silent message passing from Bass to him. He let go his horse’s reins and stood there, hearing the abruptly increased s
loshing of his heart in its dark cage. Templeton stood out very clear to him now, for some mysterious reason. He could see every deeply scored line around those flaming eyes.

  “My mind’s made up,” said Case, his tone soft, his way of speaking quick and strikingly hard in the stillness. “If there’s to be a choice made, why I reckon it’ll be up to Atlanta to make it.”

  Templeton’s feet were dug in. He launched himself forward like a catapult, swinging and grunting from this effort. His big hand grazed Hyle’s cheek upward, knocking off his hat and sliding through his hair. Hyle jumped back and threw a punch that missed as Templeton rushed past, came heavily around, and lowered his head to charge again.

  Maybe thirty feet out, where Ruben Adams had stationed himself, the camp cook was suddenly stone sober and still.

  He danced and threw lefts and rights and pirouetted away from an imaginary foe. He grunted and winced when one of the blows made by Case or Bass connected. He gasped when Case Hyle dropped an overhand sledging blow to Bass Templeton’s neck. And he groaned through locked teeth when Templeton caught Hyle a solid slam in the belly.

  Case danced clear after that blow, gulping air. Bass came after him with his long reaching arm. Hyle beat this strike aside and continued to back-pedal. Bass’s next blow was aimed better and he was closer; it ripped through Hyle’s hasty guard and cracked along his jaw. Hyle’s arms nearly dropped. His head snapped from the impact and he tried instinctively to jump clear. He was only partially successful. There was a steady roaring in his head.

  Templeton bored in, big arms working like pistons, hard fists sinking into meat to their wrists, each strike making a sodden sound. Hyle turned to absorb this punishment along one side, then he whipped up two short punches, both connected, and Templeton went back a little, off balance, and grunted. Hyle still back-pedaled, waiting for his vision to clear.

  Bass rocked a moment with both arms down, peering out at his enemy. Then he came on once more in that same mauling lunge, arms up and pumping. This time Case let him come.

  Ruben, closer now and breathlessly watching, turned stiff all over, straining forward, as those two big men met head-on, both forward on their toes, heads down, throwing everything they had into the fight.

  The meaty sound of those terrible punches made shock waves in the softly brightening atmosphere. Templeton dropped his head, got both shoulders down behind his blows, and teetered there, slugging. Case Hyle’s fists lashed in and out, then upward to Bass’s face. One of these blows squarely connected, staggering Templeton back. But the herd boss held to it, his strikes as punishing as the downsweep of a splitting wedge.

  Case then took one sideways, sidling step, and when Templeton twisted to adjust to this, a fist came out of the night to crack across Templeton’s jaw. This time Bass’s arms went fully down and his knees buckled. He rolled his head, escaping the follow-up to this hurting punch, and rode out the terrific beating that ensued. Then he lunged, caught Case full on in the middle, and both men hung there rasping for breath, battered and bruised and bleeding.

  Ruben thought it was over. That it had ended in a draw. He was straightening up out of his own crouch when Templeton ripped out an oath and hurled himself upon Case Hyle. He had the momentum for this onslaught, but he no longer had the power to follow it up. When he threw a fist, Case blocked it and countered with two short, stinging rights. Bass gasped a bubbling breath and dropped back.

  Case went after him and Ruben was dumbfounded. Hyle had been feigning that exhaustion. He pressed in, got against Templeton, and battered his midsection pitilessly. Then he shifted, struck Templeton high in the chest, and followed him when Bass staggered from this blow. He kept following him with both arms working. Templeton gave ground, his breath sawed in and out, he was taking a terrible beating and could no longer summon the strength to defend himself. Case’s strikes were wicked. They were savagely effective, but stubborn Bass Templeton would not go down.

  He wobbled and hung there and took that punishment. Case stepped clear, measured Bass for a final blow just as the herd boss’ knees began to bend. His shoulder down, his bleeding fist cocked, Case gradually came up out of his crouch, gradually lowered his arm as he looked into Templeton’s face. Then he put forth a tapping set of knuckles, rapped Bass’s chest with them gently, just before the herd boss slid down in a heap, spreading out his full length in the churned prairie earth.

  It was all over.

  Ruben had seen all this, had lived it and felt it. He watched Hyle walk over to his horse, throw both arms over the saddle, and drop his head. Ruben gazed at the still, beaten form of Templeton, then he gave a jump. From back at the camp the unmistakable loud and indignant voice of Ben Albright was calling profanely for Ruben and his breakfast. Ruben gasped, spun about, and went in his crippled run back toward the wagon.

  Chapter Seven

  Case Hyle got Bass Templeton as far as the creek and left him there, his horse tied nearby in some willows. Afterward, he returned to the herd, feeling no desire for breakfast, at all.

  He rode out as far as a little stubby knoll, dismounted up there, and gravely made and smoked a cigarette. He had washed at the creek but his bruises, if anything, looked worse after that cleansing. He sat near his horse, working the knuckles of his hands to prevent stiffness, and was still doing this when the sun came jumping out of the distant east. Simultaneously with this, a rider came loping forward around the herd toward his little knoll. Case smoked and watched this moving shape, and wondered what he should say when he determined that it was Ben Albright.

  By this time, Case knew, Templeton would be back in camp, the others would be preparing to move the herd out, and among people with even the slightest powers of observation, it would be no secret that he and Templeton had fought.

  Case did not know yet about Ruben. He could not therefore appreciate that Ben Albright and the others had been held breathless while the cook had given a graphically pantomimed and verbal description of that epic battle long before; even before Bass came riding in, looking as though he’d been attacked by a meat grinder. Nor could he know that the others back in camp, including Atlanta, had surmised the cause of that fight, and that each of them, according to his or her own private convictions, was now reacting accordingly as they saddled up to begin this new day’s work.

  Albright slowed his horse at the foot of Case’s little hill, put the beast to it, and climbed the slope. When his animal halted, slightly puffing, Ben got down and came forward. Before he spoke, or even put his keen glance upon Hyle though, he turned and for a long moment stood there gazing out and down at his herd of longhorns. Then, still with his back to Case, he said: “On cattle drives it’s always the unexpected that a fellow should expect, isn’t it?”

  Hyle did not answer. He got to his feet and leaned against his horse.

  Albright turned, studied Case’s battered face, and looked thoughtful. “I figured I could count on you two to show judgment,” he stated. “But then I knew if I brought Atlanta along this might happen. I reckon it’s more my fault than yours.”

  “He’d been eating his heart out,” Case said finally, speaking softly. “I didn’t know that.”

  “No, I expect none of us did. I should’ve suspected it if anyone should have. I’ve known Bass a long time. He’s an inward man sometimes...with things that are close to him, anyway.”

  “Of course, I’ll have to draw my time now,” Case said.

  Ben stood easy and loose. His frosty gaze was undecided and that bright yellow sun rising was turning his cheeks their accustomed dull bronze. He slowly drew forth a cigar, lit it, and scowled through the billow of smoke he made. He studied Case Hyle for a long time before saying: “That’ll be up to you, young man. I won’t fire you, if that’s what’s in your mind. These things happen, and given enough time they work themselves out.” Albright kept his gaze upon Case when he was finished. He was clearly trying to see beyond Hyl
e’s melancholy expression to the secret thoughts beyond.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Ben said, having decided to continue. “If you choose to go on with the drive, I’ll not meddle. And another thing...since you beat Bass fair and square, he won’t be your mortal enemy. You can trust him to face you any time that becomes necessary.”

  “Did he say I beat him fair and square?”

  “No. Ruben said that.”

  “Ruben?”

  Ben studied Case, and gradually began to smile. “You didn’t know he trailed after you, I see. Ruben’s like that. I know him pretty well. He trailed along and watched the whole thing. That’s what made him late getting breakfast served up.”

  Case squirmed. “I suppose,” he said dourly, “the old devil gave it to the whole camp, blow-by-blow.”

  Albright’s faint smile remained as he nodded, and echoed Case’s words. “Blow-by-blow. Ruben’s got a great imagination and he doesn’t ever forget anything he wants to remember. He has his faults, and they’re many, but he’s loyal and he’s as good a camp cook as ever lived. Another thing, Case...he likes you.”

  They stood for a time looking at one another. Then Ben, hearing a high, hooting cry down below, turned and watched Will Johns and Ferdinand Haight and Owen Wallace begin the day’s drive. He smoked his cigar, viewing this dusty, colorful scene, and said over his shoulder: “What of my niece, if you draw your time and ride on?” He turned and waited for his answer to that.

  Case, also seeing that great sea of dull red backs and tossing horns begin its northward ambling, said: “That’d be up to her, I reckon. Maybe if I rode on, it’d be best for her, anyway.”