Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John - Страница 12

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“Take your flag with you.”

“You can’t pull a gun during a truce!”

“It’s against the rules?”

Duane controlled his voice. “It is a question of honor. Something far beyond your understanding.”

Royce stood with the truce-flag carbine cradled over one arm, holding it as if he’d forgotten it was there. “He makes it worthwhile. You got to give him that.”

“Major”-Joe Bob’s voice-“are you a chance-taking man? I was thinking, if you were quick on your feet-”

“I told you to keep out of this!” Duane snapped the words at him.

Looking at Duane as he spoke, at him and past him, Cable saw the horse and rider coming up out of the river, crossing the sand flat, climbing the bank now.

“I was just asking,” Joe Bob said lazily. “If you thought you could flatten quick enough, we’d cut him in two pieces.”

The rider approached them now, walking his horse out of the willows. A moment before they heard the hoof sounds, Cable said, “Tell your man to stay where he is.”

Joe Bob saw him first and called out, “Vern, you’re missing it!” Royce and Dancey turned as Joe Bob spoke, but Duane’s eyes held on Cable.

“You’ve waited too long,” Duane said.

Cable backed off a half step, still holding the Walker on Duane; but now he watched Vern Kidston as he approached from beyond Dancey, passing him now, sitting heavily and slightly stooped in the saddle, his eyes on Cable as he came unhurriedly toward him. A few yards away he stopped but made no move to dismount.

With his hat forward and low over his eyes, the upper half of his face was in shadow, and a full mustache covering the corners of his mouth gave him a serious, solemn look. He was younger than Duane-perhaps in his late thirties-and had none of Duane’s physical characteristics. Vern was considerably taller, but that was not apparent now. The contrast was in their bearing and Cable noticed it at once. Vern was Vern, without being conscious of himself. Thoughts could be in his mind, but he did not give them away. You were aware of only the man, an iron-willed man whose authority no one here questioned. In contrast, Duane could be anyone disguised as a man.

Vern Kidston sat with his hands crossed limply over the saddle horn. He sat relaxed, obviously at ease, staring down at this man with the Walker Colt. Then, unexpectedly, his eyes moved to Bill Dancey.

“You were supposed to meet me this morning. Coming back I stopped up on the summer meadow and waited two hours for you.”

“Duane says come with him else I was through,” Dancey said calmly, though a hint of anger showed in his bearded face. “Maybe we ought to clear this up, just who I take orders from.”

Vern Kidston looked at his brother then. “I go up to Buchanan for one day and you start taking over.”

“I’d say running this man off your land is considerably more important than selling a few horses,” Duane said coldly.

“You would, uh?” Vern’s gaze shifted. His eyes went to the house, then lowered. “So you’re Cable.”

Cable looked up at him. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I guess you have.”

“Vern”-it was Duane’s voice-“he pulled his gun under a sign of truce!”

Kidston looked at his brother. “I’d say the issue is he’s still holding it.” His eyes returned to Cable. “One man standing off four.” He paused thoughtfully. “His Colt gun doesn’t look that big to me.”

Cable moved the Walker from Duane to Vern. “How does it look now?”

Vern seemed almost to smile. “There’s seven miles of nerve between pointing a gun and pulling the trigger.”

Cable stared at him, feeling his hope of reasoning with Kidston dissolve. But it was momentary. It was there with the thought: He’s like the rest of them. His mind’s made up and there’s no arguing with him. Then the feeling was gone and the cold rage crept back into him, through him, and he told himself: But you don’t budge. You know that, don’t you? Not one inch of ground.

“Mr. Kidston,” Cable said flatly, “I’ve fought for this land before. I’ve even had to kill for it. I’m not proud of saying that, but it’s a fact. And if I have to, I’ll kill for it again. Now if you don’t think this land belongs to me, do something about it.”

“I understand you have a family,” Kidston said.

“I’ll worry about my family.”

“They wouldn’t want to see you killed right before their eyes.”

Cable cocked his wrist and the Walker was pointed directly at Vern’s face. “It’s your move, Mr. Kidston.”

Vern sat relaxed, his hands still crossed on the saddle horn. “You know you wouldn’t have one chance of coming out of this alive.

“How good are your chances?”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have time to pull the trigger.”

“If you think they can shoot me before I do, give the word.”

Twenty feet to Cable’s right, Joe Bob said, “Wait him out, Vern. He can’t stand like that all day. Soon as his arm comes down I’ll put one clean through him.”

Dancey said, “And the second you move the shotgun cuts you in two.”

Vern’s eyes went to the house. “His wife?”

“Look close,” Dancey said. “You see twin barrels peeking out the window. I’d say she could hold it resting on the ledge longer than we can stand here.”

Vern studied the house for some moments before his gaze returned to Cable. “You’d bring your wife into it? Risk her life for a piece of land?”

“My wife killed a Chiricahua Apache ten feet from where you’re standing,” Cable said bluntly. “They came like you’ve come and she killed to defend our home. Maybe you understand that. If you don’t, I’ll say only this. My wife will kill again if she has to, and so will I.”

Thoughtfully, slowly, Kidston said, “Maybe you would.” A silence followed until his eyes moved to Duane. “Go on home. Take your cavalry and get.”

“I’m going,” Duane said coldly. “I’m going to Fort Buchanan. If you can’t handle this man, the army can.”

“Duane, you’re going home.”

“I have your word you’ll attend to him?”

“Go on, get out of here.”

Duane hesitated, as if thinking of a way to salvage his self-respect, then turned without a word and walked off.

Kidston looked at his three riders. None of them had moved. “Go with him. And take your gear.”

They stood lingeringly until Vern’s gaze returned to Cable. That dismissed them and they moved away, picked up the gear Cable had piled by the barn and followed Duane to the willows.

“Well,” Cable said, “are we going to live together?”

“I don’t think you’ll last.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Kidston said quietly, “you’re one man; because you’ve got a family; because your stomach’s going to be tied in a knot wondering when I’m coming. You won’t sleep. And every time there’s a sound you’ll jump out of your skin… Your wife will tell you it isn’t worth it; and after a while, after her nerves are worn raw, she’ll stop speaking to you and acting like a wife to you, and you won’t see a spark of life in her.”

Cable’s gaze went to the house and he called out, “Martha!” After a moment the door opened and Martha came out with the shotgun under her arm. Kidston watched her, removing his hat as she neared them and holding it in his hand. He stood with the sun shining in his face and on his hair that was dark and straight and pressed tightly to his skull with perspiration. He nodded as Cable introduced them and put on his hat again.

“Mr. Kidston says we’ll leave because we won’t be able to stand it,” Cable said now. “He says the waiting and not knowing will wear our nerves raw and in the end we’ll leave of our own accord.”

“What did you say?” Martha asked.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I don’t suppose there’s much you could.” She looked off toward the willows, seeing the men there mounting and starting across the river, then looked at her husband again. “Well, Cabe,” she said, “are you going to throw Mr. Kidston out or ask him in for coffee?”

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