Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John - Страница 32

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“If that’s the way it has to be.”

“It’s the only way you’ll beat him,” Dancey said. “And even then he’ll fight harder than you will. He’s got his family and his land at stake.”

Vern shook his head. “This has gone beyond arguing over land.”

“You’ve got three hundred horses up in the high pastures,” Dancey said. “When you bring them down they’re going to have water. That’s the point of all the talk. Nothing else. You’ve got horses relying on you. He’s got the people. Now who do you think’s going to swing the hardest?”

Vern watched the Dodd brothers coming, leading the horses, then looked at Dancey again. “I’ll give him a chance to go up to Fort Buchanan peacefully. If he refuses, that’s up to him.”

Dancey shook his head. “You’ll have to kill him.”

“I said it’s up to him.”

“Maybe you’d hold back.” Dancey watched the Dodd brothers approaching. “But they wouldn’t. They’d give up a month’s pay to draw on him.” Dancey hesitated, and when Vern said nothing he added, “You’ve got yourself talked into something you don’t even believe in.”

“Listen,” Vern said tightly, “I’ve said it, if he won’t come peacefully, we’ll shoot him out.”

“But you’re hoping he’ll listen to you.”

“I don’t care now.”

“He won’t,” Dancey said. “And not one person in his family would. I saw that yesterday. I saw it in his wife and kids, his little boy standing there watching his daddy get rawhided and the kid not even flinching or crying or looking the other way. The man’s family is with him, Vern. They’re part of him. That’s why when you fight him you’ll think you’re fighting five men, not just one.”

“There’ll be four of us, Bill,” Vern said. “So that almost evens it.” He started down the steps.

“Three,” Dancey said. “I’ll drive your horses. I will this time. But I won’t take part in what you’re doing.”

Vern was looking up at Dancey again, studying him, but he said only, “All right, Bill,” as if he had started to say something else but changed his mind. He moved to his horse and mounted, not looking at Dancey now, and led the two Dodd brothers out of the yard.

They’ll kill Cable, Dancey thought, watching them go. But they’ll pay for it, and not all three of them will come back.

Cable was in the barn when Luz Acaso came.

Earlier, while he was fixing something to eat and had gone to the river for a bucket of water, he saw Kidston’s mares and foals out on the meadow. He had planned to run them two days ago, but Manuel had come and he had forgotten about the horses until now. So after breakfast he mounted the sorrel and again chased the herd up the curving sweep of the valley to Kidston land.

He was back, less than an hour later, and leading the sorrel into the barn, when he heard the horse coming down through the pines from the ridge trail. He waited. Then, seeing Luz Acaso appear out of the trees and round the adobe to the front yard, Cable came out of the barn. But in the same moment he stepped back inside again.

Two riders were coming along the bank of the river on the meadow side. Then, as they jumped their horses down the bank, starting across the river, Cable turned quickly to the sorrel. He drew the Spencer from the saddle, skirted the rectangle of light on the barn floor and edged close to the open doorway.

From this angle, looking past the corner of the house, he saw Luz Acaso first, Luz standing close to her dun horse now, staring out across the yard. Then beyond her, he saw the two riders come out of the willows. One was Vern Kidston. Cable recognized him right away. The other was one of the Dodd brothers, and Cable was almost sure it was the one named Austin.

But why didn’t they sneak up?

No, they couldn’t have seen him. He had stayed close to the trees coming back from running the horses and he had been in the yard, after that, only a moment. Watching them now, he was thinking: If they wanted to kill you they would have sneaked up.

Unless-he thought-there were more than just the two of them. Vern could be drawing him out. Wanting him to show his position, if he was here.

So wait a minute. Just watch them.

But there was Luz to think of.

His gaze returned to the girl. She was facing Vern, still standing by her horse; but now, as Cable watched, she dropped the reins and moved toward the two riders, walking unhurriedly and with barely a trace of movement beneath the white length of her skirt. Vern Kidston came off his saddle as she approached them.

Cable heard him ask, “Where is he?” the words faint and barely carrying to him. Luz spoke. There was no sound but he saw her shrug and gesture with her hands. Then Kidston spoke again, a sound reaching Cable but without meaning, and he saw Luz shake her head.

For several minutes they stood close to each other, Luz looking up at Kidston and now and again making small gestures with her hands, until, abruptly, Vern took her by the arm. Luz resisted, trying to pull away, but his grip held firmly. Vern walked her to the dun, helped her onto the saddle and the moment she was seated, slapped the horse sharply across the rump. He watched her until she passed into the aspen stand a dozen yards beyond the adobe, then motioned to Austin Dodd.

Austin caught up the reins of Vern’s horse and came on. Cable watched him, wondering where the other Dodd brother was. Wynn. He had seen them only twice, but still he could not picture one without the other. Perhaps Wynn was close by. Perhaps that was part of these two standing out in the open.

Austin reached Vern and handed him the reins. Cable waited. Would Vern mount and ride out? If he did, it would be over. Over for this time, Cable thought. Then he would wait for the next time-then the next, and the time after that. Unless you do something now, Cable thought.

Tell him, and make it plain-

No, Cable knew that to make his stand clear and unmistakably plain, without the hint of a doubt, he would have to start shooting right now, right this second. And that was something he couldn’t do.

He did not see this in his mind during the moments of waiting. He didn’t argue it with himself; but the doubt, the conscience, the whatever it was that made him hesitate and be unsure of himself, was part of him and it held him from killing Vern Kidston now just as it had prevented him from pulling the trigger once before.

Briefly, he did think: You can be too honest with yourself and lose everything. He hesitated because this was a simple principle, a matter of almost black or white, and whatever shades of gray appeared, whatever doubts he might have, were still not strong enough to allow him to shoot a man in cold blood.

Though there was more to it than that. A simple principle, but not a simple matter. Not something as brutally, honestly simple as war. He couldn’t shoot Vern in cold blood. But if he could…If the urge to end this was stronger than anything else, would his shooting Vern end it? Would he be sure of getting Austin, too? Then Wynn and Dancey and Duane…and how many more were there?

It wasn’t good to think. That was the trouble, thinking about it and seeing it as black and white and good and bad and war or not war. Wouldn’t it be good if they could go back six days and start over and not have the Kidstons here or Janroe, not having anything that has happened happen, not even in a dream?

No, it was not merely a question of not being able to shoot Vern in cold blood. It never was just that. It was being afraid, too, of what would happen to his family. To him, and then to his family.

If they would fight, he thought. If they would hurry the hell up and fight, you could fight back and there would be nothing else but that to think about and there wouldn’t even be time to think about that.

He saw Vern Kidston draw his revolver. He saw Austin Dodd dismounting, pulling a Sharps rifle from his saddle boot. Both men walked toward the adobe and within a few strides, from this angle, watching them from the barn and looking past the front corner of the house, they passed from Cable’s view.

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