The Loner 21, page 11
part #22 of The Loner Series
It would be a whole lot better if he could call Lukas out in front of the whole town and make him answer for being a damned sheepman. His standing would automatically rise and, if anybody bucked him, there’d be another chance to show the man he was.
So he stood and smoked idly, stare fixed on the store front. He’d just finished the cigarette when he saw his father and brother ride into town. Chris’s face darkened. He didn’t want them around or to see him. Not until he’d settled with Lukas.
But Carver sighted him and came straight down for him and, when Chris backed into the laneway mouth, Carver called out his name and then hurried his horse on. Catching up with his son, Carver growled:
“You don’t know me, boy?”
Chris flicked the spent cigarette away and scowled blackly up at him. Lom stayed back, keeping his distance, wanting no part of this family reunion.
“I know you, Pa, damn you, but don’t want no part of you. I told you, keep away from me until I get things properly settled.”
“You got them settled all right,” Carver shot at him. “You got a whole town barkin’ at your heels, boy.”
“How’s thet?” Chris asked.
“We run across your friend Dahl, on the trail in. You know where Dahl was headin’?”
Chris stared silently up at him.
“To fetch in Durant. You remember, Durant, don’t you, who come at us up at the Mann barn, put a slug into Lom and one into me?”
“I know Durant,” Chris admitted, his bitterness lessening.
“Well, you should, boy, because this town is goin’ to make Durant sheriff. Now what you done thet Durant can come after you?”
“None of your damn business,” Chris growled.
Carver worked his face in heavy surprise. “None of my business, isn’t it, boy. Well, think again. We fixed that traitor Dahl for you so we’re in, Lom and me, all the way. You ain’t takin’ over no town unless you walk along with us. You don’t, the buzzards can have you.”
Chris wiped a hand roughly across his face. The right side of his face began to twitch and, seeing this, Carver was immediately worried.
“You okay, boy?” he asked. “You breakin’ down?”
“I’m all right. I’m fine.”
“Don’t figure you are, boy. I seen thet itch in a man once before. He went loco, got himself shot down like a mad dog.”
Chris hissed meanly through his teeth. “Just leave me be, Pa. It don’t matter about Durant. I can take him. I’ll get the rest of those polecat sheepmen too, you’ll see. This is goin’ to be my town.”
Carver ignored his boasting. “What other sheepmen, boy? What you done already?”
Chris lifted his hand and counted off on his fingers. “I got Townsend and Meagher. Lukas is next.”
“You killed them, boy?”
“Why not?” Chris asked back.
Carver licked his lips and looked anxiously around him. He couldn’t remember when he’d last sweated, but his skin prickled right then.
“Then you gone too far, boy,” the old man said. “You ain’t left yourself no way back.”
“I’m not lookin’ for a way back, damn you. I’m going forward, all the way.”
“On your own, boy,” Carver said. “Those dead’ll be found. Men will come for you.”
“What about Dahl, Pa?” Lom suddenly put in. “He’ll be found too, won’t he, where we left him for somebody to stumble across.”
“Nobody will mourn Dahl’s accident,” Carver excused himself. “So thet’s no worry. But it won’t take folks long to figure out what happened to Townsend and Meagher. You done it wrong, boy. You should have waited.”
Even while Carver was upbraiding his son for his stupidity, Sally Mann, riding at the head of the Townsend widow’s buckboard came into the street’s end. Carver jumped down from the saddle and pushed his horse into the laneway mouth. He then ordered Lom to find cover. Standing at the top of the laneway looking deeply worried, Carver swore to himself.
Then, “Was you seen at Townsend’s, boy?” he asked Chris.
“I don’t think so.”
“What you mean you don’t think so, boy? You got to be sure!” Chris scrubbed a hand tiredly across the back of his neck. A lot of color had gone from his face and he looked older than his twenty-seven years. He somehow looked frailer too, more susceptible to pressures.
Carver was deeply worried.
“Well, all we can do is wait and see. But why ain’t Durant with her?”
Chris gave him no answer. Carver did his own answering. “I’ll tell you why. Because thet Townsend woman went across to the Mann place and reported her husband’s killing. And Durant went back to her place to check. What’d he find, Chris?”
Chris shrugged, not caring.
“Tracks, boy, clear tracks which could lead a smart man like Durant onto your trail.”
“Maybe,” Chris admitted carelessly. “Who cares?”
“I care, damn you. They follow you to Townsend and then to Meagher’s eh? Where else you been?”
“To Lukas’. He wasn’t at home. He’s here in town, over in the store.”
Carver swore vilely. “And you don’t think Durant won’t come in, wantin’ thet Mann girl like he does, eh?”
“Who says he does? Durant don’t belong here. I can take him and will and nobody will give a spit. Then we tie up the town, Pa.”
“We?” Carver seized on the word. “Like thet now, is it?”
Chris drew himself to full height and cleaned his hands down his Levi’s. He was thoughtfully silent for a long time before he pushed his father roughly aside and snarled:
“I don’t care how it is, Pa. Just leave me be. You wasted too much time. I got sick of waitin’. I couldn’t sleep nights, wonderin’ when you was goin’ to do what you promised. I got sick of waitin’ and sick of hearin’ you talk and sick of nobody not believin’ I was as good as I am. Today they’ll know they made a mistake.”
Chris Farrar moved out of the laneway mouth, went across the boardwalk and into the street. Carver let him go and drew back in the laneway shadows to watch, but to keep out of it.
Chris Farrar was halfway across the street and approaching the store when Blake Durant came into the bottom of the laneway, drawing a horse after him. Carver wheeled at the sound behind him. When he saw Durant he swore violently.
Lom said, “It’s him. Durant.”
“I can see, boy,” Carver hissed.
“What ... what’ll he do, Pa?”
“Any damn thing he likes. He’s got nothin’ on us. On Chris maybe, if he puts things together right. But not on us. You just shut down, boy.”
Lom was quite willing to do that.
Blake Durant came on. When he was fifteen paces from Carver he stopped and said quietly, “You didn’t finish Dahl off, Farrar. He lived to talk.”
Carver gaped at him. “You’re lyin’. I put two slugs right into him. I ...”
“That’s all we want to know,” said Lars Kedge who showed himself at the corner of the boardwalk, gun in hand. “By your own fool words, Farrar, you’ve branded yourself. Drop off thet gunbelt and come quietly.”
Carver wheeled, glaring at the saloon keeper. Then he looked menacingly at Lom. Lom moved away from him.
Carver barked, “Boy?”
Lom shook his head and kept backing off. “I got places to go, Pa. I ain’t got no feelin’ for you or Chris any more. I guess I never did have. But I didn’t know what to do or where to go.”
“By the livin’ hell,” Carver screamed. “No kin of mine is goin’ to back out on me.” He reached for his gun.
Blake Durant cautioned, “Don’t Farrar!”
Farrar heeled around again, drawing his gun. His lips peeled back showing black stumps of teeth. Saliva ran out of the corners of his mouth. His body went into a crouch and he swore violently.
And Lars Kedge shot him down. Carver’s gun flew from his fingers and he hit the ground and turned, looking back. Seeing the smoke wafting away from the barrel of Kedge’s gun he grinned evilly. “My boy’ll take you apart, Kedge,” he croaked. “This whole town, like I planned.”
Then his head turned the other way and he looked at Durant. “Scum!” he breathed out and dust blew away from his bloodying lips. Then his head dropped and he said no more.
Blake Durant pulled the horse out of the laneway mouth, motioning Kedge to keep back out of the way. He walked the horse right out into the street. Chris Farrar, having heard the single shot, had backed a little way towards the laneway mouth. But when he saw Durant he stopped dead in his tracks and held his fingers curled over the butt of his gun.
Durant pointed to the horse. “When I found a man named Meagher dead, his head had been blown apart from behind. Whoever killed him grabbed his hair to check if he was dead. That man then wiped his hands clean of blood and hair down the shoulder of his horse. This is that horse and if you own it, Farrar, I’m charging you with the murder of a range man.”
Chris Farrar put his hand onto his gun butt. Durant pushed his horse clear and planted his feet wide.
He said, “You’re sick, mister. Don’t make me kill you.”
“Sick?” Chris called out. “Who says I’m sick? I’m fine and I can take you, Durant!”
Kedge, who had caught the horse then called out, “This is your horse Farrar and, like Durant says, there’s blood and hair on his shoulder. You couldn’t even think straight enough to clean your hands someplace else. So you’re sick all right, real sick in the head.”
Chris Farrar went into a crouch and, baring his teeth, drew his gun. But before he could level the weapon, Durant drew and fired. His first shot tore open Farrar’s forearm and even though the gun kicked out of his hand, Farrar caught it. He stood defiantly still, no pain in his face.
Then he lifted the gun a second time. Blake Durant let out a long sigh and fired again. This time Durant’s bullet took Chris Farrar in the chest and sent him reeling several paces before his legs buckled under him and he fell onto his back. Blod Lukas stepped from the boardwalk and took the gun out of his bloodied fingers. Chris Farrar stared up at him and snarled:
“Damn your stink, Lukas.”
Then he died.
On the boardwalk, Lars Kedge held his gun on Lom Farrar and said, “What about you, Lom?”
Lom looked down at the motionless form of his dead father and said dully, “I got some buryin’ to do, Kedge.”
“And then?’
“South. Way south.”
“The sooner the better, Lom,” Kedge said. “The Farrar name’s left a stink here worse than thet left by sheep.”
Lom nodded his acceptance of this and picked his father’s frail body from the dust. He then caught Chris’s horse, put his father’s body across it, and then lay Chris’s body alongside his father’s. When he was on his own horse, leading the heavily burdened animals from town, he passed Blake Durant who had brought Sundown into the front street. Lom paused long enough to study Durant intently. But there was no sadness in Durant’s eyes, nor regret, nor bitterness.
Durant said, “It had to be.”
Lom nodded and rode on and minutes later, Blake Durant followed him. As he passed the railyards going out of town a freight train chugged into the depot. Durant waited for it to come to a halt, then saw sheep poking their woolly heads through the close-fitted bars. He turned Sundown and rode on.
Sally Mann stood at the door of the barn and watched Durant saddle up his big black. In her hand she held a letter which she showed him.
“It’s from my brother, Jedro. He’s coming home.”
“That’s fine,” Durant said.
Sally walked towards him and put her hands on his shoulders. “Do you have to go on, Blake?” she asked.
Durant tightened the cinch strap under Sundown and the big black blew out pent-up breath.
Durant’s face clouded and his mouth tightened a little. He let his look sweep over her comely body and Sally felt no embarrassment. For her, Durant had the right to look at her any way he pleased.
She rose on her toes and pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him hard. His response sent waves of need through her and, when she drew back, scarcely able to get her breath, her eyes were shining.
“Last night,” Durant said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, Blake? For making me feel more like a woman than I ever dreamed I could feel? For giving me a memory which will last me a lifetime?”
“You shouldn’t waste your whole life with a memory, Sally,” he said.
“But you are, Blake. I know that. Who is she?”
Durant swung onto Sundown. The black shifted impatiently under him, as if it knew that the big man wanted to move on and couldn’t understand the delay.
“She’s a long time back,” Durant explained to the uplifted worried face.
“And you can’t forget?” Sally asked.
Durant looked off into the distance. Out there was quiet and time. In the dust and distance, the answer might be waiting for him. It did not exist here. Although, if he worked on it, it just might. But uncertainty had ridden with him a long time now and would continue to ride with him. He needed to move on.
“We’re on different trails, Sally,” he said solemnly. “You want certain things and I want others.”
Tears came into her eyes, but she blinked them away and smiled bravely. “You might come back one day,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, but there was no promise in the words and he reached for her hand which she had laid on the side of the saddle. As Sundown moved forward their touch lingered and then was broken. He did not look back but he could still picture her plainly, a good woman, needing a man. He knew she’d find one.
And with that thought, he heeled Sundown to a hard run.
About the Author
Sheldon B. Cole was one of many pseudonyms used by prolific Australian writer Desmond Robert Dunn (6 November 1929-5 May 2003). In addition to four crime novels published under his own name, Des was a tireless western writer whose career spanned more than fifty years and well in excess of 400 oaters. These quick-moving, vivid and always compelling stories appeared under such pen-names as Shad Denver, Gunn Halliday, Adam Brady, Brett Iverson, Matt Cregan, Walt Renwick and Morgan Culp. He is also said to have written a number of the ever-popular Larry Kent P.I. novels, but at this late date author attribution is almost impossible. He married and divorced twice, and had three children. He died at the age of 73 in Brisbane, Queensland.
Read more about the author
The Loner Series by Sheldon B. Cole
Where Guns Talk
Trail to Nowhere
Boothill is Anywhere
Brand of the Forgotten
Kill or Hang!
Outcast County
Somewhere—A Sundown
“Die, Damn You, Die!”
Losers Die Fast
Day of the Damned
Sundown Comes Suddenly
Carne’s Raiders
Draw Fast—Or Die
The Testament Trail
Beat the Drum Slowly
Mask of a Man
No Middle Trail
The Guns of Gabriel
Losers Don’t Count
Only One Survives
The Vengeance Man
… And more to come every other month!
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Sheldon B. Cole, The Loner 21
