Rough Justice Read online

  “Because Dale McAfee ain’t fit to have Colonel King wipe his feet on him, that’s why.”

  Bannion nodded. He had this much of the mystery worked out already. He also thought he had more of it worked out, too. Seeking support for this other idea, he said: “You served under him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. And, by God, I’m proud of it, too. I was his forage master. I was a captain in King’s Confederate Raiders. Now you go ahead an’ make something out o’ that, Doyle Bannion!”

  “No,” the sheriff replied quietly, “I won’t make anything out of it, Rufus. I’m just old enough to remember how it was after the war.”

  “You think you know,” Rufus said with bitterness. “You think you know, Doyle, but you don’t. Hunted like animals, prices on our heads, scairt to lie down at night without a brace o’ cocked pistols to hand. Running night an’ day. You think you know....”

  Bannion went over to the iron fence. He leaned against it. “You shouldn’t have done it though, Rufus.”

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have. Just one!”

  “Because the colonel wouldn’t have wanted it to end like this. That’s one reason. Another one is because, by bringing his sons here, you’ve resurrected a lot of the old bitterness...you’ve made it just about certain that some men are going to die.”

  “Dale McAfee’s going to die, you mean. He deserves to an’ you damn’ well know it, Sheriff. He didn’t have to kill the colonel. He didn’t have to shoot at all, only he’s mean an’ lowdown like a sidewinder, drunk or sober. He saw the colonel behind that Box D cowboy. He just didn’t give a damn, so he fired.”

  Bannion turned and looked steadily into Rufus Paige’s muddy old eyes, saw the ferocity there and said no more. These old men from another time were a different breed. What they held to be right, they willingly died to preserve. No one ever talked them out of a principle. Bannion knew he could not talk this old man out of his convictions. He pushed off the fence.

  “Go home, Rufus. This has been a long ride for you. Good night.”

  Bannion started down off cemetery hill toward his horse.

  Chapter Six

  Doyle Bannion made a bad mistake, but he knew nothing of it until the following morning. It was a common mistake. An error of underestimation. He had not thought, when he’d ridden out of Perdition Wells to induce John Rockland to keep Dale McAfee at the headquarters ranch, that the King brothers were set to strike. Perhaps he should have known that. In the after years he thought often that he certainly should have. But a man’s conscience is more nagging than a wife and usually it is about as lacking in understanding as well.

  Bannion hadn’t been gone from Perdition Wells twenty minutes when all four of the King brothers walked out of the Union Eagle, got their saddled horses from the livery barn, and struck out northward in a tight group.

  Around them lay the prairie, the silence of this night, and the softly lighted silvery gloom. The moon was a quarter full and tipped. There was a blue-white blaze of stars and an arched vault of soft, deep purple stretching from earth’s unseen curving in all directions to the greatest height of infinity.

  They traveled in full silence, having no need for talk, with cold, impersonal Al King leading the way upon his big Roman-nosed buckskin horse, pacing off the open miles and thinking ahead to what must be done.

  All the decisions had been made, and Austin, the youngest, rode now with destiny beside him and his seasoned gun hand lying easy upon a saddle swell. Unless McAfee said differently, it would be young Austin King, fiercest of the lot, who McAfee would face this night.

  They by-passed the north-south arroyo Al had earlier ridden into and up out of. They got to the bois d’arc thicket where Sheriff Bannion had tied his horse. They sat a moment, gauging the night for sounds, heard only the bawl of a cow somewhere distant and the shrill answer from her calf, and they dismounted, tied their beasts, and went as far as the pale plain. There they halted again to let Al take the lead up that little onward ridge.

  From their achieved eminence the four west Texans looked down where a little fire burned, saw those ringed-around faces at that fire, and paused just long enough to exchange a silent look among themselves, then they split up, going forward and downward in four different directions.

  * * * * *

  At John Rockland’s holding grounds seven men sat relaxed with firelight shadowing their countenances with its constant writhing. Some of them smoked. Some sat with drooping eyes. All of them were lounging in that good comfort that range men seek with day’s ending, their cares for this little time forgotten, their muscles all loose and soft, their bellies pleasantly glowing from sourdough bread, beans, and black coffee.

  “They’ll be west toward the old Comanche burial ground,” said a sprawled rider, speaking of the cattle they would begin to round up when dawn came again. “I seen a lot of ’em over there last month when I was....”

  “Naw,” interrupted a narrow-faced, cold-eyed man with a black hat pushed back and an ivory-butted gun lashed to his leg. “Hell, Ira, last month might as well have been last summer. They’re over by the hot springs, east of here.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Ira said, lifting his eyes and sounding nettled.

  Dale McAfee shrugged, contemptuous of the cowboy’s irritation. He was a good man with a gun and they all knew it. Also, he was John Rockland’s range boss. Ira’s anger would subside from the weight of these two considerations.

  “I don’t know it, but I’ll lay you a little bet.”

  Ira hung fire over his reply to this as another man spoke up: “Rider coming.”

  John Rockland, who was squatting next to his foreman, jerked his head up and around, showing that something other than this idle campfire talk was in his mind. He got up and stood looking, his square jaw and high-bridged nose hawk-like in that reddish glow.

  Several of the others also rose up. Among them was Dale McAfee. That earlier quietude vanished in an instant. Every man among them was suddenly alert and wary, in each of their minds the same bleak thoughts.

  A man farther back than the others blew out his breath. “It’s Miss Judy,” he said, sounding relieved.

  Rockland went past to meet the rider, his face turning a little unpleasant because he was running two thoughts together and totaling them unpleasantly.

  “What are you doing out here?” he said at once, when Judith reined down. “It’s not a good idea for you to be riding around alone in the night, Judy.”

  She sat for a moment, looking at her father. Then she swung down without speaking and gazed at the other faces. Some of that earlier tenseness lingered in the eyes of the men and around their flattened lips. She saw this, understood the reason for it, and even felt a little of that apprehension herself.

  “I came out to ride back with you,” she finally said to her father.

  One of the men, an old Texas Star hand, stooped, caught up a metal pot, and filled a tin cup with black coffee. He smiled at Judy and held the cup out to her.

  She took it, saying: “Jack, you’re a gentleman.”

  The old rider’s rough, weathered face creased into a hundred deep wrinkles and his square white teeth flashed.

  “Are you ready to go back now?” she asked her father over the cup’s rim, watching him closely. “I want to talk to you.”

  John Rockland looked around, shrugged, and said: “I suppose so, honey. Ira, fetch my horse, will you?” He stood looking at his men.

  They returned his look. Something passed back and forth, something masculine and solid. Then Ira came on with Rockland’s animal, and the owner of Texas Star stepped up. Judy handed back her coffee cup and mounted, also. The men watched how she did this with strong approval. Judith Rockland was a fit daughter for her father. Along with his gun-metal eyes, she had his poise and his strength. They waved when Judith waved and stood on, watching those two
people jog southward down a black corridor of the night.

  They were still standing like that, watching, each with his own thoughts, when a quiet voice behind them cut across those thoughts in a chilly way.

  “Stand easy, men. Don’t make a move...none of you.”

  They froze, knowing at once the identity of that man hidden by the night, knowing his reason for being here, and his full intention.

  Out of the eastern shadows came a tall, pale-eyed silhouette, assuming substance and size and outline as he approached. He had a cocked six-gun in his fist. Without a word or a wasted motion, this stranger went among them, throwing their holstered weapons out into the dark. He disarmed every one of them except Dale McAfee. They simply stared at him, then he moved back out again where they could only scarcely make him out.

  “All of you but McAfee sit down again,” someone snapped.

  Rockland’s men turned, moving carefully and looking around in the night. They sat, knowing there would be four men hidden there in the darkness. They were not cowed, but they were unarmed—helpless, so they did as they were told and waited.

  “McAfee!”

  This was a different voice now. It came from west of the little guttering fire and it sounded young, bell-clear, and unmistakably challenging.

  McAfee shifted, turning slightly at the waist. “Step up where I can see you!” he called. “You act like a bunch of....”

  “Shut up!”

  That was another new voice. It was a ripped-out, deadly voice, and Dale McAfee, brought up short by it, estimated that this other man was somewhere behind him in a southerly direction.

  A slowly pacing man came gradually into sight out of the west. Firelight reached him faintly, showing a smoothness to his face, a rippling youthfulness to his sinewy build, and an unwaveringly solid menace in the way he fixed the Texas Star’s foreman with his deeply sunken eyes.

  This man said: “McAfee, you’re going to get your chance. Don’t worry about the others interfering.”

  “I’m not worrying,” McAfee replied, his sharp face getting as tight as wire. “You better be real fast, sonny.”

  The tall youth said nothing. He had one shoulder down a little, one hand curved at the fingers, and both his knees sprung the slightest bit.

  The seated Texas Star men were scarcely breathing. The night air had a sharp scent suddenly, and the vision of every man at this place was inexplicably more acute than it ever normally was.

  “You know why, don’t you, McAfee?”

  “Sure I know. Because that old man got in the way and stopped one accidentally. Hell, I didn’t even know him. He just got in the way.”

  “You could’ve waited. You could’ve told him to get clear.”

  McAfee said nothing. He pushed his feet a little farther apart. He very gently set his stance and curved his body inward at the waist so that his right arm and hand were hanging correctly.

  “I guess the old man didn’t mean anything to you, McAfee,” said the youth. “I guess you figured him for just some old derelict who maybe needed killing.”

  “No, I didn’t figure to kill him,” McAfee said, telling the truth. Then he added: “What the hell...he was old enough, anyway.”

  “So are you, McAfee.”

  McAfee was no coward. He had met no men thus far in his life who could match his craftiness or his gunmanship. He had not the least doubt that the young man over that intervening dark distance from him was no exception to this. What troubled him was the other three, out in the night somewhere, with drawn, cocked guns.

  “Maybe I’m old enough to die,” McAfee said to Austin King. “But at least I don’t need a pack of wolves to back me up when I fight, sonny.”

  That quiet-toned voice from a northerly direction said: “Rest easy about that, McAfee. We’re here just to keep your Texas Star men from joining in with you on the fight.”

  “And,” McAfee stated, speaking a little louder without taking his narrowed gaze off young Austin, “if I down your brother here...you’re not going to jump me, too?”

  “No,” Ray King answered from the north of the camp. “Not like you think. But if you kill our brother, why then you’ll meet another one of us. And if you kill him, still another of us. You’ll die here tonight, McAfee, or you’ll meet us one at a time until you do die.”

  McAfee rocked up in his boots the slightest bit. He said to Austin: “That’s fair enough. Maybe that’s the way it should be. I didn’t mean to kill that old man, but I sure ’nough did kill him. Maybe it’s right I got to kill you boys of his one at a time.” McAfee paused, breathed deeply in and deeply out, before continuing with: “All right. Any time you’re ready, sonny.”

  That sharp scent in the night became instantly more acute. The Texas Star men sat without breathing. The stars seemed closer, brighter, harder. There was not a sound anywhere.

  Austin’s right wrist and hand moved in a barely perceptible blur. McAfee was moving, also. One shot rang out, one long dagger of red flame erupted. There was a second shot but it went toward the ground. That second bullet tore up a great gout of sod. Dale McAfee staggered, his knees turned loose, and he went down against the ground with a little rustling sound. He did not move again.

  A long mile and a half to the south, where John Rockland was riding beside his daughter, there came upon the late night air a distinct shock wave, a very faint, very distant sound of two nearly simultaneous pistol shots. Rockland yanked his reins back. He tilted his head, listening, then swiftly asked: “What was that?”

  Judith’s eyes turned black as they widened. She did not answer. She did not have to because they both knew what those faint popping sounds were. They also both guessed what they meant and why.

  “Go home,” John Rockland said, spinning his horse, hooking the beast savagely with his spurs and lunging away in the direction from which they had just come.

  Judy followed him. She ran on down the darkness with a bleakness upon her spirit that made her features ugly and sere and vengeful. She did not race near her father until he slowed within sight of that dying pencil of flame at the holding ground. Then she hauled back to dismount and did not look at her father at all.

  Ahead, Texas Star’s cowboys were standing silently above a flattened shape upon the earth. They turned as John Rockland came up, stepping out in his longest stride. They moved back a little so that their boss could see. They watched Rockland draw up suddenly and stand there, his face wintery, his eyes ice-like.

  “Was it them?” Rockland demanded.

  The riders nodded. One of them murmured: “They was out there in the night. I reckon they was out there when Miss Judy rode up. They waited. After you rode off, they called McAfee.”

  “All four of them?”

  Ira answered truthfully: “Only one of ’em called out McAfee. The others stood back. Mister Rockland, it was a fair fight.”

  “Yes,” Rockland responded witheringly, “and if one of them hadn’t gotten him, the others would have. Where are your guns?”

  “Well...they got the drop on the lot o’ us, Mister Rockland. We wasn’t expecting nothing. They come out of the darkness, disarmed us, an’ let the young one fight McAfee.”

  “The young one?”

  “Yes, sir. The youngest one of ’em. He was there in town this morning with the others. A sort of hot-eyed-looking young feller, but tall. Tall as the others.”

  “You mean to say that boy outgunned McAfee?”

  “Yes, sir. We all seen it...it was fair enough. That boy’s got no match with a gun, I tell you that, Mister Rockland.”

  The owner of Texas Star stood, studying the ground. After several minutes, he said savagely: “We’ll see. By God, we’ll see if there’s no match for that boy. For the lot of them!”

  Chapter Seven

  Sheriff Bannion went to bed confident that Judy would carry his message to her
father, that John Rockland would heed Bannion’s good advice, and perhaps, before another day passed, somehow, there would occur to him a way to forestall serious trouble.

  He arose the following morning still feeling the same way. He left his room at the hotel, went along to the Shafter Café, got his accustomed seat at the counter—and the sky fell on him.

  “I guess old Rockland’s fit to be tied over Dale McAfee’s killing, isn’t he?” the counterman said, making breakfast conversation. “I seen him and his crew ride by a few minutes ago with the body and he looked like a man of thunder for sure.”

  Bannion got up, turned without a word, and walked out of the café. The counterman looked completely bewildered by this. He scratched his ample belly, scowled, looked down at Bannion’s empty place, and waddled away, wagging his head.

  Bannion saw the crowd forming down by his jailhouse. He crossed through roadway dust and pushed on through to where John Rockland stood. Texas Star’s owner hadn’t shaved. Bannion had never before seen him looking unkempt.

  “Go take a look,” Rockland said, nodding toward the limp form tied sideways over a saddled horse.

  Bannion did not move. “No need,” he said. “Come inside.”

  Rockland tossed his reins to a rider before going after Bannion. “All right,” he said to his range men, “take him to the undertaker.” He passed into Bannion’s office alone, went to a chair, and dropped down. He looked drained dry.

  “Bannion,” he said, “I want those men caught and held here in jail.”

  “What are the details?” asked Bannion. “It wasn’t a back shot was it?”

  Rockland’s nostrils flared. He lifted his head until he had to look downward to see the sheriff. “That was a planned killing.”

  “Most killings are,” Bannion murmured, bracing into the wealthy cowman’s wrath.

  “Premeditated, Bannion. Those men went to my holding ground, called out McAfee, and one of them killed him. The youngest one.”