Rio Largo

Chapter 13

Dunn had to hurry. He had to reach the spot he wanted well ahead of the Pierce party. He had intended to sneak away from the Circle T sooner, but Clayburn had gathered together the punchers who happened to be there at the time, to inform them that they must be on their best behavior.

“Mr. Tovey has persuaded Mr. Pierce that Demp was not to blame for murderin’ the DP foreman. But some of Pierce’s vaqueros refuse to believe he’s innocent. They’re spoilin’ for a fight. All they need is an excuse—any excuse—to squeeze the trigger, and Mr. Tovey wants me to make sure that none of us give them that excuse.” Clayburn paused, and raked those present with a hard stare. “This is deadly serious, gents. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves breathin’ gun smoke.”

No one said anything. They all appreciated the gravity of the situation.

“Timmy, I want you to take a horse from the corral. Ride north over the range, and warn every hand you come across. Wheeler, you do the same to the south.”

“What do we tell them, exactly?” young Timmy Loring asked.

“That until Mr. Tovey gives his permission, under no circumstances is a Circle T puncher to cross the Rio Largo onto the DP spread. We are to fight shy of them until tempers cool. That means no one will be going to San Pedro for a spell.”

A few of the cowboys muttered resentfully. San Pedro was their one diversion. The only place within a hundred miles, other than remote Wolf Pass, high in the mountains, where the hands could go for a glass of red-eye, a game of cards, and, in San Pedro’s case, the warm glance of a friendly dove.

“I know, I know,” Clayburn said. “But it’s only for a short while. Only until Mr. and Mrs. Tovey have smoothed things over. They plan to visit the DP in a week and speak to the vaqueros personally.”

“What?” This from John Jesco, who had been leaning against a twin bunk. “Is that wise?”

“Maybe not,” Clayburn responded. “But the boss has his mind made up. I suggested he take fifteen or twenty of us along as protection, and he said he would settle for two or three.”

“I’m one of them.” Jesco was not volunteering. He was stating a fact.

Clayburn grinned. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

The meeting ended. Dunn was near the door, and turned to slip away unnoticed, but Clayburn hollered his name and told him to keep an eye out for any punchers who might stray in off the range before the Pierces left, and fill them in.

Dunn chafed at the delay. But he could not leave without arousing suspicion, so he bided his time, and when the Pierces came out of the house and prepared to depart, he hurried to Clayburn and offered to go out and help spread the word among the hands on the range. “I know you sent Loring and Wheeler, but it’s a lot of ground for two men to cover.”

Clayburn seemed a bit surprised. But he thought a moment, and nodded. “You’re right. I should have sent a few more. Off you go. Be back by nightfall.”

Now here Dunn was, riding like the wind for the Rio Largo, cutting across country rather than use the trail to the river that Dar Pierce would shortly take.

Things were about to come to a head. Dunn imagined how pleased Saber would be when he heard the news. Soon the entire valley would run red. The range war to end all range wars, Saber had called it. Open feuding between ranches was rare, but there had been a few instances. Never a situation like this, though. Never a range war created for a specific purpose.

Dunn had to hand it to Saber. The scheme was brilliant. The Circle T and the DP would never know they had been tricked. They would kill one another off, and once there were too few of them left to offer much resistance, Saber would swoop in and finish off the rest, and that would be that. Saber would lay claim to the entire valley. The cattle would be rounded up, herded to Mexico, and sold.

Dunn couldn’t wait. The last he had heard, cows were going for up to thirty dollars a head, bulls for as much as seventy-five. Both herds, combined, would fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. Each member of the gang stood to pocket over fifty thousand.

Fifty thousand! Dunn never had more than a thousand to his name his entire life. Fifty thousand was a fortune. He could do whatever he pleased. Maybe go back to Texas, where he had been born and raised, and buy a nice place of his own. Live out the rest of his days high on the hog.

Fifty thousand! Most people were lucky to earn a hundred dollars a month. Cowboys made forty or so. Clayburn earned twice that amount, but he was foreman. Lawmen averaged a hundred and fifty.

Fifty thousand! When good land in Texas could be had for five dollars an acre. When a house as big and grand as the Tovey’s cost no more than five thousand.

Dunn could have it all. The house, the land, and all the trimmings. He would treat himself to an endless stream of doves. A different gal every night. Or maybe, just maybe, he would find a pretty young thing and marry her. He always had been partial to the young ones. Hell, once word got out how rich he was, pretty young things would fall over themselves for the privilege of becoming his missus.

Dunn laughed. The possibilities made him giddy. He had to remind himself not to put the cart ahead of the horse. Nothing was certain. The plan might fall apart. But he would do all he could to ensure his part was carried out exactly as Saber required.

Dunn wanted that fifty thousand. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything. He wanted it so much, he lay awake at night thinking of all the things he could buy, all the things he would do. Life would be fine. Life would be glorious.

Money. That was the key to happiness. Lots and lots of money. The more money a man had, the happier he was. Dunn has always been envious of those who had it, always wished he was just like them. Unbelievably, incredibly, soon his wish stood an excellent chance of coming true.

That a lot of people had to die in order for that to happen did not bother Dunn one bit. He had killed his first man when he was fourteen, a drunk who became forward with Dunn’s sister. They had been walking down the street, minding their own business, talking and laughing as kids will do, when the drunk lurched out of a saloon and took to pawing Cynthia and making lewd comments. Dunn had warned the man to back off, but the drunk cursed him and threatened to take him over a knee and spank him. So Dunn had pulled his knife and buried it to the hilt in the man’s chest, and the man had died squealing in terror.

Dunn fled. He hugged his folks and kissed his sis, and lit a shuck. He’d never been back. He always intended to, but one lawless deed led to another, then to having a price on his head. He’d drifted west, into New Mexico, with the notion of starting over. But he hadn’t been in New Mexico two months when he hooked up with Saber. That was a year ago.

Now here he was. Still living outside the law. A regular curly wolf, with no desire to change.

Dunn shook himself. He was almost to the Rio Largo. Time to concentrate on what he had to do. He could not afford a mistake. Not with fifty thousand dollars at stake.

Dunn smelled the water before he came to it. So did his horse. It wanted to drink, but he reined west and paralleled the meandering waterway, until he came to a cluster of cottonwoods about a hundred yards from the crossing the Pierces would likely use.

Dismounting, Dunn wrapped the reins around a sapling, shucked his Winchester from the saddle scabbard, and glided to within a few yards of the tree line. Sinking flat, he parted the waist-high brush. Yes, it was perfect.

Dunn took off his hat and placed it beside him. He levered a round into the Winchester, and set the rifle in front of him. Then he folded his forearms and rested his chin on his wrist to wait.

Dunn thought of what he was about to do, and the slaughter that would result. Men would die because of him, a lot of men, but he didn’t care. He was used to killing. He had accounted for eleven so far. What was another two or three dozen?

He remembered every one. The clerk who had tried to stop him from robbing a bank. The farmer who objected to having a horse stolen. The old fool he had beaten and robbed after the man insulted Texas and Texans. Then there were all the others, each easier than the last. Now he felt no qualms whatsoever about pulling the trigger or plunging a knife into someone’s hide.

Dunn never saw himself as a hardened killer, though. He wasn’t like Hijino, who killed out of perverse delight. Or like Saber, who killed because he had no regard for human life, or any other kind. He certainly wasn’t like Creed, either, who had killed women and children as well as grown men. Creed was different.

About six months ago, they had stumbled on a family of emigrants in a prairie schooner and massacred them. Creed shot the three kids himself, since no one else wanted to do it. That night, after a few glasses of whiskey, Dunn asked Creed how he could look a child in the eyes and blow its brains out. “I couldn’t do that,” Dunn freely confessed. “I’d feel guilt for the rest of my life.”

Creed had been in a rare talkative mood. “I’ve never felt any. I’ve never felt anything.”

“Nothing at all?” Dunn had said skeptically.

Draining the bottle in a gulp, Creed had wagged it back and forth. “I’m as empty as this is. Always have been. Always will be. When I kill, I don’t feel a thing. It’s no different whether I kill a lizard or a person. I feel nothin’ at all.”

Dunn had repressed a shudder. “What about friendship? Saber and you are close pards.”

“He thinks we are,” Creed said. “But I only stick with him and his bunch because he needs a lot of killin’ done.”

Dunn refused to give up. “What about love? Haven’t you ever met a female you were fond of?”

“I don’t cotton to women. They’re abominations.”

Stupefied, Dunn had half expected Creed to grin to show it was a joke, but Creed was serious. “Isn’t that a mite harsh?”

“The way they think, the way they move, their bodies, everything about them sickens me.”

“You’ve never wanted to kiss one? To crawl under the sheets and partake of her charms?”

To Dunn’s amazement, Creed had shuddered. “I would rather lie with a goat. Or an ewe. I had a pet sheep once. Pretty little thing. I called her Wendy.”

Dunn had absorbed the implications, and then he had shuddered. “Good God.”

“What?”

“This rotgut has gone right through me,” Dunn had said to get out of there. “I’ll be right back.” But when he did come back, he sat next to Twitch instead of Creed.

A slight vibration snapped Dunn out of the past and into the present. There was the faint drum of hooves in the distance. He raised his head. To the north, a cloud of dust heralded his victim. It would be a while yet.

Dunn thought of Nancy Tovey. Now there was a fine figure of a woman. A little on the lean side, but she had an ample bosom and lips ripe for sucking on. He wouldn’t mind indulging, if the opportunity arose. Unlike Creed, he liked women better than sheep.

Riders became visible. Dunn counted them. Ten in all, as there should be. Pierce, his three sons, Hijino, and the five vaqueros. He imagined that Hijino had enjoyed killing Berto; Hijino liked to snuff out lives almost as much as Saber did.

Dunn once asked Saber how many people he had killed. Saber couldn’t remember. “I’ve lost count. Somewhere between fifty and a hundred, I reckon.”

Dunn never asked Creed how many he had killed. It was not healthy to pry into Creed’s past. The last man who did, or so Saber told him, Creed had knifed, then shot, then poured kerosene on the body and burned it.

Creed was one nasty son of a bitch.

Now the riders were close enough for Dunn to tell who was who. Dar Pierce was in the front, Steve and Armando next, Julio between Paco and Roman. Hijino brought up the rear behind the vaqueros.

Dunn flattened. He had it all worked out in his head. He would fire twice—the extra shot to be sure—then he would race for his horse and ride like hell. By the time they worked out where the shot came from and found his tracks, he would be halfway to the Circle T. They might give chase, but Dunn’s horse was as fleet as an antelope. With enough of a lead, they had a snowball’s chance in Hades of catching him.

The Pierces came to the river, and drew rein to let their mounts drink. Steve Pierce climbed down and inspected one of his animal’s front hooves.

Roman shifted and scanned the grassland behind them, his one hand under his jacket. “No one follows us, patrón.”

“I didn’t think anyone would,” Dar Pierce responded. “Kent Tovey trusts me not to go after Demp.”

“I do not trust Tovey. We are not safe here,” Julio grumbled. “We will not be safe until we are across the Rio Largo.”

“I believe them,” Steve said. “I believe Jack Demp had nothing to do with Berto’s death.”

“You would.”

“That is enough out of you, Julio,” Dar said. “Your mother and I will have a long talk with you after we get back. You were unforgivably rude to Kent and Nance, and it must not happen again.”

“They are not our friends, Father. They never were.”

“You are young yet. You do not see what is right in front of your face.” Dar gigged his mount into the water. “Let’s go.”

The others were quick to follow suit. Water sprayed and frothed.

Hijino glanced at the trees, at the exact spot where Dunn lay. His perpetual grin widened a trifle. No one else noticed.

Dunn wedged the Winchester’s smooth wooden stock to his shoulder. He centered the sights on his target’s back. But he did not shoot. Do it too soon, and the vaqueros might catch him.

Dar Pierce was almost to the middle. Rising in the stirrups, he looked back. Why, Dunn couldn’t say. Maybe fate was making it easy for him. Dar opened his mouth to say something just as Dunn steadied the barrel, took a deep breath, and fired. In a twinkling, he fed in another round and squeezed off his second shot.

Dar Pierce’s face dissolved in a shower of scarlet.