Gunsmoke Masquerade Read online

  He never tired of the broad vista of the valley that lay before him at this point, a scant mile from town. There weren’t many open places in these foothills where a man could get the proper perspective of the country. But here the twenty-mile breadth of the valley swept uninterruptedly from horizon to horizon. Westward, behind him, there ran a low line of foothills. To the east were mountains, gently rounded, broken at a point midway on the horizon by the broad saddle of the pass above Elbow Lake. Off to his left, close in the north, towered the sheer and jagged line of the Arrowheads, appropriately named because their harsh and sharply upthrust shoulders formed an impassable barrier to block that end of the valley. The whole bore an almost forbidding look; there was nothing soft about this country. And now Bill Paight again experienced the old feeling that had seven years ago prompted him to stay on here, a deep stubbornness, a feeling that the country offered man a challenge to wrest a living from it. Well, he had made a living out of it. Not as a brand owner but as a top hand rider for an outfit that was itself involved in a grim struggle to survive. That outfit was the late Pete Dallam’s Fencerail.

  Had Paight been asked to explain his ride tonight, he couldn’t honestly have done so. He had come down across Fencerail’s meadow all of two hours ago, knowing only that he was too restless to sleep, even to sit idly by the bunkhouse with the others. He had been held by this nervousness ever since that day, now two weeks gone, when the news of Pete Dallam’s death had reached the layout. So tonight he had saddled a pony and started out, feeling the urge to work off some of the nervous energy that was in him. He had swung off toward Prenn’s place, then away from it at the prospect of being stumped for a reason for making the call on his neighbor. He guessed it was about time to move on to another country; the fiddle-footedness was on him again and that meant his days here were numbered. Yet he didn’t want to go. He had found the valley a good place. He hadn’t even minded this recent trouble or the fact that the outfit he worked for had gone over to sheep.

  Bill wondered what had drawn him down here to town and, asking himself, knew the answer at once. It was Laura Dallam, Pete’s sister, who had arrived a week ago. Buchwalter had sent him down to Agua Verde in the buggy to meet her and drive her to Ledge where she was to stay. Bill had spent a good share of each day since thinking back on that long thirty-mile drive with Laura Dallam that night. There had been a full moon and the country hadn’t looked as dry in that favoring light as it was really. In fact, the night had been quite romantic.

  He’d started out by telling her how sorry he was over what had happened to Pete. In a few words, she had accepted his sympathy and then tactfully hinted that she would prefer not to have the subject brought up again. There hadn’t been any tears, even as much as a break in her voice, and she had spoken of Pete in a strange offhand way, in quite a contradictory way, for Bill had since found her to be sensitive in other things. So they’d just talked, talked of a lot of things and nothing in particular. Even now he couldn’t define the girl’s attraction. She was plain-looking, so much so that the prospect of the long ride with her had at first seemed more a chore than a pleasure. But she had shortly changed his mind. Once the first strangeness of their being together wore off, she became a wholly different person. She had been almost vivacious, and, when she laughed, it was with an abandon and a husky throatiness he found so pleasant that he had tried to think up ways of making her laugh again. He had found her strangely reticent about her past, but had assumed it was probably because so much of that past concerned Pete.

  Since that night Bill had seen Laura only twice, both times briefly. But it hadn’t been his imagining that changed her from her ordinary and distant self to a warmly attractive girl in his presence. Tom Buchwalter had noticed it, had even said: “You seem to get on better than anyone else with Pete’s sister. So it’s your job to handle any business we’ve got with her.” Because he knew Buchwalter was speaking the truth, because he knew he had the power to transform this exceedingly plain girl into another person, Bill Paight was a little awed and even afraid. The truth lying behind all this recent restlessness in him was that he was on the verge of falling in love. He hadn’t yet made that admission to himself.

  Now that he was here, within a mile of town, he had a moment in which he felt exceedingly foolish. He couldn’t, of course, see Laura Dallam at this time of night. Yet that hope had brought him here; the possibility that he might catch a glimpse of her, maybe sitting on the hotel verandah or even crossing the lobby toward the back hallway that led to her room, had been in his mind. But because he wouldn’t admit to himself that she was the sole reason for his having ridden so far, he said aloud to his pony—“We could both use a drink, couldn’t we?”—and tried to relish the prospect of a drink at the Pride’s bar.

  That brought up an unpleasant thought. Supposing some of Bishop’s riders were in town and at the Pride? It was the middle of the week and Crescent B usually hit town on Saturday, but still there was the possibility that one or two of Bishop’s riders might be hanging around the bar. Bill had made his feelings pretty open where they were concerned; he had that habit of speaking his mind. It hadn’t yet reached the point where one of them would shoot at him on sight. On the other hand, he couldn’t expect them to be friendly. “The devil with ’em,” he muttered, and touched his pony with spur to go on down the trail.

  It was the Pride he headed for when he rode down the crooked, narrow street. He passed the hotel, giving it only a brief glance that showed the verandah and lobby deserted and the night lamp already on.

  When his glance went on down the street again, it was to see a rider on a vaguely familiar long-legged horse turning in off the street toward the ramp of the feed barn. As that rider came within the circle of light shed by the runway lantern, Bill recognized Pete Dallam’s roan horse. Instantly a wave of wariness and curiosity threaded his nerves. He lifted his pony to a quick trot, calling out—“You there! Hold on!”—realizing too late how foolish he might appear in a minute or two. There must be some logical explanation for a stranger to be riding Pete’s horse; still, the animal had been missing two weeks and Bill wanted to know why.

  He was turning up the ramp, the stranger having paused near the head of it and turned the roan to face him, when at the outward limit of his vision he sensed the Pride’s swing doors opening and someone coming into the walk across there. Bill forgot this last as he halted below the stranger. He was seeing a tall, solid-looking man with a lean and pleasant face, a man with a generous span of shoulder and a careless but sure way of sitting the saddle. It bothered Bill a little that he had to look up at the stranger as he queried, too sharply: “Where’d you get that jughead?”

  The stranger’s brows went up. Then he smiled, and with that assurance all the tension went out of Paight.

  “You must be a Fencerail hand,” Streak drawled, adding: “I got him down at the corral at Agua Verde. Here’s a letter I was supposed to give to Tom Buchwalter. You him?”

  “No,” Bill said. “Where’d Snyder pick him up?”

  Streak was about to answer when a voice said sharply out of the street: “Feelin’ salty tonight, Paight?”

  Bill Paight’s head came around to face the voice. He saw Sid Riggs, Bishop’s new foreman, and two other new Crescent B men walking slowly toward the bottom of the ramp. He knew at once that they had spotted him from the Pride and he knew what they intended.

  He swung aground slowly, thankful for at least one thing: that he hadn’t worn his gun tonight. And now, facing the prospect of a severe beating—they would make a good job of it—he felt a high recklessness, almost glad for what was coming. With a slap on his pony’s rump that sent the animal on up the ramp and into the head of the barn’s long runway, he faced the trio.

  “Salty enough,” he said, and narrowly eyed Riggs, the nearest.

  Streak, witnessing this and only halfway understanding it, felt a growing admiration for the man who had accosted him so curtly a few moments ago. He didn’t
know who the three men, facing Paight, were but guessed they might be Bishop riders; he had talked with the hotel owner down at Agua Verde and completed a fairly accurate picture of the trouble that had been plaguing the Ledge range. His admiration of Paight’s nerve was heightened when he saw that Riggs was a big man, almost as tall as himself and a good bit heavier, and that the other two were both of a size that would more than match Paight’s spareness and medium height. Streak sensed something of the rashness that was in Paight, knew, too, what the outcome of this encounter would certainly be. Because he found he liked Paight, he looked down at Riggs and drawled: “Wouldn’t one at a time make it more interesting?”

  “You want to buy into this?” came Riggs’s cool query. “You one of his sidekicks? If you are, climb down. We’re invitin’ all Fencerail takers.”

  “Stay where you are, friend,” Paight said to Streak, and suddenly lunged in at Riggs, whose attention was still off him.

  The solid smack of his knuckles against Riggs’s jaw sounded in the stillness. Riggs stumbled backward a step, shook his head to clear it, and lifted his arms to guard his face. Then the others came in at Paight, one from each side, swinging for his face. He ignored the one on his right and, arms crossed to shield his face, went in headfirst at the other, driving in two quick stabs at his opponent’s stomach. Streak heard the man grunt as those blows told. Then the other swung a boot, heeled Paight hard above the hip in the side, and threw him off balance. Both men hit Paight again as he fell sideways, and rolled in the dust.

  Riggs had shaken off the effects of that first hard blow and stepped in as the Fencerail man went down and tried to roll clear. Riggs kicked out savagely, the toe of his boot driving into Paight’s chest. Paight groaned and struggled to get up. Then Riggs jumped on him, knees in his back, driving him into the dust again.

  As Streak vaulted from the saddle, he was sure Paight’s back must be broken. He elbowed one Bishop man aside, knocking him down. The other he ignored as he lunged in at Riggs, who was pounding Paight’s head into the dust. Grabbing Riggs by the shirt collar, he hauled him back off Paight, his free hand swinging in a jab that caught the Bishop man hard on the ear. He didn’t give Riggs time to come erect but pushed him into the third man, who was closing in now. The two went down together as Streak reached out and pulled Paight to his feet.

  Paight seemed all right except for a bloody mouth and a hunch that betrayed a sore chest. He even managed a rash grin as he wiped the blood from his lips and growled: “I’ll make it. Clear out!”

  “And miss this?” Streak shook his head, matching the other’s grin.

  There wasn’t time for more. Head down, Riggs lunged in at Streak. The man Streak had first knocked down rose and swung on Paight. Streak and Paight stood back to back, Paight ducking under the blow aimed at him, Streak lifting Riggs’s head with a sharp uppercut. Streak had time to hit Riggs two more times, his knuckles grinding into the man’s lips, before the third Bishop man dived in at his legs. Bending a knee, Streak caught the Bishop cowpuncher in the face with it. But he was driven off his feet. He threw his body into a roll, taking up the shock of his fall on one shoulder. As he came erect again, he saw Paight’s opponent go down from a solid punch to the jaw. Paight swung around just in time to face the other man. Then Streak was standing toe to toe with Riggs, a fierce and ecstatic excitement welling up in him as he swung time and again at the man’s bloody mouth. He knew he was hit repeatedly but could feel no pain as he drove in to beat the other to the ground.

  Riggs was backing up now toward the head of the ramp, still slugging, still full of fight. Then he and Streak were in the big maw of the barn’s open doors, to one side of the wide runway’s center. Finally Riggs stood, boots spread wide, head hunched down between his shoulders, almost under the lantern and with his back to the partition that closed off the livery office. Streak felt his wind going and knew he must finish this soon or never; Riggs’s powerful blows were beginning to hurt. He sparred for an opening, repeatedly weaving aside to avoid a slashing fist. Suddenly he saw his chance. Riggs went a little off balance from missing a hard swing. Streak took a half step in at the man and swung from the level of his knees, a wide, fast roundhouse. His fist caught Riggs on the point of the chin, lifted the man’s boots clear of the planks, and drove him backward. Bishop’s foreman smashed into the partition, his shoulder driving through one board in a splintering crash. Overhead, the lantern swayed and suddenly fell from its hook. It smashed in a shower of breaking glass, spraying coal oil over the worn planks. A tongue of fire licked out from the unprotected wick and caught on a pool of coal oil. All at once a puff of leaping flame burst up the office partition. Riggs, caught there with his shoulder wedged in the broken wall, cried out as the flame scorched his face.

  Streak reached out and pulled the man free, swinging him aside. Riggs was too weak to stand and he went down, rolled onto his face, and gasped for breath. The sharp burst of a gunshot racketed along the street. Streak heard a step behind him and wheeled to find Paight almost at his elbow.

  “That’s our one-legged law, friend,” Paight said grimly. “We’d better make tracks. To hell with this blaze! Kelso can put it out.”

  Streak noticed a red-painted bucket hanging from the end of a two-by-four wall brace at the back end of the office. Running over there, he swung the bucket down to find it nearly full of water. As he emptied it against the wall and over the blazing puddle of coal oil, Paight spoke again, more sharply this time: “Your jughead’s right there beyond the walk! Run for it! Meet you out the upper end of the street!”

  As he snapped those words, Paight was catching up his own horse, which had gone halfway down the barn’s runway during the fight. He swung up into leather, wheeled the animal around, and dug in spurs, heading for the barn’s back door that let into the alley. Streak saw that the water had nearly put out the fire. He tossed the bucket aside toward where Riggs lay, hearing the thud of boots on the walk out front blend with the racket of Paight’s pony as it pounded out the back end of the runway. He ran toward the ramp and saw the roan standing beyond its far edge. He was jumping from the ramp to the walk when he sensed a shadow closing in on him from the left. Wheeling toward it, he cocked his right arm. Then something caught his leg and tripped him and he went down hard.

  He lay there flat on his back, looking up into the bore of a .45 Colt backed by the steady blue eyes of a middle-aged face with a close-clipped gray mustache. A five-pointed sheriff’s star sagged from the man’s vest pocket. Deliberately Sheriff Fred Kelso unhooked the crook of his thick-stemmed cane from Streak’s leg, hung it from his arm, and shifted his weight off his game leg as he drawled: “You be good now, stranger, and we’ll get along fine.”

  Chapter Five

  The moon was close to its zenith as Bill Paight rode up across the meadow and in on Fencerail. He slowed as he neared the clump of jack pine, flanking the trail a few hundred yards out from the layout.

  As he drew abreast the first tree, a drawling voice, close by in its shadow said: “You turnin’ into an owl, Bill? This is the second night straight runnin’ you been on the prowl.”

  Paight drew rein, now making out the red glow of a burning cigarette end in the deep shadow of the trees. He ignored the query of the Fencerail guard and put one himself: “Anyone been in?”

  “Not a soul. It’s lonesome as the devil here. Like sittin’ at the bottom of a well.”

  “Stay with it,” Bill said, and went on up the trail.

  Ordinarily he’d have swung over to the barn lot and the big corral. But now he rode on up to the low, weathered house and around its near side. He came out of the saddle stiffly, for the bruise on his hip was hurting. He limped away from his ground-haltered horse to a door in the house’s side wall and knocked on it lightly. Shortly he heard a furtive sound from inside. Then, before he was quite aware of it, the door stood open and Tom Buchwalter was there, a gun in his hand.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Buchwalter said. There came the cli
ck of the hammer catch as he took the gun off cock. He tossed it across onto his bed and came out the door, running a hand through his sparse gray hair and yawning. It was obvious that he had been roused from sleep. “Why didn’t you sing out?” he asked.

  “Didn’t want to wake the others,” Paight answered. He dipped a hand into pants pocket and brought out the letter Streak had given him, offering it to the older man. “A stranger rode Pete’s roan into town tonight. I ran into him. Snyder sent this letter up with him.”

  “Snyder? So he picked him up, eh?” Buchwalter tore open the envelope. “Got a match?”

  Bill flicked alight a match and held it over the paper. Watching Buchwalter, he was thinking as he had many times before that nothing could disturb this man’s calm serenity. Buchwalter’s voice was always gentle, always kindly, as befitted his looks. Even now, despite his bare feet, the fact that he was shirtless, his chest spare under a suit of gray flannel underwear, even with his rumpled white hair and the suspenders that hung down around his hips, Tom Buchwalter remained a distinguished-looking man. The hawkish cast of his face, his warm brown eyes squinted against the flare of the match, the neatly trimmed silver mustache, and the erectness of his bearing gave him an unmistakable dignity. If there lived a man who could replace Pete Dallam in holding the respect of a tough crew, Tom Buchwalter was that man.

  When the first match died, Bill lit another. Buchwalter handed him the note saying in a strangely hollow way: “Read it.”

  Paight gave the older man a sharp look, warned by his odd tone that something had affected him powerfully. Then Paight’s eyes fell to the paper. What Snyder had written in his halting but careful hand was: