"I found her down at Malpais with that new puncher. I told her I didn't like it and she told me it didn't matter whether I did or not, that I worked for her! For her!"

Dunning chuckled. "Well, in a way she's right!" he said slyly. "This here is her ranch. And you're the foreman."

Mailer's eyes narrowed vindictively and he felt hot rage burning inside him. There were times when he hated Dunning. He glared at him. "I'm a d.a.m.n sight more than any foreman!" he flared.

"Are you?" Dunning looked up under s.h.a.ggy brows. His hands were on his hips, whether by accident or design, but his eyes were cool and steady. Frank Mailer felt everything in him suddenly grow still. He turned on Dunning, and with a shock, he realized something he had been forgetting, that Poke Dunning was a gunman himself, and that he was not, by any means, too old. Right now he looked like a fairly dangerous proposition, and Mailer found that he did not like it, he did not like it one bit. He felt sure he could beat Poke, but he might get a slug in the process, and tomorrow they would be leaving on that job. No fight... not now.

"What's the matter, Poke? You on the prod?"

Dunning recognized the change in Mailer's tone and it puzzled him. He knew the big man too well, yet here, with an even break between them, or almost an even break, for Dunning all but had the b.u.t.ts of his guns in his hands, Mailer was avoiding the issue. It puzzled Dunning, and worried him. He had known Mailer too long not to know the man was a schemer.

"No, Frank, I'm not," he said quietly. "Only here lately you've been taking in a little too much territory. We have our plans, but we can't ride into this roughshod. That girl has a mind of her own, and suppose she lights out of here to Salt Creek and raises h.e.l.l about being' forced to marry you? It might stir up some talk, an' we can't afford that. You've got to play it smart, Frank. You can't push Lona around; she's got too much fight in her. Take it easy, win her over. You can't handle a woman by shouting at her; they need soft talk."

There was truth in what Dunning said, and Mailer knew it. He was, he admitted, bullheaded. And he had been taking on a lot of weight around here. Anyway, first things come first, and there was that bank job to be handled. There would be time enough to take care of Dunning when that was off his hands. Geslin and Starr both wanted the money they would get from that job, and if he expected to keep them around, he must keep them busy, give them a chance to make a few dollars.

"Maybe you're right," he agreed. "It's a shame that Markham had to fix things that way."

"He did, though," Dunning said. "We don't dare take over until you marry her, then her property is legally yours an' we can do what we want."

"Sure, you've explained that," Mailer agreed grudgingly. He turned toward the door. "By the way, Poke," he said, in more affable tones, "I'm takin' some of the boys on a little trip tomorrow. I heard about some cattle and want to look them over. We'll be gone two days. Flynn and Gates will handle things on this end."

Dunning nodded absently. "All right. Good luck on the trip."

Outside on the porch, Frank Mailer stared angrily into the darkness. "We'll need it," he muttered. "And once I've married that girl, you'll need it!" One thing he knew. The time was coming for a showdown. He would wait no longer. That Spanish woman, now ... if he were owner of the Blue Hill, she would pay attention to him. She liked him, anyway, but was just stalling. That was always the woman's way, any woman.

The fact that he would be married to Lona would matter but little. He would have things in his hands then, and he would know how to handle matters. Poke Dunning had to die.

Lance Kilkenny was riding to Salt Creek. Despite his desire to remain unknown, he had missed Nita so much that he could no longer stay away. Also, with his instinct for trouble and his knowledge of the situation in Salt Creek and on the ranch, he knew the lid was about to blow off. It was high time that he appeared on the scene. Yet reaching town, he did not ride immediately into the street, but studied it carefully. He could see the lights of the Fandango, and nearer, the lights of Starr's Saloon and the Express.

He rode the buckskin into the street and swung down in front of the Express. He stepped up onto the boardwalk, feeling all that tightness he always knew when appearing for the first time in a strange town. His eyes slanted down the street, studying each building with strict attention. Every sense was alert for trouble, for a man who had used a gun as he had would have enemies, and in a strange town one never knew whom one would see.

The street was empty and still, its darkness alleviated only by the windows of the four or five lighted places in Salt Creek. He turned and opened the door to the Express and walked in. Down the left-hand side was a row of boxes and sacks backed by a wall of shelves filled with various articles of cutlery and other tools. On his right were shelves of clothing, a few wide hats, and nearer the counter at the end was the ammunition, and beside it the bar. There were groceries and several opened barrels. Near a stove, now cold, sat two old men.

At the bar Kansas was talking to Lisa. Kilkenny walked down the right side of the long room whose middle was also stacked with boxes and barrels. As he approached the near end of the bar, Kansas looked up. In that instant the gunfighter knew he was recognized.

"Rye, if you would," Kilkenny said quietly. His eyes turned to Kansas, alert, probing. "What are you drinking, friend?"

Kansas's mouth was dry. He started to speak, swallowed, and then said, "Rye. Mine's rye, too, Lisa."

The Portuguese noticed nothing out of the ordinary, and put the gla.s.ses on the bar. His quick glance, however, noticed that the gray shirt was new and clean, the flat brimmed hat was in good condition, and Kilkenny was clean-shaven. He left the bottle on the bar. He knew when a man could pay for his drinks.

Kansas recovered himself slightly. Here was his chance to do that job for Poke, dropped right in his lap. Luck seemed to be with him, but he reflected uneasily that Kilkenny did not have a reputation as the sort of man who would hire his gun. "Driftin' through?" he said.

"Maybe."

"Nice country around here."

"Seems so."

"There's jobs. Mailer, he's foreman out to the Blue Hill, he took on a hand the other day." He dropped his voice. "Poke Markham was talkin' to me. Seems he's huntin' a particular man for a very particular job. From the way you wear those guns, you might be just the man."

Kilkenny looked into his gla.s.s. Now, what was this? A trap? Or was Dunning looking for gunmen?

"We might talk about it," he said. "I just might be interested."

Kansas was pleased and disappointed at the same time. He had heard much of Kilkenny, and while if he did this job for Poke, it might mean more money, which he could always use, he was sorry that Kilkenny would consider such a thing.

"Many folks in town?" Kilkenny asked quietly.

"A few. Mailer's here, if you're interested, but better not talk to him about this Markham job. I had the idea Markham was hiring someone confidential."

Kilkenny nodded. . . . So? Was there a break there? If so, it might work out very well for him. And Rusty had said Mailer was planning some move in which Dunning was not concerned. Maybe Poke knew more than Mailer realized.

"This Mailer," he said carelessly, "what sort of hombre is he?"

"Mighty big an' mighty bad," Kansas replied honestly. "He's h.e.l.l on wheels with a gun an' ready to use one on the slightest provocation, but he would rather use his fists and boots. Sometimes I think he likes to beat a man."

There was animosity in Kansas's voice, and Kilkenny noticed it at once. "Where's he from?"

"You've got me," Kansas admitted. "Folks around here have done a lot of wondering about that. Where he came from or what he was, I don't know. Somebody did say they saw him talking to Port Stockton over to Bloomfield once."

Port Stockton was a name Kilkenny knew. Boss of the Stockton gang, marshal of Bloomfield, and formerly in the Lincoln County War in the faction opposed to the Tunstall McQueen outfit that had Billy the Kid. Stockton was no honest man, by all accounts, and a dangerous one. It was worth looking into, that angle.

He straightened. "You tell Markham I'll talk to him. I'll get in touch with him myself within the next couple of days." Turning, he walked to the door, scanned the street briefly, and then stepped out. The Fandango was ablaze with lights, and Kilkenny did not hesitate; he walked at once to the doors and pushed them open. The place was crowded. Nita had a faculty for knowing the sort of place the range people liked, and she gave them lots of light and music. A half-dozen card tables were going now, and the long bar was lined with booted and spurred men. A few men in business suits mingled with the roughly dressed cowhands, but one and all they were wearing guns.

The first person who saw him was Jaime Brigo, and the big Yaqui did not smile, merely reaching back with his knuckles and tapping a signal on the door. Nita Riordan heard that signal. She was at her mirror, and for a minute she stared at her reflection. She had known Kilkenny now for more than three years, and had loved him every minute of them, but after one of these absences it never failed to leave her breathless when she heard his voice, his step, or heard the signal that signified his presence.

Kilkenny had walked to the end of the bar, and Cain Brockman moved at once to him and placed a gla.s.s and a bottle there. His head moved ever so slightly, and Kilkenny's eyes followed the movement. He saw Frank Mailer towering above the crowd, his face red and flushed from drinking, his gla.s.sy-blue and slightly protuberant eyes bold and domineering as they surveyed the crowd around him. The slender hatchet-faced man would be Geslin, of course. Starr was there, and the sallow, dark-haired Socorro.

Mailer, Kilkenny observed, kept turning his head to glance toward the door where Brigo sat. Kilkenny studied him without seeming to, watching the man with the side of his glance. The fellow was a bull, but big as he was, there was no evidence of fat. Even his thick neck looked like a column of muscle; there was cruelty in the man's eyes and in his thin lips, and there was brutality showing all through him. Even without knowing who he was and why he was here, Kilkenny would have felt the same animal antagonism for the man.

Suddenly Nita was in the room. He knew it without turning his head. He would always know it, for there was that between them, that sharp, strong attachment, something physical and yet more than physical. He turned and their eyes met across the room and he felt something well up within him. She smiled, ever so slightly, and turned to the nearest card table, speaking to one of the players.

Frank Mailer had seen her, too, and he turned abruptly away from the bar. "So there you are!" he boomed. "Come and have a drink!"

"I don't drink. I believe I have told you that."

"Oh, come on!" he insisted, reaching for her arm. "Don't be foolish! Come on an' have a drink with me."

Suddenly Nita Riordan was frightened. Kilkenny had moved away from the bar; he was coming toward them. "I'm sorry," she said coldly. "I'll not drink with you. Why don't you join your friends?"

Kilkenny was beside her now, but Mailer had eyes for n.o.body else. He had been waiting for this woman to come out, and he had been drinking, thinking of her, wanting her. He told himself she wanted him, and there had been enough of foolishness. "Come on!" he said roughly. "I want to talk to you!"

"But the lady does not want to talk to you!" Kilkenny said. Frank Mailer turned his big head sharp around. For the first time he saw Kilkenny. "Get lost!" he snarled. "Get ..."

What he was going to say never came out. He was seeing Kilkenny, really seeing him for the first time, looking into those hard green eyes, level and dangerous now, into the bronzed face of a man that he instinctively recognized as being something different, somebody new and perhaps dangerous. "Who the h.e.l.l are you?" he demanded.

"The man who tells you the lady does not wish to talk to you," Kilkenny said. He turned, "Miss Howard, do you wish to go to the bar?" She turned instantly and started to go off with him.

Mailer found himself left in the middle of the floor alone, and he had made his brags about this woman and himself. They had an understanding, he had hinted. In fact, he had convinced himself it was true. Somebody snickered, and Frank Mailer blew up. Lunging, he grabbed at Nita's shoulder, but knowing his man, Kilkenny had been watching. He moved swiftly and thrust the hand aside.

Instantly, Frank Mailer struck. He struck with his ponderous right fist that had already lifted with the violence of his grab at the girl, but Kilkenny rolled his head and smashed a left and right to the body. Lance Kilkenny knew the manner of man he was facing and knew that if ever he had been in for a battle, he was in for one now. He struck fast and he struck hard, and the blows smashed Mailer back on his heels. Before he could catch his balance, Kilkenny hooked high and hard with a left and the blow knocked Mailer crashing to the floor. He hit hard, in a sitting position, knocked back all of four feet, and as he hit he knew he had been struck with such force that all the other blows he had taken seemed mere child's play. He hit the floor drunk and raging, but he came up with a lunge, and cold sober.

Skilled in the rough-and-tumble style of barroom brawling, Lance Kilkenny knew what he was facing, yet he had more than that sort of skill on which to draw, for long ago in New Orleans he had studied the art of boxing and become quite proficient at it. Mailer came up with a lunge and charged, swinging. Kilkenny nailed him on the mouth with a straight, hard left and then smashed another right to the ribs before the sheer weight of the rush smashed Kilkenny back against the bar. Mailer blazed with fury and confidence. Now he had him! Against the bar! One hand grasped Kilkenny's throat, pushing his head back. Then he jerked up his knee for Kilkenny's groin.

Yet Kilkenny's own knee had lifted an instant quicker and blocked the rise of Mailer's drive. At the same time Kilkenny struck Mailer's left hand away from his throat by knocking it to the right, and he lunged forward, smashing the top of his skull into Mailer's nose and mouth. Blood streaming from his smashed lips, Mailer staggered, pawing at the air, and Kilkenny let him go, standing there, breathing easily, and waiting. The crowd had been shoved back, he saw, and Jaime Brigo was standing beside Nita with drawn gun. Over the bar behind him he heard Brockman speak, Brockman whom he had once fought in just such a battle, before they were friends.

"Don't worry, boss. n.o.body b.u.t.ts in!"

Mailer recovered his balance and stared at Kilkenny with malignant eyes. With the back of his hand he mopped the blood from his lips, staring at Kilkenny. "Now," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "I'm goin' to kill you!" He moved in, his big fists ready, taking his time now. This man was not going to be smashed down in a couple of driving rushes. Mailer was not worried. He had always won, no man could stand against him. Mailer moved in, feinted, then lunged. Kilkenny did not step away or retreat; he stepped inside and his legs were spread and he smashed wicked, hooking drives to the ribs that jolted and jarred Mailer. Frank shortened his own punches and caught Kilkenny with a mighty right that knocked him to the floor.

With a roaring yell, Mailer sprang into the air and leaped to come down on Kilkenny's body, but Lance rolled over and sprang to his feet like a cat, and Mailer, missing, lunged past him against the bar. Kilkenny smashed a wicked right to the kidney, and as Mailer turned and grabbed for him he swung the man over his back with a flying mare. Mailer came up fast and rushed and they stood toe-to-toe, swapping punches. Shifting his feet, Kilkenny was caught with a foot off the floor and he went back into the bar. The big man lunged and grabbed Kilkenny around the waist with both mighty arms.

Growling with fury, he tightened that grasp, but Kilkenny, caught with his hands down and inside that mighty hug, jerked both thumbs into the lower abdomen, low and hard. Mailer jerked back from the thumbs, and instantly Kilkenny turned his hips inside the hollow left between their bodies, and grasping Mailer's right sleeve with his left hand, he slid his right arm around his waist, and jerking down with the left, he swung Mailer across his hip and crashing to the floor with a thud that shook the building. He sprang back then, getting distance between them, and mopping the blood and sweat from his eyes.

Frank Mailer got to his feet, throttling rage in his throat mingled with something else, something he had never felt before, the awful, dreadful fear that he might be beaten! He lunged, and Kilkenny stepped into him. The gunfighter was utterly savage now. Watching, Cain Brockman cringed with the memory, for Kilkenny's fists cracked like ball bats on Mailer's face. It was a driving, utterly furious attack, that smashed Mailer back with solid blow after solid blow.

Mailer lunged, grabbed him again, and jerked him clear off the floor, hurling him down. Kilkenny hit hard, and one of his guns went scooting, but Nita stooped quickly and caught it up. Kilkenny was on his back and Mailer lunged for him. Kilkenny swung a boot up and caught the oncoming man in the solar plexus and the drive of the rush, and the moving boot carried the big man over like a catapult and he hit the floor beyond, his fall broken by the crowd that could not move fast enough.

Kilkenny rolled over and was on his feet. Punch-drunk, Mailer came up, and Kilkenny let go with both hands. Mailer sagged and his knees buckled and Kilkenny threw an uppercut with all the power that was in him. It lifted the big man from his feet and turned him over, and Frank Mailer hit the floor on his shoulder blades, out cold! Kilkenny drew back, feeling for his gun. The right gun was still with him and he faced the crowd, his eyes desperate, blazing with cold fire. He swept the crowd until he found Geslin and Starr.

Their eyes met and he stood there, his chest heaving with the struggle for air, sweat streaming down his face, his shirt in rags about him. He stood there, and suddenly Nita spoke. "In your holster!" and he felt his left-hand gun slide home.

For a minute he held their eyes, steady, waiting. n.o.body moved, n.o.body spoke. He straightened then and glanced down at the beaten and b.l.o.o.d.y man who sprawled on the floor. "Tell him all the roads are open, but they run one way ... out of town!"

It was a silent, grim bunch of men who took the trail that night back to Blue Hill, but while they rode slowly, and Frank Mailer slumped heavily in his saddle, his great head thudding with a dull ache, there was a man ahead of them who rode very swiftly indeed. It was Kansas, and he was riding to be the first to report to Dunning. This was something Poke would want to know, something he needed to know.

After Kansas was gone, Poke Dunning paced the floor alone. Frank Mailer whipped! It was unbelievable! Had the earth opened and gulped down the Blue Hill, the ranch and its neighboring peak, he could have been no more shocked. That Mailer might be beaten with a gun, he knew. But with fists? In a rough-and-tumble fight? It was impossible! But it had happened. Mailer was beaten.

Despite his satisfaction, Dunning was worried. He turned in late, but he did not sleep, lying there and staring up into the darkness. He had worked a long time for this ranch, and he meant to keep it. He would kill anybody who endangered his possession of the ranch. Even Lona. Even Lona, the girl he had reared.

Kilkenny awoke early the following morning. He had returned at once to his hideout, but now he was awake. His hands were swollen and battered, and in the mirror he carried, he could see one eye was swollen almost closed. There was a welt on the corner of his mouth and a blue swelling on his cheekbone. He heated water on the fire and soaked his hands; carefully he cleaned the cuts and sc.r.a.pes on his head and arms.

He was still tending to his injuries at noon when Gates appeared. He swung down and crossed to Kilkenny with jingling spurs. "Man! Did you beat that big lug! He was still punch-drunk when they left this morning!"

Kilkenny looked up sharply. He didn't feel too good himself. "They left? How many of them?"

"Mailer himself and four hands. Geslin, Starr, Socorro, and a mean-faced hombre with a scar that I've not seen around much."

"Thin? Stoop-shouldered with yellowish eyeb.a.l.l.s?"

"That's him, who is he?"

"That's Ethridge, one of the Stockton gang." Kilkenny got to his feet, drying his hands. "That gives me a hunch, now. I think I know who Mailer is. If I'm not wrong, he's one of a bunch that operated out of Durango. Used a flock of names. One of them was Lacey or something like that."

"Yeah, I've heard of him." Kilkenny studied his swollen hands. "Look," he said presently, "we're going to wind this up. Lona should come to see me today, and I've got to go see Poke Dunning. He left word with Kansas down at Salt Creek. He's got a proposition for me."

"Watch yourself."

"I will. But I want to see him. The lid's set to blow off anyway, and we might as well start the ball rolling while Mailer is gone."

"He said he'd be gone two days."

"All right, that gives us some time. I'll talk to Lona, then I'll ride down and see Dunning. You be ready, and you talk to Flynn and that cook."

After Gates was gone, he thought it over again. Kilkenny had taken care to learn something about the extent of the Blue Hill holdings, and the ranch was vast in area and in stock. There were thousands of head of cattle, and in the breaks to the west there were sheep. It was a big stake, truly. How had Mailer worked into the deal? He was sure that Poke had started it alone ... in fact, in his own mind he was sure that Dunning had killed Markham. But somehow Mailer had come into it.

He was thinking about that when he heard Lona ride into the amphitheater below, so he got to his feet and swung into the saddle. She smiled brightly when she saw him, then gasped as she saw his face. "Oh, what happened to you? You're hurt!"

Kilkenny chuckled. "No, not really. I had a fight last night. Didn't you hear about it?"

"No ... how would I hear?" He took off his hat and swung down to a seat near her on a boulder.

"It was your man Mailer I was fighting."

She came to her feet. "You ... fought Frank Mailer?"

He smiled, painfully. "If you think I look bad, you should see him!"

"You . . . whipped him?" Lona was amazed. The more she looked at the tall young man on the rock, the more impossible it became that this man could have beaten Mailer.

Kilkenny grinned. He didn't like to brag, and yet . . . well, what man doesn't like to have a pretty girl think well of him? "Well, to tell you the truth, I did, and if you'll pardon my saying so, I did a bang-up job of it. Not that I didn't catch a few!" He felt with delicate fingers of the lump on his cheekbone.

"He'll kill you now." She was very positive. "He'll never let you get away alive."

"It's going to get to that point anyway," Kilkenny said. "I'm going to make sure that ranch is in your hands, all free and clear, with Poke Dunning and Mailer both out of the picture. Do you believe now that Dunning's not your father?" She looked at him seriously. "I ... I never really doubted that. He was always funny around me, and he would never tell me anything about my mother. I remember a lot of little things now."

"Anything about that wagon trip?" he asked quickly. "Not much. I remember a town where there were Indians, and from all else I recall, it must have been Santa Fe. There was another man with us then. And we came west from there."

"You remember nothing after that?"

"Well... sort of. It's not very clear, not at all, but I have a memory of a place ... of coming up a long canyon with a small stream in the bottom. We came up it for a long, long way, it seems to me. Once we climbed out of it and I remember Father pointing at a great peak or mesa that was far away. He ... I remember that because he said something about an orphan at the time, and I pestered him to tell me what an orphan was. I guess it wasn't long after that I became one."

Kilkenny nodded. "That helps. We're getting places now. I would bet fifty dollars that the long canyon was Canyon Largo. The Orphan makes sense. You see, that's the name of a mesa over in the desert near Largo. They call it El Huerfano ... the Orphan, because it stands alone."

"Isn't that funny?" she said. "I never connected the mountain and the orphan, at all! Now, let's see, there was something else, too. Last night I was thinking about it and I dreamed something about a night when there was a fire and I woke up and I could see the light dancing on a rock wall. I've thought about that real often. You know how it is, you forget so much and then two or three things sort of stick in your mind? It was that way with this.... I remember waking up and being afraid because I could see that Father was not in his blankets, but when I called to him, he spoke to me from far off and told me to be quiet. I went back to sleep then."

Kilkenny squinted his eyes at her. "You remember anything else about that?"

She shook her head. "No, only I think it was the next day that we got here and the old Indian woman took care of me. I didn't see Father again for a long time."

"Probably you never saw him again, not actually." Kilkenny got to his feet. "You know, I've a hunch that night you woke up was the night your father was killed, and if you got to the ranch the next day, it could not have been far from here."

"Oh, but I can't be sure!" she objected. "It's been so long, and telling it this way makes it seem a lot more real than it actually was! It's pretty vague."

"Nevertheless, I think I'm right. Before I see Dunning today, I'm going to have a look."

"But how could you find it after all this time?" she asked.