The Range Boss by Charles Alden Seltzer (reader novel .TXT) 📖

For during the exchange of amenities Randerson had answered him—without turning, though:

“What you wantin’, Red?” he said.

“You figger we’ve got ’em all out of the timber?” repeated Owen.

“Shucks.” Randerson’s voice was rich with mirth. “Why, I reckon. Unless you was figgerin’ to use a fine-toothed comb. Why, the boys was all a-nappin’, Red,” he added gently.

He did not look around, so that Owen might give him the warning wink that would have put him on his guard. Owen would have tapped him on the shoulder, but glancing sidelong, he saw Dorgan watching him, and he did not. A ripple of scornful laughter greeted Randerson’s reply, and with a sneering glance around, Owen again sought his blanket.

The reception that had been accorded his effort had made him appear ridiculous, he knew. It would be days before the outfit would cease referring to it.

He stretched himself out on the blanket, but after a few moments of reflection, he sat up, doggedly. He had been imagining all sorts of dire things that Dorgan might have in mind. He had a presentiment of impending trouble, and so deep was it that his forehead was damp with perspiration.

Several of the men, disturbed by Owen, had sat up, and were smoking and talking, and when he heard one of the men, named Blair, refer to a gunman, Watt Kelso, who had formerly graced Lazette with his presence, a light leaped into Owen’s eyes, his teeth came together with a snap, his lips formed into straight lines, and he drew a slow, deep breath. For that was the word that had eluded him—Kelso! And Kelso—how plain and simple it seemed to him now—Kelso was Dorgan, sitting opposite him now! Kelso minus his mustache, looking much different than when he had seen him last, but Kelso, just the same—undeniably Kelso!

So great was Owen’s excitement over this discovery that he was forced to lie down and turn his back to the fire for fear that Kelso might look at him and thus discover that he was recognized.

As he lay there, his brain yielded to a riot of speculation. What was Kelso doing here? Why had he come, minus the mustache, assuming the name, Dorgan? What meant his glances at Randerson?

He provided an explanation presently. Memory drew a vivid picture for him. It showed him a saloon in Lazette, some card tables, with men seated around them. Among the men were Kelso and Randerson. Randerson had been a mere youth. Kelso and Randerson were seated opposite each other, at the same table. Kelso had been losing—was in bad temper. He had charged Randerson with cheating. There had been words, and then Kelso had essayed to draw his pistol. There was a scuffle, a shot, and Kelso had been led away with a broken arm, broken by Randerson’s bullet—blaspheming, and shouting threats at Randerson. And now, after years of waiting, Kelso had come to carry out his threats. It was all plain to Owen, now. And with the knowledge, Owen’s excitement abated and he sat up, coldly observant, alert, to watch and listen.

For, while Owen had been thinking, Blair had continued to talk of Watt Kelso, of his deeds and his personality. And Owen saw that for the first time since joining the outfit, Kelso seemed interested in the talk around him. He was watching Blair with narrowed, glittering eyes, in which Owen could see suspicion. It was as though he were wondering if Blair knew that the man of whom he spoke now was at that minute sitting close to him, listening. But presently, Owen became convinced that Kelso thought not, for the suspicion in the gunman’s eyes changed to cold, secret amusement.

“Kelso’s pulled his freight from Lazette,” declared Blair, during the course of his talk. “It’s likely he’ll drift somewhere where he ain’t so well known. It got to be pretty hard pickin’ for him around here—folks fight shy of him. But he was sure a killer!”

Blair paused. “I reckon I might mention a man that he didn’t kill,” said a man who lay near Blair. “An’ he wanted to, mighty bad.”

“We’re wantin’ to know,” returned Blair. “He must have been a high-grade gun-slinger.”

The man nodded toward Randerson, who apparently was not listening to this conversation. There was a subdued chuckle from the man, and grunts of admiration or skepticism from the others. Owen’s gaze was fixed on Kelso; he saw the latter’s eyes gleam wickedly. Yes, that was it, Owen saw now; the recollection of his defeat at Randerson’s hands still rankled in the gunman’s mind. Owen saw him glance covertly at Randerson, observed his lips curl.

One of the other men saw the glance also. Not having the knowledge possessed by Owen, the man guffawed loudly, indicating the gunman.

“Dorgan ain’t swallerin’ your yarn about Randerson puttin’ a kink in Kelso,” he said to Blair.

Randerson turned, a mild grin on his face. “You fellows quit your soft-soapin’ about that run-in with Kelso,” he said. “There ain’t any compliments due me. I was pretty lucky to get out of that scrape with a whole hide. They told me Kelso’s gun got snagged when he was tryin’ to draw it.”

So then, Randerson had been listening, despite his apparent abstraction. And Owen sat rigid when he saw the gunman look coldly at Randerson and clear his throat.

Plainly, if Kelso had been awaiting an opportunity to take issue with Randerson, it was now!

“Yes,” he said, “you was mighty lucky.”

There was a sneer in the words, and malevolence in the twist of his lips as his voice came through them.

A flat, dead silence followed the speech. Every man held the position in which he had been when the gunman had spoken; nothing but their eyes moved, and these were directed from Randerson to the gunman and back again, questioningly, expectantly. For in the hearts of the men who had been talking until now there had been no thought of discord; they had spoken without rancor. But hostility, cold, premeditated, had been in the new man’s speech.

Randerson moved his head slightly, and he was looking straight into Kelso’s eyes. Kelso had moved a little; he was now sitting on his saddle, having shifted his position when Blair had begun to talk, and the thumb of his right hand was hooked in his cartridge belt just above the holster of his pistol.

Randerson’s face was expressionless. Only his eyes, squinted a little, with a queer, hard glint in them, revealed any emotion that might have affected him over Kelso’s words.

“Yes, Dorgan,” he said gently, “I was mighty lucky.”

Kelso’s lips curved into a slow, contemptuous smile.

“I reckon you’ve always been lucky,” he said.

“Meanin’?”

“Meanin’ that you’ve fell into a soft place here, that you ain’t fit to fill!”

Again a silence fell, dread, premonitory. It was plain to every man of the outfit, awake and listening, that Dorgan had a grievance—whether real or imaginary, it made little difference—and that he was determined to force trouble. Only Owen, apparently, knowing the real state of affairs, knew that the reference to Randerson’s inefficiency was a mere pretext. But that violence, open, deadly, was imminent, foreshadowed by Dorgan’s word, every man knew, and all sat tense and pale, awaiting Randerson’s reply.

They knew, these men, that it was not Randerson’s way to force trouble—that he would avoid it if he could do so without dishonor. But could he avoid it now? The eyes that watched him saw that he meant to try, for a slow, tolerant smile appeared on his lips.

“I reckon you’re plumb excited—Owen wakin’ you up out of your sleep like he did,” said Randerson. “But,” he added, the smile chilling a little, “I ain’t askin’ no man to work for me, if he ain’t satisfied. You can draw your time tomorrow, if it don’t suit you here.”

“I’m drawin’ it now!” sneered the gunman. “I ain’t workin’ for no pussy-kitten specimen which spends his time gallivantin’ around the country with a girl, makin’ believe he’s bossin’, when—” Here he added something that made the outfit gasp and stiffen.

As he neared the conclusion of the speech, his right hand fell to his gun-holster. Owen had been watching him, and at the beginning of the movement he shouted a warning:

“Look out, Wrecks!”

He had been afraid to tell Randerson that it was Kelso who was facing him, for fear that the information, bursting upon Randerson quickly, would disconcert him.

But Randerson had been watching, understanding the drift of the gunman’s words. And when he saw the shoulder of his gun-arm move, his own right hand dropped, surely, swiftly. Kelso’s gun had snagged in its holster years before. It came freely enough now. But its glitter at his side was met by the roar and flame spurt of Randerson’s heavy six, the thumb snap on the hammer telling of the lack of a trigger spring, the position of the weapon indicating that it had not been drawn from its holster.

Apparently not a man in the outfit had noticed this odd performance, though they had been held with dumb astonishment over the rapidity with which it had been executed. But they saw the red, venomous streak split the night; they heard the gunman’s gurgling gasp of amazement, and they watched, with ashen faces, while he dropped his weapon, sagged oddly forward and tumbled headlong into the sand near the fire. Then several of them sprang forward to drag him back.

It had seemed that none of the men had noticed that Randerson had seemed to shoot his pistol while it was still in the holster. One, however, had noticed. It was Red Owen. And while the other men were pulling the gunman back from the fire, Owen stepped close to Randerson, lifted the holster, and examined it quickly. He dropped it, with a low exclamation of astonishment.

“I was wonderin’—Holy smoke! It’s a phony holster, fixed on the gun to look like the real thing! An’ swung from the belt by the trigger guard! Lord, man! Did you know?”

“That Dorgan was Kelso?” said Randerson, with a cold smile. “I reckon. I knowed him the day he asked for a job. An’ I knowed what he come for—figurin’ on settlin’ that grudge.”

Randerson and Owen started toward the gunman, to determine how badly he had been hit; they were met by Blair. There was amazement and incredulity in the man’s eyes.

“He’s goin’ to cash in—quick,” he said. “You got him, pretty nearly proper—just over the heart. But, but, he says he’s Watt Kelso! An’ that that eastern dude, Masten, sent him over here—payin’ him five hundred cold, to perforate you!”

Randerson ran to where Kelso lay, gasping and panting for breath. He knelt beside him.

“You talkin’ straight, Kelso?” he asked. “Did Masten hire you to put me out of business?”

“Sure,” whispered Kelso.

“Where’s Masten stayin’?”

“With Chavis—in the shack. He’s been there right along, except,” he finished, with a grim attempt at humor, “when he’s been rushin’ that biscuit-shooter in Lazette.”

Five minutes later, standing near one of the wheels of the chuck-wagon, gazing somberly at the men, who were carrying Kelso away, Randerson spoke grimly to Owen, who was standing beside him.

“Pickett an’ then Kelso! Both of them was sure bad enough. But I reckon Masten’s got them both roped an’ hog-tied for natural meanness.” He turned to Owen. “I reckon I had to do it, old man,” he said, a quaver in his voice.

“Buck up, Wrecks!” Owen slapped him on the shoulder, and turned toward the men.

Randerson watched him, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “I reckon she’d have wanted it different,” he said to himself.