Rebel Spurs, Andre Norton [best free ereader TXT] 📗

will be able to get at Kitchell, and the army will settle him for good and all!"

"Bayliss!" The captain had half turned, but Don Cazar's call halted him. "Don't you try harassing any of my riders. They mind their business and will not make any trouble as long as they are left in peace. If there are any problems in town, Don Lorenzo Sierra, here, is the alcalde and they must be referred to him."

The captain favored Rennie with a last glare and was gone. Tobe Kells spoke first.

"That one's chewin' th' bit an' gittin' ready to hump under th' saddle. This business of tryin' to run out th' Rebs, it'll cause smokin'!"

"He has no right to give such an order," Don Cazar was beginning when the alcalde interrupted:

"Compadre, for a man such as that your talk of rights means nothing. He is eaten by the need to impress his will here, and that will bring trouble. I do not like what I have heard, no, I do not like it at all."

"You know what may be really eating at him this time, Hunt?" Topham spoke from where he was leaning against the wall of Shadow's box stall. "Johnny was throwing his weight around again last night. Had a set-to in the Jacks with a trooper. Unless the kid quits trying to fight the war over again every time he sees an army blouse—or until he[pg 047] stops pouring whisky down him every time he hits town—there may be shooting trouble. There're some equal hot-heads in Bayliss' camp, and if Johnny goes up against one of them, a scuffle could become a battle."

"Yeah, an' that warn't all Johnny was doin' last night." Kells shifted his tobacco cud from one cheek to the other. "Iffen Kirby here hadn't been to hand, Johnny would have skinned th' Trinfan kid with his quirt—jus' 'cause he dropped his purse outside th' Jacks an' th' kid followed him to give it back. Johnny's meaner than a drunk Injun these days. That's Bible-swear truth, Rennie."

"To lose a war makes a man bitter," Don Cazar said slowly. "Johnny was far too young when he ran away to join Howard. And after that defeat at Glorieta, the retreat to Texas was pure hell with the fires roaring. It seems to have done something to the boy—inside."

"Johnny wasn't the only boy at Glorieta. From what I've heard most of them weren't old enough to grow a good whisker crop." Topham's voice had lost its detached note. "And he sure wasn't the only Confederate to surrender. Hunt, he's got to learn that losing a war doesn't mean that a man has lost the rest of his life. But the way he's been acting these past months, Johnny might just lose it. Bayliss' tongue is hanging out a yard or more he's panting so hard to get back at you. That captain has heady ambitions under his hat, maybe like setting up here as a tinpot governor or something like. If he can discredit you, well, he probably thinks he's got a chance to rake in the full pot, and it's a big one. Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he's turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war[pg 048] is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he'll try to push the wrong man—"

Don Cazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing.

"He's just a boy." Rennie did not utter that as an excuse; rather he said it as if to reassure himself. Then his eyes really focused on Drew, and he changed the subject abruptly.

"Kirby, when the train comes in we sometimes set up a race or two. Any thought of trying your colt against some of the local champions?"

"Oro perhaps?" Drew counter-questioned.

Rennie laughed. "Oh, so you've been talking, Fenner?"

The scout came away from where Tar was still very audibly munching his treat. "Didn't know as how th' younker had him a runnin' hoss, Don Cazar." He inspected Shiloh critically. "But that thar sure looks a lotta hoss. 'Course maybe he ain't used t' runnin' out here whar th' ground ain't made all nice an' easy fur his feet. But I dunno, I dunno at all."

"Anyway he'll give Oro stiffer competition than he's had in the last two races. Unless that Lieutenant Spath up at the camp tries again with that long-legged black of his," Topham added. "What about it, Kirby? You willing to match Shiloh?"

"He's green, but, yes, I'll do it."

Drew's motives were mixed. His pride in the colt had been pushing him toward such a trial ever since he had heard Fenner speak of Oro. In addition, as the owner of a[pg 049] noted horse, he would take a place in this community, establish his identity as Drew Kirby. And in some way he could not define, this put him, at least in his own mind, on an equal footing with Don Cazar.

But by the next morning a few doubts troubled him as he tightened saddle cinches on the stallion. Shiloh's only races so far had been impromptu matches along the trail. Though the colt had been consistently the victor, none of his rivals had been in his class. And if Oro's speed was as striking as his coloring, the Range stud would prove a formidable opponent.

"Walk him up and down here by the corral." The Kentuckian handed the reins to Callie. "Got something I have to do."

Drew went directly to the Four Jacks. This time the cantina was filled, with a double row of the thirsty demanding attention at the bar. But Topham was seated at a table with Don Lorenzo and Zack Cahill of the stage line. The Kentuckian went over to them.

"You have come to back your horse, señor?" Don Lorenzo smiled up at Drew. There were piles of coins on the table as Cahill listed bets for the men crowding around.

"Yes, suh." Drew spun down two double eagles. "What're the odds?"

"Started six to one for Oro," Topham told him. "Coasted down after a few of the boys had a look at Shiloh. Can give you four to one now. Anything else we can do for you?"

Drew dropped his voice. "Do you have a safe here?"

Topham's eyebrows climbed. "Do you foresee a deposit or a withdrawal?"

"Deposit. I want to ride light today."

"Then I'll admit possession of a safe, such as it is. Don[pg 050] Lorenzo, por favor, will you act as banker?" He beckoned Drew after him into a small back room which was in sharp contrast to the main part of the Four Jacks.

On one wall was a fanned display of old daggers and swords which dated a century or so back to the Spanish colonial days. A bookcase crammed with tightly squeezed volumes provided a resting place for pieces of native pottery bearing grotesque animal designs. On the far wall were strips of brightly colored woven materials flanking a huge closed cupboard, a very old one, Drew thought. Its paneled front was carved with deeply incised patterns centering about a shield bearing arms. Only the battered desk and an attendant chair with a laced rawhide seat were of the frontier.

Topham took a chained key from the pocket of his fancy vest and went to fit it into a lock concealed in the carved foliage of the cupboard. The shield split down the middle, revealing shelves of metal boxes and packets of papers. Drew unfastened his money belt and handed it over. As he was tucking his shirt in his belt once more the gambler nodded at the cupboard.

"This is about as near a bank as we boast in Tubacca. Cahill has a strongbox at the stage station, and Stein some kind of a lockup at his store—that's the total for the town. We haven't grown to the size for a real banking establishment—"

"Hey, Reese, th' Old Man about—?"

Shannon was in the doorway. In the full light of day he looked younger. Drew was puzzled. That strange animosity which had flashed between them last night—why had he felt it? There was nothing like that emotion now. But as Johnny Shannon's gaze flitted from Topham to the Kentuckian,[pg 051] Drew was once more aware that, whatever he might outwardly seem, Johnny Shannon was no boy. Behind that disarmingly youthful façade was another person altogether.

"Kirby, ain't it?" Shannon smiled. "Understand I got outta line th' other night ... stepped on a lotta toes." That gaze flickered for the merest instant to the Colts at the Kentuckian's belt. "I sure had me a real snootful an' I guess I was jus' fightin' th' war all over again. No hard feelin's?"

That guileless confession was very convincing on the surface. How did you assess an emotion you did not understand yourself? Drew was teased by a fleeting memory of the past, of a time when he had faced another pair of eyes such as those, surface eyes behind which you could see nothing. Then he became conscious that the pause was too lengthy, and he replied with a hurry he immediately regretted:

"No hard feelin's."

This time he was able to recognize the meaning of that quirk of Shannon's lips. But prudence controlled the small flare of temper he felt inside him. It did not really matter. Let Shannon think he was backing down. If the time ever came that they did have to have a showdown, Johnny Shannon might be the surprised one.

"You're sure a trustin' fella." Shannon's fingers hooked to the front of the gun belt riding low on the hip. "Not askin' for no receipt or nothin'...."

Topham laughed. "We don't forget what is due a customer, Johnny." He went to the desk, scribbled a line on a piece of paper, and held it out to Drew. "This should meet all contingencies, such as some patron out there getting[pg 052] downright ornery and putting a couple of extra buttonholes in my vest by the six-gun slug method."

"Heard tell as how you're fixin' to race your plug 'gainst Oro, Kirby," Johnny drawled. "Also as how you laid down some good round boys to back his chance. I took me a piece of them—easy pickin's." The sneer was plainer in his voice than it had been in his smile.

Drew's puzzlement grew. Why was Shannon leaning on him this way? Because he had stepped in to stop the quirting of Teodoro? That was the only reason the Kentuckian could think of.

"That's a matter of opinion." Topham was studying them both with interest. "I'd say Oro has him some real competition at last. None of the Eclipse blood was ever backward on the track."

"You ridin' yourself?" Shannon paid no attention to the gambler's comment.

Drew nodded. "He knows me, and I ride light—"

"Sure, I suppose you do—now." Shannon's eyes flickered again, this time to the locked cupboard. "Heard tell—leastways Callie's been spoutin' it around—that you was with General Forrest."

"Yes."

"You sure musta pulled outta th'