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Anyhow there was now one less enemy for the Casa Grande ranch. And perhaps a good friend.
If anything happened to him, Carol would need friends. Walt Seever was ominously quiet, and Jed had a feeling the man was waiting for proof that the man who called himself Michael Latch was not Michael Latch.
That gave Jed an idea. It was a game at which two could play.
Carol was saddling her own horse when he walked out in the morning. She glanced at him quickly, noting the bruise on his face.
“You seem to have a faculty of getting into trouble!” she said, smiling at him.
He gri
“You seem to have made a friend of Besovi,” she suggested, looking at him curiously.
“Why not? He’s a good man, just too used to taking all he can put his hands on, but he’ll be a good neighbor.” He hesitated, not looking at her, afraid his eyes might give him away. “If anything should happen to me, you’d need friends. I think Besovi would help you.”
Her eyes softened. “Thank you—Mike.” She hesitated just a little over the name. “You have already done so much that Uncle George talked of doing.”
Costa was out gathering the herd Jed wanted to sell, and Pardo had gone with Tony. Jed did not ask Carol where she was going, but watched her ride away toward the valley. Then he threw the saddle on his own horse and cinched up. At the sound of horses’ hoofs, he turned.
Walt Seever was riding into the yard, and with him were Harry Strykes, Gin Feeley, and the man who had spoken to Strykes in the bar. Realizing suddenly that he wore no guns, Jed felt naked and helpless and there was no one around the ranch-house that he knew of.
Seever drew rein and leaned on the pommel of his saddle. “Howdy!” he said slowly, savoring his triumph. “Howdy, Jed!” No muscle changed on Jed Asbury’s face. He stood, hands at his sides, waiting. If it came to trouble, he was going right at Seever.
“Purty smart play,” Seever said, “if it hadn’t been for me suspicionin’ yuh might have got away with it.”
Jed waited, watching.
“Now,” Seever said, “yore play’s finished. I suppose we should let yuh get on yore hoss and ride, but we ain’t goin’ to.”
“You mean to kill me like you did Latch and his friends?” Seever’s face tightened. “Purty smart hombre, ain’t yuh? But when yuh said that, yuh signed yore death warrant, so
“I suppose your yellow-faced friend there was one of the men you sent to kill Latch,” Jed said. “He looks the kind.”
“Let me kill him, Walt!” begged the man with the yellow complexion. “Just let me kill him!”
“What I want to know is where you got them guns?” Walt demanded.
“Out of the wagon, of course!” Jed smiled. “The men you sent to stop Latch before he could get here to claim the estate, messed things up. The Indians had me, but I got away. I found clothes at the wagon. It was as simple as that.”
Seever nodded. “Like I figgered. Now when we get rid of you, nobody’ll know what happened, and I’ll claim Casa Grande!” Jed chuckled. “Thieves like you always forget the important things. Like I said, that outfit you sent messed up the deal. What are you going to do about Arden?”
“Arden?” Walt Seever’s face tightened. “Who the devil is Arden?”
Jed laughed softly. He had worked inches nearer, merely shifting his feet and his weight, They might get him, but he was going to kill Walt Seever.
He chuckled. “Why, Seever, Arden is a girl, and a mighty nice one! She was with Latch when he was killed!”
“A girl?” Seever turned sharply. “Clark, yuh said there was two men and a middle-aged woman!”
“That’s all there was!” Clark said flatly.
“You killed three of them,” said Jack, “but Arden had gone out on the prairie to gather some wild onions. When you opened up on the wagon, she hid in the grass. I found her.”
“That’s a lie!” Clark bellowed. “There was only the three of them!”
“What about those fancy clothes you threw around huntin’ in the wagon?” Jed asked coolly. “Think they were old woman’s clothes?”
Walt’s face darkened with fury. “Cuss you, Clark! Yuh said yuh got all of ’em!”
“There wasn’t no girl!” Clark said feebly. “Anyway, I didn’t see none!”
“There was, and she’s in Santa Fe, plenty safe there, waitin’ for word from me. Somebody will have to answer if I turn up missing, and it looks like you, Walt! You can’t win! You ain’t got a chance.” Seever’s face was ugly. “Anyway,” he said, “we’ve got yuh dead to rights, and yuh die now!”
His hand moved back for his gun, but before Jed Asbury could move a muscle, a shot rang out. Seever yelled in surprise. From behind Jed came Pat Flood’s voice.
“Better keep yore hands away from yore guns, Walt. I can shoot the buttons off yore shirt with this here rifle. And in case it ain’t enough, I got me a scattergun right alongside me. You hombres unbuckle yore belts real careful. You first, Seever!”
Jed dropped back swiftly and picked up the sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun.
The men shed their guns.
“Now get off them hosses!” Flood ordered.
They dismounted and Flood, without shifting his eyes, asked: “What yuh want done with ’em, Boss? Should we shoot the pack of coyotes?”
“No.” Jed smiled. “Let them walk back to town. All except Clark. I want to talk to Clark.”
“You can’t get away with this!” Seever’s face turned an ugly red.
“Ssh!” Jed said gently. “Just look at this shotgun again! It’s mighty persuasive.”
Three men started trooping back to town. Clark, his face ashen, stood with his hands up and his jaw slack.
“Let me go!” he pleaded abjectly. “They’ll kill me!”
Jed gathered up the guns and strolled back to the blacksmith shop. Flood was holding the rifle on the trembling Clark as they followed.
“How much did you hear?” Jed asked Flood.
“All of it,” the big blacksmith said bluntly. “But my memory’s mighty poor. I judge a man by the way he handles himself in a rough sea. You’ve been workin’ for the good of the ship—ridin’ for the brand, as they say it in cattle country. I ain’t interested in anything else.”
“Thanks,” Jed turned to Clark. “You’ve got one chance to live, and you shouldn’t have that. Tell us what happened, who sent you, what you did.” Out of the side of his mouth he said, “Take this down.”
“I got paper and pencil,” the blacksmith said. “Always keep a log.”
“All right, Clark,” Jed said. “A complete confession.”
“Seever will kill me, I tell yuh!” Clark pleaded.
Jed stared at him coldly. “You can die right here, or you can have your horse and thirty minutes’ start. Make your choice.” Clark hesitated, and when he spoke his voice was so low they scarcely could hear.
“I was broke, and Seever came to Ogden and told me I was to find this wagon that was just startin’ west from St. Louis. We was to head ’em off and make shore they never got here. I never knew there was no woman along. Not even one. I didn’t want to kill no woman.”
“Who was with yuh?” Flood demanded.
“Hombre name of Quindry. Another name of Cal Santon. I met up with ’em in Laramie.”
Jed’s exclamation brought Flood’s head up. “You know ’em?” “Yeah.” Jed nodded grimly. “I killed Buck Santon, Cal’s brother. He was a crooked gambler!”
“Then you was the hombre they was huntin’!” Clark said, astonished.
“Where are they now?”
“Headin’ west. Seever sent for ’em for some reason. Guess he figured they’d come in here and prove you was somebody different than yuh said yuh was. He didn’t guess you knowed ’em, though.”
“Seever ordered the killing?”
“Shore.”
A few more questions, and the confession was completed. “All right,” Jed told him. “Sign it.”