Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John (читать книги txt) 📗

Janroe looked at him with surprise. “I have time.”

“And I’ve got work to do.”

“Well,” Janroe said easily, “I was going to try to talk you into going back to the store with me. I’ve got a proposition you ought to be interested in.”

“Go ahead and make it.”

“I’ve got to show you something along with it, and that’s at the store.”

“Then it’ll have to wait,” Cable said.

“Well”-Janroe shrugged-“it’s up to you. I’ll tell you this much, it would end your problem all at once.”

Cable watched him closely. “What would I have to do?”

“Kill Vern,” Janroe said mildly. “Kill him and his brother.”

Cable had felt himself tensed, but now he relaxed. “Just like that.”

“You can do it. You proved that the way you handled those three yesterday.”

“And why are you so anxious to see the Kidstons dead?”

“I’m looking at it from your side.”

“Like hell.”

“All right.” Janroe paused. “You were pretty close to John Denaman, weren’t you?”

“He gave me my start here.”

“Did you know Denaman was running guns for the South?”

Cable was watching Janroe closely. “You’re sure?”

“He was just part of it,” Janroe continued. “They’re Enfield rifles shipped into Mexico by the British. Confederate agents bring them up over the border and the store is one of the relay points. It was Denaman’s job to hide the rifles until another group picked them up for shipment east.”

“And where do you come in?”

“When Denaman died I was sent out to take his place.”

Cable’s eyes remained on Janroe. So the man was a Confederate agent. And John Denaman had been one. That was hard to picture, because you didn’t think of the war reaching out this far. But it was here. Fifteen hundred miles from the fighting, almost another world, but it was here.

“I told you,” Janroe said, “I was with Kirby Smith. I lost my arm fighting the Yankees. When they said I wasn’t any more use as a soldier I worked my way into this kind of a job. Eight months ago they sent me out here to take Denaman’s place.”

“And Manuel,” Cable said. “Is he in it?”

Janroe nodded. “He scouts for the party that brings up the rifles. That’s where he is now.”

“When’s he due back?”

“What do you want to do, check my story?”

“I was thinking of Manuel. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“He’ll be back in a day or so.”

“Does Luz know about the guns?”

“You can’t live in the same house and not know about them.”

“So that’s what’s bothering her.”

Janroe looked at him curiously. “She said something to your wife?”

Cable shrugged off the question. “It doesn’t matter. You started out with me killing Vern and Duane Kidston.”

Janroe nodded. “How does it look to you now?”

“You’re telling me to go after them. To shoot them down like you would an animal.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s called murder.”

“It’s also called war.”

Cable shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned the war’s over.”

Janroe watched him closely. “You don’t stop believing in a cause just because you’ve stopped fighting.”

“I’ve got problems of my own now.”

“But what if there’s a relation between the two? Between your problems and the war?”

“I don’t see it.”

“Open your eyes,” Janroe said. “Vern supplies remounts to the Union army. He’s doing as much to help them as any Yankee soldier in the line. Duane’s organized a twelve-man militia. That doesn’t sound like anything; but what if he found out about the guns? Good rifles that Confederate soldiers are waiting for, crying for. But even without that danger, once you see Duane you’ll want to kill him. I’ll testify before God to that.”

Janroe leaned closer to Cable. “This is what I’m getting at. Shooting those two would be like aiming your rifle at Yankee soldiers. The only difference is you know their names.”

Cable shook his head. “I’m not a soldier anymore. That’s the difference.”

“You have to have a uniform on to kill?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Janroe said. “You need an excuse. You need something to block off your conscience while you’re pulling the trigger. Something like a license, so killing them won’t be called murder.”

Cable said nothing. He was listening, but staring off at the horse herd now.

Janroe watched him. “That’s your problem. You want Vern and Duane off your land, but you don’t have the license to hunt them. You don’t have an excuse your conscience will accept.” Janroe paused. He waited until Cable’s gaze returned and he was looking directly into his eyes.

“I can give you that excuse, Mr. Cable. I can fix you up with the damnedest hunting license you ever saw, and your conscience will just sit back and laugh.”

For a moment Cable was silent, letting Janroe’s words run through his mind. All at once it was clear and he knew what the man was driving at. “If I worked for you,” Cable said, “if I was an agent, I could kill them as part of my duty.”

Janroe seemed to smile. “I could even order you to do it.”

“Why me? If it’s so important to you, why haven’t you tried?”

“Because I can’t afford to fool with something like that. If I’m caught, what happens to the gun running?”

“And if I fail,” Cable said, “what happens to my family?”

“You don’t have anything to lose,” Janroe said easily. “What happens to them if Vern kills you? What happens to all of you if he runs you off your land?”

Cable shook his head. “I’ve never even seen these people and you want me to kill them.”

“It will come to that,” Janroe said confidently. “I’m giving you an opportunity to hit first.”

“I appreciate that,” Cable said. “But from now on, how would you like to keep out of my business? You stop worrying about me and I won’t say anything about you. How will that be?” He saw the relaxed confidence drain from Janroe’s face leaving an expressionless mask and a tight line beneath his mustache.

“I think you’re a fool,” Janroe said quietly. “But you won’t realize it yourself until it’s too late.”

“All right,” Cable said. He spoke calmly, not raising his voice, but he was impatient now, anxious for Janroe to leave. “That’s about all I’ve got time for right now. You come out again some time, how’s that?”

“If you’re still around.” Janroe flicked his reins and moved off.

Let him go, Cable thought, watching Janroe taking his time, just beginning to canter. He’s waiting for you to call him. But he’ll have a long wait, because you can do without Mr. Janroe. There was something about the man that was wrong. Cable could believe that Janroe had been a soldier and was now a Confederate agent; but his wanting the Kidstons killed-as if he would enjoy seeing it happen-that was something else. There was the feeling he wanted to kill them just for the sake of killing them, not for the reasons he brought up at all. Maybe it would be best to keep out of Janroe’s way. There was enough to think about as it was.

Cable swung the sorrel in a wide circle across the meadow and came at the horse herd up wind, counting thirty-six, all mares and foals; seeing their heads rise as they heard him and caught his scent. And now they were moving, carefully at first, only to keep out of his way, then at a run as he spurred the sorrel toward them. Some tried to double back around him, but the sorrel answered his rein and swerved right and left to keep them bunched and moving.

Where the Saber crossed the valley, curving over to the east side of the meadow, he splashed the herd across with little trouble, then closed on them again and ran them as fast as the foals could move, up the narrowing, left-curving corridor of the valley. After what he judged to be four or five miles farther on, he came in sight of grazing cattle and there Cable swung away from the horse herd. This would be Kidston land.

Now he did not follow the valley back but angled for the near slope, crossed the open sweep of it to a gully which climbed up through shadowed caverns of ponderosa pine. At the crest of the hill he looked west out over tangled rock and brush country and beyond it to a towering near horizon of creviced, coldly silent stone. Close beyond this barrier was the Toyopa place, where Kidston now lived.