North of Mexico, West of Texas

Roy C. Dudley CHAPTER 1 Page 1

   In the western lands where all were entitled to an opinion and most of them volunteered this opinion freely, there were three schools of thought concerning Danny Riordan.

   Some swore he was all bad, a crook and a downright dishonest one at that. They argued that the best solution to the Riordan problem was a rope over a limb and fresh air under his feet.

   Others, just as certain, claimed Danny had been framed from the start, and all that had happened since was a consequence of this contrived beginning. Further, they pointed out: Danny was kind, honest, and--

   Then there were those just as vociferous somewhere betwixt and between. But all agreed that Danny Riordan was all man; and in the western eye, that atoned for many transgressions.

   Riordan had broken and twisted so many laws that he was badly wanted to explain same in various localities. In consequence, the Law held to a narrower view. But the Law stopped short at hanging unless by due process thereof and according to established legal protocol. Of course, the Law did offer to pay three thousand dollars for Danny's head on a platter, so to speak.

   Now these defamers of Danny-those ill-omened birds of prey who spoke harshly of him, and the Law in the person of Sheriff Lawson, Deputy Pike and assorted legally constituted posse men--had Danny cornered in Destitution Canyon. They had him backed up against sixty foot cliffs with both ends of the canyon bottled and stoppered.

   The bottlers and stoppers were men who understood bottling and stopping. That is to say, they understood guns and shooting of same.

   These men were trackers, trappers, Indian fighters, and ex-cavalry men, some with the "ex" unofficial and unbeknownst to their peers. They were cowboys, mostly honest, and of one opinion with the rest concerning Danny. They were loafers, saloon bums, and general riffraff. But all were on the shoot and wise to trailing and springing the trap of a six-shooter, rifle, or what-have-you. They were also numerous, adding to near fifty. They were a crowd.

   Then there were the on-lookers. Some were betwixt and between, some were disposed kindly and some were curious as to the outcome. And of course, there were the women. They were disposed to the two extremes.

   The cornering had taken a day and a half, and was already twelve hours old. No one was anxious to lift the stopper and drink from the bottle. Thus was the crowded landscape explained. This was a banner day for Debility, which was the name of the nearby town, of Desolation Territory, which was some rustic humorist's summation of the country.

   This same humorist had doubtless dubbed the canyon and town, and had never progressed beyond "D" in "Webster's Unabridged".

   Sheriff Abner Lawson rubbed the back of a large hand across the sandy bristles ornamenting his chin and cursed silently. The chin was large and stubborn, as was the sheriff, and his gray eyes were iced over from the view to the west.

   To the west of the redoubtable sheriff stretched a stubbled field sown with rocks of average size and boulder size, which is to say, man-size to house size. And there was the western sun hanging low over Destitution Peak, from which the Canyon was presumably named. Digging in that sort of scenery promised to be hard, and the only ore mined would be hot lead. Some preliminary attempts at excavating Danny had earned one man a broken shoulder, and another a leg neatly pierced.

   "We'll starve him out," declared one hardy soul.

   The sheriff bent a sour look upon this individual. "At two men a day, I don't figure to afford it."

   "It's luck," said a bearded rancher without much conviction.

   "Luck?" rumbled the sheriff. "It's the kind of luck a good eye and a steady hand can bring a man, Will."

   "Luck," insisted the rancher, made obstinate by the sheriff's praise of Danny's marksmanship, and by bygone wrongs executed by this same marksman.

   "Luck?" asked the sheriff again. "You stick your head out and Danny will expand your brains for luck."

   "Expand them?" asked a runty new-comer to the scene. "He'll scramble them."

   The rancher turned from the formidable sheriff to this simple runt. "You sound like you're in cahoots with this crook, Pike," he charged angrily.

   Pike's red hair had got in the way of his seeing and he carefully pushed it back with a freckled left hand. His right dropped close to a bone-handled forty five Colt.

   "You sound like a bear that got his tail caught in a crack he'd made hisself," said Pike, in no way cowed.

   "Meaning?" challenged Will Harkness softly, for that was a sore subject.

   "Stow it, you two," said the sheriff mildly, "or I'll pick the both of you up and pitch you over Destitution Peak."

   Will Harkness was big and he was ornery, and he was angry too; angry at the lack of progress and at the sheriff's calm assumption of superiority. He was cautious also. Lawson was reputed to have broken the back of one foe, broken it with his bare hands, and the sheriff could shoot. So Harkness hesitated and the moment passed.

   "Rusty," said the sheriff to Pike, "you fort up a few boys in likely places. Kind of in a ring, if you know what I mean."

   "I know what you mean, and you mean boys the like of Herb Dawson who was fried by Danny and Charlie Greer whose walk ain't so limber any more," said Rusty Pike with wink and a smile.

   "I mean boys as don't mind the chance of being chewed up a mite," said the imperturbable sheriff.

   "Will," continued the sheriff, "you rustle some of the boys together to build fires. We can't have Danny running about careless like in the dark."

   Rusty slipped from the nest of rock to another nest nearby.

   "Ab," said Will Harkness to the sheriff, "I don't like being talked to the way you been doing."

   The sheriff's eyes rested briefly on two punchers squatted in the shade, then on Harkness. "Have you ever watched Pike rustle a gun?" asked he mildly.

   "No."

   "You oughta try it sometime, Will, it's plumb educational. You see, Rusty is one of them cum laude college kids that graduates to teaching. He's a professor, you might say. Gun logic is what he teaches and most learn his lessons plumb permanent."

   "Pshaw, Ab," protested Harkness, "you know and I know that I ain't no slouch."

   "Why, Will, that depends on who you're facing. Against most you'd hold up your end and more. Against Danny Riordan and Rusty Pike you'd commit suicide before your gun cleared leather."

   Harkness growled some half heard words while the sheriff nodded his sympathy.

   "You see," continued the loquacious sheriff, "there's men and men. Then there's a few cats like Pike and Riordan. A six gun is the claw as fits their hands. You might say it's an extension of their hands. They just flex their fingers, and there it is--their claws. They don't even have to think about it. It's natural. And these cats kill like cats too. Plumb impersonal."

   The sheriff paused politely for an answer not forth coming. "Yes, sir, I don't mind saying I leave them boys strictly alone." This last not too truthfully, for the doughty sheriff was known to be utterly fearless.

   A spate of rifle fire drifted to the sheriff from the north end of the bottle. One rifle made a one shot answer.

   "God A'mighty, he's kilt Spec Hansen," yelled one nervous soul.

   "Shut your mouth," said Spec, "and rustle up the Doc."

   The sheriff scowled. "Danny, hey, Danny," he bellowed.

   "Hey yourself," came the cheerful reply.

   "We got yuh. Give yourself up before you get punctured."

   "What if I do?"

   "I'll see that things go as easy for you as I can make it."

   "That's a right handsome offer, sheriff. I'm sorry that I'm sort of tied up right now. I'm greeting old friends, so to speak. It wouldn't be sociable for me to up and leave."

   The sheriff listened to this discourse with a face grown gloomier.

   "I might even be able to nudge Judge Mortimer a mite. I'd sure try."

   "I'd like to nudge the judge a mite myself," came the answer.

   "Did you know there was water in the hollows of some of these rocks, sheriff?"

   "You could be eating good and sleeping good was you to listen. How long can you stay awake, and how about your horse?"

   "Your motherly concern just about breaks my heart, sheriff. Tell Will Harkness to poke his head out, will ya?"

   "Shooting up a posse thisaway will go hard on you," warned the sheriff.

   "You call them crooks a posse? I've been chased by a gang of rustlers with more claim to honesty."

   This last was greeted by yells, threats, and a few unaimed shots.

   "This is your last chance to surrender," said the sheriff sourly.

   "Thanks, but no thanks, sheriff."

   The sheriff's face grew longer. He turned and fixed a gloomy eye on the goodly crowd of onlookers scattered behind him. "Vultures," muttered the sheriff incautiously.

   "But citizens," said a bright voice at his elbow.

   The sheriff's nerves didn't allow a single twitch of his body. "I wish you'd try making a little noise when you walk, Paddy. One of these days I'll be feeling nervous and slice a hunk out of your liver with a piece of lead."

   Paddy smiled a smile behind his huge moustache, or the sheriff thought he did. Paddy was a trapper, an Indian fighter and a scrapper to boot. He was chunky, middle aged and mule strong, not to mention head strong and thoroughly independent. He leaned more than somewhat toward Danny's side of the argument.

   "You got yourself a genuine catamount penned in a belt of timber," said Paddy. "A belt of timber, and you standing under a tree. Knowed an Arapaho onect that did likewise. He was so clawed it took his mother a month to recognize him."

   "There's a difference, I ain't alone."

   "You was when I came up." The trapper chuckled suddenly. "You should go up and meet your constituents, sheriff. The ones looking on like vultures, I mean to say. They're plumb interested in this man hunt of yours."

   The sheriff looked not unkindly upon the trapper, studying his buckskins, rifle, six gun and knife with the eyes of a connoisseur. He noted a small pack also. "Traveling?" asked the sheriff.

   "Here and there and there to here. You might say a man spends most of his time traveling. He's always here and wishes he was there."

   "That's all right," said the sheriff, "so long as you don't travel from here to there." One large forefinger indicated Danny's pile of rocks.

   "I'd never make it through the circle of man killers you got throwed up, sheriff," protested Paddy. "Besides, it would be dishonest, discourteous and downright dangerous."

   "You musta met the hombre as named this place," said the sheriff.

   "Desolation he called this country and that range of mountains. When
you reach the top, Paddy, think of us."

   "Kindly you mean--or kindly leave. But I dearly love a scrap and would hate to miss this one."

   "Danny's had his fun, and now's the time to pay the piper. Danny knows it and ain't complaining. I just want you to know it."

   "But I don't, sheriff, your telling me don't make it so. No," at the sudden movement of the sheriff, "don't bother offering an escort, I'm leaving." Paddy paused for a look around. "Lots of space between them rocks."

Copyright © 1978