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  Melrose chuckled grimly and glanced at a turnip-sized gold watch. The Kingman twins would be at his office shortly, but the lawyer saw no difficulties confronting him. After all, was he not the sole possessor of the legal secrets surrounding the pasts of his clients? Had he not drawn up their adoption papers after the lapse of a year had brought no trace of Hap's uncle, One-eye Allen? Had he not drawn up the sheriff's will?

  Melrose turned once more to his safe. From a steel-doored inner compartment which had not been unlocked once in the past ten or twelve years, the lawyer drew forth two heavy envelopes.

  One sagged under the weight of a Peacemaker model Colt six-gun of .45 caliber. The other contained a tarnished silver snuffbox with an imperishable parchment of sheepskin inside it.

  Those seemingly unrelated objects held the secret of the strangely scrambled destinies of two human beings who had been orphaned on the same day, eighteen years before. And the key to that drama was held by Russ Melrose, their legal guardian. Mexitex residents had never known much about the circumstances of the two orphans adopted by the old sheriff, and had long since forgotten what little they did know.

  Melrose heard boot heels slogging on the stairway outside his office, and he made haste to shove the two envelopes back into the safe and lock the inner door.

  The lawyer was busy with papers on his desk when the steps ended at his door, and a moment later he was greeting the Kingman brothers, Hap and Everett.

  "Come in, amigos. I reckon you know why you're here. This is yore twenty-first birthday, and the day I'm supposed to read you the terms of your mother's will."

  The two men seated themselves opposite Melrose's desk. Everett, the blond brother, was obviously in a surly mood; his eyes were red-rimmed from a tequila bout in a Mexican saloon the night before, as a result of which he had lost a hundred dollars oro Americano in a poker game.

  Hap, too, did not seem to be in good spirits, although his eyes were unbleared and his hands steady as he sat twisting his cream-colored Stetson in his lap. He dressed as befitted his cowboy life—in chocolate-colored batwing chaps, crescent-pocketed rodeo shirt, kangaroo-leather boots. As was customary in Yaqui County, both brothers wore twin cartridge belts and guns.

  Drawing a legal-looking document from his desk, Melrose adjusted a pair of pince-nez glasses on his beaklike nose, and intoned in his best judicial voice:

  "I, Florence Marie Kingman, being of sound body and mind, do hereby bequeath my effects, real and personal, as follows, to wit: to my sons, Hap and Everett, equal shares in the ranch jointly owned by myself and their late father, Sheriff Lester A. Kingman; said ranch duly registered in the State Capital under the Flying K brand."

  "To my trusted and respected employee, Wing Sing, in gratitude for his long years of service, I do bequeath—"

  It was Hap Kingman who cut off the lawyer's reading with an impatient oath.

  "It isn't right, Mr. Melrose. I shouldn't inherit any of that Flyin' K ranch. Everett, here is the blood heir of the Kingmans. But I'm not. I'm adopted."

  The lawyer's eyebrows arched with astonishment. So far as he or anyone else had known, the Kingman "brothers" had no hint of their past, knew nothing of the circumstances of their adoption by the sheriff and his aged wife eighteen years before.

  "You can tell Everett is their son, and I'm not!" went on Hap Kingman. "Look at his hair and eyes and complexion—he's a dead ringer for his father and mother. Look at me, Melrose. I'm as dark as a Mexican. Les Kingman—much as I loved him and respect his memory—wasn't my father. I got proof."

  Melrose's gaze shifted to Everett. The dissipated-looking cowboy was staring at his fingers as they rolled a quirly.

  "What do you mean, Hap?" demanded the lawyer warily. "What do you mean, you got proof that you're not legal heir to the Flyin' K along with Everett?"

  Hap Kingman shifted uncomfortably in his chair, shooting a sidelong glance at Everett.

  "Not meanin' any offense, Everett, but I've always known you and I wasn't real brothers. I admit I was raised as your brother—but in all fairness, you ought to get the controllin' interest in the Flyin' K spread."

  Everett Kingman shrugged.

  "Whether we're brothers, or not, is no skin offn my nose," grunted the blond cowboy. "Go ahead an' read the will, shyster."

  Melrose walked over to the window, apparently not hearing the insult directed at him. His eyes slitted wolfishly as he stared out across the rooftops toward the distant range which belonged to George Siebert's cattle syndicate—range which Melrose would give his heart to possess.

  Then he turned abruptly to face the two young men.

  "Hap is right—he's only adopted, an orphan that the Kingmans felt sorry for," said the lawyer, "Everett, do me the favor of leaving me alone to talk with your—er—brother. What I got to say is sort of confidential, for Hap's ears alone."

  Everett shrugged, and put on his Stetson.

  "'Sta bueno," he grunted, pausing to light his cigarette. "Don't try to gyp me out o' what's comin' to me, though, Melrose. I got ways to protect my interests."

  And he tapped his holstered .45 significantly, as he went out and shut the door.

  5

  MEMORIES OF MURDER

  When Everett had gone, Russ Melrose turned to the cowboy beside his desk.

  "You say you've always known you aren't the real son of Les Kingman," prompted the lawyer, with an oily smirk. "Just what you got by way of proof?"

  A bitter smile played on the cowboy's lips as he leaned across the desk, his voice vibrant and earnest:

  "Mr. Melrose, all my life I've carried a memory of a man in a red mask. A man who shot my father, and shot my mother. Where it happened, or why, I don't know. But even though I must have been young—around three—I'll never forget how my mother led me by the hand through the darkness to a house somewhere or other. I never saw her again."

  Melrose recovered his composure with difficulty. Sweat leaked from every pore on his predatory face.

  "What else you remember, son?"

  Hap Kingman turned away with a shrug.

  "My mind can't fill in the gaps, Mr. Melrose. The Kingmans, God rest their souls, raised me like their own. I never once told them—even as a little tike in knee pants—that I knew I wasn't their own. But someday I'll find out who that red-masked killer was. And when I do—"

  Melrose shuddered involuntarily as he saw the hot light in Hap Kingman's eyes.

  "I've never killed a man," whispered the cowboy, "but when I find out who murdered my parents in cold blood—when I meet that man—I'll blast his soul to Hell, even if I swing for it."

  Russ Melrose sat down with a thump, trembling as if stricken with ague. And then, through the mental turmoil within him, dawned an idea—a diabolical inspiration which, even for Melrose's warped and fertile brain, he knew was a masterpiece.

  For eighteen years, Hap Kingman had nursed in the secrecy of his innermost heart a desire to avenge his father's murder. That desire had festered within Hap Kingman's heart, poisoning his mind, becoming the one goal in life which he was bent on achieving.

  Russ Melrose stood up and went around the table to drop a paternal hand on the cowboy's slumped shoulder.

  "Hap, my boy, I thought I'd never tell you the secret of your past," he whispered hoarsely. "I even promised your foster-father, Les Kingman, I'd never breathe a word of what I know to you. But—seeing as how you remember back to that night when your real folks was killed—damned if I'm not tempted to break my promise to the sheriff."

  Hap Kingman leaped to his feet, a fierce light blazing in his eyes.

  "You mean you… you know who… killed my folks, Melrose?"

  In spite of himself, the lawyer shuddered at the ferocity in the cowboy's voice. To compose his own nerves, Melrose went over to his safe, opened it, and drew forth the heavy envelope containing Dev Hewett's notched six-gun.

  He removed the Colt from the envelope and laid it on the big blotter before him. Rust had flecked the blued
steel barrel of the Peacemaker, tarnished the thirteen notches on the backstrap. But the well-oiled weapon was still in perfect working order, still held the empty shells in its cylinder as a grim reminder of Dev Hewett's shootout of a generation before.

  "I was beside your father when he died, Hap— and I got his last words," said the lawyer in a cold voice. "He told me who shot him—who shot your mother. Your father's name was Dev Hewett."

  Hap Kingman was staring into Melrose's eyes, forcing the lawyer to keep his gaze riveted to the gun on the desk before him.

  "You won't believe me when I tell you who killed your folks, son. He's… he's one of the biggest men in Texas. One of the biggest men around Mexitex today. But he wasn't so big when he murdered your father and mother for what dinero they had—the dinero that gave him his start toward success."

  Sweat was dripping from the point of Hap Kingman's jaw as he waited in agonizing suspense for Melrose to go on.

  "Tell me," snarled the cowboy harshly, "who was it?"

  Melrose rubbed perspiration from his buzzardlike neck.

  "The hombre who killed your folks… was George Siebert. The hombre who now owns the Triangle S beef syndicate, Hap."

  There was a long silence, a silence that congealed the atmosphere of the stuffy office and put a film of ice in Melrose's veins. When young Kingman finally spoke, it was in a voice like a knell of doom.

  "If Siebert did that, why wasn't he hung?"

  Melrose shrugged eloquently.

  "It was only the word of a dying man against his. I told the sheriff what Dev Hewett told me before he died. But that wasn't proof enough to hang Siebert, who probably had an alibi anyhow. All I know is that your father put a bullet into Siebert's leg—a bullet that crippled Siebert for life."

  Hap muttered a low, passionate oath.

  "My father's word is good enough for me," he whispered finally. "Siebert's rich. Arrogant. A range hog. A cattle baron, they call him. And he founded the syndicate on dinero he killed two innocent people to get—"

  The cowboy broke off to point at the six-gun on the desk.

  "Why'd you take that smokepole out of your safe, Melrose?"

  The lawyer's eyes snapped with guile.

  "I was coming to that, son. Just before your father died, he whispered to me and said, 'Melrose, when my son Hap is a grown man—give him this gun. Tell him to avenge my death. Tell him to kill George Siebert with this gun—it's my only legacy left to give him.' And then your father died."

  With an impulsive gesture, Hap Kingman reached for the six-gun, saw Melrose snatch it away.

  "You can have this Colt," rasped the judge, "only one one condition—that you won't ambush George Siebert. That will give Siebert an even chance to come clean and confess. Otherwise I'd be a party to Siebert's murder, Hap. Me being an honest citizen, and a judge to boot—that would be unthinkable."

  Hap Kingman swallowed hard, then nodded. He removed a Colt from one of his own holsters, and when Melrose handed him the notch-butted gun, thrust the weapon into the scabbard.

  "I'll give Siebert more than an even break. He can have his cutter out of leather before I start my draw, Melrose. And don't worry about whatever happens. I'll skip the country as soon as I've carried out my father's dyin' request."

  Melrose, trembling despite his efforts to control his shaking nerves, accompanied Hap Kingman to the door of his office. There, the cowboy shot out a hand to grip the lawyer's.

  "I'll never forget this favor, Judge Melrose!" said the cowboy. "Never. Dev Hewett. Why, I'd never even known dad's name!"

  The lawyer nodded soberly.

  "Forget it, Hap, and adios to you. I just hope—well, I know that your foster-father, the old sheriff, would have done the same thing if he'd known what I know about the murder of your real dad."

  As Hap turned to go, the lawyer husked out anxiously:

  "Don't give Siebert a chance to back-shoot you, kid. Siebert's a slick snake, you know. He wouldn't give you any more of a chance than he give your dad and mother."

  Hap Kingman grinned crookedly.

  "Don't worry," he said. "George Siebert's name is as good as written on a boothill tombstone this minute. I've waited too long for this chance at revenge, to muff it now it's come."

  Russ Melrose shut the door on Hap's exit and made his way to the window, rubbing his palms together in an ecstasy of satisfaction.

  "With George Siebert out of the picture, I stand to control that syndicate of his," chuckled the lawyer greedily. "Then nothing can stop me from bein' the biggest man in Yaqui County. Mebbe even, someday, the Governor of Texas."

  6

  "I'M DEV HEWETT'S SON!"

  Leaving Mexitex, Hap Kingman rode along the river bank to the Flying K Ranch where he had spent his adolescent years. His interview with Russ Melrose had cleared his heart of a burden that had been there ever since that death-hounded night eighteen years before. And he knew he could not wipe out the memory of his parents' murder except with gunsmoke.

  He paused at the ranchhouse long enough to attend to the grim business of oiling his six-gun, the gun that was his father's dying legacy. He replaced the empty chambers with fresh cartridges, and fired a test shot at an adobe bunkhouse wall, to get an idea of the trigger pull.

  The thirteen notches on the backstrap of the butt puzzled him somewhat. Notches denoted a killer's gun, and it was hard for him to believe that his father had been a killer. But killer or not, the enormity of George Siebert's crime justified what Hap Kingman was about to do.

  Saddling up the prize horse of his cavvy—a leggy chestnut saddler that Mother Kingman had given to him shortly before her death—Hap Kingman rode grimly eastward, making in the direction of George Siebert's sprawling ranchhouse midway down the slope of Manzanita Hill.

  He knew George Siebert by sight; but Siebert, his leg maimed by an old gunshot wound, seldom left the ranch from which he directed the far-flung enterprises of the Mexitex Land & Cattle Syndicate.

  He remembered that Sheriff Kingman had always held Siebert in high regard, despite Siebert's testiness and grouchy disposition. But that deference was due Siebert's position as chief taxpayer and most powerful cattleman in the county, Hap decided bitterly. Even Les Kingman had to toady some, in the game of politics.

  A torrential rain had lashed Yaqui County the day before, turning the tree-lined lane leading up Manzanita Hill to a morass of adobe mud. The rain likewise freshened up the foliage and made the white walls of Siebert's Spanish-style stucco home gleam vividly in the sunshine.

  All of this wealth, Hap realized with a curse of rage, had its foundation on money which Siebert had murdered his parents to obtain. The flames of a long pent-up hatred burned bright within the cowboy as he flung himself out of saddle in front of the tile-roofed ranchhouse.

  "Siebert won't take that wealth to Hell with him today," panted the cowboy, sloshing through ankle-deep mud toward the gate entering the fenced-off yard in front of the Triangle S house.

  He nearly collided with a chestnut-haired girl who, dressed in whipcord riding breeches and an orange-colored silk blouse, was walking out of the gate, a quirt swinging from one wrist.

  "Uh—beg pardon," gruffed the cowboy automatically, stepping to one side. "Uh—you're Anna Siebert, aren't you?"

  Kingman was looking down into a pair of dancing blue eyes. He had seen the rancher's daughter once before, at a schoolhouse dance; but for the greater part of her lifetime Anna Siebert had been away at an expensive school in San Antone.

  "Yes," she replied, in a voice that reminded Hap Kingman of mission bells he had heard twinkling in the distance. "You're one of the Kingman twins, aren't you? I met you at a fiesta once—"

  She broke off, at the scowl which darkened the puncher's face.

  "Reckon I am. Is your father home?"

  The girl bit a carmine lip, worried by his grim tone. The cowboy was not drunk, that was obvious. Then she answered. "Yes. You'll find him on the porch on the north side of the house. The
re… there nothing wrong here, is there, Mr. Kingman?"

  Hap pushed by the girl impatiently, making his way toward the arch-pillared porch which flanked the long end of the house.

  Anna Siebert paused a moment at the gate, then turned and made her way back to the house, entering by the front door.

  Grimly, Hap Kingman stalked to the north end of the house and turned the corner. There he halted, legs spread wide, to stare at the white-haired old rancher who sat in a wheelchair in the shade of the porch.

  George Siebert lifted a hand in greeting as he recognized the steely-eyed young cowpuncher before him.

  "Drag up a chair and set. What's on your mind, Kingman?"

  Young Kingman hooked thumbs in shell belts, his eyes burning into the syndicate owner's. When he spoke, his voice was as harsh as clanking sword blades.

  "My name isn't Kingman."

  George Siebert adjusted his crippled leg in the wheelchair and grinned patiently.

  "O. K., it isn't Kingman. What is it, then? What's agitatin' you, son?"

  Inhaling deeply, Hap snarled out with a voice that shook with the long-repressed hatred that had festered like a canker in his heart:

  "I'm Dev Hewett's son, Siebert. Remember him?"

  The veteran stockman jerked erect, his brows gathering in recollection. Then he relaxed, his eyes sweeping up and down Hap Kingman's frame. His voice did not hint of malice as he said:

  "I don't reckon I'll ever forget Dev Hewett, son. Dev Hewett's bullet smashed my kneecap and put me in this wheelchair goin' on eighteen years, now."

  Siebert cocked his head, eyeing Hap Kingman with newborn interest.

  "I knew Dev Hewett had a whelp," he went on, without rancor. "So you—Hap Kingman—are he. It don't seem possible. But then my friend the sheriff had what it took to raise a kid into a man like you, I reckon. He got you young enough, and he—"

  Siebert broke off as he saw Hap Kingman break his trance, then step forward to thrust one of his Colt .45s into Siebert's lap. Stepping back, Hap Kingman snarled in a raw undertone: