Trouble at Temescal

by Frank Bonham

  “Are you on top?” Serena asked him softly.

  “If I’m not, I’ll bet I can make it in one jump from where I stand. Papoose, I’ll be ranching again in the Defiances before the winter’s out. Before the winter’s out,” he repeated. And thinking of his coup in acquiring the mortgages on the mountain ranches, he smiled to himself. Everyone had preached law to him when the government refused to extend his grazing leases and gave his Defiance Mountains range to a swarm of grasshopper ranchers. Let them preach law to him now.

  Serena gazed uncomfortably up the street which was like a pass between the cliff-like fronts of the low buildings. “Foreclosure is such an ugly thing,” she said.

  “So is bankruptcy,” her father retorted. “I’ve been staring it in the face long enough to know. And whether you’ve noticed it or not, neither of us is geared for going broke.”

  “But we’re not going broke,” Serena argued. “Anvil has always taken care of us, hasn’t it?”

  “That’s a fact,” Jackson agreed.

  The trouble was, he hadn’t always taken care of Anvil. He had not cut his herds because he was sure the settlers would go under in a year or two and he would be back up there. So he had finished by overgrazing. Weeds were getting in and he was worried. But how could he rest the land without additional range? Well, he would soon have it. But there might be rough times ahead. If the scrap between Tom Doyle and Troy Cameron last night was any gauge … But he had made his decision. Hiring a gun tramp like Doyle was part of it; he had meant Doyle to be noticed. Doyle was to Anvil Ranch as the coiled snake was to the flag of Texas. He was going back into the mountains, and they had better well know it soon than late.

  The buggy rattled into the heart of the town, with Fred Stiles’ big Arizona Mercantile on the right—Jim Jackson’s mercantile now—and the bank and stage station on the left. Beyond, a street swerved in at an odd angle from the left. On the pie-shaped lot it created was the Pima Bar, with its broken-plastered front and low parapet roof. A wooden sign hanging from a roof spout rocked in the breeze.

  Serena glanced quickly at her father as he kept the buggy moving past the big store. “Aren’t we stopping? Fred Stiles is expecting you to take inventory with him.”

  “I’ve got to look in on Red Roth first,” Jackson said. “He was supposed to have his wagons on the road this morning. By God, if Cameron’s thrown fear into him by pistol-whipping Doyle last night …”

  “Tosh!” Serena retorted. “I don’t think Troy pulled a gun on them at all. I think Doyle was lying to cover up being whipped.”

  Jackson slanted a frown at her. The time had come to make something clear. He had hoped her infatuation with Cameron would wear off, but it hadn’t. “Papoose,” he said suddenly, “it’s time you broke it off with Cameron.”

  As if she had expected it, Serena looked straight ahead. They were moving along a high adobe wall on the right, the old town wall over which the town had swarmed in its growth. “Why should I?” she said. Her chin was firm but her voice was faint.

  Jackson’s voice sharpened. “Why should you? He pulled a gun on my foreman last night. He’s squatting on land that rightly belongs to me. Does that make him a proper candidate for my daughter’s hand?”

  Serena’s fists clenched. Jackson tried to dominate her with his eyes, but she would not meet them. “But how can you claim a man’s land without going to court?”

  Jackson said tightly: “A man can do what he can damned well get away with. I found that out when they ran us out of the Defiances. And I can run them back where they came from, even if I’ve got to rush the season on foreclosures for a few weeks.”

  The buggy stopped before a break in the old wall. A line of oxen shambled through. Jackson stared at Serena, his long, sunburned face harsh.

  “But what if they fight back?” the girl asked.

  “If they fight …,” Jackson began, but he broke off. Why let her fret over things, which, if they happened, would be over so soon? If they fought, Tom Doyle would soon straighten them out as to how a Colt should be used. If Cameron thought he could intimidate anyone by pistol-whipping Doyle, Jackson would show him right here in Frontera that Big Jim Jackson could make more of a wreck of a man with his fists than Cameron could with the barrel of a pistol!

  He said stolidly: “Take my word for it. They won’t fight long.”

  Serena moistened her lips. “I … I still don’t see why it should have to affect Troy and me, at least until—”

  “You don’t see, eh?” Jackson cut in. “Maybe you’d like wearing gingham year after year, like a hill woman. Maybe you’d like raising a crop of kids on less money than you spend on gowns. Maybe so you didn’t know it, Serena,” he said sardonically, “but you aren’t exactly an easy keeper. You’d waste more in the kitchen in a week than Cameron could save by going without tobacco for a year. You’re a rich man’s girl, and God help the poor man who marries one. Or the rich man’s girl who marries beneath her.”

  “I’ll learn to be thrifty,” Serena said firmly.

  “Good.” Jackson grinned. “And while you’re learning, I’ll teach my cows to eat with a knife and fork. And I’ll bet my pupils graduate a year before you do.”

  With his finger, he flipped a little gold chatelaine watch she was wearing. “One hundred and fifty dollars,” he said. “And not a nickel under two hundred for every horse you’ve owned, because they’ve all got to be blacks, with four white stockings.”

  Serena’s lips tightened. Suddenly she unpinned the watch and angrily threw it into the road. They both stared at it, then looked at each other. She loved the watch; he had brought it from New Orleans last year. All at once her eyes filled with tears. Jackson wanted to comfort her, but he only permitted himself the softening of his voice. He had passed the time for softness.

  “Arizona’s hell on horses and women, Papoose,” he said gravely. “You might as well know what we’re up against. We’re in debt to the eyeballs. If we don’t get that timber, we’re cleaned out. If we do get it, it’ll be just like the old days again. Do you want the watch?” he asked, indicating the gleam of gold and glass in the road.

  She had clenched her fingers in her lap. Looking down at them, she said: “Yes. I … I’m sorry. I …”

  “Then climb down and get it,” Big Jim Jackson said. “I don’t reckon more’n a half dozen men saw you throw it.” When she slowly looked up at him, he added: “Be good practice, if you figure on being a hill wife. Pride’s the first piece of furniture you’ll have to sell.”

  Serena looked away again, biting her lip. “I’ll sell my jewelry first.”

  “Your choice, ma’am,” Jackson said grimly. Big and solid on the seat, he drove into the square with its perimeter of Mexican shops and crumbling walls. He waited for her to ask him to hold the buggy team while she went back. But Serena kept silent. So be it, Jackson thought. She has things to learn, and she won’t learn them in a morning.

  Among some dusty mesquite trees in one corner of the plaza, he saw a line of huge-wheeled log trailers, a few wagons, and a scatter of gray tents—Red Roth’s camp. He stopped and stared at her. She would not meet his eyes. He dismounted.

  “I won’t be long,” he said dryly.

  Jackson crossed the small square. He found the timber contractor beside one of the wagons in the windblown litter of the camp. Roth was drawing a cleaning rag through the barrel of a rifle. Roth tilted the rifle to squint down the barrel and said: “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thanks.” Jackson smiled. He liked Roth’s rough-and-ready air, the tough, whittled-down temper of him. “Tom Doyle says there was some trouble last night. I’ve confined him to quarters to keep him from jumping into anything today.”

  Roth grunted. “What’s the matter with that gun dog of yours? He looked more like a puppy to me.”

  “That’s what happens when you try to fight the other
fellow’s kind of war. It’s a mistake I don’t plan to make. Cameron probably means to stall. I mean to get going. Start your equipment up today.”

  Roth wiped an oily rag over the barrel of the gun. “Got papers on those trees I’ll be cutting?”

  Jackson’s mouth toughened. “You know the situation.”

  “Uh-huh. Cameron’s in town this morning, looking for you,” Roth added.

  Jackson laid his hand on Roth’s shoulder. “Red, you aren’t afraid of ghosts, are you? Well, don’t let a two-bit grubstaker spook you, either. I’ve already started proceedings against those people.”

  Roth’s filmy eyes pondered. They were a peculiar, cold blue, the whites the color of skimmed milk. “You should have started proceedings two months ago. Where does that leave me if there’s trouble?”

  Jackson pondered. “It’s possible I … well, I might have to let them keep the land to get the timber. I don’t know. The main thing right now is cash. So I might have to compromise.”

  “Compromise,” Roth repeated sarcastically. “That’s a hell of a word for a man your size to use. Makes a man think you might be biting off more than you can chew.”

  “I can chew my weight in settlers any day of the week,” Jackson growled.

  “What about settlers that used to be marshals?”

  “That’s why I hired Doyle. Don’t let that little pistol-whippin’ last night fool you. Tom Doyle can handle himself in a scrape.”

  “He better be able to handle a few other people, too,” Roth said, setting his rifle against a wagon wheel. “Because if I go to work for you, you ain’t going to leave me on the short end of the rope.”

  “I’ll give you full protection if there’s trouble,” Jackson said heatedly. “Now then, you head up there today and start cutting trees.”

  “OK,” Roth said, suddenly acquiescent. “As soon as I get some operating cash.”

  Jackson frowned. “You were to pull your payments out of the tie checks from the railroad.”

  Roth smiled. “I know. But the way things shape up, a smart man would prob’ly keep ahead of this game. It’s three thousand a month for the use of my men and equipment. I hope you ain’t short of cash, Mister Big Jim Jackson.”

  “I’ll tell you what I am short of, Red,” Jackson stated. “Temper. You get going, hear? We’ll talk about pay later.”

  Roth stood up to him as if he were not actually six inches shorter, a solid, tough-jawed little man. “I’m talking about pay now. And I say it’s cash, Big Jim, or it’s nothing.”

  Jackson’s hand dropped from Roth’s arm. With his left hand he pushed the logger back against the wagon while he cocked his right. He had not been called Big Jim since they stripped him down to desert range, and now to have it come back in sarcasm … Roth’s fists were clenched, and he waited, set and staring. Suddenly Jackson stepped back. He had to have Roth. There was no time to find anyone else. Roth knew it, and it made him bigger than anyone else for a while.

  “Pack up,” Jackson said curtly. “I’ll be back in an hour with the money.”

  “Now you sound like you might mean business.” Roth grinned.

  Across the bright, cool plaza, Jackson strode to the buggy. As he unwrapped the lines from the whipstock, he saw that Serena had recovered her watch and pinned it to her gown. She smiled.

  “I decided to compromise. I’ll pick it up this time. You pick it up the next time I throw it.”

  “Compromise,” Jackson said sternly, “is a bad word, Serena. Never let me hear you use it again. Compromising is the sort of luxury we can’t afford any more.”

  IV

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” Jim Jackson said as they drove back to the store. “Whatever happens to me, you’re taken care of. The store’s in your name.”

  “I don’t understand, Father.”

  “Just that. If the ranch goes under, they can’t touch the store. It’s yours. Maybe it would be a come down to wait on customers and measure out saleratus and shingle nails. But it might beat dressmaking.”

  Serena said firmly: “Anvil isn’t going to go under. So don’t let’s talk of it.”

  Jackson turned the horse smartly into the alley beside the Arizona Mercantile. He was uneasy about this coming session with Fred Stiles, the storekeeper he had bought out. Stiles had had the call to preach several years ago, and now, having been ordained by mail, his last link with business cut, he had sunk the money from his store in a church and was ready to preach. He had not talked to Stiles since it got out that he had bought the store merely to acquire the notes Stiles held on the Defiance Mountains ranches.

  On a high platform, a mustached man in a striped jersey was supervising the setting down of crates and barrels.

  “Stiles here?” Jackson called.

  “No, sir. Back directly.”

  Jackson had been wondering how he would raise Red Roth’s $3,000. If Ira Woodbury, the banker, turned him down, where would he raise the cash? He had sunk every nickel of the beef money in the store.

  He dismounted. “I’m going over to the bank now. Run along, but be back at twelve.”

  Jackson walked to the porch of the store and stood gazing down the desert street. It was bleached with sunlight, prosperous with traffic. He dipped a gourd full of water from a barrel beside the door, and drank thoughtfully. His sunburned face went hard as he saw Red Roth jog up to the Pima Bar on a yellow horse. Abruptly Jackson slung the rest of the water in the road and crossed to the bank on the corner. He sauntered into its cool, leathery gloom. The interior was long and high-ceilinged like a boarding house hall—a wall with faded paper on his left, the wickets on his right.

  Jackson moved purposefully to a railed enclosure in the rear, butted the gate with his knee, and walked in. A big man with white hair and white eyebrows was removing a sheet of onionskin paper from a letterpress.

  “Hello, Jim,” Ira Woodbury said. “How’s the big lumberman?”

  Jackson straddled a chair. “No change. How’s the big banker?”

  Woodbury walked to his desk and sat down. Leaning back, he returned Jackson’s stare. “All right, Jim. What the hell are you trying to pull?”

  “If this is advice,” Jackson drawled, “save it. I go to the bank for money. When I want advice, I’ll hunt a preacher.”

  “From what I hear,” Woodbury said, “a certain preacher is prepared to give you some.”

  “That’s fine. I hope you’re as prepared to loan me three thousand dollars.”

  Woodbury crossed his arms. “Maybe we’d better talk about what you need it for.”

  “I told you I didn’t need advice, Ira,” Jackson warned.

  “I’m going to give you some anyway. Believe me, it’s well meant. Jim, I just won’t believe that you’d trick an old preacher and wipe out a gang of hardworking ranchers to finance your and Serena’s kind of spending. What’s behind it?”

  “What’s behind it?” Jackson stood up. He kicked the chair aside and walked to Woodbury’s desk. “Your kind of friendship is behind it. I helped set you up in this bank. I’ve loaned money to half the men in this town. But now that I need a hand, you never heard of me. That’s what’s behind it, Ira. Twenty-two caliber friendship like yours!”

  His voice came back to him from the walls. He was shouting. Everyone in the bank had stopped to listen. Woodbury’s face was turning red.

  “I don’t suppose you realize,” the banker said stiffly, “that Roth’s loggers will go through the Defiances like a gang plow through a cornfield.”

  “Maybe my memory’s shortening, but I disremember any tears shed over my having to give up that range.”

  “Leaving you only a hundred thousand acres,” the banker said. “And now you’ve overgrazed your range and bankrupted your brand. Is that what you’re offering for collateral?”

  The sight of the banker’s ripe face wi
th its fierce eyebrows and its hard jaw under flabby skin suddenly enraged Jackson. Money men. They got to thinking they were God. He planted his knuckles on Woodbury’s desk and leaned toward him, his tawny eyes savage.

  “Are you going to give me an argument over three thousand dollars?”

  Woodbury slowly rose, his mouth trembling. “Jim, you’ve depleted your land because you wouldn’t bring your herds down to size. All you ever cut was wages. Yet you and Serena still live like royalty. Now you’re resorting to progressive betting, like a drunken gambler. Frankly I don’t think you’re going to make your bluff stick. And if you don’t, I’ll have no choice but to foreclose.”

  Jackson blinked. He had known it was coming, but it hurt like a kick in the groin. He couldn’t lose Anvil. No, that was superstition. He didn’t want to lose Anvil. That was all.

  “So you think you could run it better than I can,” he said sardonically.

  “No, I’ve got a man lined up to do it for me. But if you straighten out and follow some of the more basic rules of finance, I think we can work something out.”

  Jackson was breathless with fury. “Who’s going to run it?” he challenged.

  “I don’t think it’s my place—”

  “Who is it?” Jackson roared.

  Woodbury glanced past him at the tellers. “Mike Saddler,” he replied. “He’s running three times as many cows as the other settlers already. Saddler will run it with an option to buy in later.”

  Jackson’s big hand smacked Woodbury’s desk. Woodbury backed up as Jackson walked toward him.

  “You short-pod penny punisher!” the cowman shouted. “So you’re holding my wake before the body’s even cold. Are you the one who sicced Red Roth onto me for cash?”

  Woodbury came up against the rail. His face was sallow. “No, but in his place I think I’d be asking for it myself.”

  “You’re asking for it, all right,” Jackson said bitterly. “And before I’m through in Frontera, you’ll get it!”