by Frank Bonham
“Stop it!” she cried.
Jackson was getting up warily. Troy moved clockwise as the rancher squared off to him, looking for an opening but still respectful of his power. Presently he saw Jim Jackson’s amber eyes glance at something behind him. A trick, he thought. He’d be damned if he’d look around. Something crashed down on his shoulder. Startled, he dodged away.
It was the girl from the stagecoach. She was holding the driver’s long whip. She had struck him with the butt end of it.
“Shame on you!” she cried. “Fighting with a man half again your age!”
She looked even younger than he had thought, very girlish and very indignant. Her skin was smooth and fine. It was fresh with angry color.
He heard Jim Jackson chuckle.
“I’m obliged, ma’am,” he said. “But if you’ll just take your place on the walk, I’ll show you how we make a man old before his time.”
He spat, wiped his mouth, and moved toward Troy. The girl hurried between them. Men were chuckling on the walks.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” she said. “You’ll both straighten up now and shake hands.”
Troy gazed at Jackson. Jackson’s bloody face grinned.
“Miss,” Jackson told the girl, “I hope your stay will be pleasant. But I’m sure your Sunday school class will be glad to have you back again.” He nodded at Troy. “If it will make the lady happy, Cameron, I’m in favor of finishing this another time. I don’t think we’ll get any more scrappin’ done just now.” And then, tall and broad-shouldered, still as arrogant as a lion, he walked back to the Pima Bar.
On the box of the stagecoach, the conductor called disgustedly: “Miss Becket, would you mind either stepping aside or getting in so we can finish the run?”
“Why, you’ve finished,” the girl said. “Isn’t this Frontera?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the conductor said. “Do you want your suitcase? We generally discharge passengers at the depot.”
“Thank you,” the girl said.
While the conductor retrieved the bag from a collection behind the seat, Troy looked the girl over. Miss Becket, he thought. Miss Frances Becket … Gil’s sister? A week early, if so. He kept busy, but he could not fault her figure. It was clean-lined and perfect. Her ears were small and delicate, and he noticed how beautifully her hair grew from her forehead. Somehow he thought of yesterday’s tomboy, suddenly grown up, healthily feminine and happy about it. Then he walked back to receive the suitcase.
The conductor donned spectacles to read the tag on the black cowhide valise, removed it, and glanced down at Troy. “Little heavy,” he said, and winked. “Them kitchen stoves don’t travel worth a damn.”
Even so, Troy was not prepared for the weight of it. It fell through his arms, landing heavily on one corner and snapping a cord that had supplemented the latches. Dismayed, he saw it break open like a Bible, while articles swelled yeastily from it as though they had been packed under pressure. There was an abundance of white linen, pure as snow. But in the middle of it all lay a garment of red silk. Troy commenced grabbing things up. The girl simply stood there, her hand at her cheek in dismay. He picked up the red silk and it spilled out full length—a gown the color of flame, frosted with sequins.
The girl snatched it from his hands and dropped to her knees to try to stuff it into the suitcase. She covered it with dressing sacks, but then she could not close the bag. She was pink with embarrassment. Men were chuckling on the boardwalks. Troy saw moisture in her eyes.
“Please … will you help me close it?”
Troy bent quickly to help her. But it was too late. Frontera would have conversational material for a year. The town had seen few gowns like this. Only recently had Frontera become large enough to support a little colony of saloon entertainers, who, hurrying to work at the Pima Bar, often wore sequined dresses like this one of Frances Becket’s.
VI
As he closed the latches of the cheap suitcase, Troy remembered what Gil had told him: “She’s been living with my aunt in East Texas.” Maybe they dressed that way in East Texas. He doubted it. He heard Frances saying in a tone unsuccessfully light: “Of course, that … that terrible gown isn’t really mine. It was given to me by someone who thought I could use it for scraps. Of course, I couldn’t, but I took it rather than hurt her feelings.”
On the walk, Red Roth called: “Put it on, sister! If it don’t fit, we’ll believe you brought it for doll rags.”
Biting her lips, the girl gazed helplessly at Troy. Troy scowled at the logger. Roth laughed, and he and his men headed across the street for the mercantile. Troy picked up the bag.
“If you’re Frances Becket,” he said, “I know your brother. I’m Troy Cameron. Gil asked me to take a room for you at the hotel. He wasn’t expecting you for a week, or he’d have come down himself.”
Quickly she took his arm. “Oh, then you’re one of his ’punchers, aren’t you? You see, I had a chance to leave earlier, but apparently he didn’t receive my letter.”
Troy took her arm and guided her to the walk. One of his ’punchers! That sounded like Gil. He had been playing it bigger than Troy realized. Under the wooden awnings, they moved along toward the hotel. Suddenly Troy remembered Serena. As they passed the store, he glanced up. She was still there, small, slender, dark haired, intently watching them as they passed. Troy had to release Frances’ arm to tip his hat.
“Will you be in town a while?” he asked.
Serena smiled politely at Frances. “I really don’t know,” she told Troy. “If there’s no one else you have to fight with, you might look for me when you have time.”
He felt blood drying on his face. He was ashamed at having handled things so badly. He tried to tell her that with his eyes. Her chin was high, but her dark olive-green eyes were sad. She had a way of gazing at you that made you think she had never felt the same about a man before. She stirred something deep and grand in him—and here he had been fighting with her father.
“I’ll find you later,” he said.
“Really,” Frances Becket told him in a low voice, “if that’s your young lady, I can—”
“Wouldn’t hear of it,” Troy said, and they went on.
In the lobby of the Frontier House a mesquite-root fire was snapping in the corner hearth, and Troy placed the girl on a chair here while he went to see about her room. Trimmed logs supported the ceiling. Antelope and deer heads were mounted on the walls and Mexican rugs brightened the floor. Ed Owen, a large, ripe-faced man who arranged his red hair guilefully to conceal a nearly bald skull, said he had one room that had not been taken by the seasonal influx of cattle buyers and drummers.
“I’d better look at it,” Troy said.
He used the opportunity to wash up in the small bedroom at the back of the building. A fight last night, a fight today. He was beginning to look like a prize-ring veteran. His head throbbed. He washed, dried with a bandanna in order to leave the towel untouched, and returned to the lobby. The girl smiled as he sat beside her on the hard wooden bench. She looked clean and fine, but how could you believe such a preposterous story as she had told about the dress?
“You didn’t believe me, did you?” Frances asked him.
“When I look at you, I almost believe it,” he said gravely.
“Spoken like a very gallant employee,” she said. “I’ll commend you to my brother. In the meantime, I must say that I don’t think your conduct in the street reflects much credit either on you or on Gil as your employer.”
“I expect not,” Troy admitted.
“I hope,” the girl concluded, “that Gil won’t find it necessary to let you go because of it.”
“No, ma’am,” Troy said humbly. Well, let her find it out, he decided grimly, if I’ve been reflecting discredit on people.
“Getting back to that awful dress,” she said with a nervous
little laugh, “I’m going to tell you the real story and you’ll understand why I couldn’t blurt it out. Though, of course, now I wish I had …”
She told him another story about doing some dressmaking in Fort Worth, and some of her customers being—well, anyway, Frances made those sequined dresses for them. And one girl hadn’t paid for the last dress and she wasn’t going to give her this one free, so …
“Now,” she asked, “do you believe that?”
“Why not? Only I don’t understand why you told the other story.”
She bit her lip. Her eyes were blue and wide set. She looked pretty and intelligent, he thought. About all she needed was experience, and she was right on the point of getting some of that. “Well, I just didn’t think Gil would appreciate everyone’s knowing I’ve been making entertainers’ gowns while he’s been doing so well out here. They’d wonder why he hadn’t sent for me, or at least been supporting me. But of course the fact is that he has to put everything back into the business. Naturally he didn’t want everyone to know all his business affairs. Is he well?” she asked.
“Strong as a horse.”
“I’m so glad.” She sighed. “Gil was never very strong. But he had this dream of being a rancher. He wasn’t going to be a teacher, like all the other Beckets. Who was that man you were fighting with?” she asked with sudden curiosity.
“His name is Jackson.”
Her clear eyes studied him. “The man who used to run cattle in the mountains?”
“That’s the man.”
“Is there still some bad feeling?”
Troy inspected his skinned knuckles. “Lately. Maybe we’d better talk about what you plan to do, now that you’re here.”
“Naturally I want to get right up to the ranch,” she said enthusiastically. “When will you be going back?”
“Tomorrow morning. It’s a long ride and you’ll want a rest after the trip. You can look around today, get a good sleep tonight, and we’ll leave tomorrow after seven. All right?”
Smiling, she stood up and offered her hand. It was encased in a crisp little lace mitten. “You’ve been very helpful, Troy. Will you do me one more favor?” Her face began to color. Her skin was so fine that blushing must be a problem.
“About the dress?” Troy smiled. “Sure, I’ll pass it around. I don’t think they’d have been fooled long, anyway.”
“Hurry back to your young lady, now,” she told him. “If I’m not out of order, who is she?”
“Her name’s Serena Jackson.”
She smiled. “No kin to the Jackson you had the trouble with, I hope?”
“Daughter,” Troy said grimly.
Serena was not at the store when he went back, but he found her on the corner. Coming up behind her, he looked at her slim shoulders and supple waist and the smooth flare of her hips. Her hair, brushed into a glistening chignon, was so black that Jim Jackson called her “Papoose”.
He took Serena’s arm, and she glanced at him and haughtily looked away. They walked down a side street under an arcade of chinaberries. Blackbirds with chartreuse eyes strutted in the road.
“I’m taking my life in my hands to walk with you,” Troy said. “I was told to stay away.”
“Father and his orders,” said Serena impatiently. Then she asked suddenly: “Who is she?”
“Gil Becket’s sister. He wasn’t expecting her for a week.”
“Well, she’s certainly here now.”
Troy laughed. “You can’t beat red silk for an entrance.”
Serena’s eyes flashed. “I suppose, if I want you to notice me now, I’ll have to wear red silk, too.” She pulled her arm away as he tried, laughing, to draw her to him. “I just can’t understand how an intelligent man can be taken in by such an act.”
Troy chuckled. “I wasn’t taken in,” he protested. “She happened to be Gil’s sister. What could I do?”
Serena looked straight ahead as she walked, chin up, along a shadowed wall of crumbling adobe. “Of course, you believed that fantastic story about the dress …?”
“No. She was rattled. She told me the real story when I took her to the hotel.” He repeated what Frances had said. “So, you see, she’s really a very nice girl.”
“I dare say. At least you seemed quite contented with things until you saw me.”
Troy halted, pushed her against the wall, and kissed her. She tried to twist away, but after a moment she relaxed and her arms slipped around his neck. “Now,” Troy murmured, “you might say I’m contented.”
Serena touched the bruises on his face. “Troy, did this have to happen?” she asked.
He frowned. “Maybe I’ve lost my touch. Taming men on the prod used to be easy for me. But this is different. Even if we’re broke, we’ve got rights. We offered your father half our timber, but he wouldn’t settle for that. Serena, what’s he trying to do?”
“Survive,” she said simply. “He survived Apaches and hard times, but his friends and his government have nearly ruined him. I might ask what you’re trying to do,” she added. “Whipping his foreman last night and trying to whip him today.”
“I was putting up a sign. No trespassing. It’s got to be understood that we can’t be bluffed, even if we can be foreclosed.”
Serena started down the walk again, the withered yellow chinaberries dotting the packed earth walk before them. “The point is, he’s got to buy land before winter. But there’s no cheap range left. Whatever he buys, he’ll be held up. So he’s got to have money. And I suppose we owe quite a bit, too.”
Troy suppressed a smile. “Shouldn’t wonder,” he said.
She glanced at him archly, accepting the challenge. “You might be surprised to know that in many ways I’m quite frugal. I make all … well, some of my own things. But, even so, there are men in this country who think any biscuit I’d make would serve for a buggy anchor.”
“Try me sometime,” Troy challenged. “Button me a button. Darn me a sock.”
“I will,” she said. “I’ll make you an entire shirt and cook you a meal.”
Her lips pouted but her eyes laughed. And everything he had thought out alone on Defiance Mountain itself slipped from him. It would be fine to believe he was wrong about how it was to marry a girl like Serena, becoming a second-rate partner to her father, with no opinion sharper than a suggestion, and a bad habit of tipping his hat. He saw how delicate her features were, yet how strong, how fine and expensive a wife she would be. He tried, with vague optimism, to believe it would work out.
“There’s Dad!” Serena exclaimed. “He’s looking for me. Troy, I’ll talk to him about sharing the timber tonight. Promise me you won’t get into any more fights. I just know it can be worked out.”
She kissed him on the cheek and hurried back to the street. He could see the flash of her polished little boots under her skirts. He tried to picture her in a dress bought from a catalogue. Maybe she was one of those girls who could wear anything and make it look wonderful.
He wondered just how much Big Jim Jackson actually had to have to pay what he owed and expand his range. How many of the bills pigeonholed in his desk represented pure extravagance? He remembered that the Battle of Gettysburg had been fought over shoes, and he wondered whether Jackson’s War would be fought over his daughter’s buying habits.
VII
It was a tangy afternoon of chilly wind, deep shadows, and leaves tumbling along through the brush. Mike Saddler had left town after learning that Troy Cameron was staying over to take the Becket girl to Gil’s place in the morning. Now the big man, with his hard features and his coarse black hair, was waiting beside the turnoff of the wagon road to Jackson’s Anvil headquarters, west of town. Long shadows sprawled down from the high ridges of the Defiances to the foothills where Saddler waited. He had slipped his horse’s bit to let it graze. He sat on one of the square blocks of adobe b
rick that marked the turnoff. There was a rusting anvil atop each gatepost—a typical Jim Jackson flourish, in a country where hardware was at a premium.
Now he heard the Jackson buggy rattling up the road through the dry jungle of mesquite and glistening creosote thickets. Although he smoked lazily, an impatient vitality began to work in him. He rehearsed in his mind how he would carry it off with Jackson.
Mike Saddler was thirty-one. He came from poor, east-Texas stock. For ten years he had denied himself every small pleasure to buy the things he had to have to climb. He had saved clippings from livestock journals, collected scraps of paper with notations such as “Boiled alfalfa meal good for scours”; “Hogs will root out rattle weed”; “Put sand in railroad cars instead of alkali dirt”; “Never put haystacks so close a fire will spread.” And all his string saving had pushed him only a few hundred acres ahead of men like his neighbors Troy Cameron and Gil Becket.
For you made your success through people. You found their weaknesses, their vanities and strengths, and used them. Ira Woodbury was a vain man. Saddler had played on his vanity and come out with an agreement to handle Anvil for the bank. Jackson was a vain and foolish man and a desperate one. Saddler knew how he was going to use him now.
The horse came up the road with a tired cadence of iron shoes, and Saddler, tucking in his shirt tail, slipped his thumbs under his belt and waited respectfully as Big Jim Jackson and his daughter drove up. He raised one hand and stepped forward, smiling, as Jackson stopped the buggy between the square, mud-brick posts. Serena Jackson gazed at him with a stiff, unsmiling expression.
“Miss Serena,” he said, “you don’t have to look at me like I was a highwayman. If there’s any highway robbery going on, it’s no doings of mine.”
He chuckled and gave Jackson a friendly salute. The big man looped the lines around the whipstock and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Jackson said dryly.
“I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that are going on,” Saddler said seriously. “Some of the men were a shade proddy when we left camp this morning. After Cameron turns in his report, now, it’s hard to say what will happen.”
