by Noel Loomis
“What’s the hurry?” yelled Macumber as he sprawled into the seat again after a lift that had nearly bucked them out.
“Dick always drives that way,” Jim Crawford answered in a sort of plaintive yell. “It’s dangerous, too!”
Hughes grinned; Crawford was a cowboy, all right, always ready to complain bitterly of such dangers as that of sitting down on a cactus, or getting slapped by a scorpion, but never seeming aware of the real dangers at all. Side-swinging crazily, they rushed booming through the night, hanging tenaciously to the dust-muffled gleam of Dick Major’s tail light a quarter of a mile ahead.
At twelve miles they roared past the dim outlines of the Lazy M’s southernmost corral; and a little beyond this Hughes sensed that the country was changing rapidly. The dry, dust-baked smell of barren ground replaced that of sun-cured grass, and the vast levels, dotted by black clumps of yucca and stunted grease-wood, took on a paler color under the light of the stars.
The light of dawn was edging up cool and clear behind the black divide, dimming their headlights upon the road, as they neared Adobe Wells. Dick Major had pulled up and was waiting for them a mile outside. Close together now, the two cars rolled more slowly into the gaunt desolation of a desert town at dawn.
Dick Major led the way on through, past the long loading corrals and the head of the single track spur; and the sprawled buildings of Earl Shaw’s Bar S lay ahead of them at last. The headquarters of the Bar S were very close upon the town; no doubt what little there was of Adobe Wells would have been directly adjoining the ranch corrals, had not an idiosyncrasy of the railroad engineers dropped their railhead a scant half mile away.
And now as the two cars wheeled into the stronghold of Earl Shaw, they saw that as far as the Bar S was concerned at least, Adobe Wells was not asleep. Broad-hatted figures, grey and shadowy in the early light, were visible here and there among the outbuildings and the corrals. A group of two or three sat like crows along the top of a pole gate; a couple more stopped pitching hay over a fence to watch the cars come in; and there were others moving about the place by ones and twos. A group of three or four leaned or squatted on their heels against the wall of Earl Shaw’s house itself, before which Dick Major pulled up now. “They’re ready for us, all right,” Jim Crawford grunted.
Apparently no less than fifteen or twenty men were on that place, an extraordinary number for a ranch supposedly as poverty stricken as the Bar S. It was the time of summer when work was slack; all these men, had they been needed here at all, should at this hour be only sleepily struggling into their boots, or making their way grumpily toward the mess shack. Instead, they stood about picking their teeth, loafing, as if they had been routed out and fed long ago; nor did they seem to be either working or getting ready to work. The Bar S, thought Hughes, certainly had the look of waiting for something very definite, of which it had full advance information.
What struck Hughes most sharply, and gave the entrance the look of an anticipated and hostilely awaited invasion, was that no one walked forward to speak them, and none flung up an arm, or raised a hail. That silently waiting reception was different from anything Hughes had even seen; it was the sort of thing that puts a sarcastic jauntiness into a man’s walk, and makes him glad of the heavy swing of the gun at his thigh. Hughes jerked his disreputable hat over one eye, and humorously returned the expressionless stares of a couple of the lounging cowboys, as Jim Crawford, now taking the lead, walked stiffly to the door.
“Shaw here?” Crawford demanded.
No one answered him. Crawford made a sound in his throat like a snarl, thrust open the door without knocking, and went in, followed by the others.
A tall square-set man sat sideways at a table in the middle of the room, lean legs crossed, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand.
He was not alone. At first it seemed that the room was full of men, but that was because of the confusion of movement which was occasioned by the opening of the door; in reality only four men were there beside Earl Shaw. They had got to their feet as the posse thrust its way in, but at a word from the man at the table they drifted into the background, lounging against the wall.
Shaw alone had made no move at all. Setting eyes on him as he sat there, relaxed and waiting, no one would ever have needed to be told that this man was the boss here, master of everything within his ranch. He was sallower than the others, as if for a long time it had been no part of his work to ride the range; his clothes were better, and he looked in every way better kept, as if he had never known defeat at all, but had only chosen to direct his efforts in new and more profitable ways.
Yet there was great strength in that face: strength in the blunt bony nose, and in the wide heavy jaw; and the prominent eyes were very hard and keen. Those eyes were very wide apart, giving the man an extraordinarily bulldog look; and there was in them—this was the amazing thing—the marks of a sense of humor, harsh and rugged perhaps, but humor just the same. A formidable man certainly, and a bad man for an enemy: for no one could look at him and picture his ever letting go.
But it was only as Hughes remembered the story of this man—of how he had always chosen to work in the background, preferring devious ways—that he sensed this man’s full strength. Add the cunning that prowls warily in shadows to the bulldog grip, and the result is a combination that better men may break their hearts against, and never put it down. This was the man who would make barren dust of the Buckhorn Valley itself rather than see it brought to fruition by an enemy whom he could not dislodge.
The keen bulbous eyes were upon Oliver Major now, disregarding the rest; and there was a grim irony in the eyes of both as they met. Compared to that of Earl Shaw, the face of Oliver Major was very gaunt and weathered, the face of a man still tirelessly active in the saddle in spite of his years. It seemed to Hughes that now the whole story of these two men was visible in the look of them as they faced each other here: one the old wolf of the ranges, who, driven to the wall, could fight with a slashing cold fury of destruction not to be withstood; the other the bulldog who would always return to the attack, seeking a new angle perhaps, trying a new way, but never once considering that there was such a thing as giving up! Certainly the war between these two could have no definite end while both lived. If those two could have shot it out back in the beginning, so that one or the other was put out of the way forever, it would have been a far less expensive, and perhaps a kindlier thing, than the long struggle which still prevailed, unassuaged, in their later years.
The lamp at Earl Shaw’s elbow, still burning in opposition to the advance of the grey light outside, was backed by a tin reflector. Shaw reached out a deliberate hand and turned that reflector so that the light shone upon the faces of his visitors but not upon his own. “Mr. Shaw,” said Jim Crawford, “I’m afraid I am going to have to ask you to come along with me.”
Earl Shaw glanced at him then, and each of the others in turn, but his eyes returned to Major, and it was Major to whom he spoke. “You’ve got guts all right,” he said, a touch of ugly humor in his eyes. His voice was hard and heavy, but had the quality characteristic of men who speak readily and well. “You certainly have got all the guts in the world.”
The boss of the Buckhorn water permitted himself a faint ironic smile. “That oughtn’t be any news to you,” he answered.
“Not exactly,” Shaw admitted without expression. He turned his eyes to Clay Hughes. With the glare of the reflector against him, Hughes saw the face of Shaw only as a shadow in shadows, with an obscure dull gleam of eyes. “I take this to be the feller named Hughes,” said Shaw.
“Right,” said Clay.
“And just what is your look-in in this?”
“Cow hand,” said Hughes promptly.
“And what else? Riders don’t blow in here from outside and jump the gun like you’re doing, without some pretty unusual hook-up. What’s your game, boy?”
“My game?” Hughes repeated. It seemed to him that Oliver Major’s enemy knew a w
hole lot more about the affair than was to be expected in the normal course of events. He even knew Clay’s name; and he had not so much as asked Crawford what had happened, or why he was wanted now. “Why, I reckon,” Hughes answered, “my game is just to horn in freely where I’m not wanted. Where I come from it seems like there’s been an awful shortage of trouble.”
“You’ll find it here all right,” said Shaw. “Yes, I think you will.”
Such a conscious menace had come into his tone that Hughes grinned.
Dick Major stirred restively, and Jim Crawford cleared his throat. “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” he said. “It begins to look like you already know what we’re here for, Shaw. I was first deputy under Hugo Donnan. It’s plain to see you know a whole lot more. Anyway, I’m going to take you, and I’m going to hold you until I find out.”
There was a moment’s silence. Clay Hughes stepped forward and gently turned the lamp so that the reflector shone directly into Shaw’s face. Shaw half rose, and out of the corner of his eye Hughes saw the nervous jump of Dick Major’s hand; but Shaw only leaned over to blow out the light and sat down again. The cool grey dreariness of early morning flowed in to fill the room with a new cold actuality, replacing the golden light of the lamp.
At this point a movement beyond the window caught Hughes’ attention, and stepping close to the squared pane he saw that every man on the place seemed to have gathered in front of the house. They lounged against the wall, or stood in groups that covertly watched the door.
Shaw was talking as he turned back. “What makes you think you’re acting sheriff?” he was demanding of Crawford. “What have you got to show for it? What have any of these fellers with you got to go on, except hearsay and your own fool notions?”
“It’s registered,” said Jim Crawford. “I—”
“Is it?” said Shaw, a one-sided smile twisting his mouth. “Is it?”
He paused to let this suggestion soak in for a moment. In the brief silence Oliver Major was heard to say from the side of his mouth, “Watch Dutch Pete, Dick.”
“It’s a good, game bluff you fellers are making,” Shaw went on. “I’ll grant you that. But it’s an almighty thin one. Now you want to ask yourselves a couple of things. How do you know you’ve got an acting sheriff with you? What have you got to show that Crawford was even a deputy at all when the sheriff, Hugo Donnan, met with his mishap? Suppose you start trouble here, and something happens that has to be investigated later. Ask yourselves what proof you’re going to be able to show that you were acting for the law, or had any authority to act for it? What good are the suppositions of half a dozen cowboys, forty miles away, as against the board of county supervisors?”
“You know that I was first deputy as well as I do,” said Jim Crawford. “I stand as sheriff until somebody else is picked.”
“You can prove that, can you?” said Shaw.
There was a brief silence. “I won’t quibble with you,” said old Major, stepping forward abruptly. “Crawford has full say until a successor is named, and I’m going ahead on that basis.”
“And I,” said Shaw, “don’t accept him as acting sheriff, nor you as deputy—and I’m going ahead on that basis!”
“You know me well enough,” said Major, his voice very hard, “to know that if I come here to take you, I’ll take you all right, if it’s my last act.”
Shaw locked his hands behind his head, tilting back his chair.
“If you fellers want to come in here as private citizens and start a shoot-out, I suppose all hell can’t stop you, and you’ll have to take the consequences. You’re here on nerve, and nothing else in the world, and you know it—but it won’t stick. As for taking me, that’s ridiculous. If I give the word, not one of you will ever get off the place.”
“If it breaks that way,” said Major, “I guess you know well enough that you’ll be the first to drop.”
“Ask yourself,” said Shaw, “what would be your own answer to a proposition like that?”
“I’m not going to speak but once,” said Major, his voice very low and hard: “stand up and give over your belt.”
There was a short silence while Shaw, teetering back and forth on the hind legs of his chair, made no move to obey. Already, in the exchange of a few sentences, they had reached a point from which there was no going back. Hughes knew that it was not within possibility for Oliver Major to back down and turn tail now, however great the odds; any more than it was possible to Earl Shaw to recede from the stand he had taken, and submit to his enemy before his own men. The two old men had exchanged words enough, more words perhaps than they had used to each other in years; the next move could only be something else, in which action would take the place of words. It seemed that the smoke of guns was about to fill that room that was now so deadly silent with the strain of impending disaster. In the taut stillness a clock somewhere in the room clicked slowly five times.
“Just a minute,” said Hughes. “Hold your horses, Major!”
Behind Shaw one or two men stirred.
“Keep back,” Major ordered him. “By God, I’ll—”
“Be still, Major!” Hughes strolled casually between Major and Earl Shaw so that he stood by the table. He hunted about among the litter on the table. “You got a pencil here some place? Yeah, here’s one.”
No one moved nor spoke now as he scribbled something on the margin of an old newspaper, tore off the scrap, and handed it to Shaw.
Earl Shaw looked at the scrap of paper for a long moment; then raised calculating eyes to Clay Hughes, and the silence held while the two regarded each other. Clay’s eyes were sober, but there was a grim self-assurance in the faint smile that twisted his mouth as he stared back at Shaw across the cigarette he had begun to roll.
“I don’t see it, exactly,” said Shaw at last.
“That’s funny. I hardly supposed I would be suggesting anything new,” said Hughes, “considering the question you just asked me, a little while ago.” He took the scrap of paper from Shaw’s relaxed fingers, slowly tore it to tiny bits, and thrust the fragments into a pocket of his vest.
“What do you want here?” said Shaw.
“Naturally,” said Hughes, “you can’t hardly expect me to answer that, can you?”
The others in that room, listening, waiting—there was not one of them who could know what was happening here. Shaw himself seemed only partly to understand with what he was confronted now. Their voices, as they spoke again, were low and confidential. It was as if some sort of an understanding had sprung up between them, based on something to which no one else there had any clue.
“If you want to walk out of this,” said Shaw, “you have my leave.”
“Hell,” Hughes answered contemptuously, “that’s no good.”
“It puts me in a very funny place,” said Shaw, studying him.
“You must be crazy,” Clay told him. “Look at your cards, man! You know what’s the only reasonable thing to do.” Then while Shaw hesitated, Hughes added cryptically, “After all, it’s probably for the last time.”
“Yes,” said Shaw, slowly, “it’s probably the last time.” He turned his eyes to Oliver Major, hard and expressionless. Then slowly he got to his feet, unbuckled his gun belt, and flung it on the table in a gesture of surrender.
Chapter Eight
Dick Major’s car, with Bob Macumber at the wheel, plugged homeward a good deal more slowly than it had come, clinging to the twisted ruts. Hughes and Macumber were alone. The rest had remained in Adobe Wells, where Oliver Major was working hard to make the most of the short span of power provided him by Jim Crawford’s temporary authority.
Macumber’s face was worried and puzzled; repeatedly he seemed about to speak, but when he at last was able to formulate what he wanted to say, his well considered words were something of a disappointment.
“This is certainly a funny thing, Clay,” he got out at last.
“Yes,” said Hughes, sleepily.
“I suppose
you realize,” said Macumber, “that you are kind of being rid’ herd on again?”
“Yeah—and you’re the rider this time,” said Hughes.
“Oh, it ain’t exactly that,” said Macumber, uncomfortably. “You know I’d never raise hand to your comings and goings, Clay. But I guess you realize you got the old man ten miles in the air?”
“People sure do go up easy around here,” Clay agreed.
“Why wouldn’t they? You coming in with some private understanding with Shaw kind of took the wind out of everybody, I guess.”
“There isn’t any special understanding, Bob.”
“I suppose not, but what do you expect everybody to think? You sure have got yourself mixed up in this about as deep as anybody ever I see. I don’t know you like I thought I did, Clay. Just as all hell is about to blow up in a general shoot-up, you scribble a little note to Shaw, and he does like you say. And when the old man asks you what was in that note, you tell him it wasn’t anything, and you stick to that, too. Damned if I understand what you’re working up to, Clay.”
“I didn’t see a thing in that shoot-out,” said Clay doggedly, “but a good chance to get hurt.”
“Oh, sure,” Macumber said. “We was all glad to see him give in. The queer looking thing is how you done it. You’ve got the old man wondering what your inside hook-up is, with Earl Shaw.”
“That’s ridiculous, Bob.”
“I suppose it is, Clay.”
“I have a good reason for not telling the old man what was in that note, nor anybody else either; and the reason is that I have a fine chance to be misunderstood, and get into more trouble than I’m in already.”
“I’ll be damned if you don’t beat me,” said Macumber.
