The 7th Western Novel

by Francis W. Hilton

  “Looks like you’ve just hired a hand, Mr. Harper,” Billy smiled. They shook hands and the old man said he’d be back after Billy’d had time to break camp.

  By the time Billy heard the sounds of hoofs coming back he had the dun saddled and bridled and was letting him drink from the creek. He looked across the dun’s back expecting to see Thad Harper. But it came to him suddenly that he’d heard more than one horse. Just then there came a splashing up the creek aways and he saw three riders cross the stream and turn toward him. The half-smile left Billy’s face as he recognized Jason Thornhill in the lead. The other two men were strangers.

  The three of them drew rein when they came alongside. Billy stood looking them over, waiting for Thornhill to speak. He didn’t care for the looks of Jason’s riders. Their eyes were flat and cold and their faces looked as if they’d never smiled in their lives. Only Jason smiled. And Billy knew a friendly smile when he saw one. Jason’s wasn’t.

  “Breakin’ camp?” Jason asked.

  Billy nodded. “That’s right,” he said evenly.

  “Reckon you’ll be leavin’ the country, then,” Jason said the smile twisting a corner of his mouth a little.

  Billy set his jaw. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said quietly. He noticed the look that passed among them.

  The sound of hoofs splatting against the rocks in the creek bed caused them to turn their heads. Thad Harper crossed toward them, nodding to Jason and his men as he rode up.

  “Howdy, Harper,” Jason said.

  Harper only nodded again and looked down at Billy. “Ready, Condo?”

  “All set,” Billy told him and swung into the saddle.

  “Hold on there, Harper,” Jason snapped. “Where you aim to take this man?”

  Old Thad’s mustache bristled and his blue-grey eyes snapped as he glared at Jason. “Seems to me, Thornhill, that that ain’t none of your goddam business.”

  Billy sensed that Harper and Jason Thornhill weren’t on the best of terms. The thought amused him—to think that he had unwittingly fallen into a job with somebody Jason didn’t like.

  “Maybe it is my business,” Jason shot at the old man. “If you’ve hired this man to ride for you, then I know damn well it is!”

  Billy kept quiet, waiting. And an uneasy feeling began to grow inside him. He knew, now, what was coming next.

  “I can’t see that who I hire is any business of yours,” Old Thad snapped.

  Jason turned to Billy and his mouth curled in a sneer. “Tell him, Condo. Tell Harper about how you left Texas to fight for the Union. Tell him you wore a blue soldier suit and fought against your own people. And while you’re at it, tell him you’re damyankee bluebelly sonofabitch who…”

  Billy saw the background of trees and rocks and sky only as a blur. There was only Jason Thornhill’s anger-flushed face with the mouth opening and closing rapidly. But Billy could no longer hear the words that came out. There was a roaring noise in his ears and he felt his right hand moving down to the polished walnut butt of the converted .44 low on his right thigh.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “HOLD IT, EVERYBODY!”

  There was a sharp air of authority in Old Thad’s shout. Billy was surprised to see that the authority was backed by a percussion Colt .44 balanced in the old man’s hands—surprised that the old man had drawn so fast.

  Then he noticed that Jason Thornhill had made no move to draw, and Billy knew why the two riders had come along. Their hands rested on their gun butts and they glowered resentfully at the old man’s interference. Billy breathed a quick prayer of thanks for Old Thad’s interruption. And he saw now that he’d done just what Jason had wanted him to—he’d lost his head and tried to draw against odds. Not just three-man odds, but against two men who had obviously been hired for their skill with a gun. It made him feel a little foolish to think he’d taken the bait so easily. He let his hand fall away from his pistol butt.

  Old Thad was looking at him sharply. “Is it true, Condo, what Thornhill says?”

  Billy set his jaw and looked the old man in the eye. “I’m a Texan,” he said evenly. “I fought to keep Texas where she belonged—in the Union. I couldn’t do that in a Confederate uniform.”

  The older man looked at him thoughtfully, then said slowly, “I reckon every man’s got a right to his own beliefs.” He turned to Jason. “There’s some people, Thornhill, that felt Texas belonged in the Union. ’Specially after men like Sam Houston fought so hard to get her there. Then there’s others, like yourself, Thornhill, who sat back and hollered ‘the Union be damned’ all through the war but never had the guts to fight for the Confederacy. I know you hate my guts. You’ve had me figgered all along for a Union sympathizer. That ain’t so. It’s just that I held all along that there wasn’t any need for Texas to go to war at all, so I stayed out of it. But I wasn’t afraid to let people know where I stood. I can’t say that I feel Condo here did the right thing, but at least he’s man enough to stand up for his beliefs. That’s good enough for me. He ain’t no carpetbagger or he’d be settin’ himself up with a gov’ment job like the rest of the bluebellies. He’s a Texan. That’s good enough for my money. If he wants to work with me he’s welcome.”

  Billy felt a glow of kinship for this old man. Not because he’d defended him, but because of the way he’d done it. He’d called a spade a spade and that was all a man could want. If only everybody would take as sensible a view, instead of wrangling over a war that was fought and done…

  “All right, Harper,” Jason was saying slowly. “It’s your business. Only I ain’t so sure that folks hereabouts will be happy to hear you’ve hired a traitor.”

  Billy tensed at the sound of the word, but he let it ride. The more he got riled when somebody said it, the longer they’d keep saying it. There was only one way to prove himself. He knew it was a hard way—by work and by showing people that he meant to continue where he’d left off, as a Texan working for the common good of everybody. There was a lot of work to be done, and it would take every hand to do it.

  “Let ’em think what they want,” Old Thad snapped. “But you’d better see to it that they’re left to draw their own conclusions.”

  “Just what do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that you’re going to keep your damn mouth shut. People got brains of their own and don’t need you to think for them. And while I’m at it I’m goin’ to tell you that I don’t want to hear any more about my brand gettin’ on somebody else’s cattle. It might be, if folks was to look close at some of your stock, they might see where you’ve been usin’ a runnin’ iron yourself. At least I stick to pickin’ up mavericks. No law that I know of yet against claimin’ wild cattle for your own.”

  Thornhill’s fingers tightened on his saddle horn. “If you didn’t have that gun you wouldn’t talk so big, old man,” he spat.

  “At least it ain’t hired,” Old Thad said, looking pointedly at Jason’s riders. “And now that you’ve had your say, suppose you boys make tracks back where you come from.” Grudgingly, with contemptuous leisure, the three men turned their horses. Before they left, Jason turned to Billy. “There’s just one thing I want to make plain to you, cowboy. Whatever my sister once saw in you is dead and gone. And I aim to see that it stays that way. There might be some people who don’t mind havin’ a traitor around, but I’m not one of ’em—and neither is Mary.” With a vicious jerk he pulled his horse’s head around and rode off at an angry gallop, his two riders hurrying to keep up.

  Billy turned to Old Thad. “I’m much obliged, Mr. Harper. I guess I shouldn’t have lost my head.”

  The old man looked at him closely. “Son, considerin’ some of the names he called you, I think you did a damn good job of keepin’ your mouth shut.” Then he broke into a grin. “Come on, son. That bunch of cattle Joe was hazin’ when I left him ain’t got a brand among ’em. We got work to do.”
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  In the weeks that followed, Billy found himself gradually picking up the skills that had lain unused in him for six years. He became accustomed once again to the feeling of maguey rope in his hands and found that after a few embarrassing misses that brought smiles from the other riders, his loops became smaller and surer. Things he’d almost forgotten, like letting a cutting horse have his way once he’d spotted the critter to be cut, or like how to follow fresh tracks of a herd when they got all mixed up with other tracks at a water hole. These things all came back to him. He found it was good to be back. Good to hear the bawl of cattle on the move, good to hear the jokes that passed around the fire at night. It was good to smell the sage on the night air, and even the burning stench of hide and hair at the branding fire was nostalgic.

  But there came a day when the newness wore off and things settled down to a workaday routine again. It was then that he had time to think, and the thoughts that began to come to him were insidious, growing things. There were times when he almost wished he could postpone them so that life could go on, unhurried and carefree, as he had so often dreamed in the dark days of the war. But there were also times when the thoughts stirred him to a frenzy to be doing something about them—something that would settle things one way or another, once and for all.

  These were the thoughts brought by an unguarded word he’d been meant to overhear—maybe it would be a remark about how poor the pay was, thanks to the way the country was being run now that the North had won. Or maybe they would be brought on by the way the men would freeze up sometimes when he sat down beside the fire and he could feel their glances when he wasn’t looking. It would take time—a long time—before the bitterness was forgotten. All he could do was wait. But—for how long?

  Worst of all, there was the memory of Mary Thornhill. The memory of what used to be. Billy found himself lying awake nights and listening—listening to the lonely sound of the wind as it sighed sadly through the sagebrush and mesquite and lost itself in a gentle murmur down some arroyo. It left him with an empty ache inside, that sighing sound—for it reminded him of Mary’s soft crying that night he had ridden away after she had joined her brother in denouncing Billy as a traitor.

  Most disturbing of all was the thought—the certainty, almost—that were Mary herself left to make her choice she would not have turned away from him. Jason’s repeated warning to Billy that morning after the incident beside the creek with Thad Harper had confirmed what Billy had already come to suspect—that Jason himself had made the choice for Mary.

  One other fact remained. Even had he been free to go to Mary, Billy wondered, would he do it? What could he possibly offer her? It had occurred to him that he might strike out on his own, picking up a few mavericks here and there until he had the start of a herd. But even that would take a certain amount of money until the cattle began to pay their way—money for equipment, money for a grubstake. His army pay had gone to buy the dun horse and saddle. That left little for Billy to offer a wife—a dun horse, a second-hand saddle, and a man who was marked, by some folks at least, as a traitor.

  * * * *

  Billy had worked three months for Thad Harper’s Circle 8 when Jason Thornhill rode into camp one night with trouble in his eye. There were two men with him, and Billy recognized them as the same two who’d been with Thornhill that morning at the creek. Old Thad stood up as the three dismounted and strode up to the fire. Billy remained seated on his bedroll.

  “You’re kind of far off home range, ain’t you, Harper?” Jason said loudly, glowering around at the circle of men and letting his gaze rest for a minute on Billy before turning back to the old man.

  “It’s still open range as far as I know, Thornhill,” Old Thad drawled. “Some of my cows been bothered with screw worms. Reckon I got a right to move around and doctor ’em where I find ’em.”

  “Somebody’s been doctorin’ more than screw worms, Harper,” Jason said pointedly.

  Old Thad’s eyes narrowed. “Stop beatin’ around the bush, Thornhill. You got somethin’ to say, then say it.”

  “All right, Harper. I’ll say it.” He walked over to where Billy sat, reached down and untied something from behind Billy’s saddle. He walked back to Thad and held out an iron rod. “If you’re doctorin’ cattle for screw worms, Harper, how come some of your men are carryin’ running irons?” The old man shifted a chew of tobacco to give himself more room for words. “That’s a damn fool question. You know as well as I do. There’s still times a man rides across an occasional maverick in this country. A stamp iron’s too bulky to tie behind a saddle. And don’t go tellin’ me, Thornhill, that you got a conscience about brandin’ mavericks. If you have, about half your herd ought to be wearin’ another brand or none at all.”

  “I’m not arguin’ about mavericks, Harper. Everybody knows a lot of cattle run wild during the war and anybody can claim ’em who runs across ’em. But once a beef is branded, maverick or any other, I don’t cotton to anybody who uses a running iron to change that brand to his own.”

  Billy Condo saw what Thornhill was driving at. He stood up slowly, watching the two men with Jason as they stood, spraddle-legged, on either side of their boss. But it came to Billy, somehow, like a hunch, that it wasn’t Old Thad they were trying to pin.

  The old man took a step toward Jason, his face flushed and his walrus mustache an angry quiver. “Now lookit here, goddammit! Are you insinuatin’…?”

  “All I know,” Jason smirked, “is that it would be mighty easy for somebody with a running iron to change my Lazy S into your Circle 8.” With the running iron from Billy’s saddle, Jason Thornhill knelt down and drew an S in the dust beside the fire. “There’s my Lazy S,” he said. Then he used the rod to join the two points of the S and extended the line clear around it. “And that,” he looked up at Old Thad with a crooked smile, “turns it into your Circle 8.”

  The old man spat a blob of tobacco juice square in the middle of the brand in the dust. Then he fastened his steel blue eyes on Thornhill’s face. “Now all I want you to do,” he said, and his voice was like breaking ice, “is tell me I been doin’ that to your cows…!”

  “Now hold on a minute, Harper,” Thornhill said soothingly, a cunning smile crossing his face. “I don’t say you did anything. I’ll admit we’ve had mix-ups before, and maybe I was a little hasty in blamin’ you for some things that didn’t happen. But let’s just suppose you had somebody workin’ for you who had a grudge against me. One way for them to get even might be for them to take my cows by changing the brand to yours. One man like that could play hell with a herd in a year’s time.”

  Old Thad’s eyes narrowed. Several of the Circle 8 riders gathered around him, sensing the tenseness in the air. Billy stood a little to one side, the germ of suspicion growing stronger with each word Thornhill spoke. He caught Old Thad’s eye for a brief instant, then the old man faced his accuser again. “Thornhill,” he said evenly, “You’d better be able to back up what you’re sayin’—every damn word of it!”

  “I’ve got all the proof I need,” Thornhill said cautiously, “but I want to make sure of one thing first.”

  “What’s that?” Thad asked.

  “That’s when I point out who’s responsible for changing brands, you’ll see to it that he leaves the country.”

  “I reckon it’ll be up to the law to decide that,” Thad told him.

  “Law!” Thornhill snorted. “You know the law we got in Texas since the war—bluebelly judges, carpetbag sheriffs!”

  He glanced at Billy and a slow smile twisted the corners of his mouth. Then he turned back to Thad. “How long,” he asked slowly, “do you think a bluebelly sheriff would hold a man who’d fought with the Union army?”

  Thad’s mouth fell open in surprise. Billy Condo felt the uneasy eyes of the other Circle 8 riders upon him. He stepped up to Jason and his voice was cold steel when he spoke.
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  “Jase, there was a time when you and me was friends. Rememberin’ that, and rememberin’ how you feel about me now, I might make allowance for your making a mistake. Now let’s have a look at this proof you’ve got that I’ve been using a running iron on your cows. If it’s a mistake, I’m willing to forget—but if it’s some trick of yours to try to get me out of the country just to keep me away from Mary, so help me I’ll gunwhip you until your own sister won’t recognize your face!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  For a long time they stood there in the firelight, facing each other, not moving. One a bulky giant of a man, in whose heart burned an all-consuming hatred for a man he regarded as a traitor. The other, younger, lean and wiry, smarting under repeated insults and insinuations and struggling to control the fury of indignation that lay smoldering within him.

  Jase Thornhill spoke first. “All right, Condo. You asked for it. Let’s go.” He turned to Thad Harper. “You’ve got a part of a herd bedded down over on the flat. You and a couple of your boys saddle up and come along and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Billy turned away and picked up his own saddle from beside his bedroll. By the time he had saddled and was ready to mount, Jase and his two riders were already waiting on their horses. Old Thad and three other Circle 8 hands joined the party. Without a word all eight turned their horses and rode down toward the flat where some fifty head of longhorns stood up and moved restlessly about at the riders’ approach.

  They drew rein at the edge of the flat and Old Thad called out lest the rider on nightherd mistake them for rustlers. Then he turned to Jase Thornhill. “All right, Thornhill. Now what?”

  Jase nodded to his two riders, who loosened their ropes and began to circle the herd. Billy sat watching, conscious of the strained silence of the men he was with. His mind was racing, trying to figure just what it was Jase Thornhill was up to. No doubt, he figured, Jase’s riders would cut out a critter with a Circle 8 brand and claim it had been changed from a Lazy S. Billy shook his head. That wasn’t good enough. Unless… Then it came to him—unless Jase and his men had used a running iron on one of Jase’s own cows and had planted it with the rest of the herd!