Jack Romayne looked at him, a stocky man, and one of the biggest taxpayers in town. “Why,” Jack drawled, “I thought I’d ask for volunteers—to ride out in the country one at a time and maybe see what was happening.”
Major Miles had never been in the Army; the title went with the Indian agent job. He peered into the wagon and said: “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”
Jack Romayne said: “Indian job, doc?”
The doctor shrugged. “I don’t know as I ever saw a scalping before,” he said. “Maybe you ought to ask the major. He’s more knowing on Indian than me.”
Miles twisted up his red face and squinted at the doctor. Finally he decided not to take offense. He said: “Never saw a scalping before, either. And I don’t know as how my Shoshones have. Any man wanted to kill someone and throw it off on Indians could use a knife.”
“Who else?” Sydnor asked. “If it wasn’t Indians, who else?”
Jack Romayne said, “I’d like to look the wagon over first. Afterwards’ll be time enough to put a name on things.” He grabbed the near horse’s bridle. “I’m taking them over to the undertaker’s, to Doc Beals’. Anybody wants to come along can help me unload.”
They faded away, then, and Jack led the team across the street, and up the alley and to the back of Doc Beals’, where the hearse was, and the little shed with Doc’s horses and the big cans of stuff that Doc used.
The sheriff’s office backed on the same alley, and Jack told Doc to bring the wagon down there when he was finished. He went to the sheriff’s shed and pulled down some hay for his two horses, the pack horse and the trail horse, and he went into his own office through the unlocked back door and rolled himself a cigarette.
The notices of unpaid taxes were still on his desk, but they didn’t matter now. Trouble had come to Rock Spring—bad trouble.
It didn’t matter who had killed those men. Maybe they hadn’t even been killed in his county, but it would be up to him to get the killers. There wasn’t anybody else.
He smiled, but not with pleasure. About two years ago the U. S. Marshal had been through here, had looked over the town, and had ended up deputizing Jack Romayne. The badge was in the safe someplace.
He opened the safe and finally found it. It was in a box with his Deputy United States Marshal commission, and a schedule of fees he was to get if there was ever any Federal work to be done.
There was just himself. Fat fools like Charley Sydnor could bawl around about wanting to serve on a posse, but Jack Romayne would lead that posse. It was what he was paid for.
Doc Beals came to the door. “Here’s your wagon, Sheriff. I told my boys not to wash it out. That was right, wasn’t it?”
Jack Romayne said: “That was just fine, Doc.”
He couldn’t even run away, he was thinking. The very thing he wanted to run away from had closed all the roads.
CHAPTER II
Dan Younge was thinking the same thing; that the roads out of town were closed. He had been planning on leaving that day, as soon as he could get Wellman aside and draw his money.
But the trails were now closed.
He went into the Great Chance and drifted past the bar and the gambling tables to the kitchen, helped himself to a cup of coffee, threw a casual thanks at the Chinese cook and went to sit on the back porch near the potato bin.
Then he went out on the street. Charley Sydnor had left the livery yard and was in his store; he could see the merchant sticking out his gold watch chain at a couple of young wives, while a clerk unrolled bolt goods.
So Dan Younge went up the street, up to the last house before the big rock. Then he turned right, as though going for a stroll into the country; circled and so came to the back door of the Sydnor house.
It was not locked. Rock Spring was an honest and peaceful town. He went through the kitchen and into the hall; he knew his way.
She was in the living room, darning Charley Sydnor’s socks. But she dropped the darning at once and stood up and came toward him, raising her mouth for his kiss, pressing all her body against him.
She was fourteen years younger than Charley, a tall woman with a proud way of carrying herself that should have warned the storekeeper.
Dan Younge skillfully ran his fingers over Phyllis Sydnor’s strong and resilient back. In a strange town, in search of the only diversion that meant anything to him, Dan Younge always looked up the richest man in town; if he had a pretty wife it was a cinch.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said. “It’s two hours till Charley’s mealtime.”
“You could set your watch by him,” Phyllis said.
He turned and shoved her a little ahead of him, and she went, slowly at first and then almost running the last few feet to the stairs.
CHAPTER III
As always, there were three or four men sitting around the sheriff’s office. They had elected him, and they chose to think of his office as a sort of exclusive club. Hostetter, of the feed store, was there; Wellman, who owned the Great Chance; Shurtz, the hotel man; all merchants big enough to have clerks to run their prosperous business for them.
Now they looked at Jack Romayne, these sachems of counter and cash drawer, and Hostetter said: “Well, sheriff?”
Jack Romayne shook his head. “Nothing in the wagon to say was it white or Indians did the trick. The brands on the horses are some I never saw before. You know as much as I do.”
“I sure hate to start an Indian scare,” Wellman said. “Next thing you know, the trails’ll stay closed for a year or more. We’ll be cut off from fresh supplies, from trade, from everything.”
Hostetter said: “Suppose what was done to those men was done by whites; you think that’s gonna fill travelers with ease and confidence?”
Jack Romayne said: “If it’s Indians, maybe we ought to wait for the Army.” He added: “If the dead men were on the reservation, what were they doing there? Trespassing? Molesting Indian women? Bootlegging, maybe?”
Hostetter’s voice was filled with contempt. “It seems we picked up an Indian lover for a sheriff. Well, we put you in office—we can take you out.”
Jack Romayne glared it him, but then Doc Beals came tumbling in the back door, holding his clenched hand in front of him. “Look,” he said. “Look what I found inside one of those fellas’ boots. Just look.” He opened his hand, and it glittered. It was full of gold nuggets.
Hostetter said, slowly: “Those Indians are no fools. If there’s gold on their land, they’ll lose that land. It’s happened every time.”
There was noise out on the street. Major Miles was tying his horse to the sheriff’s rail, while Sydnor watched him. The Major, fussy in small things, took his time about it, and then the two men marched into the office.
“I heard about the gold,” Major Miles said. “If those men were on the reservation, mining, they were outside the law.”
Sydnor said: “And if they were someplace else, whoever jumped their claim has sure seen to it that there won’t be many prospectors out for awhile.”
“Send for the Army,” Jack Romayne said. “It’s the only thing to do.”
Wellman said, quickly: “We don’t want that. Don’t want some Army finance officer fixing prices, commandeering supplies.”
They all turned to Sydnor. The stout man said: “Wagons leave tracks. Tracks for sheriffs to follow.”
“Thanks,” Jack Romayne said, and went out to saddle his horses. Then he went back into the office and got a rifle, .30-.30, from the rack. He locked the rack again, and tossed the key in his hand. “I’d better leave this here,” he said. “I’d better deputize someone, too.”
Five pairs of cold eyes stared back at him. He said, suddenly: “Sydnor, raise your right hand.”
Sydnor said: “Young man…”
“I’m not a young man,” Jack Romayne said. “I’
m a badge with a body behind it. There’s a difference. Your right hand, Sydnor.”
CHAPTER IV
Dan Younge pulled a cheroot out of his pocket, put it between his lips and then said: “Sorry. Almost forgot,” and put it back in his pocket.
From the dressing table Phyllis Sydnor said: “Go on and smoke.”
“What’ll you tell Sydnor? That you’ve taken up cheroots for the asthma he knows you don’t have?”
“I’ll tell him to go to hell.”
Dan Younge’s gambler face froze. He’d known this was coming, but when he had learned this morning that the trails were closed, he had hoped against hope. He said: “He treats you all right, looking at it from a money point of view. Lot of ladies’d give a quarter inch off their eyelashes to have the run of Sydnor’s store.”
She ran her hands down the Belgian lace on her shirtwaist. “Money!” she said. “Do you think I’d sell myself for money?”
Yep, Dan Younge answered her. But he kept it to himself. Time had come for the roofless wanderer act. He said: “When you’re in the dark, in a strange town, any lamp looks pretty. Once you own the house, you begin wondering whether you shouldn’t have ordered a different kind of lampshade from Sears Roebuck.”
Sharpness was coming in under her voice. “What does all that mean?”
Good. If he got her mad, an exit was still possible. “Maybe it means I envy you, having a home, not having to worry, even if Charley Sydnor’s in that home with you. Me, what have I got? A spare suit, a seat at a poker table, a hotel room.”
It was good, but she hadn’t been listening. “I’d like you to stay. Stay, while I tell him…”
Dan Younge got off the windowsill, stood looking down at her. “You don’t know what happened downtown today, then. Do you?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide, staring at him. There was enough suspicion in her eyes to make Dan Younge begin to believe that this was not the first time she had heard a man tell the tale; but he had never exacted previous innocence from his ladies.
He said: “We can’t get out of town, lady. Not today, and I don’t know when.” Quickly, he told her what had happened, about the wagon, about the men.
She hardly seemed to be listening to him. When he finished, she said: “Good! Oh, good! We’ll stay here and tell Charley Sydnor to do his worst. I’ll move down to the hotel with you.”
“Sydnor owns this town,” Dan Younge pointed out. “I don’t want you hurt, lady.”
Suddenly her anger, her fire went out of her. “I go soft all over when you call me that,” she said. “Nobody ever called me lady before.”
He had a part to play. Maybe he could still find a way to leave her with her dignity, to leave her thinking that he departed with regret and a picture of her in his heart. He said: “You think I don’t have feelings? We’ve got to figure out what’s best for you. I’ll scout downtown, find out if the Army’s coming, what’s going to happen. This whole thing may blow over.”
She said: “You’re so wise, so smart,” and for just a moment he thought she was laughing at him. But she wasn’t, and he headed for the back stairs and out.
He did not go to the bar or the sheriff’s office, where news might be found; instead he headed at once for the livery stable, gave orders for his horse to have oats, for more grain to be packed in his trail bags, for his bill to be gotten ready. The whiskey-reeking hostler tried to tell him nobody was leaving town, but he walked away.
At the hotel he packed, rolling his extra suit carefully in canvas against dust. He paid his bill there and went to the stable and got on his horse.
He headed now for the sheriff’s office, but then he saw Jack Romayne, the sheriff, riding toward Sydnor’s store—alone, leading a packhorse.
He swore. You’d have thought that even in a little town like Rock Spring there would be one man with enough gumption to offer to go with the sheriff.
Besides the town gambler.
CHAPTER V
Jack Romayne had led his white packhorse around to Sydnor’s store and tied the two animals to Sydnor’s rail. The saddle horse promptly started chewing on the wood. Romayne slapped his nose and went on into the store.
He grabbed two gunny sacks from a pile Sydnor had for sale, and started throwing canned goods and sacks of dry stuff into the burlap.
Ellen Lea, who clerked for Sydnor, came over. “Let me help you, Jack.”
He looked at her. She was a widow, thought not yet twenty-five; Brad Lea had tried to get rich in the windmill business, and his ambition had driven him up a tower in a bad wind. The gold wedding ring she still wore was darker than her hair, and her eyes were a light, prairie-searching blue. Perhaps because of her coloration, she seemed to keep herself neater than most of the women in Rock Spring; even in the spring winds she never had the slightly dusty look of most prairie people.
He said: “I can handle it, Ellen.”
Ellen Lea said: “You’re going out on the prairie?”
“Your boss and mine, the Honorable Charles Sydnor, just reminded me of how much salary this county has paid me. I’m going to go earn it.”
She said: “Let me get a boy to help you load.”
“I’ll do it.”
But she followed him out to the horses, watched while he put a sack on each side of the packhorse, and then helped him by going to the off side and stowing things in the saddlebag. When both saddlebags were full he tied the necks of the half empty gunny sacks together, and lashed them tight.
“That ought to hold.”
He moved to mount, but she put a hand on his arm. “Jack, tell them.”
“Tell them what? That they’re asking me to die for my measly salary? They couldn’t care. Their businesses are threatened.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what it was I wanted you to tell them.”
Jack Romayne said: “Listen, Ellen. Brad’s been gone six months. When I get back, eat supper with me at the hotel once in awhile.”
He turned without waiting for an answer, and swung into the saddle. When he was down against the leather, he looked at her.
Her head was up, and the light blue eyes had more shine than he had seen in a while. She said, “I’ll be proud to, Jack.”
He nodded and picked up his lines. The packhorse set back a little as usual, and Jack rode over and slapped at his rump with his saddle lines.
He said: “So long, Ellen,” and then realized that another rider had come up.
Dan Younge, the gambler, said: “I hope there’s grub enough for two.”
Jack Romayne looked him over. Younge wore the neat black clothes of his trade, but he had switched from varnished black gaiters to heavy cowhide boots. There was a rifle under his left leg, and a bedroll behind the saddle. “Rock Spring bores me, sheriff. Let’s go get some fresh air.”
Ellen Lea laughed suddenly, and the two men rode out, Dan Younge turning to sweep his black hat at her. They rode down the street, made a turn, following the canyon flood, and were out of the little town.
Jack Romayne was already bent in the saddle, watching the tracks of the wagon that had come into town.
CHAPTER VI
Second Lieutenant James V. Beer and Sergeant Rylan rode at the head of the column of twos. Two troopers were out ahead as advance, one on each side of the column. From time to time the sergeant would glance at the sun and blow his whistle, and the pickets would drop back, fall into column behind the leaders, and be relieved by whichever pair had been eating dust at the tail of the blue snake.
Suddenly, Trooper Strayne, on right picket, stood in his stirrups, raised his hand, and circled. At once, Mr. Beer threw up his own hand and pulled it down hard, clenching his fist. The column accepted the signal to halt quietly, and Beer rode off to the right front.
“Sit tight in your saddle,” Sergeant Rylan said. “Keep your feet i
n your stirrups. Anybody in doubt, check his carbine for ready.”
Two or three of the men took their short rifles from the scabbards and snicked the breech mechanisms.
When Mr. Beer reached Strayne, the trooper silently pointed to the ground. The lieutenant got down and examined the hoof prints his soldier had discovered. Then he grunted, said, “Nice work, Strayne. They were almost dusted in. Two men, riding shod horses, probably yesterday.”
He squatted by the prints, musing, looked up after a moment and said: “Go send the sergeant up here. And tell him the men can stand easy.”
Strayne saluted, and took off in a skittering run down the sand dune. His officer, left alone, heard the deep mutter of Sergeant Rylan’s voice: “Stand down. Every man loosen his horse’s girth, and go light on your canteens.” Then there was the sound of the sergeant’s mount trotting up the sandhill.
Beer took out a sack of tobacco and a pad of papers and built himself a careful cigarette. He wet it down thoroughly with spit before lighting it, relieving a little the burning acridity of long dried tobacco.
When Rylan dismounted, Beer handed him the makings and pointed at the track.
Sergeant Rylan said: “Hundred to one they are not Indians, sir.”
“My thinking, Rylan. But we’re deep in the reservation. This is supposed to be closed to miners and settlers.”
Rylan contented himself with a “Yes, sir.” He lit his cigarette, passed the tobacco and paper back.
Mr. Beer unbuttoned a shirt pocket under his unbuttoned blouse and stowed his smoking away. Shaving on patrol was not an everyday thing; as he ran a hand up his cheek, the scrape of his whiskers was loud in his ear. He said, finally: “Our job, I guess. If we find out—as we shall—that they were just cowboys taking a short cut, we’ll be in dry country with nothing to show for it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Beer sighed. “Someday I’d like to try this patrolling with light equipment—a canteen, some pemmican, ammunition—to each man, and light horses that could live off the prairie.”
Sergeant Rylan said: “That’s not the Army way.” Both men rose, stepped back into their saddles and walked down to the waiting troop.
The 7th Western Novel Page 62
