She had been grieving, was pale from it, and it became her. All spraddled out in her best duds—blue shawl cowled close around blond head and long black velvet coat pulled close around her sloping waist and black kid shoes snug on trim feet and fluffy muff carried in one hand—she looked like the grandest woman in the world.
Cain thought: “She’s changed. With the baby born she’s slim again. Almost as pretty as the grass-finished Rosemary I once tried to kiss. A beautiful widow.”
Gravely, courteously, he took off his black hat.
Again with pain he remembered the mean words she’d once said to him, that time he took her home a year after killing her boy friend Cecil Guth: “One night you set and say, yes mam, no mam, and look like a stuffed owl. The next night you drink up all of Gramp’s whisky and make love like a horse. Lord knows what next to expect from you. Cain, if you can’t remember I’m a lady, there’s the door. Besides, and don’t forget it, I’m your full cousin.”
He suppressed a groan and turned away from her. He thought: “I will not think of it.”
She swept forward to where the orange-tipped fire burned warm in the fieldstone hearth. She slipped out of her velvet coat and blue shawl. “My, it’s cold!” she said. “I near froze to death. I was already bad off when I got to your cabin. And then I had to come all the way back.” She stood before him in long purple velvet with white frills at the neckline and wrists. She was pale, drawn, shivering. Yet there was also the air about her of one who at last had been relieved of a burden, and was glad of it.
Joey leaned the old Sharps against the stone hearth. “Maw—”
“Hey, there, Joe boy,” Cain broke in, “I don’t think I’d set that old cannon so close to the fire. It just might let go. I’d set it behind the door there.”
Joey threw him a look. “You bossin’ me around, Unk?”
“No. Just trying to uncle you a little, son.”
“That’s all right then.” Joey set the gun down easy behind the door. Again Joey turned to Rory. “Maw, is it all right if I go to my room now?”
“Is Baby still asleep?”
“I won’t wake him.”
“Well, all right.”
“Well, if you don’t want me to go in there, don’t blame me if your nose raises a fuss.”
“Why, what’s wrong with you?”
Cain said, managing to keep a straight face, “I still don’t believe it.”
“Thanks, Unk. But I better change pants anyway. I’m closer to it than you.” Joey sidled into the lean-to and closed the door behind him.
Gram sat down in her black rocker in her corner by the fire. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days. I just seem to be rotting off at the ends. Last summer, when I was ready to go to Mabry and my Lord, He wouldn’t take me. Now, when I’m not ready, He all of a sudden seems to want me.”
Cain said, “Gram, you know you’ll be around a long while yet.”
Gram pulled a woolen sock off her left foot. A thick bandage came with it. “Rotting off at the ends. Yes. Leakage of the toe.” Her big toe was swollen and as gray as a lump of suet, with the old ribbed nail lifted askew. With each beat of her old heart watery yellow pus slowly pulsed from under it. There was a sudden stench in the room, and it was strong, as bad as very old fly-specked swill. “Leakage of the toe,” she murmured. “Tried everything for it. Mabry my husband told me in a dream th’other night I should soak it in a sack of fresh cow mustard to dry it out. But all we got around here is ewe stink.”
Joey came back out of the lean-to. His face was round with surprise. “That’s sure funny, Unk. My pants was as fresh as a June daisy. Must’ve just passed some dewy wind instid.” Then Joey suddenly grabbed his nose and his eyes half-closed. “There it is again,” he said with a hairlip’s nasal sound.
“Joey,” Rory began, running a hand down her purple velvet dress, somewhat tense, “please, Joey—”
“Oh, so that’s it.” Joey caught sight of Cain looking down at Gram’s foot.
“Leakage of the toe,” Gram muttered. “Must ask Cain for a sack of it. My grandson Cain is a fairish boy and he’ll help me.” Gram looked around suddenly, furtive, crimped forward in her black rocker. “Openhammett? Can’t say as I do.” Gram gave her big toe a squeeze and more pus ran out.
Cain bit on his teeth. “Gram, maybe you better put on some mutton tallow. A mutton poultice.”
“Justice? Never heard of him.”
Rory threw Cain a look. She touched Gram on the shoulder. “Now, dear, just set still there while I go get a pan of warm water with some salt in it.” Rory scolded her gently. “How come you didn’t soak it in salt water like I told you to in the first place? While I was gone.”
Joey said, “Her and me was too busy fightin’ off them Derby riders.”
Rory gave Cain another look. The look said: “You see? This is the kind of life we lead now.”
With a sigh, Cain took a chair and sat down before the crackling fire. He thrust the toes of his black boots almost into the flames.
Rory set out a pan of warm salt water. Gently she took up Gram’s knob foot and placed it in the pan.
“Euu! Glory be! How good that feels,” Gram said. “It’s like bein’ washed in the blood of the lamb.”
Rory next filled the coffeepot and set it at the head of the range. She set the table with her finest: blue cups and saucers, the best silver, and an Indian-made sugar and creamer set.
Cain thought: “What’s she spreadin’ on the mustard for? Them fancy eatin’ tools. Fresh spit curls. Chalk on her nose.”
The smell of boiling coffee was sweet in the log cabin.
Cain thought: “Ain’t this instead a time for puttin’ on sackcloth and ashes? Like the Old Book says?”
She brushed past him, once.
Cain thought: “I cannot think of it.”
Rory poured coffee for Joey too. Joey took his new role as head of the house in stride. Cain had to smile to himself. What a strong little skimmy he had turned out to be. Out of Rory.
The coffee was rich, dark; and sipping and blowing and swallowing, everybody enjoyed it, Cain, Rory, Gram, and Joey.
Rory poured Cain a second cup; then hit him with it.“When are you going after him?”
Cain’s ax-graven face darkened over with thought. He ran a stub hand through his tangled hair. He said nothing. For a second he didn’t know what to say. Trust Rory to bring up the hard thing.
Joey said, “We elected Ned Sine to office. Ain’t it about time he did something?”
Rory said, “There’s no use’n goin’ to the law in this country.”
Cain drank up. He stirred the grounds in the bottom of his cup. “To swear out a warrant you got to have evidence, Joey. And this time nobody saw it happen. At least not that we know of. So the sheriff can’t do anything just now.”
Rory said, “But we know this Hunt Lawton is around.”
Cain went on, explaining. “And even if someone had seen it, Joey, the one seeing it might be afraid to talk.”
Rory’s mouth drew down at the corners, mean. “Then there ain’t no Hammett men left after all.”
“Wait. Listen. The killer knows. He can’t get away from himself. You know that. And one of these days he’ll make a slip. Then we’ll go after him legal.”
“Just us Hammett women and children left.”
“Listen. Most of us here along the Shaken Grass is just shirttail outfits. We can’t afford to make any mistakes. One slip and all the big papers in the state will blow it up to make us look like crooks. Except for one paper down in Cheyenne, the Tribune, they’re all on the side of the big augers. The big augers can make all the mistakes in the world and yet never have to blush for it. Because it never gets printed. The whole world, the big wheels in Washington and London and New York, they believe only what the papers print. They have to. They’ve got money sunk in the big ranches. The first thing, if we do something wrong, they’ll be in here with the Army to protect the peace. And you
know what that’ll mean for us.”
“Then this ain’t a country for the little man?”
“We ain’t made it that yit, no.” Cain’s heavy jaw set out. “But we will. Given time. And we’ll do it the right way. The big way.”
“Time. Time.” Rory’s wrath was suddenly in the room like a she-grizzly let loose out of a cage. “And what good is ‘time’ to your brother Dale now? And Dencil? And Cattle Queen and Avery Jimson? And our dads? And Gramp? And all the other murdered ones? Or even you after tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry, Rory, but I don’t aim to be stompeded into joining Harry’s wild bunch. Which I will be if I take the law into my own hands.”
“Even if it means you may be shaking hands with St. Peter tomorrow morning?” Rory choked with it. “And my little boys next?”
“I can’t.”
“Dale must be avenged.”
It slipped out of him before he could catch himself. “He meant that much to you then?”
Rory rose in her chair. Terrible were her dark beautiful eyes. Her gold hair flashed like a mane. “What! What!”
Cain felt himself cowing. He resented it. He held up a hand as if to ward her off. “Wait. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Cain, let me ask you this: Are you afraid to kill when this time you really will be in the right?”
“Wait. Wait. Yes, I did kill a man once. Yes. And I’m sorry for it. Terrible sorry for it.”
“Even when the sheriff and everybody said you done right?”
“Yes. I killed wrong then. He was a no-good, yes. But my reason was wrong. And I swore then, as I swear now, that I will not kill without good reason again. Neither for pleasure nor profit. But will prefer peace.”
“Even if it is all our revenge? And not just yours?”
“No. I cannot. I remember how Cecil Guth looked afterwards.”
“And you won’t do it for my sake then either?”
Then Cain’s wrath was suddenly in the room too. His neck swelled. The weathered part of it darkened over. “What a question!”
“So all along you too have been a coward. Acting like you was a tough one with that big noisy mouth of yours.”
“ ‘Big noisy mouth’? When I was careful—”
“Like Dale was. Like Dale did.”
“Rory, the way you want it, it ain’t clean that way. Clear.”
“A coward.”
“Rory, you’re saying things to me that only a woman could get away with. If a man said them to me I’d drop him on sight.”
“Ah, then I must somehow get this Hunt Lawton to call you a coward.”
Cain balled up his fist slowly and slowly he hit the table. Dishes jumped. His own cup popped out of its saucer and tumbled over on its side. Canned milk frothed out of the punched holes in the airtight.
Joey broke in, “Unk, don’t you think it’s time you taught me how to draw?”
“What?” Cain shuddered.“Oh.” He bit on his teeth, fierce, bit until the big molars under his ears grated. He sat rigid for a while, like a soul caught in a stone statue and struggling to get out. When he had himself somewhat in hand again, he said, gently, “Someday maybe I’ll show you, son.”
“What if there ain’t no someday, Unk?”
Cain made a brush-off gesture. “It’ll take too long to teach you, kid. At least just now.”
“You told me once you should let the gun shoot itself and not you shoot it. Where the gun sorta takes you by the hand and helps you point it. Ain’t that right?”
“What a waste,” Rory murmured to herself. “What a terrible waste.”
Gram spoke up from where she’d been contemplating her leaking toe in the pan of warm salt water. “It’s a good thing pore Mabry didn’t live to these times. His blood wiped out to the last man.” The old clock on the mantel tocked the time away. “Oh, tomorrow I’ll be with Him in glory! Tomorrow.”
Cain looked down to hide his face. “I don’t like this, Rory. You wanting a man’s revenge.”
“All I know is this: it’s time Gramp and our dads and Dale was avenged.”
“My God! What’s this tarnal world comin’ to? Women wanting revenge?”
“Somebody must wipe out the shame.”
“How come you don’t ask Harry to do the job? He bears the Hammett name too.”
“Your name is Cain Hammett. You are the firstborn brother. It is more beholden for you.”
“Rory, Rory, what makes you so all-fired hot for a killin’? What’s eatin’ you? What awful misery is gnawin’ your innards?”
“We’ve got to take our stand somewhere. If the law won’t.”
“It’s onnatural, that’s what it is. A woman wanting a man’s revenge. Why, it’s always been the women who’ve been hot for peace. And bright lights and Sunday morning promenades.”
“When you leave this house, don’t ever come back again unless you can tell us that you’ve walked between his head and his shoulders.”
Cain looked down at his hands. “A hag of hell, that’s what she’s become.”
“I’ve often wondered how any woman could have stood bein’ married to that hairy old Timberline. Well, maybe I looked at that wrong. Because he at least knows when to kill.”
Gram cackled in her rocker by the fire. “Old Timberline. Now there is a man like my old Mabry. To men like them a woman is like a cookstove. Nice and handy when needed. My Mabry hardly knew a woman was in the world except at mealtime. And in bed. Mabry never worried his head about a pore wife’s troubles, about her private problems thirteen times in the year. Neglect and insults beyond compare. And when she got caught, he figured she could throw her kids as easy as a mare threw her colts. Euu.” Gram rocked, and on each rock her swollen foot came out of the water and then splashed back into it. “But I loved the old rough son-of-a-gun. He was a wild devil but he was all hair and man.”
Joey asked, “How come they hang some people and shoot the others, Unk?”
“Rustlers they can hang. Because they won’t be blamed for it too much. But they can’t hardly hang an honest settler. That’s a tougher nut to crack. So they hire killers to drygulch them.”
Rory hid her head. “That it’s come to this. We have a firstborn man in the family and yet he won’t do what needs to be done. When, doing it, the old way of killing might pass away with him.”
The old clock tocked on. Gram’s rocker creaked. The fire sagged in the fieldstone hearth. Lungs breathed.
Joey said, “But how come they hung Dencil, Unk? Wasn’t he honest?”
All of a sudden Baby Cain began to cry in the lean-to, loud, unceasing, as if terrorized by some baby nightmare.
“Coward,” Rory said, more to herself than to Cain.
“All right then!” Cain roared. He started to his feet like an old bull branded across the rear with a cherry-red iron. “All right then! Tomorrow morning I’ll go in and find him. I’m agin it. But I’ll go in anyway. Maybe it is right to do wrong sometimes if it is for the women.”
He snapped on his black hat, buttoned up his black leather coat, slipped on his black gloves. Then, with a last outraged look at Rory and Gram, he rammed outdoors.
Cain
When he stepped down off Lonesome in front of Dad Fin- frock’s livery stable, Cain knew he had pushed his horse too hard. Despite the cold out, Lonesome was sopping wet with lather and sweat. The hide over his withers and rump was wavy with it.
Cain led Lonesome in through the big door which Dad Finfrock opened for him. Stench of urine-soaked straw and hay-stringy horseballs was a fire in the nose. Cain said, “Hope I didn’t ruin the hoss.”
Dad caught his sloppy hat between his finger and thumb; lifted it a trifle; scratched his gray hair with his pinky. Dad was a poorly scarecrow, bent and slabsided. “That’s it.”
“Shouldn’t’ve used the rib wrenches so much.”
Dad looked down at Cain’s spurs, and nodded.
A horse in back whinnied lonesomely. A stallion in a box stall whirled around
and around, and let off a guttural stud call.
Cain said, “Brush him down good, Dad. Throw a blanket over him and give him a lot of dry straw.”
Dad gave himself a deep goose; coughed.
“Don’t know when I’ll be back for him. I’ll probably stay the night.”
Dad nodded. He pried a scab out of his nose.
“What time you got?”
“Three.”
“Good. That gives me a couple hours before the stores close.”
“That’s it.” Dad led Lonesome into the dark back of the barn.
Cain straddled down main street. The frozen planks of the walk boomed hollowly under his tomping boot heels. There were no buggies or wagons or saddled horses anywhere along the street. Only the humpbacked stagecoach from Sundance in front of the Feed Rack Hotel and smoke rising from every chimney showed the town was alive at all. The sky had clouded over and twilight seemed to be coming in from the Big Stonies to the west.
Cain stomped up the stoop into Great Western Outfitters, opened the heavy door, and clanged it shut behind him. “Hi, Homer.”
Homer Fox looked up from behind his old beat-up roll-top desk. “Well, Cain Hammett. What brings you in town?” Homer seemed nervous.
“Bullets. Lots of ’em.” It was warm inside the store and Cain took off his gloves and opened his leather jacket.
“Going hunting?”
“Might call it that.”
Fat Homer got to his feet. He was smoking a cigar. Ashes had sprinkled down the vest of his black suit. “What make?”
“Colt .45.” Cain picked up a box of shells from a counter. He shook it. The waxed bullets rattled solidly inside. He liked the smell of well-kept guns and oiled leather and the fresh gunny-sacks they were packed in. He decided that running a hardware store would be just the thing for him when he got too stove-up to ride the range any more.“Say, one thing, Homer, can I put this on tick?”
“Guess so. Personal, I’ve always known you to be about as straight as a wagon tongue.”
A voice piped up from behind a stack of new shiny tan saddles. “Personal, I wouldn’t let him charge it, Homer.” It was a high voice. “Jesse Jacklin tells me Cain runs his slow-brand outfit with a sticky rope.”
Riders of Judgment Page 27
