by L. P. Holmes
But now she knew who he was, and why he was here. For she’d heard her father say more than once that when Dave Wall—the Dave Wall—rode into the Crimson Hills outfit, then battle, savage and without quarter, loomed ahead.
Tracy Sutton thought of how she had put her gun on him and her cheeks burned with the embarrassment of such a childish, senselessly melodramatic move. Dave Wall had virtually ignored the move, which was what it deserved, and had then gone about making preparations to get her safely home, paying no attention at all to any objections she raised.
She turned her head slightly, look at him guardedly. It was too dark to make out any detail. Just a big dark figure of a man, in the saddle now instead of afoot, holding down the pace so that a lamed horse could keep up. That was what she couldn’t figure. For, when he’d clubbed down the burly drifter with his gun, she had somehow gotten the impression that here was a man with little consideration or faith in most other humans and none at all in some of them. Yet he had remembered a lamed horse where she had partially forgotten …
It was nearing midnight when Tracy Sutton reined in abruptly and stood high in her stirrups to listen. Dave Wall, pulling in beside her, drawled: “Yeah … that’s right. Hoofs out ahead. Maybe half a dozen riders. Probably your people out looking for you. Better give them a call.”
Tracy did so, her clear young voice carrying across the night. There came a gruff answering shout reflecting a solid gladness and relief. The rumble of hoofs deepened and swelled, rolling down upon them, and then the massed bulk of several riders loomed in the thin star glow.
“Over here, Dad!” called the girl, and then she moved out to meet them. Dave Wall thumbed out his smoking, rolled, and lit one, casual and relaxed in his saddle, yet thinly alert.
A deep voice boomed. “Tracy! Child, you’ve had me devilishly worried. You should have been home by sundown. What happened?”
Wall could hear the girl explaining briefly. “I think those two drifters might have grown very unpleasant if Dave Wall hadn’t happened along to drive them off.”
“Girl,” rumbled that deep voice, “did I hear you right? Did you say … Dave Wall?”
“That’s right, Dad. The Dave Wall, too. Come over here and meet him. But remember, he’s been very decent and thoughtful. As I told you, he drove those two drifters off. Then he shared his supper with me, loaned me his pack horse to ride, and was bringing me home. It was the kind of treatment I didn’t expect after all the things I’ve heard said about him. Which shows how unfair talk can be, sometimes.”
This brought a harsh and cynical growl. “We’ll see about that.”
The dark blot of riders spread and thinned, half encircling Wall as they moved in on him. Bart Sutton, a thick and dominant figure against the stars, faced Dave Wall, and his heavy voice was full of pushing suspicion and hostility.
“That’s correct, what Tracy just told me? You’re Lilavelt’s main troubleshooter … Dave Wall?”
“Some call me that,” acknowledged Wall bleakly.
Bart Sutton seemed to tower even more massively in his saddle. “It seems you’ve done my daughter a kindness. Why?”
Wall took a final drag of his cigarette, crushed out the butt on his saddle horn with a hard irritability. “I’ll let you guess at that, if you’re too narrow between the ears to understand. And tell these hands of yours to give back a little … I don’t like to be crowded.”
One of Sutton’s riders spoke wickedly. “Proud rooster, ain’t he? What for, I wonder?”
Wall spun his horse straight at the speaker. “Big bunch always makes for a big mouth,” he rapped. “Come out of the gather and find out, friend.”
“Hold it … hold it,” rumbled Sutton. “Spike, mind your jaw. I’ll handle this. Wall, we could ride you down.”
“Maybe. But the rumpus would be considerable. Now I’ve still got country to cover. I’ll take my pack horse, if it’s all the same to you. The young lady shouldn’t need it any more.”
“Dad,” said the girl, “we’re not behaving very well, are we?”
“Coming to that,” said Bart Sutton, his heavy tone slightly milder. “Wall, for the kindness you’ve done my daughter, I thank you. But I’m warning you … for the purpose you came into this country, I shall probably kill you.”
“That,” said Wall, dryly bleak, “may be.”
Bart Sutton turned to his men, issuing curt orders. “Sandy, let Tracy have your horse. Spike, that’s a stout bronco you ride and can carry double. You take Sandy with you, drift back, and pick up that lame horse and bring it in at its own gait.”
Sutton swung down and swiftly stripped the girl’s riding gear off Dave Wall’s pack horse and handed it up to another rider to carry. Wall, content now that hostility for the moment was over with, dismounted and cinched the sawbuck saddle in place on his pack horse, and then deftly slung his gear. For a moment or two deep anger had burned in him, but it was now replaced with a sardonic, mirthless amusement.
What right had he to expect anything more than had been shown him? After all he was who he was—Dave Wall, troubleshooter for Luke Lilavelt, whose mean and rapacious mind was dedicated to the proposition of bringing wreck and ruin to Bart Sutton and all he possessed. All of which Bart Sutton well knew and was entitled to resist by any and every means. As for gratitude for small favors done, ran Wall’s cynical thought, how much real gratitude ever did exist in people? Damn little, if past experience meant anything.
And then he was completely startled. For Tracy Sutton was at his elbow, her hand on his arm. “I shall probably end up despising you,” she said simply. “But at this moment I am truly grateful. Thank you, Dave Wall.”
Before Wall could think of an answer, she had turned swiftly away and rose into her saddle. Bart Sutton growled an order and the mounted group spurred off into the night. Dave Wall found himself alone. It was, he thought bleakly, indicative. A man in his circumstance must always be alone.
* * * * *
The desert was gone, miles back. Here was a vast, slow-climbing sweep of country, bulwarked finally by tumbled hills. The Window Sash headquarters lay in an oblong basin in these Crimson Hills. Dave Wall rode up to the layout through the forming heat of midmorning.
There was nothing elaborate about the place. It was a typical Window Sash layout, reflecting Luke Lilavelt’s reluctance to spend a dollar more than was absolutely necessary to get what he wanted from a headquarters, which was a crude, frugal, comfortless efficiency. There were three main buildings, a cabin, a bunkhouse, a cook shack. Besides a spread of corrals, a short line of feed sheds, these were all. Raw-boarded, unpainted, weather-beaten, just an ugly minimum where men might live and carry out Luke Lilavelt’s orders.
The place seemed deserted until, in the doorway of the cook shack, a grossly fat man appeared, stripped to the waist, a dirty flour sack tied as an apron about his bulging middle. His shapeless torso and moon face glistened with sweat. He watched Wall’s approach with little, pale eyes that seemed to peep slyly past rolls of fat.
Wall jerked a brief nod. “Tom Burke … where is he?”
The fat man gave Wall a careful visual going over before he answered with a moist meatiness. “Out. He’ll be back directly. You’re Wall?”
Wall’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right. How’d you know?”
The fat man shrugged. “Made a guess. You’ll be hungry. Come on in.”
Wall unsaddled, stacked his gear, and turned his weary horses into the corral. In the cook shack the fat man had steak and potatoes and coffee waiting for him. It was good food, well cooked. The fat man knew his business and, for all his bulk, moved about with a disconcerting lightness and sureness. Wall had just finished eating when hoofs rattled outside.
“There’s Burke and the crew,” said the cook.
Dave Wall knew Tom Burke, but the rest of the crew were strangers to him. Burke was solidly bu
ilt, ruddy, and square of jaw. He made no move toward shaking hands, and he spoke with a low curtness. “I can guess what this means, Wall.”
Wall said: “Here’s the authority. Sorry, Burke.”
Burke read Lilavelt’s note, tore it to bits, and let the pieces fritter through loose fingers. “You needn’t be. I’m not. Come on over to the cabin and I’ll hand the tally books and other ranch records to you.”
The cabin was small, not over ten by ten, just large enough for a couple of wall bunks, a table, and a couple of chairs. Burke had kept it reasonably tidy. He pulled a box from under one of the bunks and put it on the table.
“All the records are in here. Want me to go over them with you?”
Wall shook his head. “Checking records is not what I’m here for. If you say they’re right, that’s good enough for me.”
Burke sat on a bunk, brought out his war bag, and began packing it. “Been waiting for an excuse to do this. My chance to break with Lilavelt. A man can stomach just so much and I’m way past my limit. I make no claim toward sprouting wings, but working for Luke Lilavelt makes a dog out of a man. I don’t like the feeling.”
Burke’s head came up and he looked defiantly at Wall as he said this, as though half expecting Wall to challenge the statement. Quietly Wall said: “You can call Lilavelt anything you want and it’s all right with me.”
Burke jammed a spare shirt into his war bag with unnecessary vehemence. “I don’t understand you, Wall. I swear I don’t. Anybody who takes the trouble to look close can see a streak of decency in you a mile wide. Yet every chunk of dirty business that Luke Lilavelt can dig up and wants hatched out for him, you take hold of and put across. Maybe big money has wider limits for you than for me. But I don’t think it’s that entirely, either, for there’s no look of money greed about you. Just what is the answer?”
Wall shook his head. “My own. One of those things.”
“I’m not the smartest man in the world by a hell of a lot,” went on Burke. “But neither am I the biggest damn’ fool. You’re not here to take over because I’ve failed to run this headquarters at a profit for Lilavelt. You’re here to start putting the pressure on Bart Sutton. Lilavelt is reaching out those damn’ dirty claws of his again at a better man. It’s a chore I wouldn’t touch, for Bart Sutton is a damn’ fine man. I’m glad I’m leaving. I hope Sutton whips hell out of you and Lilavelt both, Wall.”
Again Burke’s head came up with that look of defiance.
Wall showed a small, weary, mirthless smile. “Always did admire a man with the guts to speak his real feelings, Tom. Suppose we let it lay that way. How does the crew shape up?”
“Tres Debley is the lone one of them who could ride for me if I owned this spread. The rest aren’t worth hell room, but they’re the sort to come in handy in putting the skids under Bart Sutton. I say again, I like Bart Sutton. He’s a white man … one of the best. I hope he turns out to be the mouthful that Luke Lilavelt chokes to death on.”
Tom Burke shouldered his war bag, lifted down a scabbarded carbine from a wall peg, turned to the door, and paused there. He laid a long, intent glance on Dave Wall, then spoke gruffly.
“There’s a part of you, Wall, that makes me want to shake hands with you. There’s another part that won’t let me. But I’ll say this last thing. Lilavelt has a spy planted in this outfit. Don’t let that cook, Hippo Dell, fool you. He looks dumb, but he’s not. He looks like a big, soft toad, but he’s the strongest man I ever saw and one of the wickedest in a fight. When you tangle with Hippo, as you probably will, that will be one time when I wish you luck. You’ll need it. Adiós.”
Wall stood in the cabin doorway, watching Tom Burke ride off. Soundlessly Wall murmured: I envy you, Tom Burke. You can ride away, make a clean break. Yeah, I envy you.
This mood held until Burke was out of sight. Then Wall shook himself and the old cloak of dark inscrutability came back and he headed over to the bunkhouse where he knew the crew had gathered, waiting for him to show. They looked him over guardedly and Wall, filling the doorway of the place, gave them back a measuring stare. He spoke curtly.
“There’s been a change in bosses. I’m the new one. The name is Dave Wall. Any questions?”
A thin and spidery rider with a strangely small round head thickly matted with tightly curled black hair spoke waspishly. “Yeah. How much longer do we have to walk around Bart Sutton like he was God? How much longer do we have to go on ridin’ six or seven miles out of our way to get to Crater City, instead of short-cuttin’ it across Square S range? Me, I’m plenty sick of that kind of jackass business.”
“That’s right,” agreed another rider. “As it stands, we’ve had to swing plumb to the north around Sutton’s headquarters and then cut back south across the big lava rim to get to town. And there’s no sense to it.”
“Sutton objects to us crossing his range, then?” said Wall.
“Yeah, he does. And Burke didn’t have the nerve to tell him where to go.”
“Tom Burke,” said Wall coldly, “never lacked for nerve or common sense, either. Until I say different, we’ll still take the long way around to Crater City.”
There was a rider sitting on one of the bunks, his hat beside him, who had been staring unwinkingly at Wall. He was burly, powerful, with eyes so pale they seemed almost milky blue. His hair, straw-colored and coarse, was close-cropped and stood up like a roach. Now he spat and cursed.
“When in hell,” he wanted to know, “is Lilavelt going to send a real fightin’ man to boss this spread?”
“That,” chimed in the spidery, round-headed one, “is what I want to know, too, Whitey.”
Here it was again, thought Dave Wall bleakly, part of the never-changing pattern. A pattern he’d met up with several times before in some of Lilavelt’s hard-boiled outfits he’d been sent to take charge of. There was always some doubter who liked his own fighting ability and was anxious to prove it, always someone anxious to test the legend of Dave Wall and prove it a myth. You didn’t try and reason with one of that sort; palaver of any sort would be mistaken as weakness. With that sort there was only one way to convince. So now Dave Wall moved swiftly, wickedly ruthless.
In two steps he had moved before Whitey, who, startled, was lunging erect. Wall hit him on the jaw with a short, hooking punch and knocked him back across the bunk. But Whitey was tough, full of burly, animal resistance. He smacked into the side of the place, bounced back, rolled off the end of the bunk, and came up with a rush. He dove at Wall, getting partially under a punch that bounced off the top of his bristling head. He got both arms about Wall’s body and pushed him backward.
Wall’s hips hit the bunkhouse table, sending it skittering. Whitey swung Wall half around and pinned him between the ends of two of the bunks. Then he set about giving out with his dirtiest best. He brought a high, sharp heel stamping down on Wall’s instep. He bunched a knee and brought it up savagely, again and again. He had his bristle head jammed hard against Wall’s chest and he kept butting with it, jerking it up in short, battering drives under Wall’s chin, snapping Wall’s head back. Wall could feel the warm slime of blood begin to dribble down his lips.
Now Whitey whipped his right arm free and shot his hand up, feeling for Wall’s face, fingers spread and stabbing, gouging at Wall’s eyes. Every movement was furious, savage, fast, calculated to overwhelm and disable as quickly as possible. Wall twisted his hips, catching that gouging knee against one thigh. He threw his left hand across his face to ward off Whitey’s feral, clawing fingers. And then, with his clenched right fist, Wall began to hit short, grinding punches, clubbing Whitey on the temple. Whitey twisted his head sideways to try and shield his temple from those jarring, stunning blows that hurt savagely. Then Wall smashed him at the base of the skull and behind the ear.
Whitey couldn’t stand this and began to pull away, and Wall, gaining a little room, dropped his right
fist low, then brought it up viciously. He felt Whitey’s mouth pulp under the impact. Hurt and shaken, Whitey broke completely clear, set himself, and aimed a heavy swing at Wall’s face.
Whitey was better at crude rough-and-tumble than he was at swinging punches. He started this one too roundabout and swinging, and Dave Wall ducked Whitey’s whistling fist, went in under it, and with full forward drive and rolling shoulder smashed rock-hard knuckles into Whitey’s midriff. He could feel Whitey’s belly muscles cave, and he knew this one had really hurt. Whitey’s jaw dropped and he gasped with a groaning thickness. Wall swarmed in, making the most of his advantage.
He clipped Whitey’s sagging jaw with a left and wrecked his lips still further with another driving right. Whitey reeled across the bunkhouse and now it was his turn to be cornered and pinned. And Wall kept him so with a succession of slashing punches.
Whitey’s forte of rough-and-tumble, of butting, gouging, kneeing, and stomping was of no use to him now and this clean exchange of punches he did not understand. He pawed and swung clumsily, a little more weakly and blindly all the time. But Whitey was already a whipped man and it was just a question of how much more punishment Dave Wall wanted to hand out to make this lesson stick. He ended it finally with a jolting left and a thundering right to the angle of Whitey’s wobbling jaw. Whitey went down, sick, bloody, retching, and thoroughly beaten.
Wall stepped back, spat out a mouthful of blood. At that moment a voice rapped curtly: “Don’t try it, Nick … don’t try it!”
Dave Wall came around, swaying. The spidery, round-headed rider had a gun half drawn, his face pulled and savage. But there was another rider, lean and brown and with sun-puckered eyes, whose gun was fully drawn and couched for business, and he said: “Whitey asked for that, Nick. Let go of your gun!”
