by Nelson Nye
Cutting around the Blue Flat he stepped in through the rear, still without catching sight of Tularosa. He stood a bit, thinking. The fellow might be over at Minnie’s or following his bent in the dark of some alley. He might be at the blacksmith’s or feeding his face in the New York Cafe, though this last was out of bounds. Frank found himself listening for gunshots.
The Flag didn’t have as much flash as Gurden’s which flaunted framed women without clothes above its bar and a bevy of live ones not clad a heap warmer. This place wasn’t as noisy though money was changing hands pretty regular. Young Church, old Sam’s son, was at the bar getting rapidly plastered. Arrogance lay in the flash of his stare and when he saw Frank a surge of roan color rushed into his cheeks. He pushed away from the bar, still carrying his bottle, and reeled toward Frank.
Frank said, “Hello, Will.”
Eyes ugly, Will Church floundered to a stop three feet away and glared belligerently. He indulged the manners of a drunken hidalgo surveying a truant peon. “You were told to stay out there at Bospero Flats.”
“That’s right,” Frank said.
“Then why ain’t you out there? You think those cows’ll stay hitched without watching’?”
Some of the nearer noise began to dim away as men twisted around or looked up from their cards. Frank’s eyes flattened a little. “If they’re worryin’ you, Will, perhaps you’d better go see to them.” Frank’s hand brushed the star that was pinned to his shirtfront.
The wink of the metal suddenly caught Church’s attention. He showed a sultry surprise. His mouth twisted with fury as men back of him shifted, the sound of this seeming as a goad to his temper. As heir apparent to the second largest spread in the country young Church wasn’t accustomed to being talked back at. His cheeks began to burn. He had never liked Frank anyway.
Frank, smiling meagerly, was turning away when Church lunged for him, lifting the bottle. Frank’s head whipped around. Ducking under the bottle he came up, tight with outrage, hammering four knuckles to the point of Church’s chin. It sounded like a bat knocking a ball over the fence.
Church’s head snapped back with all his features screwed together. The off-balanced weight of chest and head abruptly toppled him. He hit the floor on his back and skidded into the bar, the bottle jaggedly breaking against the brass foot rail.
Will Church climbed to his feet groggily shaking his head. He discovered the splattered whisky and his stare, coming up, found Frank. He let out a shout and came at Frank with the bottle neck.
Church was big, even bigger than Frank, with a bulging swell of chest and arm and the hatred of balked arrogance baring his teeth. He shortened his grip on the neck of the bottle to give more reach to the jagged shard. He looked like an ape above the glitter of the glass.
Frank asked quietly, “Sure you want to go on with this, Will?”
Church showed the brawn of a gorilla and about as much reason as he stood there shifting his weight, breathing heavily. Men were crowding in through the batwings as word of the fight ran down the street. Frank got hold of the back of a chair.
“Mind the mirrors!” the barkeep yelled. Somebody’s laugh was a sound of hysteria. The faces around Frank grew tense and avid as he brought the chair up in front of him.
Now Will leaped, throwing up a hand to ward off the chair, attempting to dive in under it. One spur hooked into the cloth of a pant’s leg and he went down, cursing viciously. Frank, prodded by past injustices, brought the chair up over his head; but something stayed him and he reluctantly stepped back, allowing the man to regain his feet.
It was while Church was trying to get up that the racket of shots came — five of them, close-spaced, whipping Frank around, scowling.
He let go of the chair. The batwings were blocked by a solid crush of onlookers. He put his weight against the edge of the crowd. “Make way!” He shoved the nearest man roughly, driving broad shoulders into the wedge, hurling them back with the ram of his elbows.
Someone swung at him, knocking his hat off. He could feel them stiffening. A man swung at Frank, yelling wickedly. Frank hurled him back into the crowd with black fury. He tore the gun from a fist and beat his way clear with it, leaving behind the wild sound of their temper. He stumbled into the night, his shirt hanging in ribbons.
He ran around the back end of the pool hall and came into Gurden’s with the gun still in hand. He backed out almost at once, finding no sign of trouble, sprinting down the passage between the Opal and Bernie’s gun shop. Coming onto the walk he caught the sharp bark of two additional shots and swore in exasperation. It was nothing more alarming than a string of whooping ranch hands letting go at the moon as they roared out of town.
Frank threw the pistol away and remembered his hat. For ten years that hat had been a part of himself but he didn’t go back after it. He tramped instead into the Mercantile and bought himself a new one, black this time, and a dark shield-fronted shirt, going — out of deference to female shoppers — into the back room to get into it.
Coming out he looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Honey, having noticed a Bar 40 wagon out front. While he was looking Krantz grabbed his elbow. “You get him?”
“Get who?”
“Tularosa.” The lamps’ shine winked off the thick lenses of the storekeeper’s spectacles. “He vas in mine blace.”
Frank, swearing, bundled the discarded shirt into Krantz’s hands and hurried through the front door. He stopped under the overhang, avoiding the stippling of light from the windows. He found it hard to make out anyone, what with so much in shadow and all the dust stirred up by the traffic. He looked for five minutes and decided to try Minnie’s.
He got his horse from the rack, the big dun he’d come in on, a bayo coyote with black mane and tail and a stripe down its spine in addition to smudges about the knees. A black horse in this job would have probably been smarter but Frank, like most of those who rode after cattle, was sold on duns, particularly duns with zebra marks descended from the toughest Spanish stock in the land.
Still riled with himself Frank got into the saddle and pointed the horse toward the west end of town.
Minnie was a character, practically an institution. A lot of folks would have liked to see her moved but she had, in Frank’s mind, as much right to her business as anybody else. She kept an orderly house, which was more than could be said for the likes of Chip Gurden. More he thought about the place the more convinced Frank became that he would find his man holed up there. Tularosa made no secret of his affinity for the ladies.
All the shades were drawn but there were horses at the tie rail — two roans, a paint and three sorrels. Frank tied the dun and took a last look behind him. He ducked under the rail and felt to see if he had his pistol, resettling its barrel lightly, not hankering for anything to balk his need if he were forced to put hand to it.
He drew off his dark thoughts and pulled open the door.
CHAPTER TWO
This layout had once been a food stop on the overland stage line between Elk City and Dalhart, and the face-lifting Minnie had given the joint had not greatly changed its flavor. The big room Frank stepped into had all the look of a stage stop bar. She had got the place cheap when town expansion had decided the company to remove to a site directly across from the New York Cafe.
The old potbellied stove still held its key spot in the middle of things. The scarred pine bar took up most of the left wall, the wall across from it being cut by three doors. No mirrors, no pictures; five kitchen chairs were racked before the north wall, the south wall was set up similarly except that here only two of the five were empty. Strangers held down the other three, men Frank had never run into before. None of them much resembled Tularosa beyond their big hats, brush-scarred boots and the gun-weighted cartridge belts strapped about their middles.
Frank, after that one sweeping glance, darkly stared at the three closed doors to his right. The nearest, he remembered, let into the woodshed. The farther, opening onto closed
stairs, gave access to the rooms above. It was the middle door that held his attention. It led directly outside behind the screen of the woodshed and was a means of escape for men embarrassed to be found here.
Frank, ducking out, left the door standing open and ran around the shed’s bulk, eyes expectant, gun in hand. But if there was anyone lurking in these shadows he didn’t see them. Holstering his gun, he went back inside, ignoring the truculent looks the men gave him.
Minnie’s raw Irish voice came from back of the bar. “Whativer are ye doin’ a-runnin’ around me place like a banshee?”
She was a big coarse-boned woman with an orange-colored pompadour untidily bushed above crimson cheeks. Thirty years ago she might have been handsome but time had taken away this advantage; she had given up bemoaning or bothering about it. She was interested in one thing — cash, like the rest of them. “What’s that ye’ve got on yer shirtfront, Frank? Don’t be tellin’ me ye’ve turned plumb fool at last.”
Frank grinned a little sheepishly, rubbed the palms of his hands against the thighs of his pants. “Any redheads around?”
“Redheads, is it?” She was watching him shrewdly. “I got the one from Saint Looey, if that’s who ye’re meanin’. I figured after the — ”
“I’m not talking about fillies.”
“Then ye’re in the wrong stall. Do yer huntin’ some other place.”
Frank swung around. “What outfit you fellers with?”
Resentment was plain in the cut of their eyes. Minnie said, giving him the flat of her tongue. “Don’t be rowellin’ me guests, ye dom star-packin’ blatherskite!” But after a moment the smallest one said, “Gourd an’ Vine. Out of Corpus.”
“Get shucked of that hardware if you come into town tomorrow. You can’t go heeled in any place that sells whisky. Including this dive.” Frank went out.
He could, of course, have searched the place, but not without laying up trouble. If Tularosa was here he’d have to come out.
Frank got on his horse. He scowled, knowing he couldn’t afford to hang fire here. He had the whole town to patrol and the riskiest hours were still ahead.
He breathed a sigh into the darkness and swore irascibly. It was in his mind the Council had jobbed him, keeping Tularosa back until he’d taken the oath. Yet in fairness he had to admit he couldn’t blame them. Nobody would have touched this job with a prod pole if it had been aired Tularosa was the first thing on the docket. The man was like a wild animal.
Frank shook his head and cursed again, and observed Danny Settles shuffling along with his sack, threadbare coat flapping around bony legs as he picked a muttering way toward the Mercantile. Probably going after groceries, trying to reach the doors before Krantz locked up.
Perhaps because he was a loner himself, Frank had always had a soft place in his heart for Danny Settles who was the nearest thing South Fork had to a halfwit. He had a cave or a burrow somewhere out in the Barrens. It was the measure of his queerness that he made pets of crawling varmints. He’d been around as long as Frank could remember, the butt of coarse jokes and a lot of fool horseplay, a wizard at repairing firearms and the credulity of a child. He pieced out a precarious existence doing exacting odd jobs for Bernie, the gunsmith, while waiting for the monthly pittance mailed West by his father, a Boston industrialist who had gone to great lengths to be shed of him. He was the result, it was said, of too much education.
Frank’s thoughts went resentfully back to John Arnold. Arnold and Gurden had played him for a sucker. There was no doubt about it. They’d known Ashenfeldt was dead, and by whose hand, when they’d set this up for him.
He was mad enough to shove the damned badge down their throats. Yet even as this occurred to him Frank saw in his mind the face and shape of Honey Kimberland and licked parched lips. The one good thing, Frank guessed, in his life. Actually, he supposed, he’d ought to thank the damned Council for giving him this chance. But, hating abysmally to be maneuvered, he scowled at the dust-fogged shine of the Opal, knowing it was Gurden who’d kept Tularosa hidden till they’d got Frank clinched into the job. Chip Gurden had known Frank couldn’t back down after that.
Frank yanked his six-shooter savagely out of its leather and let the dun carry him across the hundred-foot width of the hoof-tracked road.
The blacksmith was still working by the light of a lantern. Frank, cutting around to come up from the holding grounds, caught the iron-dulled strokes of his hammer. Frank heard the mumble of voices as he moved up on the door. He walked the dun into the light of the lanterns, seeing the smith bent over his bellows and the squatted-down shape of a cow wrangler watching him. He was an old coot, this trail hand, weathered and wrinkled as a chucked-away boot. Frank, eyeing the both of them, spoke to the smith. “You got that hub ready yet for Draicup’s wagon?”
The smith’s head came around. “Why, hello, Frank. Just about, I guess.”
“Don’t turn loose of it till I give you the word.”
The smith and that other one traded quick glances.
“I’m a-waitin’ on thet wheel, son,” the squatted gent said mildly.
This meekness didn’t deceive Frank. There wasn’t one trail hand in twenty who was not plumb willing, night or day, to tackle his weight in wildcats. Frank said to the trail hand:
“Slide out of that shell belt.”
The mild eyes measured him.
The smith said nervously, “Man, that’s Frank Carrico!”
The old man, grunting, finally let the belt drop.
“Want I should git it fer you, Frank?” the smith asked.
“Just hang onto that wheel till I tell you different.” Frank backed his dun out of the light from the door.
He’d been lucky! There was sweat all over him. His hands got to shaking till he had to grab hold of the horn to keep them quiet when he thought of what a fool he’d been to go and brace that jigger with his back wide open. If Tularosa had come up or been around someplace watching — Frank bitterly swore.
He picked up his reins and sent the dun toward the street. A glance swiveled over his shoulder at Minnie’s revealed nothing suspicious. He drew a ragged breath. Worry could do a man in sure as anything! He fetched his face around for a look at the Chuckwagon. It was off there ahead of him, its canvas top a dirty blur against the lantern beneath its fly.
He fetched Honey back into mind, recalling the soft exciting feel of her with her heart pounding wildly and the smell of her tumbled hair whipping round him. The job was worth this risk if it would do what he wanted.
He wasn’t sure it would. But let him once get this town to eating out of his hand and a proper respect slapped into these trail crews and he guessed not many doors would stay shut against him.
This was still a young land where what you did was more important than who you were or where you’d come from. Old W. T. wasn’t a man to forget that. If half the stories were true his start wouldn’t bear much looking into either.
Frank was forty yards from the subdued shine of the flapping canvas when he became aware of the stopped wagon. There was a girl holding the reins, and a horse-backer talking to her. This was about all Frank could make out, the moon being under a cloud at the moment. A little wind had sprung up, whipping their words away. He likely wouldn’t have noticed them at all if he had been less edgy and they hadn’t been caught against the light from the Blue Flag.
With Honey on his mind they took immediate hold of his interest. He kneed the dun toward them, remembering the wagon from Bar 40 at the Mercantile. He got nearer. He saw the girl shake her head and sway away from the fellow, saw the man’s arm come up as he bent after her from the saddle. The girl reached for the whip. Snorting contemptuously, the fellow grabbed her.
Frank didn’t wait to see any more. He slammed the dun into the other man’s mount, catching him by the coat at the shoulder, yanking him back with an uncaring roughness that mighty near dumped him onto the ground. “Ma’am, is this galoot bothering you?”
In Frank’s
grip the man, who seemed to be on the bony side, was in no position to do much of anything, suspended as he was halfway out of the saddle. His horse snorted nervously, dancing a little.
“Why, no, not particularly.” Her voice was pleasant. It wasn’t Honey’s. She was new here. She didn’t seem much excited — appeared more like she was smiling. It kind of made Frank feel foolish.
Perhaps she sensed his resentment. “I wouldn’t want you to drop him under those hoofs.”
Frank very nearly did. For, just then, the moon came out. The fellow twisted his head, and Frank felt like Jonah in the belly of the whale.
The “galoot” he had hold of was Tularosa.
Frank had time only to realize this — when young Church, taut with fury, yelled:
“Frank!”
Frank saw the glint of metal in Church’s lifting hand. Tularosa began to struggle, trying to get leverage, trying to pull his far leg across the drag of the saddle. Frank was in a bad spot. He slapped the gunfighter savagely. Then he growled at Church, “Will, keep out of this.”
“Don’t use that tone on me, you bastard!”
Frank half turned the frozen mask of his face. In that fleeting fragment of time his mind absorbed details without conscious understanding or realization of it even: the still look of the girl, the forward clump of Church’s boots, the collecting crowd closing in about them. Yet never for an instant did Frank’s glance quit the man he had hold of. While Church in his drunken fury might shoot, there was not the slightest question about Tularosa. The moment that sidewinder got any leverage he’d latch onto a gun and he would damn sure use it.
The strain of keeping his grip, of holding the fellow off balance, was beginning to play hell with the muscles of Frank’s arm. He could hear Church coming up and, made hollow by the torture of this impasse, he rammed a knee into Tularosa’s chest. It fetched a grunt from the redhead, but too much of Frank’s strength was concentrated on holding him. The blow did nothing to ease the deadlock that was pushing Frank toward the brink of disaster.
