by Nelson Nye
Frank sent his glance over the street, out into the hot glare, observing the sand-scoured fronts of the buildings, oddly surprised to find no change in their appearance. Birds were still chirping. Only in himself was the film of winter’s ice apparent, crackling out its warning, skewering him with a million needles. His eyes, hard as jade, found Kimberland’s face. “My Dad was one of those Benchers.”
Kimberland was silent, a shade tighter of lip but obviously considering, casting up his impressions with that same cold assurance which had carried him through every bind in his life. He said, very softly, “Don’t get in my way, Frank.”
It was the man’s attitude, as much as it was anything, which brought all of Frank’s anger into sudden sharp focus.
Kimberland growled, “Don’t be a damned fool!”
A mounting crest of excitement was in Frank now, the walls of his confusions crumbling away. The sheen of Kimberland’s eyes, the pinched-in look about his mouth, was ample warning. But he said, thinly smiling, “I’m not fool enough to think I’ll ever be able to pin anything on you,” and saw the answering glint, the triumph and satisfaction which looked out of the cattleman’s eyes. “But,” said Frank, tapping a finger against W. T.’s chest, “if you molest those Benchers in any way I’m coming after you, mister.”
CHAPTER TEN
It was good while he’d been at it but, watching the Bar 40 boss ride off toward the hotel, Frank understood the futility of using such talk on a man like Kimberland. A kind of baying at the moon. W. T. Kimberland was king in his country.
All the confidence and good feeling was washed out of Frank, leaving nothing behind but cold emptiness. The whole shadowy pack of old worries closed round him. He forgot his surroundings in this grim absorption. Kimberland’s influence would rip the star off him —
He felt the breath of the bullet before the report of the shot slapped the fronts of the buildings. Frank dropped, yanking his sixshooter, rolling frantically for the alley mouth. A slug kicked splinters off the corner above his head. He was beginning to believe he was going to reach shelter when something with the shock of a forty-pound sledge slammed him into the wall.
He shot twice from that position at the disappearing back of a man fading around the far side of Fentriss’ stable. Frank got his legs under him and lurched to his feet. The whole left side of his chest felt numb. There were calls and questions as men piled out of the nearest doorways, but Frank hardly noticed. He ran across the street, cutting east of the stable since the man obviously would not be crazy enough to try to escape through that open stretch west of it.
At the back of the place he looked in both directions and saw no sign of the man. It did not seem reasonable to assume he’d reached cover in so short a time without somebody seeing him. The fellow’s very haste would have attracted attention. So he must be in the stable. Shutting his eyes for a moment Frank dived through the side door. His gun was ready but there was nothing to fire at; he could see well enough to have spotted movement. He yelled for Fentriss.
The man came in from the pens. “I’ve got her ready — What happened to your badge?”
Frank looked down at it blankly. “Where is he? Where’d he go to?”
“If I knowed what you was talkin’ about — ”
“Tularosa! Didn’t you see him?”
“No — and I don’t want to!” Fentriss growled.
“He must be hiding around here someplace.”
“Then I’ll be back when he’s left.”
Frank said, swearing, “You can help me look, can’t you?”
“No, sir! I ain’t about to look for no killer!” He grabbed both hands to his hat and backed out of the place.
Frank got to work. He went over that stable with a fine-toothed comb, he checked the pens outside, but he did not find Tularosa. He was minded to swear in a posse but knew as well as he knew his own name how much good he could expect from that. They would all be like Fentriss. It was Frank they’d pinned the star on. It was up to Frank to catch Tularosa.
Still fisting the gun he moved out back of the jail, alert and still edgy, but taking enough time to examine the ground. There were plenty of tracks, most of them too recent to pick out the ones he was hunting. Tularosa must have been past here. Next door was the hotel and beyond that Halbertson’s hay shed. Then the shacks where the bulk of this town had their homes. He wouldn’t have a Chinaman’s chance singlehanded. Someone was almost bound to have seen the man but Frank could understand no one was going to admit it.
Chavez caught sight of Frank and cut over. “I heard the shots,” he said, “but I was prowling the lumber yard. What happened to your badge?”
Frank eyed the bent metal. “Another half inch and that slug would of got me.” He looked frowningly back in the direction of those shacks. Chavez, reading his mind, said, “I’m game if you want to try it, but the chances are he’s pulled his freight.”
“I suppose,” Frank scowled, and then caught sight of his shadow. “Hell!” He suddenly remembered Honey Kimberland. “I’ll take over at one.”
He hurried back to the stable and, twisting the stirrup, stepped into the saddle. “Takin’ off?” Fentriss said, and Frank looked down at him. “I’ll be around. Seen any more of that herd boss?”
“Man, is he hot!” Fentriss passed up the blue roan’s reins. “They’re out combin’ the breaks. Sent one of his hands after Draicup. If that jasper comes back with them wild men of his we’re like to — ”
But Frank, just now, wasn’t interested in Draicup. He stopped by the jail but didn’t see the jailer. Already late, he was about to move on when Chavez swung into sight between buildings, shotgun cradled across his knees. Frank cut over, repeating the gist of his powwow with Kimberland. “If you want out, say so.”
“Ha!” Chavez grinned. “Have you found a good hole to crawl into?”
Frank scowled. “Where’s Danny?”
“Ain’t seen him. If he ain’t over to the jail he’s probably feedin’ his face.”
Frank said, “If anything comes up you’ll find me doing the same, at the hotel.” He sent the roan toward its rack. He got down and walked into the lobby. Bernie, the gun-shop man, put down his wrinkled copy of the Dallas paper and tossed Frank a nod. “Anything new?” Frank grunted, not seeing Honey, and went along to the cigar case where he treated himself to the luxury of a ten-center. He bit the end from the weed and put his back against the show-case. “Soon as I get through here I’m going after Chip Gurden.”
Bernie looked at him sharply. He was a heavy-set man with a well-fed look, one of the town’s more substantial citizens with a home in Snob Hollow and a bank account that, by some people’s tell of it, would have choked a grown herd sire. Bernie studied Frank’s countenance. “Think Draicup will be back?”
In the way he put the question there was an undertow of worry that brought Tularosa back into Frank’s thinking. “I don’t know,” Frank said, frowing. “I can’t see why he would though. Gourd and Vine troubles ain’t no skin off his nose.”
“Maybe,” Bernie said, “you better get W. T. to let you deputize some of his crew. Just in case,” he added grimly.
Neither man noticed the tap of heels on the stairs, neither of them saw the arrested shape of the girl. She was off to one side above the level of Bernie’s chair and Frank was too much worked up to take his glance away from the saddle merchant. He said uncomfortably but with an edge of defiance, “I don’t think Kimberland’s in any mood to oblige me.”
Bernie’s glance was puzzled. “Put you in, didn’t he?”
Frank had always known this town kowtowed to Kimberland just as the smaller stockmen did. When there weren’t any trail herds, Bar 40 and its satellites — Arnold and the Churches — were the standby of these shop keepers, all that kept them going. Frank wondered if they guessed what Kimberland was up to. Probably not. Like enough they wouldn’t give a damn. But he had to try. He said, “There’s been a — ”
“Been a what?”
“Trash!” the merchant said contemptuously. “They wouldn’t know a fine gun if it hit ’em in the eye!”
The clerk, back of Frank, put his oar in. “Except for Brackley puttin’ that woman up here last night we’ve never got a nickel’s worth of business off the bunch of them — and don’t look to, I can tell you.”
“Well, a man has to make a living,” Frank said. “But — ”
“Look,” Bernie scowled. “There’s good grass on that Bench. This drop in the market’s caught Bar 40 over-stocked. There ain’t a man in this town would honestly blame W. T. if he took over that whole range. It’s too bad about Brackley but you can’t — ”
“I did,” Frank said, and squared his shoulders. “It’s not a question of grass. Kimberland wants that whole Bench and I’ve warned him to stay away — ”
“Why, you damned fool!” Bernie leaped from his chair, white and shaking with outrage. “Kimberland’s practically made this town! If it wasn’t for him — ”
Frank suddenly discovered Honey on the stairs. The expression on his face and the direction he was staring pulled the saddle man’s head around.
Red faced, still glowering, Bernie dragged off his hat. “Your servant, ma’am, and pardon….” He let the rest trail off with another black glare at the marshal.
Never had the girl looked more desirable to Frank. Looking down at them she held her head a little back, some trick of light on that shadowed stair bringing out the delicate structure of her face, heightening its proud beauty beneath the gleam of spun-gold hair so that she seemed the very embodiment of all that was fine and farthest from Frank’s reach.
He wasn’t bucking her old man so much because of what Kimberland was cooking up as because of the way the man hoped to come at it, treating those Benchers like a pack of damn Indians. Not that Frank liked them or they liked him. They were a stiffnecked bunch of penniless polecats, too cross-grained to work and too shiftless to neighbor with, but Frank wasn’t going to see them shoved off their places just because they were trash in the eyes of these moguls. He had been trash himself until this star pulled him out of it. In their books, anyway.
A brightness came into his look, peering up at her. There was no hesitation in the way she faced Bernie. A kind of smile had parted her lips, deepening their color against her pale cheeks. Not many could have carried off so well the unenviable position in which Frank’s words had placed her. His thoughts embraced this with relief and in humility as he sensed the gathering fierceness with which she meant to defend him. He could now admit, within the privacy of his perceptions, that he had been a little worried. Yet he had known she would understand; she could not have been herself, the guiding light of all Frank’s reaching — the very core of every dream — and acted differently. To have shown less compassion than himself was plain unthinkable.
Frank’s heart swelled with pride. It gave him the courage to say, “They’ve got some rights, too. They’re not animals, Bernie.”
The merchant half lifted a shaking fist, so furious it seemed as though he must burst. He twisted his glowering red face up at Honey. “You going to listen to that kind of guff? Bring this fool to his senses or — ”
Honey giggled. Her eyes encountered Frank’s and she laughed right out, uncontrollably. “Oh dear — ” she gasped, blinking, holding onto her side. “Of course he’s a fool. A bumptious, ignorant, spur-clacking nobody! Why else do you suppose Father gave him that star!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Frank stood like a man in the clutch of paralysis. Each contraction of his heart held the impact of a fist. He had a giddy sense of motion, of being alone on some high point with the wind rushing round him and nothing to catch hold of.
He drew a ragged breath and his stare found Bernie. The man’s face hung in mottled folds against the bones which upheld it. His eyes bulged like the eyes of a frog. Now his lips writhed away from the rotten stumps of teeth locked together.
It was the clerk’s hysterical grip on Frank’s shoulder which finally got through to him, bringing him out of it. He let go of Bernie’s throat, saw the clerk’s scared face and shoved the man stumbling out of his path. He went through the door blindly and onto the porch. All he could see was Honey’s face tight with scorn. Breath began to come into him. He saw this town as the place really was. The fault was his for imagining he could pull himself up by his bootstraps.
He jammed fists in pockets and felt the crackle of paper. Kelly’s note. He glanced at his shadow, checked the guess by his watch. Too late. His eyes raked the dusty glare of the street, noting its emptiness while a resolve solidified behind the tough planes of his cheeks.
Chavez came along heading west toward the office. “I’ll take over,” Frank said.
Chavez nodded. “Somethin’ I don’t savvy back there.” He flung a dissatisfied look over his shoulder. “Could of swore I heard a woman yell.”
Chavez was a bundle of contradictions. His mother, dead in childbirth, had been with a road show which had gone to pieces in Dalhart. She had put herself beyond forgiveness by marrying his father, a Mexican horse breaker who’d been working for Sam Church at the time. Frank had heard several versions of the story but all agreed Church had hounded the man out of the country. Frank could imagine what Chavez’s boyhood had been with a father tossed from pillar to post and the blood of two races forever clashing inside him.
“Where was this?” Frank asked, scowling.
“Passing the bake shop. Could of been wrong. Might of been that hasher at the New York Cafe. Could of been a horse.”
“My worry,” Frank said, and crossed over to Gurden’s. The gambler, back of the bar, had both arms anchored to a spread-open newspaper. He looked up, face tightening, as Frank stepped in. At this slack time, in addition to Gurden and one of his dealers laying out a hand of sol, there were only three other men, local customers, in the place. Frank didn’t miss the way these quit talking.
“Where’s Mousetrap, Gurden?”
The saloon owner shrugged. “When he ain’t on duty his time’s his own.” He plopped the butt of his stogie into a spittoon. “Shall I say you been lookin’ for him?”
“I’ve got a cell looking for him if I happen to lay hands on him, and I wouldn’t be surprised but what I can find room for you. Why are these gents toting guns in your place?”
“Now look — ”
“You know the law. You helped make it.”
Frank continued to stare until the saloonman’s face showed his hate and fury. When the stillness threatened to become too oppressive Frank waved a hand at the three bellying the bar. “Uncinch that hardware.”
There were black looks and grumbling but the men complied.
“Now pick up your belts and head for the jail.”
“You ain’t serious — ”
“By the time you get out you’ll be a better judge of that.” Frank waited till the men reluctantly started for the batwings, then he said, “You’re through in South Fork, Gurden. You cut your string too short with Willie. The next stage leaves at seven o’clock. Be on it, and take your hired thugs with you.”
• • •
After he’d locked the men up, Frank, recalling what Chavez had told him, got his mare from the hotel hitchrack, got aboard and pointed her east. At the stage depot he crossed the road’s sun-scorched dust and stepped down in front of the New York Cafe. The place had no business.
The hasher was fanning herself back of the counter. She gave him a withering look. “You’ve shot your bolt, takin’ up for them Benchers. I guess this heat must’ve scrambled your brains.”
Frank managed a grin. “You can’t scramble something you don’t have to start with. Let’s have another cup of that varnish you call java.”
“And then tellin’ Gurden to get out of town! You got a hankerin’ for a coffin?”
“How the hell d
id you hear about that?”
“I heard it,” she said. “The whole town’s buzzin’.”
Frank sagged onto a stool and tiredly leaned on his elbows. “Chip was after me anyhow.”
She poured the coffee and put it in front of him. “Bernie ain’t about to make no sheep’s eyes at you — what’d you want to rough him up for? And Kimberland, too.” She put her hands on her hips. “What you need is darn good talkin’ to.”
Frank saucered some of his coffee and held it up to blow at. “Seen Kelly around?”
“Kelly! Man, you better get your sights set on steerin’ clear of Gurden.”
“You been here all morning, ain’t you?”
She shook her head like she was giving Frank up. “You know darn well I have. You think that Greek would let me outa this joint?”
“You hear anything a while ago? Like maybe some woman was yelling or something?”
She wiped her cheeks with her apron and regarded him queerly.
“Reason I asked, Chavez thought he heard something last time he was by here. You know if Abbie Burks is home?”
She started to sniff then shook her head, looking paler. She leaned forward abruptly. “Danny Settles was over behind her place a while ago…. I know because I saw him. Jake’ll tell you the same. He seen him, too.”
Frank got down off the stool and stepped into the kitchen.
“That’s right,” the Greek said. He pushed a pan of dough back and wiped floured hands on his shirt front. “Skulkin’, he was. I said so then and I’ll say so now. Squintin’ back over his shoulder an’ all scrounch down like he was scairt someone would see him. Hell of a guy you should pick for a jailer. Right back of that brush,” he pointed, “that’s where I seen him.”
Frank stepped out the back door. He went over to the brush and started looking around. In an alkaline spot that wasn’t haired over with grass he saw fresh sign, the print of a boot heel. He found where this party had worked through the brush on a line with Abbie’s back door.
