by Nelson Nye
He went over there and knocked without getting any answer. He tried the latch but the door was barred. “Abbie?” He jiggled the thing but no one moved inside the house.
“An’ I’ll tell you somethin’ else,” the Greek said grimly when Frank returned. “It won’t be the first time that feller’s been over there.”
Frank went out to the mare and then went back to ask, looking troubled, “How long ago was this?”
“Well — ” the hasher said, “it’s been a couple of hours, I guess. About the time of that shootin’, give or take a few minutes.”
Of course, Frank thought. Knowing Abbie, he knew she’d take Danny in when he was probably scared half out of what wits he had left by those shots Frank had swapped with that damned Tularosa. Danny had gone to Abbie with the trust of a frightened dog. But why had she yelled — or had she? “You reckon she’s out?”
The hasher couldn’t give him any help there. “I never seen her go, if that’s what you mean.”
Frank went back to the street. He didn’t want to break in. He’d look a pretty fool if Abbie was home.
He walked over to the mare. Abbie might have plenty of reasons for not coming to the door. She might have been working. He hadn’t tried the front. He was starting to walk over there when he saw John Arnold turning in at the path. Arnold, glumly preoccupied with things in his mind, went through the picket fence without noticing Frank.
It came over Frank rather oddly that Arnold’s look was generally perturbed whenever he seemed to be heading for Abbie’s. Perhaps the rancher only visited his niece when the cares of this world got to weighing too heavy. It was a weird thing to think and yet in no way more strange than well-off John Arnold with a prosperous ranch permitting his kin — his only kin, far as Frank knew — to spend her time making bonnets for other people’s women.
He had never happened to catch this angle on it before, and now was baffled to realize that never had he heard of Abbie visiting the ranch. Frank recalled the hasher’s sniff and the unexplained color with which Abbie had told him this morning that she supposed her uncle was still around. It then occurred to Frank the strain he’d always sensed in her might spring from something other than a New England parentage.
A little startled, Frank suddenly saw Abbie Burks as the women of this town had, those good housewives and mothers he’d thought resented her good looks and the fact that she was in business.
The discontinuance of Arnold’s knocking fetched Frank out of this thinking and he heaved into the saddle as Arnold’s steps approached around the side of the house, and suddenly stopped. Frank might have gone to see what Arnold was swearing about except that, just then, he caught sight of Kelly beckoning from the doorway of the stage barn.
Frank put the mare across the street. Kelly abruptly faded away from the door. At that moment, Frank saw the surveyor’s scout he had met in the hills coming in from the west. The scout was half falling out of his saddle. Sandrey Larren, riding alongside, was doing her best to hold him on.
Forgetting Kelly, Frank swung toward them, touching the mare with the points of his spurs. A moment before, the town had seemed asleep on its feet; now men appeared from a dozen doorways — even Old Judge with a beer in his hand running out of the Flag to find out what was happening.
Frank reached the surveyor’s scout and eased him down. Blood and dust were all over the front of him and his face looked like a mask of waxed paper. Sandrey’s cheeks were drawn. Both horses showed lather. Ignoring the excited jabber around him, Frank hoisted the scout and carried him into the Blue Flag where he eased him onto a faro table. It was to be seen at a glance he was no case for a sawbones; the man had lost too much blood and there was froth on his mouth.
“Back up!” Frank growled as men crowded around them. His glance flashed to Sandrey.
She said, “Will he make it?”
Frank, studying the man, shook his head. “What happened?”
Sandrey drew a long breath. “He stopped by my place — it was just before noon. He gave this pitch about a railroad, said he wanted an easement. He came right out and offered cash money for it. I put him off, told him I’d have to talk first with my neighbors. He upped his price five hundred dollars — ”
“Get to the shooting.” Frank ignored the rest of them. He could tell by their looks of startled excitement this was the first they’d heard about any railroad.
Sandrey’s eyes were smoky sage and she was still breathing hard. Frank understood this was emotion. She was fiercely angry. It was in all her looks, in the hand she put up to push back her hair. Her cheeks were pale but fright had nothing to do with this.
“It was the cattle,” she said, “we didn’t see the men right off, only the cows. They were everywhere, like a sea of horns, bawling and staring wherever we turned. They must have shoved that whole six thousand — ”
“Kimberland’s got more than that,” Frank said.
She looked at him straightly. “You don’t get it. I’m talking about — Church. Will Church.”
“You must be mistaken. The cows you saw were Bar Forty — ”
“Tell him!” Sandrey said; and Frank followed her glance to the pain-racked eyes staring up at him.
“That’s right,” the scout whispered. “Circle C the brand was.”
An angry muttering broke out back of Frank. Heels fell loud across the planks of the porch, and Sandrey said, “Young Church himself — the one who threatened you last night and then lifted his hat to me — came loping up with a couple of hardcases. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but you can’t stay here.’ Then Mr. Fles — ” her hand moved toward the scout on the faro table — “told Will Church he was barking up the wrong tree, that I was owner of Terrapin. He — ” she looked at Frank fiercely — “never had a chance to say anything more. Church grabbed up a pistol and shot him. It all happened so quick I couldn’t keep up with it. Both of Church’s men had their guns out by this time. Church said ‘Git!’ and we done it. I’m pretty sure if we hadn’t he’d have shot me too.”
Frank could hardly believe Church had been such a fool. Yet, it was exactly what Will would do, given nerve enough. Somewhere he had found the nerve. Frank saw but two possible answers to this. Either Will had got backing for this defiance of Kimberland or, stung frantic by the loss of face he had suffered at Frank’s hands, the man had gone hog wild.
There was a commotion back up front by the doors and Chavez, thin-lipped, intolerant of delay, came through the crowd blackly shoving men off his elbows. “That Burks woman has been raped and they’re hangin’ Danny Settles!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
They’re at the stage company’s barn!” Chavez piled in the saddle. “I tried to talk some sense into them. Arnold tried, too. You know what a mob is! They’re fixin’ to use that hay hoist….”
Frank’s thoughts, and the wind, isolated him from the rest of what the deputy was saying. Frank was raking the mare with the gut hooks. Every fiber of his being rebelled against this and he cursed the loose jaws which had incited it. Settles had been no more capable of attacking Abbie Burks than a cow was of singing, yet these fools in their need to fight back at their fears …
Snarling, Frank crouched lower with the wind in his ears as they flashed past the storefronts, making the run in twenty-seven seconds. He cursed the white faces that twisted around at him. He slammed the roan into them, scattering them. He had a blade in his hand. He knew before she had slid to a stop — by the grotesque way Danny spilled to the ground — he had got here too late.
Frank appeared about ready to start killing the handiest. The stock knife in his fist gleamed sharp as a saber and the mob fell away, shamefaced, some yelling, stumbling over each other in their fright and their guilt.
Frank dropped off the mare, bent over Danny, unashamed of the glistening blur in his lashes. It wasn’t that the man had ever been close — no two could have been farther apart than the gentle dead and this roughneck marshal.
Frank’s emotions were aroused by the utter uselessness of this, the sheer stupidity that would allow men to act so.
Throwing off the rope he got up, bone weary, and saw Arnold’s grim-set mask of a face. Behind him was Chavez with his sawed-off. The rest were gone.
“Crept away like whipped curs!” the Mexican said.
“Go tell Ben Holliday,” Frank said, “we’ve got some more business for him.” When the deputy left, Arnold said, “Man can’t reason with fools.” He glared at Danny and swore. “That girl was my life. Should have married her long ago. Was too damned smug,” he said, hating himself, “too stinking proud of being Kimberland’s right hand to chance offending. Kimberland would never have understood my marrying a kept woman.”
Frank pulled off his neckscarf and covered Danny’s face. “I blame myself.”
“No need to. Danny never — ”
“I know that. But I went over there and knocked. I should have broken in.”
“Wouldn’t have made any difference. She’d been dead for sometime. Beaten, raped — strangled. Never locked her doors. Danny said the place was locked front and back when he slipped over there. He was frightened, went for comfort. They found him in that brush back of Wolverton’s after that Greek and his hasher…. God!”
A putty-faced hostler came out of the barn. “I’ll watch him,” he muttered.
Frank set off up the street, the mare’s reins in his hand, Arnold silent beside him. There were plenty of men standing around on the walks, but no one intercepted them, no one met Frank’s stare.
Arnold growled, “There’s just one son of a bitch in this country — that could have done this.”
“Tularosa,” Frank said. “He’s here, but how to find him.”
“I’ll find him!”
Frank told him then about the scout, and Sandrey’s story.
“I’ve sometimes wondered,” Arnold said, “if perhaps Will wasn’t back of this cow-stealing.
Whenever the herds come through he’s got money. He damn sure never got any from his father.”
“I’m afraid Sam’s in this. Will would never buck W. T. without help.”
“He could be getting it from Gurden. That kid plays more than’s good for him. Chip’s got a bundle of his paper.”
“I’ve told Gurden to pull his freight when that stage leaves tonight.”
“He won’t do it.”
“I’m not expecting him to.”
Arnold grinned at Frank bleakly. “What about W. T.?”
Frank sighed. “I reckon he’ll fight.”
Arnold said, “Here’s where I leave you.”
• • •
Kelly, when he had waved at Frank, had been minded to throw himself on Frank’s mercy. He had beckoned Frank over to spill what he knew; but when Frank, distracted, had whirled his mare up the street, the teamster was left like a drowning man who has grasped at a straw and finds himself sinking.
He stared after Frank in a sweat of self-pity. Saw the reeling scout and the girl hanging onto him, but all he could think of was the look of Chip Gurden.
Desperate, outraged, half out of his head with the bitter emotions of a man whose best has never been good enough, he looked again at Frank and ran back for his rifle. All the twisted hate of the man’s warped nature was prodding him now with galling remembrance of how Frank had always been one step ahead of him. He picked up the rifle and returned to the entrance in time to see Frank, carrying the stranger, step through the Flag’s batwings.
Kelly cursed in a frenzy, then cunning came into the wild blaze of his stare. Frank would have to come out. Be a pretty far shot. Making sure the hostler was still at his feeding, Kelly returned to the door and, cradling his Winchester, settled down where he’d be ready. There’d be no slip this time.
A growing clamor across the way gradually crept through the shell of Kelly’s preoccupation. Finally, irritably, he twisted his face around. A crowd was forming between the Bon Ton and the bake shop. Even as he watched, it broke apart and ran off in segments; but almost at once it began to regroup itself as two men came shoving another cowed shape; the sound of their voices brought Kelly out of his crouch.
They seemed to be having quite a wrangle. He saw the hasher from the New York Cafe swinging her arms about and the Greek from the same place nodding emphatically. Growing yells went up as Danny Settles was shoved to the front again and out of this uproar came the shouted word — rope. Kelly saw Arnold’s furious features and saw Chavez break away from the crowd. Arnold dropped out of sight amid a flurry of blows and then the whole push was crossing the street. Kelly’s horrified stare saw them heading straight for him. His shaking hands dropped the rifle. He ducked through the side door and clambered into his saddle, cuffing the horse with the rein ends, beating its ribs with his heels.
After Arnold left to go off somewhere on his own hook, Frank strode on to the Flag, tied his mare and went in. A few men at the bar were arguing about Danny’s lynching. Frank looked at them bleakly and two or three remembered forgotten chores which took them away. Talk petered out and then Wolverton asked Frank, “What are you going to do about Church?”
“I’ll take care of him.” Frank bought himself a beer and watched a dealer setting up a faro layout on the scrubbed-clean table where the dead scout had lain.
McFell, the Flag’s owner, wearing a brown derby and impeccably dressed as usual except for the folded newspaper protruding from his coat’s left pocket, drifted in from the back and gave Frank the eye from a corner of the bar. Frank finished his beer and went over. “The young woman,” McFell said, “asked me to tell you she would be at the hotel.”
Frank nodded his thanks. He was in a black mood and painfully preoccupied with thoughts of his own, yet something about the other made him scrutinize McFell more closely.
McFell’s lips quirked a little. “Tularosa, wasn’t it?”
Frank considered this, frowning, and glanced up at the clock, astonished to find that it was near five.
McFell said, “If you was Will Church and figured to go whole hog, what would you do to copper the bet?”
Frank said quietly, “Hire that damned killer.”
“I’ve a pretty fair hunch that’s the way he’s figuring.”
“And how would Will get hold of him?”
McFell tipped his head to stare down at his hands. Frank guessed he was making his mind up how far he wanted to go. Still without looking up, McFell said, “I guess you know Chip’s been holding a bunch of Will’s IOUs. Tularosa was in Chip’s back room last night before you put him in the cooler. If you was Will, and made a deal with Tularosa, what are the first two jobs you would give him?”
Frank said, “Fixing Gurden. Taking care of me.”
“So,” McFell said, “if you watch Chip …” and thinly smiled.
Frank went back to the street. A pair of cowhands were jogging away from Minnie’s; by her door another was just quitting the saddle. Another gent was mounting in front of Fentriss’ barn. Small gatherings of talkers studded the walks farther down and, closer at hand, two men alongside the damaged corner of Bernie’s gun shop were eyeing him with what looked to be a somewhat strained attention.
Frank untied the roan mare and, swinging up, turned her toward them. The pair lurched apart. One of them, disappearing into the alley, was Gurden’s new muscle man, Mousetrap. Frank let him go.
The other was Sam Church. He thrust out his jaw as Frank came up to him, scowling in that dog-with-a-bone way the marshal remembered. Naked malice and a number of things less easily deciphered were in his stare. “Don’t come whinin’ around for your money,” Sam Church growled, “after the way you took off from Bospero Flats — lost me ever’ damn one of them beeves!”
Frank said, “Shut your old face. And you’d better snap the leash back on Will. Shooting that feller — ”
Church said with a sneer, “If you had any proof — ”
“I got all I need.”
Malice got into the old man�
��s choking voice, that raw edge of arrogance that was Will’s stock in trade, more insufferable in Will’s father, more infuriatingly caustic and contemptuous. “If you want to get laughed out of this town, go ahead. Fetch him in, if you’re able. Five separate people saw that skunk reach first.”
“Just who,” Frank said, “are you talking about?”
“That sneak Kimberland brought in here, that feller we run into at Brackley’s. Tried to gun Will down — even got off first shot.” He grinned like a toothless old wolf, throwing his head back. “If you’re countin’ on that skirt sayin’ otherwise you’re a bigger damn fool than W. T. took you for. A saloon slut! Who’d believe her?” The chin jutted forward from his turkeycock neck, his red jowls jiggling like wattles. “Sake of ol’ times I’m goin’ to give you a tip — git out of this country while you’re still able!”
Frank watched the old vinegarroon stamp into the Opal. All these years that Frank had known him the man’s cupidity and miser’s caution had kept him in Kimberland’s string of supporters, dancing attendance on the big pot’s bubbling, glad of the crumbs from the mogul’s table. Something big, something thunderous, must have happened to make Sam Church think he could safely fly in the face of Kimberland’s wrath to make a grab of his own at this strip W. T. coveted.
Frank followed Church as far as the Opal’s porch. Now he found himself staring at one of the handbills he’d had Chavez put up to acquaint all and sundry with the new restrictions and penalties having to do with the carrying of firearms. It was crude. Butcher paper. Hand lettered with pencil.
Frank suddenly woke up. He cuffed his hat a bit lower to give more reach to his eyes. The whole look of him sharpened. A grin cracked his lips that was like summer lightning.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He felt the kind of weird bounce a man gets in poker when he fills to an inside straight. He’d got into this jackpot trying to impress people with abilities he didn’t have. The one thing he did have was the rep he’d been trying to get shed of. Turbulence and violence had put the meat on his bones and it was, by damn, high time he quit selling himself short. This wasn’t as rough as it looked — couldn’t be! The trick was to pick away at the deal. Packing the star made a man feel naked but the forces against him were flesh and blood too, heir to the same drawbacks Frank fought. Bring it down to individuals, man to man, and the deal looked different.
