Play a Lone Hand

by Short, Luke;

  Giff turned back and tramped up the runway. A pair of men were approaching him, the nearest, a big man in clean waist overalls, gray shirt and open vest. He was barely middle aged, Giff judged, although his full black mustaches were heavily threaded with gray. He was carrying his hat in his hand, and his thick black hair, parted deep on the side, held wide streaks of dead white. His handsome, ruddy face was weatherburned, but there were none of the telltale work lines, the brands of sun and wind, upon it. The almost benign expression on his face was somehow belied by the quiet arrogance in his dark eyes.

  He was talking to his companion, a squat barrel of a man in soiled range clothes. He glanced at Giff, still talking as he drew abreast of him, and then he halted, ceased talking, and raised a large, well-fleshed hand to flag Giff down.

  “Aren’t you the fellow somebody told me was looking for a riding job?” His voice was oddly musical, and the expression in his eyes had altered to complete friendliness.

  Giff nodded warily; instinct told him this was a persuasive man, and to be alert.

  “Have you worked cattle much?”

  “All my life.”

  “Then you’re hired,” the man said. “I’m short-handed now.”

  “You still are,” Giff said. “I’m working.”

  “Who for?”

  “The government. I’m chainman for the special agent’s surveyor.”

  “And how long will that last?”

  “I haven’t asked.”

  The big man turned to his companion. “How long were the others here, Gus?”

  “Oh, two weeks, maybe.”

  The big man turned back to Giff and said, “You’re still hired, then. Just say I’m loaning you out to the government crew.” He put out his hand. “I’m Sebree, Grady Sebree. This is Gus Traff, my foreman.”

  Giff shook hands with them both, then Sebree asked, “That all right with you?”

  Giff didn’t answer immediately, and then he said dryly, “This is a mighty changeable country, Mr. Sebree. For two days I’ve cruised the town looking for work. I’ve talked to men from most of the outfits and nobody is hiring, they told me. Now I’m offered two jobs in one day.”

  Sebree laughed easily. “Well, if you’re a rancher, your men can get sick on you, and they can just plain quit on you. One quit on me last night, and another’s sick.” He paused. “Even if I hire another hand today, I’ll need you in two weeks. Want the job?”

  “If you want to wait,” Giff said.

  “Good. Oh, yes. You’d better pick up your saddle at Burtons.” A kind of wry amusement crept into his blue eyes. “You’ll need that, even working for the government. Tell Burton I sent you.”

  Giff nodded, and Sebree started to turn away, then checked himself. “Where are you surveying first?”

  “Nobody’s told me.”

  Sebree rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand, looking off into space for a moment. “Tell you what. As soon as this agent fella’ has made his plans, let me know, will you? I’d ask him myself, only I make a point of keeping myself and my men away from these agents. I don’t want it thought I’m trying to influence them. As soon as their work is mapped out, I’d like to know what it is. I don’t want any information that’s private, and I don’t want you to break a confidence, you understand.”

  There was no mockery in his tone, yet it was plain in his eyes, and when he finished speaking, a faint smile of irony lifted a corner of his mouth. Immediately, Giff understood the invitation, and he knew then why Sebree had hired him. The promise of a job had been held out to him, and he was getting his saddle back—this was in exchange for future information as to the plans of Welling, who probably intended to investigate him. Sebree had contrived to get this across to him by saying the exact opposite, and Giff had a brief and wary admiration for the man’s cleverness. It was difficult to offer to buy a man without insulting him, yet Sebree had managed it. Giff had his choice of accepting or rejecting the offer without committing himself, which was what Sebree intended.

  “All right,” Giff said. Sebree gave him a parting smile and went on. Giff paused momentarily at the archway, then turned downstreet toward Burton’s saddle shop. With a kind of cold amusement, he considered Sebree’s proposition. Was he owing loyalty to a boozing politician who was probably incompetent, or to a man who had already done him a favor? Wait and see, he told himself cynically, but first get the saddle.

  He passed a brick building on the corner which he noticed for the first time had Corazon District Land Office chiseled in the red sandstone lintel of the corner entrance, turned right, and went in to the adjoining building. Burton’s dark and narrow shop, smelling of leather and oil and clean wood shavings, held a dozen saddles on sawhorses scattered in the front half of the shop.

  An old man, unshaven and bent, was working on the wood of a saddletree at his bench. Leaning against the far end of it was a middle-aged puncher, moodily watching the old man work. Both turned as they heard Giff approach.

  “Fellow name of Sebree told me to pick up my saddle, and he’d settle for it.”

  The old man pointed to a half-dozen saddles against the wall. “It’s right where you dumped it.”

  Giff went over to his saddle, and then glanced up at the old man. “Who’s this Sebree?”

  The old man exchanged glances with the puncher before he smiled faintly and replied, “You’re working for him, aren’t you?”

  “Not yet. In a few weeks I will be. But who is he?”

  Again the old man glanced at the puncher, “Like to answer that, Les?”

  The puncher regarded Giff morosely. “He pays standard wages. That’s all you care about, isn’t it?”

  “Not all. Does he run a big or little outfit? Where’s his place?”

  A faint humor stirred in the puncher’s sad eyes. “You point your horse northeast and ride two days and you’ll still be on his land. Didn’t you ever hear of the Torreon Cattle Company?”

  Giff shook his head in negation and the puncher glanced wryly at the old man.

  “Well, this whole damn town is just a Torreon loading pen. Everyone in it fits in Sebree’s vest pocket with lots of room to spare.”

  Giff said dryly, “But not you?”

  The puncher shook his head. “I tried it once but the climate didn’t agree with me. I’m forty miles back in the mountains now and the air smells better.”

  Giff looked at the old man. “You feel that way about it too, Pop?”

  The puncher said swiftly, “You were talking to me, weren’t you?”

  Giff understood then that where this maverick puncher could afford to speak the truth, old Burton could not. He picked up his saddle, said, “Thanks, Pop,” and went out. He was even surer, now, of Sebree’s reason for hiring him; when a man had a lot at stake, bluntness was understandable.

  He dumped his saddle in the livery office, then went on upstreet to the hotel and climbed the stairs. At Welling’s door, he knocked and was bidden enter. Fiske was already at work. He had cleared off the table in the middle of the room, had a plat tacked down on its surface and was bending over examining it. Welling lay sprawled across the bed, his boots just off the coverlet, and he was sleeping.

  Fiske looked up, said “Hello,” and went back to his work. Giff took the envelope from his pocket and laid it on the table. “You want me for anything?”

  “No.” Fiske straightened up, looking at the envelope. “What’s this?”

  “The hotel clerk gave it to me to give to you.”

  Fiske opened the envelope, took out the letter and read it. Finished, he gave Giff a searching glance, and read it again. Then, still holding the letter in his hand, he moved over to the bed. Putting a hand on Welling’s shoulder, he shook him roughly, and Welling sleepily turned over. “What the hell, Bill?” Welling protested sleepily.

  “Go duck your head in the basin, and then read this,” Fiske said, holding out the letter.

  Welling sat up, reached for the letter and yawned, then g
ave it his half-fuddled regard. He read the letter through, shook his head as if to clear it of whiskey fumes, and read it through again. Then he looked over at Giff, who was watching this with a rising, impersonal curiosity. “Did you bring this?”

  Giff told him about the clerk’s handing it to him.

  “Who’s Perry Albers?” Welling asked.

  “Careful, Vince,” Fiske cut in.

  Welling looked up at him, but Fiske was watching Giff. “Why careful?”

  “That letter was meant for you alone, and nobody else. Even I shouldn’t have read it.”

  Welling regarded him for a stupefied moment, and then he laughed. “Bill, you’re crazy—crazier than the fool who wrote this. This is a grudge letter. I get them everywhere I go.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re a damn fool,” Fiske said quietly, finally.

  Welling, far from being offended, scowled and looked again at the letter, then sighed, “All right, I’ll go see him, then.”

  “If you do that, you’ll likely get him shot,” Fiske said dryly. “Why do you think he wrote you instead of coming to see you? He’s being careful. In return, that’s the least you can do.”

  Welling heaved himself to his feet and said petulantly, “First, I don’t take the letter seriously enough. Then when I offer to, you stop me. Make some sense, Bill.”

  Fiske rammed his hands in his pockets and, head down, walked to the table, wheeled and came back. He raised his head sharply and regarded Giff “No offense, Dixon. We don’t know anything about you.”

  “That’s right,” Giff said indifferently. “I’ll be down in the lobby if you want me.” He moved toward the door, oddly relieved at a chance to escape.

  “We want you right now,” Fiske said flatly. He took the letter from Welling’s hand, then went back to the table. From the letter, he copied something onto a piece of paper, picked up the letter and the paper and came over to Giff, who had halted at the door.

  “You know what a final proof notice for a homestead entry is?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Fiske explained to him that when a homesteader had lived on his homestead for six months of one year and had made the required improvements on it, he must publish notice for final proof in four consecutive issues of a newspaper, after which the publisher would sign an affidavit of publication for him to submit to the Register of the Land Office to complete his claim for title on the land. It was a newspaper form, Fiske said; surely he had seen the notices.

  “I worked cattle. I didn’t farm,” Giff said. “I’ve seen them. I never paid any attention.”

  “Then pay attention now,” Fiske said dryly, and he thrust the paper into Giff’s hand. “Go down to the newspaper office. It’s called”—here he referred to the letter—“the San Dimas County Free Press. Ask for their files. Hunt up the April seventeenth copy of last year. That paper I gave you has the names of five entrymen on it. See if their final proof notices are in that issue.”

  Wordlessly, Giff accepted the paper and put it in his pocket. Welling, behind Fiske, was looking sullen and still drowsy as he said, “Ask if their printer is named Perry Albers.”

  “Don’t ask!” Fiske contradicted flatly. He turned to Welling. “What’s the sense in all this if we let them know we’re looking for Albers?”

  “All right,” Welling said sulkily. “It’s damn foolishness anyway.”

  Giff asked patiently, “Am I supposed to do this on the quiet?”

  “No. Land Office investigators are eternally at newspaper files. Everybody knows it. Just don’t tell them what issue you want.”

  Giff went out, then, and descended to the lobby. He was amused and curious about what had just happened, but not overly. It was obvious that Perry Albers, the Free Press printer, had written them information Fiske thought valuable and Welling did not.

  In his first chore on the new job, Giff reflected, it had been Fiske who made the decision, and Welling, fuddled with liquor, who fell into line with it. Oddly, Giff did not hold Fiske’s suspicion of him against the older man; remembering Sebree’s offer, he thought, Fiske’s right. Why tell me anything? He was used to hard judgments, and took no affront.

  The newspaper office was a narrow building wedged between two larger ones, and was in the block past the land office on the opposite side of the street. Its big window was painted white to half its height, on which in black, big letters was printed San Dimas County Free Press.

  Stepping in from the sun-drenched street, Giff halted and closed the door, his eyes slowly adjusting themselves to the gloom of the long room. Presently, he made out a big flat-topped desk against the window. A couple of chairs, a tall clothes commode and a rusty safe made up the furniture. The room was in monumental disorder, the desk littered with papers, the floor cluttered with boxes and cartons, piled almost to the ceiling with bound files and yellowing newspapers.

  The only sound came from the print shop in the rear where an overhead lamp was burning, and it was strange sound, the rapid chinking of metal against metal. Giff walked up to a tall cabinet whose back was to the street, and rounding it, came to an abrupt halt. A girl, wearing an ink-stained and oversized apron, was seated on a tall stool setting type; her hands moved with sure swiftness as she selected the type from the case and slapped it into the stick in the left hand.

  Giff watched her a moment in mild wonderment, and then started as she addressed him in total unfriendliness without interrupting her work or even looking at him. “What do you want?”

  His surprise held him mute a moment; the girl, getting no answer, ceased work and looked up at him, her face harried and without patience. When she saw him, her expression altered to one of mocking apology without any embarrassment at all. She was a small girl, almost frail-seeming, and her dark and curly hair was pinned in an unruly mass atop her head. Her green eyes, wide-spaced and direct, seemed large because of her small nose, and now her full lips relaxed in a crooked smile.

  “I thought you were Earl,” she said, and leaned both hands on the type case. “Anyway, what is it you want?”

  “I’d like a look at your back numbers,” Giff said cautiously.

  The girl sighed wearily. “You picked a time, didn’t you?”

  “Did I?”

  “The worst,” the girl said tartly. “The boss is shooting billiards over in the saloon. He’s stepping over the printer, who’s probably lying drunk on the floor. I’ve got a paper to get out, and who gives a damn about it besides me?”

  Giff frowned a little in distaste, and the girl looked sharply at him. “Haven’t you ever heard a girl swear?”

  “None like you.”

  “You don’t see any of them doing my job either, do you?” she asked with instant truculence. When Giff didn’t answer, she shifted her attention to the type case and stared at it for a moment. Then she said, “Did you see that broken down coat closet in the office? Well, pull a chair up to it, and don’t put a foot through the chair seat when you stand on it. The bound files are on top of the closet. Take them down and don’t pull down all that trash on top.” She grinned faintly, then, and added, “And keep out of my way or I’ll stomp on you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Giff said dryly.

  His jibe was entirely lost on the girl; she was setting type again. Giff turned back into the office, a faint resentment at her stirring in him. She’ll make some man a fine husband, he thought. Nevertheless, he followed her instructions, being careful not to put his foot through the worn cane bottom of the chair.

  Lugging the files over to the desk, he cleared a space among the papers, and while the soft chunk-chunking noise of the girl’s typesetting went on, he looked through the files. First, he identified the form of a final proof notice. Then he looked for last year’s April seventeenth issue of the paper, and found it missing. Curious now, he leafed back and found other issues missing, even into the year before and the year before that. His search had come to full s
top, and he speculated a moment on the reason for their absence. He shrugged then, and put the files back where they belonged. He’d done his job, and the results meant nothing to him.

  Curiosity, however, drew him back to the girl. He stood patiently by the type stand while she finished a stick, and then she looked up at him inquiringly.

  “Don’t you keep a copy of all the issues of your paper?” he asked.

  “In summer, we do. Then when winter comes, we have to have something to start fires.” When Giff didn’t smile, she said, “You’re a gay lad, aren’t you? That was a joke, but don’t smile for me.”

  Giff shifted uncomfortably, watching her. She sighed and said, “What was it? Maybe I can remember it.”

  Recalling Fiske’s words, Giff said idly, “Oh, land office stuff. We have to look up a lot of it.”

  The girl set down the stick of type gently, carefully, a sudden interest coming into her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re that new boozehead agent by the name of Welling?”

  “The name is Dixon,” Giff said coldly. “I’m working for Welling.”

  “Well, happy headaches,” she murmured softly. “Here we go again.” She looked carefully at him. “Haven’t I seen you around? Yesterday, say? With fur on your face?”

  Giff nodded stiffly. “I’ve been here a month, staying at Doc Miller’s.”

  “Oh, the clay pigeon,” she said. “Well, well, at least you’ve had some practice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Getting shot at,” the girl said unemotionally.

  Before he could reply, he heard the door shut behind him. At the sound of it, the girl raised her head and called, “Earl!” There was a grunt from the office, followed by the slamming of a drawer, then footsteps. At the other side of the type stand, a man appeared and halted. He was a thin, tall, mournful-looking man dressed in an unpressed black suit; his hat, pushed far back on his head, revealed a bald, bony skull. His face was sharp and almost cadaverous. Carefully, he tucked a handful of cigars into the breast pocket of his coat, regarding the girl.