CHAPTER 5
TRENT PUSHED OPEN the doors and stepped into the now crowded saloon. Most of those present seemed to be Hale cowhands, but there were a few prospectors and miners coming from or going to the gold camps to the north. At the bar, King Bill was standing, his broad back turned to the room.
He was big. Perhaps an inch shorter than Trent’s six feet and one inch, he was much the heavier of the two. He was broad and powerful, with a massive chest, his head a block set upon a muscular neck, his jaw broad and strong. He was a bull, and Trent, looking at him now, could well believe the stories of his killing men with his fists.
Beside him, in beautifully tanned and dressed white buckskin, was Cub Hale, and on the far side of Hale were Dunn and Ravitz.
Trent walked to the bar and ordered a drink. Dunn, hearing his voice, turned his head. As their eyes met, the glass slipped from Dunn’s fingers and crashed on the edge of the bar.
“You seem nervous, Dunn,” Trent suggested. “Let me buy you a drink.”
“I’ll be damned if I will!” Dunn said. “What d’ you want here?”
Trent smiled. All the room was listening, attracted by the fall of the glass and Dunn’s explosive question. Of those present, some would be townspeople who might not have chosen sides.
“Why, I just thought I’d ride down and have a talk with King Bill.” He spoke calmly but clearly, so that all might hear. “It seems there has been a lot of war talk, and somebody killed a harmless family man on his own doorstep the other day, killed him when he was unarmed and totally defenseless. It struck me that King Bill would want to know about it.”
“Get out!” Dunn ordered, his hand hovering near his gun. “Get out or be carried out!”
“No use to reaching for that gun,” Trent replied calmly. “As everybody can see, I am not heeled. And I am here to make peace talk with King Bill.”
“I said get out!” Dunn replied.
Trent was still smiling when Dunn’s hand suddenly dropped for his gun. Instantly Trent moved. His left hand dropped to block the gun hand, the right whipped up in a short, wicked arc and exploded on Dunn’s chin.
The punch was short but perfectly timed, and it caught Dunn on the point of the chin. He started to drop, and Trent let go of the gun wrist and let him fall, but as he did so he slipped the gun from Dunn’s holster and placed it on the bar.
Trent turned to Hale. “Sir, some of your men invaded our area and murdered Dick Moffit, then burned him out. They ran his young children into the woods, homeless and hungry, then hunted them to try killing them as well. Those same men warned me to move out. Now, I’ve heard you are a fair man, so I have come to you.”
King Bill did not move or give any indication that he heard. He looked at the whiskey in his glass, tasted it, and put it carefully back on the bar.
Cub Hale had moved away from him, poised and eager. “Hale,” Trent said, “this is between you and me. Call off your dogs. I am talking to you and nobody else, and what is said here tonight will be repeated up and down the country. We want peace, but if we have to fight to keep our land, we will fight. If we fight, we will win. You are bucking the United States government now, Hale, as all our land has been properly filed on and we are proving up.”
Cub was waiting. At a word from his father or even a gesture, he would draw. Trent was unarmed. He felt cold and tight, and knew that never had he been so close to death.
“What’s the matter, Hale? Are you going to make a murderer of your son because you’re too yellow to talk?”
Hale turned slowly. “Cub, stay out of this. I’ll han-dle it.”
Cub hesitated, alive with eagerness and disappointment.
“I said,” Hale’s tone was harsh, “get back and stay out of this.”
He looked at Trent for the first time, his eyes cold and ugly. “As for you, you’ve squatted on my range. Now you’re getting off, all of you. If you don’t leave, you’ll take what you’ve got coming, and that’s final.”
“No, Hale, it is not final. We are filed legally, and we intend to stay. You made no claim on any of that land until we moved on it and started developments. If we don’t get justice, we will have a United States marshal in here to find out why.”
“Justice! You grangers will get all the justice you need from me! I’ve given you time to leave. Now, get!”
Trent stood his ground, yet his own anger was welling up within him. The unreasonableness of the man irked him. Ruthless as he might be, he might also be basically a square shooter.
“Hale,” he said, “I’ve heard you’re a fighting man. I’m calling you now. We fight, man to man, no holds barred, and if I win, you leave us alone, if you do, we leave.”
King Bill turned, his fury swelling the veins in his neck. “You! You challenge me? You dare? You, a dirty-necked nester, a farmer? No! I bargain with no man. Move out or suffer the consequences.”
“What’s the matter, Bill! Are you afraid?”
For a long moment there was silence in the room, and then Hale unbuckled his gun belt. “All right, nester, you asked for it.”
He swung suddenly, a vicious backhand. Expecting something of the kind, Trent sidestepped easily, and Hale nearly went off balance with his blow.
“What’s the matter, Bill? I’m right here.”
Hale moved in fast, swinging both fists. Trent met his rush with a left jab that split both his lips and showered him with blood. For an instant the larger man was stopped still by the shock of seeing his own blood. Then in a fury he closed in. Trent evaded the first blow, but a powerful right swing caught him alongside the head, and he staggered back on his heels. His blood staining his gray shirt, Hale closed in fast. He hit Trent again. Trent evaded another punch, more by good luck than skill, and closed with him, smashing away at Hale’s body with both fists.
Throwing him off, Hale knocked him to the floor with a left. Trent rolled over and climbed to his feet, but was knocked down a second time, his head roaring with sound. As he rolled over to get up, somebody kicked him viciously in the ribs, and he caught a glimpse of Cub’s malicious grin.
Hale rushed, swinging with both fists, but Trent went inside of a left and smashed a right to the heart. Hale grabbed him and threw him against the bar, then charged, swinging hard with both fists, knocking his head from side to side. Desperately Trent lunged to get away from the bar, but Hale pushed him back, measured him with a left, and started the right that was to finish it.
Trent whipped a wicked left to the wind that wrenched an agonized gasp from the bigger man, who missed with the right. Trent stabbed another left to the bleeding mouth, but Hale floored him again with a right. Trent lunged up as another kick was aimed at him. Hurt, gasping with pain, he clinched with Hale and hung on desperately, fighting to clear his head. Hale threw him off and swung a left that cut his cheek to the bone. Trent stabbed the left to the mouth again and followed it with a right to the ribs.
He ducked under a right and smashed Hale in the belly with another right, then hooked a left over Hale’s shoulder to cut him over the eye.
Hale rushed at him, grabbing for his throat, and Trent felt himself falling backward. He fell, but as he did so he grasped Hale’s upper arms, put a boot toe in his stomach, and as he fell he pitched the larger man over his head to the floor.
King Bill staggered up, visibly shaken. Trent staggered back against the bar, wiping the blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. Hale was hurt, and he was shaken. Perhaps in that moment the bigger man realized for the first time that he might be beaten.
Trent moved in swiftly. He lanced a left to the mouth, crossed a right to the chin, and as Dunn started to come in, Hale waved him back. He put up his hands, his face twisted with hatred and fear. He started forward, and Trent feinted; as the hands moved, he struck hard with his right and Hale staggered and almost fell.
They stood toe-to-toe then, and both began to swing, but the power had gone from Hale’s blows. The hard years of work that lay behind Trent now
were saving him; he was getting his second wind now, steadying down. His head buzzed with the blows that had left him groggy, but he knew now what he had to do. He feinted and struck hard with left and right. He feinted again and then threw both fists to the midsection. Hale’s knees buckled, and Trent threw hard to the chin. The big man was slammed against the bar by the force of the punch, and as Trent moved to face him, he caught a glimpse of Cub.
The younger man’s face was twisted with shock and something like horror, but mingled with it was something else, a kind of evil delight in what was happening. Sickened, Trent stepped back and moved around.
Hale was game. He started forward, and Trent swung a hard right to the jaw. The big man started to buckle at the knees, and Trent hit him before he could fall.
He fell then, flat out on the saloon floor, and he lay still. Trent, looking down to see if he would try to get up, felt a pang. It was a hard, hard thing to be so long a winner and then to be beaten, and beaten thoroughly, and in front of all these others over whom he had lorded it.
Had he been anywhere but surrounded by enemies, Trent would have picked the man up and told him he was sorry.
In the moment of silence, a cool voice spoke out clearly. “Now, you all just hold to w’ar you’re standin’, because I ain’t a-wantin’ to kill nobody, but sure as I’m Quince Hatfield, this here rifle is aimed an’ steady.”
Nobody moved or spoke, for the intent of the rifle was plain enough, and from the door they could see another. How many more there might be, they did not attempt to guess.
In three steps Trent was across the room and out-of-doors into the night. The buckskin was waiting for him at the edge of the boardwalk with the Hatfield horses, and he swung to the saddle and with almost the same motion slipped his Winchester from the boot. With a quick shot he sent the chandelier crashing, and then they were gone. A mile out of town they slowed down and Quince came up alongside.
“I d’clare, Trent, when you all set out to start somethin’, you surely don’t fool around! You just busted things wide open.”
Trent shrugged, and it hurt so much that he almost cried out. Every move he made, he discovered another sore spot. “I tried to talk peace, but he wouldn’t listen. Then I thought a good licking might teach the townspeople that he wasn’t all-powerful. We’re going to need friends.”
“The Parson will be some upset when he hears about this, and him not seein’ it. He’s said time and again that all Hale needed was a good whoppin’.”
“It will take more than that,” Trent said. “He was a tough man to whip, and when he’s able, he’ll find another way. He’s got the men and the money, Quince. We’ve only got ourselves.”
“Maybe that’s all we’ll need, that an’ the good Lord’s help.”
Nothing had been solved by the fight, and no allies would have been gained. Still, there might be a few who would now be doubting the outcome.
Taking to the brush, they used every stratagem to ward off pursuit, although it was doubtful if any pursuit would be attempted in the darkness.
Three hours later they pulled up at the Hatfield cabin. A tall young man stepped out of the darkness to greet them.
“It’s us, Saul,” Jesse said, “an’ you missed a scrap! Trent done whupped King Bill Hale with his fists. Whupped him good.”
“Reckon Pa will be please’ to hear that!” he said. “And I am, m’self. Whupped him, you say? Wow! That must have been some fight!”
“They all abed?”
“Sure. Lijah was on guard up until a few minutes ago, but knowin ’him, he’s dead to the world by now.”
“O’Hara here?” Trent asked. His jaw felt stiff and sore, and he ached in every muscle and bone. Hale was a puncher, and he had landed more often than he missed.
“He’s here. Him, Bartram, an’ Smithers. Come mornin’, Pa wants us all to get together and figure out what it’s best to do.”
“We will have to fight,” Trent said. “There’s no question of that now. Hale wouldn’t talk peace.”
“So you whupped him. Serves him right. Nobody up here wants a fight, but we’re all ready for it. We’ll do what has to be done.”
“I’ve a blanket and my slicker. I’ll bed down over against the brush after I’ve washed up.”
When he had stabled the buckskin, he stripped off his shirt and bathed in the water trough. The water came from a spring in the shoulder of rock and was piped into both the house and the horse trough, where a continual flow kept it fresh.
The cold water felt good on his swollen, battered face. One eye was swollen almost shut, and there was a nasty cut on his cheekbone that might need a couple of stitches. He would see about that in the morning. Ma Hatfield was good at such things, but young Bartram had worked with a doctor for over a year and had planned to practice before deciding to come west.
He carried his blanket and the slicker to a corner of the woods near the spring and rolled up. Yet it was a long time before he fell asleep. His hands were swollen from the battering they had taken in punching Hale, although he had gone to the body as much as possible.
What would happen in Cedar now? Would the Hales hear of his visit to Nita? Had they any idea the two were old friends? He doubted that, and doubted they would know more than that he had gone to the Crystal Palace, a not unexpected thing, since the Mecca was controlled by Hale.
Slowly, as he lay awake, he turned over the various choices they had. They were outnumbered at least five to one, but that troubled him less than supplies.
There was game in the mountains, but not so much that it would not be seriously depleted by trying to live off it. Each of the families had some stores against bad weather or attack, yet none of them had enough. Supplies of food and ammunition were of first importance, and there was no chance in Cedar. . . . Or maybe there was.
An idea came to him, and he considered it from all angles, and somewhere during his considerations he fell asleep.
When he awakened again he lay for a few minutes watching the first graying of the night come to the Hatfield ranch. Slowly things became distinct. The peeled bars of the corral, and handmade shakes on the barn roof, the carefully hewn timbers of the log house. Parson Hatfield and his sons had expended much hard labor here, but everything was made with a loving touch. They had been building a home, not just a house.
He sat up. If he had his way about it, this would be their home as long as they wished to stay.
CHAPTER 6
THE MORNING SUN had scarcely lifted over the pines when the men gathered around the long table in the Hatfield home. Breakfast was over and the women had gone on to other work.
Trent sat at the foot of the table, making few comments. He was tired and stiff. One eye was black and badly swollen. He had four stitches taken in a cut on his cheekbone, and his lips and one ear were puffed and red. He was in no mood for conversation, yet it had to be. Looking at those around the table, he could not but wonder how many would be present when the time came to celebrate a victory, if there was to be one.
More than any of the others, he knew what lay ahead. The years since boyhood had dealt hardly with him, and on more than one occasion he had seen such troubles start, and so far he had lived to see them end. Many of those with whom he had worked and fought had not survived.
The five Hatfields were there. O’Hara and Bartram. The big Irishman was a game man who among other things had been a policeman in New York. Bartram was young, keen, and a man who had grown up, as most of them had, hunting meat for the table. He was excited by what lay ahead, and was ready for anything and everything.
Smithers was quiet and middle-aged, the oldest of them but for Parson himself. He was a small man, precise in his thinking and planning, avoiding trouble yet seemingly fearless. He was the best farmer of the lot, and the best businessman.
Two more rode in while they were sitting at breakfast. Jackson Hight was a wild-horse hunter, a former cowhand and buffalo hunter, and Steve Runyon a former miner.
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nbsp; Parson Hatfield cleared his throat. “This here meetin’ better come to order. Them Haleses ain’t about to wait until we uns get organized. There’s a few things come first. We got to pick us a leader, and we got to find some way to get grub and ammunition.”
Trent spoke up. “Parson? If I can put in a word. I believe it would be safer if we all came here, bringing what supplies and horses we can.”
“And leave our places?” Smithers objected. “Why, they’d burn us out! They’d ruin our crops and run off our stock!”
“He’s right,” O’Hara agreed. “If we aren’t there to defend them, they won’t last long. That’s playing right into their hands.”
“Which of you feels qualified to defend himself against twenty gunmen? I don’t feel I could. There isn’t a place among yours where one man could stand off five men, let alone several times that many. You can only shoot out of one window at a time. They’ll get around you, and you’d be dead within minutes.
“There’s but two places among us that can be defended with any chance of winning. Mine and the Hatfields’, and mine won’t handle all the people we’ve got. Hatfield has more supplies on hand, he’s got a place that can be defended, and there’s already five men on the spot.
“If we get burned out, we can rebuild. Hell, there isn’t a man here who hasn’t already built more than once. But if you’re dead, you aren’t going to build anything.”
“Strikes me as sensible,” Hight said. “It’s the old argument, ‘united we stand, divided we fall,’ so I move we all come together here.”
“You may be right,” O’Hara agreed. “Dick Moffit didn’t do very well alone.”
“That means I’ll lose my barn!” Smithers protested.
Nobody said anything, and after a minute he said, “Well, I can always build a new one, even if it takes ten years.”
“We will all help,” Bartram replied.
“How about a leader?” Smithers asked. “How about you, Parson?”
The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 35
