by J. T. Edson
‘If I was told and figured I’d good cause,’ Smith agreed. ‘Which I reckon I’d have if you put it up.’
‘I hate Wil Jeffreys’ guts!’
‘That figures. And she doesn’t cotton none to you either, I’d say. Only this’s not just between you and her any more, Lily. Put up that sign and you’ll be rubbing the whole town’s face in the dirt.’
‘It’s a chance I’m game to take!’
‘Then you’ve not got the good sense you’d made me figure you for having.’
‘I’m putting that sign up, Wax!’ Lily declared grimly. ‘And there’s only one person who can stop me.’
‘Who’d that be?’ the Texan asked.
‘Wil Jeffreys,’ Lily replied, glancing at the open door. ‘You tell her from me that she’ll have to come and beg me not to put it up.’
Chapter Ten – A Man of Direct Action
On leaving the backroom, Smith found Wil and the marshal standing close to the open door. Apparently Caster had just joined the mayor, but Wil’s face showed that she had overheard the conversation—particularly Lily’s conditions for not putting up the sign. However, Wil made no mention of it, but stood stiffly almost at attention, with tight lips and angry eyes, as Caster addressed the Texan.
‘They’d about sixty dollars a-piece on them, Wax. Nothing else.’
‘Their maw and pappy run a cap-and-ball outfit down near Tucson,’ Smith replied. ‘Pima County sheriff’ll know it and can take Tod ’n’ Arnie’s leavings to them. Their horses and gear’ll sell for something and, likely, their folks could use the money. Did you look in their saddles?’
‘I will, when I find them,’ Caster promised.
‘Aren’t they at the hitching rail ?’
‘Nope. Them three belong to the Rocking V boys over by the chuck-a-luck table.’
‘Are they local hands?’ Smith inquired, glancing at the men indicated by the marshal.
‘Come from over on the Antelopes,’ Caster answered. ‘Not what you’d call next-door neighbors.’
Not, Smith admitted to himself, that the proximity of the trio’s ranch would prove anything. It was unlikely that Wood-stole and Hopkirk could identify every horse in their immediate neighbors’ remudas, especially when the animals had been standing with their right, unbranded, sides showing as the ranchers walked by. The three cowhands wore Texas-style clothing and so were almost certain to use double-girthed rigs.
So Hopkirk and his partner had duplicated Smith’s mistake in the matter of who owned the horses.
‘The meeting, Mr. Smith!’ Wil prompted, glancing at the door of the backroom in a pointed manner.
Suddenly the Texan realized that the black-haired beauty was straining every nerve and fiber to hold her temper in control. Wil had the expression of a woman who had all but reached the end of her tether. Thinking back to comments made the previous night, he decided that the new sign was only the latest of a series of actions by Lily aimed at goading and humiliating Wil. If the blonde should come out of the room, Wil might not be able to restrain her anger. Then there would be an unpleasant, ugly scene, if nothing worse.
‘Sure, Miss Jeffreys,’ Smith drawled. ‘We’d best get to it. I’ll see you at one, Bert.’
That’ll give me time to go around and pick up those jaspers’ horses, if I can find them,’ Caster replied. Their sidekick’ll be long gone by now, I’d say.’
‘It’s not likely he’d hang around,’ Smith agreed. ‘I’ll see you, then.’
While crossing to the batwing doors, Smith hoped that he would be able to discover the cause of the hatred existing between Wil and Lily. If he knew that, he could estimate how much danger or difficulty it posed to him in his work as temporary marshal. There was no direct evidence to connect the blonde with Hardy, or the Sheppey brothers. Even the latter being in the saloon without horses close by could have an innocent explanation. Smith decided that he must have a long and confidential talk with his employer before sundown. Until then, he would walk warily—especially in Lily’s presence.
The ranchers were waiting on the sidewalk when Wil and Smith emerged from the saloon. That ended his hopes of satisfying his curiosity straight away. None of them spoke as they walked away from the Happy Bull and Smith reconciled himself to waiting for a more opportune moment to talk privately with the mayor.
The silence continued as they entered a large square with a neatly laid-out garden in its centre. On each side of the square stood civic buildings, or the homes of prominent citizens.
Smith guessed that this was the centre of the town, socially and administratively if not geographically.
Several farmers hovered in front of the big, stone-built town hall, which also housed the court and law enforcement offices, on the western side of the square. Among the crowd, two men caught Smith’s eye. Tall, slim, in their early twenties, they dressed like their companions; but their sallow, hollow-cheeked faces did not indicate long hours spent working in the open. Smoking what looked like hand-rolled cigarettes, they kept their gaze on Wil’s party and twisted their loose lips in mocking sneers.
Followed by the farmer who had travelled on the stagecoach with Smith, a big bearded man left the crowd.
‘Good morning, Mr. Bilak,’ Wil greeted.
‘Miss Jeffreys,’ the big man replied, without a trace of an accent. This’s Cyrus Cushman. I said he would be coming to the meeting.’
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Cushman,’ Wil stated, shaking hands. ‘Shall we go inside, gentlemen?’
‘See you brought friends along, Bilak,’ Hopkirk growled as they entered the building.
‘The Patrons of Husbandry is a democratic organization,’ Cushman answered, instead of the Grange’s local representative. ‘Its members are permitted to attend any meeting which may concern them.’
Was it your idea to have them come along?’ Smith inquired as he, the ranchers and the Grange’s representatives followed Wil into the building.
‘They came of their own free will,’ Cushman declared, eyeing the Texan with open distrust and thinly veiled hostility. ‘But I don’t understand your presence.’
‘I asked Mr. Smith to come,’ Wil told the man. ‘He is town marshal as of today and I felt that his presence was necessary. Do you object, Mr. Bilak?’
‘Can’t say I do, Wil,’ the burly man replied.
‘I thought this blasted meeting was supposed to be secret,’ Hopkirk challenged. ‘We didn’t bring in any of our boys on account that it was.’
Again Smith felt uneasy stirrings inside him. If the meeting was supposed to be held in secret, somebody had betrayed it to the homesteaders. That same person might be hoping to ruin any hope of peace between the ranchers and the nesters. Did this desire tie in with the attempts on Smith’s life? Whoever had learned about the meeting could also have gained information concerning his coming and taken steps to stop him arriving.
Smith studied Bilak as the party entered a big room on the ground floor. There was nothing of the newly-arrived immigrant about the burly farmer. If his lack of accent and appearance were anything to go by, he had been many years in the United States and might even have been born there. Such a man would be aware of Smith’s potential in the event of a range war and might suspect that the Texan’s sympathies could rest with the cattle industry.
The Grange, the Patrons of Husbandry, was a very vocal organization devoted to protecting the interests of farmers. Nor did it restrict itself to words. On occasion, the Grange was said to have resorted to more violent means when talking had failed to bring about the desired results. If they had decided on direct action against the C Lazy P, the local chapter of the Grange could have concluded that Smith’s presence in Widow’s Creek would be detrimental to their plans. Maybe Bilak had been behind Hardy, Moxley and Hayward. He could even have marked his message with Poona Woodstole’s name in case the affair went the wrong way, to throw suspicion on to his enemy.
‘I’ll stand, if you don’t mind, ma’am,’ Smith
drawled as Wil waved the men to take seats around the long table in the centre of the room.
Leaning his right shoulder against the wall, close to the handle-side of the door through which they had entered, Smith watched Wil take her place at the head of the table. Going around, the two farmers sat on her left and the ranchers faced them. For all her experiences at the Happy Bull, Wil seemed perfectly composed and her usual efficient self as she got down to business.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I asked you to meet here, on neutral ground, so that you can clarify the situation regarding the land north of the Elk Fork. Mr. Woodstole has brought the deeds to his property for your inspection.’
‘Here they are,’ the Englishman drawled, drawing a long, bulky envelope from inside his shirt. ‘My partner and I’ll be pleased to answer any points you raise.’
These give you title to twenty miles of land between the Widow’s and Owl Creeks of the Elk Fork,’ Cushman said grudgingly after examining the documents. ‘That’s a lot of land for two men to own.’
‘It was offered for homesteading six years back,’ Hopkirk pointed out. ‘Only there weren’t any takers. So the Land Office at Cheyenne sold it to Poona and me. And I’ll be—’
‘If you’d seen the land when we first came, you’d have known why it wasn’t homesteaded,’ Woodstole interrupted, silencing his old partner with a warning glare. ‘I think you can remember it, Mr. Bilak.’
‘I can,’ Bilak confirmed. ‘And I was one of the men who refused the offer to homestead it. These papers are proof enough for me—’
‘How about the Jones family, Mr. Woodstole?’ Cushman demanded. ‘They complained to my chapter of the Grange that you ran them off their land south of the Elk Fork.’
‘Did we?’ challenged the Englishman. ‘Perhaps Mr. Bilak can explain things?’
‘They’d been taking C Lazy P cattle,’ Bilak stated. ‘That’s why I refused to back them up.’
‘Understand this, Mr. Cushman,’ Woodstole went on. ‘Charlie and I have never stopped farmers hunting deer or elk on our range. Nor would we begrudge hungry families the odd steer for their own table. But the Joneses didn’t let it stop there. Marshal Caster found evidence that they were butchering our cattle and selling the meat and hides.’
‘And we didn’t run ’em off,’ Hopkirk announced. ‘Afore we could do it, they’d lit a shuck out of this neck of the woods.’
‘That was after I refused to give them the Grange’s protection,’ Bilak elaborated. ‘Mr. Woodstole and Mr. Hopkirk could’ve set the law on them, but didn’t.’
‘I knew nothing of this,’ Cushman declared. ‘Naturally, when we heard their story and compl— When they told us what had happened, I was sent here to investigate the affairs.’
‘They complained about me?’ Bilak asked.
‘Yes,’ admitted Cushman. ‘We had to check. You know there’s been discontent amongst our members.’
An uneasy silence followed the words and Cushman’s face showed that he felt he had said too much. Since the senior officials of the Grange had started to advocate a policy of live-and-let-live where ranching interests were concerned, some of the more radical and militant members had grown restless, or even formed opposition groups of their own. As could only be expected, the off-shoots had attracted dangerous fanatics and political opportunists who saw advancement for themselves and their beliefs by giving verbal support to farmers or would-be homesteaders at odds with the Grange.
While one of the saner, more realistic members of the Grange, who had become reconciled with the fact that ranchers and farmers must co-exist to survive, Cushman did not wish the affairs of the Patrons of Husbandry discussed before non-members. So he looked at Wil in search of a change of subject. It came, but the lady mayor did not supply it.
Following the conversation, Smith became aware of a disturbance in the hall beyond the room. Feet clattered and voices lifted in protest or recrimination. Then the door flew open and the two sallow-featured young men burst in. Some feet behind them, the remainder of the crowd from the square surged by the clerks who had tried to prevent the interruption to the meeting.
‘Remember the Jon—!’ began the taller of the pair.
Whatever else he had planned to say ended abruptly. At the first hint of trouble, Smith moved from his place against the wall. Pushing himself forward, he pivoted on his right foot and drove the toe of his other boot with considerable force against the speaker’s testicles. Startled exclamations from the men at the table mingled with the sound of chairs being thrown over and the stricken intruder’s strangled screech of agony. Clutching at the injured region, he buckled at the knees and fell writhing to the floor.
Mouth open to yell, the second young man made no more than a gurgle of surprise as his companion went down. Allowing the first one to blunder helplessly by him, Smith dealt just as swiftly with the second. From snatching off his right glove, the Texan whipped his left fist around and up. Holding his fingers tightly clenched, he crashed the protruding second knuckle in a back-hand blow to the centre of the sallow face.
Back curled Smith’s right hand, drawing the slip gun and presenting it, full cocked, at the faces of the nearest farmers. He gave no attention to the second man, who went sprawling face down in the left side corner.
‘I’ll kill the next man to set foot in here,’ Smith stated, with calm and chillingly menacing assurance. ‘And the same applies to any man I find holding a gun when I turn “round to the table”.’
‘Hold it, all of you!’ roared Ottaway’s voice from the front entrance of the town hall. ‘We’ve got scatterguns here for them’s don’t.’
While surprised to find Ottaway showing such initiative and sense of duty, Smith wasted no time in thinking about it. Throwing looks at the speaker, the crowd halted their hostile intentions and stood still.
‘Mind what I said, at the table!’ Smith ordered over his shoulder. ‘I’m turning round now.’
On swinging towards the centre of the room, Smith saw Hopkirk returning the Army Colt to its holster. None of the others, not even Woodstole, had drawn a weapon. For their part, the two officials of the Grange showed such surprise and annoyance at the interruption that Smith felt sure they had known nothing about it. Satisfied that he had displayed his impartiality, Smith stepped out of the room. Ottaway and young Jeffreys stood at the entrance to the hall, shotguns covering the farmers. An air of alert eagerness transformed the young man’s face.
‘Heard there was going to be trouble, Wax,’ Ottaway announced. ‘So we got the scatters and came to take cards.’
‘Good thinking,’ Smith replied. ‘Mr. Bilak. Come and ask your folks to leave peaceable.’
‘Who’s idea was this?’ Bilak demanded, glaring at the crowd as he stepped out of the room.
‘Them two young fellers said we should come in and stand up for the Joneses, Zorin,’ answered a blond-haired man of Teutonic appearance. ‘Said they’d come to see justice done.’
‘I told you why the Grange wouldn’t support them!’ Bilak barked. ‘Now get over the river and wait at the Busted Plough until I’m through.’
‘We thought you’d need help,’ the blond muttered.
‘If I do, I’ll ask for it,’ Bilak replied. This whole thing was going right and peaceful until you let them come busting in.’
Bilak clearly retained control over the other farmers, for there was no argument against his orders. Muttering to themselves, the crowd withdrew from the town hall. As a sign of his good faith, Smith returned the Colt to its holster and went into the meeting room. Carrying the shotguns on the crooks of their left arms, Ottaway and young Jeffreys followed him. Wil stared at her brother, but did not get the opportunity to question him about his presence.
‘Who’re these two?’ Ottaway asked, indicating the prostrate intruders.
‘I didn’t see them outside,’ Cushman growled.
‘They were in the crowd,’ Smith pointed out. ‘Do you know them?’
�
��That I do. And if I’d seen them, I’d have mentioned it.’
‘Who are they?’ Ottaway insisted.
Their names are Landers and Wymar, or something like that,’ Cushman supplied. ‘I’ve seen them in Cheyenne with that damned Free Land bunch.’
That explained the Grange leader’s hostility towards the young men. Most radical of all the groups to split away from the Patrons of Husbandry, the Free Land Society had the worst reputation as trouble-makers. Organized by intellectual young graduates of Eastern colleges, it advocated that all land must be free and open to everybody; a policy which did not appeal to wealthy members of the Grange any more than to the ranchers.
An incident like the Jones family’s flight to avoid justice, carefully distorted, offered an ideal medium for the Free Land agitators to work on. They knew how to play off antipathy towards the ranchers against greed and avarice and weld all the emotions into achieving their ends.
Naturally observant, Smith had studied the young men outside and concluded that, no matter how they dressed, they were not farmers. He had heard about the activities of Free Land agitators and suspected them for what they had proved to be. Always a man of direct action, he had not hesitated in his response when they broke in on the meeting. By doing so, he had averted a dangerous and explosive situation. If a single shot had been fired, either at or by the ranchers, Widow’s Creek would most likely have become the centre of a bloody range war.
‘Can you tote this pair to the jailhouse and heave them into the cells, Ottaway?’ Smith asked.
‘Easy enough,’ was the reply. ‘Come on, Stan. You wanted to be a deputy, so you might’s well learn all about it.’
‘Sure, Tal,’ Jeffreys answered, then he turned his eyes to Smith. ‘Did you have to treat them this way?’
‘I reckon so,’ the Texan drawled. ‘And, happen you’re fixing to wear a law badge, don’t you-all ever try soft-talking to fellers who smoke that pair’s kind of makings.’
‘How do you mean?’ Jeffreys inquired, but he was polite, not arrogant.
‘They don’t use tobacco,’ Smith explained. ‘Likely you’ve heard of the stuff they use. If you haven’t, it’s called marijuana.’
