by Dean Owen
“You wasted breath firing me, Bolden,” Jellick said. “I already quit. I’m working for T. Ward’s outfit. See you, neighbor!”
Laughing, he rode off into the darkness.
For a long moment Rim stood there, his muscles rigid. Gradually his breathing returned to normal. Ed Rule had put up the shotgun.
“Believe, me, Rim,” the cook said across the yard. “He’d have kicked your head loose. I seen him kill a man in a brawl at Denver.”
“Ed, you’re an old man. There aren’t many jobs for a man your age. Don’t step on my command again. I run this outfit, you don’t.”
Rim walked over to where the twenty-odd Anchor men were a silent group in front of the bunkhouse.
“Who was in town today?” Rim asked. And when none of them answered, Rim said, “I want the name of the man who was in town.”
At last Tut Tyler said, “It was me, Rim.”
“You brought out the news that I’d tangled with Eric Ward today.”
“Well, Ward asked me to tell Jellick about it and—”
Rim looked around, and said, “How many of you boys are taking money from Ward?”
Nobody said anything, but Tyler. “I ain’t drawin’ pay, it’s just that Ward asked me a favor.”
“You’re through here, Tyler.”
Rim walked over to the cook shack. Ed Rule sat at the big plank table where the men took their meals. He was drinking coffee, pouring in molasses for a sweetener.
“Didn’t mean to bark at you, Ed,” Rim said. “But we’re in for trouble. Ward is starting to get itchy. This business of Stallart’s niece isn’t going to help any.”
“Yeah. I just couldn’t stand still and listen to Jellick talk about Marcy Stallart. I wanted to use that shotgun on him.”
“I’ll handle him in my own time, Ed.” Rim frowned. “I have a feeling about Jellick. Have had ever since Bert hired him on.”
Rim broke off, for Bert Stallart entered the cookhouse. His eyes were already getting as red as his face. Rim could smell whisky on his breath. “I heard an argument a minute ago,” Stallart said. “What’s the trouble?”
“I just fired Meade Jellick.”
“You what!”
Rim Bolden waited for the burst of wrath he expected from Stallart, because he could see the hard amber gaze. But then Stallart put a shaking hand across his mouth as if to press flat the mustache. “You should’ve talked it over with me first,” he said shakily. “Jellick is a sort of special hand. He—he—well, we need a good hoss breaker.”
“There are others.”
“But you don’t understand.”
“Jellick insulted a woman,” Rim said, and hoped he didn’t have to go into details.
At that moment Marcy Stallart called her husband from the upstairs window. Stallart was wanted, right away.
Stallart made as if to ignore her, then shrugged and plodded across the yard.
When Rim was alone again with the cook, he said, “What’s so special about Meade Jellick?”
“I heard Jellick say once that he knowed Bert back in Kansas.”
Rim frowned, wondering why Stallart had never said anything about it to him. It was a month since Jellick had been hired on. That day Rim was in LaVentana and when he returned Stallart said he had hired somebody to build up a remuda for roundup. He said that Meade Jellick was a drifter. Jellick could ride, Rim had to admit. But Rim was against hiring a man of Jellick’s size. A good horse could be ruined making his first sunfish with two hundred and forty pounds on his back.
“Bert mention anything else about Jellick?” Rim asked.
Ed Rule seemed to be making quite a project of hanging a few battered pans on wall hooks above his stove. “Well, not exactly,” Rule said slowly.
“How do you mean that, Ed?”
“I was here in the cookshack one day and Jellick and Stallart was right outside the window yonder when Marcy came outa the house to water her garden. And I heard Jellick say kind of soft-like, ‘Mrs. Stallart sure looks good. I’d like to see her after she’s been in a rainstorm with her clothes all hangin’ tight against her!’”
Rim was aware of a small pulse at his temple. “You’re sure Jellick said that?”
“As near as I can remember, that’s what he said. There wasn’t no wondering about what he meant.”
“And what did Stallart do?”
Ed Rule looked grim. “He never said one damn word.”
“I never knew Bert Stallart to back down from an insult. I sure as hell can’t figure him letting a man say a thing like that about his wife.”
“Any other man but Jellick,” Ed Rule said quietly, “would have been dead. Rim, you better buy yourself an extra eye to stick between your shoulder blades. That Jellick is the kind to do his shooting from the brush. After tonight he ain’t going to feel kindly toward you.”
Rim went down to his quarters. It was a twelve by twelve room, big enough for a bunk, desk, a couple of chairs and a big iron safe. He sank into a chair and put his bootheels on a spur-scarred desk. There was a knock at the door and Rim told whoever it was to come in.
It was Willie Temple, Marcy’s brother. He was slim and dark and had his sister’s good looks. “You look pretty sad, Rim. I hear you and Jellick sawed your tempers up short.”
“Where were you when it happened?” Rim asked sharply, wondering if Willie had heard the reason for the trouble—Marcy.
Willie Temple said he had been down to the horse camp by the river where he’d been helping repair a corral. Willie Temple was a segundo of sorts. He was a willing worker if you leaned on him a little. But he’d rather play poker or tip a bottle than work. Rim liked him well enough, but considered him a liability. Because Willie was Marcy’s brother and Stallart’s brother-in-law, he got special consideration. He made fifty dollars a month, which was twice what some of the hands were getting. Rim felt he had never earned it. But he and Willie hit it off when there wasn’t work to be done.
Rim had put the two orange slices in his shirt pocket when Jellick started his loud talk. He removed them from his pocket. “Saved a slice for you, Willie.”
“A real orange,” Willie Temple said, impressed.
They sat quietly in the small room and made a ceremony out of eating the two slices.
“Sour,” Rim said.
“You’re wrong. It’s the sweetest thing I ever tasted,” Willie said.
The eating of the orange consumed much time. First Rim nibbled at an end. He would let a little of the juice trickle into his mouth. Then he would carefully chew the pulp, extracting every last bit of flavor.
“I remember one Christmas,” Willie said, “when they had orange slices tied to a tree at the Yardly Store in Natchez. I was just a kid. I always wanted to taste an orange. Now I have.”
“Me too,” Rim said, and gave Willie a tight grin. There was nearly ten years difference in their ages.
“Too bad you weren’t around then, Rim,” Willie said darkly. “About the time I saw the orange in Yardly’s Store. Marcy was a pretty little thing then.”
“She still is.”
Willie nodded. “But she won’t be long. I wish you had been the one to marry her.”
“There’s already too much talk about Marcy,” Rim snapped. “And about me.”
“Well, it’s no secret she likes you.”
“Sure. And I like her. As Bert Stallart’s wife.”
Willie Temple got up, smiling. “I wish I had you for a brother-in-law instead of—Well, forget it. Thanks for the orange.”
As Willie started for the door Rim blocked it. Willie was shorter, fifty pounds lighter. “We’ve got a good thing here, Willie. Let’s not any of us ruin it.”
“Oh, hell, Rim—”
“You’re segundo. A pretty responsible job.” And Rim thought, If you only worked at i
t. “It’s better than forking hay at the livery in town.”
Rim tried to say it lightly and with a small laugh. To show Willie that he was only joking, but to impress upon Willie that for a young man he had come far by being Stallart’s brother-in-law. A long way from the impoverished plantation where he had been born.
But Willie’s good-looking face darkened. “I didn’t need Bert Stallart tying up with my sister to pull me out of that job.”
The door suddenly banged open and Bert Stallart walked in. He was bareheaded. The wind must have come up because his long stringy hair was loose about his face. His eyes were getting that mean-hoss look, and the odor of whisky was so strong that a man might wonder if he rinsed his shirt in the stuff.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Stallart demanded, staring at his brother-in-law’s angry face.
But Willie didn’t even bother to reply. He stomped out, slamming the door behind him.
“He turns my stomach like a drink of warm tequila,” Stallart said. “What ails him.”
“He’s young, full of fire.” Rim tried to smile. He was a little irritated that Stallart always walked in without knocking.
Stallart seemed to forget about Willie Temple. He whipped around a chair and straddled it. “It’s a boy, Rim. By God, it’s a boy!”
For a moment Rim didn’t comprehend; so much had happened this day. “You mean that Ellamae—” Rim was relieved that Stallart was so joyous. “She gave birth to a boy?”
“He ain’t much bigger’n the crown of my hat. You know what?” Stallart dug a half-filled whisky bottle from his pocket. He passed it to Rim, who took a small drink, then handed it back.
Stallart almost killed the bottle. “I got me an idea, Rim. See what you think of it. Maybe you didn’t know it but Marcy can’t have no kids. Some accident when she was a kid. Wagon rolled over on her—Anyhow, it was some disappointment when I heard it. A man counts on raising a family.”
“Sure, Bert. What’s this about Ellamae’s boy?”
“It ain’t her boy, Rim,” he said, the lips under the down-sweeping mustache suddenly taut. “I’ll raise the boy as my own. What do you think of it, Rim?”
“I think it’s just about the whitest thing a man could do. But—”
“But what? Goddam it, speak up.”
“Does Ellamae want to give him up?”
“What the hell’s she got to do with it? Stallart ran a tongue looking like a piece of dyed red leather over his mustache. He finished the bottle, threw it on Rim’s cot. “I always sort of figured you for my son, Rim. Even if I’m only fifteen or so years older. But now—”
“You’ll have a real son.” Rim wondered how Ellamae would take this. “It’ll be a great thing for Marcy. Having the boy around to raise.”
But Stallart seemed only interested in the boy. As he formulated his plans his speech began to thicken as the whisky took hold. He would send the boy East to school. And when he was grown he would run Anchor. “Of course you’ll still be a partner and ramrod as long as you live, Rim.”
Rim felt uncomfortable. It was almost as if Stallart was saying in so many words that he didn’t expect Rim Bolden to live long enough to interfere with any plans this new son might have upon reaching his majority.
Stallart made his stumbling way to the door. He turned to look back at Rim. Suddenly the exuberance at the birth of this boy faded from his eyes. They were hard.
“Just happened to think of something, Rim. When I ain’t to home, maybe it’d be better if you didn’t go up to the house no more.”
Rim got slowly to his feet. “I’ve never been in that house when you’re not home.”
“Well, I heard different, but it don’t make no mind. I just figured it looks better. You know how some folks talk.”
Rim came up to him. “It does too make some mind, Bert.”
“It’s why I was hoping you’d hitch up with Ellamae. With a wife of your own there wouldn’t be no talk. You see how it is. But I know you wouldn’t marry a wanton like Ellamae—”
“But you do think I should have a wife.”
“A man can wear his socks to bed or he can put his cold feet on a woman’s leg. I’d rather it was the leg, if it was me.”
“Bert, I’d like to go over some things we’ve got to face.”
“Ain’t nothing that won’t wait till morning.”
“Somebody’s trying awfully damned hard to drive an ax between us, Bert. I’ve got a feeling that Eric Ward is behind it.”
Stallart’s eyes were guarded. “How you figure?”
“Jellick said he was going to work for Ward and—”
Stallart flinched. “Jellick wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t—” Stallart looked sick.
“You and Meade Jellick are old friends?”
“Never seen him before in my life till I hired him on,” Stallart said with more vehemence than the remark warranted.
“Oh. I’d heard you knew each other back in Kansas.”
“Now who the hell would spread a lie like that?” Stallart stood rigid; the alcohol that had shrouded his eyes seemed gone. His gaze was bright, intent. When Rim didn’t say anything Stallart opened the door, letting in the sharp mountain cold. “You come up for breakfast like usual, Rim.”
“I think I’d better eat with the men after this.”
“I never meant anything, Rim. Jeez, let Marcy cook for you like she always does—” Stallart ran a shaking hand over his face. “Don’t get your back bowed up like a mule with a pole at his rump. I just meant that when I ain’t to home you and Marcy—” He gave a feeble grin. “I’m going back to the house and see how my boy is getting along.”
Rim listened to his fading footsteps in the yard. One thing was clear to him now. His stay at Anchor would be much shorter than he intended.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eric Ward was in the yard of T Ranch, gripping a rifle when Jellick appeared as a giant shadow out of the deeper darkness of the night. There was likely no man in this corner of New Mexico or in the whole territory, for that matter, who would throw as large a shadow as Jellick.
Ward stepped away from the stand of aspens where he had waited since he first heard the labored plod of a horse making the climb to the shelf of land where Ward had his headquarters. “You have some news?” Ward asked.
“You think I rode all the way over here just so you could ask me that?”
“Don’t get smart. I suppose the niece has gladdened Stallart’s heart by now,” Ward said with a laugh.
“Tut Tyler said you saw her in town. She’s big as a barrel of Weigand’s Beer. Must be triplets.”
“How did Stallart take it?”
“Not too good, from the yelling that went on in the house. I didn’t get a chance to stay around. Me and your friend Rim Bolden—”
“I hope you jumped on his head.”
“I wanted to, but he fired me.”
“You told him where you stand? With me?”
“I told him,” Jellick said. “That cook Rule put a gun at my back. I didn’t figure to buck that. Anyhow, what’s the hurry? So Bolden lives the week out. What’s the difference?”
Ward scowled and put a hand to a bruise on his left shoulder suffered in the skirmish with Rim Bolden in town. “Just so he’s dead is all that matters to me, I thought I had the job finished today in LaVentana, but he was lucky—”
Jellick stomped in his boots to settle his feet. “Tyler says Bolden knocked hell out of you in town,” Jellick drawled, and Ward sensed the man was smiling. But Jellick stood in such deep shadow that he couldn’t be sure. It was really just an impression rather than anything he could see. Jellick went on, “But then I don’t believe half of what Tyler says. And then only if he’s got one hand on the Bible.”
“Bolden and I did have some trouble,” Ward admitted gruffly. But he di
dn’t go into details.
“Tyler got fired,” Jellick said. “He caught up with me. Said Bolden got tough after I left and wanted to know who else was on your payroll at Anchor.”
Ward peered down the steep trail where trees grew thickly and made the night even blacker. “Didn’t Tyler come with you?”
“He went to town. Said he’d be out tomorrow. I got the feeling he’s goin’ to miss the boys at Anchor.”
“The trouble with Tyler,” Ward said, “is that he’s got nothing on his mind but that Daisy.”
“My hoss is better lookin’ front and back than her.”
Ward went inside his house. Jellick unsaddled and joined him. The house was small. It once had belonged to a cowman named Grimes who tried to run beef here when the Apaches still considered this their private hunting preserve. His cows didn’t last long and neither did he. The Apaches had fired the house, but only a part of the roof burned off. Probably the rest of the house was saved by one of the thundershowers so frequent here at certain times of the year. At least that was the way Ward figured it. After he paid Grimes’ widow, who was living in Mesilla, four bits an acre for the land, he put on a new roof and had the place cleaned up, and the existing corral repaired and a new one built west of the house.
“Stallart’s niece showing up like this,” Jellick said, helping himself to a bottle Ward had put on the table, “sort of changes our plans.”
“Well, she won’t be Rim Bolden’s widow,” Ward said. “It’s for certain he won’t marry her under existing circumstances. Not unless he’s a damn fool. And this I doubt very much.”
“He’s damn fool enough to mess with Stallart’s wife.”
“That’s the part I don’t like!”
“It was your idea,” Jellick said, tossing off a drink of Ward’s whisky. “You left a note or two where Stallart could find ’em and—”
“I know that,” Ward said impatiently. “I hadn’t met Mrs. Stallart then. I didn’t realize the kind of woman she is.”
“Well, they’re messin’ together. Her and Bolden.”
Ward, pouring himself a drink, eyed the big man who overflowed a chair on the other side of the table. The chair had wired-up rungs. “Is this something you know for a fact?” Ward said sharply.
