One Notch to Death

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘There isn’t a durned thing I can do,’ he said with a commendable honesty. ‘I can read, write and ride a horse.’

  ‘That won’t get you far in this country,’ she said. ‘You could maybe go to Denver and hire out as a store-clerk.’

  He looked at her in horror. He wanted to be like the wild tough men who rode the range.

  He was also damned hungry. Even the sight of this beautiful girl couldn’t stop the rumbling of his empty stomach.

  ‘Miss Kate,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t happen to have a bite to eat on you?’

  She raised her fine eyebrows.

  ‘Eat?’

  ‘Yes. I ate last midday yesterday.’

  She was contrite at once.

  ‘Why, you poor man, you.’

  She was on her feet in a moment.

  ‘I didn’t eat breakfast before I came out,’ she said. ‘Come home with me and ma’ll feed you.’

  ‘I—I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Ma won’t bite. She loves nothing better than to feed a hungry man. Don’t stand there, get on your horse and let’s ride.’ She walked off through the trees and a moment later rode back astride a fine little strawberry mare. He thought she looked magnificent on a horse. He stepped into his own saddle and followed her as she headed south-west.

  ‘Your father won’t welcome me,’ he ventured.

  ‘He’s out on the range with all the men,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Maybe we’ll meet him as we ride.’

  He didn’t like the sound of that much and prayed that no such thing would happen.

  He need not have worried, it didn’t. They rode clear across the valley and came in sight of the house without seeing another rider. Riley was greatly relieved at that, but, just the same, he found himself all tensed up because he had to face Kate’s mother. He could not forget that the year before he and his father with the Broken Spur men had burned the Storm house to the ground. Sure, the Storms had burned the Brack house in retaliation, but somehow that didn’t help in the situation.

  Martha Storm came to the door of the house as they rode in. It wasn’t difficult to see where Kate had gotten her looks. The mother was still a handsome woman with a fine figure. There was a strength in the woman’s face which had not yet developed in the girl’s. With Mrs. Storm was Kate’s younger sister, Melissa. Riley tried to read the older woman’s face, to see if he was welcome, but he could not.

  Kate said from the saddle: ‘I found Riley out on the range, ma. I offered him breakfast.’

  The woman smiled a little and Riley was relieved.

  ‘Surely,’ she said, ‘and welcome. ‘Light, young man.’

  They stepped down from the saddle. Riley took the lines from Kate and led the horses to the corral that stood to the east of the house. When he had unsaddled them and turned them loose, he walked to the house. Melissa was waiting for him.

  She said: ‘You don’t aim to burn our house this year, do you?’

  The question took him aback.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not unless you burn ours first.’

  They exchanged smiles and it helped the atmosphere a little. They went into the house. The next hour or so helped to allay Riley’s fears. Mrs. Storm spoke with him as if there was no bad blood between the families. When Kate told her that Riley had broken with his father, she took the news without comment. She gave him a wonderful breakfast and he began to feel more at his ease. Just the same he thought he would be riding before the menfolk came home. Better safe than sorry. He had a healthy respect for the Storm men.

  However, when the time came for him to depart, Mrs. Storm wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘You have no place to go, boy,’ she said. ‘My husband will welcome you the same as we have. Never fear.’

  But he did fear and he wanted to go on. But he didn’t allow for Kate. She threw her arguments in to support her mother and he found himself prevailed upon to stay. A few more hours in Kate’s company was too good to miss, however great the risk. He stayed.

  Melissa took him to see the new foals on the pasture running down to the creek to the west of the house and proved to him that the Storms had a good taste in horseflesh. Then she took him across the creek and showed him the cave which she regarded as wholly her own. He found that he was enjoying himself in the company of the pretty and intense youngster. He only wished that Kate was with them, but she was helping her mother in the house.

  Around noon, they ate again and he had a chance to talk with Mrs. Storm and he was almost unaware that the woman was pumping him. He found himself talking freely about his relationship with his father, telling her frankly of his fears and ambitions. He knew that he sounded young and green, but he also found that he liked talking to her about himself. He realized that this was what he missed. He had nobody to talk to. It was strange that he had to come to his father’s enemies before he could find a warm companionship.

  However, when it came to the time for the Storm men to come home, he found that some of the warmth ran out of him. He knew that he was dreading the necessity of facing Will Storm. Fresh in the man’s mind must be the fact that his brother was being hounded for murder. The Storms weren’t fools. When Will set eyes on Riley, he would guess that Ed was back in the country.

  Riley was in the house when the sound of horses was heard in the yard. Martha and the girls went out to greet the riders. Riley followed slowly. There were three men stepping down from the saddle. Will Storm, the middle son George and a rider Riley didn’t know. Will turned and saw Riley behind his women. He stopped and stared.

  Martha said: ‘I invited Riley to eat with us.’

  The man didn’t say anything for a moment. The boy George was looking wary. The strange rider was looking at Kate.

  Then Will Storm said: ‘Howdy, Brack, an’ welcome.’ He handed his lines to the strange rider and George and they led the horses off to the corral.

  Will walked up to Riley and said: ‘Does this mean Ed’s back on Broken Spur?’

  ‘Yes,’ Riley told him and nothing more. He shifted uneasily under the man’s steady gaze. Riley stood a good two inches taller than Will Storm, but he felt the older man tower over him. There was a quiet force in the man that his unobtrusive manner couldn’t hide. Will walked on past him into the house and his wife followed. Riley was left with the two girls.

  Will washed up in the kitchen while his wife worked at the stove. When he dried himself, he said: ‘This clears up one little mystery.’

  Martha said: ‘You mean this explains why those men braced Martin?’

  ‘That’s what I mean. What’s the boy doin’ here?’

  ‘Kate found him out on the range and brought him home for breakfast.’

  ‘You mean he’s been here all day?’

  ‘Yes. He says he’s broken with his father.’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t believe it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could be true. The boy’s decent enough. I can see him not being able to stomach Ed and his bullying.’

  ‘You ain’t forgettin’ this boy played a part in burnin’ us out last year?’ Will said.

  ‘I’m not forgetting,’ his wife said. ‘But at that age a man can change.’

  ‘He’d have to change a whole lot from Brack before I could take a shine to him,’ Will retorted.

  ‘I quite like him,’ she said.

  ‘Is he soft on our Kate?’ he demanded softly.

  ‘All the boys’re soft on her,’ she said.

  ‘An’ she knows it.’

  ‘She’d be blind if she didn’t.’

  He laughed and went into the main room. He sat at the table and wondered how Mart was making out, alone in the hills. He hoped that Mart was through being one jump ahead of the law. A man couldn’t be a man living that kind of a life. But that was the way things went sometimes. He sighed with regret.

  Kate and Melissa came in followed by George, Pete Hasso and then by Riley Brack. Riley’s face was red. Inside him, Will laughed. If the boy was gone on
Kate, Will didn’t doubt he would clash with Pete Hasso and Pete was a tough number. An interesting situation. Pete and Riley were on plainly opposite sides. Where Riley was the spoiled son of a very rich and powerful man, Pete was an orphan who had made his own way from an early age. Where Riley had always had his fill of everything, Pete had frequently starved. Will knew most of Pete’s story—not an uncommon one.

  The boy had been born in Missouri and was most likely illegitimate. He had fought his way through a half-dozen foster homes till he was twelve and had run away to Texas. There he had somehow survived doing chores on farms until he was seventeen when he found himself a cowhand. He had fought longhorns in the hard brasada country and he had been up the trail to Kansas. He had had his share of violence and like so many of his kind had run afoul of the law on more than one occasion. So far as Will knew he had committed armed robbery twice. There was still an air of suppressed violence about the man and a certain surliness which several months in the warmth of the Storm family had been diluted only slightly.

  Will found in himself a certain strong sympathy for the boy and knew that many of his faults could be ironed out in time. All he wanted was a chance and maybe a good woman. There was nothing like a good woman to keep a man straight and sane. Dishonesty to Will was like a sickness of the mind and a straight woman was the medicine for it.

  Pete’s passion for Kate troubled Will a little. He knew that Kate would be good for the boy, but he didn’t much like the idea of sacrificing his daughter, whom he treated firmly, but secretly doted on, to cure a tough number of his faults. However, if Kate showed she favored the boy, that was another matter. If she returned the hand’s passion, there was nothing he or Martha could do about it. Except maybe fire Pete and that seemed a mean way out and really might not solve anything.

  If Kate did return Pete’s feeling, she certainly gave no sign. Stray riders had a habit of accidentally arriving at the house and by pure chance finding themselves in conversation with the girl. She acted like a magnet for men from miles around. Neither Will nor Martha went about with their eyes closed and both knew that before very long the girl would have to make her choice. Will for one would be relieved when she was settled down with a man. Soon she would be past the usual age for marriage and Will liked the idea of having grandchildren around the place. So far as he was concerned, the more Storms the merrier. God knew there was room enough for them all in this country. As yet Clay’s wife had shown no signs of dropping a foal.

  Kate found herself a seat at the table between her mother and father and Pete Hasso sat himself opposite at her and glowered. Riley found himself at the far end of the table between Melissa and George. While the eating was going on, there was silence, as was the custom. But when they were through eating and the plates were pushed back, the talk started. Pete and George had been riding line to the north up to the pass that led into the Broken Spur country.

  ‘Found twenty head of Broken Spur cows and pushed ’em back over the saddle,’ George said. He didn’t look at Riley who blushed.

  Pete Hasso said with a twisted grin: ‘They know where the best grass is at.’ He looked at Riley and the grin stayed on his face.

  Riley stared at the table.

  ‘I was at Clay’s place,’ Will said. Clay and his wife occupied a house on the eastern edge of the valley. The youngest Storm, Jody, worked with him and lived with the young couple. It was a nice spot called White Water on account of the way the creek came rushing out of the hills in the wet season. Clay was doing well for himself, riding line to the east and raising some cows of his own in with the Lazy S stock. Next year maybe he would be seeking more grass to the south. Will went on: ‘He has company. Running Deer and a few of his people came in yesterday and dropped a few hints the hunting wasn’t too good this year. So Clay’s feedin’ ’em.’ This was a small band of Southern Cheyenne the Storms had entertained the year before. It was Will’s contention that it was worth slaughtering an indifferent steer to placate the Indians and keep on good terms with them. Nothing could trouble a stock-grower more than Indians if they were of a mind.

  Pete Hasso’s grin disappeared. He couldn’t abide Indians. Will reckoned that was because they scared him. A lot of men were like that.

  ‘You should ought to run ’em off like the Broken Spur critters, Mr. Storm,’ he said. Every man spoke his mind in the Storm crew. Will encouraged it. That way he could measure their temper more easily. You didn’t attain a happy outfit when opinions were suppressed.

  ‘This was Indian country once,’ Will said mildly.

  ‘But it ain’t now an’ they have to be showed.’

  ‘Way I see it, they have to be showed we ain’t enemies,’ Will said gently. ‘They could be mighty embarrassin’ if they got it into their heads to be unfriendly.’

  ‘You gotta show at the start you’re boss. The only thing they understand is a man bein’ strong.’

  Kate said with some asperity: ‘You’re talking through your hat, as usual, Pete Hasso. Running Deer is a real honey. Why, last fall he gave us all the cutest moccasins.’

  ‘An’ what did he aim to get in return,’ Pete demanded fiercely. ‘No Indian does nothin’ without a reason.’

  Riley said: ‘I agree with Miss Kate. Indians don’t want trouble any more than us whites. They have to live.’

  Pete Hasso scowled and stared at him. There was a pregnant silence and then Pete said: ‘I opine the only good Indian is a dead Indian.’

  Riley snapped: ‘I could say that about a few whites I know.’

  Pete swallowed on that.

  ‘Name just one,’ he said.

  They glared at each other like fighting cocks.

  Martha said: ‘This is my table, boys.’

  Pete flushed up and murmured something apologetic. The boy might be tough and he still had burrs on him, but he knew his manners and recognized the right of his boss’s wife to rebuke him. The talk became general until George said: ‘I’m bushed. Here’s where little ole George hits the hay.’

  ‘Me, too, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am,’ Pete said.

  Martha excused them and the two young men walked out. The girls started to clear the dishes from the table.

  Riley rose and thanked Martha for her hospitality. He said it was time for him to get on his way.

  ‘Ride at night in these hills?’ Will said. ‘No, sir. Nobody gets turned away from my house after dark. You bunk down with the boys, son, an’ welcome.’

  Kate and the girls started clearing the table. Riley got up and looked for his hat. When he found it, he stood there and looked like he would rather stay where he was or ride out. But he thanked his host and hostess again and told the two girls goodnight. He walked out into the yard and stood in the darkness. The lamp was lit in the other half of the house. There was trouble in there for him and he knew it. He had made up his mind to make his own way in the world without his father’s help and he might as well start now. He hitched his pants and headed for the sleeping quarters.

  When he entered the western end of the house, he found that George and Pete were playing cards at the table. Plainly, their excuse of being tired was no more than an excuse. Both young men looked up at his entrance.

  To George, Riley said: ‘Your ma and pa invited me to stay the night.’

  ‘Sure,’ said George, ‘an’ welcome. There’s blankets down at the far end yonder. Help yourself.’

  Riley walked the length of the large room and found the blankets. He picked up two or three and turned to ask: ‘Which bunk?’

  ‘Our gear’s on ours,’ George said. ‘Any of the others.’

  Pete Hasso wasn’t playing cards any more. He was watching Riley.

  Riley chose a bunk against the north wall and dropped the blankets on it.

  ‘Not that one,’ Pete Hasso said.

  Riley turned.

  ‘Your gear isn’t here,’ he said.

  ‘Just the same, I’m goin’ to use it,’ Pete said.

  Riley picked
up the blankets and moved on to the next.

  ‘Not that one either,’ Pete said.

  ‘You using two bunks?’ Riley said.

  ‘I get restless and change during the night,’ Pete told him.

  ‘Lay off, Pete,’ George said.

  Pete turned on George.

  ‘You playin’ at boss’s son?’ he demanded.

  George smiled easily and said: ‘Sure, you know me. I’m always playin’ the boss’s son.’

  Riley put the blankets down on the bed. Pete said: ‘You heard me, rich boy.’

  Riley said: ‘What’s eating you? You have a pain or something? I’ll sleep here.’

  Pete got to his feet so suddenly that his chair fell over backward.

  George said: ‘Lay off, Pete. Riley’s a guest.’

  ‘Your guest, boy. Not mine.’

  ‘Cool off,’ George said.

  Riley felt his hackles rise. He wasn’t his father’s son for nothing. He didn’t like this man who looked at Kate Storm with his lust showing in his eyes.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘He wants trouble and so far as I’m concerned he can have it.’

  ‘College boy,’ Pete said, ‘you make me feel good. You know that? I’m goin’ to have your hide an’ I’m goin’ to nail it on the wall.’

  ‘You couldn’t take the hide off a chipmunk,’ Riley said.

  Pete advanced. George jumped to his feet and said: ‘No fightin’, boys.’

  Pete turned on him fiercely and demanded: ‘Who the hell says so? You? You ain’t no more’n me around here. If’n I wanta to fight, I fight. I’m goin’ to tan this smooth-talkin’ sonovabitch an’ there ain’t a man livin’ that can stop me.’