by Short, Luke;
None answered, and Jim stood up. “All right. The place lies over this high ridge to the east. Scatter and find your holes.”
He led the way with Ben and Miles, a feeling of uneasiness within him. There was a granite-hard and secret hatred of him among these men that stirred him to anger. They were a dare, just as an ugly bronc was a dare. While a man couldn’t make an ugly bronc like him, he could make it respect him. There had never been a showdown between the Excelsior crew and himself, but there would be, he thought grimly.
His calculation had been right. They came out on the hogback directly at the house, and looking down and to the east he could see the close lights of the shack. The bunkhouse was dark, arguing that the crew was settled for the evening in Cruver’s company.
Stealthily, Jim led the way down off the rim. It was steep, but the boulders were large and not easily dislodged. When he was level with the end of the rincon, he indicated to Miles that he and Ben were to stay here. They were far above the roof of the house, perhaps seventy yards from it. Jim left his carbine and descended alone. He did not remember a dog about the place, so once on the level, he moved swiftly. Talk and laughter from the house drifted out into the chill air.
He passed the cookshack, walking carelessly and whistling, but the cook was in bed. He cut behind it to the small hay barn which, next to the cookshack, was the closest building to the house. It was a shed, rather, a roof on stilts sheltering a couple of tons of loose hay.
Swiftly, he pulled out handfuls of hay, trailing it on the ground to serve as a fuse. Then he lighted it, watched it flare up, and walked silently back to the talus of the mesa. By the time he had started to climb, the hay was afire. Its growing flame lighted the whole scene like a torch. Once in position beside Ben and Miles, he struck a match and, getting an answering flare from the opposite side of the rincon, he called loudly, “Cruver!”
For a second nothing happened, and then a man cautiously poked his head out the door. Catching sight of the fire, he turned and bawled back into the house.
Jim raised his gun and laid a shot across the doorstep. The lamp inside the house was extinguished immediately.
“Cruver!” he called. “Answer me!”
Silence, and then Cruver’s full voice boomed out, “That’s you, ain’t it, Wade?”
Jim answered, “Clear out of this place, or we’ll burn it on top of you!”
“What if we do?”
“Then walk to your horse corral and wait there till I tell you to go.”
There was a long silence. Finally, surprisingly, Cruver yelled, “All right.”
“Come ahead, then.”
The first man tentatively stepped across the sill. Drawing no fire, he decided it was safe and started nonchalantly toward the corral. Suddenly, from the other side of the rincon, a shot whipped out, and the Star 88 hand stumbled, fell on his knees, and then rolled on his back.
Black fury mounted in Jim. He raised his rifle, sighted it at the spot where the gun flame showed, and fired. There was a wild yell in the night, and then Ball’s voice bawled, “Cut it out!”
Jim yelled, “Hold your fire, damn you!”
Then he looked down at the shack again. The hit man had crawled back into the house.
“Cruver!”
“Go to hell, you bushwhacker!” Cruver yelled.
“Stay where you are if you don’t want to get shot!” Jim called.
There was only one course left now. Cruver would not come out unless he was smoked out, since Jim had betrayed his word. And not one man in that shack would get out alive if those three across the rincon could help it. Still, angry reflection told Jim that the place would have to be burned unless Excelsior was to be laughed out of the country. And since Cruver had not put up a fight, Jim guessed that he had no guns in the house, but had left them in the bunkhouse. And that meant that Ball had not warned them.
Cursing bitterly, Jim slid down the mesa’s talus again. His actions, plain as daylight, drew no fire from the house. First he let the horses out of the corral, then set about firing the place. With hay brought from the big barn, he set off the wagon shed, the big barn, the hay barn, the bunkhouse, and the cookshack.
A broken bale of hay he had saved out, and this he dragged back to the foot of the mesa. Calling Miles to help him, working like fury, he dragged the half bale up to where Ben Beauchamp, wide-eyed, was watching.
“Build a fire,” he ordered then. “Light that hay and then roll it down against the blind end of that shack. Make it fast. If they try to come out, let ’em go. Only, if you hit one of ’em, I’ll kill you!”
He vanished into the night then on a dead run, bound for the other side of the rincon. Halfway across it, he saw the hay start its fiery descent down the slope. Gathering speed, scattering a tail of sparks like a meteor, it bounded up in the air, leaping and bumping over rocks, hit the flat, and, carried by its momentum, rolled against the end of the shack. It settled there, almost burned out, and then the flames started to lick at the bark of the bottom row of logs.
The whole night was lighted now, so he had no trouble picking out Scoville, Ball, and MaCumber nestled behind a high rock halfway down the slope.
“Clear out!” Jim ordered from the rim.
Obediently they toiled back up the slope. By the time they reached the rim, Ben and Miles had come.
Jim waited until the three of them were erect, and then he asked calmly, “Who shot that man?”
There was no answer. MaCumber eyed him sullenly, even smiling a little. With a flick of his wrist, Jim palmed up his six-gun and said, “Ben, hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Ben said, his voice little and respectful now.
“Back off there fifteen yards, put a gun on this crew, and shoot the first man that tries to interfere.”
He waited until Ben had done so. “Miles,” Jim said. “Get over with the others.”
Miles stepped over to join the other three. “Shuck your guns, boys,” Jim drawled.
There was no mercy in his voice. Their guns dropped to the ground, and then he ordered them to step back.
“Now,” he announced, “Which one of you coyotes shot that man?”
There was still no answer.
Jim threw his gun aside. “Step out here, Ball. You’re biggest; I’ll start with you.”
“I never done it,” Ball protested.
“Who did?”
No answer. Jim stepped over and slugged Ball in the face, knocking him back into Miles’s arms. Ball straightened up, holding his mouth, but he did not want to fight. “MaCumber,” he mumbled.
Jim’s gaze shuttled to MaCumber, heavy and evil-looking in the glare of the burning buildings. “Well, well,” he drawled. “That right, Scoville?”
“Yeah.”
“Step out here,” Jim murmured to MaCumber.
For answer, MaCumber stooped and picked up a rock.
“Shall I let him have it?” Ben called.
“No,” Jim answered. He advanced toward MaCumber. “There’s some of you stuffed Stetsons around here that don’t know your master,” he drawled. “Watch and find out.”
MaCumber said, “I’ll beat your damn brains out if you come another step, Wade!”
Jim slugged out suddenly with his left, but it was a feint. MaCumber, deceived by it, brought the rock down, aiming for Jim’s shoulder. Jim wheeled away and tripped him, and when the man fell, he was on him.
They never got off the ground again. MaCumber tried to hug Jim for protection, but, astraddle him, Jim slugged him in the body till he let go. Then Jim raised his aim and drove hard, sickening blows into MaCumber’s face. He felt the man’s nose flatten under his knuckles, and then he drove a fist into his mouth. Finally, MaCumber quit. He whined, bubbling blood from his cut lips, his eyes wild and terrified. When Jim stepped off him, MaCumber sighed gently and started to sob, turning weakly on his face.
Jim looked up, his eyes still blazing. “Ball,” he drawled between panting breaths, “I’m goin’ to w
hittle you down, too.”
But Ball wasn’t fighting. Jim’s first blow knocked him sprawling so that he teetered over the edge of the rock rim.
“Get up,” Jim said.
“Not me,” Ball said, making no move to rise. “I’m backin’ water, Wade, and I don’t care who knows it.”
Jim wheeled to confront Miles and Scoville. “I’ll take you two jokers on together,” he offered, his voiced choked with fury.
Scoville raised a hand. “Not me, Wade. I know who cracks the whip around here.”
“Get your guns,” Jim taunted. “You’re the kind of rats that don’t feel like men without ’em. Get ’em, and we’ll have a shoot-out now.”
“You can lick me there, too,” Scoville said mildly. “I wouldn’t fight you for all the gold in Mexico, Wade. Now, cool down.”
Jim stood there, panting deeply, and the color came back into his face. Ball scrambled to his feet, evading Jim’s hot glance.
“Well, that’s settled,” Jim said quietly. “For money, marbles, or chalk, drunk or sober, day or night, with bricks, guns, fists, or bullwhips, I can lick the whole damn lot of you till you cry.”
He glared around at them to see if they agreed, and apparently they did.
“All right, pick MaCumber up,” Jim ordered and added, “you sorry damn bunch of tinhorn badmen.”
MaCumber came to at the horses. He held on drunkenly while they rode off down the arroyo, and not a word was spoken the rest of that night.
Jim Wade had impressed his ability on five of these fifteen, and he had done more than that with Ben Beauchamp. For even a kid, behind any sneer he could wear, knew a man when he saw one. Ben Beauchamp was Jim Wade’s man for life, and he wanted, strangely enough, to tell Jim that in all humbleness.
Chapter Five: “TILL HELL WON’T HAVE ME.”
At midnight, when they rode into the Excelsior, saddle-weary and hungry, it was dark. Before they entered the gate, they were challenged by a sentry Max Bonsell had stationed, for this was likely to be war now.
Jim tumbled into his blankets amid the tired snores of the crew. Before breakfast, he hunted out Bonsell and told him what had happened, and Bonsell listened, his face impassive, as Jim related the fight and the reason for it.
“You’re right,” Bonsell said, when Jim finished. “Whip ’em into line.” He flipped his cigarette away. “I reckon you better ride into San Jon today and see what the town says.”
“Think that’s wise?” Jim asked.
“You mean Haynes?” When Jim nodded, Max shrugged. “Suit yourself. Only my idea was to take the fight to him. If he thinks we’re holin’ up here afraid of him, he’s liable to get wrong notions. Nobody’s afraid of him, so what’s the use of makin’ him think we are? Of course”—he shrugged again—“you’re runnin’ this party. If you say no, then I’ll forget it.”
Jim frowned in thought. Obviously, the man MaCumber had shot was not badly hurt or he could not have crawled back to the shack. Since the burning was justified under the circumstances, there was a fighter’s wisdom in what Bonsell had said.
“I’ll do that,” he murmured.
When the triangle clanged for breakfast and the crew assembled, they regarded Jim with a certain respect that had not been present before. Evidently the other ten men had been told by one of Jim’s four that the ramrod was tough enough to make his orders stick.
After breakfast, Jim went down to the corral and saddled up. Ben Beauchamp followed him and, learning that he was riding to San Jon, asked if he could side him.
“Thinkin’ of quittin’?” Jim asked.
Ben flushed and said immediately, “I’d stay here without wages, Jim.”
“Then why do you want to go in?”
Ben mumbled something and then raised his glance to Jim’s eyes and held it there and said, “I’d like to see Lily and tell her she’ll see somethin’ different from me now.”
Jim nodded gravely and said, “Sure,” feeling a pity for this kid who had found the only self-respect he had ever known among a bunch of riffraff hardcases. He felt ashamed of himself for permitting it, too.
The road to San Jon was an open one, but Jim rode cautiously, watching the country ahead of him. Will-John Cruver was not a man to wait for a break; he was the kind who would force one. It was rolling country, thick with piñons and cedar, but from the ridges a man could see the valley ahead of him.
It was on one of these ridges that Jim got a glimpse of some horsemen. He could not tell the number, but he picked out Sheriff Link Haynes’s claybank. He smiled to himself and then said to Ben, “You let me handle this, Ben. You keep out of it.”
They met at the bottom of the valley, where the trees were thick. Another man, probably a deputy, was with Sheriff Haynes. Haynes pulled up at sight of Jim and waited for him to approach. Jim stopped ten yards from him and regarded him with sardonic amusement. Haynes’s face was a yellow color, as if his food was still troubling him.
“You ought to change cooks, Haynes,” Jim drawled. “You look like you’d fried up a wagon bed and ate it without salt.”
Haynes didn’t answer immediately, and then he murmured, “Lord, and you can joke on this day.”
“Why not?” Jim answered, grinning. “It was a fine one—until I saw you.”
Haynes pursed his lips and whistled. Immediately, there was a rustling in the brush. Jim wheeled his horse—too late. Five men, rifles to their shoulders, stepped out from behind him. When Jim looked around, Haynes and the deputy had a gun on him.
Jim said meagerly to Haynes, “I should never have trusted you this far, Sheriff.”
One of the men behind Jim said, “Shall I let him have it, Link?”
“Bushwhackin’?” Jim inquired.
Haynes rode up to him and looked long in his face. There was an expression of disgust, almost horror, on Haynes’s face that troubled Jim. The man wasn’t angry, he was sick with loathing.
Jim looked about him at the others. They wore identical expressions.
“You gents must feel pretty strongly about your squatter friends,” Jim observed.
The deputy raised his rifle, cursing. Haynes reached out and batted the gun aside just as it went off. But the deputy was furious.
“You low-down, scabby, murderin’, bushwhackin’ polecat,” he said bitterly. “A man ought to lose his eyes, just for lookin’ at you!”
Jim picked up one word from what the deputy had said, and his heart sank. “Did you say murderer?” he asked quietly.
They all looked at him and didn’t speak.
“I saw that man shot,” Jim said quietly. “I didn’t think he was hurt bad.”
Haynes opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again.
“Where did he die?” Jim asked.
“He?” Haynes asked. “There were thirteen ‘he’s’ that died. Which one do you mean?”
Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Thirteen? You mean there were thirteen men killed?”
Haynes said savagely, “You didn’t know that, of course.”
“Where?”
“Where your outfit killed ’em, damn you! Three at the Rocking L! Four at the Sliding H! Old man Benjamin at the Sundown! Two at the Chain Link! Three at the Bib K!”
“That’s a lie!” Ben said hotly.
Jim raised a hand and said, “Quiet, Ben.” To Haynes he said, “If those men were killed, they weren’t killed by Excelsior!”
“Why, you lyin’ tinhorn!” the deputy yelled. “They were seen! Old Lady Benjamin talked with Pardee. She heard him call to you. Lipscomb’s kid at Bib K named five of your crew! He saw you on a chestnut.”
Jim just stared at him, and then something went to pieces inside him. His face drained of color until it was gray, and slowly his glance fell to his hands on the horn. Those ten men he had left there at the house had waited for him to go, and then they had ridden out on their massacre. Not a single lease squatter had been warned of what to expect. Ball, Miles, and Pardee had never ridden out to warn them.
The crew had waited until Jim was riding, until he would be seen by Cruver on his raid, and that same night they had struck. Without mercy, these killers had struck, and now no court in the land would believe that Jim Wade didn’t head them.
He felt Haynes take his guns, and heard him say, “We better pull off the road, boys, if we want to dodge that lynch mob.”
All day they kept to the brush, working toward San Jon. They were in sight of it by late afternoon, but they wanted the cover of darkness to smuggle Jim into the county jail. From what these grim-faced men dropped, it was evident that the whole countryside was in arms for Jim Wade, the foreman of this killer crew.
When darkness came and they were ready to ride, Jim said, “Haynes. I got a favor to ask of you.”
“The only favor I’d do for you is shoot you,” Haynes answered quietly. “And that would be a greater damn favor than you deserve.”
“Turn this kid loose,” Jim said quietly. “He’s never taken a dollar of Excelsior pay. No man of all these squatters can claim they saw Ben Beauchamp.”
Haynes hesitated, and Jim said urgently, “I’ll take this on my own head. But don’t drag an innocent kid into it.”
Haynes said abruptly, “Beat it, Ben.”
Ben Beauchamp sensed the temper of these men, and while he gladly would have gone against them, he understood there was some reason for Jim Wade wanting him free. Without a word, he mounted his blue and rode off.
The entry in town was quiet, by alleys, and on foot between houses until they entered the back door of the sheriff’s office which was located on the corner of the plaza across from the hotel and catty-corner from Cope’s Freighter’s Pleasure saloon.
There was not a light in the sheriff’s office, but as soon as Jim Wade entered it, he knew there were men in here. It was thick with tobacco smoke, and he could make out the dim figures of men lounging against the wall.
When everyone was inside, Haynes said, “Bard, you here?”
“Yeah.”
“Then get the preliminary hearing over pronto.”
Jim couldn’t see anyone, but he heard the solid tap of Cope’s crutch as the heavy man moved in restlessness. The hearing was swift, with only legal questions asked.
