Gaylord's Badge

by John Benteen

  “Now, wait a minute,” Gaylord said.

  “Look, Frank, let’s not argue about it, all right?” Gruber raised a hand. “Chain pays its debts—to you, to Wallace, to anyone it feels it owes. Besides, I don’t have time to go into a lot of discussion. The stage from Cheyenne is due in ten minutes from now, and that’s why I’m in town. My sister’s on it. Florence. Her first trip West. Anyhow, there’s the bill of sale. Keep the cattle or give ’em to Wallace, it’s entirely up to you.” He stood up. “Now, come along with us. I want you to meet Florence. She’s really a charming person, even if she is”—he laughed hoarsely—“sister to an old boar hog like me.”

  Gaylord sat there for a moment, looking at the bill of sale. Then he put it into his pocket. Yes, by God, Clint deserved it, that much start. And while he wouldn’t take it from Chain, he wouldn’t turn down such a gift from Frank Gaylord.

  Gaylord tucked the paper into his vest. Then he rose. “All right, I’ll go along with you.”

  “Good. I want Florence to meet the best element here right away.”

  He had had too much to drink, Gaylord knew as he followed Gruber and his two bodyguards toward the door. He was not quite steady on his feet, and his eyes felt as if someone had rubbed tobacco in them, hard. His nerves were tautly strung, and he was dead for sleep. All sorts of emotional currents swirled in him. And that was why, when someone at the bar yelled his name hoarsely and he spun, his hand was already on the butt of his pistol.

  “Who—?” he said, his eyes searching the men ranged along the counter. Then one detached himself, hands high. He was as tall as Gaylord himself, with great, sloping shoulders, narrow waist, and rider’s hairpin legs; his garb was shabby range clothes, his Stetson battered and grease-stained, his shirt dirty, tattered, his jeans faded, out at the knee, his boot heels run over into little knobby balls.

  “Gaylord,” this man said. “Proud of yourself?”

  “Friend,” Gaylord said, “I don’t know—”

  “Sho you don’t,” the man said. His face was a sunburned wedge, his eyes cool hazel, his chin strong; he was about thirty-five, Gaylord judged. “So I’ll introduce myself. My name’s Lew Morrell, from Texas. And you can let go that gun, big man. I ain’t heeled.”

  Gaylord’s eyes flashed to his waist and saw the truth of that. Morrell wore no gun. He let his own hand slip from the Colt butt. “All right. You got business with me?”

  “Just to say congratulations,” Morrell answered. “Hear you took care of a pair of real bad hombres last night. Worst goddamn pair since the Sam Bass gang.”

  “Morrell … you ain’t makin’ sense.”

  Morrell straightened up. “Well, it don’t make no sense to kill honest cowboys like they were outlaws.” His voice was hard, and his eyes harder. “Only a goddamn carrion-eatin’ coyote would be proud of that.”

  Frank Gaylord felt blood mounting to his face. “Morrell—”

  “That’s right, you run me in. You can cook up some charge, you ass-kissin’ tin badge. You and the association always can against anybody that bucks you … ” He spat on the floor. “You want to know somethin’, Sheriff Gaylord? You make a goddamn sheepdog look like George Washington when it comes to independence. Well, you ain’t goin’ to have it your way forever, you and Chain—”

  Lang stepped forward. “Morrell.” His hands dangled at his hips; his skull face was pale. “You leave Chain out of this.”

  “You a deputy?” Morrell jeered. “No, just a professional killer. Comes to the same thing in this county.” Then he turned his back on all of them. “Johnny, give me another whiskey. Got to have somethin’ to settle my stomach.”

  The contempt in that gesture roused rage in Gaylord, but when Lang moved forward again he threw out his arm. “Leave him be!” he snapped.

  “You heard what he said about Chain!”

  Gruber’s voice was soft. “Ease off, Lang. It’s a free country, and anyhow he’s not armed. That’s a favorite tactic, incidentally, of the organizers of the Knights of Labor—not carrying guns.” He turned away; at that moment there was whooping on the street. “The stage is coming in, with my sister on it. Let’s go.”

  But Gaylord stood there, staring at Morrell’s back. He felt mingled rage and shame and a need to confront this man, learn who he really was and why he was in Warshield. Then Gruber took his arm. “Come on, Frank.”

  The six-up hitch traveled at a trot between stations, but it always broke into a run coming into town. Ferd Shoffner, the driver, let out a yodeling call to announce his arrival, then checked the sweating team. With jingle of harness and creak of leather thoroughbraces, the Concord skidded to a stop before the office of the transit company.

  Then Ferd had jumped down and was opening the doors. “Warshield! Two hours here! Everybody out for Warshield!”

  Standing beside Gruber, Frank Gaylord waited as Ferd opened the coach door. Then Gruber made a sound in his throat and stepped forward. At the same time, a kind of sigh arose from the crowd that had gathered to meet the coach and collect their mail. It was a tribute to the woman who, pausing on the step, looked around, saw Gruber, and cried out: “Ross!”

  “Florence, my dear.” Gruber put out his hand.

  Taking it, she stepped down, target for every eye in the crowd, including Gaylord’s. Blond, with fine blue eyes, ivory skin, cleanly chiseled nose, small, red mouth, she wore a blue traveling dress that dramatized her coloring and hugged her figure: full breasts, slender waist, curved hips. Gaylord even caught a glimpse of dainty ankle as she stepped down. A hell of a good-looking girl, he thought. Maybe twenty-three, twenty-four at the most.

  She and Gruber hugged and kissed, trading words lost in the noise of the crowd. She stepped back and laughed, showing teeth white and perfect. Gruber spoke again and he and his sister turned, and then Gaylord realized with some confusion that he was about to be presented to her. “Sheriff Frank Gaylord, my sister Florence Gruber.”

  “Delighted, Sheriff Gaylord.” Her small, gloved hand took his big one. “Ross has mentioned you in his letters.”

  Gaylord swept off his hat. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Gruber.”

  “You must come to see us at Chain Ranch,” she said. “I’m eager to meet all of Ross’s western friends.”

  “That’s right, Frank. I’m having a gala dinner up at Chain to introduce Florence to the folks around here, next Saturday night. Be sure to come, around five. Be a lot of people there you ought to meet anyhow. Okay?”

  “I—” Gaylord hesitated. “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll be looking for you.” The girl smiled and withdrew her hand. Then, as she turned away, somebody behind Gaylord gave a long, drawn-out, suggestive whistle.

  Gruber froze and the crowd fell silent. The girl’s cheeks turned red. Gaylord whirled.

  Lew Morrell, standing by the hitchrack, picking his teeth, grinned lewdly. “Prime stuff, huh, Sheriff? Be a good boy and shoot some more little ranchers and maybe Gruber’ll let you make some time with her.”

  Gaylord stared at him for a moment, fighting back the red flare of rage. “Morrell,” he said, “you’ll apologize. To Miss Gruber, to Major Gruber, to me, and to this town. And then you’ll get out of Warshield fast and you’d better not come back.”

  Morrell straightened up and spat into the dust. There was a glint in his eyes that Gaylord recognized; he knew what Morrell wanted, and he sighed. Well, he was in a mood to give it to him. The shooting, then Clint’s resignation, Carla’s needling him—he’d had enough. He needed someone he could get his hands on, an outlet for all the rage and tensions swirling in him. “All right,” he said quietly. “Over yonder in the middle of the street.”

  Morrell did not move. “That where you carry out the executions?” He looked at the Colt on Gaylord’s hip.

  “No,” Gaylord said. “That’s where I’m gonna beat the grease outa you.”

  “Frank,” said Gruber, at his elbow. “Chain can handle—”

  “He ain’t heele
d; I want no bloodshed,” Gaylord said. “And it’s me he’s laid his mouth on, too. He’s mine. Don’t anybody else mess in. I’ll have the hide of the man who does.” Then his hand went to the buckle of his gun belt. “Hold this.”

  Morrell grinned but his eyes were as hard as agates. “You mean that? You and me straight up and no guns, no interference?”

  “It’s what you been faunchin’ for, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Morrell said. “It ain’t much, but it’s better than nothin’ when it comes to makin’ you pay for what you did to those two cowboys last night.” Then, coolly, he turned away and strode to the middle of the street.

  “Mr. Gaylord—” the girl said, voice quavering.

  “Hush, Florence,” Gruber cut in. Gaylord strode out to face Morrell, who waited, thumbs hooked in belt. This man would be no cinch to take; the match was even—and the way he felt just now, that suited him fine. For the moment he was no longer Frank Gaylord, lawman, but savoring the luxury of being Frank Gaylord, private citizen, with an enemy that he could get his hands on waiting for him.

  Now, save for the stamping of the coach horses and the distant braying of a mule, the main street of Warshield was still, hushed. The wind rattled the sign over Needham’s Store.

  “Come and git me, Gaylord,” Morrell said, and he spat again.

  “Comin’.” Then, knowing that it was unwise, but too wound up for wisdom, Gaylord charged in.

  A mistake, all right, because Morrell was blacksnake-swift. He pivoted, dropped into a crouch, and the fist Gaylord aimed at his head missed, and Gaylord’s other hand bounced off his shoulder, and then a mule seemed to kick Gaylord in the ribs. His breath went out in a whoosh, and before he could recover, that mule’s hoof collided with his chin, and he was slammed back hard against the coach’s high back wheel. The street seemed to tilt, blur, and then Morrell was coming, his fist huge in Gaylord’s vision, aimed at Gaylord’s nose. Frank jerked aside his head; knuckles raked his cheek and Morrell grunted and slammed up hard against him and they grappled. All this in a pair of seconds; Morrell gave him no time to get his balance. His hands tangled in Gaylord’s hair; he slammed the sheriff’s head against the coach. Gaylord saw flaring lights; instinctively he pounded Morrell in the flanks, the kidneys. Morrell’s knee came up for his groin, but Gaylord’s thigh deflected it. Then, with all of his strength, Gaylord came off of the wheel, and, locked together, they staggered to the middle of the street. Both let go simultaneously and began to slug it out, without science, without footwork, two big men dealing each other terrible punishment and taking it. Gaylord’s whole body shook with the impact of Morrell’s fists and with the shock of his own landing on Morrell’s body. Neither had gotten a clean blow at the face; they were too close. Then Morrell stepped back to get that slack, and Gaylord would not let him have it. He was going to end this and end it quickly. He charged in hard, his body collided with Morrell’s and rocked it, and he seized both of Morrell’s shoulders and ducked his head. Morrell cursed and tried to get up his hands, but Gaylord’s head came up, hard, and his skull caught Morrell on the chin and snapped back his head. Morrell sighed, and now Gaylord stepped back. Morrell tried to recover, but a fraction too late; his hands were slow coming up to guard, and Gaylord hit low, in the belly, just below the breastbone. Foul breath and spittle sprayed him as Morrell half doubled over, and Gaylord had a second, then, to aim the next blow. It caught Morrell on his jaw’s curve, and split the skin and meat on Gaylord’s knuckles. Morrell’s head whipped all the way around. His hands dropped and his legs seemed boneless. Gaylord knew, from the shock of the blow traveling up his arm and through his body, that it was over. He stepped back, and Lew Morrell flopped limply into the dust at Gaylord’s feet and did not move.

  For a moment Gaylord stared down at him. Then the mist of combat ebbed from his brain; he was sober, clearheaded, but panting for breath, aching in every muscle. He dug a handkerchief from his back pocket and applied it to his split cheek. Then, unsteadily, he turned to face the crowd—and stare into the excited blue eyes of Florence Gruber. “Mr. Gaylord,” she whispered, and then moved forward as if to try to help him.

  “I’ll be all right. Look out, you’ll git blood all over you.” “He’s right, Florence. You’ll ruin your dress.” Gruber caught her, pulled her back. Then he himself stepped forward. “Frank, that was a damned good piece of work. I’m grateful to you.”

  Gaylord sucked in wind. “Just sorry Miss Gruber had to see that kind of mess … ”

  Gruber’s mouth twisted. “Well, she might as well get used to Wyoming.” He handed the sheriff his gun. “Listen, we’ve got to go now. But don’t forget. Chain, next Saturday night. Be there for sure.”

  “Yeah,” Gaylord said. “I’ll be there.”

  Flanked by his bodyguards, Gruber turned away. His sister cast one more look over her shoulder as he led her down the sidewalk.

  “Frank.” It was Tom Callaway, now his chief deputy. “Man, you wiped him out. But he plowed you up some.”

  “I’m okay,” Gaylord said, buckling on his gun. He looked at the sprawled form in the dusty street. “But, Lord God, I’m tired.” He gestured. “Git him in a cell, will you; disorderly conduct, somethin’ like that. Better have Doc Larkins take a look at him.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Tom said.

  “Good. I’ll palaver with him later, when he’s able to talk.” He turned away, legs unsteady, and started up the street. Instinctively he made for Carla Doane’s house, wanting to feel her touch, have her wash and bandage him. But after a few strides he halted. No. Not after this morning. And besides, this fight had been over another woman—or at least she would see it that way.

  Gaylord stood there for a moment, then crossed the street and made for Garrison’s Hotel.

  Chapter Four

  “Gentlemen.” Standing, Ross Gruber raised his long-stemmed glass. “Gentlemen, I give you Wyoming.”

  Like all the other men present at the long table in the big dining room of the Chain Ranch house, Frank Gaylord rose. “Wyoming.” A dozen voices murmured echo to the toast and everyone drank. Then the men sat down again, and a Chinese servant brought in the brandy and the cigars. Chairs scuffed as the men closed up, the ladies having already withdrawn.

  “Frank,” Gruber said, smiling. “Why don’t you come up here and sit by me?”

  Gaylord nodded and, a little uncomfortable in boiled shirt and tie and blue suit, took the chair on the Chain manager’s right, the one which until a few moments ago had been occupied by Florence Gruber.

  There was a moment, then, while the men lit their cigars. Gaylord looked at them through the curling smoke of his own good Havana. A powerful man himself, he responded to power; and this room was full of it. Gathered here were the movers and shakers of Colter County, indeed, of this half of Wyoming. Some, like Gruber, were Americans, hard-bitten men who owned or managed for others millions of acres of range and uncounted thousands of head of cattle, mostly well bred-up with Angus and Galloway blood now from the original longhorn stock.

  Others were foreigners, overseeing their own investments: he counted two Englishmen and one Scot in the group. Yes, he thought, you could almost smell the power in this room—and the money: a tang like the aftertaste of powder smoke.

  It was Lord MacAlpine, the Scot, a leathery-faced man in his fifties, sitting across from Gruber, who spoke first after the cigars were going. “Your toast amused me, Mr. Gruber. I give you Wyoming.” He laughed raspingly. “Nobody gives you anything. You have to take it and hold on to it.”

  Beside him, Martin Shell, owner of a huge spread in the Sweetwater country, chuckled. A short, squarely built man with a poll of curly black hair, he took his cigar from his mouth. “Well, we’ve done that, ain’t we?”

  “Not yet,” MacAlpine snapped. “We lack considerable of being able to make that claim, Mr. Shell.” He looked up and down the table. “Or maybe your profits haven’t dropped this year as mine have. I say who owns Wyoming is st
ill an open question. We’ve made progress, yes. But relax, close our eyes for only a moment—‘a little sleep, a little slumber,’ as the Good Book says—and we’ll wake up to find we’ve lost it. That the damned rustlers and mavericks have stolen it out from under all our noses.”

  “Well, they’re tryin’, and that’s a fact,” Jim Whitworth from Carbon County growled. “Between the rustlin’ and the market droppin’, I’m gittin’ pinched, and pinched damned bad. With prices comin’ down in Chicago the way they are, not to mention Kansas City, I’m at the point where I can’t afford to lose a single slick-eared calf. I didn’t fight the damned Sioux and Cheyennes to set up my spread to have a bunch of long-loopin’ greasy-sackers pick me clean!”

  “And yet that’s what it’s coming to!” MacAlpine rasped. “A fight! Sooner or later we’ll have to take some action—and I say sooner!”

  Gaylord sipped his brandy as a murmur of assent arose around the table, and a chill of foreboding walked down his spine. There was, he thought, something unreal about all this. These men had thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars—some of them, millions—and yet you’d think that the loss of a single calf would shove them over bankruptcy’s edge. For a moment, the brandy tasted bitter. He thought of Phil Hoff, Billy Dann—and saw Clint Wallace flinging down his badge again. Maybe he was out of place here, maybe … and maybe not. Maybe this was the way you had to be to get anywhere in life—and God knows he was tired of being bellied down like a wagon in the mud. If he ever was to get unstuck, amount to anything in Wyoming, he’d better change his thinking—start thinking the way they did, not like some penny-ante nester, thirty-a-month cowboy. After all, he had to get reelected this year, and without the support of Gruber and men like him there was no chance. He drank another swallow; this one went down easier. Then, as he set down the glass, he saw it on the table—a single yellow hair, long, silky, golden against the white of the cloth.