by Nelson Nye
Suddenly curious, Reifel watched her. She made straight for the porch. The porch was beyond the bedroom ell and cut off from his vision by the wall of a room the girl used for an office. But by getting back in bed with his ear close to the window Reifel knew from experience he could probably pick up the most of anything they said.
He wasn’t ashamed to do it.
Gert Kavanaugh’s husky voice was tight. “The crew’s pulled out — lock, stock and barrel! They’ve gone. Skedaddled. The whole damn bunch of them!”
The old man quit rocking. “I told you to pay them Saturday — ”
“What did you think I would pay them with? Stones? Do you know how much we’ve got in the bank? A hundred fifty-four dollars and thirty-six cents — and we still have to eat.”
“You’ll have to sell some more land. Sell those ten sections north of Sunset; that’s — ”
“They didn’t pull out because they hadn’t been paid. They were bought out or scared out by Lamtrill. Devil Iron’s grabbed Bear Flats — they’ve got a crew there right now fencing our stuff off from water!”
The old man loosed a flood of invective.
The girl said harshly, “Swearin’ won’t help. We’ve got to get back that water. You’d better ride in and see — ”
“You know goddam well I can’t set a horse!” the old man shouted. “The miseries in my back has been achin’ me somethin’ terrible an’ them frostbit toes of mine is just about to kill me ever’ time I git up!”
“With all that rotgut you’ve been — ”
“Is that any way to talk to your Daddy? Sweet Jesus, girl, I should think you would have more feelin’,” Sug whined. “After all I’ve done — ”
“All right,” Gert said. “I’ll have a talk with the sheriff.”
“Now you’ve got it. You tell Seeb Dawson to git that sidewinder off’n my range. You tell him, by God, if he don’t I’ll come in with my crew an’ when they’ve got through with that town of Dry Bottom — ”
“What crew?” Gert asked, and Sug shouted blasphemies.
“I’ll hire the goddamdest crew that ever hit this country!”
“With what? That land around Sunset wouldn’t fetch ten cents an acre. There isn’t any water and it’s all cut up with gulches. It’s so close to the Galiuros the mountain lions would get every cow you put in it — ”
“Then sell somethin’ else. Just git me the money.”
“The trouble is,” said Gert’s voice, “the only water we’ve got — except these tanks at headquarters — is that Bear Flats lake — ”
“Sell the Oak Ridge range. Tell ’em they can use the west side of that lake — ”
“You’re forgetting Lamtrill’s fence. And the crew he’ll have watching it.”
“You have to tell them that? Hell’s hinges! Let the buyer look out for himself!” Sug snarled. “You don’t see none of ’em worryin’ about us — nor you won’t. It’s dog eat dog, an’ don’t you forget it.”
There was an interval of silence. At last Gert said thoughtfully, “Diamond X, up above us, has been hard hit by this drought. I believe they could be talked into leasing Oak Ridge if we’d guarantee their right to the west side of Bear Lake — ”
“You just said the lake was fenced — ”
“We’re not going to let Lamtrill get away with that. We’ll pull his fence down. We’ll drive him off Bear Flats.”
It was Sug’s turn to snort. “With what?” he jeered scornfully. “Promissory notes?”
“That lease money,” Gert said. “We’ll fetch in a crew that’s just as lawless as he’s got. We’ll give Devil Iron a dose of its own medicine…. I’ll be back,” she said abruptly. “I want to talk to that drifter.”
Reifel, in the bedroom, heard her boots hit the ground, but it didn’t immediately register. He was too taken up with trying to sort out his thinking; too confused and excited by Gert’s references to Lamtrill. The thump of her boots didn’t have any urgence until he heard the rasp of her spurs on the floorboards — the sudden banging of the screen. It came to him then he still had hold of the paper which the drummer had given Marta May to write her name on. There wasn’t time to put it back in the barrel of his pistol. He thrust it under his pillow and hastily pulled up the sheet.
He had hardly got his eyes closed when he heard the hall door open. Gert Kavanaugh’s voice, sharp with scorn, came at him coldly. “You’re a little bit late to be pretending you’re asleep. Next time you want to eavesdrop on anyone don’t get between two windows.”
Reifel’s cheeks turned hot. His eyes jerked open. “Nobody asked you to stand on that porch. If you wanted to keep your chinning so private — ”
She waved that aside. “I guess you’re entitled to know what you’re getting into.”
She swung the tawny hair back out of her eyes and took a good look at him. She tossed his clothes on the bed. She pulled the chair around to face him. “You may as well know the truth of this business. We haven’t any crew and we haven’t any money. We’re up against a polecat who aims to take over every square inch of this country from the Galiuros to the New Mexico line.”
“And you’re figuring to buck him.”
“We haven’t any choice. He’s getting ready to hit us with everything he’s got or he wouldn’t have grabbed Bear Flats, which is our richest grass and the only unfailing source of water we’ve got.”
“Who’s this guy, ‘Lamtrill’?”
“He owns the bank at Willcox, the one at Dry Bottom and the Pitchfork Cattle & Land Development Company — better known as the Devil Iron.
“He started south of Willcox about ten years ago with something like twenty sections and a bunch of scrub cows. After a couple of calf crops he had enough cash to open the bank at Dry Bottom. Then he started getting fat. He began acquirin’ land all around the county seat, buyin’ what chunks he couldn’t foreclose on. He started dabblin’ in politics. Four years ago he took over the bank at Willcox, the Stockman’s Bank & Trust. Then he started shovin’ north and west. In the south right now he pretty near encircles the whole east third of Cog Wheel. In the north he controls the Pinelenos and almost all the range around them to within ten miles of Safford. Last spring he grabbed forty sections of Boxed Y southeast of Bear Flats. Now he’s fencing our cattle away from Bear Lake. He’ll be wantin’ all of Aravaipa Valley by Christmas. We’ve got to fight him or get run straight out of the country.”
“You could sell out, couldn’t you?”
“You don’t savvy,” she said grimly. “He doesn’t want to buy Boxed Y. He figures to annex it.”
“There’s other outfits ain’t there?”
“Only two that amount to enough to get in his way — an’ they won’t. Diamond X, to the north of us, if they can’t get water will go up the spout like smoke up a chimney. Cog Wheel — they’re below us — is so scared of Lamtrill they’d sell out in a minute if anyone would take the place off their hands. The Diamond X is syndicate owned and they’ve still got some money, but Cog Wheel’s pretty near as bad broke as we are. Lamtrill won’t buy what he thinks he can take for nothing.”
“How has he gobbled all this land?”
“Range roughin’. Burnings, at first. Night riding an’ rustlin’. You couldn’t prove it of course. You’d be laughed out of court. He owns the banks and the law and a big chunk of two counties. He’s got three hard-ridin’ crews that do his devilment for him — ”
“You better pull down your shingle and go somewhere else.”
She looked at him stubbornly.
“You can’t fight him with outlaws. You’ve got nothing to offer them.”
“There’s close to twenty thousand cattle packing Lamtrill’s brand — you call that nothing?”
“Any guys you get won’t be worry in’ about brands. But you won’t get nobody. You can’t give them — ”
“I can give them a base of operations.”
“And if this Lamtrill’s the kind you make him out to be he’d have your
whole outfit strung up by the neck before you ever got started. Don’t try it,” Reifel said. “When you start dealing with outlaws — ”
“I would deal with the devil if he’d help me put the skids under Lamtrill. I’m dead serious, Ben. Look,” she said, and moved over to the bed. With the tip of one finger she sketched out some contours. “There’s the lay of this country. Here’s Boxed Y. Up there is Diamond X and this down here is the Cog Wheel holdings. The rest of this picture’s all Devil Iron — get it? If you think Lamtrill’s bunch can watch a spread big as that — he’s got at least a hundred thousand sunk in buildings alone. He’s got a fortune in wire. I’ll run off his cattle. I’ll cut his fence in a million places. I’ll burn his buildings — break his banks. All I need is the right kind of men.”
“It could be done,” Reifel nodded. “But not by no woman. The kind of wolves you need wouldn’t take orders from a petticoat — ”
“That’s where you come in.”
Reifel looked at her. “Not me,” he said.
Her chin came up. “You’re not afraid of it, are you?”
A cold amusement looked out of his stare. “No,” he said, “I’m not afraid of it.”
She bit her lips. She was a good looking girl with her shape turned slim and tall by the shadows. There was a kind of wistful gravity about her and she sat perfectly still, tipped forward a little, as though she hoped beyond hope that he would say something more.
When he didn’t she pulled up her shoulders. There wasn’t much breath in her voice when she said, “You really mean that, don’t you? You’re not scared. You just don’t give a damn. You’d let a woman save your life, let her risk whatever might come of hiding you. Then, when you’re given a chance to repay that, you’d climb on your horse and ride off through the hills. Do you feel as proud as you look, Mister Reifel?”
Reifel scowled, reddening a little. This sharp-tongued filly could get under a man’s hide. But what the hell? It wasn’t nothing but words. He tried to ignore them. He tried to stare her down and couldn’t do that, either.
“All right,” he flared, “I’m a lousy bastard — but what kind of woman would throw it in my face?”
“A desperate one,” she answered quietly. “A woman who is too full of memories, Ben. A woman who would rather die inch by inch than let herself be shoved around by a range hog. Does that sound too farfetched? Does it seem too unreasonable that I should love my home?”
“Is that any reason I should get myself mixed up in a range war? In a goddam fracas that ain’t none of my makin’?”
“It would be a terrible world,” she said, slow and thoughtful, “if everyone in it thought of no one but himself.”
“You’re a fine one to talk! Who the hell are you thinkin’ of? Not me, that’s a cinch!”
She considered him earnestly as though trying to make him out. There was no anger in her eyes, only a kind of wistful sadness.
“Tell me something. Have you ever in your life done anything for someone else? Just one single thing which — even for the tiniest instant — has not held out the promise of some personal advantage?”
“Sermons!” he jeered. “So now you give me sermons! Well, the answer hasn’t changed. You do a damn good job of baitin’ your hook but I ain’t stickin’ out my neck to save this spread for someone else!”
She amazed him by smiling as though she were pleased with his thorough selfishness. It fetched him up short, and even shorter when she said, “Name your own price then. Would you do it for half?”
He stared at her, baffled, half believing she had a screw loose. It didn’t make sense that she would go to such lengths to hang onto this outfit and, afterwards, be willing to chop the place in half.
“What the hell are you up to?” he snarled at her gruffly.
“I’m not sure you’d understand yet, Ben. I’m not anxious to turn men against each other or to bring gunfighters storming into this country — I hate blood and violence. I’ve always believed in turning the other cheek but I’ve learned a few things in the last couple of years. I’ve learned you have to fight fire with fire and guns with more guns. That’s ugly — I despise it. But I’m not going to let Lamtrill gobble Boxed Y without doing everything I can to hang onto it — ”
“Even if you have to give a half of it away?”
“Even to giving half of it away,” she nodded. “You didn’t get that bullet in your chest around here. You aren’t known in this country — you could help Boxed Y a lot.” She considered him openly. “There’s a reckless look about you that’s convincing. Lamtrill would hire you — ”
“I may be a skunk,” Reifel cut in grimly, “but I sure as hell ain’t that kind of varmint.”
She flushed. “Forget that,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “Be Boxed Y’s ramrod and hire me the kind of crew I need to keep him off. Then, if he persists, we can strike back in kind.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Lovely. But you still haven’t told me what you’ve got up your sleeve.”
“I’m trying to save this ranch.”
“Sure. I get that. But why?” He stared at her shrewdly. “A man might resent Lamtrill shovin’ him around. But you ain’t a man. And nothing you’ve said to me yet adds up without there’s somethin’ else back of it you ain’t let me in on. I wasn’t born yesterday. A girl don’t go to makin’ widders an’ orphans without she’s got more reason than a handful of buildin’s. Not your kind of girl.”
They looked at each other for a while without speaking.
“You’re right,” Gert Kavanaugh admitted. “My wanting to save the ranch is only part of it. After awhile, if you stay — ”
“You can skip the rest,” Reifel told her. “I ain’t stayin’. Go ahead and get your Kid Badgers if you want to but don’t count on me. I’m getting out of this deal just as quick as I can fling on some clothes.”
Gert Kavanaugh’s eyes stared back at him unwinking. She got up off the bed and her shirt, suddenly tight, showed the full shape of her tumultuous breathing. “You rode into this spread dead beat and you know it. You came here for help and without question you got it. Now you’re going to find I can be as tough as you are.” Her right hand jumped and disclosed a leveled pistol. “You’ve a score to pay here and you’re not leaving till you’ve paid it.”
Reifel laughed in her face. “You’ve misread the sign.”
He threw back the sheet and his feet thumped the floor. He got hold of his boots, yanked them on and stood up, too mad to care that she was seeing him in his drawers.
He sloshed on his hat and picked his pants off the bed and got into them, glowering, and flung on his shirt. He was reaching for his shell belt when she said with her eyes banging bitterly into him: “You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you! Walk right out of here same as you’d quit a parlor house — only I don’t think you will! I think the law will have something to say about where Curly Ben goes when he quits the Boxed Y!”
Reifel’s muscles jammed and left him rooted, locked in his tracks. He made a crouched and taciturn off-balance shape in that stretched-thin quiet. His eyes, bright between their narrowed lids, searched her face with an intolerant anger. Then the planes of his cheeks subtly altered. A sardonic amusement crept into his glance and he said, derisively, “So the handbills are out and you’re figurin’ to sit pat on back-to-back aces. Well, it won’t wash, sister. All you’ve got is a busted flush.”
“We’ll see,” she said, chin up and eyes flashing. “You won’t look so tough with a rope around your neck!”
“That’s for sure,” Reifel snorted, “but you left school too soon. You’ve toted the figures but the answers you got ain’t the ones in the book. You’ve forgot there are others who can read as well as you can.”
“Oh?” she said, and stared at him sharply. He noticed how the line of her shirt flared upward to reveal the full shape of her firm young breasts; and he was suddenly astonished, very conscious of her nearness and, strangely, embarrassed.
“Meaning
what?” she said with a man’s directness.
He tried to close his mind to this new awareness and refused to acknowledge what he read in her eyes. “That hiding me is one thing and using me something else again. Minute you put me into circulation to ram through this fight you’re cooking up with Lamtrill, other people around here are going to come up with the same answer you got. When they do you’re licked. Lamtrill will send the law after me and they’ll take you too for aidin’ an’ abettin’.”
He buckled on his belt and put a hand out for his pistol.
She surrendered it to him, watching him in silence as he thrust it in its sheath. Almost he could feel sorry for her; she had made a good try and it wasn’t her fault he had been too smart to fall for it. He wondered what she’d do if he suddenly grabbed and kissed her. He grinned at her smugly and was communing with this impulse, boldly admiring the balanced swing of her body, when she rudely jolted him back to reality.
“You haven’t seen those dodgers. The thing that ties you up with Curly Ben is the hole that bullet plowed into your chest, and who else but me could ever know that you are packing it?”
She flung the half-laughing words back over her shoulder as she went through the door. She wasn’t admitting he could be a free agent. She was pretty darn sure he wouldn’t run out on her now.
But she was wrong. He did. He left the next night.
11. COVERED LIKE A TENT
REIFEL FELT pretty slick when he slipped out of the house, made his way to the barn and got a saddle on the roan without making enough noise to bring a whinny from the cavvy. A long half hour of slow and circuitous riding brought the rolling hogbacks of the Winchesters into view and gave him sufficient confidence to put Turner’s rangy roan to a lope. He aimed to miss Dry Bottom and catch the Lordsburg road at Cochise. There he proposed to change horses and again at Pearce and afterwards, by way of Elfrida and McNeal, cut south to Douglas where he would get a new outfit and perhaps drop in for a visit at his bank.
