The High Graders

by Louis L'Amour

  Burt Parry was waiting in front of the Nevada House when Shevlin returned with his packages. “Lady waiting for you,” he said, “in the dining room. I heard her asking for you.”

  He went inside and passed under the arch into the dining room. It was Eve, and she was alone.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “I want to offer you a job. At the Three Sevens.”

  “I heard the cow business was in a bad way around here.”

  Lowering her voice, she said, “Mr. Shevlin, we need men like you, and whatever else you are, you’re cattle.”

  He felt irritation mounting within him. “All right, you tell me. What kind of a man am I?”

  “You’ve used a gun, and we need guns.”

  He felt a vast impatience. “Lady, with all due respect, you’re talking nonsense.” He jerked his head to indicate the Sun Strike and the steady pound of its compressor. “Do you think guns will stop that? As long as there’s ore in the ground, they’ll be there.”

  “That’s not true. If Ray Hollister had been leading us, he would have run Ben Stowe out of the country!”

  Shevlin looked at her ironically. “You really believe that? As a fighting man, Ray Hollister couldn’t come up to Ben Stowe’s boot-tops.”

  Her anger flared. “If you believe that, there’s no job for you at Three Sevens!”

  “Sorry ... but I already have a job. As a miner.”

  Abruptly, she got to her feet. “Jess Winkler said you were one of them, but I just couldn’t believe it. You’re just a thief, a common thief!”

  She walked out, heels clicking, and he followed to join Burt Parry outside.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said.

  Parry glanced at him. “The lady was in a hurry,” he commented.

  “When I told her I had a mining job, she called me a thief.”

  “If you worked for anybody but me,” Parry said wryly, “that might be true.” He looked straight at Shevlin. “What would you say if I told you some of the ore from the Sun Strike assayed as high as twenty thousand dollars a ton?”

  “I’d tell you there was a gent down in Chile found a nugget that weighed four hundred pounds. What I mean is, it could happen once.”

  “My friend,” Parry said seriously, “some of the richest ore I’ve ever seen came out of that mine, and not just a little bit.”

  High-grade ... every miner knew what that meant. Ore so rich a man could carry a month’s wages out in his pockets, and two months’ wages in a canteen or a lunchbox. He had known of mines where the foreman was paid by miners for the privilege of working. Change rooms could only curb high-grading; they couldn’t stop it.

  “And nobody talks?” Shevlin asked.

  “They’re all in it. I’m not, but I don’t have much to say, and I don’t try to leave town. Sometimes I wonder if I could leave. Maybe I’m alive only because I haven’t tried.”

  “You’re taking a chance even telling me. How do you know I’m not their spy?”

  “You couldn’t be. You’re in trouble, Shevlin.”

  “I am?”

  “Don’t expect reason from any of them,

  Mike. They’re in too deep, and all of them are running scared. I was advised not to hire you.”

  “Why me?”

  “There was a man named Hollister—and there’s the fact that you arrived just at this time. They are deathly afraid of Hollister, Mike, and if they locate him, he’s a dead man.”

  “You know a lot.”

  “I wish I knew less. I have a friend or two, and they tell me things.” Parry looked at Mike’s gun. “Are you any good with that?”

  “I get along.”

  Parry started toward the livery stable and Mike walked along with him. He could feel eyes on them, eyes watching them down the street. Suddenly he realized that he could have done nothing worse than go to work for Burt Parry, the one man who was an outsider.

  No matter. He was in up to his ears, anyway, and he had a hunch that if he got out he would get out shooting. For the first time in years he was suddenly conscious of the gun at his hip.

  Chapter 4

  IN HIS office above the bank, Ben Stowe tipped back in his big leather chair and stared thoughtfully out the window toward the trees along the creek. He had come far since the morning fourteen years ago when Jack Moorman fired him off the Turkeytrack.

  He had never forgotten that day. Old Jack had been seated in his hide chair with a shotgun across his knees when he told Ben Stowe he was a cow thief, and probably a murderer as well, and also told him what would happen if he was ever found on Turkeytrack range again.

  Ben Stowe, big, powerful, and tough, had stood there and taken it, but even now he flushed at the memory, grudgingly admitting to himself that he had been afraid. In all his life he had feared no man but Jack Moorman. Dead now for several years, Jack Moorman still had the power to destroy him.

  Until the discovery of gold on Rafter, Ben Stowe had been merely another rustler. Not that anybody else in the Rafter country had dared accuse him, but it was generally known.

  The gold discovery had been his big chance, and he jumped to take it. From the first he had understood the possibilities ... some of them. The idea of seizing the mine itself he owed to Ray Hollister.

  Hollister had recognized the power that lay in control of the mines, and he grabbed for it. But in this he overestimated himself and underestimated others. He had looked upon Ben Stowe as a down-at-heel hired man, and he forgot to consider that the fires of ambition might burn just as strongly in another as in himself. And suddenly Ray was out and Ben was in control.

  The end was near. The offers had been made, not only for the Sun Strike, but for the Glory Hole as well, offers large enough to interest them as an escape from a constant drain, yet not large enough to cause them to wonder.

  Ben Stowe stared at the trees and thought of the years ahead. Once the mine was in the possession of himself and his partner, he would cut all his ties with the old life, and cut them with a ruthless hand. The mine would make millions; business in the town would be worked back to normal, not so suddenly as to cause trouble, but with a deft hand. People would soon forget what Ben Stowe had done, or remember it, as the West often did, as the harmless escapades of another time.

  The door from the outer office opened and Ben Stowe felt a swift surge of anger. He was beginning not to like it when someone presumed enough to come bursting into his office. But this was Gib Gentry.

  Suddenly he saw Gentry with new eyes. Gentry and he were old friends, but in the future that Stowe planned, where would Gentry fit? And with sudden, chill awareness he knew he would not fit at all.

  Gentry dropped into a chair and put his boots on Ben’s desk, and Ben Stowe again felt that swift anger. Gib was too damned familiar. But even as he thought that, he was surprised at himself.

  Why the sudden fury? He had always been a man who kept his temper on a leash. It was that coldness and control that had brought him to where he was ... why the sudden anger now?

  Gentry bit the end from a cigar. “Hell, Ben, you should’ve been down the street. Who the hell do you think I ran into?”

  “Mike Shevlin?”

  “Now how the hell did you know that?”

  Ben Stowe was pleased with himself. It was a little thing, a simple thing, but long ago he had realized the importance of knowing what was going on around the country, and had taken pains to see that he learned of new arrivals, or of any occurrence that was out of the ordinary. He had several sources of information, one of which was the marshal.

  As a member of the town council, he had directed the marshal in his duties. All he had learned now was that a stranger, a very salty customer, had been up on Boot Hill looking at Eli’s grave, but when he put that together with a few other items he could make a fairly safe guess.

  Gentry pushed his hat back on his head. “Damn it, Ben! Seemed like old times, havin’ Mike around. He looks good, too.”

  Ben Stow
e shuffled some papers on his desk and wished Gentry would go. Gib had always been a bit of a damned fool. Always ready to pick up a fast dollar, but carrying a wide streak of sentiment. After all, he and Shevlin had never been all that thick.

  “Look, Gib, you be careful what you say. There was a meeting at the old mill last night ... and then another man rode up through the rain. My man thought it was either Hollister or somebody following him. Whoever it was put a bullet in my man.”

  “You can forget that. Mike never had a damn’ bit of use for Ray, and vice versa. Ray’s small change, and Mike always knew it.”

  “I never cottoned to him, anyway,” Ben said irritably. “I know he was a friend of yours, but what does it look like, him riding in just at this time? You know how tight everything is. If we have trouble now it could blow the lid off—or tighten it up so hard it might be years before we could make it pay off.”

  “Hollister’s just a sorehead. He can’t hurt us.”

  Ben Stowe gave him an impatient look. “Gib, you never could see past your nose. There’s one thing you forget—Ray Hollister could go to the governor.”

  Gentry was incredulous. “The governor? Aw, Ben, you’re lettin’ this get on your nerves! What interest would the governor have in this place?”

  “The governor,” Ben Stowe replied, “married Jack Moorman’s daughter, that’s all. And if that isn’t enough, the governor’s father rode in here on a cattle drive as a partner of Jack’s, and after his father died, Jack practically raised him. He was in Washington when old Jack was killed, and if he had been governor then, he’d have raised hell.”

  Gentry shifted uneasily in his chair. All the pleased excitement of Shevlin’s return was gone. He took his feet down from the desk and wished he had never come to see Ben. Things just weren’t the same any more. Ben was impatient all the time; he never took time for a drink with him, never talked it up like in the old days. And now this about the governor. Of course, he remembered it, now that he thought of it. He had forgotten, that was all. Anyway, Jack Moorman had been dead for years—that was all over.

  “Hollister couldn’t prove anything,” he said.

  “He wasn’t even there.”

  “There are some who were,” Stowe replied sourly, “and when a horse starts swishin’ his tail there’s no telling what burrs he’ll pick up.”

  Gentry was suddenly hot and uncomfortable. He had never forgotten the contempt in old Jack’s eyes as they battered him to his knees. That look had penetrated to the very core of Gentry’s being, and for months he had waked up shaking with fright and bathed in sweat, remembering those eyes.

  The old man never had a chance. Struck down from behind, his gun belt had been cut through, removing any chance of resistance. They had not wanted to use a gun or a knife. There was bad feeling between the miners and the cattlemen, and it was pay day night. They planned for it to look like something done by drunken miners.

  “If you think so much of Shevlin,” Stowe was saying, “you get him out of here. He could make trouble.”

  When the door closed after Gentry, Stowe put his feet on his desk. No need to tell Gentry the word on Shevlin was already out. There was no longer any need to tell Gentry anything. After they moved the gold, something would have to be done about Gib Gentry. He had outlived his usefulness.

  Gentry stood outside under the awning staring down the street. He bit the end from a fresh cigar. The hell with Ben Stowe. The hell with them all.

  He had had more to drink than he had ever had before, but what did it mean, after all? He never had any fun any more, and Stowe had changed. Hardly talked to him any more, and whenever Gentry came around Ben made it seem as if he was talking nonsense, or was acting like a fool.

  Gib Gentry stood there on the street and looked bleakly into a future that held no promise. He wasn’t a kid any more. And he was hitting the bottle too hard. He had known that for some time, but he had never actually allowed it to shape into words before. Uneasily, his thoughts kept returning to Ben Stowe. Ben was a hard man. He had best step very lightly.

  Suddenly he was swept by anger. Step lightly? Who the hell did Ben think he was, anyway? Why the hell should he step lightly for Ben Stowe or any other man?

  Now Ben had told him to get Mike Shevlin out of town. Just how was he to go about that? It had been a long time since Gib had seen Mike or heard more than vague rumors of him, but any man with half an eye could see Mike Shevlin had been riding where the owl hooted and the long winds blew ... no mistake about that.

  It was a hell of a situation when a man like Shevlin might be killed—and he would take a lot of killing. Ben Stowe could be almighty dumb sometimes. He should be able to see that the best thing he could do would be to leave Mike Shevlin alone.

  Gib Gentry had always considered himself a hard dangerous man, and he had been all of that, but he was also a man with a love for reliving the old days, sharing a bottle, and talking of the old times. The truth was that Gib, like many another, had never quite grown up. In reliving the old days and replaying the old games, he avoided a hard look at whatever future might lay ahead of him.

  It was going to rain again; clouds were gathering over the mountains. Gentry’s cigar had gone out. He stared at it, disgusted, and then turned and walked down the street. Yes, Ben had changed. He cared damned little for his old friends. Somewhere in the back of Gib’s brain a tiny bell sounded its warning, but Gib did not hear it. He was thinking about a drink.

  Mike Shevlin followed Burt Parry up the narrow canyon, between occasional trees, clumps of brush, and tumbled boulders or slides of broken rock. When they reached the claim Parry said, “There’s good water at a spring about sixty yards up the canyon, and unless you fancy yourself as a cook, I’ll put the grub together.”

  “By the time I’d eaten my own cooking the second time, I decided against that.”

  He stripped the saddle from his horse, and glanced around, but there was little enough to see. Parry’s claim shanty stood on the bench made by the mine’s dump. It was a simple two-room cabin, hastily but securely put together. About thirty feet from it was a small corral, on one side of which was a lean-to shack used as a tool house. Beyond was the opening of the tunnel.

  Up the canyon, just visible from where they stood, there was another dump, larger than their own. No buildings were visible there.

  “Whose claim is that?” Shevlin asked.

  “It’s abandoned. That was the discovery claim for

  Sun Strike. The gold was found on the mesa right above there, so they decided to drift into the hill from here, but they gave up when they found the ore body lay on the other side of the hill.”

  When they sat down to eat, darkness was filling the canyon, softening all the harshness of the bleak hills. Shevlin, drinking his second cup of coffee, was listening to the birds in the bottom of the canyon. Suddenly, the sound ceased. Parry was talking, and if he noticed the change he gave no indication of it.

  “Many visitors out here?” Shevlin asked.

  “The vein seems to be widening out, and I believe in about sixty feet ... What was that you said?”

  “I asked if you had many visitors?”

  “Here? Why would anybody come out here? They all think I’m crazy to work this claim. I haven’t had two visitors in the past four months.”

  “How far back does this canyon go?”

  Parry shrugged. “How the hell should I know?

  I never followed it up. About a mile further along it narrows down to just a slash in the mountain. They say you can touch both sides with outstretched arms. Hell of a mess of rock back in there.”

  Mike Shevlin got up and went to the door. He stood there, leaning against the doorjamb. It might have been a roving lion, but he had a hunch the birds had shut up because a man was passing.

  “When you get up in the morning,” Parry said, “you can muck out that rock I shot down on my last shift. I’ll be riding back into town.”

  “It’s a prosperous tow
n,” Shevlin commented.

  “Less you say about that the better. I stay away from town most of the time, and I never talk about anything but my own claim, or whatever news we hear from out of town.”

  At daylight, with Parry gone, Mike Shevlin went into the tunnel and settled down to work. He had always rather liked working with a shovel; it had the advantage of giving a man time to think, and he had a lot of that to do.

  What it shaped up to was that Ray Hollister had been using the cattlemen as a wedge to get back into power, a power he had been aced out of ... and somebody was going to get hurt.

  Ben Stowe was no hot-headed, conceited fool like Hollister. He was cold, cruel, and tough in a way Hollister never dreamed of. If Hollister chose to get himself killed, that was his own business, but the way he was headed he would get others killed as well.

  Eve believed in Hollister, and it was likely that she was a little in love with him. Babcock was fiercely loyal to Hollister, as he had always been; but had he any idea what Hollister was planning?

  The town was rich and suspicious and frightened. It was afraid of losing its riches, it was afraid of being exposed, and yet every one of them probably knew the lid was about to blow off.

  Somebody had killed Eli Patterson and Jack Moorman, then had moved in and taken control. Undoubtedly all reports leaving town went from Ben Stowe’s office. The shift bosses would be carefully selected henchmen of his. Everyone in town, in one way or another, had a stake in keeping things as they were.

  There was, of course, Wilson Hoyt.

  If there was one man Shevlin hoped to have on his side it was Hoyt, and so far as he knew, Hoyt was incorruptible. He was a man of simple purpose. His job was to insure peace in the town, and that he intended to do. Hoyt, Shevlin was sure, had no hand in what was going on, although he might be aware of it. He would make no stand unless somehow it affected his work.

  While Mike’s mind was busy with these thoughts, he kept working with his shovel. Now he wheeled his loaded wheelbarrow to the end of the plank runway and dumped it. As he turned around to go back, he saw Eve Bancroft ride her horse up on the dump.