The High Graders

by Louis L'Amour

  From the darkness where the miners lay, a voice called out in horror. “It’s a woman! My God, we’ve killed a woman!”

  The eyes of the cattlemen looked at the still figure lying in the street a hundred yards away. And then as one man they looked at Ray Hollister.

  Every man of them knew that Eve Bancroft had ridden up the street because she believed in Hollister, and she had invited him to ride with her.

  He sat his horse, staring at her body as if he couldn’t believe it, scarcely aware as the riders one by one turned and rode away. He had brought her to this, and in the moment of need, he had failed her. He had let her ride alone.

  Hoyt moved suddenly. “Hollister, get out of here. If I ever see you again I’ll shoot you like a mad dog. I’ll kill you where you stand.”

  People, mysteriously absent until now, began to appear on the street. Two of the women went to Eve’s body. Nobody needed to ask if she was dead, for no one could have ridden into t burst of fire and survived.

  Shevlin moved up beside Hoyt. “I tried to stop her!” Hoyt said. “Damn it, I tried!”

  “Nobody could have stopped her then,” Shevlin said. “Nobody but Ray.”

  People were gathering in clusters on the street, talking. Ben Stowe was nowhere in sight.

  “He didn’t do a damn’ thing,” Hoyt said. “He just sat there and watched her go.”

  “He started,” somebody said. “He started, and then he quit ... he quit cold.”

  Mike Shevlin turned away, but Hoyt stopped him. “Do you think this will end it?”

  “Has anything changed?” Shevlin asked. “A girl’s dead that should be alive, but the situation’s the same. Hoyt, you take it from me. Throw Ben Stowe in jail. Then call a meeting of half a dozen of your best citizens and get this thing cleaned up.”

  Hoyt hesitated, staring gloomily before him.

  “Arrest Ben Stowe? He hired me.”

  “Hired you to do a job.” Shevlin walked off. He was going back to the claim. Tomorrow was another day, and he had a job to do; and what better place to do some thinking than there with a shovel in his hands?

  Suddenly he thought of Burt Parry. Where was he? He had left the claim for town, but Shevlin had seen nothing of him ... and the town was not that big, not unless he had a girl and was staying with her.

  But Shevlin realized that he himself wanted no more of the town, or its people. He had not liked Eve Bancroft, but she had been young and alive, and she had believed in her chosen man. To waste such a faith ... that was the sad thing, and he had no stomach for what had happened.

  All he wanted now was to ride away to where the mountains reached for the sky, where the pines brushed at the clouds. He paused by the stable, and his thoughts were gloomy. He was an old lobo who ran the hills alone, and he had best get used to the idea. There was no use looking into the eyes of any girl. He was the sort who would wind up in the dead end of a canyon, snarling and snapping at his own wounds because of the weakness they brought.

  There was nothing here he wanted, nothing but for that old man up on the hillside to rest easy, not buried as a man who died in a gunfight, but as one shot down with empty, innocent hands. For old Eli had never been a man of violence, just as Mike himself was his opposite, a man who walked hard-shouldered at the world.

  He got the black horse from the stable and rode him out of town. He avoided the trails, scouting wide upon the grassy hills, and riding the slopes away from the tracks left by horses and men.

  When he came to the canyon he had to take the trail, and it was then his horse shied. He drew up, trusting his horse. He sat the saddle silently, listening to the night. At first he heard no sound, and then only a brushing whisper, as of a horse walking past brush that touched his saddle as he went by.

  Mike Shevlin stayed still and waited. He was anxious to be back at the claim, and he was irritated at this interruption. There was a faint gray in the far sky, hinting at the dawn that would come soon.

  Then he saw the horse, a horse with an empty saddle, head up, looking toward him. The horse whinnied, and his own replied. Coldly, he still waited, his Winchester up and ready for a quick shot.

  Nothing happened. ...

  He walked his horse nearer, and saw the white line of the trail, and something dark that lay sprawled there. Shevlin had seen many such dark sprawlings in the night, and he knew what lay there. He stepped down from the saddle, for his horse warned him of no other danger.

  He knelt and turned the man over on his back. Then he struck a match, and looked into the wide-open dead eyes of Gib Gentry.

  Shevlin struck another match. The front of Gib’s shirt, where the bullet had emerged, was dark with blood, almost dry now. In the flare of the match he saw something else.

  Gib had crawled after he had fallen. He had crawled four or five feet, and one hand was outstretched toward a patch of brush.

  Striking yet another match, Shevlin looked at that outstretched hand and saw, drawn shakily in the sand under the edge of the brush: Shev look out. Lon C—

  The last word trailed off into a meaningless scrawl.

  Shevlin straightened up and looked around. Even in the few minutes since he had first seen the horse, it had grown faintly light, and the country around was slowly defining itself. The half-hour before daybreak brought out a pale gray world with dark patches of brush. Only one or two late stars showed in the sky.

  Leaving his own horse, he walked to Gentry’s mount. There was blood on the saddle, blood down one side of the skirt. Walking still further back, Shevlin saw where the horse had shied at the bullet, and there he found a spot or two of blood. Gentry had come no more than a dozen yards before toppling from the saddle.

  Mike Shevlin pushed his hat back and lifted his face to the fresh coolness of the morning breeze. He looked about him.

  There were no other tracks. The hidden marksman had been sure of his shot, or else he had not dared to risk a closer approach to make certain of a kill.

  Gib Gentry was dead—but how did that fit into the larger picture? Gentry had been Stowe’s strong right hand. Why should he be killed? Gentry had owned the express and freight line, and was necessary to any movement of gold. Looked at coldly, his death was inopportune. The time for it was not now.

  Shevlin did not trust Stowe, and he was sure that Stowe would kill any man with whom he had to share as soon as that man was no longer necessary. But as Shevlin saw it, Gentry was necessary. ... And why kill him here?

  He might have been followed from town, and if he had been killed intentionally, he obviously had been followed. But this was not a place where Gentry would normally come, so far as Shevlin knew.

  So what was the alternative? Gentry must have been killed by mistake. Shot in the dark, mistaken for someone else.

  What someone? The answer was plain. For Mike Shevlin himself.

  That also made sense of Gentry’s message. Gib had been riding to warn him, and he had been mistaken for Shevlin and killed.

  Lon C-- ... Shevlin knew no such name. Yet Gib had evidently thought the name would mean something to him, or he would not have tried so hard to write it.

  With the toe of his boot, Shevlin erased the name written in the sand. Then he hoisted Gib’s body to the saddle, tied it there, and hung the bridle reins over the pommel. Gentry’s horse would go home.

  All was dark and silent when he rode up to the claim. He stripped the rig from his horse and picketed it on a grassy slope near the spring, where it could drink from the run-off. He waited in the darkness, listening. After a while he walked back to the cabin and turned in.

  He awakened with the sun shining in his eyes through the open door. Burt Parry was standing outside, looking up the canyon, a peculiar expression on his face. For some reason that expression surprised Mike Shevlin.

  At that instant Parry seemed anything but the casual man he had been before. He was holding his Winchester in a position to throw it to his shoulder for a quick shot.

  Unable to rest
rain his curiosity, Shevlin swung his feet to the floor. The bunk creaked and Parry looked around quickly.

  “Thought I saw a deer,” Parry said, lowering the rifle. “We could use some venison.”

  “Now that’s an idea!” Shevlin exclaimed. “How about me going for a hunt?”

  Parry chuckled. “You tired of mucking already? I’ll have another round of shots ready to fire almost any time.” He took Shevlin’s appearance in at a glance. “You look like you could use some sleep. What time did you get in?”

  “Daybreak, or thereabouts.” He expected a comment on the happenings in town, but none came. He volunteered nothing, and the two men ate breakfast, talking idly of the mining claim and Parry’s plans for doing some exploration work in an effort to find the lode he hoped would lie deeper in the mountain.

  There was only one explanation for Parry’s lack of interest: he simply did not know what had happened in town. And that meant he had not been in Rafter at all.

  Where, then, had he been?

  Chapter 11

  DELIBERATELY, MIKE Shevlin offered no comment on the happenings in Rafter, and Burt Parry asked no questions. But Mike knew that the town and all the country around must be talking with excitement about the killing of Eve Bancroft.

  The killing of a girl in a western town was itself enough to start such talk, but Eve Bancroft was owner of the Three Sevens. It was not the largest ranch in that region, but it was one of the big ones.

  As he worked, Mike Shevlin tried to find a way through this situation, but there seemed to be none. He had attempted to stir up the hornet’s nest, but the cattlemen and Ray Hollister had done more than he ever could have. Yet nothing in the situation had changed.

  A girl was dead. Ray Hollister was disgraced. Eve Bancroft had called upon him to back his words with action and he had welshed. He had hung back, and Eve had ridden to her death.

  What they might have done had Hoyt not been there, Shevlin could not guess. Hoyt could stop them, as he never could have stopped Eve, for to lift his hand against a girl, a decent girl, was unthinkable to a man of Hoyt’s stripe. And Ben Stowe, solid, unshaken, still sat his throne in the center of the community.

  Shevlin’s thoughts returned to Gib Gentry. Without a doubt, Gib had been riding to warn him when he was killed, and without a doubt he had been killed mistaken for Shevlin. Somebody had been lying in wait, and by now that somebody knew he had killed the wrong man.

  Each time Shevlin wheeled a load to the end of the dump, he took his time to breathe in plenty of the fresh air, and to look around. It was very quiet. Parry had gone off again, and Mike was alone at the claim, but there was work enough to keep him busy until mid-afternoon, barring the unexpected.

  He wondered what effect Eve’s death would have on the people of Rafter. They were not all bad— in fact, they were no worse than most people in most towns. Perhaps a few more had been willing to go along than would usually be found, but there must have been some dissenting opinions, even though the people who held those opinions had kept still.

  Such fear as he had seen in Rafter could not continue very long. The people were wary, they doubted every stranger; they lived with the worry that at any moment the house they had built would come tumbling about their ears.

  He was working close against the face of the drift, scraping up the last of the rock, when it came to him.

  Lon Court

  ...

  Of course. He had heard the name. Gentry had scratched Lon C into the sand before he died, and Shevlin remembered that he had once heard talk of Lon Court

  , a killer, a man who worked for big cattle outfits, or anyone else who had need of his services. A mysterious, solitary man who could be hired to kill. He was just such a man as Ben Stowe would have hired.

  Undoubtedly Court had scouted the mining claim. He might even now be lying up on the lip of the canyon across from the tunnel mouth, and with every barrow of rock Shevlin had wheeled out he had been a sitting duck.

  There was no longer any hesitation in Mike Shevlin, for he knew now what he must do. He must get out of the tunnel and get to his guns, and he must get out of the canyon, which was a death trap with a man like Court stalking him. And then he must find Court and kill him.

  There was no alternative, no other way possible, for Court would never quit once he had undertaken a job. He, Mike Shevlin, must hunt the hunter, stalk the killer, and he must kill him.

  He put down his shovel. The last barrow could stand where it was. There was, of course, a chance that Lon Court

  was not waiting on the hill opposite; he certainly would not be unless there was an easy escape from it. Trust a killer like Lon Court

  to take no unnec risk.

  Shevlin went as far along the tunnel as he could without getting into the sunlight, and then he squatted down and peered out, keeping well in the shadow. By squatting, he could see the rim without going further. He stayed there and studied it for a long time.

  No brush grew on the rim, and there were no boulders, no spot where water had cut into the rim and made a place where a man might lie concealed. Flattening himself tight to the wall, Shevlin worked his way to the tunnel mouth. Then he emerged quickly and went toward the cabin, making three sudden turns for objects in his path, turns sufficient to make timing his movements awkward for anyone watching. Once inside the cabin, he stripped off his shirt, washed his chest and shoulders, then combed his hair, and belted on his gun. He thrust a second six-shooter into his waistband and took up his rifle.

  The black horse was picketed on the grass near the spring, but the killer must descend into the canyon to get a good shot at him there. Mike Shevlin did not think Lon Court

  would take such a gamble.

  He went to his horse, took the saddle from a shelf in the rock close by, and saddled up. The horse tugged toward the run-off stream, so while he let the gelding drink, Shevlin listened.

  That canyon worried him, and he recalled the sudden cessation of sound from the birds that he had noticed. Something—and he was sure it had been a man—had walked up that canyon in the late afternoon.

  Leaving the black with trailing reins, he went down to the bottom of the canyon and worked his way across it. Here and there were the tracks of small animals ... a porcupine or badger whose tracks were somewhat smudged ... many quail tracks ... the tracks of a prowling coyote ... and on the far side where a dim trail wound under the rim, the smudged tracks of a tall man’s boots.

  So someone had gone up the canyon. The tracks were a day or two old; but searching further, he found other, more recent ones.

  He had turned to go back to his horse when he happened to look down the canyon. Standing on the old dump—the place Parry had said was the discovery claim of the Sun Strike—was Parry himself. He held a rifle, and he was staring down the canyon toward the claim.

  Gathering the bridle reins, Shevlin started along the path from the spring to the claim. He watched Burt without turning his head toward him, striving to appear unaware of the other man’s presence.

  Suddenly, Parry heard him, and turned sharply. He held his rifle ready, and Shevlin was himself poised to drop to one knee and fire, if it came to that. He had no idea why Parry might decide to shoot, but the other man’s oddly secretive manner made him wary.

  Parry spoke. “I was looking for you.

  Did you finish up at the claim?”

  “Sure ... all but the last wheelbarrow. I just played out, figured to go in after it later. You been in town?”

  Parry’s eyes searched his. “There was hell to pay. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well, I knew Eve. She offered me a job, you know, and I was kind of upset over it. Just didn’t feel like talking about it. Besides, I figured you knew.”

  They walked back to the claim. Burt Parry’s open, casual manner returned.

  “Too bad,” he said; “she was a pretty girl.”

  Mike Shevlin paused. “Burt,” he said, “have you ever been in a western town w
hen a good woman got killed?”

  “No ... why?”

  “You’ve got something to learn. Even when any kind of a woman is killed or hurt, I’ve seen a town go wild. Believe me, there’s a lot of talking and thinking, and checking of hole cards going on in that town and in all the Rafter country right now. This ain’t over— not by a long shot.”

  Parry’s brow furrowed, but then he shrugged. “Hell, I’m out of it. I’ve never mixed in their squabbles.”

  “That won’t cut any ice. Vigilantes have a way of lynching the wrong folks. You ever hear of Jack Slade? He got drunk on the wrong night and raised a lot of hell, so when they started lynching the Plummer gang they just hung him, too, on general principles.”

  Parry scowled, and rubbed his jaw. They paused at the cabin. “You riding in?”

  “Uh-huh.” Mike let his eyes scan the rim with a swift but careful glance. “And I may just scout me a quick way out of this country. I might decide to tuck in my tail and run.”

  He had no such intention, but he trusted no one any longer, and it was just as well to keep his plans to himself. And he had several things to do that might keep him out of town.

  Rafter Crossing lay in a shallow valley, with the Sun Strike Mine occupying a bench south of the town; further back and somewhat higher was the Glory Hole. The ridges were timbered, except for the one where the mines were located, but in the low country there were no trees except along the infrequent water courses. Here were cottonwoods or low-growing willows.

  Mike Shevlin had punched cows over this country for several years, which was to say that he knew it intimately. When a cowhand hunts strays, gathering stock for a roundup or a cattle drive, he works every draw, every canyon. Soon there’s not an inch of the country he hasn’t seen, or that hasn’t been described in detail by other cowhands. But today Mike Shevlin was not hunting strays, he was hunting a man.

  Hiding out in wild country is not as simple as it may seem, for a man must be in the proximity of water. Andfora man who does not wish to be seen, that means a water hole that is off the line of travel, and out of the area covered by drifters or cowhands working the range. Such a man must have not only water, he must have freedom from observation, easy access to and from his hide-out, and especially a good field of observation to watch anyone who might be approaching.