Raw Land

by Short, Luke;

  She put that out of her mind and ran through the things she must finish before she left. There was Tomás to see. Last night in the darkness he had walked into his quarters in the barn where Pres Milo had forbidden him to have any light. Some one of the hands, during the day, had thrown a harness into Tomás’s room for him to patch. When Tomás came in, he tripped on the harness, fell into the table, and peeled two square inches of hide off his shins.

  Becky found her salves and stepped out the back door. The slow wind rustled her skirts, and she smelled the warm summer scent of wind on grass and the faint smoky odor of cedar.

  She had passed the bunkhouse, humming softly to herself, when she saw Pres Milo ride through the gate and out directly toward the big corral where a couple of hands had the wheels off a spring wagon and were greasing it. Becky wondered why he was in such a hurry, but she made her way to the barn.

  She saw Pres start for the barn and one of the hands called, “He’s in the loft, Pres.”

  Pres dismounted at the door of the barn, ground-haltering his horse, and strode inside, not even seeing Becky. She made her way to Tomás’s door, knocked, heard no answer, and went in. Tomás was asleep on his cot, snoring softly. On his legs were two bloody bandages. Becky came across the room, intending to wake him, when she heard Pres’s voice say gruffly from behind the partition, “Well, Angus, he’s done it! Damn his eyes, he busted out!”

  “Danning?”

  “Shot his way out last night. Fought through the whole gang from Mohr’s and rode his horse through the saloon and made it.”

  Case said wearily, “So your little frame-up was wasted?”

  Pres swore savagely, but Becky didn’t even notice. A wild elation was in her. She heard Pres say, “What nobody can figure out is how he got the gun. Phipps claims nobody but that U. S. marshal could have give it to him.”

  “Nonsense.”

  Pres said grimly, “Well, he’s out, and he’ll be harder to catch than a muley steer.”

  Her father said nothing, and Becky heard Pres sit down on a bale of hay.

  “Tomás inside?” Pres asked.

  “He’s sleepin’.”

  “All right. I want to talk to you, Angus. I want to know some things. What are you goin’ to do about that deed that’s missin’?”

  “Just what I told you,” Case said flatly. “The Gold Seal outfit has a record of who they deeded that land to. It’ll be Hale. I’ll get another deed. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And you won’t sell it to me?”

  “Not ever,” Case said flatly. “That’s out. If a buyer comes to me and wants it and takes it to court, I’ll buy it myself before I’ll let it get out of my hands.”

  Pres laughed nastily. “Would you buy it, say, if you found it was worth a lot of money?”

  “Of course I would,” Case snapped. “It isn’t worth money, though, except to a crook. And I’ll tell Chap’s heirs that, too.”

  “It is, though,” Pres murmured.

  Case was silent for a long moment, and Becky tried to picture him. She couldn’t, nor could she understand what Pres was driving at.

  “Why is it?” Case demanded.

  Pres chuckled. “You don’t think I’d be sucker enough to tell you, unless I had a signed and sealed paper givin’ me half of it, do you?”

  “And you don’t think I’d give it to you, do you?” Case countered.

  “I think you will,” Pres drawled. “You just make out a deed sayin’ if I can prove that Danning’s place is worth more than a hundred thousand dollars to a buyer, then I’m to share half the profits with you in further development.”

  Case said softly, “Did you say worth more than a hundred thousand dollars?”

  “That’s it. If I can’t prove to you that it’s worth more than that to anybody, then I don’t get a cent. But if it is, then I get a fifty-fifty cut.”

  “On what?”

  “On the money we’ll make.”

  Becky’s heart hammered riotously and she held her breath.

  Her father said, “What is it over there, Pres?”

  Pres laughed. “Hell, for three years I’ve known it. I’ve tried to get the money to buy the place, so I’d have it all to myself. But I couldn’t swing it. Then Danning came in. I tried to drive him off, but all I done was make him mad. There’s only one way left now, and that’s to split it with the only gent that can buy it. That’s you, Angus.”

  “But split what?” Case demanded. “Gold. Is that it?”

  “You’ll know when you sign the paper. Will you sign it—a ten-thousand-dollar risk on more than a hundred thousand?”

  “I’ll have to see what you’re talkin’ about first.”

  “You will like hell!” Pres snapped. “You’ll buy the place blind and take my word for it. Even if I’m lyin’ to you, and I ain’t, you’ll still have the place, won’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re goin’ in town with me this afternoon and buy it for yourself. Make out a deed to yourself, get the deed from the Gold Seal, deposit the ten thousand, and you’ve got the place.”

  “If you’re lyin’ to me, Pres, I’ll—”

  “Lie to you!” Pres shouted angrily. “I’m comin’ to you because I can’t swing it any other way! You think I like you good enough to make you rich, you damned old fool?”

  Becky heard her father answer wearily, “No, I don’t. If you ever came to me for help, it’s because you couldn’t help it.”

  “Then saddle up,” Pres said. Becky heard him get up, and she fled out the door, leaving Tomás still sleeping.

  She was in the kitchen again when she saw the two men come out of the barn. Becky thought swiftly. Will Danning was being cheated out of his rightful property. She’d told her father that, but her father was stubborn in his intention of resorting to legal trickery to keep Will off the place. And now he was going to cheat Will out of a fortune by the same method. She was sick at the thought, angry at her father, and bewildered. What did Pres have on her father that he could make him do these evil things?

  Case came into the kitchen and said, “Ready, Becky?”

  “I’ve got a headache, Dad. I think I’ll stay home.”

  Case looked at her and frowned. “I’ll be away a week.”

  Becky laughed and came over and kissed him lightly. “Since when have I been afraid to stay here alone?”

  Her father grumbled a bit more and went out. Soon he and Pres rode off toward Yellow Jacket together. Becky, now that they were gone, sank into a chair and considered what she had heard. She felt a weak excitement and a kind of pride when she thought of Will’s escape. If she could only get to him now with the news she had heard. But what could he do if she did reach him? Nothing. He was a fugitive. Besides, she couldn’t reach him. He’d be smart enough to stay away from the Pitchfork, because they’d watch that. All she could do was sit by, helpless, and watch this steal.

  The afternoon and evening were torment, and she wished she’d gone with her father. Anything, so that she wouldn’t think of what was happening.

  After supper she was sitting by the lamp in the kitchen reading week-old newspapers when she heard a faint tap on the window. She looked up, listening, and the tap came again. She went to the door and stood in it, and then she heard a whisper. “Becky.”

  It was Will. Without answering him, she stepped back into the room, blew the lamp, and then came outside. Will was flattened against the side of the house, big and shadowy.

  “Nobody’s home, Will. Come in,” she said.

  “I just came for some grub,” Will said. “Can you let me have some?”

  “But Will, I’ve got to talk to you. Come in.”

  “No thanks,” Will said bitterly. “I’ll have a bounty on my head by now that any Nine X puncher hones to collect. Besides, I don’t want you in on this.”

  “Will, are you hurt?”

  “Not even scratched.” Will smiled wryly in the dark. “Still, they won. I’m holed up
back in the Sevier Brakes and I’m runnin’ to you for grub. I reckon they got me off the place, all right.”

  “Do you know why, Will?”

  “I don’t, and that’s a fact.”

  Becky told him swiftly of the conversation she had overheard between Pres and her father. Will listened in silence, and when she was finished he still didn’t speak.

  “What is it they’re after, Will?”

  “Gold, silver, I dunno. Whatever it is, they’ve got it, all right. Your dad can sell the place to himself. Likely he’s done it. And Pres will get his split.”

  “And you’re outlawed! Will, are you going to take it?”

  “No,” Will said quietly, stubbornly.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You won’t like this, Becky. Maybe I’d better not tell you.”

  “But I’m in it, Will. You’ve got to tell me.”

  “I been crowded into my last corner,” Will said bleakly. “I come here wantin’ to be let alone, and I got swindled out of every dollar I ever saved. I aim to fight.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m goin’ to fight your old man. I’m goin’ to make him sorry for the day he ever saw me. So help me, I’ll run him out of this country, Becky. I’m goin’ to break him, and then I’m goin’ to kill that crooked partner of his!”

  Becky was silent, awed, and afraid of the passion in his voice. Will said then, “You asked me what I was goin’ to do. That’s it. Now, I don’t reckon you’ll want to feed the man that’s goin’ to ruin your dad.”

  “Do you have to do it, Will?”

  “Either that or quit. And I won’t quit.” He paused. “Thanks for what you’ve done for me.”

  “Will, are you going without grub?”

  “I’ll get it, steal it.”

  “Not while there’s some here!” Becky said angrily. “You wait here.”

  She disappeared into the house and was gone a long time. When she came back, she had a sack full of groceries. Under her arm was a carbine, and over her shoulder two shell belts. “Tell me where your hide-out is, Will. I’ll bring more grub when this is gone.”

  “But your dad, Becky!”

  “He raised me to be honest and decent, and I believed him!” Becky said passionately. “If he’s a crook, then he’ll pay for it!”

  “He’s your dad, Becky. You don’t mean that.”

  Becky hesitated. It was true what he said. She couldn’t betray her father, help his enemies, the man who had sworn to ruin him. But neither could she help him; it was wrong.

  “Becky,” Will said softly. “If this wasn’t me, would you feel like helpin’ me?”

  “I—I’d feel like it,” Backy said softly. “But I wouldn’t, Will.”

  Will put his hands on her shoulders, and spoke in a low voice. “I did a lot of thinkin’ there in jail, Becky. I thought how a lot of things might have been—if this hadn’t happened. I thought of a woman with me, and a little place of our own, afterwhile—not that dark hole where I was. I thought of a lot of things like that—and then I knew it couldn’t happen till I was clear of this. And tonight I reckon I found out it can’t happen at all. Because I won’t ask any girl to fight her family, her blood, like I’m goin’ to fight them.”

  Becky nodded mutely, and Will’s hands dropped to his side. “It’s goin’ to be wicked, Becky. I’m going to fight like hell, and I’m goin’ to hurt you. Only I wanted you to know what I thought of you before you start hatin’ me.”

  “I’ll never hate you, Will—never.”

  “You will. Good night, Becky. And thanks.”

  Before Becky could say good night, Will had vanished into the night.

  Chapter Twelve

  A RENEGADE LAWMAN

  It was past noon when Charlie Sommers heard the knock on his door. He opened it to find one of Phipps’s deputies, standing in the hall.

  “Sheriff’d like to see you, marshal,” the deputy said.

  “Sure,” Charlie said. He went back to get his hat, knowing it had come. Phipps was too good a man, too honest a man to ignore his duty.

  Sommers and the deputy went downstairs, marched through the lobby and downstreet to the sheriff’s office. Phipps was there; so were three other deputies, among them Ed Brown, the big puncher whom Will had cornered the night before.

  Phipps’s face was grave as he got out of the chair. “Sit down Sommers. We got some questions to ask.”

  Charlie sat down, his ruddy face impassive. Should he lie to them, or should he admit it? If he admitted it, they would want to know why he’d done it, and he couldn’t tell them. Even if they believed him, which they wouldn’t, he couldn’t have this story getting out. It would only serve to warn Murray Broome to watch his step, and his plan would be defeated. No, he’d lie, and pay the price if he had to.

  Phipps sat on the desk and said, “There’s one thing worryin’ us, Sommers. We thought you might clear it up.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We can’t figure out where Will Danning got the gun he used to crowd Ed into that play last night.”

  Sommers looked at Ed. “Sure he had a gun?”

  “Hell, he shot at me, didn’t he?” Ed asked indignantly.

  Sommers shrugged. “Maybe he had it hid on him.”

  “We searched him, searched him good, even his boots. No, he never brought it in with him.”

  “Then somebody snuck it in.”

  “Through a window? No. There’s a wire screen on the cellblock window. He couldn’t have got it in his food neither. And the only folks that was in that cell block yesterday was the boys here and Angus Case and you.”

  Charlie smiled broadly. “Don’t tell me you think Case brought it in?”

  “He couldn’t,” Phipps said quietly. “I was with him.”

  “Well, that leaves me,” Charlie said cheerfully.

  “That’s right.”

  They were all silent, watching him. Charlie crossed his legs and said dryly, “I always figured it was a marshal’s job to land a man in jail, not let him out.”

  “So did we!” Ed blurted out.

  “Easy,” Phipps said to his deputy. He turned to Charlie and asked bluntly, “Did you give him a gun, Charlie?”

  “No,” Charlie lied.

  “Where is your gun?”

  Charlie handed a gun over. Phipps looked at it briefly and said, “Then you got two. You had your initials cut in the cedar handle of one gun.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Charlie said.

  Phipps looked at him sharply. “I ain’t mistaken, and you damn well know it. Where’s your other gun?”

  “I only carry one.”

  Phipps put the gun down on the desk and looked long at him. The faces of the other deputies were hard and tough with suspicion.

  Phipps said then in a barren voice, “Why’d you give him the gun, Charlie?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll give you a chance to tell me,” Phipps said stubbornly. “Is Will Danning an undercover marshal? If he is, all you got to do is say so, and I’ll telegraph the Commissioner for confirmation.”

  “Not that I know of, he isn’t,” Charlie said.

  “Then why’d you do it?”

  Charlie shook his head. “There must be a mistake, John. You’re going off half-cocked.”

  “Then you explain to me how he got the gun.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Phipps said quietly. “It looks like you give it to him, Charlie. This thing busted right after you left. His crew in there won’t say a word, so we ain’t got proof. But you had two guns and now you say you only had one. You’re lyin’, and if you’re lyin’ over that it must mean that Danning has your other gun.”

  “But I’m a deputy U. S. marshal,” Charlie said gently. “Marshals don’t do that, John.”

  “You’re a renegade, then, because you done it!” Phipps said flatly.

  Charlie said, “You�
��re the sheriff. You’ve got my story. Do whatever you want.”

  Phipps didn’t speak for a moment, but his eyes were bleak with contempt. “All my life,” he said wryly, “I’ve hated crooked lawmen. And all my life I believed that the man wearin’ Uncle Sam’s badge couldn’t be bought. No matter how bad other lawmen were, there was always a U. S. marshal to do the job that needed doin’. Now I dunno.”

  “I know,” one of the deputies said hotly. “He swore on his oath that he’d be straight. But he ain’t! He’s as crooked as any damn bank robber or killer!”

  Charlie’s ruddy face flushed. That hurt, and he came to his feet slowly. “You’re a liar,” he said quietly.

  The deputy hit him first, and Charlie slugged back. And then the four deputies swarmed on him. Charlie was a better than average saloon brawler, and for a few seconds he held his own. But he couldn’t win. These men were fighting for something they believed—the honor of a government lawman. And to them he was a renegade, worse than a killer, for he had let a killer escape.

  He kicked out and caught Ed in the groin, and another deputy smashed him flush in the jaw. His head slammed back against the wall, and then someone drove a fist into his belly. Charlie doubled up, and a blow caught him alongside the ear. Another slammed him in the face and he fought weakly, blindly, hearing Phipps’s shrill cursing. Charlie’s whole body was aching, bruised; his breath was gone, and his face felt mashed, but he fought on. Time and again, they cornered him, raining blows into his chest and face.

  And then his Knees gave way and buckled, and he sat down, and slowly a curtain of oblivion slipped over him. He didn’t bear these men any ill will; they were doing what he would have done in their place. That was the last thought in his mind before everything faded away into blessed blackness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  RUSTLING WITHOUT RISK

  There was a light in the big room. Will had been watching it for an hour, edging down yard by yard, off the red-clay banks toward the house. He would move, then listen, then move some more, certain that the house would be watched. Or maybe they were inside, waiting to decoy him in.

  Slowly, patiently he worked around until he could see through the door into the big room. Milt was sitting there reading at the big table. Will watched him for half an hour, noting every move to see if Milt would give away the presence of another man in there. But there was nothing strange in Milt’s actions, and he decided to chance it.