by Lauran Paine
Lank Charley nodded over this, pushed his empty glass away, ran a sleeve across chapped lips, and mightily yawned. “I got the blood bay,” he said. “I figure I got well paid.”
Big Ace put his heavy-lidded look around. “You’ll likely be the only feller who’ll benefit from all that damned ridin’ too, Charley, because there don’t seem to be no Wanted poster out for that Travis.”
Fleharty said: “You’ll get your regular pay for bein’ a posse man, Ace.”
“Yeah. A lousy dollar, an’ I liked to rode my horse to death. Hell, Johnny, it was a hundred and twenty out there in that sunshine.” McElhaney drew upright. “I’ll give you fifty bucks for the blood bay horse, Charley,” he said.
Swindin shook his head. “I got plans for that animal. When he’s sound again, I’m goin’ to find out just how fast he can run. Then I’ll maybe take him ’round to the fairs and make a killin’ with him.”
“He can run all right,” stated Ace. “I’ll be damned if he can’t. You recollect how he left us all behind like we was tied to trees when Travis first broke away? Well, you let me know when you’re goin’ to run him…I want to be there an’ see that.”
Charley Swindin smiled, dabbed at sweat with a crusted bandanna, and moved off. “See you fellers later,” he said, crossed to the spindle doors, and passed beyond sight out into the sun-blasted roadway.
“I ought to be goin’ along, too,” McElhaney said, looking out into the bitter-bright roadway. “Damn but it’s hot.”
“Have another beer.”
“Naw, makes a feller sweat too much in weather like this. Besides, I get kind o’ drowsy when I drink in hot weather.” McElhaney, though, made no move away from the coolness of the bar; in fact, he hooked both elbows over it and leaned there, his broad back to Johnny Fleharty, his hat far back, and rumpled hair low across his forehead.
Everyone in that room was drained of energy. Even the card players seemed motivated by an inertia that went deeply into each man. Their reflexes were slow, their words slurred, and every face in the saloon was stolidly heavy and stupidappearing.
“Johnny,” said McElhaney without turning, “I keep wonderin’ about that three thousand dollars. He didn’t throw it away an’ he didn’t drop it. It wasn’t in the saddlebags when the money was counted…so where is it?”
Fleharty swiped the bar top with a smelly cloth. “He hid it like Charley said. He had to hide it, otherwise it’d have showed up by now. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Nothin’.”
McElhaney turned. He stared at Fleharty. “Come on, out with it,” he said. “If we could find it, there’d be fifteen hundred apiece.”
“Well, I was just thinkin’ that, after Travis was killed, maybe somebody took three thousand outen his saddlebags. Or maybe he was carryin’ that much in his pockets.”
Ace continued his staring. “Johnny,” he said softly, “you know damned well who was there when Travis was shot. Me ’n’ Charley Swindin. Wheaton was dead, an’ the others hadn’t come up yet. Now what you’re sayin’ is that…”
“No. No, I’m not sayin’ any such a thing, Ace. It wouldn’t have had to be either you or Charley, anyway. The others came up, too.”
“Not for a half hour,” muttered McElhaney. “An’ even after they did, there wasn’t a chance…too many fellers standin’ around there.”
“Well, didn’t someone search Travis?”
“Sure. Lew Morgan did, an’ Hub Wheaton was kneelin’ right beside him. That’s when they found all that gold in the saddlebags. But, hell, by then no one could’ve…”
“You mean you an’ Charley didn’t even look in the saddlebags, Ace?”
“No. Why should we? We had no idea there’d be gold in there, Johnny. It was hotter than the hubs of hell. We was both about played out, and there was Travis, lyin’ all sprawled out in front of us. Who’d think to search a man or look into his saddlebags at a time like that?”
Johnny finished with the sour bar rag. He faintly smiled with his bright blue eyes. “I would,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen dead men before. They don’t bother me a bit. Besides, whatever they got, they’re not goin’ to take with ’em. That’s how I look at it, Ace.”
McElhaney kept staring at Fleharty. He seemed annoyed. “It’s done now an’ over with,” he growled. “Charley got the blood bay horse. The rest of us that was in the damned posse’ll get our dollar a day from Wheaton’s cash fund like always…and the sheriff’s coolin’ out under six feet of sod.”
Fleharty cocked his head at McElhaney. “What about the three thousand?” he asked.
McElhaney leaned farther over the bar. He cupped his bristly chin in one big hand and stared thoughtfully at the painting of a voluptuous reclining nude woman hanging over Fleharty’s backbar.
“He didn’t spend it. He didn’t drop it. He didn’t have it on him, at least as far as I know he didn’t. So…it’s got to be out there somewhere, an’ that’s all there is to it.”
McElhaney drew upright again. He scowled at Fleharty. “But where? Dammit, the Laramie Plains are bigger’n kingdom come.”
“No rocks,” murmured Johnny. “No caves or trees or mine-shafts out there.”
Ace said irritably: “I know what there ain’t, damn it. Tell me what there is.”
Johnny slyly smiled. “Three thousand dollars,” he crooned. “Three thousand gold dollars hidden somewhere, sure as God made green apples.”
Ace said a harsh word in powerful disgust, turned, and walked out of the saloon. He halted under Fleharty’s wooden roadside awning and puckered his eyes against sun smash. Across the road burly Lewis Morgan and lanky, youthful, and tough-looking Hubbell Wheaton were in deep conversation. McElhaney watched them. Morgan was speaking with, for him, unaccustomed vehemence. He was even occasionally gesturing with his hands, something Ace had never before known him to do.
Lew Morgan owned the Lincoln Ranch of which Charley Swindin was foreman. Lew, at fifty-five, was in better physical shape than many men half his age. He had iron-gray hair above a sun-darkened face. He was wealthy and powerful and bull-like.
Hubbell Wheaton, the dead sheriff’s younger brother, was in appearance at least the opposite of Lew Morgan. Hub was well over six feet in height; he was that leaned-down sinewy type of man whose endurance was nearly limitless. Like the dead lawman, Hubbell’s face was long and, viewed one way, gloomy. His eyes were very pale blue and his hair was like bleached straw. His general appearance was uncompromising and dour, but this was not entirely true because Hub Wheaton, while not a talkative man, was easy to know and in fact he had a quiet, forthright, even humorous disposition. But if little of this showed now, so soon after his brother’s killing, it was understandable.
Ace McElhaney, who had worked with Hubbell Wheaton as a rider for the big cow outfits, felt envy at the way Lew Morgan was obviously treating Hub as his equal now. Ace was that kind of a man. He had his share of envy, and he also had a meanness of spirit that those who knew him well were also aware of. Particularly the riders who had been paired up with McElhaney on the roundups, for where two men eat, sleep, and work side-by-side for weeks at a time, all the little defects come out.
It made Ace antagonistic now, seeing rich Lew Morgan standing over there talking to Hub Wheaton like that, as though he wished for Wheaton’s approval of something, as though he were pleading with Hub.
Ace stepped out into the roadway. As he walked forward, dust spurted underfoot and that malevolent afternoon sunlight bore down upon him. When he was close enough to be readily heard by those two conversing men, he brought up a hard, faint smile and called forward.
“You two figured where that other three thousand is yet?”
Morgan turned, hesitating in mid-sentence. Hubbell Wheaton’s pale eyes lifted, ran over to McElhaney, and stayed there. Ace stopped at the plank walk’s edge. He got the sudden feeling that his casual remark had struck like iron against flint with those two; they kept looking at him,
making no effort to resume their conversation. Then Lew Morgan said rather briskly—“Well, think it over, Hub. I’ll see you again.”—and walked away.
Ace looked after Morgan; a faint blush of color came into his face Morgan had not even nodded to him; he had simply turned and walked off.
Hubbell Wheaton saw that look and also the swift rise of a fiery antagonism in McElhaney’s gaze. He said: “You could’ve said just about anything but what you did say, Ace. Morgan’s about half believing what his niece said the day we brought Ken and Travis in.”
Ace switched his smoky gaze to Hub. “Amy? What did she say?”
“That there was no three thousand dollars. That Travis only had nine thousand…and that it didn’t come from the express office at all.”
McElhaney got off a curse. “You believe that?” he demanded. “Dammit all, you come up after it was all over, Hub. You know how Travis put up a fight. Before that you saw how he tried like hell to escape from the posse.”
“Amy’s notion is that, when he saw thirty armed men bust out after him, he just naturally took fright and ran.”
“Amy,” snarled Ace. “What the hell would a woman know? Listen, how many common cowpunchers are ridin’ around the Laramie Plains with nine thousand gold dollars in their saddlebags?”
Wheaton, seeing the wrath in McElhaney’s face, said: “Simmer down, Ace. I didn’t say Travis wasn’t the thief.”
McElhaney teetered upon the plank walk’s edge, saying fiercely: “Amy! Amy! That dog-goned spinster…why don’t she just stick to her danged knittin’.”
Hubbell fished in a pocket, brought forth a little badge, and held it in his palm. He used this to change the conversation. Ace glowered at the badge, his eyes still yeasty.
“I heard over at Johnny’s place there was talk of givin’ you Ken’s job,” he said, his voice losing some of its roughness. “I told ’em you’d make a good sheriff.”
Hub considered the badge gravely and said: “Thanks, Ace. I aim to do my best.” He pocketed the badge, looked across the road, and said: “Care for a drink?”
McElhaney lost some more of his indignation. “Why not?” he said, reversed himself, and went with Hubbell Wheaton back across the road.
Down by the livery barn Lew Morgan saw those two hike out into the fierce sunlight where he was talking to Charley Swindin. He paused to watch their progress for a time, then he turned back to Charley again.
“Tell Amy I’ll be late,” he said. “I’ve got a little more business in town. And, Charley, pick up the mail before you head for the ranch.”
Chapter Three
Amy Morgan was unmarried at twenty-four, which was almost unheard of on the frontier where men far outnumbered women. What made this even more incredible was that Amy Morgan was beautiful. She was slim and straight. Beneath heavy brows was the inquiring line of steel-gray eyes. She had skin the color of fresh butter and a long mouth that was composed. Her hair was red-auburn, the color of a winter sunset; it caught hot sunlight and threw it back in a coppery way. Her profile was cameo-like and head-on Amy had that indefinable, illusive quality that drew men to her in spite of themselves.
But Amy had not only a temper and a will of her own; she also had a mind to match. She’d had many suitors, but as she possessed that magnetic force that attracted men, she also had the very logical, skeptical, and analytical mind that could reduce them to nothing in conversation. Beautiful Amy Morgan was that bane of alluring women, a highly intelligent female in a man’s world. That, in a breath, was why at twenty-four she was unmarried.
Amy was Lew Morgan’s niece. Amy’s dead father had been Lew’s only brother. Amy’s father had died four years earlier and she had come at Lew’s invitation to live with him at Lincoln Ranch.
It was a good relationship between those two; Lew was a lifelong bachelor—he’d never had much use for women. Amy, the crispy efficient, seemingly cold-blooded but very beautiful woman, ran Lew’s household and sometimes even ran Lincoln Ranch when Lew was absent. She never made a mistake and to Lew’s astonishment—and delight—she reasoned like a man, so Lew treated her as an equal—something he’d never before done with a woman in his life.
Amy came down to breakfast the day following Hub Wheaton’s appointment to fill out his dead brother’s term as county sheriff looking cool and lovely. Lew, who had got in after midnight and was a little tired still, looked up at her as she swept forward toward the table, and smiled. Amy did not smile back. She sat down, unfolded her napkin, and waited for the cook to bring food. Lew’s smile faded; he studied her expressionless face and grew uneasy. Lew Morgan was virile enough at fifty-five to respond to Amy’s compelling allure, and at the same time old enough to be concerned with her thoughts and her opinions.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked.
The cook came bearing their breakfast and Amy said nothing until he had retreated back into the kitchen. Then her head-on glance went to Lew and remained there as she spoke.
“I talked to Charley when he brought the mail last night. He told me about Hubbell Wheaton’s appointment.”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
Amy called her uncle by his first name. That was his wish. The first time they’d met and she’d called him “Uncle Lew,” it had stopped Lew Morgan cold. He’d been working so hard for thirty years that he’d lost track of time and that “Uncle Lew” had cruelly brought him up short, face to face with an inexorable march of time that left him breathless and stunned. Ever since then it had been just plain Lew and just plain Amy.
She said his name now, then also bluntly spoke her mind. “Lew, Ken Wheaton is dead. One death in that family is enough.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I told you that the very fact that Travis did not have the full twelve thousand dollars which was stolen from the express company safe, although he was overtaken…and killed…before he could have spent, or even hidden any of it, meant that Travis was very possibly not the robber at all.”
“All right, Amy,” said Lew. “You told me that. What’s it got to do with Ken and Hub Wheaton?”
“This, Lew. Charley told me about the letter found on young Travis.”
Lew’s cheeks darkened with color. He was becoming annoyed. His voice showed it, too, when he roughly said: “Quit beating around the bush, Amy. Young Travis had a letter on him. Dammit, what are you getting at?”
“Someone had to write that letter, Lew. Someone was close to Travis down in Arizona. Someone, probably the man who wrote that letter, will be coming to Laramie over Travis’s killing.” Amy paused to watch the gradual spread of understanding on her uncle’s face. “If Frank Travis was not the express company robber…if he owned that nine thousand dollars in gold and the person who comes here knows that…then that person is also going to hear how Travis was shot to death without a chance by Sheriff Wheaton’s posse and to go just a little further, Lew…someone will very likely try to kill Charley and Ace McElhaney, the slayers of Travis, and probably Hub Wheaton as well.”
Lew Morgan sat still for a half minute arranging all this in orderly sequence in his masculine mind—and came up with the identical sum total Amy had just given him in forceful words.
“I was in that posse, too,” he ultimately said. “So was Ken. So was…”
“Half the men in Laramie were in it according to Charley. And another thing, Lew…that blood bay horse. What right did Charley have to bring it here to the ranch? What right does he have keeping it at all?”
Lew had no answer, so he shrugged bull-like shoulders and reached for his coffee. “No one else wanted it. Everyone thought it had a broken leg.” Lew sipped, put the cup down, and scowled. “If Charley left the critter out there, it would have died.”
“I’m sure,” said Amy dryly, “that’s the only thought which motivated Charley…pity for an injured animal.”
Lew squirmed. Amy had never approved of Charley Swindin, which was sometimes an issue between them. “Ne
ver mind the horse,” he muttered, “and never mind Charley.” He stood up. “I reckon I’ll ride into town.”
“For the letter?”
“Partly. To see it, anyway. Maybe the sender put a name on it. Otherwise, to talk this over with Hub. Hell, Amy, the only thought I had when I went before the town council for Hub was that he’d make a good sheriff, and it seemed right he should have the chance to finish Ken’s term.”
Amy’s steely gaze softened toward her uncle. “I know,” she said to him. “I understand, Lew, and I’m sorry if I poured cold water over your good deed. It’s simply that, if trouble comes, Hub will be in the middle of it.”
“You left something unsaid, Amy. You’re thinking I put him there.”
Amy answered this candidly, honestly, and quietly: “Yes.” She stood up.
“Finish your breakfast,” said Lew, turning away. “I’ll be back directly.” He took five steps, then swung around. “Maybe I’ll bring Hub back for supper with me.”
Those two exchanged a long look. Here was another issue between them—Amy’s spinsterhood. Although Lew Morgan found the notion of marriage for himself anathema, he conversely thought Amy’s singleness was some kind of a reflection upon the Morgan name.
“If you wish,” said Amy in that chilly tone she used whenever she saw through her uncle and didn’t approve. “I think I’ll have a headache tonight and retire early, though.”
Lincoln Ranch—so named because the original patent had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln—consisted of 17,000 acres of range, timber, water, and lush meadow. It lay southeast of Laramie and the Laramie-Cheyenne stage road crossed it for nearly six miles. A goodly portion of it lay upon the Laramie Plains, but not all of it. There were the places like Amy’s little private dell up in the fragrant forest, where summertime heat lay, but where summertime sun never quite touched the spongy earth with its ancient carpeting of pine and fir needles. This was the place she frequently visited during hot days when there was nothing to hold her at the ranch. She rode to it an hour after her uncle left Lincoln Ranch for town, not particularly to escape the heat this time because as yet the day was young, the heat had not yet reached its zenith, but because she was troubled—had been troubled for several days now.
