by L. P. Holmes
Jason Spelle’s lips thinned, but he nodded, knowing he had received an honest answer from a tough man not given to easy fears. “We’ll let that particular issue stand for a while. We’ll admit the man is dangerous. But he’s mortal. I’ll think up another angle. Now we got other business to arrange. It will be tomorrow night. The fellow’s name is Dopkins. I’ve reason to believe it will be a richer drag than the last one. I’ll meet you at the regular place and point out the camp to you.”
“You aim to leave another sign on this one?” asked Horgan.
“Not the same kind of a sign, but one that won’t be mistaken. We’ll arrange that when you leave town tonight. Now for the payoff on the first job. Cash, get that money out of your safe.”
As Edmunds moved to obey, Spelle poured himself a short drink. “The fools talk and tell me their plans. Which tells me how deep their sock is. A hundred thousand of that kind of money lying around, maybe more. Who knows? And in back of that the Rocking A Beef to be sold to them, hungry for it. Thousands of dollars worth. Stick with me, Pitch, and we’ll all be rich. Once in a man’s lifetime this kind of a chance comes along. It’s right in our laps. We can’t miss. Here’s luck!”
Chapter Twelve
Pat Donovan was a chunky, florid-faced Irishman with keen blue eyes that twinkled easily, but shrewdly. He faced Bruce Martell across the width of his little cubby of an office in a rear corner of his store.
“And now, Mister Martell,” he said. “What would this bit of business be?”
“Fresh beef,” Bruce told him. “If you had any of it, could you sell it?”
“Could I sell it? Man! The settlers are crying for it. But mind you now, I’ll have nothing to do with any but honest beef. There is talk of slow-elking being done against Hack Asbell’s critters, and I don’t like that. I don’t like it at all.”
“Neither do I, Mister Donovan,” said Bruce. “But this is an honest deal. Rocking A beef, but on the square. Hack Asbell is ready to make a deal with you for all the beef you can sell. We would slaughter it and haul it in to you in dressed sides.”
“We? You’re riding for old Hack, Mister Martell? I thought I knew all of Hack’s boys.”
“I’m ramrodding for Hack now,” explained Bruce. “He insisted on it that way.”
The storekeeper studied Bruce keenly for a moment. Then he nodded. “You did a job of it, getting old Hack away from that mob of settlers. That was bad business and Jason Spelle should have known better, which I told him. I don’t believe, and I will not, that Rocking A hung Jake Hendee. That was a dirty affair, and while Hack Asbell is a tough old codger, there is no meanness in the man. Should Hack ever have cause to lynch a man, then he would do it in the open, tell the world he had done it, and give his good reasons. But he is not the sort to murder a man in the dark. So you are his new foreman, eh? Knowing old Hack, I’d say you had to do a deal of talking to bring him to agreeing to this beef deal. Or am I guessing wrong, Mister Martell?”
Bruce’s slow smile broke. “He took a mite of convincing, for a fact. Then you want that beef?”
Pat Donovan was emphatic. “I want it. But I must fix me up a cooling room and let the word get about that the beef is here. We will start easy and then keep up with the demand. And the prices will be fair?”
“Fair to Hack, fair to you, fair to the settlers,” said Bruce. “We’ll let you decide that angle, for you’ve the knowledge in such things.”
Donovan rubbed his hands. “It will be good business all around,” he declared. “Day after tomorrow I will be ready for three carcasses, Mister Martell.”
“The beef will be here, bright and early in the morning of that day,” Bruce promised. “And it wouldn’t hurt if with every chunk of beef you sell, you remind the buyer that it is honest Rocking A beef, sold to him at a fair price. It may get Rocking A some good will, which we can use.”
“Aye!” agreed Donovan. “I see what you mean. I will spread the good word as far as I can, for there is need of good will, in this basin, and a gathering of fair minds and stout hearts.” The storekeeper’s tone had gone abruptly very grave.
Bruce swung an alert head. “You’ve a meaning behind that, Mister Donovan. What is it?”
“It is what a settler by the name of Otten was telling me,” said Donovan slowly. “Otten knew Jake Hendee very well. They were neighbors back in a more settled country before deciding to come into Indio Basin in the land rush. And back there Jake Hendee had a very fair little property that he sold out when he left. Otten did not know the exact price Hendee got for his property, but his guess is that it would be perhaps fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars. Hendee brought that money with him to Indio Basin. Otten was sure of that from some remarks Hendee dropped. But when Otten and some other reliable settlers went over Hendee’s camp to care for his effects, they found no penny of money. Though they did find a trunk in Hendee’s wagon with the lock smashed. Did I say Jake Hendee’s killing was a dirty business, Mister Martell?”
Bleak gravity pulled Bruce Martell’s face into harsh lines. “This fellow Otten … he’s reliable?”
“I would judge him so. A fair, upstanding sort who looks you in the eye. There are many such in this basin, but it would seem there are some rascals, too.”
“Could you get Otten and some more of his kind together in this store by tonight, so I could talk to them? The more of them the better.”
“I think that could be done,” Donovan said.
“And leave out … Jason Spelle and Cashel Edmunds?”
Donovan started slightly, met Bruce’s eyes for a long moment. “Now I wonder,” said the storekeeper slowly, “if there isn’t a deeper shrewdness in you than I dreamed. You stir up thoughts in me that I’ve been afraid to consider before. What have you to go on, man?”
“Virtually nothing, Pat,” admitted Bruce. “Yet, things do not just happen in the affairs of men. The things men do are seldom without motive. I distrust self-appointed messiahs, and I don’t like men who urge other men to throw rocks from the security of a mob. And sometimes, when you startle a man enough, the curtain lifts so that you see things beyond it that he’d rather keep hidden. You total these things up and, while you don’t necessarily get a whole answer, you do get something to make you wonder. Which may not make sense to you.”
“Ah, but it does,” asserted Donovan. “So tonight we will leave out Jason Spelle and Cashel Edmunds.”
“I’ll be here about ten o’clock, after the town has quieted,” promised Bruce.
The tide of settlers flowing in and out of Starlight was an ever-changing one. If any who saw Bruce Martell arrive at and leave Donovan’s store were part of the mob that had clamored for Hack Asbell’s neck, they did not show it openly. Nothing worse than the usual growls and sullen glances came his way.
Heading out, Bruce took a route he had traveled before. It led by Ezra Banks’ camp, where the gaunt old settler was squaring up some foundations for a cabin. Ezra was not alone. Sitting, cross-legged, in the shade of Ezra’s wagon, laying out something on a couple of tin plates on a square of tarpaulin, was Tracy Carling. She looked up as Bruce jogged in, then lowered her eyes swiftly.
To Ezra, Bruce said, “Old-timer, how are you?”
Ezra stared at him, frowning. “Well enough,” came the short, none-too-friendly answer. “I would like to be able to put my finger on you.”
“That should be easy,” smiled Bruce. “I’m right in front of you.”
“There was a night,” said Ezra slowly, “when you stood up right handsome in the Carling camp against the rough ones of the Rocking A. But next I hear of your standing over Hack Asbell, a gun in your hand, threatening to kill any man who touched him. A man is one thing or the other. Which are you?”
“I’m a very ordinary sort of a man, Ezra. I just try and do what I think is right. Does that make me a fool?”
The gaunt settle
r seemed to think that over for some time. “Maybe not a fool,” he conceded finally, “but still a man who is hard to figure. Yet, I’ve a mind to like you for the stand you made in town. I don’t like mobs. So now you can light down if you want and help Tracy Carling and me eat that pie she is setting out. For it was bake day at the Carling camp, and they did not forget old Ezra.”
“You offer bait no man could refuse,” said Bruce, swinging down. He moved over toward the girl. “With your permission, Miss Carling.”
The keen pleasure he knew at sight of her was startling. It was like a fragrance, known before and then half forgotten, that had been abruptly rediscovered, bringing with it the realization that it hadn’t been really forgotten at all, but instead had been unconsciously yearned for all the time.
Looking down at her, even though her head was now in shadow, it seemed that sunlight still burned in her hair, warm and glowing, faultless in its luster. And the slender grace of her shoulders was as natural and unstudied and perfect as a reed bending before the wind.
That she was conscious of his intense approval showed in the way color spread a slow stain across her cheeks. But her words were curt.
“It’s Ezra’s pie. He can do what he wants with it.”
It was like a bucket of ice water in the face. The warmth in Bruce’s eyes faded. He turned back to his horse. “On second thought, Ezra,” he said stonily, “I think I’ll ride on.”
“No,” said Ezra. “No, you won’t. You’ll stay like I asked you to.”
“Of course,” said the girl tautly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I … I didn’t mean it. Only I don’t understand …”
“What don’t you understand?” Bruce asked.
“Why you took Hack Asbell’s part?” she burst out. “Have you stopped to think what a horrible thing it was that he and his men did? To hang an old, defenseless man like Jake Hendee, and then to leave a sign on him … on his dead body? No punishment is too great for a man who would do a thing as brutal and wicked as that!”
Her eyes weren’t lowered now. They were flaming at him.
“I agree with you,” Bruce told her. “No punishment is too great. Only … Hack Asbell and his men did not do it. That is why I took Asbell’s side against the mob.”
“How can you say that?” she stormed. “The sign—?”
“Any man could have written that and pinned it on Jake Hendee’s body,” said Bruce quietly. “There is no proof that the Rocking A was responsible. I have Hack Asbell’s word for it that his outfit had nothing to do with the Hendee affair, and he’s too proud a man to lie.”
“But Jason Spelle says the Rocking A is responsible. And Jason wouldn’t lie, either.”
“He could be mistaken.”
“Maybe you’re forgetting how the Rocking A riders came into our camp, ready to abuse and bully and tear things apart,” Tracy Carling insisted. “Though you shouldn’t, for you were the one who stopped them from doing it.”
“That was foolish business on the part of Rocking A, which they now realize. There’ll be no more of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” said Bruce gravely, “I’m foreman of the outfit now.”
At this she came fully to her feet. “You! Foreman of the Rocking A? So that’s it! No wonder you saved Asbell’s murderous old neck. No wonder you stand up for him and deny his lies. It means a job for you. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” The scorn she threw at him made him squirm inside.
He retreated far back within himself. “You’re jumping at unfair conclusions,” he said harshly.
She did not answer. She turned her back and marched away, swinging along, slim and defiant, toward her uncle’s camp, which lay beyond a roll of the prairie, some half mile distant. Bruce Martell watched her, his face a mask.
“Well, now,” growled Ezra Banks. “I can hardly blame the lass, for I wonder myself about your being foreman of the Rocking A. A night or two ago you were no part of that outfit, so you said then. What’s a man to believe?”
“That’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself,” Bruce said bitterly. “You look at a man and you make your guess. You believe him or you don’t. I’m certain of only one thing right now, which is that I’m probably creation’s biggest fool. I don’t know why I should give a thin damn as to what goes on in this basin or to the people in it. Yet I do. For my brother Kip is here and deserves his chance. And then there are women like Aunt Lucy Carling, too good for a stupid world filled with crooked men. If you want to know more, Ezra … be at Pat Donovan’s store at ten tonight. Thanks for the offer of the pie. Afraid I couldn’t enjoy it now.”
He stepped into the saddle and let the black run.
Chapter Thirteen
Besides Pat Donovan there were eleven men in the store when Bruce Martell stepped through the door of it that night, a few minutes before ten. One of these was Ezra Banks, and with him was a solid-looking man of middle age with a good mouth and direct, grave eyes. There was a small stir at Bruce’s entrance.
He looked over at Donovan and asked, “Any more due, Pat?”
“These will be all,” answered the storekeeper.
Bruce turned and locked the store door. Then he strode over to the counter and turned to face the room.
“If you didn’t know it before,” he said quietly, “my name is Bruce Martell. I came into Indio Basin to find my younger brother. Aside from Kip, I knew no one in the basin when I arrived. Things have happened since that have now made me foreman of the Rocking A. There is no use in my going further unless you men stand ready to believe what I’m going to say. How about it?”
They looked him over, stirring a little. These men—Bruce saw, meeting their grim scrutiny—were good men and solid, all of them definitely the more worthy type of settler. One of them cleared his throat. “Depends on what you’re going to ask us to believe. But we’re willing to listen.”
Bruce nodded. “That’s fair enough. Here’s the first item. The Rocking A did not lynch Jake Hendee.”
“What proof you got of that?” growled a settler.
“A good man’s word.”
“Hack Asbell’s?”
“Hack Asbell’s.”
“Rocking A was riding pretty wild the night Hendee was lynched,” said the grave-eyed man with Ezra Banks. “My name is Brink Carling. I’ve my wife’s and my niece’s word for it that they came barging into my camp, and that you’re the very man who cooled off the rough stuff they intended.”
“That’s true,” Bruce agreed. “The Rocking A boys weren’t using their heads then, which they now know and admit. But they all have told me flatly that they did not go near Hendee’s camp. I believe them because there would be no point in their denying the Hendee business … if they were responsible. If they had hung Jake Hendee and put a sign on him proclaiming the fact, why would they deny it later?”
“That makes sense,” said another settler. “But if Rocking A didn’t lynch Hendee, who did, and why?”
“That’s the answer I’m looking for,” said Bruce. “Which one of you men is Otten?”
“Here,” said a short, square-jawed man. “I’m Otten.”
“You knew Jake Hendee. You and others went over Hendee’s camp to take care of his effects. What was it you thought should be there, but didn’t find?”
“A real chunk of money,” said Otten, “which Jake got for the property he sold back home, before coming on this rush. I know he had a widowed sister back there, and I wanted to see that she got what Jake had. We couldn’t find a cent around the camp, but there was a trunk in his wagon that somebody had opened, after busting the lock. Jake should have had around fifteen thousand dollars with him.”
This information brought a decided stir among those present. “What you’re getting at then, Martell,” said Brink Carling, “is that those who lynched Hend
ee also robbed him?”
“Right! And how better cover up their tracks than by putting a sign on him that would point at the Rocking A? And you must admit that Rocking A would have had not the slightest idea that Hendee had fifteen thousand dollars in his wagon, or fifteen cents.”
A settler named Martin, bearded and with flaming blue eyes, said, “We’re listening plenty now, Martell. Go on.”
“I’ve seen quite a few settlers and their outfits since I hit this basin,” said Bruce. “There are a lot of plenty substantial people in Indio Basin. They’re not a flock of broken-down, poverty-stricken, lath-and-tar-paper shack squatters. They are men with good wagons, good equipment, with money in their pockets, come to take over a chunk of good new earth and to build substantially on it. In other words, there are a lot of Jake Hendees in the basin. And rich pickings for somebody out to kill and rob, while using the Rocking A as a handy scapegoat to point a finger at. Think over that possibility.”
The rumble of voices ran over the room. Bruce built a cigarette and waited. Presently Pete Martin turned his burning eyes on Bruce. “There would have to be some kind of an organization working together and undercover to pull that sort of thing. You got any answer to that?”
“Nothing definite,” Bruce told him. “I’ve got some ideas. I’d have to run them down before I could be sure. I’m willing to take over the chore if you men will agree to help.”
“How can we help?” demanded Martin.
“By calling off the dogs where Rocking A is concerned. By doing all you can to counteract all this blind hostility toward Rocking A. Somebody in this basin has sold the settlers a bill of goods against Rocking A, and a false one. Against all men of the saddle, for that matter. The day I rode into Indio Basin I had settlers cuss me, growl at me, and finally force a fight on me. My only crime was that I was a saddle man.”
