The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories

by Various Writers

  They cut down a sharp wall in the graying late afternoon and struck a winding road southward. A forty-foot river ran beside the road and chrome bluffs narrowed and widened as they traveled. They accelerated pace, feeling the end of a long journey. The bluffs narrowed again and the road and river squeezed through nothing more than a slit of earth. Just beyond the valley unfolded into a gray plain. Just beyond, also, was a roadside saloon with a light glimmering prematurely out of a smudged window. An isolated and lonely place meant for an isolated and lonely rendezvous. The partners, courting the same unspoken thought, reined before it, got down and stepped inside.

  They faced a crowd. They interrupted a flow of heated talk. And as they came somewhat beyond the door one of that crowd turned with a clearly defensive movement and gave them a sharp and insolent glance out of his cynically humorous face. Cattle country was filled with such faces, but Joe marked it as he marched toward the bar. There was a flurry of laugh and a murmur. “Don’t get excited none, Al. Yo’re a long ways from Ox Bow country.”

  “Yeah,” grinned the one who had turned so quickly. “I guess. Yeah.”

  Silence fell, a heavy, ill-humored silence that smothered the partners like so much foul air. Indigo’s hackles instantly rose, but Joe turned to him with a mild glance and spoke soothingly to a sullen barkeep.

  “A little rye, Doctor.”

  The barkeep passed a glance toward the crowd and seemed to find an answer. “Ain’t got no rye, friend.”

  Joe smiled. “Kentucky’s best, then.”

  The barkeep turned his seal-fat back to them and ran a heavy eye along shelves plentifully laden. He scanned the rows of bottles and swung. “I don’t reckon we got anything you’d care to drink,” he decided with some emphasis.

  Indigo’s washed out orbs took on a glitter that meant but one thing. Joe checked him again, still smiling. He reached into his pocket and extracted therefrom a gold five-dollar piece. He laid it very carefully in front of the barkeep and took a pace backward, drawing his gun with a deliberateness that was outrageously indecent. And he scanned the bottles on the shelves until he found a label that attracted his eye. The gun rose, a single explosion filled the room and shook the loose window sashes. The bottle fell apart, throwing its amber liquid to the floor in successive spurts.

  “A little American, then,” murmured Joe, holstering the gun. “Obliged for the hospitality. Come on, Indigo.”

  They went out and rode through the deepening haze. Indigo poured a hot stream of invective into the damp air. Presently the lights of Terese town enfolded them. They stabled their horses and turned toward the saloon for that drink which preceded a well balanced meal.

  “I’ll live to pull that roadside dump into the crick,” fumed Indigo, breaking out afresh. “I’ll see it lyin’ in charred ashes. Yuh’d think we was greasers the way our money don’t talk.”

  “Wasn’t that,” murmured Joe, pushing against the saloon’s swinging door. “That gang was up to somethin’. We walked into a private meetin’. That dead boy is only a chapter, Indigo. It ain’t the whole story—only a chapter.”

  The saloon was a glittering and gaudy Western palace. It was a three-ringed circus where a man might at the same time drink, gamble and be entertained. A bar ran the full length of the place, a stage jutted out from the far end and there was no limit save the sky on the amount of money to be played across the rows of tables. A sign above the bar said as much. Around the ornate paneling were the fighters of three generations and the dancing girls and soubrettes beloved of the land; a goldfish fiddled wearily around an immense glass bowl, a piano chattered “Dixie” in different keys. And a gentleman of ample proportions and expensive broadcloth clothing raised a hand to the partners as they slouched to the bar.

  “Strangers here?”

  “No formal introductions yet,” gravely acquiesced Joe.

  The gentleman crooked his finger at a near barkeep. “First drink is always on my house. I serve good drinks, boys, I keep the crowd entertained. And I don’t talk politics much. From which direction did you sift in? The question ain’t meant personal.”

  “We met a fellow called Dead Card John,” murmured Joe and raised a ruby glass. His blue eyes met those of the saloonkeeper blandly. Yet by that one glance he made known to the saloonkeeper the kind of a man he was. Through the years Joe Breedlove established friends on that short a notice. The saloonkeeper rolled his cigar and crooked another finger. He poured himself a drink and lifted it ceremoniously. “I will wet the occasion with you. The person with the blue chin and red pug face over yonder is Crowheart Ames.”

  Joe eased himself around and passed a mild, incurious glance through the room. His attention fell aimlessly on the designated citizen, lingered inconspicuously and returned to the saloon proprietor. “Does he own this town or did nature put that look on his geography?”

  “Sheriff of Terese County, friend,” said the saloon man softly. “I don’t talk politics much.”

  “I’m so hungry,” sighed Indigo, “that I feel like a post hole which ain’t been filled up. Le’s eat.”

  “Yeah,” drawled Joe, not at all following the import of his partner’s words. “They’s a table over by the sheriff gent. We sit there a minute, Indigo. Just to rest and ponder.”

  They rolled casually through the crowd and sat down. Joe relaxed like a man very tired, and his eyes seemed to be closed. But Indigo knew better and he fidgeted in the chair and composed himself to follow Joe’s game, not knowing what it was, or why it should concern Crowheart Ames. Joe’s left eyelid fluttered and rose to command the sheriff’s table. The sheriff was not alone. A dancing girl sat opposite him, dressed in a hoop skirt. That skirt and the tune of “Dixie” being thumped out on the piano indicated the variety of play that was about to be brought forth upon the stage. But the girl, Joe decided, was not Southern. She had yellow hair and her eyes were gray in the lamplight. She was young, she touched a glass before her with a gesture of refusal, and she seemed uncomfortable in the company of Crowheart Ames.

  Crowheart looked to be a politician nurtured on whisky. The man’s face dished like that of an English bull; it was broad and pudgy and somewhat red. He slouched in his chair, with a puckered grin on his cheeks. Joe didn’t care much for the grin and from what his eyes gathered, neither did the girl. Indigo kicked his foot under the table and looked significantly toward the door. Joe turned to see two newcomers enter the saloon. One was a stunted and sheepish puncher better than half drunk. The other man Joe instantly recognized. It was Al, he of the cynically humorous face, who had so quickly turned to inspect the partners at the roadside joint.

  The sight of these two affected the crowd in the saloon queerly. The droning of talk rose to a higher note as man after man turned to look at the pair. Joe’s shrewd eyes skipped from table to table, marking the nodding heads and the sudden twisting of lips in whispered speech. Through the rumbling and through the heavy smoke floated a name. “Praygood Nuggins.” It reached Joe. It reached the sheriff, whose fat jowls settled. He had been talking to the girl but he broke off instantly and twisted in his chair, scowling.

  The man whose name Joe knew to be Al, swung toward the bar, refusing to look at the sheriff, but the half-drunken puncher seemed to catch hold of Crowheart Ames’s pug face as a familiar and friendly beacon. He made for the sheriff, marvelously navigating the twisting lane between tables. And he fumbled in a bulging pocket and caught something in his horny hands. Crowheart Ames shook his head. “Get away from here, Snipe. Yo’re drunk, disgustin’ drunk. Get away from here before I lock yuh up.”

  Snipe’s fist fell to the sheriff’s table and opened. A pair of bullet slugs rolled along the surface; Snipe grinned and waggled his finger. “Fooled yuh that time, Mister Ames. I’m on ’ficial business. Tha’s yore invite to Rube Mamerock’s fandango tomorra night. Don’ forget to bring them invites or yuh’ll be turned back cold at the bridge. Them invites is marked. They is also sleepered and no son-of-a-gun can forge an inv
ite. Yuh may be sheriff, Mister Ames, but Rube Mamerock’s fandango starts at dark tomorra. You be there. Throw me in jail? Not when I’m on Rube Mamerock’s ’ficial business. Yuh’d shore regret it, Mister Ames.”

  He turned away with a grand and final gesture of his twisted arm and started back. His attention centered upon the partners and he stopped immediately and stared at them long and profoundly. “Lessee—don’t guess I give yuh an invite.” Down into his pocket he went. Two more leaden slugs rolled across the table top and were caught by Joe’s flat palm. “Invite to Rube Mamerock’s fandango. Tomorra night. Don’t forget them invites. Got to have ’em to cross the bridge. You be there.”

  “Thanks,” said Joe. He studied the slugs carefully. Upon the rounding top of each was a rough cross. And around the body of each was a deep furrow. He raised his mild eyes to the puncher. “What outfit is this, friend, and where’s it at?”

  The question seemed both to sober and insult the messenger. He made a move as if to retrieve the slugs and failed because Joe Breedlove’s palm closed securely over them. He straightened and spoke with a tremendous dignity.

  “I nev’ thought a soul in this county didn’t know Rube Mamerock’s Ox Bow outfit. When yuh die, mister, an’ step inside the gate uh paradise yuh’ll see some fine range. But it won’t compete with Ox Bow. Ox Bow ranch is half o’ Terese County, stranger. An’ the other half ain’t worth botherin’ about. When it’s roundup time on Ox Bow the state stops to listen to the rumble o’ hoofs. When Ox Bow ships, they’s a solid string o’ cars from here to Omaha. Ox Bow leather is on yore boots an’ Ox Bow beef has foddered yuh since yuh was a child, no matter was yuh raised in Arizona or Montana. I’m an Ox Bow rider and though I may be drunk I will rise to state calmly I’d ruther peel spuds on said ranch than own the brand of any other peanut outfit in Terese. Texas is a big state. Ox Bow is bigger. Rube Mamerock made it thataway and when”—he paused and turned a complete circle, feeling the focus of a hundred eyes and the complete silence of the room—“an’ when time comes for old Rube to hang up his saddle an’ lay away his rope; when said time comes hell will shore be a mild climate compared to Terese County!”

  Crowheart Ames roared savagely. “Get out of here, you soak!” The dancing girl’s face whitened and she leaned across the table, speaking softly. Crowheart’s sudden, blunt speech cut from corner to corner of the place.

  “Why hold it back any longer? Everybody knows but you, Ray. Girl, Sam Trago was shot to ribbons out by his daddy’s shanty this mornin’. He’s stone dead, kid.”

  A scream slashed the heavy air and tore like a knife through Joe Breedlove’s heart. To a man the crowd rose up, chairs squealing across the floor. And speech roared from wall to wall, heavy and profane. The dancing girl had fainted, her yellow head lying on the table top. Crowheart rose and circled beside her. The saloon proprietor plunged against the milling bodies, spitting ire at the sheriff. “Keep yore paws off her. Did yuh have to bust it on the girl like that? Yuh damn’ fool!”

  Crowheart had the girl in his arms. And then, from a different angle of this room, Joe noticed the slim figure of Dead Card John threading forward. He had not been in the place until now, that much was certain. Nor had he entered by the front way. But here he was in front of Crowheart Ames, marble cheeks cut with deep lines, eyes burning incredibly bright. He extended his arms and Crowheart, saying no word and making no protest, surrendered the girl. Joe Breedlove sighed when he saw how Dead Card John looked down upon the dancing girl’s yellow hair. “By God, Indigo, I like that man!” A lane opened and closed. Dead Card John disappeared with his burden.

  “Who’s Sam Trago?” asked Indigo.

  “The boy we saw dead.”

  “Yeah, I know that. I guessed it. But I wonder who he was.”

  “Just a chapter, Indigo. Just a chapter, not the whole story. Have you observed how quick this dude Al and also Dead Card John reached town behind us?”

  Both partners were diverted. Once more the name of a man swept through the place, the name of Praygood Nuggins. The saloon entrance was blocked by a figure; and Joe, whose whole training had made him sensitive to mob sentiment, knew then and there that Terese was afraid of the newcomer. A tremendous struggle unfolded while the raw and uncertain night closed down.

  Chapter II: Rube Mamerock

  Fifty-one years, lacking a day—the anniversary was more religiously remembered and celebrated on Ox Bow than the Fourth of July—Rube Mamerock had ridden his jaded horse to the edge of a bluff and looked down upon a river and a flat and fair land rolling away beyond the river. Rube Mamerock had been very young then. Very young and poor. Fever was in his native Texas, the fever that racked men’s bones; Rube, stopping to rove the far reaches of this new country with his hungry eyes, was a gaunt and malarial scarecrow seeking for a home. The War of Sections was just over and in the deep Southwest it was being rumored that railroads were building across to Kansas and that cattle could be driven northward, to be fattened and shipped. Rube had left Texas with the rumor in his ears and he had traveled until he witnessed with his own eyes the twin steel rails creeping across the Kansas prairie. And so, seeing the virgin lands marching beyond the river, he got down from his horse, squatted in the sand and traced his initials.

  “I reckon I’ll stick here till the Indians drive me out.”

  He was the first cattleman in the region. He antedated the state government. He himself had named Terese County and town after the single drab woman ever to cross the undeviating path of his career. And she had tarried but a moment, for Rube Mamerock had starved so long as a youth that all his adult years were marked by an incessant hunger after material possessions. He wanted nothing else, worked for nothing else. Now, with a full seventy years upon his shoulders, he sat on the veranda of his house and looked out upon the same scene he had discovered so long ago. And all that he saw was his property. Land and cattle and barns and corrals. No other ranch in Terese was an eighth as large. He had arrived first, taken the best and the most; and the result was a virtual kingdom at once the wonder and the envy of the surrounding country.

  Rube Mamerock made it; and it, in turn, left a mark on Rube. All the labor and the fighting and the riding showed on this old man. At seventy he was done. In fact he had been coasting for several years; watching the distances from his porch—a heavy, white-haired gentleman with incredibly deep lines upon his face and with muscles half useless. When he tamped down his pipe, the fingers of his hands trembled with a palsy. He had created a small empire, his job was done. Yet, in all the breadth of the land, Rube Mamerock knew of no kin, no relation of any degree to whom he could surrender his achievement. There was none of his own blood to keep the Ox Bow going.

  A stunted, diffident puncher rolled awkwardly up from the corrals. “That claybank hoss ain’t no good in any manner, shape nor form, boss. Might jus’ as well turn it back to the wild bunch.”

  Rube Mamerock ducked his white head. “All right. And when you go by the sheds, Snipe, send Sam Trago up here.”

  Snipe looked at his boss questioningly. “Why, Sam he went over to his folks’ place this mornin’.”

  Mamerock frowned at his pipe. “Sure. Why didn’t I remember that? Sent him off myself.” He pushed his unsteady frame out of the chair and limped to the steps with the gait of one whose bones were brittle. “I’m gettin’ some old, Snipe. Even my mind’s fallin’ back on me.” He propped himself by a post and watched the distant hills wistfully. “Rain over there. Goin’ to be a wet winter, Snipe. I always said I wanted to be buried in warm ground. It’ll be damp, Snipe, damn’ damp, when you boys put me away.”

  Snipe twisted, uncomfortable. “Shucks, that’s no kind of palaver for Rube Mamerock. Yo’re good for a lot o’ wear yet. Say, what would become o’ Ox Bow—?”

  Mamerock’s black eyes turned thoughtfully on the diminutive Snipe. “My boy, I figgered that question five years before I found an answer.”

  Snipe muttered an astonished, “Son-of-a-gun! Didn�
�t know yuh had any heirs.”

  “None,” growled Mamerock. “Now shut up. I’ll be announcin’ all details to Terese County tomorrow night. Get busy, Snipe, How’s she stand now?”

  “Barbecue pits is dug. Ten three-year-old steers in the pen. We slaughters an’ dresses ’em first off in the mornin’. We got twenty gallons o’ rye and thirty o’ Kentucky corn likker comin’ out late today. Doctor is hollerin’ his head off about the cookin’ he’s got to do but they’s a heap o’ provisions he’s turned out. Nothin’ short I can figger.”

  “Invitations?”

  “Done,” said Snipe and turned up the palms of his hands. “Yeah, that labor is likewise finished.”

  “Put them in the usual sacks, Snipe. Hitch the buckboard. I’m sending you around to distribute them this year. Sam Trago’s goin’ to be too busy. Come back here when you’re ready to go.”

  Snipe went off at a gait half between a limp and a run. Rube Mamerock filled his pipe and walked away from his house toward the rear. Fifty years gone he had built his first log hut at the same spot, facing the bluffs; for at that time the river ran directly below the high chrome walls. Later, in his flush years, Rube Mamerock had carted stone seventy miles from the railroad to build the tremendous and lonely pile of masonry he now tenanted. And the porch was moved around to face the other way. The river no longer crept by the foot of the bluffs. It had gouged another channel. Across that channel was a long wooden bridge, battered by the years of usage, connecting Mamerock home quarters with his range and the outside world. The bluff hemmed him in at the rear; and though the old channel was dry, there were occasional wet winters in which water coursed through it. At such times the Ox Bow home ranch was on an island. The porous sands of that ancient course were damp this afternoon with the seepage of a rising main channel. Mamerock watched the ragged clouds up in the peaks.

  “First time in seven seasons I’ve had wet weather for the fandango.” He tried to light his match and was balked by his unsteady fingers. Once, such a physical defect would have put him in a towering rage. Today he shoved the pipe in his pocket and raised his white head to the horizons. “Rube, old man, what are you kickin’ about? Ain’t it been a great life? I remember when I carved my initials in the sand up on that bluff top. Hell of a long while ago. Said I’d stay till the Indians drove me out. Indians all gone. Pretty soon old Rube’ll be gone. Well, when a man starts looking at the trail behind him it’s high time he did go. Only I had to wait till Sam Trago grew up an’ got hardened in.” Habit caused him to reach for his pipe again. This time he got it lit. “Sam’ll take care of the buzzards. By St. Mary’s bells they been waitin’ a long time for me to die! Sam’ll fool ’em.”