by Short, Luke;
Dave nodded. Outside, two horses were coming up the street, and both Dave and Crew listened, faintly curious. The horses stopped outside the door, and Dave stepped against the wall as Crew rose and went out into the night. Dave followed him, and they both halted on the boardwalk, peering at the mounted figure beside Dave’s horse.
“Somebody better give me a hand,” Bill Schell said.
Dave’s glance shuttled to the second horse. He saw the canvas-wrapped bundle across it, and the cold certainty of what it contained hit him like a solid blow.
Crew stepped forward and approached the bundle. “Who is it?”
“Burma,” Bill said calmly.
Rage, quiet and wicked, crept through Dave then, and Bill Schell turned his head to peer at Dave, whose back was to the light. Bill’s face was limned in the faint glow, and it was hard and reckless and defiant.
Bill said then, “He pulled a gun on me at George’s.”
“That better be so,” Dave said slowly.
“Hell, I gave him two shots at me before I pulled on him!”
Nobody answered him immediately, and he turned now to look at Crew.
“Sure,” Crew said softly. “You don’t mind if I’m a little curious, Bill?”
“The whole west slope was there. Ask them, ask George.”
“He will,” Dave promised.
10
Connie slept very late and only wakened when George’s Indian woman slipped into her room with her dress. It was washed clean of blood and pressed, and the Indian woman, smiling, laid it across the bed, shyly placed a comb and brush beside it, and disappeared.
Connie lay there a moment staring at the ceiling, remembering last night, and depression settled on her like some insufferable weight. She sat up in bed and looked at the dress and thought I’ve seen one man dead, and one man beaten up, and I don’t guess I’m changed. She knew differently, though.
She slipped into her fresh dress, and went over to the washstand and took down the mirror—which was set for the average tall man and useless to her—and propped it up against the window. Pausing a moment there, she looked across the road at the corral full of her cattle. They were nosing around in the last remnants of the hay forked over to them by George’s man this morning. A quick hard pride came to her; these cattle were hers, the start of Circle 66.
Connie dragged a chair over to the window and sat in it, adjusting the mirror so she could see herself. She began to brush her dark curling hair then, and the pleasant, effortless business of it left her free to speculate again on last night. If Bill Schell had killed Ed Burma in self-defense, then the law was on her side. Frank Ivey and her father would have to take that, or, in retaliating, they would forfeit the protection of the law. But the trouble was, Connie thought miserably, she wasn’t sure Bill had killed in self-defense.
She kept remembering Bill Schell’s face yesterday afternoon when she told him about Curley, and only Dave’s hard flat warning had checked him. She remembered, too, all the stories of Bill Schell’s wildness and his hair-trigger temper, and a nameless dread rose in her. What if Bill, in shooting Ed Burma, had committed the very act that would forfeit Jim Crew’s help? Dave would never forgive Bill, nor would he forgive her.
Connie gave her hair a last pat, put the mirror back and went downstairs. This morning, it was hard to believe that a man had been killed here last night. The road, the lobby, the dining room were all empty, and she went into the dining room and sat down at the place laid for her.
While eating her lonely breakfast, she made plans for the remainder of the day. Dave would probably be up for the cattle with a couple of hands. She might as well stop at D Bar and pick up Josefa and take her over to the Ridge camp.
Slow footsteps on the porch made her look up through the doorway that let out into the lobby, and she saw Jim Crew enter. Panic seized Connie for a moment, then: “Jim Crew is here to check on Ed Burma’s death. Well, why not?” she thought. It was only a routine thing, and it had to come sometime.
Jim came into the dining room and, seeing Connie, touched his hat with his thin frail hand and said, “Hello, Connie. George around?”
“I just got up. I don’t know.”
Jim tramped over and passed her and looked in the kitchen and turned back.
“Is it—about Ed Burma?” Connie asked.
Crew nodded briefly. “Finished breakfast?” When Connie said she had, Jim said, “Come along and let’s find George.”
It was spoken courteously, but Connie knew it was an order, and she got up and joined him.
Going through the lobby, Connie said, “How’s Curley?”
“He’s at Rose Leland’s, and he’s no different.” He looked obliquely at her. “Your father saw him last night.”
“Did he cheer?” Connie asked bitterly.
Crew was silent a moment. “No. As a matter of fact he’s pullin’ off 66. He’d of done that anyway—without Curley. He wants to see you, he says.”
Connie said nothing, and Jim steered toward the bar. Poking his head through the doorway, Crew saw George behind the bar at work with some figures on a sheet of worn wrapping paper.
At their entrance, George looked up, no surprise in his sallow face, and said, “Mornin’, folks.”
Crew came up to the bar and said, “Makin’ lots of money, George?” and George said, “Not enough, Jim,” and smiled carefully and put the paper away. They both eyed each other warily, Connie noticed, but George’s face in particular was bland and hard as a river pebble.
Crew turned so he could see both Connie and George, and then asked mildly, “What went on here last night, George?”
“What did Bill Schell tell you?”
“You answer first,” Crew said dryly.
“I never heard what started it,” George said quietly. “It was in the barn. I was forkin’ hay out into the corral. Bill was sitting on the feedbox, figurin’ in his tally book by lantern light. Burma come up and they talked. Somethin’ he said made Bill mad, and Bill answered sharp. Burma shoved away from the feedbox and pulled his gun.”
“First?”
“The first shot turned me around. Ed’s gun was out, Bill’s wasn’t. Figure it out.”
“Why didn’t Ed kill him, then?”
“I’ll never know,” George said. “Bill dropped alongside the feedbox and Ed shot again, into the floor. Then Bill come up and he shot Ed.”
Connie, watching him closely, knew he was lying. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did; he was lying superbly.
Jim Crew’s chill blue eyes never left George’s face, and George accepted the stare tranquilly. “That sounds open and shut,” Crew murmured idly. “Too good, almost.”
George smiled thinly. “Too good for who?”
“Bill Schell. He ain’t the kind to let a man shoot at him twice before he moves.”
George moved toward the end of the bar and lifted out Ed Burma’s gun and shoved it across to Jim. “Everybody up here heard three shots. Two of ’em were Ed’s, one was Bill’s.”
Crew made no move to take the gun. He said, “Who else beside you saw it?”
“Nobody.” A wicked amusement was in George’s eyes, but his face was bland. “Don’t settle it on me, Jim. I don’t pack a pistol and never have.”
Crew was silent a moment, his expression utterly noncommittal. He asked then, “Who was in here?”
George turned to the back bar, picked up a small and soiled notebook and tossed it on the bar. “There’s the men Nash bought stuff from. They was mostly here.”
Crew pocketed the book and shoved away from the bar, and then he stopped. “Burma had a burn on his right hand. Where’d he get that?”
George said musingly, “A burn,” and frowned and then said, “I don’t know.”
“Guess,” Crew suggested gently, a faint sardonic edge to his voice.
George, however, ignored the sarcasm; his face was thoughtful. “Well, Bill was smokin’ a cigar when the trouble started. It might of
been on the edge of the feedbox and Ed put his hand on it.”
“This was on the back of his hand.”
“Well, he fell on his back. It might of been under his hand.”
And then Connie knew he was lying. When she saw Ed Burma he was on his face, as if he’d been flung there by the violence of the shot. She had arrived at the barn only seconds after the first men, and she had seen nobody touch Burma. He was lying on his face, his blood pooling the dirt under his shoulder.
Jim Crew said mildly, “All right,” as if he didn’t believe it, and touched his hat to Connie and said, “I’ll check this story, George.”
He went out the open front door, and George moved over to the window and watched him until he had ridden past the hotel, heading south. George came back then, and his curious gaze was on Connie. “Ready for your horse, Miss Dickason?” he asked politely.
“Ed Burma wasn’t on his back when I saw him,” Connie said slowly.
“I turned him over.”
“Where did the burn come from? Why does it matter?”
George regarded her with cold impudence in his eyes. “You really want to know?”
Connie hesitated a moment and then said swiftly, “No.”
“I didn’t think so.” George looked down at his hand on the bar and said in a low voice, “Funny. I thought 66 was out to break Bell.”
The reprimand brought the color into Connie’s cheeks, and she murmured, “It is.”
George glanced up swiftly. “You better let me alone, then. That’s my story.” He even grinned faintly, without humor.
Connie nodded slowly, understanding little of this, except that George was lying for her and for 66. Her hands were clean; she was innocent of any direct deception, and that was the way it was to be.
She turned then, and George said, “Just a minute.” He reached under the counter and brought out a cigar box holding the money for the cattle, and opened it. “I paid out all but a hundred and ninety-two dollars. The law,” he added dryly, nodding toward the road, “has got the figures in that tally book, but they’ll check.”
Connie looked at the box and then at George. “Keep it,” she murmured. “66 knows its friends.”
George looked at her a still moment, and then said with a dry courtesy, “I thank you.”
Connie’s horse was brought and she mounted and rode south along the road Crew had taken. But presently it forked, and she took the left turning, which sloped off toward the Bench. Afterward, she took a branching trail that turned farther south through the timber. This trail was the one used by the Bell, 66, and D Bar.
The ride was through the deep shade of the big pines, and Connie enjoyed it. As she rode on through the afternoon an inexplicable feeling of confidence and strength grew in her. It was as if she had skirted some dangerous precipice and now that she had passed it successfully, it would never frighten her again. Nobody would ever discover Bill Schell’s guilt, for hadn’t she seen George present irrefutable evidence of his innocence? The ethics of it did not bother her either, and she thought of them only briefly. Burma worked for Ivey, and knew his risk and should have been more wary. This was war, and since Frank Ivey gave no quarter, she would give none. She thought, then, of Dave and she knew she could hide it from him. He need never know about Bill. Since the proof of Bill’s innocence would not jeopardize his relations with Crew, there was no reason why he should ever know the truth. It came to Connie then that guile had its place in this fight, and by the judicious use of it she could contribute her share to ultimate victory.
Presently, the timber began to thin out onto a short grassy flat, and then the land broke away abruptly for the foothills. Connie crossed the flats and presently was in the narrow trail that let down into Hondo canyon. It sloped down around a long shoulder of rock to the left, dropping off on the other side into a tangled mass of scrub oak that could barely cling to the steep sides of the canyon. A mile on, the trail leveled off on the canyon floor and she followed it out into the foothills and then the flats and turned south again toward D Bar.
Crossing the bridge at D Bar always sounded a warning, and Connie was curious today as to how the crew would receive her. A pair of them drifted out of the bunkhouse when they heard her horse on the bridge, and seeing her, dodged back. Only Link Thoms, who came around the corner of the cookshack as he always did, stayed to watch her.
He came toward her then, and Connie said, “Hello, Link,” and the youngster grinned shyly. He held up his hand to help her down, but she did not accept it. “I won’t get down, Link. Do you suppose you could bring Josefa and my trunks over?”
“Just like first time,” Link said, in a slow, troubled voice, and then he blurted out, “You ain’t really leavin’, are you, Connie?”
“I really am this time.”
Connie heard the door to the house slam and glanced over toward it. Ben Dickason, bareheaded and smoking his eternal cigar, called “C’mere, Connie.”
Connie pulled her horse around and rode over to the cottonwoods, and Ben came out to meet her.
“Hello, Pop.”
“Get down and come on in,” Ben invited.
“No, I’m in a hurry. I’m taking Josefa this afternoon.”
“You aren’t in that much of a hurry,” Ben said, with a mock roughness. “Get down.”
“No, thank you,” Connie said, her voice firm and impersonal.
Ben took the cigar from his mouth and said humbly, “I wanted to have a talk with you, Connie, about all this.”
“We’ve had it, haven’t we?”
“No,” Ben said slowly. “I—well, maybe I was a little hasty the other day.”
“You mean the day you put your crew on 66?” Connie asked dryly. “Yes, you were, but I’ll learn.”
“I pulled ’em off, Connie,” Ben said earnestly.
“Of course you did,” Connie replied, and laughed shortly, without humor. “Even you aren’t big enough to buck the government.”
“That wasn’t why,” Ben went on. “I—talked to Nash last night. He—”
“You mean you haven’t run him out of the country yet?”
“Dammit, Connie, be decent!” Ben said explosively. Connie smiled faintly and was silent, and Ben, flushing, went on. “I talked with Nash last night. I saw Curley.”
“That was a thorough job,” Connie murmured. “Your idea or Frank’s?”
Ben said resentfully, “Don’t get mean, youngster. You know I’d never stand for that.”
“You stood for it in your partner, which is the same thing.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Ben said impatiently. “I won’t stand for it.”
Connie regarded him closely, a shrewd speculative glance in her eyes. “What’ll you do, Pop?”
Ben made a violent motion with his hand. “No more of that sort of stuff! I’ll tell him!”
“Maybe,” Connie said dryly, “he’ll think it’s too late to listen.”
“Why would he?”
“Bill Schell killed Ed Burma last night. In a fair fight.”
Ben’s jaw slacked open and he stared blindly at Connie for five full seconds. Then his glance slowly fell, and he said softly, “Oh.” Connie didn’t speak, and Ben shook his head slowly. “Connie, Connie,” he murmured, “come back home.”
“It’s too late, Pop.”
“But that isn’t for you,” Ben pled. “You’re a girl, Connie.”
“I always have been.”
“But not like you are now. You’re hard as hell, Connie.”
“Why am I?” Connie countered implacably. “I had to be, or you’d have broken me. Hard things don’t break so easy, Pop.”
“But that’s over now,” Ben said, his voice humble. “Do you think I’d want you to marry Frank Ivey now?”
“He’s the same man.”
Ben shook his head, eyeing her strangely. “You never forgive a mistake, do you, Connie?”
“In my own way,” Connie said thoughtfully, “which is
n’t coming back to you for your blessing. I’m going to do what I said I would, Pop. I’m going to make 66 something as big as D Bar and Bell. I asked for your help and understanding once. I don’t need it now.”
Ben tossed his cigar away and said dispiritedly, “All right, Connie.”
“You notice I don’t ask what your terms are if I come back? I don’t even care.”
“I noticed,” Ben said quietly.
He looked very old and very helpless, standing there below her, and Connie steeled herself against pity. “I want all my things, Pop—clothes, books, saddles, horses, everything. I’ll send over for them.”
Ben said nothing, and Connie pulled her horse around and rode away. She had cut her last ties with D Bar and her father, and, strangely, she was not unhappy.
11
Dave rode into 66 sometime after dark. Lamps were lighted in the house, and it was past suppertime. He turned his horse into the corral, and afterward got a long drink from the pipe at the horse trough. He built himself a smoke and lighted it, and his hunger was a solid ache in his stomach; and yet he perversely shrank from going up to the house.
He saw a movement at the corner of the barn, and went over there and found Tom Peebles waiting for him. He said with blunt censure, “You keep a nice guard here, Tom,” and Tom wisely did not answer him. Dave said, more reasonably now, “What did you see at Bell?”
“Not much,” Tom told him. “Crew left early. Frank sent a couple of men into town after that, and that’s all.”
“Connie back yet?”
“At the house. She brung a cook.”
Dave considered what Tom had told him, and saw no clue to Frank Ivey’s temper in it. Perhaps Jim Crew had warned Frank flatly to hold his peace until the circumstances of Ed’s death were more clear. He said, “You and Bailey pick up the cattle at Relief tomorrow and start ’em down,” and he left Tom, tramping toward the kitchen. He had ridden the edge off his temper today, scouting all the Bell cattle that were on this side of American Creek, and now he was tired and hungry and able to think once more, without anger, of Bill Schell. Perhaps if Frank Ivey hadn’t moved against 66, Bill’s story was straight, and Dave thought of this with a faint hope before skepticism set in. No, Bill wasn’t the kind to let a man shoot twice at him before he defended himself. And if Crew found that Bill had rawhided Burma into a fight, so he could kill him, Dave knew what he was going to do. He would turn Bill over to Crew and let the law take its course. All day he had thought of it, and he did not like it, and yet he knew this was what he had to do.
