by Short, Luke;
There was nobody in the kitchen when Dave entered. He lighted the lamp, feeling the chimney still warm. He saw the mud scummed and dried on the floor, and when he put his boot down there was the brittle grating of broken glass underfoot. D Bar had not been gentle with the place while they had it.
He rummaged around and found some fresh biscuits and a plate of cold steaks, and after filling a cup with water, he stood at the table and wolfed the food, washing it down with the water.
His low spirits made his dark face somber and strangely hard. He heard someone coming through the dining room, and he turned, his cheeks bulging with food, to see Connie come in.
“There’s a fire left for coffee, Dave,” Connie said quickly.
Dave shook his head and swallowed and said, “This’ll do, Connie,” and drank again deeply, and went on eating, watching Connie now. Somehow, the very sight of her cheered him.
Connie smiled and said, “I like to watch a man eat like that,” and went over to the bread box. She lifted out half a cake, and Dave, a biscuit still in his hand, came over and looked critically at it.
“Just one piece left,” he said with a mock soberness.
Connie laughed then, and Dave smiled, too, and looked at her so thoughtfully that Connie frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“I was just trying to remember,” Dave said. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh, Connie.”
Connie nodded soberly. “Too many ghosts, maybe.”
“You’re not scared of them, Connie.”
“Not just one,” Connie said. “A lot of them, maybe I am. There’s Walt. I—don’t like to think about that. And Dad, and Frank Ivey and—oh, everything people used to be and aren’t any more, and things too.”
Dave leaned against the table and put his cup down carefully. “Your choice, Connie, wasn’t it?”
“I know,” Connie agreed. “Still, it was nice once upon a time. Like being a child is nice, except you wouldn’t go back to it.”
“You could go back to some of it, Connie. Your father.”
“Frank Ivey’s partner?” Connie asked scornfully.
“Not anymore,” Dave said. “He’s through with Ivey. He hasn’t any heart for this fight. He wants to see you.”
Connie said calmly, “Should I make up with him?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why.”
Dave got up and went over to the sink and pumped his cup full of water and drank it, and slowly came back to the table. “Ever stop to think, Connie, that stubborn streak of yours is a present from your father?”
“I’ve thought of it and I don’t like it.”
“Then don’t nurse it,” Dave murmured. “He’s a good man, Connie. He’s old and he’s lonesome and he’s made a mistake that hurt him. Give him a chance to make it up to you.”
Color crept into Connie’s face, and she was silent, and Dave knew she was stubborn still. The hurt had reached deep, he thought, and Ben Dickason would pay her price before it ended. But there was a sweetness there and a pity that would change her in time, when the memory of all this was not so fresh.
He heard now the heavy footsteps of one of the crew in the dining room, and he turned and saw Bill Schell haul up in the door. An indefinable irritation was in him as he looked at Bill’s face, sulky, and watchful and smoulderingly defiant.
Bill said, “Tom says him and Bailey are goin’ up after the stuff tomorrow. What about me?”
“You stay here,” Dave said quietly.
Bill looked at him with a hot suspicion. “You playin’ Crew’s game, Dave?”
“I’m playin’ it, all right, and what is it?”
“You figure 66 is jail until he checks my story?”
“Something like that,” Dave agreed.
Bill came into the room and leaned both hands on the table and said carefully, “Don’t do that to me, Dave.”
“Worried, Bill?” Dave prodded gently.
“You couldn’t get me out of this country with a posse,” Bill said flatly. “That what’s eatin’ you?”
“I’d thought of it.”
Bill straightened up, and said thinly, “I ain’t afraid of Crew or you or what Crew’ll find, Dave. Just don’t set me up in the corner like I was still in school.”
“All right.”
“I’ll ride anywhere I damn please.”
“And ride back.”
“And ride back,” Bill said flatly. He wheeled and stalked out of the room, the very set of his back reflecting a smouldering rage.
Dave followed him out as far as the dining-room doorway and watched him tramp down the porch and turn into the dark bunk room. He had a dismal moment of suspicion, which faded gradually into puzzlement Something was wrong with Bill, and yet he wasn’t going to run, Dave knew.
He heard Connie behind him, and turned to regard her somberly.
“Were you really trying to keep Bill here for Jim Crew?”
Dave nodded.
“Bill’s your friend, even if he’s wrong,” Connie said slowly. “Why are you?”
Dave let this question run through his mind a moment, and then said slowly, “Bill made a bargain, Connie. I told him my wishes, and when he hired on he did the same as give his word. If he’s broken his word, he’ll pay for it, like a man pays for everything he does.”
“You can be hard,” Connie said quietly.
Dave looked searchingly at her. “Why, yes, Connie, when there’s a time for it.”
Connie said slowly, “Would you be just as hard with me, say, if I’d let you down?”
“I’d ride out,” Dave said calmly. Connie didn’t say anything, and Dave, looking at her, smiled faintly. “Only you never would.”
A sound out in the yard now drew his attention, and he looked out into the night and listened. He dimly heard the soft rhythm of a ridden horse approaching, and he stepped back into the room and blew out the lamp in the wall bracket and came back onto the porch. Connie was behind him now, and was silent, listening too.
Dave waited in the deep black shadow of the porch until the horse was close, and then he called, “Sing out.”
“It’s Rose, Dave.”
For a brief second, surprise kept him motionless, and then he stepped off the porch and went out to where Rose had reined in, and Connie was beside him.
Dave took the bridle of her horse and said, “Curley?”
“He died this afternoon,” Rose said.
Dave said nothing, feeling nothing for a moment. And then the cold certainty of what he had planned took shape in his mind now, and he said, “Get down, Rose, and come in.”
“Yes,” Connie said hurriedly, as if in apology for not having invited Rose herself.
Dave led the way back to the living room and lighted the overhead lamp above the table.
Rose was wearing waist overalls, a man’s faded blue shirt, and an age-softened buckskin vest that matched the color of her Stetson, which she took off now. Her hair was yellow as wheat against her darker skin, and she looked about the littered room briefly before she turned to Connie and smiled.
“It’s filthy,” Connie apologized swiftly. “We just got moved in this afternoon.”
“It must be nice to be back,” Rose said, with complete friendliness. Dave regarded the two of them curiously, struck now by their difference in so many things. It was Rose who was at ease, and Connie who was faintly uncomfortable, and it should have been the other way. Dave thought he knew why, too; Connie had been the queen too long, going her way sublimely indifferent to both the troubles and the pleasures of a girl like Rose. And now that Connie was no longer queen, but only a girl with a small outfit, a short crew, and powerful enemies, she felt humble and unlearned in the ways of easy friendliness.
Dave said now, “Suppose Josefa could scrape up a bite for Rose?”
“I’ll do it myself,” Connie said, and she shook her head at Rose’s protest and vanished into the dining room.
Dave said in a low voice to Rose
then, “Who knows about Curley?”
“I made Doc Parkinson promise he’d give me two hours start before he let the word get out.”
“Good.”
Only then did he remember a chair, and he cleared one of gear for her, but she did not sit down. She threw her gloves on the table and said, “You go ahead, Dave,” and glanced curiously at him.
Dave said slowly, “You know a lot about a man, don’t you, Rose?”
“Well, Jim Crew is over on the other slope. He can’t take care of it. It doesn’t take much figuring, does it?”
“Not much,” Dave agreed, and he went out. At the barn he got a lantern, lighted it and hung it on the corral pole. His chestnut, nosing vainly in the dust for the last wisps of hay, looked up as he entered, and then came over to him. Dave saddled up then and blew out the lantern, and afterwards led his horse up to the porch and tied him alongside Rose’s.
Rose and Connie were in the kitchen, and the murmur of their voices made him pause in the dining room as he went back in. Their words were lost, but the careless musical cadence of the voices was pleasant to hear, and somehow lonely, and he listened a moment longer before he stepped to the door. Rose had finished eating and Connie was seated at the table across from her.
Rose caught Dave’s glance as he entered, and she rose and said, “I’ve got to get back, Connie.”
Connie came to her feet then and saw Dave standing in the door, hat in hand. She looked questioningly at him, and Dave answered, “I’ll ride back a little ways with Rose, Connie.”
He went out to the horses and Rose and Connie came out. Connie put out her hand and Rose took it.
“Thanks for coming, Rose,” Connie said. “You’re a good friend.”
Rose said quietly, “Somehow, I don’t feel as if my news was very bad. Curley wouldn’t have had any fun living.”
There was a movement from the other end of the porch, and Bill Schell, in his sock feet, came up to them out of the darkness. “What about Curley, Rose?” he asked swiftly. “I heard you.”
“He died today.”
Bill turned to look down at Dave, who was standing by Rose’s horse. “You want me, Dave?”
“No.”
Bill kept looking at him for a while, and then, without a word, he wheeled and started back for his quarters. He halted abruptly and looked back at Dave. “I don’t get it,” he said, his voice angry and resentful. “What do you hire a man for?”
Dave didn’t answer, and presently Bill turned and went on into the darkness.
Connie said in a puzzled voice, “Why is he angry?” and Dave didn’t answer her either.
Rose said, “Bill is just talking, Connie. Good night,” and stepped off the porch.
Dave held her horse while she mounted, and then he came around to his own, and found Connie watching him curiously. “I’ll stay at the Ridge camp, Connie. Good night.”
He and Rose left the yard and were soon out on the flats, and they did not talk. Dave was thinking of Bill Schell and wondering how long he would last. Bill had been on the lonesome too long to stand restraint; he was getting edgy now, and tonight made it worse.
Rose spoke abruptly. “Were you afraid to tell her, Dave?”
“Tell her?” Dave asked in a puzzled voice.
“Connie. Where you’re going.”
Dave was silent a long time, and then answered almost irritably, “Maybe I was.”
“That’s not fair,” Rose said. “She deserves to know. She’s your boss.”
“That’s a little rough, when you put it in words,” Dave said slowly.
“This whole thing is a little rough. Connie will have to know that before long.”
Dave considered that and agreed, and he said wearily, “You’re right, Rose, but I won’t go back now.”
12
It was long after dark when Red Cates rode into Bell, having passed the pair of guards at the mouth of the canyon. The bunkhouse was dark, and the only light in the big house was in Frank’s office.
Red rode up to the tie rail and Ivey came to the door, scratching his head with blunt fingers and yawning. “Jess?” he called.
“It’s me—Red,” Cates answered.
Frank grunted, “Come in,” and turned back into the office, and Red stepped in, squinting against the light from the lamp on the desk.
“Ben didn’t come,” Frank observed, slacking into the chair at the desk and swiveling it to face Red. He grinned faintly and shook his head at sight of the bandage on Red’s nose. “Man, why didn’t Doc tie your whole head up?”
“It’d look worse with it off,” Red said bitterly, and slacked into the deep leather chair. Frank took a cigar from his shirt pocket and bit off the end, and only then remembered Red. He threw him a cigar, and then tilted his chair back against the wall.
Red looked longingly at the cigar and said, “It hurts my nose,” and put it in his pocket.
“Where’s Ben?” Frank asked, putting, a match to his cigar.
“He’s quit on you, Frank.”
Frank ceased puffing his cigar and looked over the match flame at Red for a brief moment, and then fired his cigar.
Red went on, “Connie stopped on her way down today and spilled it about Ed. That did it.”
“I’m broken-hearted,” Frank said sardonically, and watched Red grin. “Why didn’t he tell me himself, instead of sendin’ you?”
“Ask him,” Red suggested.
Frank shook his head and said with slow anger, “The hell with him. I knew it would turn out this way.”
Red said nothing, and Frank contemplated the far wall for a brooding moment. Then he said, anger close to the surface, “I’m warnin’ you, Red. Ben better not get in my way.”
“He won’t.”
“I’ll break him, same as I’ll break Connie, if he does.”
“Hell, don’t blame me,” Red said wearily.
“You work for an old woman,” Frank said contemptuously.
Red’s green eyes glinted warningly. “Quit ridin’ me, Frank,” he said levelly. “I only work for him. I don’t think like him.”
Frank put his cigar in his mouth and laced his fingers across the back of his head. He regarded Red now with a quiet, speculative intentness, and presently said, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you work for him?”
Red said wryly, “Times like this, damned if I know.”
“Don’t be a hammerhead, Red. I’m offering you a job,” Frank said quietly.
Red’s long face altered with surprise, and he regarded Frank carefully. He was about to speak once and then was silent, and presently said, “Foreman?”
Frank nodded. “Ed’s job. Ed’s wages.”
Red’s long face was thoughtful a few lingering moments, and then it broke into a faint reflective grin. “Why not?”
“You’ll be expected to do more than chase a bunch of punchers, too.”
Red nodded. “If I can’t, I’ll quit.”
He and Frank rose and shook hands on it unsmilingly. Frank went back to his desk now, and Red followed him over and watched him sit down. Frank put down his cigar carefully on the edge of the desk and said, “Crew’ll be back in a couple of days. I’m waitin’ on him.”
“Talk to anybody that saw the fight?”
Frank smiled faintly. “I don’t have to. I know Bill Schell.”
“Bill Schell,” Red observed quietly, “is dead. He don’t know it, but he is.”
“No,” Frank demurred. “Dave Nash is dead. I’m goin’ to trade Connie, Burma for Nash.”
Red eyed Frank carefully, and Frank went on. “Crew is goin’ to find out that Bill killed Ed without givin’ him a chance. All I want is for Crew to find that out and tell it to me. Because Bill Schell will dodge out, and I will get Nash instead. Crew won’t like it, but he can’t do anything about it. Because Connie started this trading dead men off, and she’ll be just as wrong as I am. Crew can’t do anything about it.”
Red
nodded. “That’ll make sense to a cow-country jury, and Crew knows it.”
“And Nash,” Frank said slowly, “is what’s proppin’ Connie up. I get him and she’s no good. And I’ll get him without pullin’ Crew down on my neck. Connie—What’s the matter?”
Red’s head had turned toward the door, and he said, “Somebody just rode in.”
Frank went to the door and called, “That you, Jess?”
A voice out in the night called, “It’s Burch Nellis, Frank. That all right?”
Frank stepped out into the night and said, “It’s all right, Jess,” and he waited until a rider loomed out of the night, and then said patronizingly, “Hello, Burch. You’re off the reservation.”
Burch Nellis dismounted, grunting, and stretched his legs and came up to Frank. “That’s a long way for a man to carry a belly like mine,” he observed, and shook hands.
Frank led him inside, and Red drawled with easy, half-contemptuous familiarity, “When’d you start nighthawkin’, Burch?”
“Tonight, and I’ll quit tonight,” Burch said.
He slacked his heavy, soft body into Frank’s chair and sighed, and Frank said, “Want a drink of your own poison, Burch?”
“That’s handsome of you,” Burch said.
Frank pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk and removed a bottle of whiskey and several glasses. He poured a drink for all of them, and Red put his shoulder against the wall and regarded Burch with a faint curiosity. Burch didn’t leave the Special once a year. They drank and Frank put his glass back on the desk, and he too was watching Burch. The saloon owner, who by trade had a talent for appreciating a well-turned story, was enjoying this new importance. He took off his hat and swabbed his bald head with his coat sleeve and put his hat back on and said to Frank, “Don’t know whether it makes any difference to you boys or not, but Curley Fanstock died this evening.”
