by Alan Lemay
"I shouldn't think," said the deputy commissioner, "we need hear any bid of less than ten cents per year, per acre."
"I'll take an acre and a half," said King.
Thorpe and his two lieutenants looked impatient. "Two bits an acre," said Thorpe.
"I'm bid twenty-five cents per year per acre on the hundred sections of Block 1," the deputy commissioner translated.
"On the whole sixty-four acres?" Dusty asked.
"Sixty-four thousand," said the commissioner testily. "Mr. King, if you will please"
"Oh," said King.
"If there are no other bids-"
"A dollar an acre," said Dusty King.
There was an instant of silence; then a stir ran over the whole packed room, rising rapidly to a hubbub as men asked their neighbors if they had rightly heard.
Ben Thorpe jerked straight up in his chair. "What damned foolishness is this?"
"You intend that bid?" the commissioner asked of King.
"I made my bid and I'll back my bid," Dusty told him.
The deputy commissioner looked at Ben Thorpe, who exchanged a quick glance with each of his lieutenants. "A dollar, five," Ben Thorpe said.
"A dollar and a half," said Dusty King.
A red light showed for a minute behind Thorpe's eyes. "A dollar, fifty-five," he said, and settled back in his chair.
The room was so quiet now that the men that crowded it could be heard to breathe. The deputy commissioner was looking at Dusty King, and those few seconds of silence seemed to draw on and on. Bill Roper's face was mask-like; by the private survey Roper himself had made, Block 1 was broken, worthless land.
"Well, Mr. King-?" the deputy commissioner said at last.
"Who? Me?" said King.
"Do you wish to make a further bid?"
"Why, no.19
There was a moment more of silence while everybody stared at him, and in that quiet King took out a piece of twist tobacco and bit himself off a chew. With this packed in his cheek he let his gaze rest on Ben Thorpe mildly, pityingly.
Someone in the front rank of the crowd snickered, and in another moment a rumble of laughter swept all over that crowd. These men knew what was happening here. In the few words that had been spoken there had passed bluff and counter bluff, more than a hundred thousand dollars had changed hands and Thorpe had paid a record-breaking price for a vast block of land which he could put to little use.
Ben Thorpe's eyes became sleepier, his face less expressive, as the deputy commissioner spoke the ritual that gave him his hard-bid land. On the forefront of the commissioner's bald head a faint sheen of perspiration showed.
"Open for bids on Block 2, an estimated one hundred sections, or sixty-four thousand acres, bounded on the north by-"
"Ten cents," said Thorpe, low-toned.
"Dollar and a half," said King.
Once more through all that packed room ran a curious stir, followed by the mumble of low voices. Ben Thorpe had been slowly turning his light-colored hat in his hands, but now he jerked forward and slammed it on the table with a wallop that nearly blew away the commissioner's stacks of forms.
"This is irresponsible damned foolishness," he said, his voice hard and clear for the first time. "By God, I'm not here to take part in an entertainment!"
"Mr. King," said the deputy commissioner, "did I understand you to offer one-fifty an acre?"
"Seems like I did," King said.
"He can't back that bid, and he knows he can't," Thorpe declared. "My understanding is that the bidder must show sight drafts on Omaha or Kansas City."
"Well, I got 'em," King said.
The deputy commissioner started to say, "I don't see how I can-"
"That's not a legitimate bid on the land in question, and you know it," Thorpe laid down the law. "All this man is trying to do is to checkerboard the Crying Wolf in such a way that it will be useless to all concerned."
There was a moment's silence, and the deputy commissioner got out a big silk handkerchief and mopped his head, as King now let a slow smile come to the surface of his impassive face. A curious rumble ran over the room, and the crowd seemed to sway.
"I got a proposition," Dusty King said. "Nobody is bidding on this land but just us two; nobody means to bid. You got five blocks there. Tear up your papers on Block 1, tear up my bid on Block 2. Throw the whole thing in one pot and we'll bid on the works."
"I'll agree to that," Thorpe decided. The black anger in his face had submerged again, so that he was poker-eyed.
The deputy commissioner was beginning to look like a man who wished he were some place else. "If there are no objections "He glanced at Thorpe, and began slowly tearing his previous notations into strips. "Bidding is open on five blocks of the Crying Wolf as a whole," he said, a faint, hard tremor in his voice. "Five hundred sections, or approximately three hundred and twenty thousand acres of land; bounded on the north-"
"Fifty cents," said Dusty King.
Ben Thorpe's face had turned a curious color, not grey, certainly not bloodless; an odd congested color, like dark sand. "Fifty-five," he said.
"Sixty."
"Sixty-five."
"A dollar," said Dusty King.
"A dollar, five."
"Just in confidence between you and me," Dusty King said; "Mr. Thorpe can't pay that."
Thorpe laced him with a curious unreadable glance. "I think my name is good anywhere in the cow country," he said to the commissioner.
"It ain't good here," said King. "You Just throwed it up to us, we got to show either Kansas City or Omaha sight drafts."
"God knows, Mr. Thorpe," the commissioner began, "I"
He stopped, and with hands not altogether steady rearranged the papers on the table, his inkwell, his pen. Sidelong, his badgered eyes drifted to Ben Thorpe's face.
They saw Thorpe nod, the faintest inclination of the head.
The deputy commissioner slapped his pen down on the table. "Gentlemen," he said, "I'm sorry to do this; but in the interests of the government, and of the Indian Department which I represent-" He hesitated, and the tip of his tongue ran along his lips.
"Spit it out," King said.
"All further bids in this auction will be accepted only as representing American gold."
"Cash on the nail?" King asked.
"Immediate payment in Ogallala." There was no question now about the sweat that stood out on the commissioner's forehead.
"Seventy cents," said King.
"I'm already bid a dollar, five!"
"Sure; but we got different rules now. God knows Thorpe can't back a dollar, five in gold. What the hell kind of shenanigan is this, anyway?"
The eyes of the deputy commissioner went to Ben Thorpe's face again, but there was nothing to be read there. Thorpe seemed so lumpishly still that it was not apparent that he breathed.
"Seventy cents," said Dusty King again in the silence. "Whoop'er up, boys-I've only begun!"
Silence again through the pack of those saddle- faced men; perspiring silence on the part of the deputy commissioner, dead lumpish silence on the part of Ben Thorpe. Cleve Tanner, his hands locked back of his neck, looked at the ceiling; Walk Lasham sat motionless, his eyes on the face of his boss.
"You "the deputy commissioner wavered, "you-you can back this bid in gold?"
"Immediate delivery by Wells Fargo," King said. "Right now, in Ogallala."
"Mr. Thorpe," the commissioner wavered, "Mr. Thorpe, will you-do you-"
They waited for what Ben Thorpe would say. In all that press of men, there probably was not one who did not understand what was happening here; who could not see the long miles of deep grass of the Crying Wolf, the bawling herds, the turn of a struggle that was as long and as old as the Chisholm trail.
Ben Thorpe's face was expressionless still, as he got up from his chair; but men pushed back, stumbled over each other to get out of his way, as he walked down the length of that packed room, and out into the street.
The depu
ty commissioner seemed melted down, unrecognizable now as the crisp little man who had opened the bidding. His face was white and set, and his eyes showed fear.
"Well?" said King.
"The Crying Wolf," the commissioner said huskily, "the Crying Wolf lands-if-if there are no other bids-go to King-Gordon..."
Something like a sigh, a general release of tension, ran through that jam of men.
Close to Dusty King's ear Bill Roper asked, out of the side of his mouth, "How high would we-how high could we have gone?"
The mask of Dusty King's face broke up; every muscle in his face came into action, every tooth showed as he grinned. Through those good teeth he spat tobacco juice on the floor.
"Seventy cents," King answered him.
N hour spent in the Wells Fargo office with the deputy commissioner, filling out forms, signing papers, ended as Dusty King and Bill Roper stood with Lew Gordon on the board walk in the late afternoon sunlight. It was the first time the three had had a word alone since the Crying Wolf had passed into the hands of King-Gordon.
"Well," said Dutsy King, "we got her."
"We paid high, Dutsy," Gordon said.
"But we got her!"
"And we can use her." For once, Lew Cordon's eyes, grave and thoughtful still, seemed to be looking past the immediate; he seemed to be seeing beyond the muddy, thronged street of the little town, beyond the loading corrals where the cattle bawled, beyond the long reaches of the prairie. He was not a man who saw visions; but perhaps he was seeing part of one now.
"Maybe," he said, "this is our chance. Maybe now we can get the cow business on a sound basis, here in the north, and have some order, and decent law."
"You'll never get a `sound basis' until Ben Thorpe is bust'," Dusty said. "What law enforcement we got in the West is rotten through and through with office holders that Thorpe owns. Look at this deputy commissioner, here. He'd have broke every law in the calendar to give Ben Thorpe that land."
"Some day," Gordon said slowly, "Ben Thorpe has got to go."
"Some day, hell! Lew, we've got him beat!"
Lew Gordon, the slow-moving seeker of peace, did not have Dusty's talent for celebration. "God knows I hope so, Dusty."
King's exuberant mood of victory was not to be dampened. He was walking on air, so that the deep heels of his boots hardly touched the boards. "You want law and order?" he chortled. "We'll show 'em law and order!"
"That puts me in mind," said Gordon. "A feller passed me this here to give to you." He handed Dusty King a little twisted scrap of paper, torn off the corner of something else. Dusty untangled it, looked at it a moment, showed it to the others. Five words were penciled on it in sprawling black letters:
IN GOD'S NAME LOOK OUT
"Who's this from, Lew?"
Gordon's lips moved almost soundlessly. "Dry Camp Pierce."
Roper knew that name, without knowing what lengths of outlawry had brought Dry Camp Pierce to where he was today. Rewards backed by Ben Thorpe were on Dry Camp's scalp over half the West; probably it was as much as his life was worth to show himself in Ogallala now.
"This note"
Dusty King tossed it off with a shrug. "Oh - l suppose Thorpe is getting drunk some place and spouting off about what all he's going to do to me, when he catches up." Dusty's teeth showed in his infectious grin. "I suppose Dry Camp thought I ought to know about it."
"He's right, Dusty," Lew Gordon said. "We do want to look out, all of us, all the time."
"We always had to look out," Dusty scoffed.
"It'll be the more so now. There isn't anything in the world Ben Thorpe's people will stop at, Dusty."
"Let 'em come on."
"We want to look out," Gordon said again.
"If you feel that way about it," said Dusty, "what was the idea of your working through that law we can't wear guns in town?"
Bill Roper said, "We could have brought it to an open shoot-out, five years ago-ten years ago. Better if we had."
Gordon shook his head. "Nothing ever gets fixed up with guns."
Dusty King pulled his hat a little more on one side so that he could wink at Bill Roper unobserved. But he said, "He's partly right, Bill. Ben Thorpe isn't just one man any more. Walk Lasham-Cleve Tanner any one of a dozen others could step into his shoes. It's the whole rotten organization has to be busted up."
"Ben Thorpe downed, and they'll quit," Bill Roper thought.
"Ben Thorpe down and it's only begun," Dusty countered. "Get it out of your head that you can fix anything up by downing Ben Thorpe. Not while his organization stands in one piece, reaching all over hell's creation. Might be a good idea for you to remember that, Bill, in case anything happens."
"Dusty," Bill said, "if ever they get you, by God, I'll get Ben Thorpe if it's the last-"
"No," said Dusty. "You hear me? No. If they get me-you'll remember what I said. You remember you're fighting a thing, and a big one; not just one man." His face crinkled in that familiar, contagious grin. "Forget it! Dry Camp's spooky, that's all. Bill, you go on up to the house and tell Jody that there's going to be some new cow faces in the Crying Wolf under King-Gordon brands. Me and Lew's going to take a walk through the town."
He hooked an arm through his partner's, and went swaggering off.
Ten paces down the walk he stopped, turned, and came back. He leaned close to Roper. "If anything should happen, kid-remember what I said."
HAT Lew Gordon had a daughter was not so surprising as that he had only one. Coming from a race of two-bottle, four-wife men, Lew Gordon had turned out a little different from the rest. Single-minded, like an old eagle or a wolf, he clung all his life to the memory of the wife he had lost when their first child was born.
Jody Gordon was twenty now. She didn't exactly run Lew Gordon; nobody did that. But it was fairly apparent that his stubborn bid for supremacy in western cattle was intended in her behalf, and without her would have been meaningless to him.
Since King-Gordon had been making a definite stand in the north, Lew had built Jody a house in Ogallala that was just about the show place of the northern plains. In a city it would not have looked like much, but here in the muddy cow town, where everything had to come from a long way, it was a triumph and an imposing sight. Lew Gordon had designed it himself - a big two-story frame structure, painted white, and decorated with miles of scrollsawed gingerbread. And it supported no less than four of the curious wooden towers which residential architecture sprouted during the Ulysses S.Grant period.
The whole thing was enclosed by a little white picket fence; as if this man of vast spaces and uncounted herds had felt it necessary to mark off for Jody Gordon, in the middle of all that raw land, a little space where civilization should be.
Because Gordon hadn't wanted his girl filtering around through the press of Ben Thorpe's ruffians at the auction, getting his own boys into fights, Jody Gordon was waiting here for news of what had happened to the Crying Wolf. Bill Roper vaulted the foolish little picket gate, scuffed the mud off his boots on the high front steps, and let himself in. He sent a Comanche war gobble ringing through the house, but Jody was already flying into the room.
"Did you get it? Did you get it?"
"Sure, we got it."
"Much of it?"
"All of it!"
Jody flung herself at him, and kissed him; so sweet, so vital, so completely feminine that he wanted to keep her close to him. But she broke away again as he tried to hold her.
"How much did it cost?"
"Seventy cents-gold."
Jody's breath caught. "Can we come out on it?"
"Sure we can come out on it. Not a cent less would've turned the trick. Dusty-"
Bill Roper hardly ever expressed his deeprooted admiration for everything Dusty King did; but now it brought the story tumbling out of him. The edgy, short-worded interchanges at the scene of the auction came now to Jody as what they were passages in an all-important struggle, with the nonchalant King out-thinking, out-trickin
g, outpowering his enemy tying him in knots.
Jody sat on a walnut table that had come all the way from St. Louis, and swung her feet. The story seemed to tickle her in more ways than one. "I can just see you all," she said, "standing around making an impression on each other."
She had got away from Bill Roper in the past year ever passed without his seeing her two or three but mostly he had been on the trails with Dusty; or else Jody more rarely Bill himself had been away somewhere for a little schooling. Though no year ever passed without his seeing her two or three times, their total time together, added up, could not have amounted to more than a couple of weeks. Lately it seemed to him that she had gathered up all the laughter that her father had lost along the way. An irrepressible twinkle was always working into her eyes, and she turned everything into nonsense.
"Dusty seems to have done right well," Jody drawled. "And what were you doing all this time?"
"Me? Why I was just standing there."
"With your mouth open?"
"Why on earth would my mouth be open?"
"Oh, I don't know, but I was hoping-you see, you look so kind of sweet, standing around with your mouth open."
"Well it was about all I could do. This was Dusty's game, from start to finish."
"Start to finish, eh?"
"Why, sure. He-"
"And all you did was ride about fifty million miles in three weeks, and cover the Crying Wolf backwards and forward and across, to make an estimate on-"
"Well, that didn't accomplish anything."
"Not anything at all?"
"Shucks, no. We"
"There's a picture!" Jody said. "Billy Roper flogging horses in circles by the week not accomplishing a thing. I might have known it."
"Well of course, I did kind of take a look at the grass."
"That was smart," said Jody respectfully. "That was real smart. Did you try eating some of it?"
"Nope. I did pick some, and saved it, figuring to make a hen's nest later; but I lost holt of it swimming Elk River. What the heck's the matter with you, anyway?"
