L'Amour, Louis - SSC 32

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 3

Gunthorp followed him to one side, his calm eyes on Kelman’s excited face. “Listen,” Kelman protested when they were out of hearing. “Let’s not fight over this! That land is worth a fortune! You know that as well as I do! Let’s make a deal on this! If you insist, we can cut the girl in, but there’s no reason why we should! You and I can handle this by ourselves! To blazes with that girl and her kid brother.”

  Gunthorp smiled. “Kelman,” he said loudly, “I’ve heard a lot about you. You have already labeled yourself as a liar and a skunk, but now you hit a new low. Asking me to cheat youngsters is about as bad as a man can get!”

  “You double-damned-!” Kelman’s hand dropped to his gun.

  Gunthorp’s left fist whipped up, crashing into the pit of Kelman’s stomach, and then a bone-shattering wallop to the chin. Stricken, the big man toppled back off the boardwalk and fell into the street. For an instant, he lay stunned, and then he grabbed again for his pistol.

  Gunthorp tried to reach him at the same instant, but Kelman had fallen a step or two away. Kelman’s gun whipped up, flame stabbed from the muzzle, and Gunthorp felt his hat lift from his head. Then Kelman’s gun roared again and something struck Gunthorp solidly. His mouth widened, then closed as his body twisted under the bullet’s impact.

  Suddenly, things grew hazy and Gunthorp started to turn around, but seemed to trip. Hands grabbed him and eased him to the boardwalk. A man in a wide white hat with a mustache and goatee was bending over him.

  “Judge-“ His voice had no more focus than his eyes, and he had to fight to arrange the words properly. “Judge, you … care for this girl. Brother … her brother’s in a cave at my place.”

  FOUR DAYS LATER Gunthorp was lying on the bed in the spare bedroom of Judge McClees’s home. The door opened and Madge Stevens came in, with Lane beside her. Her eyes widened at the sight of him lying there.

  “You-you’re better now?”

  “Sure. Doc says I’ll be up and around before long. I guess I’ll carry a couple of slugs, though.”

  “I’m so sorry … that I ever doubted you. Judge McClees arrested Mr. Kelman, you know. They took him away yesterday.”

  “That’s good.” He was still very weak.

  “About the land?” she said. “Men have been out to look at the mine. They say it’s worthless, and the land is worse.”

  Gunthorp smiled. “Don’t you believe them. Your father knew what he was up to. That isn’t a mine at all. It’s a tunnel to bring water from a canyon back there. There is a great volume of water, easily enough to irrigate five hundred acres of good hay land, and the level of the land your father bought is below that of the canyon, so irrigation for growing hay will be simple.”

  “But hay? Is it valuable?”

  “Well,” he said with a grin, “last year it sold for sixty dollars a ton, and fairly good meadow land will run a ton to the acre. This land you’ve got, irrigated, will do a whole lot better than many mines.”

  “The judge said that given all that has happened he should appoint a legal guardian for my brother and me until I turn twenty-one. He thought that it should be you.”

  “Well, one way or another, I guess I already got started a couple of days ago,” Gunthorp said.

  “But Lane and I thought it should be more of a partnership. If you’ll help us finish Father’s tunnel, we’ll split whatever we make on the hay three ways.”

  “With an offer as good as that there is no chance I could turn it down … I always was a sucker for kids in trouble.”

  “Kids!” She arched one eyebrow. “I hope you are only talking about Lane.”

  They turned and left the room, but not before she had paused to fluff his pillow and pull up the covers.

  “I wonder,” Gunthorp mused, “what I’ve gotten myself into now…

  JACKSON OF HORNTOWN

  Horntown belonged to the desert. Whatever claim man had once had upon it had yielded to the sun, the wind and the blown sand. A double row of false-fronted buildings faced a dusty street into which the bunchgrass and sagebrush ventured. It had become a byway for an occasional rabbit or coyote, or the rattlers that had taken refuge in the foundations of The Waterhole, a saloon in which water had rarely been served. A solitary burro wandered like a gray ghost among the weather-beaten, abandoned buildings. To the east and west, craggy ridges of ugly red rock exposed their jagged crests to the sky. To the north, the narrow valley tapered away to a mere gully down which a dim trail led the unwary to that sink of desolation that was Horntown. To the south the valley widened into the Black Rock Desert.

  There were few trees and less water. Had there been a watcher in the ghastly emptiness of the lifeless ridges he might have seen a lone horseman riding up the trail from the desert. He rode a long-legged buckskin, which shambled wearily through the sagebrush, and even the sight of the ghost town failed to awaken any spark in either man or horse. The watcher, had there been one, could have determined from the way the man rode that he was riding to a known destination. All the way across the waterless waste he had ridden as to a goal, and that in itself meant something.

  For Horntown was a forgotten place, slowly giving itself back to the desert from which it had come. It had lived wildly, desperately, and it had died hard in a red-laced flurry of gunshots md powder smoke. The bodies of those who fell had been left where they had fallen, and the survivors had simply gone away and no one among them had looked back. Horntown was finished, and they knew it well.

  Yet the sun-browned man with the bloody bandage on his head had kept his trail to Horntown; through all that broken country he had deviated by no more than a few feet from the direction he had chosen. The red-rimmed gray eyes that occasionally stared back over the trail behind held no hint of mercy or kindness. They were the eyes of a man who had looked at life over a gun barrel, a man who had lived the hard, lawless way, and expected to die as he had lived.

  It was fitting that he rode to Horntown, for the place had bred many such men. It had begun over a hundred years earlier, when a west-bound gold-seeker decided he had gone far enough. It died its first death two years later because the founder owned a horse, and a passing stranger needed a horse. Jack Horn died with a gun in his hand.

  Seven months later a Mexican named Montez moved into the abandoned buildings and opened a saloon. He combined selling bad whiskey with robbing casual travellers until he chose the wrong man and died on his doorstep.

  It was after that the first Jackson came to town. Enoch Jackson was from Tennessee. Tall, leather-tough, and rawboned, he stopped in Horntown with his six sons, and the heyday of the town came into being. It is a curious thing that no matter how sparse the vegetation or how remote the place, how difficult the problem of materials, a man who wants a drink will make one. The Jacksons had always had whiskey, and they had always made their own. They drank their own product, but drank it sparingly.

  Once set up in Horntown they drank even more sparingly for, of course, they alone knew the ingredients. No one ever guessed and few asked what the whiskey was made from, but it fed fire into the veins of a hardy brood who turned the country into a whirl-wind of evil with their gunfighting, rustling, and holdups. For fifty years the small town that was Horntown.was ruled by Enoch and his powerful son Matt Ben Jackson.

  A roving gunman, sore and hunting trouble, sent Enoch to his final pay-off with a bullet in his skull, and then died with Matt Ben’s bullet just two hours later. He died where Matt Ben caught up uith him, right where the valley of Horntown opened into the Black Rock Desert. After that Matt Hen ruled; the show at Horntown with his hrother, FireHat Jackson, as his lieutenant.

  Several months later Sheriff Star Redman rode to Horntown with a posse of thirty men. They never reached their destination, but when the survivors rode home there were four empty saddles, and five others carried Jackson lead, to be removed later. Redman was not of a yielding nature and he had been elected to do a job. He returned, and on the fourth attempt the final bloody battle was fought. Star Hedman ha
d sworn he’d bring an end to Horntown or never return.

  There were twenty-six men in that last posse, and only seven of them returned unscathed. Several were buried in Horntown, and two died on the way back. Behind them only one man remained alive, Matt Ben himself. Forty, tough, and fatally wounded, he watched the last of the attackers ride away. Then, like a cornered rattler, he crawled back to The Waterhole and poured himself a drink.

  A month later a wandering prospector found him dead on the floor, his gun in his hand. Matt Ben had amputated his own foot and shot himself when apparently dying of blood poisoning.

  Searching the town, the prospector, who knew Horntown well, found the bodies of all the Horntown bunch but one. That one was FireHat. Or rather all but two, for with FireHat had vanished Matt Ben the Youiiger.

  “They’ll come back,” Sheriff Star Redman said bitterly, yet half in admiration. “He’s a Horntown Jackson, and he’ll he back. What I don’t understand is why he ran away in the first place.”

  “Them Jacksons are feuders, Sheriff,” the prospector reminded. “When FireHat left he took young Matt Ben with him, and he was only six and too young to fight.”

  “Maybe so.” Redman admitted. “It could be he wanted to save him for seed.”

  FireHat Jackson died alone, ten years later, down in Sonora. The word drifted back to Webb City, sixty miles south of Horntown. Star Redman took the news with a strange light in his eyes. “Sonora, eh’ How did he die’?”

  “Rurales surrounded him. He took eight of them along for company.”

  Redman spat. “You just know it! Them Jacksons never die alone. If one of ‘em has a gun he’ll take somebody along!”

  “Well,” somebody whispered, “that ends the Horntown bunch. Now we can rest easy.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Redman warned. “Matt Ben the Younger is somewhere around.”

  “But he wasn’t one of the old bunch, Sheriff. He was too young to have it matter much. He won’t even remember Horntown.”

  Star Hedman shifted his tobacco in his jaws, chewed, then spat. “He was a Horntown Jackson!” He spat again. “You’ll see. He’ll be back.”

  “Sometimes, Star,” the old storekeeper commented, “I think you almost wish he’d come back.”

  Redman had started toward the door, and now he turned. “He was one of the old breed. I’d rather he rode for the law, but say what you like about them Horntown Jacksons, they were men!”

  The lone horseman slowed the yellow horse to a shambling trot, then to a walk. The buildings of Horntown were just ahead. He slid the winchester from its boot. With his rifle across the saddle in front of him, he rode slowly up the one street of Horntown. There were no more than twenty buildings still standing. The nearest was a trav, wind-battered house, and beyond were several shacks and corrals. Then the great, rambling old structure with its faded sign: The Waterhole.

  The rider of the yellow horse with the black tail and mane rode up the empty street. Here and there tumbleweeds had lodged. Sand had drifted like drifts of snow, doors hung on sagging hinges, creaking dismally in the wind. At one side of The Waterhole the run-off from the roof had worn a deep gully.

  A spot of white at the corner of a building caught his eyes. It was a human skull, white and bleached. Grimly, he studied it.

  “More than likely he was one of my uncles,” he said aloud. He swung down in front of The Waterhole and tied the buckskin to the old hitching rail. His boots had a hollow, lonesome sound on the boardwalk. He opened the door and walked in. Dust and cobwebs hung over everything. The chairs and tables remained much as they must have been when the fight ended. A few poker chips were scattered about, an empty bottle stood on a table, another on the bar beside a tipped-over shot-glass.

  Propped against the bar was a skeleton, rifle beside it, gunbelt still hanging to the lank white bones. One foot was missing. Slowly the man uncovered his head.

  “Well, Pa, you died hard, but you died game.” Outside he went to where the spring was, the reason why old Jack Horn had stopped in the first place. Crystal-clear water still ran from the rocks and trickled into a natural basin, then trickled off down through the rocks and into the wash, where it lost itself in a small cluster of cottonwoods and willows. He filled his canteen first, as any sensible man would, then he drank, and, removing the bloody bandage, carefully bathed his head where a bullet had cut a furrow. Then, still more carefully, he washed his hair.

  He led the buckskin to water, then picketed him on a small patch of grass he remembered from the days when he had played there as a youngster. Inside the saloon he found dishes, washed them, and, working at the fireplace, prepared a rough meal. He was digging a grave for his father’s bones when he heard a faint sound, then another. His gun slid easily into his hand and he waited, listening to the slow steps, shambling, hesitant. Then a long gray head appeared around the corner.

  Matt Ben holstered his gun, then he climbed out of the grave and held out his hand to the burro. “Hi, Zeke! Come here!” At the sound of the familiar name the burro’s head lifted, and the scent of this man apparently touched a chord of memory, but still he hesitated. Matt Ben called again and again, and slowly the old burro walked toward him. “It’s all right, Zeke. It’s just a Jackson, come home at last. I’m glad you waited.”

  Three days later Pierce Bowman walked into the sheriff’s office in Webb City. “Wire for you, Star. Looks like you were right. Matt Ben’s on his way home.”

  “He’s already here,” Redman commented dryly. “Tim Beagin came by there day before yesterday. Saw smoke in The Waterhole’s chimney.

  “I didn’t plan to bother him. Seems sort of natural, havin’ a Jackson out there, but this here wire changes matters. I got to go get him.”

  “You takin’ a posse?”

  “No. Just me. If he’s a Jackson we’d never get nigh him. Them Jacksons always could smell a posse ten mile off.”

  “What do they want him for?”

  “Sheriff over at Carson tried to take him and he wouldn’t go, said he was just ridin’ through. The sheriff made a mistake then. He reached for his gun, and Matt Ben put him out of commission.”

  “Jacksons always could shoot. How d’ you figure to take him, Star?”

  “Darned if I know. I think I’ll just go talk to him.” He paused. “You know something, Bowman? Nobody ever did try just talkin’ to a Jackson. They always went for them with guns and ropes. Maybe somebody should have tried talkin’ a long time ago.”

  Star Redman took the trail to Horntown carrying no pleasant thoughts. He had no desire, at his age, to shoot it out with a Horntown Jackson. Once, when he was younger, he might have felt otherwise, but time had tempered his courage with wisdom. The Jacksons, like himself, had been products of their times, but not really bad men. They never killed except when firing at an equal in open combat. There had been, he remembered, a certain something on their side.

  His job was to arrest young Matt Ben, and of course that was what he must do. This young Jackson might be different, but again he might not. The Jackson blood was strong. He remembered very well the time the shooting ended at Horntown.

  “I think he’s dead,” somebody commented. “Shouldn’t we go in and find out’?”

  An old-timer in the posse looked around. “You want to go in, you go. Me, I wouldn’t go in if you offered me your ranch!”

  Star Redman knew the hills. He believed he knew them better than young Matt Ben, and in his knowledge he saw his chance—to get close without arousing suspicion. He glanced skyward. “Smells like snow,” he said to himself. “Time for it, too.”

  Young Matt Ben was thinking the same thing. He began gathering wood and scrap lumber, which he piled alongside The Waterhole. He began making repairs in the room he expected to use, and also in the stable where he could keep the buckskin. In the lower meadow, just beyond the willows, he found a fine stand of hay, and began mowing it with a scythe he sharpened in the blacksmith shop. It was time for snow to fall, and if h
e expected to winter at Horntown he had best be ready for it.

  He enjoyed working with his hands. He repaired the door, making it a tight fit. He found the old livery stable had almost fallen in, and rescued some good-sized timbers for burning. His father’s house was down the street, and there was a good stack of wood there, enough for a winter. He avoided the thought of food. He had enough for three or four days, with care.

  He worked from dawn until dark mowing hay, and the sun would cure it. Yet he would have to get it in before snow fell. Here and there he found where passersby had camped. Prospectors or sheepmen, perhaps some drifting cowhand. Old Zeke hung around, wary, but liking the company. Several times he tried to entice the old burro to come into the stable, but he was too wary, and would have none of it. Finally, by dropping bunches of grass, he got him to go inside. He left the door open but Zeke was liking the buckskin’s company.

  “The last of the Jacksons!” he said aloud. “Me and a jackass!” He studied the sky grimly. It was surely going to snow.

  Twenty miles north and east was the hideout of Stony Budd. The Budd gang had.looted two banks, run off a bunch of fine saddle stock, and holed up over there.

  “Come along, Matt,” Budd suggested, “that’s old Jackson country. We could use you up there.”

  “Not me. I’m through with the outlaw trail. From here out I’m ridin’ a straight trail. If they’ll let me,” he added. He meant it, too. There was food, warmth, and security up there with Stony Budd. All he needed to do was to saddle the buckskin and head for the hills. To stay here might mean to invite trouble. People would learn a Jackson had returned, and he would have to live down a hard name.

  Well, it was high time a Jackson did live it down. Old Enoch would have agreed with that. Times had changed. Even old FireHat had told him so. He would have had no trouble but for that sheriff in Carson. The man had tried to arrest him without reason. The sheriff wanting to build a reputation, figured arresting a Horntown Jackson would convince the voters. Matt Ben had been about to go along with it until something in the man’s snaky eyes changed his mind.