Fiddlefoot

by Luke Short

  “Well?” Rhino said. “What’s wrong with that idea?”

  “What do I do about it?” Tess asked reluctantly. She would not look at him; she kept pleating the folds of her drab skirt.

  “Go see the McGarritys. Tell them what we’re going to do. Unless they’re fools, they’ll see they’re licked. Get their offer on the whole outfit and bring it to me, and we’ll see how it looks.”

  Tess stood up, looking at a point beyond Rhino’s head. “Isn’t that a job for a man?” she asked woodenly.

  Rhino shook his head. “You, my dear, are running the freighting end. I supply only the money and advice.”

  Tess said good night and went back to her desk. Shinner had shoved his books in the safe, and now he bade her a precise good evening as he went out. Tess sat down slowly at her desk and stared at the dingy wall opposite. There was a price on everything, she thought bitterly, and this was the price on her job, that she must ruin the McGarritys. She remembered now that the McGarritys yesterday had come in to rent four teams for a special hauling job of mine machinery to Meeker, the mining camp back in the mountains. They would be home tomorrow, and tomorrow night, she knew, she would have to face them.

  She heard someone mounting the steps and turned to see Hugh Nunnally tramp in, heading for Rhino’s office. He grinned lazily and said, “You’ve had enough for today, Tess. Go home.”

  “On my way,” Tess said.

  Hugh went on through to the office and Tess stared at the corridor doorway. It seemed to her now that it wasn’t just a plain doorway in a shabby, ill-lit office any more but an entrance to a dark cave where a cunning old man wove his secret schemes and laughed at pity.

  She rose now and swiftly cleared her desk, and she could barely control the impulse to get out of here and as far away as her legs would take her. She had just twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of being a partner in a crime. I’ll think of a way around it, she thought then, and she wondered desperately if she could.

  Chapter 6

  THE HOLDING CORRAL Frank elected to work out from lay on the upper Elk among the aspens, Saber’s highest range. Here, the Elk broke out of a steep-walled canyon into a flat hay meadow, and a high fence of peeling aspen poles stretched across the canyon’s mouth.

  Two hours before dusk the dozen horses inside the corral lifted their ears alertly and looked out toward the meadow. Twenty-odd horses broke out of the aspens now into the meadow, loping for the creek.

  Frank reined in at the edge of the timber, letting the band he had been driving seek water. Looking over the near peaks to the east, he saw a long flat slate-covered cloud drifting mares’ tails of rain onto the boulder fields to the north. If rain came, it would be after dark, and he had a good hour of working light.

  His camp lay under three stunted pines along the stream; passing it now he saw the tarp covering his gear pooled with water from the rain that had soaked him that afternoon.

  At the corral, he herded the dozen horses already inside back into the canyon, and stretched a pair of ropes from one side of the canyon across to the other to hold them there.

  Leaving the corral gate open now, he mounted and swung in a wide half-circle around the twenty new horses he had been driving, and came up behind them. They moved docilely into the corral and Frank closed the gate.

  On this, his second evening out of Saber, he still moved with a stiff weariness as he off-saddled and turned his horse loose to graze. Back in camp, he built up a fire, filled a coffeepot from the creek and set it to boil. Afterward, he rummaged around and found a cold biscuit to chew on, then took up his rope and headed back for the corral. His step was slow; a grinding weariness was on him, and the day’s riding which had begun before sunup had been a minor torture. His ribs were so sore that even breathing was an effort, and every movement this day had reminded him of the welcome he had received at the hands of Saber’s crew.

  Inside the corral, he stubbornly set about the wearisome job of cutting out his own horses from the general bunch and pushing them back into the rope corral with the others. It had taken him two days of hard work to round up and cut out a third of his own string—a job that, with another man, would have been a bare day’s job.

  At deep dusk, he was finished. He turned out the unwanted horses, and looked briefly at the eighteen he had kept. Even now, he had no certain idea why he was doing this, except that these horses represented his fortune and his future, and he must use them.

  Back at camp he made a quick supper of bacon and biscuits and coffee, and afterward sat back on his tarp, his back against a tree, and watched evening come to the meadows. Tomorrow, he would take this bunch down to the home ranch, and return for the rest, and this week would find his bunch together. Afterward, he must tell Carrie of his decision to give up Saber, and he wondered what she would say.

  He was pondering this when he saw the rider come out of the aspens and head across the meadow for his camp. It took him a few moments to identify the spare, sinewy figure of old Cass Hardesty, and he felt the caution gather in him, remembering Cass’s part in the fight.

  Cass crossed the creek, his horse kicking up ribbons of water that the dusk turned to pure silver as they rose and fell. Cass was one of the oldest Saber hands, a dour and taciturn man who, for all his surliness, had been kind enough to Frank in the past. The short pipe that barely cleared his heavy black mustaches and which was removed from his mouth only when he ate and slept, jutted straight out from his heavy jaw.

  He reined in by the fire, and Frank, as custom dictated, said, “Light and eat, Cass,” in no friendly voice.

  “Sure you want me?” He was embarrassed, Frank saw.

  At Frank’s nod, Cass stepped out of the saddle and looked about him. His glance settled on the corral with its eighteen horses, and he looked over at Frank. “That’s a man-killin’ job. Why didn’t you ask Jess for the loan of a couple of hands?”

  “I guess you know.”

  “Yeah,” Cass said slowly. “Like you said, Johnny talks too much.” He reflected a moment and added, “We all should of waited.”

  Frank tossed him a cup and Cass, squatting before the fire, poured himself some coffee. Removing his pipe, he drank deeply of the scalding coffee and then exhaled and looked over at Frank.

  “You’re passin’ up a pretty good thing in Saber—if you are passin’ it up.”

  “I am,” Frank said.

  Cass drank the rest of the coffee and with a spare, thoughtful movement, he put his pipe back in his mouth. “Who killed him?” he asked abruptly.

  “Take your choice.”

  Cass almost smiled then. “I wouldn’t pick you,” he said mildly. “Not even after the namin’ Rob gave you.”

  Frank didn’t comment. Now Cass reached into the edge of the fire, picked up a coal, and placed it in the bowl of his pipe, puffing the tobacco alight. Decades of blacksmithing had given Cass calluses on his big hands that had turned his skin into a black and leathery rind, impervious to heat. When he had his light, he tossed the coal back into the fire and observed dryly, “If there was a bastard in the bunkhouse that night, I’d say it was Rob, not you.”

  “So would I,” Frank said woodenly. “When you didn’t kill Rob that night, I figured you never would,” Cass said. ‘That’s why Hannan’s wrong when he suspects you.”

  “How’d you know he does?”

  “He said so,” Cass replied. “He was out yesterday.”

  Frank felt a faint chill of premonition. Nunnally was at work, then.

  “He wants you to come in and see him,” Cass added, and now he looked at Frank. “That why you gave up Saber?”

  Frank nodded. Cass stood up now and said offhandedly, “We figured a week ago you’d come back and rooster around, maybe pension Jess off and fire the whole bunch of us that heard Rob name you.”

  “How do you know I wouldn’t have, if Hannan had let me alone?”

  “You could have kept the outfit long enough to fire us, couldn’t you?”
r />   Frank remained silent, wondering what this was leading up to, and Cass seemed satisfied. He took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it, scowling, and then he said, almost shyly: “Johnny saw some of your ponies over by the Horn Creek line camp last week. He’ll drive ’em over tomorrow. You go on down and see Hannan, and Johnny and me will bring down your string.”

  Frank stared at him uncomprehendingly, and Cass met his glance. Finally, Frank asked, “Why, Cass?”

  “Damned if I rightly know,” Cass murmured. “For ten years I watched Rob kick you into somethin’ I didn’t much like. And then, when you’re finally rid of him, Hannan tries it. That’s too much.” He paused. “Can Johnny and me help?”

  “Sure,” Frank said softly.

  Next morning at daybreak Frank turned his string of horses out of the corral, and he and Cass ran them for a couple of miles until the edge was off them. Cass turned back then, and Frank made the drive alone down to Saber, which he reached at midday.

  Turning the bunch into the big corral at Saber, he held them long enough to rope out a close-coupled bay and change his saddle to him, after which he turned the remainder into the horse pasture.

  Riding past the cookshack he got a reluctant wave from the cook standing in the doorway, and that was all.

  He made the ride down to Rifle at a mile-eating walk and jog, and now he speculated on what Hannan, prompted by Hugh’s misinformation, might say to him. Anything could happen; he didn’t know. In late afternoon he came to the break in the timber on the grade above Rifle. Below him, and downriver, he could see the town and the crawling antlike figures making up the traffic in the main street.

  Off toward the river below town, he heard faint shouts and whistles. Raising his glance, he saw a band of horses being hazed out of Rhino’s horse lot and downriver by a trio of riders. The uniform solid color of every horse told him what he wanted to know. This was part of the bunch he and Hugh had brought in from Utah—all solid color, all under sixteen hands high, all flat-backed and close-coupled geldings between six and nine years old. They met the requirements of the United States Cavalry, and were now being driven downriver on the way to Fort Crawford, a hundred and twenty miles away. He remembered the long drive through the desert to Crawford that he had made in early summer for Rhino, and he was glad he was not with them.

  Rifle’s main street, when he came into it later, was busy with late afternoon traffic. A five-team hitch on a big com wagon just unloaded at Rhino’s was hauled up in front of the Pleasant Hour. A half-dozen kids were playing noisily in the high-sided empty wagon, and as Frank pulled in at the hotel tie-rail Barney Josephson came out of his saddle shop across the street to quiet them lest they stampede the half-broken teams.

  Frank dismounted at the tie-rail of the Colorado House on the corner opposite the brick bank. The usual row of idlers in their barrel chairs on the boardwalk in front of the hotel windows regarded him curiously, some nodding to him. He went past them into the lobby and was making for the desk when he saw Hannan in the far corner of the lobby. The sheriff was alone, seated in a deep leather chair under a moth-eaten mounted elk head, and in his hand was what looked to Frank like a slim whalebone corset stay. Frank halted and watched him a moment in curious puzzlement. Suddenly, Hannan flicked the corset stay at his knee. A faint smile of satisfaction appeared around the cold cigar in his mouth. He flicked again at the arm of the chair, and then Frank understood. Hannan was swatting flies.

  As Frank approached, Hannan looked up. He didn’t rise, didn’t offer to shake hands, only said mildly, “Hello, Frank,” as he tucked the stay back in the inside pocket of his coat.

  Frank said, “Hello, Buck. How’s the hunting?”

  “They’re hard to hit*” Hannan observed tranquilly. He regarded Frank a moment and said, “Who pasted that black eye on you?”

  “Nobody you have to worry about, Buck.” Frank sat on the arm of a near-by chair and came directly to the point. “They said you were looking for me.”

  “Worried?”

  Frank nodded. “Some. I’d like to know where I stand.”

  “A little closer to a trial than you did a couple days ago,” Hannan observed. He chewed thoughtfully on his cigar before he said, “I suppose your memory is a sorry thing.”

  “Memory of what?”

  “You wouldn’t, for instance, know where you were the five days between the Fourth of July and the ninth, would you? Do you recollect anybody shootin’ anvils, or celebrating the Fourth?”

  Frank’s face went bland and blank. “No. I didn’t carry a calendar, Buck. I don’t remember.”

  “I thought so. You remember a man named Booker?”

  “Should I?”

  “You bought five horses from him on the Fourth. You remember a man name of Headly? No, of course you don’t. You bought eight horses from him on the ninth.”

  “Who said I did?”

  “Nunnally,” Hannan said. “I been checking dates on bills of sale with him. He claims you bought horses from both Booker and Headly on those dates and turned the bills of sale over to him. He can’t recollect your buying any in between those dates. Can you?”

  Frank didn’t answer immediately. Almost imperceptibly, Nunnally was drawing the noose tighter, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. If he contradicted this latest fiction of Hugh’s, Hannan would make him prove the contradiction. He said now, “Where did I run across Booker and Headly?”

  “Around Moab.”

  “That would give me time to leave Booker, ride here for Rob, track him down, kill him, and get back in time to buy Headly’s horses on the ninth. That what you’re thinking, Buck?”

  “You said it, I didn’t,” Hannan observed dryly. He was watching Frank closely.

  “Have you and Doc Breathit decided when Rob was killed? What date?”

  “The last time he was seen was on the Fourth. He picked up a drunk O-Bar puncher that night and put him back on his horse, the puncher says.”

  “And why did I kill him?” Frank murmured.

  “You hated him.”

  “Did you like him?” Frank countered. “Can you find me anybody who did?”

  “That’s different.”

  “No,” Frank said flatly. “Ever since I was ten I’ve been mad enough at Rob to kill him. Lots of times. But I never did. Why should I sneak back from Utah to do it?”

  “He said some pretty hard things about your mother the night you left, so I hear.”

  Frank nodded. “Hard enough things so I could have pulled a gun on him and killed him then, and nobody would have blamed me. But I didn’t.”

  Hannan said nothing, only studied Frank’s face.

  Now Frank said, “That reason is no good, Buck. What others have you got?”

  “There’s Saber. You got that.”

  “And I’m not taking it,” Frank said slowly. “Not until you find Rob’s killer. If you never do, I never take Saber.”

  Hannan sighed and said, “Yeah, I heard about that at Saber.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the corset stay. There was a fly on his pants leg, and he flicked at it viciously. The fly fell to the floor and did not move, and Hannan moodily returned the corset stay to his pocket. Then he said worriedly, “You got me there, Frank.”

  “Then let me alone,” Frank said flatly.

  Something in his voice made Hannan look up, and Frank rose.

  “I mean it, Buck,” Frank said.

  Hannan sighed and rubbed his chin and said, in an almost inaudible voice, “I know you do.”

  Frank went out through the lobby then, and on the boardwalk he paused and rolled a cigarette. His hands, he noticed, were shaking. How well had he succeeded in checking Hannan? There was no way of telling except that, by his own admission, he couldn’t offer a reason for Rob’s murder by Frank. Frank took a deep drag of his cigarette now and contemplated the next move. He might as well see Judge Tavister and get the Saber business over with. He waited until a team pulling a buckboard passed him,
then crossed to the opposite corner and took the stairway that mounted to the second floor of the brick bank.

  Judge Tavister’s office was the corner one, and looking down the corridor through the open door, Frank saw him seated at his desk talking to someone whom Frank could not see.

  Approaching the door now, Frank saw the Judge was talking with Carrie. She was sitting on his desk amid a scattering of papers, her feet swinging, and when Frank appeared in the door, her face lighted up. She was dressed in a long-sleeved street dress of green and gray bombazine. When she looked at Frank’s face, however, her feet which had been swinging against the desk, became motionless.

  She said slowly, “Who’ve you been fighting with?”

  Frank only grinned and shook his head. Judge Tavister was regarding him without any cordiality in his face. He gestured toward a chair which Frank, after placing his hat on the long table, dragged up. Carrie slipped down off the desk, and coming up beside him, touched his eye tenderly. There was a look of silent reproof in her face, Frank noticed.

  Judge Tavister said, “Come about the business?”

  At Frank’s nod the Judge rose, opened the cabinet beside his desk, and took several papers out and laid them on the table, swiveling his chair around to face the table too.

  “Want me out, Dad?” Carrie asked.