“Could you come to the point, Billington. I have not the time to play around talking this kind of nonsense.”
“With respect, Mr. Larned, the way this affair is going at the moment, it is the only thing you have time for.”
“You impudent—”
“Not impudent, sir. Determined. Were you never determined at my age? Did you never have your mind set on an objective to the exclusion of all others?”
“Of course I did. That’s why I’m Edward C. Larned and you’re my clerk.”
“Given certain conditions, I will agree to eliminate McAllister for you.”
“You?”
“Yes, me. All that remains is for us to negotiate the terms under which I shall act.”
“I certainly will not negotiate with one of my employees.”
“Ah, that’s one of my points, sir. If I undertake this task, I shall not be one of your employees. I shall be working under contract.”
Enough of words. The short of it all was that, after some more angry exchanges, Larned at least agreed to listen. Having listened, he weighed the pros and cons of what he heard and, being a business man, he saw that, in a manner of speaking, he could not lose. Which was a situation to his liking. This boy was expendable. Larned could get another secretary for less money. Next time, he would not make the mistake of hiring a social superior.
What this boy proposed might succeed. If it failed, the only loser would be the boy. And his loss would be total — he would be dead.
Billington’s argument was a sound one.
Nobody would suspect him of being a source of danger. Westerners looked upon him as a dude. Dudes could not fire guns. Dudes did not brace men who had reputations with weapons. So nobody would suspect Billington of being a potential assassin. Not even McAllister. He had not suspected him of being a source of danger when he had stopped at his new house in the buggy.
When was this? demanded the great man. The truth came tumbling out, though not without a show of reluctance on Billington’s part. So, cried Larned, his womenfolk had been calling on that bastard McAllister. Billington, who had never heard a foul word on his employer’s lips, looked aghast.
So it was agreed and that visit just about clenched it. They began to dicker on terms, though they would not have put it so crudely. Larned decided to go along with the boy. He would cut the little upstart down to size when the job was done. Or not done, as the case might be.
The terms made him produce that scornful laugh again. A thousand dollars? Billington must be crazy. How about Larned’s marvelous mansion that was going to be the showpiece of the West being burned down? Larned stopped and thought. How about five hundred dollars? Billington, cool as you please by now, said that the price would depend on the second condition. If Larned agreed it, he would do the job for five hundred. If not, it stayed at a thousand and Larned could take it or leave it.
What was this second condition? Larned was beginning to wonder if all this was a dream.
Billington said: “I hold Miss Helena in high regard, sir.”
“Now you just hold hard there—”
“I ask your permission to call on her socially. No more than that. I would do so with the intention of seeking her hand in marriage. The decision of whether to marry me or not must be hers.”
Larned was making strangling noises. Billington continued: “You will find that I have the qualifications for what you might call a ‘good marriage’. My family goes back to the Mayflower. My manners in society are easy and correct. I shall make a faithful and dutiful husband. My family has the reputation of producing male heirs.”
Larned stared at the boy in horror. Gradually, however, the look slipped from his face. After all, the boy might be talking sense. A lap-dog of a fellow for Helena who would give Larned grandsons might not be a bad idea after all. Besides, if the fool went into this at the going price of five hundred dollars . . . Rich men stay rich because they watch the cents. “Anything more?”
“You will discharge me from your service, as we said before. Finally, you will give me every assistance in getting out of the country. I will not be touched back in the States for a killing done here.” Larned put a very grave look on his face. Chin in hand, he studied. Finally, he raised a serious gaze to the young man’s face and said: “Billington, in spite of my initial reception to your suggestion, I have now, after mature consideration, come to the conclusion that there is something in what you suggest. For the sum of four hundred dollars . . .”
“Five hundred.”
“For the sum of five hundred dollars, you will rid me of this man. I will regard you as a possible son-in-law, the final choice to be with my daughter. I shall make every effort to see that you get safely out of the country and back East. Now, tell me, how do you intend to do it?”
“I shall find him alone preferably. I shall very simply walk up to him and blow his brains out.”
Larned took a long hard look at his face. He said: “My God, I believe you would, too.”
That really was the end of the interview. Except that both grew a little heated when Billington insisted on having the five hundred dollars before he did the job. Larned, after a bitter defense, finally gave in.
Twenty-One
Having had time to lick their wounds while McAllister was absent from Black Horse, the Bar Twenty crew were in pretty good shape. Expectancy among the men was high. Sure, they said, when they had tried to hit McAllister’s new house, they had ridden into trouble. That was through some misunderstanding. Something that could have happened to anybody. Bad leadership if anything. They did not impart this opinion to Tallin because he was the boss and he was a formidable man.
Since that day when the Bar Twenty had once more borne men home wounded, there had been a change in the ranch’s line of command—so far as the McAllister affair was concerned, at any rate. Larned tactfully told Tallin that he no longer considered McAllister of any importance. He therefore had decided to leave the general running of the ranch to Tallin and would have Fred Jolly watch McAllister. Every man in the crew knew that meant that Slim Larkin would concentrate on bringing McAllister down. There were several gun-hawks on the Bar Twenty payroll and Larkin was the most renowned of them. Larned made no mention to anybody that he had come to an agreement with Howard Billington.
As for McAllister, busy as he was with his new place, working with the horses and getting his hay in, he appeared to have settled down to week in and week out of hard work. For those who took an interest in his activities, he seemed oblivious of the fact that he was working plumb in the center of Bar Twenty range. From all outward signs, it seemed that he had forgotten the danger of his position. Maybe the pro-McAllister feeling in the county started to go off the boil. The whole country seemed to have quietened down as though it slumbered in the summer heat. The sheriff, Malcolm Donaldson, and his deputy departed to their duties. Greg Talbot was inclined to think that the fight with Larned was over, including the shouting. If you hit a man hard enough, he said, he remembered it and acted towards you accordingly. Certainly, when Larned riders came near the house, they seemed friendly enough. Whether McAllister was put off guard by this lack of hostilities is another matter. Talbot started talking about going back home and starting over, but he made no definite move. McAllister’s opinion on Talbot was that the man had grown to like decent meals and a disciplined life. He worked well with the horses and, in spite of his odor, McAllister found him unobtrusive company.
The days began to form a gentle pattern. In many ways they seemed perfect. It was possibly the most blissful period of McAllister’s turbulent life. The Larneds continued to five in town. Larned himself seemed busy with the re-erection of his wonderful mansion. For this second building, he had chosen another spot, some miles from the old and almost within sight of McAllister’s place. Any time of the day, it seemed, McAllister could look towards the Black Horse trail and see one of Larned’s wagons carrying materials and supplies out to the new building.
Larned had ceased to even mention McAllister’s name. The man seemed to have been erased from his memory. He did not notice, or so it seemed, when his wife and daughter went horsebacking and called in at McAllister’s place. The visits became more frequent and even then he did not react at all. His whole manner towards his wife and daughter seemed to have become gentler. His reading sessions had stopped. He appeared to have become curiously indifferent to their presence in his life. This made things easier for them, of course, but it worried Mary who, knowing her husband’s deviousness, at once thought that he was up to something. In a way, as we know, she was right, but she quite failed to come up with the reason why his manner was so changed.
She thought she would discover what it was when she raised the subject of the horses. She was not by nature a deceitful woman and she one day told her husband outright that she and Helena had been promised saddle horses by McAllister. She was surprised when her words were not met by a storm of disapproval and anger. Larned behaved reasonably. He told her that she could stable the horses with the mayor and charge their keep to himself.
“You don’t object, Edward?”
“Object? Why, no, my dear, I don’t object. The thought occurs to me that there would be less talk in town if you were to make some form of token payment to McAllister. Merely token. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
When next she and Helena rode out to the horse ranch she put this proposition to McAllister and he nodded agreement and charged her ten dollars each for the animals. They all laughed together over that, for it was the price that a cowboy might pay down in Texas for an unbroken and small mustang straight off the prairie. Mary, wanting to make a gesture in return for McAllister’s generosity, secretly begged his saddle measurements from Greg Talbot and had Harvey Jones, the Black Horse saddle maker, famous for his Montana rigs, make a saddle for McAllister.
Meanwhile, McAllister was gentling two little mares for Helena and her mother. A rancher rode over from the Wind River country to buy horses. McAllister’s fame as a horse breeder and trainer had reached so far. The man was greatly taken with the conformation and staying power of his animals and was profoundly impressed in the way McAllister was schooling them. He bought two of the geldings at top prices. McAllister grew noticeably more cheerful after the transaction and folks began to boast about the kind of horses that were being raised in their country. It was the grass, they said. The grass around here was rich in trace minerals which made for strong bone and bottom in an animal. Others declared that it was not only the grass but also the water which possessed certain magical properties. The visits of the two ladies to the ranch became regular. Larned raised no objection. It was said though that when the news of the visits reached Tallin, he swore that one day it would be McAllister or him. Slim Larkin smiled when he heard this and remarked to Fred Jolly that Tallin would have to get up early to beat him, Larkin, to the final draw.
Larkin had now dedicated his every thought to the moment when he would brace McAllister. Being the laconic man he was, he seldom mentioned the fact. But Fred Jolly, his sidekick, frequently did among their cronies in the crew. Larkin, he said, was practicing daily with his gun and his performance was coming up to its peak of perfection. This was true. The gunman would each day go off on his own to use his gun.
As for Howard Billington, he had retreated once more into his role of mild-mannered and obedient secretary to the great man. Those who were sharp-eyed enough to notice such things would have remarked that, with all his quietness, there was a new confidence in his manner, in his very walk. At the saddle maker’s he purchased himself a gun-holster specially made for the Smith and Wesson. It lay now against his left rib-cage with the butt right where his jacket inside pocket would be. It was the easiest thing in the world to perform a high cross-draw and bring the gun into action. He practiced endlessly in the solitude of his room until he could have drawn and cocked the gun smoothly and rapidly in his sleep. For the moment, he had put Helena right out of his mind. He would allow himself to concentrate on her once his mission was accomplished. Now his whole existence was dedicated to one thing and one thing only — the killing of McAllister.
Twenty-Two
Now, in the hot still days of the high prairie mid-summer, the strands of that Wyoming story started to come together again. The characters in it began to move into juxtaposition and it is curious to see what split-second timing fate needed to bring about the end of it, timing so fine that only chance itself could have created such a situation. Man was incapable of such accuracy. If one small move had been altered in that intricate web of action, the result would have been vastly different. Possibly tragedy would have been avoided. Small actions invariably affect large motives. A man may blow his nose and alter the fate of nations.
If all had gone smoothly with his plans, no doubt Howard Billington would have made his attempt on McAllister’s life a month earlier. Possibly then he would have been alone with McAllister at the time. But fate did not decree that. There was a hitch in Billington’s line of escape plans. Larned had arranged for horses to be ready for him in a chain to Caspar, whence he would have been able to board a train which would take him swiftly and efficiently out of the country. But Larned’s agent responsible for the arrangements was brought low by nothing more mundane than appendicitis. It was more than a week before Larned learned of the delay. Then a horse went lame. A number of small details went awry and the chain of escape was not complete until a month had passed. No doubt this delay played upon Billington’s nerves. He had keyed himself up to a pitch and was then forced to unwind, as you might say. He unwound with the greatest difficulty and in fact almost unnerved himself in the process.
About the same time, Si Tallin, riding to town in the hope of catching a glimpse of Helena and determined to create an opportunity to speak to her and impress upon her his own desirability, happened to ride near McAllister’s place. He did this in time to see the girl and her mother arrive. They were both mounted on the horses recently presented to them by McAllister. There was no mistaking the cinnamon roan of their hides and Tallin at once identified them for what they were. The range-boss took shelter among the trees on the western ridge from the house and surveyed the scene through his glass. He saw the greeting between the girl and McAllister and what he saw made him realize that by his absence on the ranch he had missed out completely. The girl was almost certainly lost to him. With her went all his ambitions as Larned’s son-in-law, the natural inheritor through Helena to the man’s fortune. For weeks now he had been dreaming that this vast range was his and it was a dream of the kind which rightfully belonged to any serious cattleman. With this range, he would be a power in the territory. To see all this snatched from his grasp by a goddam horse hunter was more than he could bear. He ceased in that moment to be a perfectly respectable range-boss and became a dedicated assassin. His only wish now was to plant a bullet in the brain of the man who was at that moment embracing the woman he intended to marry. His common sense told him that he must do so without Helena or anybody else knowing that he had done it. Passion and ambition will thus, in a single moment, erase a man’s sense of right and wrong. Until now, the thought of ignominiously bushwhacking a man from hiding would have been anathema to him. Now it seemed to be a perfectly reasonable course to follow.
As he walked to his horse and mounted, he told himself that it must be done soon. He would give Helena time to recover from the shock, then he would approach her father. She could not refuse a man who offered her emotional security and was (and he would have been a fool not to recognize himself for what he was), after all a clean-living and manly fellow. It did not occur to him in his highly-charged state to doubt that he could pull these two things off.
It was that very afternoon that Larned told Billington that all arrangements were in hand. It was now up to him to settle this business once and for all.
Billington received this news quietly. So quietly that Larned looked at him with some misgiving. Could this mouse pull o
ff such a dangerous task as this? Attempts on McAllister had failed disastrously in the past. If this one failed and was traced to Larned, the whole thing could become very nasty. That damned sheriff was not showing himself to have the strong cattleman-bias that Larned would have liked to have seen. Larned realized with dismay that his own confidence, which had been unassailable for the last twenty years, was shaky.
Anyway, Larned fired his secretary that afternoon. He did so in the lobby of the hotel, loudly and publicly. Colonel Ralph English and his clerk, Harold Tibbs, were witnesses, which assured Larned that the news would have spread to every adult in town in the next hour. Billington retired to his room to pack his grips, the picture of a rejected and disgruntled minion. He slunk from the premises and walked to the livery stable lugging his grip. At the stable he told the mayor what a low-down, unappreciative son-of-a-bitch that Larned was. The mayor listened avidly to the account of the small drama. Such things broke the monotony of a Black Horse day. After Billington had saddled a horse and ridden away, the mayor hurried to Mr. Shultz to tell him the news. There were several ladies in the store and you may be assured that they did not miss a word.
Howard Billington was last seen riding out of town in a northerly direction.
That made two strands settling into place.
There was a third. This consisted of Fred Jolly and Slim Larkin.
There was a curious relationship between these two men; curious but not unusual. Jolly was the less stable of the two, by nature more mercurial than his partner, quick to anger and as quick to laugh. He grew discouraged quickly, but, at the same time, was a man of undoubted courage, even recklessness. Compared with Larkin, he seemed somewhat lightweight to those who knew them. Yet he was the undoubted leader of the two.
Larkin was a man of some personality, impressive in his long silences, a formidable man with gun, a pretty intelligent and tenacious fellow who gave the impression of being reliable, dogged and slow to anger. Yet it was he who followed. It was as if Larkin were a loner who had, by some accident, found himself a friend.
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