by Ben Bridges
The boy said, ‘Pa...’
But Jameson talked over him. ‘Lawson— lend him your gunbelt.’
He was railroading Tragg into a showdown that the rancher couldn’t hope to win. Perhaps that was what this business had really been leading up to all along. The man called Lawson sniggered and began to unbuckle his belt. Tragg watched him with desperation growing in his eyes. I saw him wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He was outclassed, and he knew it. The outcome of any gunfight between him and Jameson was a foregone conclusion.
That is why I couldn’t allow it to go ahead.
‘That’ll be enough of that,’ I said, almost before I realized I had spoken.
Jameson looked at me again and said irritably, ‘Are you still here, pilgrim?’
I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m still here. And I’m not a pilgrim.’
He angled his horse closer towards me, Tragg temporarily forgotten, and his face pinched down and his jaw thrust out. He was a man spoiling for a fight, and exhibiting all the signs I had seen before, more times than I could remember.
‘You’re poking your nose into something that’s none of your affair,’ he said in a deceptively soft tone.
I nodded again. ‘Perhaps I am. But I’ll thank you to leave these Traggs alone, just the same. They’ve taken enough from you for one afternoon.’
Again I sensed the shrewd working of Jameson’s mind, although his lifeless brown eyes gave nothing away. With his head tilted back and his chin thrust forward, he studied me speculatively. ‘I see you go armed beneath that jacket of yours,’ he replied at last. ‘Could it be that you’d like to make something more out of it yourself?’
And he allowed his hand to linger in the air above the butt of his right side .44.
They were all watching me now, and I swallowed very gently. It was madness to get into a shooting scrape, to risk wounding or killing another man or have him do as bad to you, over something so trivial. But it was the nature of men like this Jameson. All they needed was an excuse to flex that terrible killing gift I have already mentioned.
In a dead voice, knowing even before I spoke the first word that it would do no good, I said, ‘Don’t be a fool, man.’
‘A fool, is it?’ Jameson echoed in that calm, whispery way of his. ‘Come on, pilgrim. You’ve poked your nose into our affair and now you’re telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. You’d better back that up, or turn around and get the hell out of here.’
I looked at his hand, hooked there at his side like some monstrous talon, just waiting to swoop down, scoop out the .44 and bring it up blasting.
‘I have no desire to fight you,’ I said dispassionately.
‘No, I’ll just wager you don’t,’ Jameson replied. You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?’
I snorted. ‘It would be a poor life indeed if it were spent going in fear of men like you,’ I told him. ‘Let us just call it simple good sense.’
‘No,’ insisted Jameson. ‘Let’s call it what it is. Dirty, stinking, yellow cowardice.’
No one could accuse Jameson of failing to make the challenge clear. And human nature being what it is, I knew that these men—even the Traggs, with whom I seemed to have allied myself—would never understand my true reasons for backing down. Even to me the idea of backing down was hard to swallow. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I could swallow it.
So I reached down very slowly and flipped my jacket aside to reveal the .442 in the holster tied to my right thigh, and I saw Jameson’s eyes come alive at last, with appreciation for the weapon and its well-kept condition, and with anticipation for the action still to come.
I said, ‘You are making a bad mistake in pushing this, Jameson.’
He only smiled. ‘If a mistake has been made,’ he said, ‘you made it.’
I knew that everyone there was waiting for me to make a move, but I blanked them all out. Only Jameson existed in that moment, and when I was done with him, when he finally realized that I was faster than he, he would cease to exist as well.
But I did not want to have to fight him. I did not. Something happened to me then, I rebelled against what I had thought was inevitable, and as my concentration faltered, so I shook my head.
‘No, Jameson,’ I croaked, and saw him look at me strangely. ‘No. I will not fight you. Not over this.’
His expression darkened. Clearly he had been looking forward to the confrontation, and would not be cheated of it now. ‘You will draw,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘or I will shoot you down right here and now like the coward you are.’
His hand gave the slightest twitch, and his long, narrow fingers flexed dangerously.
I said calmly, ‘No.’
And he said, equally calmly, ‘Yes.’
His hand dipped for his gun, and I went for mine as well, even though I knew he was going to beat me now because I really hadn’t believed that he would do it. I went for my gun because he left me no choice, and I knew he would cut me down and that would be the end of me.
A single gun blast slammed through the warm afternoon air and Jameson’s horse staggered sideways as a bullet hacked into the horn of his saddle and sent it spinning off to one side.
A moment came then when we were all frozen in time, each man among us realizing that neither Jameson nor I had yet cleared leather—which meant that someone else had fired that shot.
Immediately I recalled the feeling I had had earlier, that I had been watched up there in the high country.
Another shot crashed down from the timbered slopes to the west, from where I myself had first spotted the Association men. It tore into the ground in front of Jameson’s horse and made the animal rear in fright.
Another shot cracked out, and one more; dirt fountained up before the horses of the Association men and threw them into complete disarray. Around us the Longhorns began to bellow and scatter in that lumbering, ungainly way of theirs. With effort I held my mustang in check, watching as Jameson fought to restore order.
‘Dunbar!’ he yelled. ‘It’s Dunbar!’
Yanking his Winchester from its sheath, he worked the ring and told his men to forget about us, that we were no longer important. This, he shouted, was their chance to fix Dunbar once and for all.
And with that, he rammed home his spurs and his fine sorrel blurred away with Longhorns dispersing before him, heading for the spot from which the hidden marksman had launched his attack, his men following after him in a strung-out, hard-riding line.
I watched them race away, still shaking with reaction to the near-gunfight, and stunned by the unexpected turn events had taken. Dimly I heard Tragg speak, and taking my eyes off the departing riders, I said, ‘What was that?’
Tragg spat off to the side, his face chiseled into grim lines. ‘Dunbar’ll lead ‘em a merry chase now,’ he repeated.
‘Who is Dunbar?’ I asked.
He looked up at me as he helped his boy across to his horse. ‘No one you need to fear,’ he replied, ‘unless you’re an Association man. Then the answer’s simple. Dunbar’s your worst nightmare.’
I frowned at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Friend,’ he said as the boy climbed slowly into his rig and gave a low moan as he settled himself for a slow ride home, ‘you don’t want to understand. Now, I appreciate you lending a hand like you did. I know it wasn’t easy for you, standin’ up against Jameson, but you did good enough, I reckon.’
‘I—’
Tragg put one boot into the stirrup and dragged himself up across leather. ‘I gotta go, mister,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I gotta get my boy home, then come back and round these critters up.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘You’ve already done enough,’ he replied, gathering his reins. ‘Maybe too much. Best you heed my advice, and get out of here before Jameson and his buddies come back. That Jameson, he’s a bad one to cross. He neither forgives nor forgets, mister. He’s one powerful grudge-toter.’
Cha
pter Two
Beaver Dam was a town of two parallel streets and four sprawled lines of timber houses and false-fronted business premises, all linked by a single wheel-rutted intersection that ran crosswise through the middle of the community like the bar in the letter H. Along its southernmost boundary, the Sun River meandered east to west, with the young and the old dangling lines into its sluggish current in hopes of catching supper.
I reached the town about an hour after my run-in with Jameson, sent my horse clattering across the sturdy bridge that spanned the river and went in search of the Association’s headquarters.
No sooner had I started along the First Street, however, than my attention was taken by the charred and skeletal remains of a long, low building before which had been erected a crude, hand-lettered sign that read CATTLE RUSTLERS BEWARE.
At once I reined in and inspected this curious sight with a puzzled frown. What little of the place had escaped an obviously terrible fire told me that it had once been a largish structure of some importance, a store perhaps, or more likely a combination store and saloon. But what had happened to bring about its complete destruction eluded me. Perhaps my potential employers would have some answers.
In the event, the Association building was not difficult to find. First Street was bustling, for Beaver Dam was by all accounts a thriving community, and I quickly got directions to a magnificent three-storey building at the top of a gentle rise about a quarter of a mile further north and west, beyond the town’s limits.
As I left Beaver Dam behind me and rode towards the house at a canter, ten huge, imported-glass windows mirrored my approach. The place was of clapboard construction, the timbers painted a spotless delft blue and the window-frames white. It was clearly modeled after the grand dwellings of the plantation owners of the south, even to the broad stairway that rose towards tall front doors, and the fluted white columns that flanked these imposing portals.
You could not miss the place, as indeed I had not. But even though row upon row of whitewashed cattle pens stretched in orderly squares away behind the house, I had not expected the Montana Stock Growers’ Association to operate from such opulent surroundings.
As I rode up to the dirt yard, the doors opened and a Negro, dressed footman-style in a powdered wig and a blue velvet jacket with much gold braid, came out to meet me. He had a long, inexpressive face and lifeless eyes with ill-looking, off-color whites, and when he spoke, his voice came out deep and slow.
‘Yezzuh?’
I told him who I was and who I had come to see. Inclining his head he asked me to dismount and come inside. At the same time he made a gesture with his left hand and a young black boy came scampering out of one of two big barns on the opposite side of the yard to take my horse away.
I was led inside, and told to wait in a lavishly appointed reception area while the servant disappeared along a shaded hallway hung with oil-painted landscapes in rich gilt frames.
Glancing around with my hat in my hands, I smelled money in this place, a king’s ransom in the stuff. But I smelled something else, too; something that was, in its way, more powerful than money, and maybe even more dangerous.
I smelled influence.
‘Mr. Colter?’
I turned as a tall, fit man of about twenty-five came to meet me. He was smartly attired in a gray suit and maroon cravat, with black hair macassared flat to his head and a broad, broom-like moustache beneath a long, straight nose. He extended one hand and I shook with him, but when I looked into his gray eyes, I saw little warmth there, and a stab of resentment pricked at my stomach, for I had met this reaction to my trade before, and more than once. These men of money and influence were always willing to hire their dirty work done, but they wanted no more contact with the lowly hireling who was good enough to do it than they could help.
‘Mr. Linderman?’ I said.
To my surprise, he shook his head. He appeared to be a rather sober man, more sober even than myself. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m Carbonne, James Carbonne, Mr. Linderman’s private secretary. If you’ll come this way...?’
I followed him along the hallway. The blue carpet was deep and trimmed with a neat gold border. At the very end we stepped through a door into a good-sized, comfortably furnished office. Another door was set into the right-hand wall, and Carbonne went straight over to it and knocked. I heard a distant voice tell him to come, and he opened the door and ushered me through.
I doubt that I have ever been in a more richly appointed room in my life. Heavy, ornately carved rosewood furniture was set upon a thick floral carpet. Dusty sunlight spilled through large, clean windows to fall upon a medallion-back sofa and a row of mahogany file cabinets. Paintings hung from the paneled walls. Small pieces of sculpture, all with a fitting cattle-industry” theme, graced practically every flat surface, and a veritable library of old, leather-bound books occupied shelf after shelf to my right,
A huge desk carved with a distinctive horn-of-plenty motif was situated directly in front of the largest window, and squeezed into a semi-circular Sleepy Hollow armchair behind it was a man I took to be Robert Linderman.
We eyed each other for a moment without speaking. Then, with some effort, for he was a large and frankly ugly man who at once put me in mind of a bloated frog, he rose from the chair.
He extended one hand and I took it. His palm was cool and soft against mine. He was perhaps fifty, a pale man whose flesh quivered with even the slightest movement, for he was well in excess of two hundred and seventy pounds, with thinning black hair, a round, baby-soft face with large, slow-blinking eyes, a short, broad nose and the thick, slack lips of one who enjoys all of life’s pleasures perhaps too often.
When he spoke, Linderman’s voice was a breathless susurration that reminded me somewhat of Jameson’s soft, dangerous tone. ‘Ah, Mr. Colter,’ he said. Tray, take a seat, sir. It is good to make the acquaintance of so famous a man, isn’t it, Carbonne?’
Behind me, Carbonne muttered something that I didn’t quite hear. He was probably agreeing with his employer, but I had already sensed that his regard for me left much to be desired.
‘You had a good journey up from, where was it? Cody?’ Linderman asked perfunctorily.
‘Fine.’
‘Good, good.’ He reseated himself slowly and with something like relief. ‘We are both busy men, Mr. Colter,’ he said, ‘so I will come straight to the point. We find ourselves in dire need of your services, sir. Indeed, it could be that you are the only man who can help us.’
‘Oh?’
The bob of his round head sent another tremor through his full cheeks. ‘But I am jumping the gun,’ he said with a quick, uneasy smile. ‘Let me go back and start at the beginning.
‘Fairfax County, of which Beaver Dam is the seat, encompasses just over two and a half thousand square miles of prime cattle country—land that was, up until last winter, the sole province of seven sizeable ranches, whose owners are known collectively as the Montana Stock Growers’ Association.
‘But as I have already intimated, that position has now changed. Last winter was the harshest that I can recall, and it descended upon us so quickly that we had no time to prepare for it. Practically overnight, the county was blanketed by a carpet of snow four to six feet thick. For three solid weeks the temperature barely lifted above fifty below. The cruelest of blizzards froze livestock in their tracks and killed or nearly killed those men who were sent out to round up the survivors. Starving wolves accounted for yet more losses. It was, as you can imagine, a nightmare time.
‘Come the thaw, we saw for the first time the true extent of the damage. The unthinkable became reality. Of a collective total of perhaps twenty thousand head, barely four thousand survived. We were practically wiped out, financially.
‘Well, painful decisions had to be made, and made quickly. The ranchers I represent—all of whom are honorable men, I hasten to add—were forced to lay off most of their hired hands—a move which caused considerable ill-feeling. With
out going into too much detail, some of these cowboys accepted the inevitable and rode south to seek work elsewhere, in Kansas, Texas or New Mexico.’ He paused and reached forward to a humidor. ‘Cuban?’ he asked.
When I shook my head, he helped himself and rolled the cigar contemplatively between his sausage fingers. ‘And the rest of the men?’ I asked, sensing that he was expecting me to speak.
His eyes came up to mine. ‘They stayed,’ he replied. ‘And decided to go into business for themselves. On our land. And with what remained of our stock.’
I nodded and said, ‘Ah.’
‘“Ah” indeed,’ was his reply. ‘Well, that was all the encouragement the rest of them needed. Rustlers masquerading as small-time ranchers, even a handful of farmers... Before we knew it, they were all flooding into the county and taking up residence left, right and centre.’ His eyes turned bleak as he said breathlessly, ‘Squatters.’
He clipped the end off his cigar and Carbonne came forward to strike a lucifer for him.
‘That is the position in which we find ourselves today,’ he continued once he had the cigar glowing. ‘Our members want to rebuild their herds, to create new jobs and bring prosperity back to the land—but first we have to drive these squatters away and mete out justice to those ingrates who have had the temerity to rustle our stock.’
The confrontation between Jameson and Tragg made sense to me now. This law that Jameson had quoted, whereby all unbranded cattle automatically became the property of the Association, was just one way in which they might force not only the rustlers but also the squatters out.
I thought about it for a moment and concluded that it was a fair enough tactic—if the squatters really were sitting on land to which they had no claim. But then I reminded myself that we were dealing with two separate issues here, and that I had been called in to deal with only one.
‘Tell me about the rustlers,’ I said.
