“Ah,” he cried, offering good will to all men in a professional way, “young Mr. Storm and a very good evening to you, sir.”
“Evenin’, Mr. Grebb. Whiskey please.”
“Whiskey it is.”
Bottle and glass came. Obeying the unwritten law of the country, he offered drinks to the men near him. Obeying a law from the same code and seeing that the young man was heeled and looked like he could handle himself, his offer was accepted. Drinks were poured, toasts were offered, bottoms up. Jody called for a beer to wash down the whiskey. The liquor hit bottom and he started to feel good.
There is no need to go into details of the next hour, except to say that Jody drank deep and as he drank so he saw his companions grow more amiable and better to look upon. He found himself even drinking and talking quite good-humoredly with two Broken Spur hands. There was a lot of laughter and they sang a few songs accompanied by the professor at the piano. The songs were dirty and were sung with gusto. Jody was starting to have a whale of a time. A bull-whacker, declaring that they were all his brothers and he loved every man-jack of them, bought drinks all around. It was now, when Jody began to suspect that he had reached his limit, when Charlie Stott approached him, smiling. Had he been sober, Jody would have suspected the worst because such was Stott’s nature that he only smiled when a man broke a leg or a kid fell sick. Now, however, Jody welcomed the strong-arm as a friend and believed Stott when he informed him that Grebb had lately acquired from a high-class eastern house a lady of intriguing passion and remarkable pulchritude. Jody, winking at his companions, as one man of the world to others, demanded that Charlie bring her on. Whereupon Charlie, as if he had waved a magician’s wand, caused the lady to appear.
There is no knowing whether the drink looked for him or the lady was indeed all that Stott claimed, but Jody claimed in after years that this Jenny O’Kelly was indeed one of the tastiest little feminine morsels it had ever been his good fortune to perceive. She was not, he saw, like the other women in this place, nor indeed like any of the ladies of easy virtue that he had seen before. Her dress may have revealed more of her body than a respectable woman would have permitted, but just the same there was a certain refinement about her that arrested the attention. Her features were delicate, her eyes large, dark and covered modestly by lids which were adorned by long and dark lashes. Her mouth was a poem and her small body all that man desired. Jody bought her a drink and indulged in a little flirtatious talk, fancying himself as no end of a dog. Within minutes they were friends, within a few more she was finding the place too hot and crowded and swore that if she did not find a cooler spot she would faint right away.
Jody, being a gentleman, offered to escort her to wherever she wanted to go. She accepted and took his arm. To his surprise, she did not lead him up the stairs, but, murmuring that her room was in a building at the rear of the establishment, walked him to the rear door and out into the cool of the evening.
Here the fresh air hit Jody and made his senses reel. He clutched at the small person of Miss O’Kelly beside him and she, laughing, helped him toward the shadowy building on the far side of the yard. As they reached this, two figures appeared as if from nowhere.
Jody may have been drunk, but he would have to have been unconscious not to realize that this was part of the oldest game in the world.
He halted in his tracks and dropped his right hand to the butt of his gun. This hand he found elapsed in the grip of the lady’s two small hands which seemed to have grown suddenly strong. He tried to back up away from her, but one of the figures darted forward.
Jody kicked him in the crotch. He fell to the ground with a scream.
The lady let go of his hand and raked his face with her long nails. He struck her with the back of his hand and knocked her clear of him.
The other man hit Jody in the belly just above the belt line. The boy doubled over and felt ill. As he did so something hard struck him on the back of his skull. He pitched forward onto his face. He fought to get back on his feet again and the man hit him again. This time, he groaned and lay still.
The man bent down, found the money-belt unerringly, slipped the buckle and whipped it from his body. His deft fingers opened the pouches.
“How much?” the girl demanded.
The man writhing on the ground holding his crotch was ignored.
“For crissake,” he said.
“Plenty,” said the man with the belt.
There was a faint sound not a dozen yards away. The man dropped his hand to the butt of his gun and whirled.
“Pull it,” said a voice, “an’ you’re dead.”
He froze for a second, then lifted his hands high. The reaction was a part of his profession.
“You know who I am?” the voice asked.
The man nodded.
“Yeah, I know you.”
“Then you’ll know you an’ your pard’ll be lucky to walk away from this.”
“Sure,” said the man, “we’d be real lucky.”
“Get lucky an’ walk. I see you around here again an’ I kill you. Hear?”
“I hear.”
The man who had been kicked rose slowly to his feet. His scare was worse than his pain. Miss O’Kelly was very still. She knew the value of silence at a time like this.
“You go with ’em, girl,” the man with the gun said. “You don’t have no future here.”
When the two men walked away, the girl went with them. The money belt lay on the ground where the thief had dropped it. The man with the gun put his weapon away and walked up to Jody who was now stirring. He picked up the money-belt and waited.
After a few minutes, Jody groaned and sat up. He looked up at the man standing above him, rubbed his head gingerly a couple of times and said: “Evenin’, Uncle Mart.”
His hands went to his waist and he said: “Cleaned out before I even got started.” He staggered to his feet and retched violently for a few minutes. Then he said: “That’s better.”
Mart Storm said: “The family reckoned you’d make a damn fool of yourself if Will let you go, now you gone and done it.”
Jody said: “I’ll never live this down for the rest of my natural. Christ, I can jest hear Pa.”
He stood wretchedly, looking everywhere but at his uncle. Maybe he should have been sired by Mart. This was the one man who understood him. Just the same, he was shamed to be caught like this by him.
“Uncle Mart,” he said, “how’d it be if you didn’t say nothin’ about this?”
“Maybe if I ain’t asked.”
“That’d be great.”
“But if your Pa asks me, you don’t expect me to tell him a lie. I never lied to Will in my life an’ I don’t aim to start for you.”
Jody thought a while. He’d have to crawl home with his tail between his legs. All the money that his father had entrusted to him was gone. There was no point in going on.
Bur he daren’t go back. He’d have to light out. Clear right out of the country. Get a riding job someplace.
“I’m clearin’ out,” he said. “I don’t have the stomach to face the old man an’ Ma. All right, say I’m yaller. So I’m yaller. I’m anythin’ you like to call me after this.”
“You’re yaller,” said Mart.
Jody gave that some thought.
He’d never been a coward in his short life. The idea didn’t sit too well with him. As quickly as he made up his mind to one course of action, he decided on another. He’d have to go back and admit that he’d failed even before he’d started.
“I’ll go home,” he announced.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Mart said, “was I you.”
“And what would you do as you’re so goddam smart,” Jody snarled.
“Don’t you git sassy with me, boy,” Mart said calmly, “or I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.”
They understood each other pretty well this uncle and nephew. Jody took that from Mart.
“Do tell,” Jody said. “What would
you do?”
“I’d hit the trail for Rolf’s place.”
“Don’t you see?” Jody yelped. “I can’t do that. Them sonsabitches took every cent I had on me.”
Mart brought up the money-belt from beside his leg.
Jody gazed at it in amazement.
“Hell,” he said in wonder.
“I run ’em off,” Mart explained.
“An’ you let ’em beat my head off,” Jody said.
“You had it comin’ to you.”
Jody swallowed that. He knew it was true. He put the money-belt back on, found his hat on the ground and gingerly placed it on his head.
“How’d that li’l gal know I had that money?” he wondered.
“She fingered you inside,” Mart informed him. “I watched her do it.”
“I got real nice folks,” Jody said.
Mart laughed.
“I’ll walk you to your horse and see you don’t fall off,” he said.
They walked around the buildings and reached the horses. Jody didn’t look at his uncle in the light that streamed from the windows. He heaved himself into the saddle and sat there for a moment, feeling wretched.
Mart said: “Bring the bull back, Jode.”
The boy pulled himself together. He knew he owed his uncle.
“You’re standin’ there laughin’,” he accused. “You don’t think I can do it.”
“I ain’t laughin’,” Mart told him. “An’ I don’t think you can do it.”
“Want to bet?”
“Ten dollars says you don’t.”
“You’re on,” Jody said, turned his horses and rode out.
Chapter Two
Jody took with him into the hills a somewhat subdued ego, a longing to reassert himself and a head that felt as though it had been cracked open like an egg. Every time his backside felt contact with the saddle under him, a trapdoor opened in his skull and slammed shut again. It was not long before he questioned how long he could stand it.
It was, he could see even under those unpleasant circumstances, a beautiful night. The stars hung brilliantly in the heavens and the moon rode serene and cold. A light refreshing breeze blew from the north and distantly a lobo sang to the night. Once, after riding up a steep incline, Jody stopped to let the horses blow, and there came to his ears a soft and musical sound. He headed toward it and found to his delight that it was a lively mountain stream. He would go no further, he decided. The evil that was Grebb’s was sufficiently far behind him and the drink that he had consumed earlier had worked up an appetite in him that demanded satisfaction.
He searched for a good camping place and found it — sweet green sward near the water. Here he unsaddled his horses, hobbled them and set them to graze. He gathered kindling and built a fire that was soon crackling merrily. He set the coffee pot on the stones and laid out his bed. He had some fresh meat with him and this he broiled in the flames on the end of a stick. Holding it hot in his fingers, he munched it. Meat had never tasted better. He started to be more cheerful. He drank three cups of scalding unsweetened coffee and built himself a smoke. Lying back against his saddle and listening to the night sounds, he started to recover himself, to forget the shame of the affair back at Grebb’s.
He thought about Grebb. The man was a damned fool. Only the year before he’d had a run-in with the Storms, for he had been the agent in the hiring of gunmen to kill Uncle Mart. It was only a matter of time before he was run out of the country. Jody couldn’t understand why his father permitted the man to stay. Will most likely had his reasons, or he would have taken some action. If he did, he wasn’t saying.
Maybe when I get back, Jody thought with a young man’s confidence, I’ll settle that sonovabitch’s hash.
That would be nice.
With that thought, he killed the fire, for a man never knew when it could be spotted by roaming Indians in search for easy horses. At the same time, it was a good thing to have a fire to keep off wild animals. It was a choice a man had to make.
He settled back and dozed off, his rifle his hand.
He awoke with alarm, hearing the horses whinny with fright. The time, he saw, was a short while before dawn. The dim pre-dawn ghost-light enshrouded the world. He heaved on his boots, picked up his rifle and ran in the direction of the horses. They were scared all right and Blue was shaking all over. Jody did his best to calm the animals and looked around for the cause of their alarm, knowing that it could be a mountain-lion or a bear. He heard a snuffling and grunting in the undergrowth and knew that there was a bear around. He started to drive his horses back toward camp, keeping an eye over his shoulder in case the beast should get it into its head to charge. Normally a bear would not do so if left alone, but this might be a mother with cubs. There was nothing more dangerous on earth. However, he reached camp and tied the two horses.
Dawn was now breaking and as light rushed over the land he saw that he was above a small valley, as lovely in its utter wildness as he had ever seen. It was good to be young, full of vim and alone on the wilderness trail. It seemed that he had not enjoyed the condition of solitude until that moment. Suddenly, he saw the world with new eyes. It was like a revelation. He stood and watched the sparkling water hurling itself lightly down the hillside, striking the rocks and disintegrating into a thousand diamonds of light. A deer ran out from cover far below and stayed for a moment poised and alert and for once the boy did not feel the urge to raise his rifle and kill. Something must have startled the animal for it darted across the grass reaching out with its frail forelegs, the epitome of grace and speed. It disappeared and the scene stayed still.
Jody realized that his headache was gone. In that moment, this solo trip was everything he had planned it to be. He was cheerful once more, full of hope and ambition. Suddenly, he knew that he would make the trip and return with that bull for his old man. Hell, when you came to think about it, there wasn’t much to bringing an old bull home.
He cooked his breakfast of bacon and beans with a new heart, humming softly to himself. He ate speedily and washed the food down with coffee, built himself the first smoke of the day and killed the fire. He was washing his plate and cup in the stream when Blue whickered again.
That damn bear, he thought.
The idea hit him. Kill a bear. Shoot a bear, maybe a grizzly standing bigger than a man. A trophy to take home. Admiring glances. He’d kill and skin the animal, cache the skin in a tree and pick it up on the way home. Take along a bear steak to eat on the trail. He’d never eaten one, but he’d heard old-timers claim that there was nothing like it to put hair on a man’s chest. And he didn’t have much more than fluff on his.
He dropped the plate and cup, ran to his rifle, put on his coat because the pockets were full of shells and started looking around for that bear.
He saw nothing.
He started stalking through the rocks and trees, every now and then glancing at the horses to see if they could give him a lead, listening for the tell-tale sounds. He neither heard nor saw a thing.
He looked back at the horses again now some hundred and fifty feet away. Blue was still spooked. There must be something about still.
He sank to one knee behind the bole of a tree, freezing in the way old Joe Widbee had taught him. Nothing becomes a hunter more than patience.
Suddenly, old Sox reared up, whirled and tried to run against the hobbles. The act nearly brought him down. Blue wheeled around and kicked up his heels, whinnying in alarm.
Jody looked beyond them, tensed and ready to shoot.
He heard a faint sound to his right and turned his head. A flash of movement. He swung his rifle. Undergrowth rustled softly. Then there was silence and stillness. Jody had seen something, but he didn’t know what he had seen.
Blue squealed.
Jody swung left, jacking a round into the breech. His eyes went to the blue roan and for a brief moment he was startled to motionlessness.
On Blue’s back was an Indian.
Jody’
s first quick thought was that he wouldn’t get far because the hobbles would stop him. Then he saw that Blue was jumping and the hobbles were off.
Jody rammed the butt of his rifle into his shoulder and fired. He aimed high for fear of hitting the horse. He aimed too high and missed. His shot, however, had the desired effect. The Indian threw himself over the far side of the horse and landed in the grass.
Just then there was a whoosh past Jody’s left ear and something went thunk against the trunk of the tree.
Alarm blossomed in him. His left cheek almost rested against the feathered haft of an arrow.
Nerves screaming, he whirled around, jacking his rifle as he did so. He could see nothing. So he did what most men would have done in his case. His nerves demanded it. He fired again, not knowing what he was firing at. All he knew was that there was an Indian within bowshot of him and that same Indian was now in the process of notching a second shaft to the gut-string.
A sensible, but slightly panicking voice, said in his head: Get outa here.
Obeying this command seemed simple enough, but he didn’t know that there might not be a second or third Indian waiting in the direction in which he was headed. Just the same, he got to his feet and started to run.
Something whispered softly past his right ear and disappeared ahead of him. Which meant that there was at least one Indian behind him.
He dropped and rolled, reached the comparative safety of a tree and rose to one knee. He heard Blue race off down the hillside. Old Sox did his level best to follow him, but his hobbles were making it difficult for him.
There came the report of a rifle and a ball thudded into the tree behind which Jody was hiding. Or thought he was hiding. The shot came from the left and Jody knew that he was completely exposed to the man who had tried to get away with Blue. It was time for another strategic withdrawal. But this would leave both Indians above him and he didn’t like the thought of that.
He lay flat on the ground and starting crawling away to the right. He thought he was doing all right until that gun went off again and dirt was kicked into his face. Jody was sweating healthily by this time. Three Creeks seemed a long way off. The idea of bringing home the valued bull was as remote as heaven itself. There remained nothing but Jody Storm and two Indians trying to kill him for his horses. Ala and Pa would never know what happened to him. He would lie in an unmarked grave in the hills. Without his hair.
One Man, One Gun Page 2
