Rafe

by Nelson Nye

  The rest of this tune he was going to have to play by ear, but he could still take some of the heat off his Pa; and he was glad, looking around, to see that someone had thought to stuff a tow sack for him which the old man was clutching against his chest like it was heavy. And he noticed how Chilton's piggish eyes, though darting around, kept sneaking back to it.

  Now, pushing forward, Rafe said, "Let's get this over with." His stare speared the banker. Sheriff Ed said, getting his wind up. "What're we here for? What's goin' on?"

  "We're here," Rafe said, "to get shed of that mortgage Chilton holds against Gourd and Vine. Anything in them papers, banker, says we can't clear the whole debt off right now?"

  Chilton hemmed and hawed, plainly dissatisfied. He looked uneasy, almost frightened, Rafe thought, but the glances he kept stabbing about didn't seem to pick up much in the way of encouragement. He finally said, "No-o," in a tone so reluctant it made Brownwater snort. Rafe said, "All right. Dig 'em up. And, while you're at it, fetch out your receipt book. Meanwhile," he sniffed, "let's have some paper an' one of them steel pens. Bender's goin' to scratch his John Henry to a piece of writin' Pike's here to put in the right lingo an' notarize."

  Pike's brows shot up, but he didn't say anything. He pulled up the swivel, seating himself at Chilton's fine desk and squaring the paper the banker got for him. He picked up the pen, examining it critically. Then he uncorked the ink and looked up at Rafe. "What's it to be?"

  "A will," Rafe grinned. "The last will and testament of Jeremiah Bender. You can put that down with the appropriate flourishes? He handed the rifle to Ed Sparks, Chilton's tinbadge. "Sheriff, you better stand over by the door where the riffraff can get a look at you. Interruptions at a time like this could be downright painful to some of those concerned." Tapping his six-shooter he looked significantly at Chilton; and the banker, noticeably blanching, made haste to reveal a kind of parched approval.

  "Now," Rafe said, waving Chilton away, "are you ready, Mr. Notary, to record the bequeaths an' stipulations?"

  "Quite ready," Pike nodded, peering ferociously at his pen.

  Rafe, glancing around as though to make sure all were listening, said, "Everything belonging to J. Bender when he dies, including all lands, chattels, equipment, cash, and all notes payable of whatsoever nature, shall be divided equally, between his daughter Luce and his son Duke."

  In the startled quiet Pike, looking up, seemed about to say something when, for the first time since they'd reached town, the old man spoke. "This is truly Rafe—my first born," he said in a trembling, anguish-roughened voice, stretching out a groping hand which Luce, pushing nearer, hastily prisoned in her own. The old man hardly noticed, his pale, blind stare shiningly fixed on things that were not in this place. "He was always that way, always thinking of others. But I can't let this stand—it's not right. Luce and Duke, they've been with me, had my love, sharing for all these years my days and substance—"

  "Nevertheless," Rafe growled, red-faced, "they'll have this too. All of you, hear me! I'll have no part of it!"

  "My son. My son—"

  "We'll get to me," Rafe said, breaking in again. "You got that, notary? Got it all down?"

  "All down," Pike said, "hard and fast. Everything to Luce and Duke."

  "Now write this," Rafe said, meeting Brownwater's stare. "Includin' all stones and minerals that may be found on the land, providing that one Rafe Bender, acknowledged first son of Jeremiah Bender, and so described in the hearing of these witnesses, be installed and maintained as administrator of this estate and subsequently employed as manager of all above-named lands, chattels, equipment, cash, minerals and so forth for a period of five years and beginning on this date. You got all that?"

  "Got it," Pike said, looking up with a smile. "But what if they don't agree?"

  "If they don't agree, or attempt to have this will set aside, the whole estate, and every last part of it, reverts to the Territory of Arizona."

  "Mr. Bender," Pike said, "is this your wish?"

  The old man's sightless eyes were fixed unblinkingly on Rafe. "Yes," he said. "I'll put my name to it."

  Pike, with the pen, made a few more scratches.

  "Before you fix a place for the names," Rafe said, leaning over the surgeon's shoulder, "there's one more line you better git in. Case of Pa's death by violence, or any reason other than natural causes, the whole shebang goes back to the Territory."

  From the door Sparks said, where he stood with Brownwater's rifle, "Bunch of hairpins boilin' into—"

  "The Bender crew!" Luce cried, white as egg shells.

  Rafe, seeming hardly to notice her words, jerked the kind of a nod you might look to get from one who had just busted loose of his picket pin. "Ready for the signin'?" he grunted at Pike.

  "Just about," Bunny's dad said. "Mr. Bender, you're first."

  Luce helped him over. "I'm afraid," Bender sighed, "I never learnt how," and Rafe, watching the banker, saw the shock in Chilton's stare.

  "Just make your mark," Pike said. "Everyone in this room will be witness. Here, let Bunny hold that sack for you."

  Luce put the pen in the old man's fingers, guiding the gnarled and trembling hand. One by one the others stepped up and signed. Rafe, coming back from the door, said then, "Now we'll take care of that note, Mr. Chilton."

  The banker's eyes juned around like a boxful of crickets. He stood there like he had stepped in hot glue.

  "Well?" Rafe said, and it got powerfully quiet.

  If ever a man looked caught out it was Chilton. He dug at his collar, "I—I can't seem to find them."

  "What can't you find?"

  The banker flapped his hands helplessly. "The papers—I seem to've mislaid them." The man squirmed in his clothes, peered distractedly at his sheriff. Bunny, with Bender's sack under one arm and the other hand carelessly holding a pistol, was likewise giving Sparks a close regard. Sweat came out on his cheeks like dew. But nothing else came out of him.

  Chilton squirmed some more and finally said, "I suppose it really doesn't matter so long's I give him a receipt and mark it paid in the ledger?"

  "Might not matter to you," Rafe said, "but we're campin' right here till them notes is turned over."

  Chilton's face got red. "I've told you I can't find them—"

  "You want us to think somebody stole 'em?"

  "I don't care what you think," the banker snarled. "It is certainly not my habit to mislay important papers! I'll give him a receipt marked 'paid in full' and the deed—"

  "I reckon that'll be bindin' enough, long as we've got this flock of witnesses."

  Brownwater took the tow sack from Bunny and dropped it on the desk. The dull clink of metal was plainly audible. Audible too was the sound of hoof beats, and still Chilton stood there. "Spangler," Rafe said, "won't be no help to you."

  The banker looked pretty wild, but he got pen and paper. The faint babel of outside voices swelled as the pen scratched into its final flourish. Chilton, sanding it, got up, dug into his safe, and, still clutching the paper, turned around with the deed. Rafe put a hand out.

  "I'll count this first," Chilton growled, pulling the string off the neck of the tow sack. He opened it up, took one look, and went rigid.

  "Think careful," Rafe grinned, "before you lay down your character."

  "I'm not trading that mortgage," the banker yelled, livid, "for no bag of iron washers!"

  Rafe looked at him coldly. "You'll trade," he said, "or produce that note. You ain't dealin' with no ol' man now. Any damn fool can slap a X on a paper! What these folks'll be plumb anxious to see is how a gent smart as you can make thirty thousan' outa the five Pa borried."

  "Sparks!" Chilton shouted, beside himself. "Arrest this man! At once—do you hear?" So wild did he look he seemed almost to be frothing.

  The sheriff, peering over the bore of Bill's rifle, said, "The worm has turned," and showed a slow grin. "What'd you do, forge the old man's name or change the amount?"

  Whatever
he had done, it was a cinch the banker had not expected to be faced with it. He looked to be standing on the brink of apoplexy. His mouth was working but no words came. There was a twitch in his cheek and the papers skidded out of his shaking hand. Brownwater, retrieving them, laid them in front of the dispassionate Pike who, considering them briefly, affixed his seal. Brownwater wheezed the papers over to Bender. "There you are, sir. Lock, stock an' barrel."

  Chilton, glassy-eyed, sagged into a chair.

  It was then that the silence outside became noticeable.

  Spangler's harsh voice called, "Sheriff, can you hear me?"

  "Speak on," Sparks said.

  "I guess you know what we want. You sendin' him out or do we come in after him?"

  "If you're yapping about Chilton—"

  "I'm talkin' about that bank-robbin' Rebel what calls hisself 'Rafe'! We've got the place plumb surrounded! You givin' 'im up or ain't you?"

  "He hasn't robbed any bank," Sparks told them mildly.

  "Don't give me that! The whole town seen—"

  "Spangler," Rafe called, "is Duke Bender out there?"

  "An' if he is?"

  "You better tell him his father, in front of six witnesses, just made a will—his last will an' testament. Maybe we ought to have Pike read it to him."

  "You ain't pullin' no wool over my eyes!"

  "Not fixin' to. Just tryin' to keep Duke from cuttin' himself out of what he's got comin'—"

  "I'll look out fer Duke's interests!"

  "Then you better help him listen." Rafe, scowling, said, "If you got the bank surrounded, another two-three minutes ain't goin' to make no never-mind, is it?"

  A suspicious silence hung over the street. Then those in the bank heard the muttered sounds of a fierce altercation, after which Duke's prissy tones said, sneering, "Go ahead. Let him read it."

  Pike, picking up a copy of the will, waddled over to the door, Sparks stepping aside for him. Rafe, while the surgeon-turned-notary was plowing through the whereases and aforesaids, slipped out the side door. The pair of rifle-packing punchers Spangler'd set to watch this exit had, the better to hear, drifted back to the bank's front corner, were now standing hipshot, faces half turned toward the notary's voice. Bathsheba, Rafe remembered, had been left behind the building.

  A call would fetch her, ground-tied or not. It would also spin those rifles into focus. Rafe wasn't anxious to shoot those two fellers, and it wasn't very likely he could slip up behind them. He could probably a sight easier get to the mare.

  The will would stop Duke, but it wouldn't stop Spangler. Someway Rafe had to get the drop on him; the crew would take Spangler's orders. Rafe doubted they would pay any attention to Duke. What was needed here, if a man wasn't craving to wade through blood, was another diversion. The terms of the will wouldn't be shock enough to keep Spangler's grip long away from his shooter.

  Rafe skinned back to the mare, hardly believing even when he was slipping off her headstall he had actually reached her without triggering an alarm. He batted her nose away from his face, tossed reins and bridle against the wall of the bank. He had a terrible hankering to jump on her back when he thought of the odds he was fixing to buck. But he turned her around, hearing the drone of Pike's words, aimed her straight at the woods and, with a wild coyote yell, cuffed her hard with his hat.

  Not waiting to watch, he ran on around the far side of the bank, coming into the street just as three of the crew, with shouted orders from Spangler, kicked their horses into a run. Though the unexpected sight of him obviously startled them, not one of them attempted to pull up or swerve. Reaching for their weapons they came, three abreast, straight at him.

  Rafe jerked his pistol, firing as soon as it cleared the holster. The middle horse reared and, toppling sideways, crashed into the one on its left, kicking frantically. Something jerked at Rafe's vest. The pfutt pfutt of slugs was around him like hornets. He shot the third horsebacker out of his saddle and ran on, trying in the confusion of kaleidoscoping shapes to sight Spangler. The shouts and gunblasts beat at him like hammers. A whickering riderless horse slamming past nearly bowled him over and then, unbelievably, the street was empty, the drumming of hoofbeats rapidly fading in the south.

  In front of the Cow Palace a man at the edge of its porch staggered upright. Another one's head came up back of a horse trough. Motionless, legs tangled, lay the horse Rafe had shot. There were three more still shapes between the bank and the harness shop.

  Sparks, talking over the barrel of his rifle from one of the knocked-out windows behind Rafe, said, "All right, boys. Any pistol-bangin' jasper wantin' a fair shake from me had better tromp into sight with both a paws up an' empty."

  The feller back of the horse trough let go of his hog-leg and, raising his dew-claws, got to his feet. The gent by the edge of the Cow Palace porch didn't appear to be heeled and had already stuck up his hands. Rafe, gun in fist and still cruising the street, didn't pay Sheriff Ed no more mind than a gopher. All his bitter attention when he slogged to a stop seemed glued to the third downed shape so shrunkenly huddled in its bottle-green coat with an arm twisted under it, the yellow curls fluttering in the dust of the street. It was Duke and he was dead. And the pair with their hands up cringed away from Rafe's stare.

  Rafe looked back into that dead face and thought of all the times he had covered for the boy, all the scrapes he'd pulled Duke out of, all the risks so recently grappled—wasted, gone like a gutted candle.

  Firm steps drew near, an arm came out, a hand clamped warm and hard on Rafe's shoulder. "You've nothing to reproach yourself with," Pike wheezed. "You done more than most would—"

  Rafe shook off Pike's arm. "Who killed him?"

  Sparks said, coming, "That damned crooked Spangler. We're well rid of both of them; and you sure cut the ground out from under Alph Chilton. He's still in there lookin' like the sky fell on him. Mebbe we can have a little peace around here now." His glance cut from Rafe to Pike and back. "Wouldn't consider a job as my deppity, would you?"

  Rafe pushed past him, walking away from them. Sparks, looking after him, shook his head. "Still thinkin' about that worthless brother." He fetched his scowl to the pair with their hands up. "All right, you two, find your horses an' drift. I don't want to see your ugly mugs again."

  *****

  But Sparks was wrong about Rafe. His mind was on Spangler. Even hollowed out like he was and half groggy, the range boss' killing of Duke made a kind of queer sense.

  The guy had had to hit something, and to him it must have seemed Duke had been party to the terms of Bender's will. The thing that kept banging around in Rafe's head was Spangler clearing out like that while the man responsible for most of his hard luck was still above ground. It wasn't natural.

  He said as much when Bunny, a little breathless, caught up with him.

  She looked at him big-eyed. "But he did—I saw him! Right after he shot Duke and Sheriff Ed knocked that second fellow, Kramer, out of the saddle. Spangler flung himself flat on his horse and dug steel; it was him quitting that way that took the heart out of the rest of them. He's gone, all right. He's probably halfway to Carlsbad."

  "I dunno," Rafe said, continuing to scowl while his scrinched-up stare smoldered into the southern distance.

  "Is killing all you can think of?" Bunny cried. She jerked her hand from his arm with a withering look. "Go on! Take after him! I don't know why I should be worrying about you!" Wheeling away she went off, stiff-backed, to join her father who stood talking by the Mercantile with Bender and the sheriff.

  Rafe guessed with a shrug she likely had the truth of it. Spangler, whatever else, was certainly no fool. He would have seen the cards weren't coming his way with Duke's big brother sitting tall in the leather. He probably figured what he had from stealing Gourd and Vine horses was at any rate better than a hole in the head.

  Peering around for Brownwater, Rafe appeared pretty disgusted when he spotted Bill and Luce with their heads bent together. Godfrey Moses! More
of that love gush!

  But when Luce stepped back, straightening, he could see she had the rock in her fist, the one he'd tossed Bill in the woods this morning while they'd waited for Bunny to fetch her pa to the bank. Luce, he thought, looked pretty excited as, arm linked in Bill's, they struck off for the augmented group around Bender. Most folks, Rafe reminded himself sourly, rather tended to get their wind up when gold came into the conversation.

  He reckoned he might as well go hunt Bathsheba and head for the ranch.

  *****

  The low-hanging clouds bulged fatly, dark with rain. The dank pungent smell of it grayly clung to the town's grimy buildings, the warped false fronts, the spur-scarred planks and hoof-tracked dust of the windless street.