The Fifth Western Novel

by Walter A. Tompkins

  He turned and looked at Flint. “Get out of here,” he snapped. “I’ve got business to talk and I don’t want you around.”

  Flint again glanced at Faulkner and got no cue.

  Webster’s voice jumped at him again. “Get out, damn it, or I’ll drag your carcass out. Git!”

  Flint tried to stare him down, but his gaze finally wavered before Webster’s eyes. He looked at the floor, and then he crossed the room and went out.

  Before he slammed the door, he turned and looked back. “Mister,” he said. “You’re trying to walk in mighty big boots around here. I don’t think you’ll be able to wear ’em very long.”

  “I’ll walk in any boots I choose to wear. Beat it! Vamos!”

  Flint slammed the door with a loud bang and stamped off through the warehouse.

  Webster turned back to Faulkner, and now his voice was commanding, sharp, and held a touch of anger and impatience. “All right,” he said. “You say I haven’t got a case against you here. That’s what Dustin said. Maybe I haven’t got enough to convince a judge. But I’m not a judge, and I’m not a jury. I tried you and found you guilty, and that’s enough for my purposes.

  “I could act on those two commissions from the dead officers, and take you to jail myself. Maybe you wouldn’t be convicted, but it would tear up your playhouse. Or since you claim it’s not your game, then I could go out there and break it up myself, lone-handed. Or for that matter, I could take it over. As you say, it’s not yours, so you wouldn’t care if I took it over. Would you, Faulkner?” Faulkner merely sat frozen-faced and toyed with his pen, saying nothing.

  “But,” Webster continued, “I don’t want to do that. It’s too good a thing. I can come in on it and make us all money. You could even cut me in for a share, and still get more out of it then you’re getting now.”

  “How?”

  “Because I’m a good business man. I know how to get all there is to be got out of a thing, and I’m not afraid to do it. I could have a look around your setup and show you a dozen ways to make more out of it. I’ve never failed yet, and I’ve played in a lot of these shindigs.”

  “And just how would you take it over?”

  “How?” Webster repeated. “That’s simple. As Flint was probably in here to report to you, I’ve already visited the place. You and he were probably figuring just where you were going to lay the trap to kill me, but I’ll save you the trouble by telling you that you’re not going to kill me. In the first place, I can take care of myself, and in the second place, you’d lose money even if you did kill me. As a matter of fact, you’d lose even more than that. I believe I forgot to tell you that the paper on your desk is a duplicate of another one which is now in a safe place, along with the rifles and dummy shells you fixed up for Clanton and Nix, along with the serial numbers of the guns and shell box, and the marked gold pieces. That stuff is to be turned over to the proper authorities if anything happens to me. Dustin understands that already.

  “So, even if you don’t own a piece of that valley out there, you’ve only got to kill me to put yourself in a position where you’ll have to prove in court that you don’t. Either way, it would ruin your business. Why don’t you quit trying to act like Dustin did. I’m moving in on you, and the sooner you come out from behind the brush, the sooner we’ll start cashing in. And with less trouble. Or do you want to go on and waste a good thing by letting me break it up for you?”

  “Why would you want to break it up if you didn’t get in?”

  “That would be just to teach you that you should have let me in without making trouble when I propositioned you. I take it seriously when people don’t see things my way. After that, I could organize it for myself.”

  Dustin made his last try. “I think he’s just a lot of wind. I don’t think he’s half as tough as he thinks he is, nor a quarter as smart.”

  Faulkner lifted the pen and threw it like a dart into the desk top, where it stuck upright. He watched while it quivered. Then he said, “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Emory. This man is smart, and he is as hard as he says he is. He might not make us as much extra money as he says he can, but then he could ruin us altogether, as he points out. Yes, I suppose we’ve got a new partner. I only hope he’s as smart working with us as he was in working against us.”

  Dustin did not hide his surprise at seeing Faulkner capitulate so easily. Webster laughed at him. “Don’t get the impression, Dustin, that Faulkner has wilted as much as he seems to have. He’s just buying time while he tries to figure out what to do. If I show him something he might let me go along with him; if I don’t, then he can still make it cost me for sticking my snout into his trough. That’s fair enough, though. It’s all I need; the rest is up to me.”

  “And what?” Faulkner asked, “are your expert services going to cost us?”

  “That is a fair question,” Webster answered reasonably. “We will divide our profits along these lines; you and I and Dustin each take a fourth. The other fourth will be divided among the men we have working for us. Simple enough, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, if you’ve settled it that way in your mind. What are you going to do first?”

  “First, I’m naturally going to have to look over the whole setup and see where I can make improvements. You know, make short cuts, see that we’re getting all the profit that the traffic will bear. There are usually all kinds of ways that money can be saved and made when you bump into a loosely organized business. I’ll tighten things up all along the line, cut out waste, improve efficiency, and the like.”

  “I suppose, then, you’ll be starting out at the ranch?”

  “Right. I’ll take Dustin and go out there right away. He can show me the ropes.”

  “There is one little item you’ve forgotten,” Faulkner said. “We use a bunch of men. They are a pretty independent lot, and in the light of their background, it takes somewhat of a man to keep them in line. They will not forget you killed one of their friends. And there’s Flint. You might not be able to handle them.”

  “If I can’t, then I haven’t got a job, have I?” Webster grinned at him. “But I wouldn’t let that worry me if I were you because, on the other hand, if I can whip the boys into line, then you know you’ve tied up with a good man.”

  Faulkner was not one who would admit to anybody that he knew the time of day, and he did not make any comment on Webster’s argument, other than to say, “We’ll see, I suppose.”

  “All right,” Webster said. “It’s a deal. Now, one other thing. About that gold which you perhaps don’t care to admit that you’ve got stowed away in that safe. You’ll be wanting to get rid of that in a hurry. If you want to get out from under, I don’t mind taking it in on my share of the settlements we’ll be making. I’m not afraid of handling it, no matter how hot it is. At a discount, of course.”

  Faulkner’s bleak gaze rested on Webster a little longer than usual before it went back to the pen he was toying with.

  “You seem pretty sure of yourself,” he observed.

  “That’s my stock in trade,” Webster said. “If you’re going into something, why fool around? Know what you’re doing, then do it. If you’re not sure, don’t start it. Why waste time?”

  He turned to Dustin. “Let’s get moving. When you waste time you’re wasting dollars.”

  At the door he turned and said, “When you get through instructing Ike Flint on how to get rid of me, send him on out to the ranch, will you, Faulkner? I’ll be needing him.”

  As he walked back to town with Dustin, he said, “we’ve got Faulkner where we want him,” then after a pause he added, “as long as we need him, of course. Which won’t be too long.”

  Dustin looked at Webster with opened eyes. “You mean you don’t intend to go along with the deal you made?”

  “Oh, yes,” Webster answered casually. “But just until we get things lined up so that
we can take them into our own hands. After that, why donate him part of the profits when we can get along without him?”

  Dustin exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned! I thought I’d seen some pretty cold-blooded calculators, but you’re about the double-crossingest iceberg I ever ran into. How do you do it? Don’t you ever meet anybody halfway?”

  “This is my philosophy,” Webster answered coolly. “When you do a thing, do it right or not at all. If you’re going to be a crook, then be a crook with everything you’ve got. A crook is a man who makes a business of thievery and murder, and the double-cross is one of his most important tools. Well, if you’re going to do a job right, then you’ve got to use your tools for all they’re worth. Otherwise you’re a poor workman, and I hate a man who can’t or won’t do his job right.”

  Dustin walked on in silence for a while, thinking. Then he said, “According to what you tell me, you’d double-cross a partner as quick as you would double-cross anybody else. You’re going to double-cross Faulkner, and steal his share of the business. What’s to keep you from doing the same thing to me?”

  “Nothing, in principle. But there’s another sound common business policy that protects you, as things stand now. When you start climbing up the ladder, you can’t do it by stepping on the necks of the men you need. You’ve got to give them the breaks and carry them along up with you if you are going to get any help in doing what you’ve got to do. That is just good business. I need you, so I couldn’t throw you to the dogs and still get your help, could I? That would be foolish, and I’m not foolish. So you are sitting pretty. The fact that I can’t get along without you protects you. We can get along without Faulkner, so he hasn’t got any protection. See how it works.”

  Dustin brightened up. “You’ve figured just about all the angles haven’t you?”

  “That’s what a man has got to do in this business.”

  “Then maybe you’ve figured this one; there are a couple of dead officers out there. Somebody will have to notify the authorities sooner or later. By rights you should do it, since they deputized you. And maybe they left word with Faulkner to notify their headquarters if something happened to them. Faulkner might do it to save his own skin, and throw you to the wolves.”

  “Maybe I should do it. Perhaps I will in due time. But maybe I’ll forget to do it for a while. And even if I did, it takes time for word to get to their headquarters. Maybe Faulkner should do it. Certainly he’s thinking of how he can do it and save his own hide and throw the whole thing in my lap. But, if he does it, he knows I can spoil this setup of his, even if he succeeded in hanging me. He is more likely to do nothing at all, and if he’s ever asked why he didn’t report the killings, he’s safe, of course, in saying that he presumed that I—their deputy—did it, and that it wasn’t up to him to do it. Word of the killings will eventually get to the proper authorities, but it will take time. And right now time is what we need to get organized properly.”

  “The authorities won’t be happy about not being notified,” Dustin grinned.

  “Of course not, but don’t let that worry you. The mills of justice grind very slowly, and they do not grind as fine a grist as people like to think. Lots of whole grains pass between and around their stones, and are never cracked. There’s a thousand ways of escaping the millstones of justice. Ask any rich man.”

  They had a couple of drinks and separated, agreeing to start to the hidden ranch before daylight in the morning.

  Webster left Dustin, wondering just how much he had accomplished with him and with Faulkner. Actually, he was more sure of where he stood with Faulkner than he was about Dustin. Faulkner was a deep thinker and planner. He was nothing but a malevolent brain hidden behind the facade of an expressionless face. He had accepted Webster too easily, and his acceptance was in a sense no acceptance at all. It merely meant that Faulkner would let Webster stay around under foot, watching him until he decided what to do about him. That Faulkner would even have thought seriously of letting Webster cut in on him, as Webster had done, Jim knew was out of the question. Faulkner would have instantly known that Webster was too ambitious and energetic to be allowed into the organization over which he undoubtedly held an iron fist.

  Webster knew that he was walking into the lion’s cage as far as Faulkner was concerned. But about Dustin, he wasn’t sure yet. Dustin’s acceptance could be a matter of stalling for time, of going along with his ideas merely for the purpose of showing him and his game to Faulkner, and then riding along with Webster until Jim was caught in any hole Faulkner might dig for him.

  Or again, Dustin might have a big ambition of his own, and be letting Webster come in, so that he could encourage Webster to do the actual business of ridding the bunch of Faulkner’s, and then later dispose of Webster.

  Or Dustin might even be just what his surface actions would indicate, Faulkner’s field man who was willing to go along with a stronger man who could take the show away from Faulkner and run it himself.

  But of one thing, Webster was sure. He had deliberately planted in both men the idea that he talked big and hard. Both would lose no time in putting him up against a situation in which he would have to prove himself or pay the price for shooting off his mouth too loudly.

  And this—or any of the possibilities which would stir things up—was what he wanted. Webster would have to skate on some mighty thin ice in any event, and he had an idea that he was on the verge of again twisting the law by the tail a little in the interest of a larger justice.

  But these were the usual conditions when Jim Webster set out to do a job; he considered them mere occupational hazards.

  He went up to his room and got a good night’s sleep, knowing it might be a long time before he got another chance to rest.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Webster Goes Into Business

  Webster rode out with Dustin the next morning, arriving at the hidden ranch a little before noon. They came in by the back way, where the man named Chock was guarding the back entrance.

  Chock’s eyes were swollen and his dark face was marked with signs of his fight with Webster. When he saw who it was with Dustin, he could not conceal his hatred.

  Dustin laughed at him. “This hombre that you tangled with yesterday is your new boss,” he said. “He was coming up here looking for me when you boys tried to keep him out. After this, let him in. He might not like you trying to hold him out again.”

  Chock growled, “Why didn’t he say something, then? How did we know who he was?”

  “You did right,” Webster answered. “Don’t ever let anybody in that you don’t know, unless you want to decorate the limb of a tree. I won’t hold it against you for not allowing me in yesterday.”

  Webster and Dustin rode on into the valley side by side, and as they went along, they discussed the cattle grazing around in the deep grass.

  “How many head have you got here?” Webster asked.

  “Somewhere around seven and eight hundred.”

  “What are you keeping them for? Why don’t you turn them into cash?”

  Dustin seemed to be in a high good humor. “This is your first lesson,” he grinned. “Here’s the way it is. We’ve got men working for us; pickup men, and I’m not talking about a rodeo pickup man. We’ve got connections with people here and there who like to turn an honest penny picking up a few of their neighbors’ cattle. We buy them cheap whenever they get in touch with us. Then we pick up plenty of stuff on our own hook. But you can’t always get rid of it as fast as it comes in. We’ve got a whole string of connections that we sell to, railroad construction camps, stores, Indian Agents, and the like. They can use only so much stuff at a time, so we have to hold it until they can use it or sell it.”

  “How much do you figure to make on that stuff, holding it like this?”

  Dustin showed his surprise. “Well, here’s the setup; the stuff we buy we give ten dollars a head
for it. What we steal doesn’t cost us anything, of course. Cows sell for thirty dollars a head in the legitimate market. We sell this cattle for twenty with no questions asked, of course. That gives the Indian Agents a chance to make ten dollars by billing the government the full thirty dollars for them, and the same was with the purchasing agents for the railroads and other construction jobs. The storekeepers, of course, butcher it and make ten dollars more on the beef than they would on honest beef. We play it this way; give everybody a little money and they’ll all work with you.”

  “And you don’t get too much for yourself,” Webster commented dryly.

  Again Dustin looked at him, then waved his hand out across the valley. “Seven or eight hundred head at ten dollars a head is seven or eight thousand. The stock we didn’t pay for brings us still more profit, of course. That’s the kind of money you’re going to have to beat if you’re going to show us more than we are making now. Think you can beat it?”

  “I probably can,” Webster answered easily.

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Now, how about this merchandise? Who buys it, and for how much?”

  They were approaching the store building in the trees as Dustin explained. “Most of that didn’t cost us anything, of course. None of it except that which Faulkner sends out as a blind, and loses to himself, so to speak. We’ve got a regular list of stores down in this corner of the Territory that will buy it up for fifty percent discount. Of course, Faulkner knows the price of all that merchandise, and so does the storekeeper, so we don’t have any trouble there.”

  “You’ve got a list of the storekeepers, and a list of the prices of all that stuff?”

  “Sure. If Faulkner is anything, he is a careful storekeeper. He comes out and takes inventory, and we have to make duplicate bills of everything we sell. Those duplicates are checked with a running inventory by his bookkeeper.”