The Fifth Western Novel

by Walter A. Tompkins

  Webster had come in and looked them over. “What do you women intend to do?” he asked sharply.

  Bessie was the largest and most aggressive of them. She was Merle Tate’s girl and, by virtue of his position, the ruler of the feminine side. She looked at him with arrogant contempt.

  “Why, I suppose we’ll manage to get along until everybody gets back. That is, provided you’ve left us enough food.”

  “And what do you plan to do while everybody is gone?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Your plans are changed. There’s work for everybody around here, and you can get busy now.” He picked the whiskey bottle up off their table and re-corked it. “All of you get out there to the cookshack and fix up some supper and a carrying lunch for the men. And make lots of it; they’ll be hungry.”

  Bessie laughed in his face. “Cook supper for that bunch of gray-backs? Why, mister, I don’t even cook for my man; he cooks for me.”

  The other girls giggled at the way Bessie had taken the new boss down a peg.

  “Maybe you never learned how to cook,” Webster said softly. “Maybe Tate has to do the cooking in order to get something fit to eat.”

  “What are you talking about?” the woman flared. “I can cook better than any old clodhopper’s hag that ever came down the pike.”

  “Good!” Webster said gently. And then his voice shot out like a whiplash. “Then get down there to the cookshack and start doing it! You women are going with this load, and you’re doing the cooking and dishwashing. And if you don’t keep the ball rolling on the job I’ll kick every one of you out of camp and let you walk to the nearest settlement. Now get moving! You’ve got one hour to fill that table with steak and biscuits and coffee. Get out of here!”

  Bessie tried to glare him down and, for her pains, she and the other girls learned that the new boss of the ranch was the boss.

  Now at midnight the door to the lean-to was opened and the new moon saw a procession of seven wagons pull up to the shed from the valley entrance, pass through its darkened interior, and head down the sawmill road in the direction of the broad expanse of flatland which spread as far north as the settlement of McAlester.

  Following the rumbling wagons came the cattle which funneled through the passageway and out onto the road, where they fell in behind the wagons and started their winding, bellowing trek downhill.

  Webster sat his horse alongside Dustin and watched until they were all out, when Dustin got down and shut the doorway behind them, thus closing again the hidden entrance to the hideout.

  Now for a while Webster and Dustin were busy, riding up and down the thin line of wagons and cattle, placing the flank and drag riders, pushing the stock back into line as some of it would make a break for the timber, getting the drive settled down for the long pull.

  Webster was everywhere, pushing his horse through the dust that the stock was churning up, keeping the wagons moving up front, keeping the riders properly spaced, arguing with this one and that one, threatening, bullying.

  The road was cut through a deep forest of pines and oaks, so narrow that the tops of the trees made a canopy overhead which shut out most of the feeble light of the moon and stars. In the confusion of the drive, the darkness and dust, nobody knew where the next man was.

  Webster worked his way to the rear of the procession, and when it crossed a small creek half an hour after leaving the hideout, he was behind the last cow. Gradually the darkness swallowed up the drag man at the rear.

  Webster turned his horse off the trail, following the stream downhill to his right for a few hundred yards until he came to a small clearing. He dismounted in the trees, lifted his handgun as a precaution, and approached the cabin sitting in the middle of the clearing.

  At the open doorway—there was no door—he called softly.

  The answer came not from the inside, but from behind a tree, and Dick Hammond emerged, pistol in his hand.

  “You awake, Dick?”

  “How could a man sleep with a parade like that passing his door?” Hammond answered. “What’s going on? Is hell moving to a new location?”

  They sat down on a couple of stumps, and Webster told Hammond the whole story up to the minute. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it across to Hammond.

  “I want you to take that and give it to Swanson. It’s a little sketch of the ground down where we are going, and a list of all the customers Faulkner and Dustin have been selling the stolen goods to—contractors, general stores and the like. Every one of those customers knows he is buying stolen goods, and is making a profit on it.”

  “Why don’t you just go and pick them up?”

  “Because I couldn’t prove a thing. They could just deny it. I’m going to get some evidence that will stick in court if we have to use it. Tell Swanson that’s why I’m going to be out selling that stolen stuff. And tell him to protect that list of names. In case I don’t get to finish my job, he can pass it on to the next one who tackles it.”

  “What else?”

  “Here’s one for you,” Webster said. “How good a detective are you?”

  “I might find a cow tick on an animal that had been grazing in an infested area, but I doubt if I could call myself much of an investigator. Why?”

  “Here’s something I want you or Swanson to investigate. I can’t tell you how to do it. Maybe Swanson will have some ideas. And I can’t even tell you what to look for; perhaps it’s nothing at all. But again, maybe it means everything to Swanson. But this is it; I think the rats are slipping in and eating our cheese.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Swanson told you what was in the affidavit I made, I suppose?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Understand this carefully now. Like I told you, I showed my copy of that to both Dustin and Faulkner in order to force my way into their organization. But I pointed out to them that there was a duplicate in safe hands, along with the guns and the shells that were tampered with. I made a point of telling them that if anything happened to me, that evidence would be placed in the hands of the proper authorities. That way, I was sure that they wouldn’t try to stop me with a bullet. But—I think Faulkner tried to have me finished, anyway. I believe that he sent Flint out with orders for this Snake-eyes hombre to start a fight and kill me. That’s only a hunch, understand, but I don’t believe that if that hombre was going to kill me for beating him up he would have taken that chance. I think Faulkner had it done that way in order to counteract any impression I had made on Dustin and the gang.”

  “Well, what are you getting at, and what do I do?”

  “This is the point—and it’s only a hunch, as I said. Faulkner would not have taken that risk unless he either had got his hands on that evidence, or knew that he could get his hands on it. He wouldn’t have had me killed if he thought there was any danger of that duplicate coming to light. And if that’s so, then somebody told him where that duplicate was, or maybe even gave it to him.”

  Hammond laughed dryly, “And so you want me to go and ask Mr. Faulkner to please give us back our evidence against him. Just like that.”

  “No, I don’t know what to tell you to do. You tell Swanson, and let him try to figure out where the leak is if he can. He was going to turn that paper over to Cromwell who was going to put it in a safety deposit box in the bank. Tell him to get after that paper and get it back into his own hands and see that it is really safe with him, and with nobody else. We may be too late. Faulkner may know every move I’ve made and plan to make. If he does, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  “And, of course, it may be something else entirely that’s in Faulkner’s mind,” Hammond reminded him.

  “Sure! But you’ve got to figure every angle when you’re dealing with him. Otherwise we might all wake up and find ourselves lying dead behind a bush. You and Swanson find out what you ca
n, and you come back and wait. I’ll return in a few days, and either way, whether Faulkner is way ahead of me, or I’m ahead of him, something is going to pop pretty soon.”

  Webster had rather expected young Hammond to be excited and eager to go, but he sat on his stump in an attitude of dejection. He seemed lost in thought, and it occurred to Webster now that the young man hadn’t been as alert as usual all through the talk.

  “What’s on your mind?” Jim asked.

  Hammond got to his feet and threw his cigarette down and stepped on it angrily. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  “Yes there is, and I know what it is, and if you want to know, I think you’re a damned fool.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Hammond asked suspiciously.

  “You know damned well what I mean. All right, maybe I’m talking when I ought to be listening, but I’m going to tell you something for your own good. You know all about what Dustin is now, and you’ve known right along that he was trying to get Sonia Swanson to marry him. You might even have suspected that he had a crooked streak in him.

  “But what do you do? You sit back and worry like a lovesick pup. You think you’re doing the decent thing by not going out and shooting the pants off Dustin the minute you found out about him. You want to, and you don’t want to.”

  “You talk like you’ve been reading my mind, or something. I ought to run that rat down and empty a gun into him.”

  “But you know that if you do, Sonia will hold it against you. In short, you’ll be damned if you do, and be damned if you don’t.”

  “Webster, maybe I oughtn’t to be talking to you about this, but I’ve got to say it. Sure, I’m in love with Sonia. I’ve been crazy about her from the first minute I saw her. As a matter of fact, I think so much of her that I’d be willing to kill Dustin just to keep him from making her unhappy. But she’s the kind that if I killed him, it would always stand between us. She’d never really know just what type of a skunk he was, and she’d believe that I killed him to get her. That means, if I have to kill him to save her, then I can’t go to her and tell her how I feel about her.”

  “That’s a load for a man to carry,” Webster admitted. He slapped Hammond on the shoulder encouragingly. “But don’t let it get you down. Her dad knows now what Dustin is, and he thinks enough of her to see that he doesn’t get her. And one more thing—I don’t want Dustin killed right now. I need him in my business. He’s the lad I’m depending on to lead me to everybody tied up in this crooked business.”

  “I know,” Hammond admitted. “That’s what makes it so tough; standing by and watching that smirking snot fooling her.”

  “Well, keep your breeches on,” Webster warned him. “I’ve got to go catch up with my army before they miss me.”

  * * * *

  It was late afternoon before the thieves’ caravan reached its first stop at a settlement called Big Brushy, where there was a general store and a few houses, and the headquarters camp of a contractor who was building a road for the government. Besides the shabby local houses, there was a tent town of considerable size down by the creek, near the point where the contractor was throwing a bridge up over Brushy Creek.

  While the men held the cattle out on the prairie beside the town, Webster had one of the wagons driven up to the dock of the store, and he and Dustin went in, bringing Ike Flint and a group along with them.

  The proprietor was a slovenly man with his shirt sleeves rolled up, revealing his dirty undershirt. A week’s stubble of black beard covered his flabby red face, and he sniffed continuously from snuff, which he used in his nose.

  “We’ve got some good merchandise for you, Lansky,” Dustin said. “Come out to the wagon and look it over.”

  Lansky followed them out to the wagon dock, and Dustin began naming off the stuff in the boxes and bundles. Then after looking it over, Lansky crawfished backward out from under the tarp wagonsheet, and stood on the dock.

  “I can use some of them pick handles and axe handles and the like,” he said. “And maybe a half dozen bolts of that calico. But that’s all. Trade ain’t too good right now.”

  Dustin signaled to four of his riders who had followed the wagon. “Unload Lansky’s stuff for him,” he said. Then he said to Lansky, “Come on inside while the boys are unloading for you. I want some tobacco and things.”

  In the store, Dustin read off a list of groceries, and when they were stacked in boxes for him to take with him, Dustin, Lansky and Webster went back out onto the dock.

  The whole wagon of merchandise had been unloaded. Lansky looked puzzled, then shook his head. “I didn’t want all that stuff,” he objected. “Can’t use it. Might as well load it back.”

  Dustin smiled at him. “Lansky, I want you to meet Jim Webster. He’s in charge now, and I was just following instructions. He will explain things to you.”

  Webster leaned against the store wall, smoking. Flint moved casually here and there, and ended standing beside Lansky. Then Webster did his explaining.

  “It’s this way, Lansky. We’ve got too much merchandise in stock, and we’ve got to get rid of it. So, you boys that we’ve been doing business with have got to help us. This is your share. Dustin will make out your bill.”

  “No,” Lansky said. “Ain’t a chance. I don’t mind taking what I need from you boys, but I ain’t going to load up just because you have got too much on hand. Not a chance. No!”

  “Well, now,” Webster said easily. “You ought to think it over. We’ve decided that this is your share. You’ll have to take it.”

  “No! No! I’m not thinking of it!”

  “Then you’ll have to change your mind. You see, you’ve been buying stolen property, so actually you’re involved in this thievery just as deep as we are. That means they can throw you in prison so far that it would take a dollar’s worth of postage to send you a post card. Ever think of it that way?”

  “Looky here,” Lansky roared. “You ain’t fixing to pull no shenanigan on me. Not a bit of it! Get that damned stuff off my dock, and get your wagon away from here.”

  Webster sighed wearily. “All right, Ike, try to make him see the light.”

  Ike Flint’s fist shot out and caught Lansky on the jaw. Lansky sailed over backward off the dock, landed in the dirt and rolled over once. Ike jumped off the dock, lifted Lansky by his undershirt collar and slapped his face a half dozen resounding blows, ending up with a loud crack across the ear.

  “Now get up there on that dock and start doing business like you ought to!” Flint growled. “Get up there, I said,” he added, emphasizing his command with another blow.

  Lansky half-crawled and was half-thrown onto the dock by Flint.

  “Now,” Webster said, “If you’re ready to talk sense, you should see things our way. You’re a partner with a bunch of thieves, and you’ve been trying to let your partners down. That is not nice, and we don’t love you when you let us down. Now your share of the work is to take this merchandise and pay for it, and to sell it out. Now are you ready for me to start making out your bill?”

  “Hell, no! Nobody ain’t doing this to me—”

  “Give him another installment, Ike!” Webster said calmly. “A little stronger.”

  Flint’s fist caught Lansky on the cheekbone this time, but he knocked him along the dock so he would not have to lift him again.

  Lansky lay on his back and saw that Flint was about to kick his ribs in. “All right,” he yelled. “I’ll take the goods. Don’t kick me! Don’t kick a man when he’s down.”

  “Now that’s more like a partner,” Webster said. “Dustin, get out your bill book and write it out as we call off the stuff. And use that new price list. Lansky, things have gone up a little since you bought your last bill of goods.”

  “Here, what are you trying to do to me?” Lansky complained. “First I have to take the goods. Then
the price goes up. I could buy it legitimate.”

  “That’s right,” Webster assured him. “You never can tell what a bunch of thieves will do, can you? You shouldn’t have got into this kind of a deal if you didn’t like it. But now that you’re in, you’re taking orders from me from now on. You’ll buy what we tell you to, and you’ll pay the price we charge. And if you want to get balky about it, we’ve got enough men along to see that you don’t back down on your business partners. Now be getting your money ready.”

  Flint started to lead the man into his store when Webster stopped him. “Just a minute,” he said, reaching into the wagon. “I almost forgot. Here is a plow point that belongs with your quota of goods.”

  He added the plow point to the pile of merchandise after first turning it over and copying the number off the underside of the moldboard—the number he had copied off the Marshal’s badge.

  “Now dig up that money,” he said. “I want to finish my business with that contractor down on the creek before night.”

  As Webster and Dustin came out of the store with the money, Dustin shook his head. “My, my! Wouldn’t that kill you? I thought I knew something about selling livestock and merchandise. It just goes to show; you learn something every day, don’t you?”

  “You do, for a fact,” Webster answered. “And sometimes it does kill you. But what does it matter? You’ve got to die someday, haven’t you?”

  “That, now, is something I haven’t given my mind to. There’s no fun in it.”

  “No, but there’s a lesson in it, when you come to think about it.”

  Dustin laughed. “I’m not much of a student.”

  “No,” Webster answered thoughtfully. “I guess you’re not.”

  They mounted and got their drive of wagons and cattle headed out toward the contractor’s camp on the creek. This man, spending government money for food and supplies for his workmen, had cut many corners by doing business with Dustin, which savings would have gone to the government if he had not charged the government full price for what he bought, and pocketed the difference.