The Fifth Western Novel

by Walter A. Tompkins

  She pounded at his big chest with her fists, but his strength was too much. She gave up and leaned against him. “Four months,” she said. “Surely you can wait that long.”

  He stepped away from her, his wide face tight. “Why’d you send for me then?”

  “I asked you to ride over here today because—” She bit her lip. “Well, Ardis Bogarth and Emily Shanley were over here the other day. Byrd, those women are worried. Their husbands are getting riled about that fence of yours.”

  He removed a cheroot from his inside coat pocket, bit off the end and spat it over the porch rail. With a trembling hand he lit the cigar. A diamond ring on his finger caught the sunlight. “And they asked you to use your friendship with me to—”

  “Byrd, don’t be angry. But is that fence necessary? Really necessary?”

  He bit down on the cigar. “Yes. Or I wouldn’t be putting it up.”

  “When there’s shooting it’s always the wives who pay. Or any woman, for that matter. I’m thinking of Jonathan French. Kate’s brother had to die in the last senseless war we had around here. Let’s not have another.”

  “Barbed wire is a blessing for a big outfit like mine,” he said carefully, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice. Barbed wire was a blessing. It was the answer. With barbed wire a man could fence cheaply. He could acquire land and build and keep on building. His pulse hammered as he thought of the possibilities. To own this whole corner of New Mexico. To go to Santa Fe with a wife like Nina and be known as a man of importance. One day to be territorial senator. Maybe governor.

  There was no end to what a man could become, if he planned carefully, if he had the right woman. And the right woman was standing here before him. Although he occasionally took women out to Arrow he loved none of them. He didn’t have to have any of them. After all, he’d watched Nina grow. And blossom. And Joe Alford… The cords swelled in his neck.

  “Why fence land that’s always been open range?” Nina’s voice jerked him rudely back from his hatred of Joe Alford.

  “I’m the one that’s lost stock, Nina. I’ve let the small outfits use my waterholes when they made their drives across my land. But I’m damn tired of digging out waterholes after their cows have trampled them in. And I’m tired of coming up short tally every roundup.”

  “You’ll turn people against you with that fence.”

  “I stand on my own two feet! If people like me, fine. If they don’t—” He shrugged expressively. This fence talk was no concern of a pretty woman like Nina. He damned the ranchers’ wives who had talked her into this foolishness.

  “A fence can be cut,” Nina said.

  “You don’t know me very well if you think I’d stand by and let that happen.”

  “You’d shoot a neighbor because he cut your fence?”

  “Or hang him.” He removed the cheroot from his mouth and seemed intent on studying the teeth marks in the soggy end. “There won’t be trouble. Unless they start it.”

  Her face went pale. “I wouldn’t stand for violence.”

  He gave the handsome, taut face a quick appraisal. “It would make a difference between us?”

  “You can’t get away with that fence,” she said, evading his question. “Not legally. A good lawyer would see to it that you were forced to tear it down.”

  “Nobody in this country has got money enough to hire a good lawyer.” He was very sure of himself. “Nobody except me.”

  She ran a trembling hand over her pale hair. “You can’t deprive a man of his right-of-way. The basin ranchers have been driving through Horsethief Pass for years.”

  “It’s on my land, Nina.” He forced a smile and brushed the heavy revolver under his coat. He had only started wearing a gun after the basin crowd had made their threats about the fence. “I’ll do my arguing with a gun.”

  “And your neighbors will have no chance,” she said heatedly. “Against your guns. And your sheriff. And your judge!”

  He shrugged a heavy shoulder. He was over six feet tall, solidly built, but his jaws had begun to accumulate the fatty signs of the early forties. “You build political fences, Nina. Call it buying a sheriff and a judge, if you like.”

  “It’s cruel, Byrd.”

  “I’ll buy out any man who wants to sell.”

  Her gray eyes flashed. “Ardis Bogarth was right, then. She said that’s what you’re up to. I wouldn’t believe that you wanted to force your neighbors to sell. She’s got three children. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Yes it does,” he said seriously. He threw his cheroot into the yard. “Times have changed in the cattle business. The small outfits can’t stand a poor market or a dry year without going under. The big outfits like mine can weather the bad times. I’d be doing the Bogarth family a real favor if I bought them out.”

  He went on to tell her that if she stopped and thought a moment she would know he was right. This was a day of careful breeding of cattle, of water conservation, of fenced ranges.

  “Those men have worked hard for what they have,” she said, her voice indicating that she halfway agreed with him about some parts of the argument. True, this wasn’t an age for the small rancher. And yet there was the human element. What to do with such men…

  “Nobody’s worked harder than I have, Nina,” he said. And it was true. He had started here a year before her father founded Spade. He had worked hard but also he had been lucky. He was facing south now, staring at a spiral of dust curling against the blue sky. Riders coming. Probably the three hands she’d let ride to Reeder Wells for a Sunday fling.

  He turned abruptly and took her in his arms again. “Nina, I’ll put a gate in that fence.”

  Hope leaped into her eyes. “You’re not lying, Byrd?”

  He ran a tongue over his lips, for an instant considering his position. In his code a woman had no business mixing in the affairs of men. Therefore if you told her one thing and meant another it was hardly lying. Not as if you lied to a man.

  “If I put a gate in that fence there’ll be a price,” he said. “Marry me in two weeks. I’ll have Judge Samuels cut red tape so you can get a divorce on the grounds of desertion.”

  She put her head against his chest. “I wanted to wait until August.” She looked up at him. “This is a promise? About the gate?”

  “Sure.” Once he married her he would handle his business as he saw fit. As Mrs. Byrd Elkhart she would have no contact at all with the wives of the basin ranchers. He would make sure of that.

  “And you’ll keep your promise, Byrd? So they won’t have to make that awful drive across the Sink in order to reach the railroad?”

  “I promise.”

  “How soon can you see the judge?” she asked. And then she swayed as if she might faint. He put out a hand to steady her. He turned to see what had upset her so. Two riders were just emerging from the cottonwoods beyond the barn. They halted down by the barn and they seemed to be arguing. One of the riders was Joe Alford.

  CHAPTER 4

  Clay Janner’s apprehension had deepened that day. Maybe he was out of sorts because he’d had little sleep. A tight guard had had to be maintained on the herd, and all night he had worried about this meeting between Alford and Nina. Ahead through the cottonwoods he could see the mud roof of Alford’s ’dobe house. To the left was a bunkhouse and corrals. The fences and outbuildings showed a recent whitewashing.

  Joe Alford looked nervous. “Nina’s sure kept the place neat,” he observed.

  Clay couldn’t blame his partner for being nervous at the prospect of seeing the wife he had left over a year ago. Clay ran a hand through his stubble of beard. He scowled at his trail-worn gear. According to Alford his wife was a pretty woman, and a pretty woman might not look with favor on Clay Janner in his present condition.

  He reined in beside the barn. “You go ahead, Joe.”

&nb
sp; Clay argued that a man and wife had much to talk over, in private, after fourteen months of separation. But Joe Alford pleaded and Clay reluctantly urged his horse forward.

  As they crossed the yard they could see, for the first time, a team and buggy tied on the shady side of the house.

  An oath escaped Alford’s lips. Clay drew rein beside his partner, who was staring at the porch. Now Clay could see a tawny-haired woman whom he judged to be in her middle twenties. She was as pale as the dress she wore. She had just stepped away from a big angry-looking man.

  Alford dismounted and clenched his big fists. He took a few steps toward the porch, then halted. “Nina,” he bellowed, “what’s Byrd Elkhart doin’ here!”

  Some of Nina’s color had returned to her face. As Byrd Elkhart started angrily down the steps, she caught him by an arm with her two hands. “No, Byrd!” she cried. “I want no trouble!”

  Elkhart drew up, glowering out of yellow-brown eyes at the long-lost husband of the woman beside him.

  Clay edged away from Joe Alford and put a hand on his gun. Elkhart caught the movement from a corner of his eye. He stepped away from Nina so he could watch both men.

  Nina Alford was toying nervously with a locket that lay in the cleft of her breasts. She said, “So you’re really alive, Joe,” she murmured, and then suddenly the dazed look Clay had first noticed in her eyes was gone. “It’s nice of you to finally come home,” she said, and her voice bristled with sarcasm.

  Elkhart took command. He was, Clay noted, the type who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. A big man in a tough business, this Byrd Elkhart.

  “We thought you were dead,” Elkhart said blandly. “We heard Monjosa got boxed by Federal troops. And that all Americans caught with him were ’dobe walled.”

  “Don’t look much like he was ’dobe walled,” Clay said, wondering why Alford didn’t pitch Elkhart off the porch on his head.

  Nina Alford said, “We even have your watch, Joe. That’s what made me so positive you were dead.”

  “I lost the watch when we was captured,” Joe Alford said. “But you hadn’t oughta think I was dead just on that account—”

  “What was I to think?” the woman demanded. “Not a word from you in all this time!”

  Alford reddened. He seemed to be groping for the right words. Elkhart stopped glaring at Clay and turned to the woman.

  “Nina, just where does his coming back leave us?”

  “I—I don’t know, Byrd.”

  “Don’t let him stay under the same roof with you, Nina!”

  Alford started for him, big fists clenched. Elkhart came down the porch steps. He drew the revolver from beneath his coat. “You got a gun,” he said, nodding at the .45 in Alford’s holster. “I’ll put up my gun and give you a chance to go for yours. But I won’t fist fight you. Understand?”

  Alford came to a halt, and he went white at sight of the cocked gun in Elkhart’s hand. Clay felt sorry for Joe, but he couldn’t keep out of it any longer. “You’re so anxious to do some shooting, Elkhart,” he said. “I’ll be glad to accommodate you.”

  Elkhart’s eyes turned ugly and for an instant Clay thought the rancher would let the hammer of the drawn gun come crashing down. But Nina hurried down the steps to fling herself between them. “No!” she cried, giving Elkhart a little shove. “I won’t stand for shooting!”

  Slowly Elkhart let down the hammer and holstered the gun, his face still dark with angry blood. Nina stood on tiptoe and whispered something to Elkhart. For a moment there was a stubborn set to the rancher’s jaw. Then he shrugged and went to his buggy beside the house.

  As he drove up in front of the house he glared at Clay. “Don’t ever ask for trouble from me again. Because next time there won’t be a woman around to stop me.” He nodded curtly to Nina. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Without bothering to look at Joe Alford, he drove out.

  * * * *

  Nina Alford still felt weak in the knees as she watched Byrd drive the buggy out of the yard. If only Joe had some of Byrd Elkhart’s strength. She could still feel the pressure of Byrd’s strong arms around her. She had been all ready to promise to marry him sooner than…all ready to…and then Joe had returned from the dead. She stood in the yard, wanting to bawl, but fighting tears. She eyed the tall man with the hat on the back of his head. This, then, must be Clay Janner. The gun runner. My, what a thoroughly rakish, disreputable figure he cut. Dirty. He hadn’t had a shave in two weeks or more. But something about the way he looked at her sent a faint tremor along her nerves. Two strong men had faced each other in this yard—Clay Janner and Byrd—and if she hadn’t interfered one of them might now be lying dead. Would she weep if the dead one was Byrd? She didn’t know. Did she really love Byrd? Or was she just tired of struggling alone? And did she really need a man—really need him? She knew the answer to that. She rubbed her arms where Byrd had held her.

  “Come into the house and I’ll fix you something to eat,” she said, climbing the steps. She lifted her skirts to ease her way, and when she reached the porch she saw that Clay Janner was watching her ankles. A little flustered and at the same time indignant, she dropped her skirts.

  “You stick around, Joe,” Clay Janner said. “I’ll get back to the herd.” He bobbed his head at Nina, then got his horse and rode out.

  She watched him from the front window. There was a man who knew what he wanted. She dreaded to think what would happen if he stayed too long in this country. If he and Byrd should tangle… She wouldn’t allow herself to think of it.

  Later, after cooking Joe a meal, she sat at the table in the kitchen, watching him eat. Since Clay had pulled out Joe had only made small talk. She wondered if Joe realized he was eating the chicken dinner she had planned for Byrd Elkhart.

  When Joe finished eating he leaned back and fashioned a cigarette. “Don’t be mad at me,” he said tentatively. He told her about the herd of Chihuahua steers. When she seemed unimpressed, he gave her an angry look. “It’s bad enough comin’ home and findin’ a man with his arm around you! But Byrd Elkhart! It’s too much for a man to swallow!”

  “You swallowed it,” she said quietly.

  “Damn it, Nina—”

  “Don’t swear at me,” she said, but even as she snapped at Joe she wondered if ever again a man could touch her the way he had at first. She remembered the day he had ridden in here, a big laughing redhead, and how quickly her grief at the passing of her father had seemed to vanish. She forgot that she was promised by Byrd Elkhart, forgot that her father had said almost with his dying breath that he was content to go, knowing she would be safe as Elkhart’s wife. But she had held off marrying Byrd. Held off, waiting for someone.

  And then Joe had come, and she knew it was what she had been waiting for. But soon she learned about Joe’s weakness. He was not a coward; that much she knew. Once, when he took her shopping in Reeder Wells, two drunken line riders had said an insulting thing to her as she sat in the buckboard waiting for Joe. Joe had overheard the remark and beat them both, even though they were big men. So he wasn’t really a coward.

  But then the talk had started. Bits of gossip to the effect that Joe was gun shy. A card sharp had made Joe back down in the cantina one night by flourishing a derringer. And from then on any man who wanted to see Joe back down would show him a gun. And Joe backed. Not that she wanted a gunfighter for a husband. But in this country a man had to stand up for himself and sometimes he had to do it with a gun.

  Soon Joe quit wearing a gun altogether. He started drinking, and he said once that he was tired of being married to a woman who owned a ranch. She offered to put the ranch in Joe’s name, but he wouldn’t have it that way.

  “I’ll make my own money, by God,” he had shouted at her drunkenly, “and buy me a half interest in Spade.” Then he had gone down to ’Paso to buy some horses, and there he had run int
o his old friend Clay Janner. He had come home with glowing tales of the gun-running deal of Janner’s. He asked for a loan. It was to be perfectly legal, Joe said. He made his X on a note and got two witnesses. Then he rode out again, so confident that he would return with enough money to set himself up as her equal.

  And now he was back. She felt a moment of pity for him. He seemed so forlorn. And he had backed down in front of Byrd and in front of Clay Janner. She knew the humiliation he suffered.

  “Joe, why didn’t you send word?” she said softly.

  “You know I can’t write.”

  “Janner could have written for you.”

  “I—well, it ain’t an easy thing for a man to admit.”

  “It wasn’t easy for me either, Joe.” The moment was gone and now she viewed him objectively. Just a big, good-natured—at least he had been good-natured—uneducated cowhand. Handsome in a way. She turned in her chair and looked down the hall toward the bedroom she had shared that first night with him. Her heart began to pound, but she got control of herself. “I was a woman living alone, Joe. I—I had to fire the old crew. Too many of them wanted to take your place.”

  “Looks like Elkhart done that.” He glared across the table at her. “If I thought he—”

  “If you thought he what, Joe?”

  “I’d kill him, Nina. As sure as hell I’d kill him if he touched you!”

  “Kill him with what? Words?”

  He flushed.

  “Who did your gunfighting for you in Mexico? Clay Janner?”

  “I hate guns!” he shouted. “I’ve always hated ’em!”

  His vehemence startled her and the wave of pity engulfed her again. “Joe, I—”

  He got up from the table. “I sweat blood for them cows out there, Nina,” he said, his voice shaking. “I damn near died. And I come home—” He leaned over and gripped her suddenly by the shoulder. His fingers dug into her flesh and pain brought a startled gasp from her lips. “Did you let Elkhart?” he demanded. “Did you let him?”