Tom Shanley, tall, gray-headed, broached the subject that was on all their minds. “What about that fence?”
They glumly discussed this new product called barbed wire that had been invented by a man named Glidden back in Illinois.
Buck Bogarth sagged back in his chair. “It means the end of free grass,” the rancher said solemnly. He lived with his wife, Ardis, and three children on nine sections south of Division Valley.
“It means the end of us two-bit outfits,” Leo Reese said, his words hissing through wide-spaced front teeth.
Tom Shanley shook his gray head. “They say that if a man improves his stock he can run more head on less acres.”
“That’s only a theory,” Buck Bogarth said with a wave of a square hand. “You been readin’ the Breeder’s Journal again.”
“Let’s face it, boys,” Leo Reese said. “This country is sick. I got half a mind to try Montana.”
Smoking a cigar, Clay sat in a chair tipped against the wall, listening to the men glumly discuss their prospects. His first day in this country had confirmed Reese’s statement. The country was sick, no mistake about that. Dry years and a lowering of the water level had raised the odds against a small rancher making it here.
And I was fool enough to let Alford talk me into coming here and fatten those Chihuahuas on Spade grass, Clay thought. What grass?
Well, he was in it now, up to his eyebrows. He was in a box and they were nailing it shut on him.
CHAPTER 6
The discussion at the corner table in Fierro’s Cantina grew serious. The whisky flowed and cigar smoke thickened about the overhead reflectors. Clay noted that the bar had filled up. Many of the new customers kept looking at the group at the table as if speculating on the discussion, and Clay recognized two of them as having been with Lon Perry the day of the stampede.
The basin ranchers agreed that after spring roundup they would drive their cattle north to Las Rosas the nearest shipping point, one hundred and twenty miles north.
“And unless we bust through Elkhart’s fence,” Bogarth said heavily, “we got to add on eighty miles more across the Sink.”
“We’ll lose beef in the Sink,” Leo Reese said. “Them that lives will be gaunted. Elkhart’s got us up short.”
“Elkhart’s got no legal right,” Tom Shanley said.
“The only way is to get a lawyer,” Bogarth said.
“What do you mean the only way?” Clay snapped. “You can shoot a gun, can’t you?”
Bogarth reddened. “My wife ain’t forgot when Kate’s brother got killed. She won’t stand for trouble.”
“My wife lays awake nights,” Tom Shanley admitted, “worryin’ about Lon Perry.”
“That’s the only reason Elkhart’s got Perry on the payroll,” Bogarth said. “To throw the fear of God into us.”
Joe Alford said, “What about Charlie Boyle letting Elkhart fence off part of his Sombrero spread? And why ain’t Charlie here, anyhow?”
“Charlie sold his Sombrero outfit,” Bogarth said, “about two months after you left for Mexico. To Elkhart.”
“The hell you say!” Alford’s reddish brows shot up in surprise. “And I s’pose Elkhart’s still got the sheriff in his hind pocket.”
“And he’s got the pocket buttoned.” Bogarth mopped his thick neck with a bandanna. “Bert Lynden don’t brush the flies off his beer unless he gets a nod from Elkhart.”
“Elkhart spends money to elect him,” Tom Shanley said bitterly, “while we sit on our behinds and let our own man get beat.”
“That’s why the big outfits always pin us to the fence,” Leo Reese said. “We can’t agree on nothin’. Not even a sheriff.”
They decided to form a pool and it was agreed that Kate French should be asked to join.
“Kate hates trouble worse’n poison,” Alford said. “And her joinin’ a pool would be the same as spittin’ in Elkhart’s eye. I don’t figure she’ll be with us.”
There was a clearing of throats then and the men exchanged glances. Bogarth gave Joe Alford a significant nod, but Alford lifted his hands in silent protest. Then Bogarth turned to Clay.
“We heard how you talked up to Lon Perry. If we had a tough man to head our pool we’d stand a chance of—” Clay shot Alford a glance and saw his partner’s look of guilt. “So this is the purpose of the meeting,” Clay said. “To get me to face up to Elkhart and Perry.”
“Don’t get riled, Clay,” Alford said worriedly. “We ain’t no gunhands. But we figure with you headin’ the pool Elkhart will step light.”
Clay sank back in his chair. “If I didn’t have every peso I’ve got in the world tied up in that herd I’d tell you all to go to hell.” He leaned across the table. “But I’m boxed. If I take my half of the cows and head back for Paso Del Norte I’ll sell ’em for tallow. So I’ve got to get meat on them and drive them to Las Rosas.”
“Then you’ll take the job?” Bogarth said eagerly.
“It’s something you don’t decide all of a sudden,” Clay said, stalling.
“I figure it this way,” Leo Reese said, his words whistling through his teeth. “Have a talk with Elkhart. Maybe you can get some sense in him. Me and the other boys have tried. But we get sore and one word leads to another. You got almost as much to lose as us. Elkhart might back down.”
Clay reflected that Elkhart was the type who would recognize a gun, but not a fancy speech. But Reese was right in one thing. He had a lot to lose here if things went against them.
“I’ll think it over,” he said, without committing himself.
When they were outside getting their horses Clay looked at Alford’s long face. “Cheer up, Joe,” he advised. “Bad as it is here it still beats that hole at San Sebastian.”
The next day Clay and the six riders got the Chihuahuas spread out over Alford’s land, mixing with Spade’s herd. Spade’s regular herd consisted of some five hundred head. Added to the herd Clay and Alford had brought out of Mexico it meant over two thousand head seeking graze in an area that, under drought conditions, would barely support half that number. Clay was damned if he’d give up now, hopeless as the outlook might be.
That evening as they rode for Spade headquarters, Sam Lennox remarked on Alford’s absence during the chore of getting the cows spread out over Spade.
“He’s trying to make it up with his wife,” Clay said. “It’s a full time job.” He could hardly blame Lennox for making a sly remark about Alford’s apparent lack of interest in the herd.
He told Lennox and the other members of their crew to pick bunks in the bunkhouse where Spade’s three regular hands lived.
While he was cleaning his horse’s hoofs of clay, checking for stones that could make it go lame, he saw Kate French ride in. He was by the corral and she didn’t notice him. She started for the house but then she paused to talk to one of the Spade hands, a man named Russ Hagen. Clay had never spoken to him. He was a towering slab of a man, taciturn, small-eyed. He had a broken nose and his right ear was half gone. A brawler, Clay had sized him up the first time he saw him.
When Clay finished his chore Kate was still talking to Hagen. Clay sauntered up, remembering that Alford had said that Hagen had been hired after they started their Mexican venture.
Hagen saw him coming, gave him a black look, then wheeled for the bunkhouse.
“You say something to upset our boy Hagen?” Clay said.
The sound of his voice brought Kate spinning around so sharply that her long blue-black braids whipped across her shoulders. She said, “Hagen used to work for Elkhart before Nina hired him. I asked him if he thought Elkhart would back down about the fence. If enough pressure was put on him, that is.”
Clay stared thoughtfully at the bunkhouse where he could see Hagen watching him from a window. “Might be interesting to learn why Hagen left Elkhart’s payroll and came
here,” he said softly.
“Don’t make an issue out of the simple fact of a rider changing jobs,” Kate warned.
“Just seems odd that he’d come over here to work.”
Kate’s blue eyes clouded angrily. “I guess I was right about you,” she said. “You’re a trouble maker. You seem to go out of your way to create tension.” Her dark hair was pulled back smoothly from her high forehead, and in the growing shadows she seemed quite tall, capable in a gray wool shirt and black riding breeches. “Instead of trying to read some sinister motive in Hagen’s working here, why don’t you have your talk with Elkhart?”
“What about my talk with Elkhart?” he demanded quietly. Some of the men were heading for the bunk-house, bedrolls balanced on their shoulders.
“You promised Bogarth and the rest of the basin outfits that you’d try to reason with Elkhart.”
“I didn’t promise. I told them I’d think it over.”
“And when you think it over I suppose you’ll come to the conclusion that a gun is the only answer.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You accept failure before you even try. Because it’s the way you want it—” Her voice broke. “Sometimes I wish you and Lon Perry would fight it out between you and settle the thing once and for all.”
She started to stomp furiously toward the house. He caught her by the wrist and jerked her around. “I know you haven’t had it easy, Kate,” he said. “And I’m sorry you lost your brother. But don’t let it sour your whole life—”
“Let me go!” she screamed, and tried to tear his fingers from her wrist.
But the more she struggled, the tighter he held on. Some of the men were looking at them, surprised.
Then Sam Lennox cried, “Watch it, Clay!”
Clay turned her loose, spun on a heel and saw Russ Hagen lunging for him. And as Hagen came lumbering in, huge fists flailing the air, Clay thought: He’s been waiting for a chance to tangle with me. And now he’s got it.
But he had no intention of wasting his strength fighting such a formidable man, a man so experienced in rough-and-tumble, if his scars proved anything.
He gave Kate a shove to get her out of the way. Then he jerked aside as Hagen’s fist whistled across the spot where his face had been. Off balance as the powerful blow failed to land, Hagen stumbled. Clay struck him behind the right ear with a clubbed fist. Hagen went to his knees. Clay stepped back and drew his gun.
“On your feet,” he said.
Hagen got to his feet, glaring.
Kate French stood with a fist at her mouth. She was dead white. Clay ordered Hagen to turn around. He got Hagen’s gun and tossed it to Sam Lennox.
“Don’t give it back to him till he cools off,” Clay ordered.
Lennox grinned through his beard. “Sure, boss. But you oughta clean him good for tryin’ to jump you.”
“I won’t break my fists on his hard head.” He eyed Hagen. “You jump me again and you’ll get a pound of lead in the gut.”
Hagen rubbed the sore spot behind his ear where Clay had clubbed him. “You’re scared to fist fight me.”
Clay grinned coldly. “Who put you up to this—Elkhart?”
Hagen blinked and Clay knew the truth.
“If you were one of my riders,” Clay said, “I’d fire you off the place. But you work for the Alfords. If they want to keep you on it’s their business. Just stay out of my way after this.”
Swearing under his breath, Hagen lumbered off to the bunkhouse. “You better watch out for him,” Sam Lennox said. “He’s a mean one.”
* * * *
Kate French stood in the Spade parlor, trembling with rage. She kept looking down at the red marks on her wrists left by Clay’s fingers. “I hate him!” she cried.
Nina Alford’s pale brows arched quizzically.
“Hate is a funny thing,” she said in her rich voice. “Sometimes it’s love in disguise.” She glanced through the window. There stood Clay Janner, tall and rugged talking to some of his men.
Kate followed her gaze. “Me in love with him?” She gave a shaky laugh.
Nina said, “He handled Russ Hagen neatly. And Hagen is nobody to fool with. He’s crippled a couple of men since he’s been in this country.”
Kate flinched. She flung a hasty glance at the yard, but Clay was gone.
Nina gave her a small smile. “Afraid Hagen might cripple Clay Janner?”
“Of course not. It does seem odd that you’d hire one of Elkhart’s former riders.”
Nina Alford shrugged. “Hagen had a fight with Byrd. He wanted a job and riders were hard to come by. At least the kind who’d leave me alone.” She raised a small hand to touch her pinned-up hair. “It wasn’t easy being around men—when they considered me a widow.”
“And Elkhart didn’t object to Hagen working for you? He’s always insisted that any man he fires get out of the country. At least up until now.”
“Byrd never interfered with my personal business.”
“How are things coming with you and Joe?” Kate asked. “That’s why I came over—”
“He’s mad because I won’t take him back without an argument.” Nina sank to a horsehair sofa and smoothed her blue dress. “He went storming out of here a while ago.”
“You’ve got to make up your mind one way or another.”
“Byrd sent word today,” Nina admitted. “He wants an answer.”
“Joe shouldn’t have gone off and left you,” Kate said. “But, after all, he’s still your husband.”
“It’s Clay Janner’s fault,” Nina said bitterly. “This whole mess—” Her voice trailed off. Through the window she saw the tall Texan striding toward the corral.
“Let me know how you make out with Joe,” Kate said.
“Is the whole country worried about me and my husband?” Nina asked with a faint smile.
“A lot of people seem to think it’s important,” Kate said. “If you marry Byrd Elkhart they seem to feel you’ll have enough influence to get him to tear down that fence.”
“He already promised me that—if I marry him.” She lost her smile and became serious. “What would you do in my place, Kate?”
“Maybe I’m old-fashioned. But I’d stick with my husband.”
“You wouldn’t marry a weakling as I did,” Nina said. “You would marry a strong man.”
“Joe isn’t weak. He just—just hasn’t found himself.”
“I’d like to believe that,” Nina said. “But I don’t. I feel that Joe is a man who always drifted from job to job. Now that he’s faced with responsibilities he can’t cope with life.”
“You owning a ranch doesn’t help Joe’s pride.”
“It doesn’t help my pride any to know that at one time or another most of the people in this country have laughed behind my husband’s back.”
“Because he won’t fight with a gun?” Kate asked.
“He’s yellow,” Nina said. “I know it and he knows it.” She got to her feet, somehow looking older. “One thing I’ve got to do and that’s get Clay Janner away from Spade. As long as he’s here there’ll be the threat of real trouble.”
“That may not be easy.”
“Women have a way of doing these things,” Nina said. “Anyway, if the burden rests with me I’ll have a try at it.”
Kate turned for the door. “Does Joe know yet that you really intended to marry Byrd Elkhart?”
“No. And I hope to God he never finds out.” Immediately after Kate left, Joe Alford came from the back part of the house. His face was gray. Nina put both hands over her mouth, and then she lowered them slowly. “You’ve been back there,” she said. “All this time. Listening.”
“I learned a lot of things,” he said numbly.
“Joe, I—”
“So I’m yellow.”
“I didn’t mean that. Not really.” She took a step toward him. “But, Joe, why don’t you help me? I’m tired of carrying this ranch on my back.”
“I’ve done my snare of work.”
“For fourteen months you didn’t do your share.”
“I brung home beef. I got enough to buy a half interest in this ranch. But now I don’t give a damn about it. Go ahead and marry Byrd Elkhart.”
“Like Kate said, you’re still my husband.”
“Hah!” He started to leave the room but she ran to the doorway and flung her arms wide and blocked him. “Joe, I’m sorry for the things I said. But you haven’t made it easy since you came back. Accusing me—”
“You and Elkhart.”
“I swear to you that nothing happened between us.”
He shook his shaggy red head. “I don’t believe it.”
Her mouth became an angry line. “And what were you doing in Mexico?”
“I told you!”
“If you don’t believe me, I don’t believe you. That story about prison is a lie!” Her voice rose shrilly. “You and Clay Janner in Mexico, having yourselves a time! And me, trying to run this ranch and keep the whole country from blowing up around me!”
Joe Alford just stood woodenly in the doorway. She began to cry.
“Joe, why can’t you be strong?”
He flexed a thick arm. “I’m strong as anybody.”
“I don’t mean that kind of strength.” She dashed tears from her eyes with the back of a hand. “Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”
“You want me to face up to Lon Perry. That’s it, ain’t it?”
“I didn’t say that—”
“You want Perry to kill me. Then you’ll be shut of me for good.”
“Joe, that isn’t so.” She stepped away from him. “Why don’t you be Joe Alford’s man for a change? Why don’t you—take what you want?”
She let her hands fall slowly to her sides. She waited for him. Outside, hoofs rattled against the corral fence as one of the men tried to break a horse.
The Fifth Western Novel Page 45
