The Fifth Western Novel

by Walter A. Tompkins

  “Bert,” Elkhart said, “who put you in office?”

  “You did, Byrd, but—”

  “Then I’m entitled to some consideration for my support.”

  Lynden got to his feet, holding out his thin hands imploringly. “Byrd, I swear to God I ain’t seen Charlie Snow.”

  “If you’re lying to me, so help me I’ll run you clear to Chihuahua!” Elkhart took a threatening step toward Lynden. “Charlie Snow was supposed to bring in Baldy Renson’s body. Now where is it?”

  Lynden looked completely bewildered. “There’s no body in the shed out back of the hotel. You looked there yourself. And I haven’t seen Charlie Snow in a year.”

  “Last time I saw Snow he had Renson’s body roped to a horse—” Elkhart stiffened as something clicked at the back of his mind. “By God,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “You figure maybe Snow double-crossed you?” Lynden said hopefully, as if this would direct Elkhart’s wrath to other quarters.

  “I just remembered something. Years back he threatened to get even with me—” Elkhart broke off, clenching his fists.

  “Even with you for what, Byrd?”

  “When I first came here there were some Indians camped at Squaw Creek and I…well, how the hell did I know one of ’em was a woman?”

  “So that’s how the creek got its name,” Lynden murmured, and then wisely shut up.

  “Is there a law, Bert,” Elkhart asked with deceptive mildness, “that says you can’t hang a squawman to a tall tree?”

  He started for the door, but Lynden managed to get there first and block him. “Now looky here, Byrd,” the sheriff said with unaccustomed fervor, “you can’t go around hanging people.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Elkhart said. He caught the sheriff by a shoulder and tried to push him away from the door. Lynden held his ground. Elkhart stepped back, resting a hand at his gun.

  “You really bracing me, Bert?”

  Lynden shook his head. He was scared and he showed it. But also there was a new defiance in him, defiance born of desperation.

  “I’ll play your game, and you know it,” he said. “But I also got my own hide to look out for. You’ve stirred up too big a mess with that damned fence of yours, Byrd.”

  “You know something you haven’t told me?”

  Lynden mopped his wet forehead. “Just before I left the county seat I got a letter from the governor’s office. Seems somebody wrote him about your fence. Claimed you blocked off a legal right-of-way through the mountains. The governor, he told me to look into it.”

  Elkhart scowled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I figured you’d work something out with that basin crowd and I wouldn’t have to.”

  “You’re getting damn ethical all of a sudden,” Elkhart said heavily. “And in the line of duty I demand that you swear out a warrant for Clay Janner. For murder.”

  The sheriff spread his hands. “You show me Baldy Renson’s body and I’ll do it, Byrd. But I’m not going to make a fool of myself—” Elkhart shoved him roughly away from the door.

  “You’ll have a body,” he said. “I’ll bring in Baldy Renson. Or I’ll bring in Charlie Snow and he’ll talk or I’ll burn the hide off his Indian feet.”

  Elkhart stormed out of the jail office, walked down to Fierro’s and shouted at his men. Lon Perry and three Arrow riders headed out of town for the high mountains where Charlie Snow maintained his camp. Russ Hagen, getting his arm bandaged at the doctor’s office, watched them ride out.

  * * * *

  It was dark when Clay arrived in town. From the shelter of the Mercantile he gave the short business block a close scrutiny, but he saw no sign of the Arrow crowd. Satisfied, he racked his horse and got the proprietor of the Mercantile to keep his place open until he could purchase a new shirt, pants and underwear. After changing his clothes and discarding the garments torn and bloodied in the fight in the canyon, he went to Fierro’s.

  There were six men in the saloon and from the way they looked at his bruised face Clay knew they had heard the story.

  Fierro set out a bottle and gave one of his spike mustaches a tug. “It is good that you are alive, señor.”

  Clay poured a drink and said in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “Nina Alford’s a good woman. You remember that.”

  Fierro nodded. “I remember.”

  “Then remember this too. I’ll kill the man who says different.” Clay had his drink and the straight whisky put fire through his veins. He stood there, staring down at the wet bar top. Tobacco smoke clouded against the reflectors. He listened to the murmur of voices, the clatter of a wagon in the street outside. Was this the way he was to spend the rest of his days? Alone. In a saloon with a glass in his hand. In a strange town, eyeing the girls, moving on. Talking tough, acting like a big bad curly wolf to let the locals know they couldn’t get away with anything.

  Hell. He was tired drifting, tired of talking tough, tired of convincing people in each new town that he was a little better than anyone around with a gun. Because it could end only one way. He would either face up to a better man or someone would shoot him in the back. You pushed and bullied your way just so long. He’d seen some of the good ones, the real good ones, and their blood was as red as the next man’s and flowed as easily.

  He caught a whiff of lilac and thought of Kate. Her warm smile, how she had looked in the dress. The curtains at the bedroom windows. Sheets on the bed. The good food and her sitting across from him at the table….

  A hand touched his arm. “Hello, Mister.”

  He turned and saw a girl smiling up at him. She had dark hair like Kate’s, but the hair had no luster, and she was big through the hips.

  He stared at her bare shoulders, the blouse cut revealingly low, the heavy flared skirt. Her hand tightened on his arm. “Come on, handsome.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Me—with this face?”

  “I like your face.”

  Clay grunted in disgust. Fierro yelled something in Spanish to the girl. She shrugged and went outside.

  “Where can I find a cattle buyer named Ruskin?” Clay asked Fierro.

  He found Ed Ruskin smoking an evening cigar on the porch of the New Mexico Hotel. A short, well-fed man in a brown suit, Ruskin seemed delighted to see Clay.

  After they shook hands, Clay took a chair on the porch and accepted a cigar. Ruskin said, “I need beef, Janner. I hear you’ve got some.”

  “Eight hundred head, more or less.”

  Ruskin brushed cigar ash off his vest. “I heard you and Alford had more than that.” He sounded disappointed.

  “The herd’s split. I’m selling my half.”

  Ruskin chuckled. “That’s the trouble with partnerships. They usually break up over a pretty woman. I hear that Nina Alford is a looker.” He nudged Clay in the ribs. “Reckon you ought to know, eh?”

  Clay said, “Too bad you weren’t in the saloon a minute ago. I let it be known that I’d kill the man who talked against Mrs. Alford.”

  Ruskin seemed to sink down into his leather-padded chair. “I didn’t mean anything. I—oh, you know how those stories get around.”

  “Just so we understand each other,” Clay snapped.

  He shifted in his chair and the movement sent a twinge of pain along his ribs. “You’ll take delivery of my herd here in Reeder Wells?”

  “Now, wait a minute. Not so fast, Janner.”

  “I want to sell out and head for new territory.”

  Ruskin spread his pink hands. “I’ve got no crew for driving,” he explained. “Only my shipping crew that will come in with the cars at Las Rosas in two weeks. I’ll have to take delivery there. Now if we can look over your herd and talk business—” Clay gripped the arms of his chair, thinking of Elkhart’s forty-mile fence. Well, if Ruskin wouldn’t take delivery here he�
��d have to make a drive himself. “Make an offer for the herd,” he said.

  “Sight unseen?” Ruskin shook his head. “That’s no way to do business.”

  “I’m not making a drive to Las Rosas unless I know what to expect.”

  Ruskin drew thoughtfully on his cigar. Darkness lay over the town and the moon was beginning to show a yellow glow on the peaks of the Sabers. “I came here expecting to do business with Elkhart,” Ruskin said heavily. “But he’s signed with somebody else. How much will your beef weigh out a head?”

  “Eight hundred pounds, maybe.”

  “They won’t average that if you drive ’em across the Sink,” Ruskin said shrewdly.

  “Who said I was going across the Sink?”

  Ruskin sat up straighter in his chair. “You going through Elkhart’s fence?”

  Clay stared at him in the darkness. “How much if the herd averages out eight hundred?”

  “Twenty dollars.”

  “You’re a bandit,” Clay said softly.

  “Twenty-five, but not one red cent more.”

  Clay leaned close. “This country’s gone to hell. It’s a dry year and like you say Elkhart’s signed with another outfit. And the basin ranchers are squirming on the hook, some wanting to sell out to Elkhart or pay toll or try driving across the Sink.” He threw his cigar over the porch rail. “There won’t be much beef coming out of here this season. But mine will be there.” Clay paused a moment, then added, “You need beef to fulfill your contracts. How about it?”

  It had been a gamble, but as Clay watched Ruskin’s shadowed face he knew he had won. “Twenty-seven-fifty a head. And I’ll buy a drink to seal the bargain.”

  The cattle buyer started to hoist himself out of his chair, then seemed to freeze. Clay jerked around to see what had caught his attention. Russ Hagen, his right arm heavily bandaged and resting in a sling, came slowly up the steps of the hotel porch.

  Clay got out of his chair. He eased farther back into the shadows. Hagen seemed to ignore him.

  Ruskin stood up. “You’re one of Elkhart’s men,” the cattle buyer said. “I saw you with him today. Now if Elkhart’s sent you to make trouble, you forget it. I buy beef where I like—”

  Hagen laughed. He extended his right hand a little in the sling. It was thickly covered with several layers of bandage. “Me make trouble with this arm? Hell, I just got a message. My boss said to tell you—”

  Ordinarily, Clay’s wits would have been sharper. But he was so deadly tired and his head still throbbed from the beating in the canyon. When Hagen first appeared he had been on his guard. But because Hagen showed no interest in him, patently ignoring him, he had relaxed. And that had been his mistake.

  Hagen had broken off speaking to Ruskin. He turned to Clay and pointed the bandaged hand at him. “Your luck’s runnin’ out of a leaky bucket, Janner!”

  Even as Hagen spoke Clay realized the man’s treacherous intent. He dived for the porch floor. Flame and explosion erupted from the bandaged hand. Two bullets ripped across the back of the padded chair he had been standing behind a split second ago.

  In a desperate spasm of motion, Clay doubled up and rolled across the porch. Another bullet slashed into the flooring an inch from his head. Somebody was yelling from inside the hotel. A woman started to scream. And in that moment Clay got his gun out and struggled to his knees.

  In the flare of a lamp above the hotel door he saw Hagen swinging the flaming bandages to cover him.

  Hagen was clenching his teeth, screaming from the pain of the burning cloth set afire by the powder. But the scream had rage in it too, rage and the resolve to finish what he had started.

  Before he could trigger the revolver into Clay’s face, Clay shot him. The bullet struck Hagen in the stomach, and as the big body started to bend, Clay’s second bullet found hard bone in the chest. Hagen crashed through the porch rail to the walk below.

  Men streamed out of the hotel. Fierro’s cantina doors erupted and a crowd gathered fast.

  Ruskin climbed shakily to his feet. The dive he had taken at the first shot had smashed his cigar against his lips but he still clenched the butt in his teeth. “My God,” he muttered, and spat out the cigar. “I thought he had you, Janner. How did you do it?”

  Numbly Clay clumped down to the walk. He got Hagen by the shoulder and rolled him over. He bent low and pulled aside the smouldering bandages. Hagen’s fingers were still wrapped around a short-barreled pistol.

  Clay got to his feet and said to the crowd, “The older the trick, the better it works. Because a man forgets.”

  Juan Fierro crossed himself.

  Clay looked up at the porch. Dimly he made out the figure of Ruskin, surrounded by other guests of the hotel.

  “Tell the sheriff how it happened,” he said. “And remember, I’ll see you in Las Rosas.”

  He got his horse and rode away from the hotel. But from a corner of his eye he caught sight of Sheriff Lynden hurrying from the jail office to the scene of the shooting.

  CHAPTER 18

  For two days Clay and his men sweated under the broiling sun to complete the gather. With Sam Lennox and two other hands it meant four riders to push, nearly eight hundred steers northward. Clay couldn’t thank Sam Lennox enough for riding with Kate and saving him from Elkhart and his men. Lennox just shrugged it off, telling Clay to watch his step. Joe Alford was still drunk, still talking trouble. But so far the redhead had not visited the holding grounds, and Clay was thankful for that. He had enough on his mind without tangling with Joe Alford. His main purpose now was to get out of New Mexico.

  As he drove stubborn Chihuahuas out of the brush with the end of a saddle rope, he told himself again and again that this country had been a jinx to him. Both the country and the people in it. But no matter how he tried, he always felt a wrench when he thought of Kate.

  After supper on the third night, Sam Lennox fell to telling some of the stories he’d heard about this new fencing material known as bobwire. “I hear a fella up north tried to make a corral of the stuff,” the black-bearded rider confided, “but some of his hosses spooked and two of ’em got hung up on the wire and cut ’emselves to pieces.”

  Lennox spat tobacco juice into the fire and wiped his beard on the back of his hand. “Funny thing. They say if a mule gets hung up in bobwire he’ll stay put till somebody gets him loose. But not a hoss.”

  “Which only shows that mules have more sense than a lot of humans, myself included,” Clay growled. And considering all the grief he’d experienced since he let Joe Alford talk him into coming here, he meant it.

  When he rolled up in his blankets the night seemed to close in on him. He heard the restless herd, the soothing voices of the first trick guards. He felt edgy, and any foreign sound caused him to sit up and reach for his gun. But there was no sign of Elkhart or his men and this puzzled him. Surely by this time the rancher knew he intended taking the herd to Las Rosas, and would be out to stop him. For spite, if for no other reason.

  He tried to sleep, but as always, the memory of Kate French crowded into his mind. He felt more alone than at any other time in his life.

  The next day they completed the gather. Just as they were about to start pushing the herd north, Clay caught sight of a dust cloud behind them. Elkhart, he thought, and drew his rifle and jacked in a shell. If there was trouble he meant to kill Elkhart and be done with it.

  But instead of the Arrow crowd it was Kate French, riding point on a herd of about five hundred head. She came spurring up, a slim figure in denims and a man’s shirt. Something tightened in Clay and he rode to meet her.

  She regarded him levelly when they drew rein. “I’d like company on the drive to Las Rosas,” she said. “Hope you won’t mind if I tag along.”

  Her words caught him by surprise and for a moment he could think of nothing to say. She had nerve, this girl, an
d strength. It showed in her wide-spaced eyes, the good bone in her face, her firm full-lipped mouth. She showed no friendliness however. She acted as if she meant to treat this as strictly business.

  “I’m not driving across the Sink,” he told her.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  He gave her a black scowl. “You’d go through Elkhart’s fence with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the girl who didn’t want trouble,” he reminded her. “Who wanted to play the game safe. Even if it meant ruin.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” she said crisply, and lifted a hand to signal her men to hold her herd so they wouldn’t mix with the Chihuahuas.

  “I won’t let you do it, Kate. Too much risk.”

  “I’ve seen trouble before in this country.”

  “And it killed your brother.”

  She bowed her dark head. “You don’t have to remind me.” She looked up. “I guess until men like Elkhart are put in their place we’ll always need a man like my brother. Or a man like you.”

  Suddenly he felt warm and relaxed. “I’m glad you’re still not mad.”

  “Why should I be mad?” She sounded indifferent. “You’re fiddle-foot. You always will be. No woman could ever hold you and she’d be a fool to try.” She reined her mount away from his. “Give me the signal when you’re ready to start the drive. I’ll trail along—” And then Sam Lennox’s shout drowned her out.

  “Watch it, Clay! Joe Alford!”

  Clay looked around, tense, and saw that Joe Alford had come up, the sounds of his approach hidden by the restless cattle. Alford drew rein a few feet away. He dismounted and put a hand to his horse to maintain his balance. He was red-eyed and a stubble of red whiskers blurred his jawline. He slapped his horse away and said thickly, “Get down, Clay.”

  A quick dryness parched Clay’s throat. He swung down carefully.

  “You’re drunk, Joe,” he said, trying to sound scornful. “Go home and tell Nina to get some black coffee into you. Then come back, if you’re still set on it.”

  “You said the other day I got no guts. Maybe not. But I got the guts to face up to you. Pull that gun, Clay.”