Gunsmoke Justice

by Louis Trimble

  Biddle and Quarles realized its value, too, that was plain. Off to one side and a short distance in from the mouth was a line shack, set above the high-water mark of the creek. Smoke rose indolently in the still air, indicating the presence of at least one person.

  “We go?” Olaf wanted to know, nodding toward the shack.

  “It’s not time yet for trouble,” Brad said, reining around. “I got other things to see first.”

  He followed a ridge trail that he judged would bring him north to the end of Sawhorse Valley. He rode with caution, since to his right lay Quarles’ graze and Quarles’ men. To the left, he caught a glimpse now and then of the jumbled mass of sage hills and rock canyons that sloped gradually toward the Columbia River. The Sawhorse was an isolated pocket on the edge of the desert, and with the railroad being built not too far away from the south gap, Brad could see its worth.

  When he reached the northernmost limits of the ridge trail where a high wall of rock forced him eastward, he could look back and see the whole valley spread out below. The patches of hay meadow were like specks of green on a brown carpet, the road and its branches white threads that had been laid in a neat pattern.

  “There’s room for fifty,” he said in a burst of anger. “But one gets rich and forty-nine starve.” He studied it gloomily. “Look at it. Look at the families men could support on that land, Olaf.” He sucked the tang of pine and leaf mold into his nostrils. “Timber and water and flats for grazing and hay to keep cattle fat.”

  He reined his horse around, and Olaf followed, contented just to be near despite the roughness of the ride.

  Brad found what he was hunting before too long. He had dropped nearly to the valley floor, and now he had to work back up again. He came to the reservoir that accident had created for Quarles. Some water seeped over the jumble of boulders and trees that jammed the entrance to the deep, narrow canyon, but not enough water to do the river below much good, except when Quarles wanted to release it. It was easy to trace the water flow on up now, and Brad followed it to a great swampy meadow. Here two creeks came in, angling from either side, and both flowing strongly. They nearly filled the meadow, he saw, and seeped into the ground out of sight, later to re-form as the Sawhorse River.

  It was no different from a hundred other river sources that he had seen, but it was the first one he had found so low in the hills that a man could take advantage of it as Quarles had.

  This, he decided, was where Quarles and Biddle had filed their water rights. A channel had been cut across the meadow, catching a large percentage of the water before it went underground, and draining it through a cut in the canyon. Brad could hear the steady roar of a falls, and he followed the marshy ground until he could climb above it and look down on what Quarles had engineered.

  The channel led the water from the canyon and over the brink of a drop to another canyon a good hundred feet below. Here it collected, straightening out and running down over rocks and brush, seeping into the earth so that its runoff was slowed until it oozed into the reservoir down below.

  “He just stores it and uses it when he wants it,” Brad marveled. “What gets loose is not enough to do anyone else much good down below.”

  A territorial or a federal court could stop this without much trouble. But nature had never waited on the slow, ponderous movements of man’s laws. Hay would not stand still in its dying while a court battle was fought. And without hay June Grant would have to sell most of her stock or see them starve through the winter.

  These things piled up in Brad’s thoughts, and he had a new respect for Ike Quarles. The man was shrewd and clever, and Brad doubted if he had yet openly broken any law that could touch him. Quarles was a power here, but he wore no gun in McFee’s town. Yet Brad knew McFee alone had no strength to stop Quarles if he chose to exert his force.

  It added up to new ideas for Brad and gave him some measure of the man he was to deal with. He rode on, eastward and curving south, mulling it over, seeking a way to turn this knowledge to his own use.

  The trail was long and slow, and it was past dinnertime when they came to the first spread on the east slope of the valley. A man came from the rear door of the small, solid house as they stopped. He had a friendly, open face, ruddy from sun and weather. He regarded Olaf and Brad with frank curiosity. Brad recognized him as one of the men who had helped Jim Parker from the One-Shot the day before. He introduced himself as Coe.

  “You’re the notorious Jordan,” he said in a pleasant voice. “Light down and eat.”

  “Obliged,” Brad said. And for a moment his hopes rose that this man might be of some help.

  But once inside the roomy kitchen and introduced to the plump, heat-reddened wife of Coe, those hopes slid quickly back out of sight. There were two children, the oldest a boy of twelve or so; and an old man bent and twisted with years of living on the range. If this was what Coe had, he wouldn’t be a man to chance losing it.

  “You run a nice place,” Brad commented when the small talk had died. Though the family was through with their meal, Mrs. Coe found food enough to heap two plates and set them before Brad and Olaf.

  “Small,” Coe said, “but the more a man has, the more grief he has.”

  Brad nodded agreement. “I see you got a fine stand of hay,” he said. “You don’t depend on the Sawhorse water?”

  Coe’s glance was quick and sharp, and the smile was gone from his eyes. “If I did, I’d have no hay,” he said. “No, I was lucky. I got the only dependable creek on the east side, and when Parker snowed us the new hay, I decided to try it.” He waved a hand vaguely southward. “I can run three times the stock my neighbors can.”

  “They don’t object?” Brad asked.

  Coe’s smile returned, but it was a different one now. “We’re satisfied over here.”

  Brad let it drop for the time being, but after he was through eating and a decent time of visiting had passed, he rose and, with Coe and Olaf, returned to the yard.

  “Looking for a job?” Coe asked.

  “We’re riding for the Split S,” Brad said.

  Coe nodded slowly. “There’s no help from this side, friend. We take what we have and thank God on Sundays. We’ll wait it out over here.”

  “You think Quarles will stop once he’s got the west side of the valley?” Brad asked quietly.

  “No,” Coe said honestly, “a man like that never stops. Not until he’s played out his string. But his way is slow. Parker has already talked of filing suit for the water. It’ll do them no good over there, but hell be hamstrung before he gets a chance at us.”

  “Ah,” Brad said, “that’s bad reasoning.” He mounted his palomino and settled in the saddle. He paused to roll his after-dinner cigarette. “He lies near to you now. If they stop him from going south, he’ll come east. If he can’t have all that water, he’ll take what he can get, and this, too. He’s the kind that would take the end of the meat if he couldn’t get the side.”

  Coe’s expression showed he had never considered this before. “I’m not big enough,” he said. “It’s a pleasant life we have, and I’ll try to keep it so.”

  Brad turned his horse for the road. “Quarles can see your hay from his veranda,” he remarked, and led the way out of the yard.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DAVE ARDEN put his horse behind the Sawhorse Saloon and went inside by the rear door. At the top of the stairs he followed the route Biddle had taken earlier that morning and went into the room that overlooked the street.

  Ike Quarles was there, in conversation with the tall, slatbuilt Keinlan seated at a desk. Arden thumbed his hat back from his yellow hair and jerked his head at Keinlan.

  “Blow, Keinlan,” Quarles said. The tall man got up and, without looking at Arden, walked from the room. Arden took a seat on the sofa and rolled himself a cigarette.

  Quarles said, “Well?”

  “Jordan went to work for June this morning.”

  “She’s going to fight, then?”
<
br />   Arden drew deeply on his cigarette and let the smoke come out in a slow cloud. “That’s what he was hired for. He’s off checking boundaries now.”

  “What does that mean to me?”

  Arden was a cautious man in some ways, but he knew when the time for carefulness was at an end. “He’ll see Pine Canyon. I told him it was Grant graze before. He might want to get it back for Split S.”

  “He’ll play hell,” Quarles said. He stirred and went to the chair where the other man had been sitting. There was a humidor of cigars on the top of the desk, and he chose one, leaning back to light it. “There’s three men in the line shack all the time.”

  “Jordan don’t look like the kind to let three men stop him if he wants something,” Arden remarked. He watched Quarles narrowly, waiting for a flash of expression that would tell him he had struck the right note. “We’re not ready to move yet, but I can’t hold him long.”

  Quarles savored the cigar as if this was no concern at all to him. “What if he does put Grant beef back on it? It won’t be there long.”

  “That’s your affair then. Yours and Biddle’s,” Arden said. “Give that kind an inch and he’ll take a mile — ten miles.” He looked away. “I can order him to stay away, but there’s no good reason why I should.”

  He was watching Quarles again and saw the flicker in the fat man’s eyes. “Except he might get killed.”

  “And you wouldn’t want that?” Arden asked softly.

  “I wouldn’t want to be connected with it just yet.” Quarles laid the cigar on the edge of a copper plate. “I’m within the law. I intend to stay that way as long as I can.”

  He wanted to be a big man, Arden knew. He wanted to have the respect of people as well as power over them. It was a natural enough want. He had craved it for himself a long while.

  “Just thought I’d warn you,” he told Quarles. I’ll do what I can to’ keep him quiet.” He pulled a heavy silver watch from his pocket and studied it. He wanted to see Faith before she got too busy in dinner preparations at the restaurant. He got up.

  Pulling down his hat, he started out the door. Quarles watched him, an odd smile forming on his heavy mouth.

  When the door had shut and Arden’s footsteps faded out, Quarles went to the window and looked down into the street. In a few minutes he saw Arden come back with his horse and tie it before the restaurant door. He went to the hall.

  “Keinlan!” he bawled.

  The tall man came back in and took his place again at the desk. “If you like my cigars so well, buy yourself a box,” he said.

  “You’ll be glad to furnish me with cigars for life when we’re done,” Quarles told him. He took a turn about the room, his hands clasped behind his back, and came to a stop before the desk.

  “Arden’s acting edgy,” he said. The blank look on Keinlan’s face irritated him, and he made a gesture of impatience. “Arden is mighty anxious to get rid of this Jordan.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Not that anxious. Not so quick. I want you to find out why.”

  “How?”

  “The same way you find out other things. Get Arden drunk.” Quarles’ tones were sharp. “I want to know, that’s all.”

  “I’ll see,” Keinlan said cautiously.

  “Arden might have some ideas of his own,” Quarles said. “I think he’s working for me. I want to know if he thinks so, too.” He finished his cigar, dropped the butt on the copper plate, and lay down on the sofa. “Now be quiet. I want to sleep.”

  Keinlan sat silent for some time, staring at a stain on the bare board floor just beyond the desk. “By God,” he muttered after a while, “who does know what Arden might be doing on his own?”

  Quarles made no answer. He was breathing deeply and steadily, his massive chest and stomach rising and falling in a slow, regular rhythm. Keinlan got up and went out, not bothering to be quiet about it.

  • • •

  When Arden went in, the restaurant was empty except for a lone man drinking coffee. He was the gambler from the Sawhorse, and Arden nodded to him as he went to the far end of the counter. He took a stool, and when Faith came out he offered her his warm smile.

  She was not responsive but brought him a cup of coffee and set the sugar and cream before him. They did not speak until the gambler left, and then Arden said:

  “Something bothering you?”

  Her smile was forced.

  “Him?” he asked, indicating the man who had gone out. “You so ashamed of the way we feel that you hide it before other people?”

  He was always putting her on the defensive, Faith thought, and she shook her head. “Just upset, I guess, Dave. About June.” His look demanded further explanation, and she rushed on, not wanting to tell him of the true weight on her mind. “She was in yesterday and she’s worried.”

  “So am I,” Arden said. “Don’t you think we’re doing all we can?” He saw that his roughness had pushed her a little too far. She was a spirited woman, and he could sense when he had ruffled her more than she would stand. Rising, he went to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

  “I’m worried, too, Faith,” he said soothingly. “But we’ve got two new men to work with now. That helps.”

  “You’ve seen him then?”

  “Who, Jordan?” He stepped back from her. “He went to work for us today.”

  Faith probed him, hoping to find out what she wanted to know. “And you agree to his way of doing things?”

  Arden’s quick mind understood what was worrying her. She had seen Jordan and realized the potential danger of his pushing them into a fight before they were ready. He saw, too, the opportunity in this.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t agree. He’s in too big a hurry.”

  “He’s a fighter,” Faith said.

  Arden caught her up. “And I’m not. That’s what you mean?”

  “I didn’t think you were,” Faith said. She spoke honestly, questioning aloud. “But how can I know? How much do I know about you, Dave? Two years is a short time.”

  “Long enough when you know you’re in love,” he said.

  His charm reached out and touched her. She tried to draw back from it; she wanted to think clearly now, to explain herself. But he was close, and she could feel his smile as tender as a kiss.

  “Love is so many things,” she said haltingly. “Just how do you feel about — about June’s troubles? I don’t really know. And you know everything about me.”

  Arden said, “June’s troubles are my troubles.” He saw that it was no answer, and added, “I’m glad for Jordan’s help, but he’s a hurrying kind of man, and we aren’t ready yet for hurry. I only hope he’ll keep out of trouble long enough to be of some use to us. Is that answer enough, Faith?”

  There was his smile again, hopeful and a little pleading now, asking her not to force him into a sudden decision that he might regret, asking her to let him use his own judgment. The smile was like strong words in her mind.

  Her fingers reached out and traced a path down his cheek. “That’ll do. It’s answer enough,” she said. Drawing back, she picked up his coffee cup and went to refill it. She was glad when the door slammed and the first of the early eaters came in for his meal. The need for hurry now gave her an excuse to postpone her worrying.

  And with others around it was somehow easier to be with Dave. When they were alone, she often felt a vague sense of discomfort, as if his charm lay between them instead of drawing them together. When she did want to think, to analyze, it was always there. She fought against this. Once you were married to a man, you were alone with him a good deal of the time. Wanting other people around was no way to be.

  Arden stayed on, eating when the dinner rush was about over, and lingering over more coffee. There were questions he wanted to ask about Jordan, hoping Faith or McFee had learned more about the man, but as yet he had had no opportunity.

  He tested Faith’s mood carefully when the restaurant had emptied, and he felt her wi
thdrawal. Realizing that this was no time to probe her on the subject of Jordan, he gave her a fleeting kiss and left.

  He went first to the sheriff’s office and laid his gun on the desk. “Like to forget this,” he said amiably.

  McFee took it, grunting. His glance at Arden was curious.

  Arden looked coolly back at the old man. He said, “Jordan’s working for us, and Faith has no cause to worry. I think maybe I can keep him cool until we’re ready.”

  “See that you do,” McFee said shortly. “June Grant’s in no position to give Quarles an excuse to jump on her right now.”

  Leaving the sheriff, Arden walked to the mercantile and consulted Eph Myers about the supplies that had been ordered. They should be in before a week was up, he was told, along with the mower parts he asked for. Arden was not perturbed by the slowness of delivery. Freight shipments here were a hit-and-miss proposition, often depending on Myers’ going and getting the things he sold. If a man wanted things in a hurry, Myers always said, he’d better leave Sawhorse Valley and move closer to the sources of supply.

  Arden paused on the board walk outside. He felt a growing irritation at Quarles. He had come today actually to see Quarles, using the talk with Myers only as an excuse. But he had got little satisfaction and no specific orders. Putting his plan into operation without coordination from Quarles was a thing he hesitated to do. For the present, he thought, it was best to work wholly with the other man. Later, when the end was closer, he could chance stepping out on his own.

  Even so, he decided, it would be a good things to check on Pine Canyon and work out his plan to use it. He was not satisfied, but it was the best he could do, knowing Quarles was not a man to be rushed. He mounted his horse and turned toward the edge of the Split S graze.