Gunsmoke Justice

by Louis Trimble

  “Not for you, maybe,” Keinlan said. “But it makes things easier for Quarles.”

  Something in the tone of his voice brought Arden’s head up with a jerk. He focused his eyes carefully on the saloon owner. “What do you mean?”

  “See what Quarles would do?” Keinlan asked. “Now he can have Jordan killed and you blamed for it. If anybody was to question it, he could point out that Jordan was accusing you of trying to hurt the Split S. Or maybe he’ll have you killed and Jordan blamed. He could give the same reasons. One way or the other, you’d be done, Arden.”

  “He won’t get a chance,” Arden said hotly. “Damn him!”

  “That’s right,” Keinlan agreed. “We’ll get him.” He made a deliberate hiccoughing sound. “You and me.”

  Suspicion came back to Arden. “What you getting out of it?”

  “My half,” Keinlan said. “You take the upper end of the valley. “I’ll take this end and the town. And plenty of water.”

  Arden thought it over. He reached for the whisky bottle. “A deal!” he said. He poured himself a drink and downed it. Keinlan waited for it to hit him, and when it did Keinlan caught him as he fell forward, soddenly asleep, and dragged him to the couch.

  Smiling, Keinlan went downstairs to wait for Quarles.

  • • •

  Together Brad and Olaf went into the restaurant after leaving the sheriff’s office. It was between dinner and supper, but seeing it open reminded Brad that he had had no meal since breakfast. “Eat while we can now,” he advised Olaf. “We may get caught short for time.”

  Olaf was only too willing to eat, and they took places at the counter. Faith served them, but with none of the friendliness she had shown the day before. Brad wore his gun openly and he saw that she was looking at it.

  “There’s no teeth in the sheriff’s law any more,” he said flatly.

  Her coolness crystallized into open contempt. “So now you’re strong enough to flout an old man, too,” she said. Her voice sharpened. “I was in back of the office just a little while ago and heard what you tried to do.” The contempt roughened, riding over him. “You can’t be satisfied with causing June Grant trouble before she’s ready; you try to cause it in town, too.”

  Brad studied her for a quiet moment. Her eyes met his and she did not look away. Whatever this was that had a grip on her, he saw that she believed in it completely.

  “Arden’s been talking to you,” he said in a tone of sudden understanding.

  Faith tossed her head. “He has. This morning.”

  “Ah,” Brad said, “that’s your mistake, then.”

  “Mistake?” she cried. “Is it a mistake to know that you’re trying to use Dave and June to settle your grudge against Quarles? And trying to use my uncle for the same purpose?”

  Brad could not fathom this girl. It seemed that there was no pleasing her. And yet, in a way, he could not put the blame on her. Arden was a smooth man with his tongue, and he had been shrewd enough to turn to his own advantage the fact that he had been caught at Quarles’ place. Brad had liked Faith McFee since their first meeting, and it dug into him to see her taken in by Arden.

  “When I came here,” he said to her now, “I had no fight with Quarles. I have reason enough now, but it was through you and your uncle I got into this. June Grant asked for help, and we’re trying to give it to her.” He met her gaze with cold anger showing in his eyes. “Do you think we came back just for Ike Quarles? I could ride in and shoot him and go if that was all.”

  As he looked at her, her eyes faltered and slid away. She was an honest person with herself as a rule and she could not deny that these things he said were true. Yet she had to put her trust in something — and Arden had said otherwise.

  “Dave told me — ” she began.

  Brad got up and laid a coin on the counter, his lips clamped tight to hold back the scathing words waiting there. At the door he turned. “If the sheriff wants to press his law, I’ll be at the One-Shot.”

  She picked up the plates. “Do your own taunting,” she said coldly. When the door had slammed she walked away, dropping the plates in a deep pan. She stood with her hands in the soapy water, feeling the throb of anger slowly diminishing at her temples.

  “Brutal,” she whispered. But was his way the wrong way? Without consciously trying, she found herself making a comparison between Brad and Dave Arden. The result brought a flush to her cheeks, and with a sudden tightening of her full mouth she tore her mind from the subject. An idea came, lingering until she was forced to recognize it. She would have to talk to Dave again. This morning he had been hurried and quick. Perhaps there was more than she had sensed in his words.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ON THE SHORT RIDE to the One-Shot, Brad studied the town and found it quiet. Those few people on the street were marked in their disinterest toward him and Olaf. It would have amused him before, but now he realized that in this neutrality there was meaning. His return was understood as a challenge to Quarles, and there were none who dared side openly with one or the other.

  “They’ll wait until they can smell the wind,” he said to Olaf, “and then they’ll run to get behind it.”

  He did not see Keinlan, who had watched him from the time he had first come until now. If he had, it would not have worried him; he knew nothing of the man.

  It was Doc Stebbins Brad sought, and he located him in his office at the rear of the saloon. He was finishing a sleep and there was puffiness on his usually cheerful face. But there was none of the friendliness that Brad had expected.

  “Professional visit or otherwise?” the Doc asked.

  “You wanted to see me,” Brad reminded him.

  “You took long enough,” Doc Stebbins answered. He shook himself like a dog coming out of water. “You took too long.”

  Brad dropped to the edge of an ancient sofa and shaped a cigarette. “So,” he said when it was finished, “there’s no help here, either.”

  “You’re rushing things,” the Doc said irritably.

  He had heard, too, Brad realized. He said, “Five weeks — six? However many I’ve been here.” His voice was level. “Split S hay is dried out. Split S beef has been rustled. I found three hundred prime steers today. I’m hurrying things.”

  “Split S isn’t ready to fight,” the Doc objected. “What have you got? June’s three hands are useless. That leaves Arden and you two. What is that against Quarles?”

  Brad was weary of hearing this refrain, of seeing the way these people were acting. He would have given his help had they not asked for it. The fact that they did ask made him think they should give some in return. But one hint that it was time to move and they all crawled toward their holes. Too often he had seen apathy or fear let a man like Quarles get a grip on a whole county.

  “Arden was with Quarles last night,” Brad said. This was a thing he had not intended to tell, but since Arden had already said it himself, he saw no reason to keep quiet any longer.

  “Faith told me,” the Doc said. “Arden spoke to her this morning. He was trying to deal with Quarles. He was close to getting somewhere before you busted it up.”

  “That’s the way of it,” Brad agreed, but his smile was bitter and caustic. “Did he also say he had been to Quarles more than the once? Olaf saw him riding there this spring.”

  Doc Stebbins rubbed his hand over a bristly chin. “That could mean a number of things,” he said thoughtfully.

  Brad realized impatiently that the Doc was not even going to try to understand. He stood up, “I’ll get no help here, I see.”

  “Not until June is ready,” Doc Stebbins said. “We can’t risk turning Quarles on her yet. If it’s not already too late,” he added heavily.

  “You won’t help, but you’ll hinder me,” Brad said.

  “Which is saying well help Quarles,” the Doc rejoined heatedly. His face was beginning to redden wtih anger. “We’ll not do that, either.”

  “Then,” Brad asked, “why is
Quarles trying to get Parker out of here?” If he could get nothing else, he might get those last bits of information he had not yet gathered.

  “He’s smart. And,” Doc Stebbins said, “before Parker came, Quarles was courting June Grant.” Even in anger there was a quick note in his voice. “Or courting her grassland. She wasn’t encouraging him but, even so, he got the idea that Parker was at fault. It hurt his pride.”

  Brad could understand more about Ike Quarles now. “His pride is that deep, then?”

  “That deep,” the Doc agreed.

  Brad went to the door. “One more thing and then you can go back to your sleeping. Where does Quarles come when he’s in town?”

  “The Sawhorse,” Doc Stebbins answered. As the door opened he added, “So now you — ”

  “Think what you like,” Brad retorted, and left. With Olaf following in silence, he rode to the Sawhorse, tied in front, and went inside.

  It was a dim place, musty with the smell of stale beer and of men who worked more than they washed. Ike Quarles was standing at the bar, drinking beer and talking to a thin man Brad did not know. The few loafers in the room silenced their talk, and Quarles turned to see who had come in.

  Brad’s voice was quiet but loud enough to carry. “I moved your beef out of Pine Canyon today,” he told Quarles. “I put Split S stock in.”

  Quarles stood very still. The fingers wrapped around his beer glass grew white with his effort at control. The tall man beside him moved quietly aside and went around behind the bar.

  “And I’m going up to homestead that meadow now,” Brad went on. His tone was flat but the taunt in his words was obvious.

  Quarles’ breathing was heavy. His big, flabby body stirred as he moved a step forward. Then he stepped back and stood still again. “You can come here with a gun and talk like that,” he said.

  “Wear yours next time,” Brad answered. “MeFee won’t stop you.” He turned, pushing open the batwing doors, and stepped to the board walk. Anger was still prodding him. He knew the feeling and he knew, too, the danger in the recklessness such anger always brought. At the moment his indignation was no greater with Quarles than with the people of the town.

  As they rode back toward the Split S, however, he began to work it over in his mind. In a measure he could understand the townspeople. He could not agree with them, and his contempt was not lessened even though he saw their position plainly enough. Had he been a man of less determination, he would have given up the desire that brought him here and ridden on. But no matter how McFee acted, no matter how any of them acted, he had promised to help June Grant, and he intended to finish what he had started. He had never been a man to turn off a trail once he had begun to follow it.

  It was for that reason he had first decided to go through with the homesteading plan. Since talking with Faith and the Doc he had found other, more immediate reasons. He had offered a challenge openly to Quarles. If it did not draw the man out, the town and the valley would know soon enough, and Quarles would be the one to walk softly.

  Quarles would know this, too, Brad realized, and there would be little waiting now before the Double Q was ordered to hit him.

  At the Split S, Brad found no one but June Grant. He spoke plainly, as he had the day before. “This morning we moved your beef into Pine Canyon,” he told her. “There were three hundred head at Biddle’s.”

  She seemed bewildered and uncertain, and Brad knew that Arden had got to her, too. “You’re afraid that Quarles will come,” he said.

  “I’m sick of waiting,” she said. “But–”

  “But,” he finished for her, “you have to trust me or Arden. It can’t be both any more.”

  “I’ve known Dave for two years,” she said. There was pleading in her voice, and indecision as well.

  “And me for maybe a month,” he said. “We’ll ride now.”

  She put out a hand. “Please. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I do,” Brad said. “I’m going to homestead that meadow where Quarles has his water. I already told him, so he’ll waste himself on me instead of coming here.”

  “You’re doing it to keep him away from here?”

  “Partly,” Brad answered. “The rest is for myself. I want the land.”

  She looked at him as if only the last part of what he had said registered with her. “Oh.”

  Brad went out and hitched the team to the wagon, tying their saddle horses behind. He and Olaf were starting down the road when June Grant came out. He said, “I’d be obliged if you’d tell Parker I’d like to see him.”

  “I will,” she said. The indecision was still with her.

  “If,” he added, “we’re all still alive.” Tipping his hat, he started the team again.

  It was growing late when he finally got them through the forest and up to Olafs old cabin. He saw that Newt had been shrewd enough to leave it standing to give the impression Brad and Olaf had ridden out. The pack horse had been taken, Brad supposed, to Double Q or had been destroyed. At the moment it made no difference; there were other things to be concerned with.

  Getting down, Brad went inside and found the cabin completely empty. It was as he had expected. They had cleaned out everything. He took a lantern from the supplies in the wagon, and with its light walked to where he had first started shooting at Newt. He found what he sought nearly buried in forest duff. It was his bone-handled .44, and the familiar weight on his leg was a good feeling.

  “We’ll drive this stuff as close to the meadow as we can,” he told Olaf, “and pack it in the rest of the way.”

  There was still a little light when they left the trees, but it was all used up long before they had finished the job. They had to leave the wagon a good quarter of a mile from the meadow and, using the team as pack horses, move their goods in that way. With the last of the daylight Brad found a ledge on the east wall enclosing the meadow, and he chose this place for a camp. It was not too good but a shallow overhang offered some protection and it was up out of the soggy bottom.

  He arranged their supplies in front of the overhang in the manner of a low wall. The guns and ammunition he put where they could be reached easily. Olaf cut firewood while he finished the task, and then they ate a quick meal. Brad had put out the fire as soon as the meal was cooked and they sat in the dark, listening to the water sounds from the meadow below.

  “You get some sleep,” he told Olaf. “We’ll take turns watching.”

  “Yah,” Olaf said stolidly, and crawled into his blankets at the back of the overhang.

  This waiting was a thing Brad did not like, yet he saw no way around it. Without a force of men he could do no good attacking the Double Q and that, without open provocation, was not his way had he the men. He could only draw Quarles out and strike and draw him out again. Sooner or later, he knew, Quarles would grow too weak to fight — or he would win quickly by the sheer weight of numbers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DAVE ARDEN awoke with a raging thirst. It took him a little while to realize where he was, and longer to stand on his feet without dizziness overcoming him. He wanted to lie down again, to soak up more sleep, but the thirst was too strong, and he started down the stairs for the bar.

  He had nearly reached the bottom when he heard Brad Jordan’s level, cold voice and Quarles’ reply. Arden stopped, drawing back so he would not be seen, and listened. He was still there after Jordan left. He wanted that drink, but he had no desire to run into Quarles. Not right now.

  Cursing under his breath, he dragged himself back up the stairs and down the hall. Finally he reached the outside. With an effort he slicked up at the horse pump in the yard and made his way across the street to the restaurant. It was late for suppertime and there were only two men waiting for their meal. With a surly grunt to them, he took his usual seat at the far end of the counter.

  Faith came over to him as soon as she had waited on the two men. “Give me some water,” Arden said hoarsely.

  Silently she brought h
im a glass of water. After a moment’s study of him, she went away and returned with a full pitcher. She set it in front of him.

  “That’s not necessary!” he said resentfully. He gulped the glass of water and started to pour another. She could not help noticing that his hand shook until the mouth of the pitcher chattered against the edge of the glass.

  “It was my joke,” she said, still quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked up, caught her expression, and lowered his eyes again. There was nothing in him but fire from the liquor. He was a fool for having come in here.

  “Go in the back room and lie down,” she suggested.

  “I’m all right. Let me alone,” he said in a low, angry voice.

  “I’ve never seen you like this before,” she remarked wonderingly.

  “It doesn’t happen often,” he retorted. “Let me alone, can’t you?”

  Her patience stretched thin and snapped. “Yes,” she answered shortly, “I can.” She walked away to serve some other men who had come in, leaving Arden to brood before the pitcher of water. He tried to work up a cigarette, but his fingers trembled too much, and he threw the paper savagely to the floor. Without speaking, Faith brought him a meal and went away again.

  He ate it because there was nothing else to do unless he left the restaurant, and he lacked the energy for that. But after it was down he felt better; the fire inside him began to go, and with a second cup of coffee he managed to roll a cigarette. He was still there, smoking moodily, when the last of the men cleared out, leaving them alone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. She merely looked coldly at him, and he forced the warm smile to his lips. “Faith, I — ” Be humble, he thought. Be humble as hell. It had worked before, more times than he could count. He depended on it to work again.

  “A man is always one way or another,” she said at last. “I’ll have to get used to that.” She brought him another cup of coffee. He touched her hand gently, but she did not smile as she usually did when he touched her. Still, she was no longer cold.