He went on into the saloon and ordered a drink, mulling over possible moves. The thought returned to his mind, the thought that kept recurring. Maybe he and Reynolds were damned fools to get into this fight, yet pride would not let him back off ... pride and the chance to achieve what he wished.
In the alley back of the Emporium, Bill Canavan approached the back door. Twice he paused to look back and to listen, but he heard nothing. It was Pogue who worried him. For a moment he had thought the big man would attempt to follow him, and he'd been ready. He stepped up to the door and tapped lightly.
Footsteps sounded from within, and he heard a faint whisper of sound that could have been a gun being drawn from a scabbard. "Who's there?"
"A rider from the Pecos," Canavan said softly.
The door opened at once and Canavan slipped through the opening. The man who stood facing him with a drawn gun was plump now, and white-haired, yet the eyes were not old eyes; they were shrewd and knowing.
"Coffee?"
"Sure. And something to eat if there's anything around."
"About to eat myself." The man placed the gun on the sideboard and took the coffee pot from the stove, filling two cups as Bill Canavan dropped into a chair. He went to the stove and took the frying pan and broke eggs into it. "Who sent you?"
"An old friend of yours heard I was headed this way. He said if I needed a smart man who could give me some information or advice to look you up. And he told me what to say."
"My days on that trail are over. I've got a nice business and I like it here. I don't know what you want, but it's likely you've come to the wrong place."
"You said your days on that trail were over. Well, mine never started. This is a business trip. I am planning to locate in the Valley."
"Locate here? Well, you came for advice, and you'll get it. Get on your horse and ride out of here as fast as you can. This is a rough country for strangers and there have been too many of them around lately. Things are due to bust wide open and there will be a sight of killing before it's over."
"You're right, of course."
"And when it's over, what's left for a gun hand?
You can go on the owl-hoot ... ride the outlaw trail until somebody shoots you, or they hang you. The very man who hired you and paid you warrior's wages won't have anything to do with you once the shooting's over.
There's a revolution brewing in the Valley, and if you know anything about the history of revolutions you'll recall that as soon as the revolution is over they liquidate the revolutionaries. You take my advice and ride out of here ... now."
The older man was right, of course. To ride out would be the intelligent, sensible and safe course, but he had absolutely no intention of doing it "Scott, I didn't come here to hire on as a gun hand, although I've already had an offer from Pogue. I came in here because I've sized it up and know what it's like. This country is wide open for a good man, a strong man. There's room for me here, and I mean to take it. I want a ranch of my own, Scott, and I plan to get mine the same way Pogue, Reynolds and all the others got theirs."
"You mean with a gun?" Scott tipped the frying pan and pushed eggs onto a plate for him. "You're crazy! Pogue has at least thirty men on his range, most of them paid warriors. Reynolds has just about as many, and maybe more. And you come in here alone ... Or are you alone?"
Scott stared at him, hard-eyed. "You ain't bringin' an army in here, are you, son? There'll be killing enough without that"
"I'm alone, Scott, and I won't need any help. I'll either make it or I'll get killed. All my life, Scott, I've been fighting for existence. I've fought to protect the cattle of other men, fought for the homes of other men. I've ridden shotgun protecting bullion that belonged to other men. I've fought and worked; I've eaten dust and sweat and blood. Now I want something for myself."
Scott helped himself to some eggs and fried potatoes and sat down across the table from Canavan.
He knew just how Bill Canavan felt, for until a few years ago he had felt much that way himself.
He'd even taken the wrong route, rustling and robbing banks until suddenly he realized there was no end to it but a rope. And he had quit, sold a little place he'd owned for years, and started this store in a strange town where nobody knew him. And it had gone well. He had tended to business and stayed out of local fights and politics.
"Maybe I am too late," Canavan said, "but it seems to me a man might find a place on the side Hues and watch for the right moment and then move in.
"You see, I know how Pogue got his ranch. Vin Carter was a friend of mine and Emmett Chubb killed him. He had told me how Pogue forced his old man off his range and took over. Well, I happen to know that none of this range is legally held. It's been preempted, which gives them a claim of sorts.
Well, I've a few ideas of my own. And I'm moving in."
"Son," Scott leaned across the table, "listen to me.
Pogue's the sort of man to hire killers by the hundred if he needs them. He did force Carter off his range.
He took it by force and he has held it by force, and now he wants the whole Valley. So does Reynolds.
The Venables are the joker in the deck.
Reynolds and Pogue want the Venable place because in a way it is the key to the whole set-up ... It has the best water and some of the best pasture, but both of them are taking the Venables too lightly. It seems to me they have something up their sleeve ... or somebody has."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there's Star Levitt for one. He's no soft touch, that one! And he has some riders who seem to do more work for him than for the Venable outfit and not all of it honest work."
"Levitt a western man?"
"Could be ... probably is. Whoever he is, he knows his way around. He's a careful man and to my notion, and I've seen a lot of them, he's a dangerous man. He's the one you've got to watch in this deal, not Pogue or Reynolds."
Bill Canavan leaned back in his chair. "Those eggs sure tasted good. First I've had in six, maybe seven months. You know how it is in cattle country, all beef and beans."
"That's why I've got them chickens," Scott said.
"I told myself someday I'd have chickens and all the eggs I wanted, and I surely have them now."
Scott took up the pot and refilled their cups.
"There's something to think on, son. Most folks set their sights too high. They demand too much of life.
How many meals can you eat? How many horses can you ride? How many roofs do you have to sleep under? Let me tell you, son, the happy man is the man who is content with just what he needs ... just so he has it regular.
"Now you take me. I've got this store. I do a fair business. I live in the back of it and I've got a couple of acres of vegetables growing out back. I got me more than a hundred hens, layin' eggs like crazy.
"Down at the edge of town I've got me a friendly Mexican who raises some pigs for me.
He tends them, he keeps half, I get half.
"I eat when I feel like it, I do a little business, I set on the porch in the shade time to time, or maybe take a walk down the street and talk with my friends.
I no longer have to look over my shoulder for fear some lawman is coming up on me, or maybe some member of my own gang is planning to shoot me to have my share.
"What more do I want? Or need? I ain't eatin' the dust of a trail herd. I ain't rollin' out in the midst of the night to ride around any pesky longhorns, and I don't have to keep an eye out for the law.
"When I want side-meat, I have it. When I want eggs, I eat all I want. I go to sleep at night and I rest easy, and boy, you can do it, too. Take my advice and forget all these wild ideas. You don't stand a chance."
Canavan sipped his coffee. "You may be right, and I probably am a fool for not listening, but this is something I have to do. The trouble is ... there's a hitch. I need some money. I need a war chest."
Scott put down his cup with a bang. "Well, I'll be damned! You come into this country all primed for tr
ouble, all alone, but with no money! I'll say this for you! You've got nerve. I only hope you've got the gun savvy and the brains you'll need to back it up."
The blue eyes squinted from the leathery face, and he smiled. He was beginning to like Bill Canavan.
The nerve of the man appealed to him, and the project was one requiring imagination as well as daring.
"How much do you want?"
"A hundred dollars,"
"That all? You won't get far in this country on that."
"All I need is eating money, but along with it I want some advice."
He took a thin leather wallet from inside his coat, and from it he took a beautifully tanned piece of buckskin.
Moving the dishes aside, he spread it out on the table. It was a map.
Scott glanced at the map, then leaned forward, suddenly intent. It was drawn to scale and in amazing detail, showing every ranch, line-camp and waterhole.
Each stand of trees, each canyon or arroyo was clearly marked along with straight-line distances from one point to another, heights of land and depths of canyons. He could find nothing that was missed.
When Scott sat back in his chair, his expression was mingled respect and worry. "Son, where did you get that map?"
"Made it. Drew it myself. For three years I've talked to every cowhand or sheepherder who ever worked this country. Each one added something, and each one checked what the others had given me. You know how western men are, and most of them can describe a piece of country so you can find your way through it even if you've never been there yourself.
"As a matter of fact, I've had this country in mind for some time. When I was a youngster I knew an old buffalo hunter who trapped in these hills before he turned to killing buffalo for a living. I learned a lot from him. Then the last two or three years I've been picking up a little here, little there. I actually punched cows for a couple of outfits just because they had hands working for them who worked this country in the past "Then I ran into Vin Carter, who was born here, and he told me more than all the others. Then, while I was working in a different part of the country, Emmett Chubb rode in and killed the kid ... picked a fight and shot him down. I think Walt Pogue paid him to do it "Sure, I want some range of my own, but that's not all anymore. Vin Carter and me, we rode rough country together. He swam some rivers, fought sandstorms and stampedes, and he was a good man, too good to be murdered by the likes of Chubb.
"Before this is over, there's going to be a lot of changes, and before those changes end, I'll be sitting on a nice ranch. Then I'll get married and settle down."
Scott shook his head in amazement. "Kid, you sure do beat all! If I was twenty years younger I'd throw in with you. It's a big order, but I got an idea you're going to give it a try. You can have the hundred dollars."
"And maybe some ammunition, time to time?"
"Sure. But you'll need more than that. You've got to have a plan."
Canavan nodded agreement. "I have one, Scott, and I've already started my action. I've filed on Thousand Springs."
Scott came off his chair, his face a mask of incredulity.
"You did what?"
"I filed a claim and I've staked her out and started to prove up." Bill Canavan chuckled at Scott's amazement. "Seemed like a good idea to sort of set "em back on their heels to start. No use wastin" around."
"You've committed suicide," Scott said. "The Thousand Springs is right in the middle of Reynolds's best range. That water-hole is worth a fortune all by itself! That's what this fight is all about!"
"I know it," Canavan said. "I knew it before I took a step. I made my map, studied the country, and studied all I knew about the Valley country.
When I heard about Thousand Springs the first thing I did was check into the title. I found it was government land, so I filed a claim. Then I bought Bullhorn."
This time, astonishment was beyond the storekeeper.
"How could you buy it? Ain't that government land?"
"No, it isn't, and even Vin Carter believed it was.
I checked it out and found the ownership was with a Mexican who'd had it from a Mexican land grant. Finally located him down in the Big Bend country and bought the three hundred acres, the Bullhorn headquarters, the water-hole and the cliffs behind it And the place includes a fair chunk of the land where Pogue cuts his meadow hay."
"Well, I'll be forever damned!" Scott tapped out his pipe bowl on the hearth. "But what about Hitson Spring?"
"That's another reason why I wanted to see you,"
Canavan said quietly. "You own it."
"I do, do I? And how'd you come to think that?"
"Met an old sidewinder named Emmons. That was down Laredo way. He was pretty drunk one night down in a greasers' joint. I got him talking about this country and he had a lot to say, an' most of it made sense. Then he told me how foolish you had been to file a claim on that land when you could have bought it from the Indians for little or nothing."
Scott chuckled. "Just what I did, but nobody around here knows that."
"Then sell it to me. I'll give you my note for five thousand right now."
"Your note, is it? Son, you'd better get yourself killed. It will be cheaper to bury you than to pay up."
He tapped his pipe bowl out on the hearth again.
"Tell you what I'll do. I'll take your note for five hundred and the fun of watching what happens."
Bill Canavan pulled over a tablet that lay on the table and on the first page he wrote out a note and handed it to Scott. The old outlaw chuckled as he read it I hereby agree to pay on or before the 15th of March, 1877 to Westbrook Scott, the sum of five hundred dollars and the fun of watching what happens for the 160 acres known as Hitson Spring.
"All right, son! Sign her up! I'll get the deed, and the best of luck to you ... You'll need it"
Chapter III
When Bill Canavan had pocketed the two deeds, the old man refilled their cups.
"Know what you've done? You've laid claim on the three best sources of water in the Valley, the only three that are sure-fire all year around. And what will they do when they find out? They'll kill you, that's what,"
"Maybe they won't find out for a while. I don't plan on telling them until matters settle down a mite.
Anyway, it's a wonder one of them didn't think of it on "his own. They're all so busy trying to take land from one another."
"What about your claim stakes at Thousand Springs?"
"Buried. Iron stakes driven deep into the ground.
There's sod and grass over them."
"What about proving up?"
"You know how that spring operates? Actually, there's one great big spring back inside the mountain flowing out through the rocky face of the cliff in hundreds of tiny rivulets. Up atop that mesa there's a good stretch of land that falls into my claim, and back in the woods there was some land I could plow. I've broken that land, smoothed her out and I've put in a crop. I've got a trail to the top of the mesa and I've built a stone house up there. I'm in business, Scotty."
Scott shook his head, unbelievingly. "I'll say this for you, Canavan. You've got nerve." He got up from the table and went into the store, and when he returned he had several boxes of .44's. "You'd best take those now, but when you come around in the morning you can stock up, grub and whatever you need."
"I'll do it. Meanwhile, you keep track of what I owe and I'll settle every cent before this is over."
"Better make a cache or two," Scott suggested, "hide out an extra gun and some ammunition.
Maybe a blanket and some grub. Some place you can get to without trouble. Once they find out what you've done, you'll be on the run."
With money in his pocket Bill Canavan returned to the street. For a moment he stood in the shadows to see if he was observed, but as far as he could see the street was empty and there was no one watching.
He stepped out on the street and crossed to the Bit and Bridle.
The bartender glanced at him, then put a bott
le on the bar in front of him, and a glass. He was a short man who looked fat, but after noticing the corded forearms, bulging with muscle, Canavan decided little of it could be fat.
A couple of cowhands down the bar were talking lazily, and there was a poker game in progress at a table. Several other men sat around at tables or at benches along the wall. It was the usual crowd to be found in any cattle country saloon.
He had poured his drink and was holding it between his thumb and forefinger when the bat-wing doors behind him opened and he heard a click of heels on the floor. He knew no one here and was expecting no one, so he neither turned nor looked around. He regarded the drink for a moment, then tossed it off. He had never been what might be called a drinking man, and did not intend to drink much tonight The footsteps halted behind him, and a quick, clipped voice asked, "Are you the chap who owns that fast Appaloosa?"
He turned half around. There was no need to guess that this was Tom Venable. He was a tall, well set-up young man who was like his sister, with that imperious lift to his chin, but unlike her in his quick, decisive manner.
"I own an Appaloosa," Canavan said. "Some folks think him fast"
"My sister is outside. She wants to speak to you."
"I don't want to speak to her. You can tell her that." He glanced at the bottle, wondering if he wanted another drink.
What happened then happened so fast it caught him off balance. A hard hand grasped him by the shoulder and spun him around in a grip of iron, and he was startled by the strength in that slim hand.
Tom Venable's eyes were hot with anger.
"I said, my sister wants to speak to you."
"And I said I did not want to speak to her."
Bill Canavan spoke slowly, evenly. "Now take your hand off me, and don't ever lay a hand on me again."
Tom Venable had never backed down for any man. From the east, he had come west to the cow country. He had made a place for himself by drive, energy, decision and his own youthful strength. Yet suddenly he realized he had never met such a man as the one he faced now. As he met Canavan's level gaze, he felt something turn over inside him. It was as though he had parted the brush and looked into the eyes of a lion.
Where the Long Grass Blows (1976) Page 2
