by Short, Luke;
At the sound of Tip’s horse, the man at the window turned his head, glanced briefly and futilely at the horseman, and then faded back into the dark against the wall. He heard this man say to one by the door, “You better try the lobby again.” It was a low voice, drawling, but with an iron undertone of command.
Tip felt a kind of cold and distant wrath inside him, but it did not speak in a voice as loud as caution. It was none of his business, whatever this crew wanted. He went on past a store, also lighted enough for a man to read its sign: Sig’s Neutral Elite. That brought a faint smile from Tip. Beyond that store was a high board fence, and then the feed barn, proclaimed by its black and yawning arch.
Tip rode into the dark archway and dismounted, and found that he was in the midst of a group of men. They parted for him, silent, and he made his way past four saddled horses toward a lantern on the floor. By its light, a man was saddling a fifth horse. He looked briefly, unenthusiastically, at Tip and said, “Take any stall.”
Tip unsaddled, running his hand over his weary chestnut, pressing the water off his hide in dripping rivulets. He rubbed him dry with a towsack, listening. The hostler, leaving the lantern where it was, went forward leading the horse. He came back just as Tip unstrapped his thin war bag from the cantle, and did not look at Tip.
Tip listened, waiting for voices that did not come, then picked up his war bag and said to the hostler, saddling a sixth horse, “Grain him.”
“All right.”
Tip tramped down the centerway, swerving for the restless horses. Again these men, watching the street, parted for him without a word, closing their ranks behind him as he stepped out onto the boardwalk dappled with rain. Something was about to happen here, he reflected.
Far down the street a light went out, and that was all. The man at the corner of the saloon’s window did not speak as Tip passed. He seemed to be looking upstreet. At the saloon door, there was only one man now. Tip hesitated, came to a sudden decision, and put a hand on the doorknob. The man spoke immediately and courteously. “I wouldn’t go in there.”
Tip shoved the door open six inches. The light from the saloon lamp suddenly blossomed through the crack, and Tip saw the face of the man who spoke to him. It was a young face, wild and strained, the face of a boy in his teens.
Tip said quietly, “I want a drink, that’s all,” waited a moment for the kid to answer, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
He understood it now, looking at the man at the bar. This man was drunk, very drunk, and he held a six-gun in his hand. He was dressed in wet range clothes that had pooled the floor with dark spots. He was stocky, young, and square and tough-looking, with a sagging, good-humored face whose dark eyes were struggling to focus. The gun in his hand came up, halted, and was steady enough.
Tip said again, quietly, “I want a drink, that’s all.” He waited a moment, and when the man didn’t speak, Tip walked on. He went behind the bar, removed his slicker, took down a bottle of whisky, and filled a glass, all under the undecided gaze of the stranger.
Then, from the lobby door, came the iron voice he had heard before. “Buck, come here.”
The puncher whirled, pointing his gun at the oblong of dim light, and saw nothing. He laughed softly, drunkenly, to himself.
A new sound came to Tip then, the sound that in these last months he had learned to hate. It was the sound of many horses running.
The man in the lobby yelled, “Get down, Buck!”
The window glass crashed, slivering at its outer edge. A gun barrel poked through, aimed at the ceiling, and exploded. The overhead lamp whipped out. For one brief second, Tip held the whisky glass in his hand, watching the lobby door. The light there went out, too, but Buck’s unmoving figure was still framed in it. Tip whipped up his gun and in a wide, clouting arc, he aimed the barrel of it at Buck. He felt it hit, heard Buck slump to the floor, and then he melted behind the bar. A man shouted then, out on the street, and the blast of a shotgun sent a section of the saloon window jangling to the floor. Three shots hammered out from across the street, on top of the second blast from the shotgun. Its load boomed into the bar, rocking it. A wild fire of shots started to pour in from the street. By the orange gun flashes, Tip could see a mad tangle of horses out there in the mud. He heard a man yell wildly, and then the pounding of feet from the lobby. Suddenly, in the far corner of the barroom, from beside the gaping window, two guns opened up toward the street. A horse screamed, and then the whole tangle outside seemed to dissolve in the sound of running horses.
Tip lay there on the floor behind the bar, letting the silence settle around him again.
He heard a man say softly, “Buck,” and when Buck did not answer, the man stepped through the broken window. Somebody sloshed through the mud, hit the boardwalk running, and said, “Did they get him?”
“Go through the lobby and get that rider. Where’s Pate?”
“Here,” the kid answered.
“Come in here with me. Be sure before you shoot.”
Tip rose slowly, backing out from behind the bar, putting his back to the wall.
“Buck,” someone called again. Tip could see him, framed in the broken window.
“He’s all right,” Tip said quietly.
The man shot then at the direction of his voice.
Anger flicked up and died, and Tip moved stealthily along the wall, feeling his way. Suddenly he put his hand on somebody’s slicker sleeve, and the arm yanked away violently.
In a kind of blind panic Tip swung then, and he felt his fist settle in the hollow of a throat. He heard the throttled cry, the crash of a table tipping over, a body hit the floor.
A voice said from the middle of the room, “Have you got him, Cam?”
Tip said wickedly, “Damn you, I’m holding a gun on you and I can see you! I want out of here! Buck’s all right!”
There was a long pause, then the same iron voice said, “Strike a light, then.”
“Strike it yourself!” Tip said savagely. “I’ll hold my gun.”
There was indecision in the man’s immobility. He said, “If you’re a Bolling kin, you’re a dead man.”
“If I was, Buck would be dead now,” Tip said, his voice still sharp in anger.
There was another long moment of waiting, and then Tip saw the man make a move. Suddenly a match flared, and the shadows took form. The man regarding him might have been an older, harder, more disillusioned, more humorless replica of the Buck who lay at his feet. He had a craggy, bitter face that could have been chiseled out of leather-colored stone. Only his eyes, hot and wicked and ruthless, and a raw and livid scar running from temple to jaw on his right cheek seemed alive. The scar at the temple throbbed steadily.
“Put that gun down,” he said. His was the iron voice that Tip had heard before.
“Not till I’m ready,” Tip said softly.
There was a long silence, during which Tip wondered if the man would shoot when the match died. But he didn’t. He said to the boy next the bar, “Light that lamp, Pate.”
Pate struck a match and pulled down the lamp. When its glow mounted, Tip saw the man leaning over Buck. From the doorway, a lean, high-built puncher strode toward Buck, holstering a gun.
Then the older man looked up, still kneeling by Buck, and this time he did not look at Tip, but to one side of him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked meagerly.
Tip shifted his glance, and then half caught his breath. It was a girl in a dry slicker who was climbing out from the tangle of chairs. She stood erect, catching hold of the back of a chair to steady herself, and on her neck Tip could see the livid bruise made by his fist when he swung in the dark. The girl didn’t look at him, only looked at the man kneeling beside Buck.
“I was trying to bring this stranger a gun,” she said calmly, no fear in her voice. “I’ve seen this happen too many times to like it, Hagen.”
She glanced briefly at Tip. In that movement the coils of auburn hair li
ghted up in the play of the lamp shadows. Her face was pale, unnaturally so, and the lips of her wide and friendly mouth were drained of color. Only her eyes, of a cool gray, denied that she was scared and admitted that she was hurt. Her slicker, open now, revealed a blue basque, full at the breast, and a slim waist, belted with some material which held a six-gun.
Hagen Shields looked wickedly at her and then shifted his glance to Tip. “You hit him.”
“To get him down!” Tip countered harshly. “I’m the second person in this town that doesn’t like murder.”
Hagen Shields rose, the other two on either side of him. “If that’s so, I’m obliged. But obliged or not, you’ll get out of this town.”
To the tall puncher, who must have been Cam, Hagen Shields said, “Lug him out the back. Don’t come till I tell you to.” He strode out the alley door of the saloon, silent a moment, then called, “All right.”
Neither of the remaining two spoke or looked at Tip or the girl. They carried the slack figure of Buck, a welt of blood glistening on his temple, out the door into the rain. It was as if they had forgotten Tip.
Tip watched them go and then turned to the girl. “I’m sorry about that. I was a little wild, I reckon.”
The girl laughed shakily, in a low voice. “So was I. I don’t blame you.”
Tip walked over to her, bent down, and looked at her throat. She watched him with a kind of reserved suspicion in her eyes until she saw the concern in his face. She pulled her slicker collar up. “It hurts, but it’ll go away.”
“I—I didn’t know you were in the room,” Tip said humbly.
“How could you?” She looked over the room, and a weary disgust came over her face. Tip handed her out over the tangle of chairs, and followed her into the dark lobby. He waited while she lighted the lamp on the deal desk.
Only now anger was having its way with Tip. His eyes were wicked with it as he looked at the girl.
“I’m not going to like this town,” he said quietly. “What did I walk into?”
“Buck Shields’s yearly drunk,” the girl answered calmly. “The Bollings wait for it, and always make a try for him. Buck gets disgusted every so often. He was ugly enough this time to drive his family away from him. That’s when the Bollings made the try.”
“Plain murder,” Tip murmured, watching her.
The girl shrugged. “Hagen Shields would have done it to a Bolling.” Then she added quietly, “Now will you go?”
“You, too?”
The girl nodded. “It’s no threat this time, or no more than you’ve seen already. Last week they killed a whisky drummer out there in the street. He lay there for three hours, because this town is afraid. Can you understand that? Afraid to help a man!” Her eyes were dark with anger and contempt.
“But you’re not,” Tip pointed out.
“Once, no. Twice, yes. A man who stops here when he can ride around it is a fool, and you don’t look like a fool!”
Tip walked over to the desk, opened the canvas-back register, took the pen from its glass of buckshot, and wrote his name in the book. It was not a brag; it was the only way of showing this girl without arguing that he was going to stay. Putting down the pen, he looked up at her. “Do I pay you?”
“You’re going to stay?” she asked unconcernedly.
Tip nodded.
She looked at him, puzzled for the moment, then said in her quiet voice, “All right. Come along.” She led the way up the dark stairway and down the corridor to the first door. She knocked, was answered, and said, “Wait, please,” to Tip. As the door opened, he had a brief glimpse of a girl, face in hands, sitting on a chair beside a bed which held a gaunt, white-haired old man. When the girl stepped through the doorway, it was a picture that Tip would never forget. The blond girl sprang out of her chair, her face wild with fear, and said in a choked voice, “Did they get him, Lynn?”
Lynn, starting to close the door behind her, shook her head, and with a wild cry of relief the other girl was in her arms, great sobs wracking her body. The door, which Lynn had meant to close, remained open a few inches, and Tip settled slowly back against the wall. Lynn? Lynn Mayfell? Blackie Mayfell’s girl?
And above the sobbing, Tip heard her speak to the other girl. It was spoken softly, with undertones of bitterness.
“Your dad’s men will get him another time, Anna. Can’t you understand that? They’ll get him next time.” Then, “Oh, darling, I don’t mean to be cruel, but it’s true!”
A man’s voice, deep and rumbling and sick, said, “Did they wreck the place, Lynn?”
There was silence, and Tip could imagine her nodding. Then Lynn said, “There’s a man here wants a room.”
“What man?” the man asked.
“A stranger.”
“Tell him we’re full.”
“It won’t work, Uncle Dave. He knows, and he was in that fight, and he’s stubborn.”
There was a long silence, in which the sobbing died out. Then the old man said, “Ain’t seven made up? Sure. All right, show him that.”
Tip stepped away from the door, and Lynn Mayfell came out. She went down the hall, and he swung in beside her. At one of the doors, she paused and entered, striking a match on her boot. After lighting the lamp, she looked around and, satisfied, said coolly enough, “Good night.”
“No key?” Tip inquired mildly.
She looked him full in the eye, and Tip could not tell if it was malicious pleasure he saw there. “No key,” she echoed. “They don’t do any good. Nobody steals anything, because there are no guests. And when they want in your room at night, they batter the door down. At least,” she finished quietly, “they always have.”
Tip grinned faintly. “Thank you, Miss Mayfell.”
It was as if he had struck her across the face. For a moment Tip thought she was going to faint. Then she ran to the door, closed it, and leaned against it, stark fear in her face.
“Why—did you call me that?”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?” Tip asked, puzzled.
“No, no! It’s Lynn Stevens. I tell you, it’s Lynn Stevens!”
Tip walked across to her and faced her, his bony face curious.
“You’re afraid. Of what? That pack of gun hands?”
Lynn said softly, “How did you know?”
“I’m huntin’ your father’s killer, miss. So are you, aren’t you?”
“You’ve got to go!” Lynn said swiftly. “Last month a marshal came in here after the same thing. He was found dead! Don’t you see? They’ll get you!”
“And what about you?”
“They don’t suspect me. And I can do more—a thousand times more than you! Don’t you see—you’ll spoil it! Spoil everything I’ve done!”
Tip shook his head, not answering.
“Will you go?” Lynn asked.
Again Tip shook his head. A kind of terror-driven hardness crept into Lynn’s face. “If you don’t, I’ll tell them you’re a marshal!”
“Go ahead,” Tip said quietly.
She stared at him, then put her hand to mouth. “Oh, you fool, you blind, blundering fool!” she said softly. She went out, leaving Tip standing there frowning.
CHAPTER 3
Tip went to sleep thinking about what Lynn Mayfell had told him, and he woke thinking of it. Only in the morning his mind was made up. The rain still held, and thin wisps of low clouds floated over the street, riding on a raw, driving wind out of the north.
There was nobody at the desk when Tip came downstairs. A glance at the saloon revealed a middle-aged pasty-faced man lackadaisically cleaning up the wreckage of yesterday evening. He glanced sourly at Tip and didn’t speak as Tip retrieved his slicker from the bar top.
At the Oriental Café, a cubbyhole of a place run by a Chinaman, Tip wolfed down his breakfast in silence. It seemed to him that the grinning Chinaman, with his affable gibberish, was the first friendly soul he had met in Hagen. Afterward, having inquired directions, he set out in the rain, his
slicker collar up, the raw rain in his face. Across the narrow mire of a street, in mid-block, he saw the weathered sign across the front of a shabby building: Hagen Inquirer. It brought a faint smile to his face. He crossed the street, the mud sucking at his boots, and came up on the boardwalk in front of a two-story building, long and narrow. Its upper windows were barred, but it was barren of any legend on the ground-floor windows or door. This, the Chinaman said, was the courthouse.
Tip stepped inside, stomping the mud from his boots on the sill, then looked up to confront two men. One of them wore a carefully pressed black suit and he was standing. The other was seated at a roll-top desk, and on his vest was the badge of the sheriff’s office.
“Mornin’,” Tip said cheerfully.
“This is a private conversation,” Sheriff Harvey Ball said flatly. He made no move to rise and it was plainly written on his harried face that he was a hostile man by nature. That he was past middle age was evident, in spite of the luxurious black mustaches amply bisecting his face. A pair of hard shoe-button eyes under thick brows, black as crow’s wings, glared at Tip. The other man had a high-colored, squarish face as shrewd as an Indian’s.
Tip said, “I said good mornin’.”
“And I said this is a private conversation!” Sheriff Ball repeated irritably.
Tip sat down on a straight-backed chair and held his dripping Stetson between his legs. “It ain’t any more,” he said with mild truculence.
The three of them stared levelly at each other, and then Sheriff Ball said hotly, “Will you get out of here, mister?”
“No.” Tip grinned faintly, challenging them both.
It was the man in the black suit who moved first. He said, “I’ll be back later.”
“No. I’ll stop in at the bank later, Joerns.”
Joerns went out, and Tip sat there while Ball swung around to face him. “Now what do you want?” Ball said bluntly, unpleasantly.
“Help.”
“You won’t get it from me. On what?”
