by Elmer Kelton
“What is it you want, Tillman? The sheriff and I have always been fair men. We’ll try to do anything you want, so long as it’s honest and just.”
With his good hand Scott Tillman thoughtfully rubbed his jaw. “Well, there’s one way I might be able to talk to the boys. If I could show them a written resignation from the two of you, and told them you weren’t ever coming back, there’s just a chance they might let you go.”
“Resign?” There was a note of outrage in the pudgy jurist’s flabby face. But his bluff crumbled and his shoulders sagged. “All right. We’ll sign.”
He hadn’t even looked at the sheriff. But it was clear that there wouldn’t be any argument from the stringy lawman.
In satisfaction Scott leaned against the courthouse and watched the deposed sheriff and judge spur their horses into a stiff trot and disappear over the hill.
“We’ll call another election,” he said. “And there won’t be enough votes left in High Land to keep us from getting some honest government for a change.”
From down toward the riverbank he heard a sudden stir. Then half a dozen cowboys came riding up to the courthouse. Between them sagged another rider. Scott heard Nell Owen’s muffled exclamation as her hands came up in front of her mouth. Scott’s heart took a sudden glad leap.
“Curly,” he breathed. “Curly Kirkendall!”
“We caught him riding in across the river,” a cowboy spoke. “He said he wanted to talk to you.”
Curly Kirkendall looked half dead as he eased down out of the saddle and leaned weakly against his horse. Scott grasped his hand.
“We heard the shooting last night and went back, Curly,” he said. “But we couldn’t find you. We thought you were dead.”
Curly’s eyes rested upon Nell Owen. They softened. “You went back for me?” She nodded, and he smiled weakly.
Inside the courthouse, after a drink to clear his head, Curly told his story. As he spoke, his eyes were on the girl, a bright fondness in them.
“When Clive Bannock rode in yesterday, we walked out and met him like we didn’t know there was anything wrong. He didn’t say a word. He just pulled his gun, and his men opened fire on us.
“Bill and Shorty fell in the first blast. They nicked me, but I managed to get back in the dugout. We stood them off till dark. By then there weren’t but three of us left. Shug Gatlin was pretty hard hit.
“We tried to slip out of there in the dark. Shug and I made it, but they killed Wilkes. We were close enough to hear them when they busted into the dugout. Bannock roared like a lion when he didn’t find you, Scott. They searched through the dark but couldn’t see us. Finally they rode off toward the Slash B. But I heard Bannock say he’d find you all right, come morning.
“We headed out afoot, trying to get to the Lazy D, but Shug never made it. He died before we was halfway there. I finally got there, but you were already gone.
“Mrs. Dixon fed me. I was there when Bannock rode in, looking for you. She’s a real woman, that Mrs. Dixon. She hid me and then stood there with a gun under her sleeve while they searched the house out for you. I would’ve killed Bannock right there, if I’d ever got a chance to get close to him.”
His tired face twisted in hatred. “There was only one good thing about the whole business, Scott. I got Bryce Fancher. I saw him fall.” He added gravely. “Clive Bannock won’t be long in getting here. I met a good many of the people you ran out of town. The first one of them that runs into Bannock, he’ll come to get you, Scott.”
Scott nodded. “I know. That’s why we’re waiting.”
It was sundown when the wait ended. A cowboy came splashing across the river and spurring up the dirt street to the courthouse.
“He’s coming, Scott. I counted twelve with him.”
Scott’s mouth hardened into a grim, colorless line. “All right, Dick,” he said, turning to Coleridge. “Spread out like I told you.”
The cowboys split off into two groups and fanned out away from the courthouse into two long, gun-bristling skirmish lines. The head of each line was near the river, and both lines ended at the adobe courthouse.
Clive Bannock’s men hit the river and forged across it without hesitating. Then, on the town side, Bannock raised his hand for his men to stop. He looked at the stern lines of horsemen who faced him.
At the distance Scott could not see the man’s face. But he knew what would be in its heavy features—stolidness, hatred, a grim determination.
Bannock hesitated for only a moment. Then he raised his hand and dropped it in a forward arc, motioning his men on. Sitting up in his saddle, straight as a rifle barrel, he came riding in between the two lines of armed men who formed a deadly lane about him. There was apprehension on the faces of the men who followed him, but there was nothing in Bannock’s face, nothing but a black hatred.
Twenty paces from the courthouse door, he reined up. In hostility he glanced around him and back of him at the cow outfits.
“My men are out of it,” he said loudly enough for all to hear. “I got no quarrel with anybody except one man. Scott Tillman! I want you to come out!”
Slowly the cowboys began to pull back. Bannock’s men pulled away, too. There was no fight in them now, not after the sight of the cowboys who outnumbered them so badly.
“Tillman,” Clive Bannock called again, “this is just between me and you, nobody else.”
He sat there on his horse, his face dark and heavy, his manner like that of a black-robed judge passing down the sentence of death.
“Everything I’ve ever tried to do, it’s been you that stopped it, Tillman. It was you that broke my leg and put this lameness on me. It was you that stopped me when I tried to make my ranch bigger. It was you that killed my son. Now it’s going to be either you or me. I want you to come out, Tillman, and face me.”
Despair sank deeply into Scott Tillman. Somehow he had known it would be like this. It had had to be. He tried to lift his right hand, but it was no use. His bullet-torn shoulder was heavy as lead, and the fingers hardly moved. With his left hand he reached across and drew his gun. He thumbed the hammer and raised the pistol experimentally. The left hand was shaky and uncertain. He knew it would fail him, but he knew there could be no other way. He took a step toward the door.
Nell Owen rushed in front of him, her eyes brimming. “Scott,” she cried, “I’ve never begged anybody for anything in my life. But I’m begging you—don’t go out there.”
Despairing, he drew her to him. “Do you know any other way?”
There was no answer, no answer except the wracking sobs that came from deep within her as she held tightly to him. Gently he pushed her back.
Curly Kirkendall grabbed his arm. “If you won’t think about yourself, Scott, think about her,” he said, pointing his chin toward the girl. “Let me face him! I’ve got as much to hate him for as you have—a whole lot more.”
Scott smiled weakly, shaking his head. “Watch out for Nell, will you, Curly?”
Then he moved out onto the wide stone step, the gun in his left hand. His heart thumped dully within him. He tried to force back the fear which struggled in him, the fear that choked him and brought a tremor to the futile hand which gripped the gun.
He stepped down. Everything seemed to melt away from in front of him, and he saw nothing but Bannock’s eyes, the iron-hard eyes that gazed at him in hatred.
Scott heard the footfall behind him. Too late he turned around and felt the gun jerked out of his hand. He grabbed at it and saw the hard fist which drove at his chin. He sprawled out in the sand and lay there, trying to push himself up on his elbow.
He heard Curly’s voice like a coil of barbed wire. “It’s not a crippled arm you’re facing now, Bannock. It’s me, Curly Kirkendall. You tried to get me blamed for it when you killed Jock Classen. You burned out my place last night and killed five of the best men I ever had. Now here you are, ready to kill a man who isn’t able to fight for himself. But you’re facing me, now, Bannock. Ki
ll me, if you can.”
Clive Bannock’s arm flashed up with lightning speed, the same kind of speed Fletch Bannock had had. His gun belched flame before Curly’s did. Curly buckled, the breath gusting out of him. He fired once as he fell, and Bannock jerked. Bannock gripped the saddle horn to steady himself, and arched the gun downward once again.
Doubled in pain on the ground, Curly brought up his gun with both hands. The guns thundered together. Bannock slumped forward over the neck of his plunging horse, and the pistol slipped from his fingers as he tried desperately for a hold on the mane. Then he tumbled to the ground and lay crumpled in a heap, a handful of the horse’s mane gripped tight in his dead fist.
Scott was on his feet as Nell Owen and half a dozen ranch owners burst out of the door. Scott knelt beside Curly. His heart swelling in his throat, he tried to lift Curly with his good hand.
“Quick,” he cried, “somebody help me carry him inside.”
In pain Curly said, “No, Scott, don’t move me.” He struggled hard for breath. Nell Owen knelt beside the young outlaw, lifting his head gently into her lap.
Scott found it hard to speak. “You’re a fool, Curly.”
A thin smile broke across Curly’s knotted-up face. “Always was, Scott. Always was.”
He coughed. “I think I’ve found the end of that blind canyon you’ve always been talking about, Scott.”
With a terrible effort Curly lifted his hand and placed it on Nell Owen’s arm. He raised his eyes to hers. “Take care of her, Scott. She’s one in a million.”
Scott tried to answer, but he couldn’t. Then there wasn’t any use, for Curly wouldn’t hear …
Under the broad noonday sun, the gentle wind of the buffalo plains, stirring in their faces, Scott Tillman and Nell Owen reined up at the head of the JO canyon and looked down upon what had been the ranch headquarters.
The corrals were there, but the timber which had been snaked down from the hills for the building of more pens had been piled up and burned. The picket shack was nothing but a heap of cold, gray ashes, rapidly being whipped away by the constant wind. Here and there the improvements that had been built by sweat and strain and muscled backs lay scattered and broken by vengeful hands.
Scott glanced at the girl and saw her momentarily harden in anger.
“A pretty bad mess, isn’t it?” he asked her.
She nodded. The anger left her, a healthy determination taking its place. “But we’ll build it back, better than it ever was. We’ll build the corrals first, because we’ll have lots of cattle to brand, Scott.”
She swung to the ground, and he dismounted with her. She led her horse along toward the charred ruins of the house.
“We’ll build the house back, only this time we’ll build it of stone. We’ll build it so it can grow as we need it, Scott. And we’ll build it strong, so it’ll be here for our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren to see.”
Smiling, Scott took hold of her arm. “Are you proposing to me, Nell?”
Her face colored in realization of what she had said. Then she smiled too. “Well, so I was. What do you say?”
He pulled her toward him, and she came with quick eagerness. The prairie wind caught his answer and carried it along to be lost down the silent, green canyon.
BULLETS FROM THE PAST
Big Andy Webb looked regretfully at the old doctor who stood just inside the front door of the saddle shop. Straightening his tall frame, he laid aside the bridle he had been making and rubbed his hands on trousers that had been worn out long ago.
“I hate to keep puttin’ you off like this, Doc, but I haven’t got a thing to pay you with.”
The young saddlemaker glanced quickly at his little son, a sandy-haired youngster who sat on a bench, tongue on his upper lip, while he laboriously platted a quirt.
“You know how I stand with the bank, now that old Eli has come out and took it over. Next week Jimmy and I won’t even have this shop, the way it looks now.”
Doc Brooks nodded. “Sure, Andy, this drouth’s been hard on everybody.” He blinked away sand in his eyes, blown there by a dust devil on the dry, powdery street.
“But I’ve got a chance to buy some new medical equipment and set up a better office. It might let me save a few lives that would be lost otherwise. Like your wife’s was, Andy. If I could collect even a third of the bills owed me I could have what I need, Andy,” the wrinkled old doctor went on. “If things lighten up for you, I’d sure appreciate you payin’ what you can.” Doc Brooks hated asking for his money, but circumstances forced him to.
When the old man had hobbled back out onto the rickety plank sidewalk, Big Andy went to work on the bridle again. A dry, hot breeze brought him the listless music of a tinny piano in the saloon next door. His gaze kept returning fondly to little Jimmy’s freckled face, clean, honest, and eager. It hadn’t been so many years since Andy had been Jimmy’s size. He was glad his son would never go through the same kind of boyhood. Andy had grown up motherless in outlaw camps up and down the Texas Panhandle. His father’s name had been blazed on reward notices and dodgers all over the country. Andy was only fifteen when his dad’s horse had trotted into camp alone, saddle empty but smeared with blood.
The orphan had become a skilled cowboy, but with other people’s cows. Then, when Andy was only twenty, a man had died in a blaze of gunfire. It wasn’t Andy’s gun, but Andy had gotten the blame. He had headed south in the dark of the moon.
Always expert with leather, he had become a harness and saddle maker. Eventually he had learned to love a girl and had married her. Fine craftsmanship had made his new name known all over West Texas. Then Alice had died, and the drouth had begun. Rains had failed. Hot winds had turned grassland into powder, breaking ranchmen first, then townsmen in turn.
Now here Andy was, hardly thirty, awaiting the foreclosure that would put him and his eight-year-old out on the trail. He was wistfully watching the youngster smooth out the quirt when a shadow fell across the floor. It was a big shadow, a round one.
“Better get a lot of trinkets ready for the rodeo crowd that’s coming in tomorrow, Webb.”
Hot, angry blood rose in Andy as he recognized the insolent voice of banker Eli Fuller. Defiantly he stood up and faced the sharp Easterner who had come to profit from the drouth.
“Get out of here, Fuller,” he gritted, “or I’ll cram that cigar down your fat throat!”
Little Jimmy stood up in alarm, then darted out the door.
“Now, don’t get mad, Webb,” the banker mocked. “I just wanted to see how my shop is getting along.”
Andy bristled. “It ain’t your shop yet. Now drag your fat carcass out of here!”
Fuller smiled condescendingly, his teeth bearing down on a long cigar which stuck up out of his mouth at a jaunty angle. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Webb. If you’d be reasonable, I might even keep you on as an employee.”
Outlaw heat surged through Big Andy. He lunged at the banker and drove a hard fist into the man’s soft belly. The cigar dropped from Fuller’s thick lips and rolled down his bulging vest, showering ashes and fire. The banker held up his soft hands defensively as Andy grabbed his collar.
Then a young woman burst through the door. “Stop it, Andy. For heaven’s sake, stop it!”
Big Andy had doubled his fist again, but he slowly loosed it. The woman’s alarmed blue eyes were opened wide. She gripped Andy’s arms.
“Let him go, Andy,” she pleaded. “Things are bad enough without you getting yourself in jail.”
The fury in him began to subside. “All right, Mary,” he said. “But Fuller better not come back in here.”
The banker slowly backed toward the door, face flushed and belly bouncing a little over his low-slung belt.
“You won’t be so independent next week, Webb,” Fuller threatened, a tremor in his voice. “If you stay in this town, I’ll see that you starve!”
An angry, helpless curse in his throat, Andy stepped forward. Mar
y Wilson gripped his arms again. Excitement had put scarlet in the young woman’s cheeks and given her blue eyes a deep color. Her oval face seemed beautiful as she looked up at him pleadingly.
“My dad’s in the same shape with the bank as you are, Andy,” she said. “But even Jimmy knows you can’t afford to fight Fuller. He came after me. And it’s certainly a good thing he did.”
Any other time Andy would have grinned. “He always knows right where to go, doesn’t he?”
She smiled faintly. “Even if I am his schoolteacher, Jimmy likes me.”
Big Andy put his hands on her slender shoulders. A new, tender warmth rose in him. “So does his dad.”
* * *
There was something familiar about the tall, rugged man who strode into the shop and stood squinting at Andy. The saddlemaker frowned unbelievingly at the scarred face, then murmured darkly: “Rocky! Rocky Mertzon!”
The tall man smiled thinly, a black gap showing between his tobacco-stained teeth. “Howdy, Andy. Haven’t seen you since you left the Panhandle on a fast horse.” He extended a weather-roughened hand. Andy hesitated a moment, then took it with cool civility.
“Thought you were in the pen,” Andy ventured carefully.
“I was, a long time ago,” Mertzon said, a smile twisting his wind-whipped face. “But I got tired of it.”
Big Andy watched suspiciously as Mertzon’s darting black eyes took in the shop. “I was hopin’ I’d never see any of that old bunch again, Rocky. I’m sorry you found me.”
Mertzon grinned crookedly. “Nice setup you got here, Andy. Too bad you’re goin’ to lose it. I’ve heard all about it. And I been figgerin’ out a way to help you and me both at the same time.”
Andy paused uncertainly. He picked up his son’s unfinished quirt, then put it down on the bench while Mertzon built a cigarette.
“Those old days are behind me, Rocky. If it’s somethin’ crooked, I don’t want any part of it.”
The outlaw frowned. “You ain’t in much shape to bargain. Look here, Andy, you got a bank on one side of you and a saloon on the other. A perfect setup. With the rodeo that starts tomorrow, there’s apt to be a lot of money layin’ around in that bank. And with the crowd that’ll be here, the sheriff ain’t goin’ to pay much attention to one stranger.”
