‘Sure. But I ain’t a thief. You talk that way again an’ I’ll kick them fancy teeth down your throat.’
The man stood up shakily.
‘What happens now? You take me back to your boss and then there’s talk about a rope?’
‘No, sir, we settle this between ourselves. On account of Miss Kate.’
Pete watched the man’s face and saw the sudden panic there.
‘Miss Kate?’ he said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’
‘You mean you don’t know the name of the gal you was friskin’ around with?’
The man hesitated for a moment, at a loss, taken completely by surprise.
‘You must be out of your mind,’ he said.
‘I could put a rope around your neck,’ Pete said, ‘an’ that would sure pleasure me some. But I ain’t the hangin’ kind. They tried to put a rope around my neck too many times. I should ought to kill you plumb dead and leave you for the vultures, bucko, but I ain’t that kind either. Sittin’ here a-watchin’ you roll around I been thinkin’-like. I’m goin’ to give you a chancet. It ain’t much of one, but it’s a chancet I don’t rightly owe you. You take it, boy, or I’m a-goin’ to come after you an’ place one bullet clean atween your eyes. Hear?’
The man licked his lips and nodded.
‘Take your boots off,’ Pete ordered,
‘Now, wait a minute ...’
‘You can take ’em off an’ live or I plug you here an’ now.’
The man saw he meant it. He sat down and heaved his boots off. He looked sicker than ever now. But he showed he had some thought for other than himself when he asked: ‘You goin’ to talk about Kate?’
Pete said: ‘Don’t you even mention her name, punk.’
The man stood up. Pete went on: ‘You have your knife and the savvy your misgotten ma give you. You stay alive long enough to make tracks outa here an’ you see to it you put a heap of distance atween you and Three Creeks.’
The man said with a kind of bleak despair: ‘You should of killed me.’
‘I know,’ Pete agreed.
‘Leave me my horse.’
‘I should smile.’
‘You take that horse, that makes you a horse-thief.’
‘You’re making my heart bleed, mister,’ Pete told him. ‘You oughta be down on your knees givin’ thanks to the Almighty you ain’t had your neck stretched.’ He walked to the black horse, unlatched the saddle and heaved it off the back of the animal. Next, he unfastened the bridle and took it off. Then he gave it a cut across the rump with his quirt and sent it running into the hills. He walked back to the man and said: ‘I don’t even know your name?’
‘Harvey Dana,’ the man said without hesitation.
That stopped Pete just as a sledgehammer between the eyes might have done. The man could only be lying.
‘You funnin’ me?’ he demanded.
‘Take it or leave it,’ the man told him.
Pete looked at him long and hard.
‘I reckon I’ll take it,’ he said. He thought of what his action would have been when this fellow had the drop on him had he known he was up against Harvey Dana. He supposed he’d have sat his saddle like a good boy and just done as he was told. A reputation was a man’s strongest weapon. He added: ‘Maybe I should ought to of killed you at that.’
The man nodded.
‘That’s what I meant.’
But there wasn’t any going back. Pete’s pride wouldn’t allow him to eat his words. He had put a famous gun like Harvey Dana afoot in the hills without gun, boots or horse and that was the way it was going to be.
Pete put away his gun, walked to his horse and stepped into the saddle.
Dana said: ‘I see you, I kill you.’
Pete swallowed once with great difficulty through a dry throat.
‘Ditto repeato,’ he said, turned his horse and rode away to look for the three cows.
Chapter Four
Ed Brack had found a new interest in life. The great idea had stimulated him. He didn’t drink so much. The world around him assumed fresh color. He was seen to smile and was even heard to laugh with his men. He looked younger and there was a new spring in his step. By fall, the Storms would be finished, run out of the country, driven out by a force which Brack could never have raised on his lonesome. Every time the man thought about it, he had to laugh and slap his thigh with delight. There never had been, he felt assured, a man quite like him. Which perhaps was just as well for the world.
It took longer to find Jake Heller than Andy Grebb had anticipated. Grebb couldn’t go about the search openly out of respect for Brack’s insistence on secrecy. So he had to do the job obliquely with a word here and a word there. It wasn’t easy because Jake was thought to be panning for gold somewhere in the mighty expanse of the mountains and he wasn’t doing anything of the kind. He was finally run to earth in a little settlement in Utah which boasted three houses, two stores and three saloons. He was in one of the saloons on a titanic drunk to drown his sorrow aroused by the fact that he had failed to find gold in a creek where he had been certain of finding his fortune. He had boasted that inside a few months he would be staying at the best hotel in San Francisco fattening on the rich cream that city had to offer. Instead of which he was found lying drunk in a hole sneeringly called Paradise in the wilds of Utah.
When he had been sobered with some difficulty and packed on the back of his mule with even greater difficulty, he was brought back to Grebb’s place. He was in poor shape and, in spite of the hard trip through the mountains, still had the marks of drink on him and shook like the leaves of an aspen. Only the promise of a rich reward had enticed him this far. Even so he was resentful of the interruption to his self-inflicted suffering. He sat in Grebb’s office, smelling to high heaven, dressed in rags, eyes rheumy, and told Grebb: ‘Andy, you took a liberty. You know that? You took a real liberty with me an’ you owe me a pretty convincin’ argument to stop me bein’ real mad at you?’
Grebb gave him a large dose of bad whiskey which he tossed off like so much spring water. Grebb said: ‘I have the best argument of all—gold.’
At the word gold, Heller sat up and took notice. It was an open sesame to his mind and imagination. It was the only thing in life that could bring him to any sort of consciousness and understanding.
‘You found gold?’ he demanded and for a moment it seemed he stopped shaking.
‘No, I didn’t. But I found a man willing to stake you good. You could hunt gold for a coupla years with every damn thing you need.’
‘What do I have to do? Work?’ He said the last word with an underlining of distaste and horror that was touching.
‘You have to talk a good story.’
There had to be a catch in it. Jake looked suspicious.
‘Do I break the law?’
‘You just tell a good story.’
‘Let me hear the rest of it.’
‘That’s all I’m tellin’ you. I’ll fix for you to meet up with the feller financin’ this deal. You stick around here, get yourself in good shape. Eat three square meals a day an’ fool around with the girls a mite. It’s on the house.’
Grebb would tell him no more and Heller knew better than to press the point. The promise of food and women was good enough for him. He was a man who lived from day to day. Grebb sent word to Ed Brack and Brack sent back the details of the way in which he and the gold-hunter should meet. A week after he had reached Grebb’s place and when he had filled out a little on the good food, one fine night, Jake Heller saddled his mule and rode east. He knew this country like the back of his hand, had, in fact, hunted gold in this area before the white man had come in here with his damned cows and when a man hunted gold at the risk of losing his hair to the Ute, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho.
The place set for the meeting was Standing Rock and Jake, having the animal cunning to survive in these hills for a good many years, left his horse a fair distance short of the rendezvous and wen
t to the spot with a show of caution.
The man he met didn’t need to resort to such action. He was in the company of armed men. There were four there all told and they sat around smoking and talking under the massive prominence of the rock and they didn’t trouble to keep their voices down.
From cover, Jake considered the situation, estimated some risk could be taken for the sake of the stake promised him and walked into the open with his rifle in the crook of his arm. Jake was no slouch with that weapon and he reckoned he could get it into action faster than any man could pull a belt-gun from leather. He stopped short of the group by some twenty yards and sang out.
That was the first they saw of him. He thought they were either an incautious crowd or they were confident of their strength.
A man rose from the group and said: ‘Stay right where you’re at.’ This fellow walked toward Jake and the gold-hunter saw that he was a powerful short-legged man.
The man didn’t come up to Jake and stop, but walked on past him, saying: ‘Follow me.’
Jake was instantly on his guard. Suspicious and with his nerves strung taut, he followed the man. He was comforted slightly by the fact that the fellow walked with his back to him. When they were out of sight and sound of the other men, the short-legged man stopped and turned.
‘What’s your name?’ he demanded.
‘Jake Heller.’
‘Who sent you?’
‘My kin—Andy Grebb.’
‘Where’d he find you?’
‘Paradise, Utah.’
‘You know who I am?’
‘I don’t have an idee in Hell. Say, what is this?’
‘This is a business deal. I’m Ed Brack. You heard of me?’
Had Jake ever heard of him? Had he heard of President Lincoln or Kit Carson?
‘Sure I heard of you. Who ain’t? But how do I know you’re Brack?’
‘Ask Grebb. Now I told you my name, Heller. I won’t fool around. Cards on the table, face upwards. You know my name. So you’re in this from this minute. You cross me and you buy yourself all the trouble you ever heard of. Understand? I’m hiring you and when I hire a man, he stays hired or he stays dead.’
This was a little too much for Jake. He had been his own man for too many years. He thought about the stake at the end of this, but his independence forced him to say: ‘I ain’t never been no hired man in all my life. You have to give me a pretty good reason why I should start now.’
Brack said: ‘I’ll give you a good reason. The best there is. One thousand solid dollars’ worth of reason.’
Jake reeled a little, overcome by the magnitude of the sum, estimating at once how long that would support him while he hunted for gold, the kind of outfit he could buy himself. But there must be some snag in this. A man could earn that kind of money after a meeting like this in the moonlight in a lonely spot only by doing something pretty appalling—like killing a man.
‘What do I have to do?’ he asked.
Brack produced several objects from the pocket of his jacket. One, he put into Jake’s hand. It was rough, heavy and some of its many edges were sharply angled. It glinted softly in the moonlight.
Jake would have known it to be a nugget of gold just by touch.
‘Good Godfrey,’ he said, ‘where’d you git this ’un?’
‘No matter.’
Brack now handed Jake two more objects. They were pokes which were soft to the touch as if full of fine sand.
‘Gold?’ he asked and Brack nodded.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘And this is what I want you to do.’
He talked. He talked for some ten minutes without stopping. And Jake listened. He had never listened more carefully in his life. When Brack was through talking, Jake asked: ‘When do I git paid?’
‘I give you two hundred now. Eight hundred when I think you did your job well.’
‘Make it five hunnerd now and the same when I’m done.’
‘I don’t dicker, Heller,’
‘I allus dicker. Brack. Part of my nature.’
‘Change your nature. We won’t go into the alternative right now, it might spoil a good working relationship.’
Jake thought about that. He knew a threat when he saw one. He also knew when a man could carry one out. Brack was a man who didn’t bluff.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said.
Brack finished: ‘Just bear in mind—I have agents in Denver. You’ll stick with your bargain or you won’t ever leave the city.’
He reached into a pocket again and brought out a bundle of notes.
‘You’ll find two hundred dollars there. You don’t contact me unless there’s a real emergency. You never saw me in your life. Word of this deal gets out and you lose eight hundred dollars and maybe you lose more than that.’
Jake understood.
‘Brack,’ he said, ‘you got yourself a deal. I don’t know why the Hell you’re a-doin’ this, but one thousand dollars sure do drown a man’s curiosity.’
Brack said: ‘I’m glad to hear it. For your sake.’
Jake Heller walked off to his mule, somewhat bemused and hugging himself with a kind of ecstatic delight. All his troubles were over. With this stake, he would find gold and finding gold was the only thing worth living for.
Chapter Five
Pete Hasso’s dilemma was like a living torture to him. It was like holding a raging cougar to you with your bare hands. You couldn’t kill it and you dare not let go.
After leaving Harvey Dana on foot and horseless in the hills, he drove the three stolen cows back across the creeks onto their home range and by that time he was due at headquarters for the evening meal. Now, the crew and the family ate together in the east wing of the house where Will Storm lived with his wife and two daughters. This east wing was separated from the west, Texas fashion, by a dog-walk. In the west wing slept Pete Hasso with his partner and enemy Riley Brack. Sitting down to table meant being opposite Kate Storm and that evening Pete didn’t know how to face her.
Pete fooled around his bunk, doing this and that, delaying the moment of confrontation as long as he knew how, until Martha Storm, impatient with his absence sent Riley Brack to tell him that if he didn’t come and eat she’d throw the food away. He knew that if he didn’t make an appearance, the suspicions of the others would be aroused. Pete was noted for his appetite and Will would joke that he couldn’t afford to feed Pete and pay his wages.
As Riley stood in the doorway, Pete said: ‘I’ll be right along.’
Riley was watching him closely.
‘Is there something wrong, Pete?’ he asked.
‘Wrong?’ said Pete. ‘Why the Hell should there be somethin’ wrong?’
Riley said: ‘When there’s something wrong you don’t know why there should be something wrong. You just know it, that’s all.’
‘Well, there ain’t nothin’ wrong.’
‘You’re acting as if there’s something wrong.’
‘Go boil your fool head.’
Now, although there was some hostility between the two men because they both suspected that the other was doing better with Kate Storm, there had been forged between them some sort of a bond. They had shared danger together and Pete’s instinct to be a loner had been lessened somewhat by Riley’s good-nature and his obvious need for friendship. Riley might be the son of a rich man and in Pete’s opinion a spoiled brat, yet he realized that Riley needed him as much as he needed Riley. They didn’t live in each other’s pockets, but, at the same time, though they wrangled and even came to blows at times, they were both conscious of a sense of partnership and that they could each call on each other in a moment of need.
Riley Brack came to the conclusion that there was something so wrong that Pete couldn’t talk about it. He turned and walked back to the other half of the house and heard Pete coming behind him. When they entered the big kitchen, the family were all there, Mrs. Storm and Kate bringing food to the table. Pete murmured: ‘Evenin’, Miz Storm,’ to Martha, but
he didn’t lift his eyes and he certainly didn’t look at Kate. Will gave him a queer look. Will never said much, but he didn’t miss much either.
If Martha Storm wasn’t aware then that there was something amiss, she knew pretty soon after. The silence was enough. Both Pete Hasso and Riley Brack were men who liked to talk. As Will bluntly put it, they were young and the young ran off at the mouth ‘most all the time’. They would josh each other, flirt with the girls, have mild jokes with Martha. Tonight, there was silence. When at last Pete accidentally caught Kate’s eye, he found himself blushing like a fifteen-year-old and was quite unable to read the message there. She might have been warning or begging him to keep silent.
Melissa, with the elephantine tact of the young, came right out with what was on most of their minds.
‘What’s the matter with you two boys tonight?’ she demanded. ‘Cat gotten your tongues?’
Pete and Riley looked first at her and then each other with some alarm. The question quite took them unawares.
Riley tried to save the situation by saying: ‘Why’d you ask that, Melissy? Does a fellow have to talk all the time?’
‘I don’t know about having to talk all the time, but you two ‘most always do.’
Riley tried to make a joke of it.
‘Mrs. Storm, ma’am,’ he said, ‘Do you go along with that?’
Martha smiled.
‘You have to admit, Riley,’ she said, ‘you boys are not exactly silent.’
‘Well,’ Riley said, ‘there’s times when a man feels like talking and there’s times when he don’t. You have to admit that.’
‘Apparently,’ said Martha.
Pete Hasso was on his feet.
‘If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,’ he said.
They all looked at him and Martha said: ‘Why, surely.’ Pete left, looking at the ground. When the door opened behind him, Will said in that quiet off-hand way of his: ‘Rile, there’s somethin’ a-goin’ on here. You wanta tell me about it?’
‘Mr. Storm,’ said Riley Brack, ‘I don’t know a thing about anything. So Pete don’t feel like talking. Maybe he’s in love.’ That wasn’t the right thing to say and he knew it. They all looked at Kate. She flushed up and turned away.
Battle Fury Page 3
