Battle Fury

by Matt Chisholm

  He got a grip on himself and tried to think.

  Saul Hoddick expressed Will’s thoughts: ‘they’re plumb on your land, Will. Maybe we can’t stop ’em diggin’ further north, but, Hell, this is your claim.’

  Will knew it and that was what rankled. Even when the remote law was on your side, how did you move on this number of men?

  But he had to act and he had to act now.

  He wished to God Mart and Joe were there.

  ‘You men from the other outfits, you ain’t in this,’ he said. ‘Lazy S saddles up.’

  Meredith said: ‘What kind of talk is that, Miz Storm? We’re all in this together. Hell, next thing you know they’ll be swarmin’ over our places.’

  Saul Hoddick said: ‘He’s right, Will.’

  ‘All right,’ Will said. ‘But everybody go careful. This situation is dynamite.’

  Martha came out of the house.

  ‘Will,’ she said, ‘what do you aim to do?’

  ‘Do?’ he said. ‘Why, I’m a-goin’ over there, make a little show of force and talk with ’em.’

  ‘No shooting?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  She folded her arms and he saw that obstinate look come on her face that made his blood run cold. A scene with Martha would just about round off a terrible day.

  ‘Have you stopped to consider,’ she said, ‘that those men over yonder are not doing anybody any harm?’

  ‘Maybe not now. But if a few more come in they’ll scare the cattle off the grass.’

  ‘They also eat cattle.’

  ‘So they steal ’em.’

  ‘Not if you’re willing to sell.’

  Will didn’t want this to go any further in front of the other men. He was starting to feel humiliated. Although he was usually a mild and even humble man, he had a lot of pride stored away inside him.

  ‘Wife,’ he said, coldly, ‘if I promise to give your suggestion full consideration, would you do me the favor of goin’ back in the house and tend your cookin’ or the sick man we have in there or somethin’.’

  She gave him a long hard look that said if he didn’t do what he promised there would be a bad time coming for him. She marched back into the house and left the men looking at each other.

  ‘It ain’t fittin’,’ Saul said modestly, ‘to come atween a man an’ his lady-wife, Will, an’ right this minute there ain’t nothin’ further from my mind. But there’s a heap of sense in what Mrs. Storm says.’

  ‘Them bastards is on my land, Saul.’

  ‘An’ you have your cows on public land, but nobody but Ed Brack is fightin’ you for it.’

  ‘Give ’em inch an’ they’ll take a mile.’

  ‘Rent ’em an inch, Will.’ Saul chewed lugubriously, his large mustache heaving up and down. ‘Take a percentage.’

  Will looked around at the others. He had a horrible feeling he was on the brink of making a fool of himself. But maybe there was some sense in what Martha said—if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. If Ed Brack had caused these men to come flooding in here, the laugh could be on him.

  ‘Wa-al,’ he said, ‘wa-al...’

  Nobody said anything. They just watched him. He was very conscious that several of these men might die for him if he made the wrong decision.

  Finally, he said: ‘Show of force an’ talk. We’ll see what comes out of it.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Ed Brack was drinking.

  There was nothing unusual in that. What was unusual was the fact that he was drinking because he felt good. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt better. He had the Storms on the run. His imagination ran away with him. He expanded in the presence of Mike Summers his new foreman, matching the hard-drinking Irishman drink for drink and telling him the Storms wouldn’t last through the winter. He and Mike sat in the office, feet up, faces sweating from the drink they had consumed.

  After his last foreman, who had robbed him blind and then headed for the Mexican border, Mike was refreshing. He was a big expanding man with a ruddy complexion and apparently little fear of his new boss. He was, every inch of him confirmed, a two-fisted, red-blooded, one hundred per cent man. He was good with a rope, knew cows and horses from the ground up and, men said, a good hand with a gun. All of which suited Brack fine.

  ‘Boss,’ Mike was saying, ‘I gotta hand it to you. I surely do. You got them bastards on the run an’ no mistake. If we don’t winter our cows on Three Creeks, I’m a Dutchman. Only trouble is—what do we do about them diggers then?’

  That was something that hadn’t occurred to Brack and it stopped him in his tracks. He tried to be off-hand about it.

  ‘We’ll face that when we come to it, I guess. Diggers ain’t like them Storms. They ain’t organized. I reckon between us we can think of something to spook ’em, eh, Mike?’

  The Irishman laughed.

  ‘Sure thing, boss.’

  He liked it with Brack. The rancher was a man after his own heart. He went for what he wanted and he didn’t like to have anything in the way. Summers was the same kind of man—the only difference, he told himself, was that he was younger, stronger and, he suspected, smarter. Brack would be his stepping stone to success.

  They each had another drink. Brack started to reminisce about his successes in business, with women, racing horses. You name it, Brack had done it better than any other man living. Summers listened, not saying too much, just feeding his boss with the right word here and there to keep the flow going and to convince Brack that he was a pretty smart operator.

  Brack had just got to the point where he had cornered the cattle-market in Ellsworth and courted a beautiful actress with phenomenal success when they heard the staccato beat of horse’s hoofs on hard ground. Summers got himself to his feet and walked out onto the stoop. The sound of the approaching horseman brought a couple of the hands from the bunkhouse. Summer’s saw the dim form of the rider and beast emerge from the gloom of the evening. He stopped at the bunkhouse, then came on toward the big house. As he came closer, Summers saw that it was a man astride a mule. Halting, the man said: ‘You Mr. Brack?’

  ‘No,’ said Summers, ‘what do you want of him? Who are you?’

  ‘I got news from the diggin’s. It don’t matter who I am.’

  ‘Light an’ come on in,’ Summers said.

  The stranger stepped down from the mule. When he came within the light of the room, the foreman saw that he was dressed in the mud-marked clothes of a miner. He was bearded and his hands were grimed with dirt.

  Ed Brack looked at the newcomer with a grin.

  ‘News from the diggin’s, huh?’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

  The man stood eyeing the whiskey and hoping he’d be offered a drink. Whiskey was pretty short down there on the creeks.

  ‘Yeah, sure, Mr. Brack,’ he said. ‘I got news. The boys is now working the creeks right on Storm land.’

  Ed Brack cried: ‘D’you hear that, Mike? Whata I tell you? Have a drink, man.’

  He thrust the bottle at the man. There was no spare glass, so the fellow raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply.

  ‘That sure tasted good,’ he said breathlessly when he was through. Mike Summers took the bottle from him and placed it on the desk in case he should get the idea he could have another.

  ‘But that ain’t all, Mr. Brack,’ the man went on.

  Brack took the glass from his lips and looked enquiring.

  ‘What more?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I reckon you ain’t goin’ to be best pleased, Mr. Brack, sir. No, sir, you ain’t goin’ to be best pleased a-tall.’

  Brack glared.

  ‘Spit it out,’ he said.

  ‘Will Storm kinda turned the situation to his own advantage, as you might say.’

  Something died inside Ed Brack.

  ‘What did he do?’ he demanded savagely.

  ‘He made a deal with the diggers. Today he did it. Went an’ talked with them. Very reasonable.’

/>   ‘Very reasonable!’ Brack cried with disgust as if the word reasonable was obscene. ‘Tell it, man. For crissake don’t stand there. Tell it.’

  ‘Why he done a deal with ’em, Mr. Brack. I told you, you wasn’t goin’ to be best pleased.’

  Brack was on his feet, fists clenched.

  ‘Did a deal with ’em? What kinda deal?’

  ‘He’s goin’ shares with the boys that’s on his land an’ he’s sellin’ beef to the rest of ’em.’

  Brack was purple of face, momentarily beyond words. He stared at Summers incredulously. The big Irishman stood wooden-faced.

  Brack kicked his chair aside, walked the length of the room and back again. He did it several times, then took some bills from his pocket and handed it to the miner.

  ‘Go back,’ he said. ‘Keep your eyes and ears open.’

  The man pocketed the money.

  ‘That ain’t all,’ the man said.

  Brack said softly: ‘You mean there’s more?’

  ‘Words out the Utes are on the war-path. Seems there was a shoot-out in the hills and some red-sticks got theirselves killed. The Utes is real mad. Prescott Harrison went an’ talked with them and he jest ’bout got away with his life. Come into the valley with the varmints right on his butt. They was drove off by some of the miners. But it don’t look too good. Mart Storm and that nigger, Widbee, they went into the hills some days back an’ they ain’t been seen again. Most reckons the Indjuns got ’em.’

  ‘That’s all I wanted,’ Brack said in despair.

  ‘You want I should go back there, Mr. Brack?’ the man said.

  ‘Sure,’ Brack said absently, suddenly quiet. Then he raised his eyes to the man and asked: ‘You find any gold there?’

  ‘Sure, I found gold. Every man jack’s found gold. The boys’re movin’ back in the hills now lookin’ for the mother lode. This is the biggest thing since ’49. Hell, there ain’t no tellin’. Why, there could be gold on your land, Mr. Brack.’

  ‘On my land?’ Brack was stunned by the thought. When he thought about it, he knew that it was only too possible. ‘Go on back,’ he said.

  The man looked at the whiskey bottle, didn’t receive an invite and walked out to his mule.

  ‘A Hell of a note,’ Brack said.

  ‘We’ll think of somethin’,’ Mike Summers said. ‘I never knew a time when there wasn’t an answer to any problem.’

  ‘By God,’ Brack said, ‘you’d best be right.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The news that Prescott Harrison brought in from the hills was incomplete, but its very incompleteness made it all the more disturbing. He’d had a bad time with the Utes. After some difficulty, he had managed to make contact with the band he had been with for so many years. His reception had been cold from the start. Later, it became too warm for his liking. The Utes escorted him from their encampment—every man jack of them, loaded for bear, painted for war and with the firm intention that if they could not retain Harrison in person, they would hold his hair as a memento. Though generous to a fault, Harrison treasured his graying locks and decided to hold onto them if it was humanly possible. He therefore ignored the Indian’s yelled invitation to stay, slammed his butt into leather and got the Hell out of there. No more than half a jump ahead of the Utes on their nimble little ponies, he headed for Three Creeks using spurs and a nice turn of foul phrase to encourage his horse to be faster than those behind him.

  It was—just. It took him, lathered and on its last legs, plumb into the middle of the men digging in the upper reaches of the twin creeks. They, forewarned of the rapid approach of hostiles by the shots exchanged between Harrison and his hosts, were armed and ready by the time the erstwhile squaw man and his attendant savages bore down on them.

  Harrison swore later at the Storms that he had never been in the middle of a denser exchange of fire and praise God he never would be in one like it again. He had been in as much danger from the miners as from the Indians. The Utes, taken off-balance by the presence of so many hirsute and shooting white-men, decided that it was not a good day for dying (which showed their good sense) and retired. The only casualty suffered by the Indians was a twisted ankle on the part of a young brave who had fallen off his horse and a broken feather adorning the head of a sub-chief who had ducked quick enough to save his head. The only miner injured was a fellow who, very drunk, had been standing with a bottle in his hand. At the sight of the Indians, he had been so panic-stricken that, in diving for cover, he had broken his bottle and badly gashed his hand. He ignored the blood and wept for the bottle.

  Although the Utes had retired, the miners decided to organize for defense and, when Harrison departed on a badly bushed horse, they were arguing fiercely over the choice of captains. Maybe the Utes had scared the living daylights out of Harrison, but when he reached the Storm place, there was plenty of bombast still left in him. Just the same he was cautious and advised that nobody should stray too far from the house unless it was really necessary. As he stuffed his mouth full of Martha’s good cooking and washed it down with an ocean of hot coffee, he said that he was now on his way back to his own place and that if Will had any sense, which was arguable, he would send his womenfolk along with him. The only building around here strong enough to withstand a major Indian assault was his own.

  The rest of the men were inclined to agree, but Martha would have none of it. Let Sarah and the others go, she declared, but she wasn’t budging one single foot.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Harrison told her, belching appreciatively, ‘pardon the bluntness of a rough frontiersman, but you’re bein’ plumb foolish, even though I commend your courage.’

  ‘Plumb foolish I may be, Prescott Harrison,’ she retorted, bridling up, ‘but that’s the way I am and the way I intend to be.’

  The news of Mart and Joe’s failure to return disturbed Harrison badly. He thought highly of both men and he looked sourly down his nose at the thought that they had either been cut down by a noose-ready gunman or the wild Utes.

  ‘Man,’ he told Will, ‘that’s sure bad. But don’t you go allowin’ no more men into them hills a-lookin’ for them.’ Still giving advice, he mounted a fresh horse and went on his way, saying that when it came the time for a punitive expedition against the Utes, just send him word and he’d be there.

  Watching him ride away, Will walked back into the house, saying in a tone of disgust: ‘Punitive expedition! That man is sure cast in the heroic mood. Me, I’m just an ornery cowman. Live an’ let live, I say.’

  ‘That’s fine an’ dandy, pa,’ Jody said, ‘but, heck, them savages could be pre-paring to attack us.’

  Will just looked at him and went on into the house.

  Kate was in her bedroom talking with Pete Hasso. They were talking softly and they stopped when Will entered.

  ‘How you comin’, boy?’ Will asked.

  ‘Fine, boss, jest fine,’ Pete said and he looked like a living corpse.

  Will turned away. He felt bad every time he visited with Pete. The wound was doing fine, Martha said. The way Will saw it, the boy didn’t have the will to live. He waited till Kate came out of the room and told him: ‘He’s sleeping.’

  ‘You made up your mind, girl?’ Will asked almost roughly.

  ‘About what, pa?’ she asked.

  ‘About which man you aim to marry.’

  ‘This is not the time, pa.’

  ‘Pete’s a good boy.’

  ‘You’re saying that because he’s hurt. Before he wasn’t anything but a hired man.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ he agreed. ‘But a man can change his mind. That boy has character. A girl could do a lot worse than Pete. He’s savin’. One day he’ll have his own outfit.’

  ‘Oh, pa,’ she said and went off in tears, holding her hands to her face.

  Martha, coming in from the kitchen, took in the scene at a glance and said: ‘Sometimes you do the foolishest things, Will.’

  ‘What did I do?’ Will asked helplessly.

&
nbsp; Out in the yard, Meredith Quentin came to him.

  ‘Mr. Storm, I aim to go look for Mart an’ Joe.’

  ‘You don’t do no such thing.’

  ‘They could be out there in the hills a-foot.’

  ‘Then that’ll teach ’em a lesson –’lightin’ outa here on a fool chase like that.’ Will realized that he was sounding like a flinty old fool. But he couldn’t help it. That was the way he felt.

  Miners all over and his brother and Joe missing; the Utes painted for war. He should have stayed in Texas cow-rich and money-poor.

  He heard the sound of horses and turned. Two men were riding their horses up from the creek. Not cattlemen. They rode past the corral and into the yard. As they drew rein in front of the house, the tallest of the two, a handsome fellow with flashing white teeth in his sun- and wind-burned face, said: ‘Howdy.’

  Their horses were first-rate stock, Will noted. A man seldom saw lines like that out here in the West.

  ‘Howdy,’ he said civilly.

  ‘Name’s Louis Harris,’ the man said. ‘This is my partner, Reb Dolley. We’re lookin’ for Mr. Will Storm.’

  ‘That’s me,’ said Will. ‘’Light an’ set.’

  They stepped down from their horses and sat on the steps of the stoop. Will offered them refreshment. They accepted gladly, Will shouted and Martha and Melissa brought out lemonade. The two strangers rose, lifted their battered hats to the ladies, the ladies retired and they sat.

  Harris came to the point—‘Me an’ my partner, we’re panning aways upstream. Now when Mr. Harrison rode through with the Utes on his tail, we called a meetin’ and we talked some. We got organized pretty well, Mr. Storm. Now what with you seein’ eye-to-eye with the men pannin’ down yonder an’ you havin’ a pretty strong place here, we thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea, if the Indians come, the fellers from down this end rally to this place. Men further up the creek’ll rally at the bend.’

  That sure sounds like sense to me,’ Will said. If that happened, he would have men to guard his flank in the barn and enough to hold the high ground on which the house stood against attack across the two creeks.