by Jonas Ward
“I’ll mosey over bye ‘n bye, maybe,” Malvaise said, raising the liquor in his glass for the umpteenth time. “Right now I’m waiting on … Well—here they come now!”
The saloon doors had swung open to admit a swaggering, self-satisfied Biggie Tragg. Behind him came Saul Ruppert, not all that braggadocio but obviously content with himself. In Tragg’s right hand was Buchanan’s battered, torn-brimmed old Stetson. In his left the beat-up gunrig and ordinary-looking Colt that had once hung on the tall man’s hip.
Tragg, with a broad nod to Malvaise, took his trophies around behind the bar and draped them on the corners of the gilt-edged bar mirror. He turned with a triumphant smile toward his boss.
“Any other little thing you want done today?” he asked across the quiet room. Malvaise, laughing, got up from the table, had to steady himself momentarily and then strode ponderously to the bar.
“Squared the account for Big M, did you, Biggie-boy?” he asked with a high note of triumph.
“Plus interest, boss,” Tragg said.
“How do you mean, interest?”
“Tell the boss, Saul,” Tragg said to Ruppert. “Tell him what I—what we done to that jasper.” Doing it that way Biggie made his personal point with Malvaise while sharing the credit for the exploit. “Go on, Saul, tell him about it,” he urged.
“Tell me what?” Malvaise asked.
“We left him pegged-out in the sun,” Ruppert said, but there was something in his flat-toned, bald statement of it that fell short of the promise indicated in Tragg’s expression.
“Pegged-out?” Malvaise repeated. “You didn’t plug the bastard?”
“That would’ve been too easy for him,” Tragg answered with a sidelong scowl at Ruppert. “Too fast. This way he’ll be a kind of half-permanent warning to anybody else with uppity notions. A skull and bones, Bart,” he said enthusiastically. “Laid out in an X to mark the spot. You oughta ride out and see how we got him.”
“An X to mark the spot,” Malvaise repeated. Then he smiled. “I think I like that, Biggie,” he said. “I think tomorrow I will have a look at it.”
“Tomorrow oughtta be about just right.”
Sam Judd touched Malvaise’s sleeve. “The old man’s waitin’ on you at the bank,” the sheriff reminded.
“Damn near forgot,” Malvaise said. “Sam, send somebody up to the ranch and tell the boys to come on down into town. Tell ’em their work is over and the boss is throwing a big party.”
Judd winced, made plans to be elsewhere himself when that wild bunch cut loose. He swung from the bar, relayed the order to a deputy.
“Biggie, Saul,” Malvaise said. “You two come along with me to the bank. Watch this high and mighty Virginian crawl on his belly.” The owner of Big M strode from the Silver Queen then and his cup ranneth over. The bank was down the block, and as Malvaise walked toward it he surveyed Trail Street with a proprietary interest. Have to fix it up some, he reflected, once it was officially Bartsville. Pave it with those red cobblestones like he saw in ‘Frisco. And get rid of that rundown trading store on the corner, squeeze old Phiel out and put up a great big emporium. Malvaise & Co. he’d call it and everybody in the county would have to buy from him at his prices. And move in on Jake’s Silver Queen, too. Either a big piece of the business or build another saloon right next door, flashy place with hostesses and a piano player. Between that and the Crystal Palace he’d be raking in the dollars so fast he wouldn’t have time to count ’em.
Cattle, Malvaise thought contemptuously. What a miserable, uncomfortable life he’d led as the son of a rancher. Up before dawn, winter and summer. Breakfast of leathery beef and burnt chicory. In the saddle for ten, twelve hours chousing a bunch of stupid, stubborn beeves all over creation. And nothing but stupid, stubborn punchers who talked about nothing but cattle and horses and the next big drive. The drive he hated worst of all. The drive and the roundup. What waited at the end of the trail was the only thing that made it possible to bear at all. The fancy houses, the easy women, the liquor that flowed endlessly.
That was the life for Bart Malvaise, and with each passing year he’d been more and more convinced that his real father must have been a big city man, an enterpriser, a real ladies’ man. For he felt absolutely nothing in common with John Malvaise, resented the old man’s spartan ways, the constant lectures about the good life of ranching.
Then, for some strange reason, his foster-father had sent him off to San Francisco last year, given him a thousand dollars and the unusual advice to come back home and settle down when he’d seen and done everything. To come back home and settle down to ranching with a wife.
Except it hadn’t worked that way. The thousand had lasted exactly two short weeks along the Barbary Coast—and all he felt when he got back to Big M was a tremendous thirst for more high living and a violent objection to working with cattle. Felt it, brooded about it, and studied John Malvaise very carefully. At fifty-five the man was in the prime of health, could ride down the youngest hand that worked for him. He would live another twenty-five years at least. Maybe thirty. And for those next thirty years Bart would live in his shadow, not come into his own real independence until he, himself, was nearly sixty. Something had to be done to change that prospect. Something was done. And when he had waylaid John Malvaise and killed him Bart wondered if he hadn’t inherited something else from his natural father, for the murder had left him cold and untouched. His conscience never troubled him in the slighest.
“Didn’t you say the bank, Bart?” Biggie Tragg’s voice broke into his thoughts and he found that he had nearly walked past the place. Now, setting a dark scowl on his face, he turned into the brick building, walked past the two tellers’ cages and entered Banker Aylwood’s private office without knocking. The little banker looked up from his desk. Seated beside him, puffing dejectedly on a pipe, was Matt Patton. Standing at the barred window, his face plainly showing impatience and anger, was Frank Riker. Spread Eagle’s foreman and Bart Malvaise had known each other from boyhood, had disliked each other instinctively even then, fought bloody fistfights all through those years, been rivals for the girl that Riker had married a decade ago and lost in the flu epidemic the following winter.
Mutual hatred flashed between them now like a charged bolt. Malvaise let it sizzle and crackle for a long moment, then dropped his sardonic gaze to Matt Patton.
“You wanted to see me about something?” he asked.
Banker Aylwood cleared his throat. “Matt would like to sell his holdings in the county,” the mild-voiced man said, trying to sound businesslike. “And since the bank holds a first mortgage I’m naturally an interested party. In fact, Matt has asked me to represent him in the transaction.”
“How much is the mortgage?” Malvaise asked.
“Oh, there’s not much outstanding,” Aylwood said. “Less than five thousand—isn’t that correct, Matt?
“Four thousand and eight hundred, Mr. Aylwood,” Patton replied.
“I’ll buy it for an even five,” Malvaise said. “Where’s the deed?”
“The deed?” Aylwood echoed, plainly shocked. “You can’t be serious, Bart. Why, Spread Eagle’s worth ten times that much!”
“I made an offer six months ago,” Malvaise snapped. “Fifteen thousand. It was rejected. And I only offer the five now because I’m a stockholder in this bank.”
“Do you know where that stock came from, Bart?” Matt asked quietly.
“It was in the will.”
“That’s right, Bart. And it was my annual present to you on your birthday. Ten shares of stock during your first twenty-one years.
“Returned in kind,” Malvaise said harshly. “The old man gave that no-good whelp of yours plenty of birthday presents.”
“He certainly did, Bart. Your father and I were very close friends.”
“That didn’t stop you from killing him!” Malvaise charged bluntly.
“You know that’s a damned lie!” Matt cried back, coming to h
is feet. “A damned, contemptible lie that you’ve used to start this whole trouble between us!”
“I say you killed him,” Malvaise repeated, lowering his voice coldly. “You lost money to him at poker that night and shot him in the back.”
Frank Riker stepped from the window to stand at Matt’s side. “There’s only one man present,” he said straight to Malvaise, “who knows how and why John Malvaise was murdered.”
“If you’re making a confession, Frank,” Malvaise answered suavely, “then let’s send for Sheriff Judd.”
“And there’s only one man here who knows how and why Sheriff Boyd was murdered,” Riker went on.
“Somebody ought to be writing this down,” Malvaise said to Aylwood. “So the ex-foreman of Spread Eagle can sign it.”
“Malvaise,” Riker said evenly, “let’s you and me lock ourselves in this office for one hour. Just the two of us, no guns. Then we’ll see who signs what.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Aylwood broke in. “John Malvaise’s death was a terrible thing, we all know that. It’s my opinion, shared by many others, that John was attacked that night by a road agent—a scoundrel that’s left this county a long time ago.”
“Hired for the job by Spread Eagle,” Malvaise said.
“I thought I shot your father, Bart,” Matt Patton reminded him. “Over a non-existent poker debt.”
“Maybe you didn’t have the guts for the job,” Malvaise sneered back. “Maybe you had to buy yourself a bushwhacker …”
Frank Riker’s anger boiled over. He went after Malvaise with a growl of long-repressed rage, hit his despised enemy with all of it packed into one punch. Malvaise took the blow full in the mouth, staggered backward against the door. Riker moved to follow up and Biggie Tragg’s fist slammed against his ear. Saul Ruppert moved at the same time, grabbed Riker’s arms from the rear. Tragg hit him again, in the pit of the stomach, drove a hard, chopping left against Riker’s unprotected chin.
“Get out of the way, Biggie!” Malvaise shouted furiously. “Step aside!” Biggie did, and with Ruppert holding the sagging Riker upright, Malvaise took tenfold revenge, kept raining savage blows against Riker’s face and body until the foreman was a bloody, senseless hulk and he himself was drenched in sweat. Both Matt Patton and Aylwood had tried to intervene from the start, only to be held at bay by Tragg’s menacing gun.
Now, his thick chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot, Malvaise at last stepped back and Ruppert let Frank Riker’s body fall to the floor in a pitiful heap. Malvaise swung slowly to Patton, found the other man staring at him in contempt and disgust.
“My offer is five thousand,” Malvaise growled at him. “You got exactly ten seconds to take it or leave it.”
Matt lowered his gaze to Riker’s still and battered figure. The old man’s own shoulders sagged visibly, a plain indication of his surrender to the brute force of Big M and its owner. He reached into his inside coat pocket, pulled out the long cherished government grant to what had been a stark, formidable wilderness thirty long, hard-working years ago. Thirty years of constant battle against Apaches and dust storms, drought and floods, bad markets and politicians, bandits and rustlers. Patton took the thick, musty deed to his Spread Eagle ranch and spread it out carefully atop the banker’s desk.
“May I borrow your pen, Mr. Aylwood?” he said, and prepared to sign it away.
• • •
“WHAT IN THE HELL was that?” Pecos Riley asked his friend Billy. Rowe looked just as surprised to hear the Texas yell split the hot, bright silence. The ears of both horses shot straight up, quivered. Texas-bred mustangs.
“Sounds like my brother Luke,” Billy said. “Only I know for a fact that Luke’s in jail up in Oklahoma.”
“You don’t reckon some boy from home’s got himself a jug in this woods, do you? And is lookin’ for company?”
“Wishful thinkin’, Mr. Riley,” Billy said. “Whoever sent up that holler wasn’t enjoyin’ himself too particular.”
“Did sound serious,” Pecos agreed. “And sober. Well—looka, here now!”
Stepping out into the trail at the moment was as nice a piece of roan horseflesh either gunslinger had laid eyes on. Especially wandering around the countryside loose and unsaddled like this.
“Well, looka here!” Pecos said again, as impressed as if he had found actual money. Friend Billy said nothing, but wasn’t struck so speechless that he couldn’t put his own bronc to the lope and snare the castaway’s bridle.
“Must be my lucky day,” he said, then smiling happily.
“Your lucky day?” Pecos asked, his tone a trifle querulous. “All I did to that horse is see him first.”
“That’s nearly as good as havin’ holt of him,” Billy replied amiably, “but not quite.”
“You don’t mean you’re disputin’ my prior claim?” Pecos asked him, squaring his shoulders.
“No,” Billy said, marking the gesture and moving both horses around so that sun was directly in Pecos’ eyes. “Not disputin’ your claim, just ignorin’ it. But tell you what,” he added warmly. “Very next horse we find is yours to keep.”
“The very next one,” Pecos said to that offer, “happens to be that one right there.” As he spoke he, too, maneuvered to put the dazzling sunlight behind him. And that made Billy shift again, so that for the next few silent moments they looked like nothing else but two fighting cocks sparring in the pit, jockeying for position.
“Tell me somethin’, Pecos,” Billy said then. “Are we goin’ to throw down?”
“You’ve about forced me, old buddy, against my will,” Pecos said. “Gonna miss you like blue blazes, with all your faults.”
“Faults?” Billy asked, cocking his head sharply.
“Oh, just them little things, Billy,” Pecos said. “Like pinchin’ my tobaccer all the time and never payin’ it back …”
“Payin’ back? I give you a whole half a’ sack of Durham just a month ago!”
“Which I credited to your account,” Pecos said. “And your snorin’—well, I guess you can’t help that, infernal as it is the whole night long.”
“My snorin’?” Billy said indignantly. “Boy, if they ever hold a champeenship for loud snorin’, grizzly bears included, I want to bet my whole pile on Mr. Pecos A. Riley!”
“I’ll ask you not to bet that ten dollars you owe me,” Pecos said.
“What ten dollars?”
“Another little fault is your short memory, son. You mean you don’t recollect the winter before last, the time we was layin’ low down to Matamoros?”
“Hell, yes, I recollect,” Billy said. “And I likewise recollect that the reason we jumped the border was on account of you pluggin’ that faro dealer in Brownsville.”
“He cheated me, Billy, and you know he did. How was I to know he was brother-in-law to the high sheriff?”
“Let’s get back to that ten dollars,” Billy said. “What ten damn dollars?”
“That I loant you to romance that black-haired little girl. Name of Maria.”
“Loant me, hell!” Billy protested. “You give me that ten, give it to me outright. Said it was what you fined that faro dealer for try in’ to cheat you.” “Is that what I said, no foolin’?” Pecos asked him.
“That’s what you said,” Billy told him positively. “And her name was Lolita in Matamoros. You were courtin’ a Maria in Paso, and that was the summer before last.”
“By damn, Billy, you’re dead right,” Pecos said. “Lolita was yours, Maria was mine.”
“Which brings us around to this here horse,” Billy said, still rankling about the tobacco, the snoring and the ten dollars. “Yours or mine—and how’ll you have it?”
Pecos, realizing that he may have accused his buddy unfairly, wanted to make amends.
“Keep him, boy; and best wishes,” he said, grandly raising his gun arm and waiving all rights to the roan. That put Billy at a disadvantage, made him wish he hadn’t been so tacky in the discussion just passed.
Not to be outdone in graciousness he dug into his pocket for a silver dollar, held it between thumb and forefinger.
“Toss you for the animal, Pecos. Heads or tails?”
“He’s yours, Bill,” Pecos insisted.
“Heads or tails?” Billy insisted right back.
“Heads,” Pecos said.
The cartwheel went spinning up into the sunlight, fell to the ground. Billy leaned down to read it.
“Heads,” he said. “You won yourself a horse. You won, Pecos,” he repeated. “What’s the matter?”
“Yonder there,” Pecos said. “Ain’t that a man?” He had followed the coin into the air when Billy spun it, had his sharp gaze attracted by the prone figure beyond. Now Billy looked, too.
“Sure is,” he said. “What do you figure he’s lying out in that hot sun for?”
“‘Pears to be tied down,” Pecos said. “Wonder if he give out that yell before.”
“And lost this roan in the bargain,” Billy said. “Wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
“‘Pears as if somebody don’t like him so much,” Pecos proclaimed.
“Sure don’t,” Billy agreed. “Wonder why?”
“Let’s go ask him,” Pecos suggested and both riders moved on out unhurriedly toward the beleagured, hope-forsaken Buchanan. When they had traveled halfway Pecos leaned across the horn of his saddle and peered sharply.
“Look what he’s got for company, Billy,” he said.
“Rattler, ain’t it?”
“Big one, too.”
“And ararin’ to go!” Billy said, pulling his gun. But Pecos already had his .45 cleared, was sighting on the snake’s poised, motionless head as Billy spoke. He fired. Billy’s shot was an instantaneous echo. The head abruptly disappeared from the rattler’s neck, blasted into oblivion, and which slug took it—or if both did—was of no matter to the astonished and grateful and half-disbelieving Buchanan. All he could do, in fact, was stare with immense interest as the snake’s fitfully writhing body completed-its death throes. Even the vibration of the pounding hooves through the hard desert floor failed to break his preoccupation with the last moments of his would-be executioner.
