by Lauran Paine
IV
Under a hot pink brightness Tom Barker stirred in his blankets, raised up, and propped his head on one hand, gazing along the pearl-gray floor of desert, misty and silent, until the land lifted and met the sharp edge of the rising sun. It was after 5:00, daylight was coming, and it would be another scorching summer day. While he watched, the first dazzling rays shot above the distant hills, raced across the desert, and struck with quick brightness the warped roofs of the little town down on the plain that he had left the night before to go up into the hills and camp. Nearby were the graceful willows in a narrow arroyo, dim and gray, still holding the dregs of the night; they lined an unseen stream that tinkled pleasantly in the hush. He yawned, spat, pushed back the blanket, and sat up. Down along the creek fetlock-deep in yellow forage grass his horse stamped and blew its nose.
Tom scrubbed at the creek, hustled twigs for a breakfast fire, and worked silently with the fat, rich aroma of frying side meat rising into the air. He was rocking the iron fry pan gently when a laughing voice drawled behind him, back in the tangled willows.
“If I was a sheriff, you’d never live to eat that, Tom.”
Barker made no move. He rocked the pan gently over its arrow points of blue fire, his averted face turning handsome under the influence of a dry small smile. “If you were a sheriff, I’d have roped and tied you when you scuffed that rock with your spur ten minutes ago.”
The newcomer straightened up and came out of the willows. He was as tall as Barker but not nearly as broad. An air of litheness preceded him; he walked like an Indian, balancing forward on the balls of his feet. Beneath his hat a tawny lock of sun-rusted dark hair hung upon his forehead. His face was youthful, burned brown, and prematurely lined. He squatted next to Barker, watching the faint gray smoke rise up, then curve away and hang in the arroyo to mingle with the shadowy vestiges of night.
“I’m hungrier’n a bitch wolf,” the newcomer said, watching the bacon curl. “You know . . . that’s quite a ride in one day and one night, Tom.”
“I’ll feed you and I’ll pay you,” Tom replied without looking away from the fry pan, “but damned if I’ll sympathize with you, Tex.”
A strong, boyish ripple of laughter came from Tex. His eyes crinkled and danced. “That’s good enough,” he said. “Just feed me first . . . then tell me what this is all about.”
Tom divided the side meat into two rations and settled back. “Eat,” he said, and for a moment added nothing to it. “I won’t tell you why I’m doing this Tex. All I’ll tell you is what you’re to do.”
“Suits me, Tom. Shoot.”
“See that little town down there?”
“Yup. Saw it before sunup.”
“That’s Beatty.”
“All right.”
“I’m going to make it or break it.”
Tex paused to look across the dying fire. He did not speak; he only shrugged, then returned to eating.
“I’m going to be top lash in that town. I’m going to tell the sheriff who to arrest and who to leave alone. I’m going to call a tune and the judge’s going to dance to it. I’m going to buy and sell a feller named Moses Beach . . . and you’re going to help me do it.”
Tex put the fry pan down and wiped his fingers along the seams of his worn trousers. He reached for his tobacco sack, frowned over a cigarette, lit it with a twig from the fire, exhaled mightily, then leaned back and gazed steadily at Tom Barker from fearless, hard blue eyes. “You know I ain’t a questioning man, Tom. We’ve shared too many bedrolls an’ cook fires an’ roundups an’ drunks not to know one another pretty well.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m not a killer, Tom.”
Barker scoured the fry pan with dry grass and dust. He worked hard at it, frowning, lips flattened in a bleak line. “I don’t need a killer, Tex. All I need is a man who’ll do what I say. Any killing’s got to be done . . . I’ll do it.”
“You don’t understand me, Tom. I don’t want to tie up with a killer, either.”
Barker’s head came up slowly. “You think I’m a killer, Tex?”
Tex thumbed back his hat; the heavy dark curl spread more fully across his forehead. His face creased slightly. “Tom,” he said slowly, “you’re plumb capable of becoming a killer. Years back, I figured there was something inside you that was pretty twisted. Like I said, fellers get to know one another pretty well when they pardner up and face all sorts of situations together. Also, like I said, I ain’t a questioning man. I always thought the world of you, Tom . . . but I’ve always known there was something inside you, too . . . I just never questioned what it was or why it was there.”
Tom turned away to push the fry pan into a saddlebag. He spoke while his head was averted. His voice sounded deep and gentle when next he spoke. “I killed a man yesterday, Tex. He was beating a horse with a pick handle. There was blood running out of the critter’s nose.”
Tex nodded understanding and approval, but the speculative expression did not leave his face. “All right. That’s no crime. But that ain’t what I’m talking about, either, and you know it.”
“There’ll be no unnecessary killing, Tex.”
A space of solemn silence settled around the guttering cook fire. Finally Tex killed his cigarette and regarded its broken, brown form in the bent-flat grass. “All right, Tom. We understand one another. What am I to do?”
Barker reached inside his shirt, brought forth a thick packet of oilskin, unwrapped it gently, and withdrew a $100 bill from the thick sheaf of green paper. “Take this and spend it at the Royal Antler Saloon. Listen to everything that’s said. Twice a week we’ll meet up here, on Mondays and Fridays.”
“Listen for what, Tom?”
“Gossip. Who is buying whose cattle, who is in need of a jag of hay, who’s borrowing money at the bank. Stuff like that.”
“Just local gossip? Tom, you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Barker grinned. “If I don’t, the worst thing that’ll happen is that we’ll ride out of this country like we rode in . . . quietly.”
Tex folded the $100 bill thoughtfully. “Must’ve been a lot of loot on that stage,” he said, arising.
Tom’s grin lingered. “Maybe there was. Only I didn’t get it. I saved that money . . . been saving it for years.”
“Uhn-huh. One more thing, Tom. I don’t know you?”
“That’s right. You’re a stranger. You’re just riding through. You’re resting your horse. You’ve been on a long drive, been paid off, and aren’t in any hurry about hunting up a new job.”
“All right,” Tex said, gazing along the perimeter of hills, then lowering his eyes suddenly to Beatty. “It’s your money and your play. I’ll be here come Friday.”
* * * * *
Tom did nothing for half an hour after Tex departed. He smoked beside the dead fire, narrowed his eyes against the fierce sun smash, and gazed steadily down at Beatty. Then he caught his horse, saddled and bridled, stepped across the saddle, and swung out across the hills southwesterly so that, when he rode into town shortly before high noon, he came in from the south.
He paid for a room overlooking the town at the Beatty Hotel, one month in advance, then he hired a boy to haul water for a tub in the lean-to bathhouse, and soaked. Afterward, freshly dressed, his thick hair shiny with oil and his ivory-butted gun lashed down and moving rhythmically with each step, he went to the Royal Antler, took a wall table, and called for a drink. There he sat, low and loose with his back to the wall, feeling the full run of confidence; he had waited a long time; now he was back. One slip, one error, could spoil it all. He would make no mistakes; his impatience was under an iron leash. This chance would never in his lifetime come again. And yet, in spite of the hot willfulness in his mind, this sitting here was a form of release, too. It was a nearing of the end of the trail. It was the kind of release a man like Tom Barker had to have. The years had built up too much inside of him. Some way, all of this was going to come out fiercely
, in a drunk, a fight, or a kiss.
The second whiskey made him hungry. He moved to the food table, spooned chili into a bowl, slapped a fat slice of Sonora onion between two dark slabs of bread, and took the meal back to his table. For a man who had been hungry for days on end many times in his life, food was both a reward and a luxury. It was a deep comfort to be eating, freshly bathed and dressed, in Beatty’s finest saloon, listening to the ebb and flow of talk, the sharp slap of booted feet and the soft ring of spurs. His presence here was in a sense a personal triumph and he savored it.
Later, smoking a cigar, studying the range men, the townsmen, travelers, and drifters, drawing in the smoke with keen relish, he considered the room with thoughtful complacency. This was one of those rare times in a man’s life when the little things that meant so much gave him his greatest moments: cold spring water on a scorching day; the powerful softening of his body against the earth after a punishing ride; the biting flavor of a cigar after months of abstinence; returning to the town that had ignored a boy’s breaking heart, knowing this time the town would never forget him. These were the simple, gratifying things of life, things that went down deep into a man. But none of them were free. A man earned them by sweat and hunger, by privation and fatigue, so in the end that was why they were good.
He saw the tall, loose body come through the door, hesitate, cross his blank dark stare with its moving blue glance, then proceed to the bar and lean there, elbows extended, long legs knee-sprung in total relaxation, and he smiled to himself. Tex Earle was a fine actor, as good perhaps as Wilkes Booth himself, and now there was no further need for him to linger. He arose, left a coin on the table, and crossed the room to pass out into the warm night beyond.
Beatty was drenched in blackness. It dripped on him from roof tops and curdled the orange glow from windows. It was a formless substance that smothered everything except movement, and, because it did, he did not see the rangy silhouette even after he had passed it by. Then a voice, softly commanding, struck him in the back.
“Barker. Just a minute.”
He recognized the voice even as he turned. He remembered it from his last day in Beatty as a youth. The yellow-stained light of a saloon window ran sickly across the older man’s path as he approached, and for a moment Tom could not see above it.
“It’s Pollard, Barker. Tim Pollard.” The sheriff stepped across the yellow dust and peered ahead. His raw-boned appearance was accentuated by the night. When next he spoke, his voice was crowded with thoughtfulness. “Figured we might talk a little.”
Tom remained motionless and silent, separating the man from the night.
“I got a notion about yesterday’s killing,” Pollard said.
“Have you?”
“Yeah. I figure you could have kicked the gun out of Ingersoll’s hand. Or maybe knocked him out with that pick handle. I don’t figure you had to kill him.”
“Didn’t I?”
“No. I’ve disarmed a lot of men, Barker. When you’re standing less than six feet from ’em, it’s no chore.”
“Then why did I kill him?”
Pollard slumped, resting all his weight on one leg. Before replying he ran a hand under his heavy mustache. “Because you wanted to.”
“I didn’t know the man.”
“You didn’t have to, Barker. You were cocked and primed to kill someone. Ingersoll gave you a plumb fine excuse.”
“You make it sound like murder, Sheriff.”
“I wish I could prove it was, Barker.”
“Why? You scarcely remember me.”
“Well,” Pollard said slowly, picking his words, “you got no reason to like this town. I understand that. Sometimes a feller gets something like that fixed in his head and packs it around with him for years. Sometimes he gets a chance to come back and cut a swathe. Sort of make the town get down on its knees to him. I think that’s what’s wrong with you. Why else would you come back here? You got no friends here. Your folks . . . well, I reckon you understand about them.”
Barker’s voice turned husky. “No, Sheriff,” he said, “tell me about them.”
But Tim Pollard recognized the signs and simply wagged his head. “I can’t say it the way it should be said, so I’d best not say it at all. But you understand me all right, Barker.”
Tom ground his heels down into the dust of the plank walk. “You talk too much, old man,” he said coldly. “Talk too much and do too little. You’re not the only one in Beatty who’s been eating too regularly for too many years.”
“So?”
Tom Barker’s jaw snapped closed. He continued to regard the sheriff a moment longer, then turned on his heel and went along the plank walk as far as the hotel. There, he turned in without a backward glance.
Sheriff Pollard made a cigarette, lit it, leaning against a post, and smoked in thoughtful silence until a short, ugly man came up beside him and stopped.
“Beautiful night, Tim.”
Pollard grunted. “Moses, us old-timers’ve had it pretty good in the valley for a long time, haven’t we?”
Moses Beach looked up with a scowl. “Sure. What of it? We settled this damned country, didn’t we? We made ’er what she is, didn’t we? Then we’re entitled to a reward, aren’t we?”
“Maybe,” the sheriff answered, gazing up the darkened road. “But maybe we’ve taken too much for granted these past ten or twelve years, Moses.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
“That killin’ yesterday . . . and the feller who did it.”
“Young Barker? Is he still around? I thought he’d hightail it when you let him go.”
“I never had him, an’ he didn’t hightail it.”
Beach puffed a moment on his cigar, following the direction of Pollard’s gaze. “Too bad he had to pick Ingersoll,” he said finally. “Charlie was a good account.”
The sheriff made a mirthless smile. “He was also a human bein’, Moses. That’s what I mean about us old-timers havin’ things too easy these past years.” He threw down his cigarette and stamped it hard. “Beatty’s due for a jolt, I think.”
“What d’you mean . . . a jolt?”
Pollard straightened up. “Just what I said . . . a jolt. Good night, Moses.”
Beach’s small eyes regarded the sheriff’s retreating back until it disappeared into the night, then he turned and struck off in the opposite direction.
V
Tom Barker had been three weeks in Beatty before he made a move, and of course by the end of that time everyone knew who he was. Mostly they addressed him as Mr. Barker. What the cowmen and merchants and townsmen did not know was that Tom Barker knew as much about them as they knew about themselves. No one had as yet associated the blue-eyed Texan who hung out at the Royal Antler Saloon with the black-eyed man who, rumor said, had had a drunk for a father and whose mother had run off with another man years before. Folks had, after the fashion of people, weighed and measured Tom Barker, had decided he was a gunman, and accorded him all the respect that appellation inspired, but socially they had nothing to do with him. Still, after three weeks of obvious inactivity even Sheriff Pollard was beginning to have doubts about his earlier suspicions. It did not seem reasonable that a man like dark Tom Barker would sit around day after day, if he had anything sinister in mind, or if he had anything better to do.
Then, when Tom finally struck, no one at first associated the action with Mr. Barker who spent his time between the Royal Antler Saloon and the Beatty Hotel, and had never once set his foot inside Beatty’s bank, where rancher Gerald Finnerty and banker Elihu Gorman faced one another across Gorman’s desk.
“The receipt,” Finnerty was saying, enjoying Gorman’s discomfort very much, even smiling openly at it, “the receipt, Elihu.”
“That’s a lot of money,” the banker murmured, his gaze fixed to the pile of bills on his desk. “Couldn’t you use it to better advantage restocking or expanding, Gerald?”
“I could,” Finnerty asse
nted. “Only I’d rather have my note back. The receipt, please, Elihu.”
“Where did you get it, Gerald?” the banker asked, making no motion to take up his pen.
Finnerty colored; his eyes turned hard as flint. “Well, now,” he said coldly, “I don’t figure that’s any of your business . . . where I come by that money.”
Gorman picked up his pen and began to write. Beyond the glassed-in cubicle of his office there was the subdued sound of talk, the sigh of movement, the swish of clothing. Inside the cubicle there was only the scratching of Gorman’s pen upon the paper. When he put the pen aside, Gerald Finnerty reached forward, took up the paper, and scrutinized it. Then he folded it very carefully and put it into his pocket, and the smile returned to his face.
“One thing more. When the note’s receipted at the courthouse, mail it to me.”
“Yes, of course.”
Gorman pushed himself upright again. He looked physically uncomfortable and his voice sounded weak. “If you extended the loan . . . which the bank’d be glad to do for you . . . then you could buy out the Miller place and really expand.”
“I can buy out the Miller place anyway,” Finnerty said shortly, taking up his hat and turning toward the door. “In fact, I took a cash option on it day before yesterday.”
Elihu Gorman remained standing for several minutes after Finnerty left, then he went as far as the door and called to a clerk. “Go get Mister Beach,” he ordered, closed the door, returned to his chair, and sat down to wait.
When Moses Beach came into Gorman’s office, he looked annoyed. It was early in the day and most people, wishing to avoid the heat, did their shopping early. “What is it?” he demanded shortly.
“Finnerty was just in here. He paid off his note.” Gorman nodded toward the crumpled money on his desk.
Beach moved closer. “In full?”
“In full and I gave him a receipt. I had to.”
Beach stood a moment, then retreated to a chair and dropped down. “How?” he asked as the annoyance vanished from his face. “He had his back to the wall.”
