by Lauran Paine
“Are they down on Beach and Gorman and the judge? Are they down on you, Sheriff, for doing what you have to do to make a living?”
Pollard rolled his eyes. “Why is it,” he cried, “that sharpers always got logic on their side when they’re cornered?”
“I’m not cornered, Sheriff. Far from it. I’ve got money to invest and I aim to make money with it.” Tom dropped the cigarette and ground it underfoot. “If you think I’m cornered, you see where I am in another month.”
He was moving away, toward the roadway, when Sheriff Pollard said: “Dead. That’s what you’ll be in another month, Barker. Dead and buried.”
Tom continued on his way. He walked south nearly as far as the stone water trough, then angled through the dusty roadway toward the hotel. The far side of the road was drowned in shadows and darkness; he did not discern slow movement along a northerly store front, but behind him, rigid beside the old cottonwood tree, another detached figure caught the gliding outline and shifted to face it.
“You, there! Barker!”
It was a soft, sharp call. It rode down the night to Tom with unmistakable meaning. He stopped still, then began to turn very slowly. The silhouette back by the cottonwood tree moved swiftly northward until lost in the night, then cut rapidly across to Tom’s side of the roadway and came down behind the emerging blond man who was walking flat-footedly toward Tom, right arm bent slightly and fingers crabbed.
“You see me now, Barker?”
Tom turned a little more, brushing back the right side of his coat as he did so. “I see you,” he said, finding much in the other man’s outline to remind him of dead Charley Ingersoll.
“I never yet shot a man in the back, Barker, but I could’ve blown you in two a dozen times tonight.”
Tom waited for the man to step off the plank walk into the dust; when he finally did, still walking purposefully forward, the same kind of blond hair was visible, the same flat features and brutish expression that Charley Ingersoll had had.
“You know who I am, Barker?”
“I can guess.”
“Let’s hear your guess.”
“You’re Clint Ingersoll.”
The blond man halted fifty feet away and tilted back his head. Moonlight softened the harshness of his face and hid his eyes in sunken shadows. “You’re dead right. I’m Clint Ingersoll. Did you figure I’d be scared to face you?”
“No,” Tom replied levelly, catching a flicker of movement twenty feet behind Ingersoll, along the front of the Queens & Aces Café, and incorrectly thinking it was either Tim Pollard or some confederate of Ingersoll’s.
“But you sweated a little, waitin’, didn’t you?”
Tom said no again, in the same quiet way, and added: “I was hopin’ you wouldn’t think you had to do this.”
“You was hopin’ I’d forget you murdered my brother?”
“I didn’t murder him. He drew on me. What did you expect me to do . . . stand there and get shot?”
“That’s what’s goin’ to happen to you now, Barker. You’re goin’ to stand there an’ get shot.”
Tom saw the distant shadow behind Ingersoll move out clearly and straighten up out of a crouch. He saw the cocked gun lift to bear and heard a voice he recognized say: “Ingersoll, you make a move toward that gun and you’ll be dead before you get it out.”
The blond man turned to stone. Not a face muscle moved. Then, very slowly, his lips curled in a twist of contempt and he said: “If you wasn’t scared, Barker, why’d you hire a bodyguard?”
Tom moved forward into the road. He watched Tex ease Ingersoll’s gun out and throw it down. “I have no bodyguard, Ingersoll. He happens to be a friend of mine.”
Tex spoke from behind the disarmed freighter. “He’s been shagging you all night, Tom. I’ve been watching him.”
“Good thing for him you was,” Ingersoll growled.
Tex’s hard laughter was short. “You damned muleskinner, Tom Barker’d kill you with his left hand. You’ll maybe never know it, feller, but I saved your bacon tonight.”
“Give me back my gun and let’s see about that!”
Tex swore and started to push the gun forward. Tom stopped him with a word, then he went still closer and gazed into Clint Ingersoll’s face. There was hate and unreasoning fury there. Tom sighed, bobbed his head toward a dogtrot between two buildings, and started forward. Tex prodded his prisoner along. They emerged into a back lot where broken pottery lay like bones in the moonlight. Tom removed his coat and gun belt and faced Ingersoll. He was standing relaxed and resigned and was unprepared when Ingersoll dug his heels into the ground and hurled himself forward, driving Tom back, low and hard, until his shoulders struck wood and his ears rang from impact. He was wise enough, however, to lie limply in the freighter’s grip until he had one arm free, then he sledged downward with the full power of his arm and Ingersoll’s knees sprung inward and his grip softened.
Tom spun sideways and got free. Ingersoll was shaking his head. A sullen purple bruise was fleshing up behind his ear. He cursed and rushed forward a second time, head low, arms extended. Tom moved forward instead of backward and threw a crashing fist that made Ingersoll stumble. Before the blond man could recover he had him by the shoulders, slammed him against a building, and, when Ingersoll bounced off, he swung his body weight in behind his right fist and buried a granite-hard set of knuckles in Ingersoll’s belly. The freighter’s breath whooshed out and his mouth hung far open. Tom hit him again, and again, then he stepped back and Ingersoll slumped at the shoulders, bent in the middle, broke over at the knees, and went down into the refuse to lie crumpled and without movement.
Tom moved away, toward his coat and shell belt. He was sucking hot night air into the bottoms of his lungs when Tex moved quickly forward to hold his coat.
“He looked tougher’n that,” Tex said, helping Tom shrug into the coat. “Hell, I think I could’ve taken him, myself.”
Tom grinned, breathing deeply. “There he is, if you want to try.”
Tex bent a long look on the unconscious man. “Why didn’t you just kill him?” he asked.
“You sure got a short memory,” Tom said, drawing upright again, shifting his holstered gun to its normal position. “There you sat, up there by that damned creek, preaching me a sermon about being a potential gunman . . .”
“This was different,” Tex protested. “He was all set to draw on you.”
“Well, why didn’t you let him, then?”
Tex rubbed his jaw and scowled perplexedly. “Damned if I know,” he said. Then his face brightened. “Wait, I’ll get some water and douse him. When he comes around . . .”
“Go bed down,” Tom said dryly. “I don’t want to shoot the simpleton any more’n I wanted to dance with Miss Eloise.”
Tex’s shoulders pulled up straight. He faced Tom.
“An’ that’s another thing,” he said heatedly. “She told . . .”
“Tex, do me a favor, will you? Marry her or whatever you got in mind. Right now I’m tired. I don’t want to fight with anybody.” Tom cocked his head. “We’ve run together a long time, haven’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever see me try to cut in on another man’s woman?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Then for gosh sakes go bed down, will you, and just remember one thing. I’ll be waiting for you up by the creek tomorrow.”
Tex prodded Ingersoll with his toe. “What about him? Tom, maybe you don’t want no war, but he does. After this licking he’ll want one worse than ever.”
Tom considered Clint Ingersoll’s inert figure. Tex was probably right; they would meet again. Maybe not. You could never tell about other people. He shrugged. “If he comes around again, I guess next time I’ll kill him, Tex.”
They parted then, Tex heading for the livery stable loft and Tom bound for his hotel room.
X
He and Tex relaxed in the shade along the creek on Monday. These weekly rendez
vous were the bright spot in his life now. Here, he could fully relax. This morning, the out-of-character sensitivity he’d sensed in Tex lately was entirely gone, too, and that cheered him a little. He gazed at his friend of many campfires and spoke in a voice as dry as wind rattling cornhusks.
“It wasn’t altogether Miss Eloise, was it?”
“What d’you mean, Tom?”
“Cut it out,” Tom said shortly. “Fool anyone under the sun . . . but me. I’ve known you too long.”
Tex was smoothing the dust in front of him with a stick. “No,” he admitted. “It wasn’t just Eloise. I expect it wasn’t Eloise at all, Tom.” He etched a Texas brand into the smoothed dirt with methodical detail. “I was getting kind of sick of this thing, to tell you the truth.” He threw the stick aside. “Y’know, when that ugly little storekeeper got took down sick, I got to remembering something an old Indian once told me. If you think evil about someone, they get sick. That ain’t my way of fighting, Tom. If I got a grudge, why I take up my gun and go out ’n’ settle it. What you’ve been doing sort of . . . well, it sort of makes me ashamed. It don’t seem manly, somehow.”
Tom tugged his hat forward to shade his eyes. “Listen, Tex, you can’t call out a judge or a storekeeper or a sheriff. They won’t fight you. So, you meet them on their own ground. That’s the only way you can beat them. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
“I reckon,” Tex said resignedly. He let off a big sigh. “But I still think it’s better to come right out in the open when you got fight talk to make.”
“I did that last night with Ingersoll.”
“I know, Tom. I thought about that last night in bed. But this other stuff, well, if that’s the way it’s got to be, all right, go ahead. I’ll string along, but it’s not my way at all.”
Tom smoked a cigarette. They sat in silence for a while, then Tom said: “I’m in a helluva fix. I broke Beach and I’ve got the only man in town who can bail him out eating out of my hand.”
“Who’s that?”
“The banker.”
“What’s the fix, then?”
“The judge.”
“Hell, Tom, you got the hay an’ he’s hurtin’ for some. You got him, too.”
Tom continued to gaze at nothing. “You don’t understand. It’s his daughter . . .”
“I understand all right,” Tex said carelessly. “I saw you kiss her under the cottonwood, Tom.” Tex twisted on the ground. “I don’t approve of hitting a man through his girl . . . but like I said, I’ll string along. For a little while longer anyway.”
“I wasn’t hitting at Judge Montgomery through Toni.”
Tex looked disbelieving. “No? Then what were you doing?”
Tom pushed his legs out, crossed them at the ankles, and stared at his toes. “I . . . I’m not sure what I was doing. But I don’t want to do it again, I can tell you that.”
Tex picked up a blade of grass and began chewing it. He stared steadily at Tom and several minutes later he threw back his head and roared with laughter.
Tom straightened up. “What’s so damned funny?”
“Nothing,” Tex said, choking on his mirth. “I just felt like baying at the moon.”
“Well, don’t do it so loudly, you idiot. Someone’ll hear and come looking.”
Tex subsided. He chewed a while longer on the grass, then he moved as though to arise. “Tom, I ain’t smart like you. I never was. I recognized that six, eight years back. But there’s sure Lord some things I can see that you sure as hell can’t see. I can tell you that for gospel truth.”
“What can’t I see?”
Tex stood up and dusted his trousers off. “Never mind,” he said. “The sky’ll fall on you one of these days . . . then you’ll see.” He squinted at the sun. “About time to be getting back. Finnerty wants me to make the drive to San Carlos with him. What about it?”
“It won’t take more’n two weeks, will it?”
“Less than that, Tom.”
“Then go ahead. I won’t need you for a while anyway.”
“Couple more things.”
“Shoot.”
“You ain’t aiming to humble that old sheriff, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Dammit, Tom, he’s an old man.”
“He owes me something, Tex.”
Earle’s pale eyes clouded over, but he said no more on the subject of Tim Pollard. Instead, he spat out the grass and said: “How long you think you can go on bluffing on a busted flush? I know how much money you’ve spent lately . . . on all that there hay and what-not. You ain’t got but a couple hundred dollars left, Tom.”
“I know that and you know it,” Tom conceded. “But no one else does.” He arose and stretched. “Now comes the big one, Tex.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you get back from San Carlos, you’ll find out. I’ll either be spoon-feeding that damned town and its crop of righteous fat-backs, or I’ll be saddling up to ride on. One or the other.”
“I got my ideas about which,” Tex opined, and went to his horse, caught up the reins, and mounted. “Just wait for me to get back is all. I’d sort of like to be in on the finish of this thing, since I got roped in on the beginning.”
“I’ll wait. And, Tex . . . while you’re at San Carlos, find out what the Army’s paying for hay, will you?”
“Sure. Adiós, Tom.”
“Adiós.”
He rode back the usual way, entering Beatty from the south, and the first person he saw was Tim Pollard’s young deputy. Havestraw threw him a reserved nod and called out: “Elihu Gorman’s looking for you!”
Tom said—“Thanks.”—and dismounted at the livery stable. The hostler who faced him was a new man, nearly as large as Tom was, and disagreeable-looking. “You Mister Barker?” he asked, studying Tom’s features as though to identify them from a description. Tom nodded, holding out the reins. “You ain’t welcome here,” the hostler said, pocketing his hands and leaving Tom standing there with the reins outstretched. “Boss’ orders.”
Tom continued to regard the man through a moment of blossoming antagonism, then he turned abruptly and crossed to the hotel hitch rail. As he was mounting the stairs to his room, he spoke over his shoulder to the clerk. “Have someone find a place for my horse. Not the livery barn. Understand?”
“Yes, Mister Barker.”
Tom was unlocking his door when a man’s deep voice greeted him from behind. He turned. Elihu Gorman was arising from a ladder-back chair. Tom pushed open the door and motioned for the banker to precede him inside. The encounter at the livery barn had left him feeling angry. He closed the door, watched the way Gorman folded over onto a chair, and flung his hat on the dresser.
“I have all the data on that loan for you,” the banker said with false briskness.
“I told you, I’d think about it.”
Tom crossed to the window and began making a cigarette. Gorman watched his every move with anxious eyes. “This thing can’t wait,” he said. “It’s the best investment in the area. Someone else will come along.”
“Let them,” Tom said, lighting up. He shot a slow glance at Gorman’s face, noted its paleness, its poorly concealed agitation. He had been keeping track of the weeks; Beach and Gorman didn’t have much time left.
Gorman was starting to speak again when a quick rap echoed from the door. Tom called out: “Who is it?”
“The desk clerk, Mister Barker. Doctor Spence is downstairs looking for Mister Gorman.”
Gorman looked annoyed but he arose. “Mister Barker . . . ?”
“I’ll give you a definite answer by the end of the week,” Tom said. “And meanwhile, to start our association off, I want to see how good your bank’s judgment is.”
“Sir? I don’t exactly follow you?”
Tom removed his wallet, extracted a thick sheaf of papers, and held them out. “Take them,” he growled, and, when Gorman extended his hand, Tom said: “Arrange a five-thousand-dollar loan on those
options for me. Put the money in an account for me. I won’t be needing it, but it’ll establish our relationship.”
Gorman was gazing at the papers. “Hay and grain options?” he said, his voice rising.
“That’s right,” Tom answered, crossing to the door and holding it open. “I’ll be over to see you within the next few days.”
After Gorman left, Tom stood thoughtfully frowning for a moment, then scooped up his hat, and left the hotel with long strides.
It was mid-afternoon. Except for the coolness of the Royal Antler and one or two other such places in Beatty, there was little relief to be found from the punishing heat. Tom took his usual table at the Royal Antler and nodded silently as Roy brought forth a bottle and glass.
“Seen you at the dance,” Roy said quietly, letting his eyes cut quickly across Barker’s dark and brooding face. “Seen you later, too.”
Something about the way Roy said “later” made Tom look up.
“Behind the café, I mean. You and your friend and Clint Ingersoll.”
Tom poured a drink, offered the glass to Roy who declined, and tossed the liquor off neat. “You’ve got pretty good eyesight,” said Tom in a tone as quiet as the one the bartender had used. “Where were you?”
“In the outhouse behind the saloon here.” Roy straightened up. “That was quite a battle, Mister Barker. Wish I’d seen the start of it, though.”
“That was the start of it.”
Roy shook his head. “I mean when you two first met. Y’see, I know Clint pretty well. He’d use his gun before he’d use his fists. I’d have liked to have seen you disarm him.”
“It wasn’t me who did that, Roy.”
“Oh? Tex, then. Well, you two’re quite a pair, Mister Barker.”
“Are we?”
“Yep.” Roy lowered his voice. “A feller in my job’s got nothin’ much to do during slack times but watch people.”
“Meaning?”
“Hell’s bells, Mister Barker. I spotted you and Tex tradin’ looks three weeks back.”
Tom poured a second drink but did not lift the glass. “You told anyone else about this, Roy?” he asked.
“Naw. Ain’t any of my business, really.”
