by Lauran Paine
“Brought Gorman and the money back.”
Pollard turned this over in his mind. “Gorman, eh? I ain’t surprised. Just the same I wished you’d’ve let me know.”
“You wouldn’t have believed it.”
Pollard’s forehead wrinkled. “I think I would have,” he replied. “Where is he now?”
“In your lock-up with Havestraw.”
“I see, and you look like a bomb goin’ somewhere to explode. What’s the matter now?”
“Montgomery.”
“Over hay?” Pollard asked shrewdly.
“Yes. He got twenty tons under false pretenses.”
Pollard’s eyes crinkled nearly closed. He studied Tom’s angry face for a moment before speaking. “Now look-a-here, Tom, you’re workin’ mighty hard at makin’ a mountain out of a molehill.”
“I didn’t say he could have that hay.”
“All right. You didn’t say he could have it. Before you go stirrin’ up trouble, you ’n’ the judge better set down and powwow. I’ve known him a heap longer’n you have and Phil Montgomery don’t pull underhanded stuff. If he got that hay, he thought he was gettin’ it legally.”
“Like he jumped to the conclusion I robbed his bank?”
“That wasn’t no conclusion, boy. He showed me a note you’d signed.”
Tom rocked up on the balls of his feet. “You’ve been out of town quite a while, haven’t you? Better go ask Gorman who wrote that note . . . and who forged my name to it.”
“I will, Tom, I will. But meantime, you hang an’ rattle until I get some time an’ I’ll look into this hay-stealin’ business.”
The sheriff removed his hat, mopped his forehead, and replaced the hat. Down the roadway, in front of his office, men were moving among their tired horses. He groaned. “They’ll be wantin’ their posse pay. I’d better go. Remember what I said, Tom. Set tight for a while.”
Tom went to his room at the hotel, called for the water boy, and soaked in a blissfully cool bath for nearly an hour. When he reentered the room for fresh clothing, he found Tex sitting there, feet cocked on the sill, gazing out the window. He spoke a short greeting and began to dress.
“Finnerty had your money with him,” Tex said, without looking around.
“I’ll see him.”
“About that hay, Tom.”
“No lectures, Tex. I just got one from Pollard.”
“This ain’t no lecture. I told Miss Toni it was all right for her to have Finnerty fetch it to the barn.”
“You what?”
Tex still did not look around. His hat was pushed back and his pale eyes roamed the far distance. “Just before I left her and Eloise at the creek, I told her it was all right.”
Tom went to the dresser and began combing his hair. His face was red with smoldering wrath. “Why, Tex? You knew I didn’t want him to have that hay.”
“Well, like I told her, I figured I could soften you up before we got back.”
Tom put the comb down and leaned upon the dresser, gazing at himself in the mirror. He finally finished dressing and started for the door. Without seeing him, Tex knew he was leaving. “Where you going now?” His voice asked from the window.
“To see Montgomery.”
“Whoa,” Tex said, dropping his feet and standing up. “Before you do that, let’s say our good byes.”
Tom had the doorknob in his fist. He said nothing until Tex turned to face him. He searched Earle’s face, saw the resolution there, and lowered his brows. “Over twenty tons of hay, Tex?”
“You know better’n that, Tom. I told you I was leaving when we got Gorman.”
“But you didn’t leave.”
Tex shrugged. “Figured I’d see he got delivered is all.”
“If I forget about the damned hay?”
Tex shook his head. “I just told you, Tom, it ain’t the damned hay. I told you a month back it was you. It still is.” Tex started to cross the room slowly. “Anyway, they’ll be working the cattle in the high country pretty quick now and there’ll be lots of work.”
Tom hadn’t believed this argument when Tex had used it before. He knew his partner too well, had heard him curse the thin, cold air of the high country too many times. He leaned upon the door. “Wait a week and I’ll go with you, Tex.”
Earle stopped, his eyes lighting up. “You don’t mean that, do you?”
Tom meant it. He had done much thinking of late, particularly on the ride back with Gorman his prisoner. Although he had triumphed in some ways in his feud with the town, none of the victories had been as he had planned, nor had they left him feeling proud. In fact, he felt somewhat ashamed of himself. He hadn’t, of course, been directly responsible for Moses Beach’s stroke, but he suspected that he had contributed to it. He hadn’t forced Gorman to rob the bank, either, but he had certainly helped to drive him to it. He hadn’t yet broken the judge, but he had made Tex do something shameful in his effort to hurt Montgomery, and perhaps that was even worse than making the judge kneel.
There were, he had thought on the drive back with Gorman, some undertakings that you simply could not make appear decent—like a stand-up fight—no matter how hard you tried. It had been a slow-arriving and bitter realization, and yet the proof was all around him. At this very moment it was in Tex Earle’s face, in his poorly concealed disapproval, in his pale, boyish eyes, and finally it was in Tex’s wish to leave Beatty and its memories behind.
“Yeah, I mean it, Tex. We’ll leave . . .”
They descended the stairs side-by-side and went out into the lengthening afternoon bound for the Royal Antler. There, they had a solemn drink together, then Tex went in search of Eloise to tell her the news. There, too, Gerald Finnerty came upon Tom again and gravely placed a big roll of soiled bills on the bar top; around the money was a limp strand of buckskin holding it together.
“Count it,” Finnerty said. “It’s all there. You got my note on you?”
“Montgomery’s got it at the bank. I’ll get it for you.”
“No hurry,” the cowman said, beckoning to the barman. “Tom, you ever think about settlin’ down around here?”
Tom accepted the drink, inclined his head toward Finnerty, and downed it. “No,” he said with a shade more emphasis than was necessary.
“Well, you know I got that option on the place adjoinin’ me, and it’s a real fine parcel of land. It’ll run easy five thousand head year around.”
“You need that for expansion,” Tom said, turning his empty glass in its own little puddle of dampness. “Besides, I . . .”
“Naw, I don’t want to expand. What I want is a good neighbor there who’ll run cattle with me. You know, sort of work roundups with me.”
Tom was going to speak when a man’s voice raised in surprise and anger interrupted him. He and Finnerty turned in time to see Tex’s hat sail across the room as though possessed of wings. Beyond Earle’s tall back Miss Eloise was aiming another blow. “Run out on me, will you?” she screeched at the swiftly ducking Texan. “Sweet talk me, then run out as soon as . . . !”
“I’ll go get your note,” Tom said to Finnerty with a quick, hard smile, and hastened out of the saloon.
XVII
He walked through the lengthening shadows toward the bank. A low breeze was freshening the air and people were again abroad now that the day’s heat was mostly past. He saw Deputy Havestraw talking to a cowboy in front of Moses Beach’s store and, through the weaving press of pedestrians, caught a glimpse of Toni Montgomery. He left the plank walk, stepped out into the roadway, and heat rose up around him from the dust.
At the bank a clerk led him to Elihu Gorman’s office. There, Judge Montgomery with spectacles pushed up onto his forehead was gazing at a stack of papers on the desk. The judge glanced up and nodded. Tom returned the nod, waited until the clerk was gone, and spoke. “I want the note Gorman forged my name to,” he said.
Without a word Judge Montgomery held up a paper. Tom took it, folded it, and stu
ffed it into a pocket. “About that hay,” he said. “It was brought to you by mistake.”
“Mistake?” the judge said, puzzled. “What mistake, Mister Barker?”
“Your daughter and a friend of mine misunderstood me when I said you were to have no hay.”
“Are you inferring that my daughter is a liar, Mister Barker?”
“You heard what I said, Judge. I didn’t call anyone a liar. I said you got that hay by mistake.”
Judge Montgomery continued to gaze at Tom even after an uncomfortable silence settled between them. Then he got slowly to his feet. “Doesn’t it appear a little ridiculous to you, Mister Barker, to carry a grudge for nearly fifteen years?” He made a deprecatory gesture. “After all, I didn’t willingly hurt you.”
Tom said dryly: “You’ve seen horses with broken legs get shot, haven’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“I doubt if a horse ever breaks his leg on purpose, Judge.”
“That’s ridiculous, Barker.”
“Almost as ridiculous as turning a little kid over to his father when you knew damned well he’d get a beating.”
“I didn’t know,” Judge Montgomery said, coloring. “I had no idea at all.”
Tom looked coldly down into the red face. “Then, why didn’t you ask Sheriff Pollard,” he demanded, “when you took that little kid to the sheriff’s office?” He stopped at the door, opened it, and said: “You can either pay me fifty dollars a ton for that damned hay, or you can return it.”
“Fifty dollars! Hell, Barker . . .”
“I know. You’ll see me in hell first.”
Tom returned to the street, read the note Gorman had forged, tore it into tiny pieces, and consigned it to the gently rustling wind.
“There’s an ordinance against clutterin’ the roadways,” Sheriff Pollard said, coming up and stopping. “You been to see the judge?”
“Yes.”
“He reward you for fetchin’ back Gorman?”
“No.”
“Hmmmm. That’s odd. Oh, well, it don’t matter to a man of your means, does it?” Pollard waved at a group of riders swinging past, sun-bronzed, lean men riding horses that all carried one iron. “Just run Clint Ingersoll and some of his freighter friends back to their camp. Drunk,” the sheriff said with mild disgust. “Drunk in the middle of the day.” He caught Tom’s glance and held it. “Clint said they were goin’ to pull out tomorrow, heading for Mirage and points north.”
Tom understood what Tim Pollard was telling him. He was grateful for the way the sheriff was doing it. He looked across the road, where sunset was splashing a dozen shades of red over wooden false fronts. “Things’ll settle down then,” he said, remembering suddenly that he’d forgotten to get Finnerty’s note from the judge.
Pollard smiled. “If they get too quiet, I’ll get lazy.”
“Buy you a drink,” Tom said, facing straight ahead.
The sheriff started past. “Maybe later, Tom. I never drink before supper.”
Tom watched him move on, then crossed toward the Queens & Aces Café. He was almost to the door when Toni Montgomery stopped him. He touched his hat.
“Tom, can you spare me a few minutes?”
“I can always spare you a few minutes, Toni. You know that without asking.”
“Then walk with me.”
They went south along the plank walk until the boards ran out, and they continued along through the day’s late and softening shadows that faded at last into the merging sky, until Toni stopped and swung to face him.
“You’re leaving Beatty, aren’t you, Tom?”
For a second he was surprised, then he said: “Eloise told you, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Did you know that she is in love with Tex?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say he didn’t know saloon girls loved. Instead though, he looked beyond her hair to the changing lights of the far horizon and shrugged. “She could do much worse, Toni.”
“She has already done worse. That’s what she told me a few hours ago. She’s been married before.”
His eyes returned to her face, then fled outward again. Stark and naked in the lowering evening stood a gnarled tree. He remembered it from his youth—Beatty’s hang tree. More than one horse thief and outlaw had writhed his last precious moments from its limbs. “You picked a hell of a place to stop,” he said suddenly, and took her hand guiding her along through the twilight toward town. “The judge’ll be waiting for his supper.”
She went willingly for only a hundred yards, then stopped and drew away from him. “Why are you going, Tom?”
“I think you know,” he answered.
“But I’d rather have you tell me.”
“Why? So you can crow?”
Her head moved slightly from side to side. “You know me better than that.”
He drew in a big breath. “No one likes to be wrong, Toni. Maybe I like it least of all, because I’ve wasted a lot of years waiting to come down here and be top lash.”
“Is going back where you came from going to be any better?”
He looked into her gray, wide, and liquid eyes. “I don’t believe I like having you look inside me, Toni. Anyway, you might see something you don’t want to see.”
“What is it, Tom? What’s back there where you came from? A girl?”
He smiled. “No girl, Toni, just a lot of big mountains with snow the year around, high meadows, and ice-cold creeks. Pines and fir trees and open range. Just more cattle country.”
She was silently gazing at the crooked rim of the northeastern skyline, nearly obscured now by darkness, lost in the depths of her thoughts. “Tex told Eloise about the hay,” she said gently.
Anger stirred in him. “Damn that hay anyway,” he cursed. “He can have it . . . have all of it as far as I’m concerned.”
She watched his face twist, then smooth out again when he caught her watching him.
“You tell him that for me,” he growled.
“Tom? Don’t you realize he could have it anyway? You haven’t kept track of time. Your options expired while you were chasing Elihu Gorman.”
This sobered him. He began to trace back the spun-out summer days in his memory. Then he squinted down at her. “Why didn’t he say that today, when I was in the bank?”
“Probably for the same reason Sheriff Pollard hasn’t told you that Clint Ingersoll killed your father while you and Tex were gone. They don’t want to add to your troubles.”
He stared at her. “Ingersoll killed him?”
“Yes, Tom.”
He was surprised that all he felt was mild astonishment. There was no sense of loss, no sense of pain or remorse, no desire for vengeance. “How, Toni?”
“Several men were drinking out at the freighter’s camp. No one knows exactly how it happened, just that it was a gunfight and that your father was killed.”
She touched his arm, looking up into his eyes. He was looking blankly past her, waiting patiently for the swiftly flowing childhood scenes to pass. Then his expression altered; he looked at her hand, felt its pressure, and was warmed by its message. Whatever was there in the night lay in both of them. He put up his other hand, covered her fingers, and continued on more slowly toward the orange-yellow lights of Beatty.
“Did you ever hear the story of my mother, Toni?”
Her reply was simple and grave. “Yes, once, a number of years back, I eavesdropped when Sheriff Pollard and the judge were talking on the porch. I afterward cried myself to sleep.”
He remembered something with a start, something that appeared quite suddenly out of his memory and that, until that moment, he had not recollected at all. A little glass on the grave beside the headstone with withered forget-me-nots in it. He strode along, holding her hand and saying nothing.
Antoinette looked sideways at his profile in the pale night. There was a reserve about him, a hardness that was not altogether the product of bitter environment; for a space of seconds she was afraid of h
im. Then she recalled the way other men looked upon him and thought how illuminating one man’s judgment of another man was. Women were not good judges of men; they saw only what was pleasing to look upon, only what was handsome or smiling or laughing—or gentle. Men did not see these virtues, or, seeing them, did not include them in their weighing and measuring. Her father and Tim Pollard, for example, had reason to dislike Tom Barker—and yet neither of them really did dislike him. And Gerald Finnerty, and Roy the bartender, who had judged so many men, and Tex Earle. Even, she thought, Clint Ingersoll, who wanted to kill him—even him. He respected Tom or he would have shot him down before this, perhaps from hiding as most men killed other men on the frontier. His voice scattered her thoughts.
“I reckon a man can live down mistakes, can’t he?”
“Of course he can, Tom.”
“You know, I’ve taken more baths since I’ve been back here than I ever took before.”
She looked up, not understanding until he went on.
“I keep feeling dirty, Toni. And it won’t wash off.”
A shadow rushed over her face, or seemed to, but she very wisely held her tongue.
They came to the edge of the plank walk, stepped up onto it, and progressed slowly northward. Across the roadway Sheriff Tim Pollard, sitting on a bench in front of his office, leaned a little, the better to identify them. Then he rocked back and ran a thoughtful hand under his mustache.
There was the thinnest of sickle moons. Patches of lamplight made squares of diluted light along the walk and out into the road. Horsemen jogged past, trailing fragments of pleasant conversation. When they passed the Royal Antler, Gerald Finnerty doffed his hat at Antoinette and threw Tom a solemn wink. Farther along, near Beach’s emporium, Jack Havestraw stood in the shadows, sighing; he scarcely saw Tom at all.
