by L. P. Holmes
But two years could be a long time, as Lee had found out, and time could do things to a man. It could heal hurts and it could season and toughen him, bring him balance and a sound sense of values and a recognition of obligations, such as he now felt toward Buck Theodore.
Lee’s decision to return to Maacama Basin had been as abrupt as the one to leave it. It had come to him as he lay in his blankets one night in the bunkhouse of Boley Jackon’s Line Seven headquarters in the Skull Mountain range. One moment he’d been a tired, reasonably content saddle hand, about to doze off in a friendly bunkhouse. The next he was filled with urgency, hardly able to wait until morning so that he could be on his way.
* * * * *
Jack Dhu’s soft drawl cut through the preoccupation of Lee Cone’s thoughts.
“Here comes pay day, Lee. Wonder who Boland’s fancy friend is? Looks like a tinhorn to me.”
Lee lifted his head, looked, and went very still. Cutting across the feverish street at a long angle came Braz Boland. With him was a big, floridly handsome man wearing a tall, cream-colored Stetson. The rest of his apparel was in keeping with the hat—a tan silk shirt with a smoothly knotted brown tie, tight whipcord trousers, and expensive, hand-stitched half boots.
Lee spoke softly. “Not that it means anything to you, Jack, but you’re looking at Mister Tasker Scott.”
Jack Dhu swung his lean head, flashing a quick glance at Lee. “Strong on the mister, ain’t you?”
“Very.”
Boland and his companion dodged ahead of a ramshackle spring wagon, gained the porch of the store, and headed straight for the two saddle hands. Boland swung his arm in their direction, indicating Cone and Dhu.
“Here they are, Mister Scott. Judge for yourself … for I don’t know enough about either of them to go down the line for them.”
Jack Dhu pushed to his feet and, after hesitating only an instant, Lee Cone followed suit.
“Just what in hell is this?” demanded Jack Dhu coldly. “An auction?”
Braz Boland colored angrily under the chill bite of Jack Dhu’s words.
“Mister Scott is looking for some saddle hands himself.”
“You don’t say!” rapped Dhu. “Well, this saddle hand ain’t looking for a job. All I’m interested in now is what you owe me. So pay up, Boland! I’m tired of waiting.”
Tasker Scott hadn’t spoken. He was staring at Lee Cone, all the affability of his expression fading.
Lee showed him a small, tight, mirthless grin, before he addressed the man he had come to despise.
“Surprised, Tasker? Figured you’d seen the last of me? Trails have a way of circling back.” Lee paused and looked Scott up and down with a stare that was openly sardonic. “You seem to have prospered, Tasker … you surely do. But you shouldn’t wear such tight britches … shows off your paunch too much. But then, maybe the paunch is the badge of the big operator … the successful man.”
Tasker Scott had very light blue eyes, which now paled to the color of skim milk, while the floridness of his heavy cheeks deepened to a congested crimson. He turned on Braz Boland angrily.
“Why didn’t you tell me this fellow Cone was one of your men?”
Startled, Boland floundered a little.
“I … well, hell! How would I know you two had met before? All I know about Cone is that he’d been in Maacama Basin before and could show me the short way across the desert from Carbide Junction. So, I hired him on.”
Scott put his pale, fuming glance on Lee Cone again. “You’ll be smart if you take the same way out, Cone … and quick!”
Lee’s grin became even more openly mocking.
“I don’t know of any reason to rush, Tasker. No reason at all. In fact, I aim to stick around a while and renew old acquaintances.”
The look which came into Tasker Scott’s eyes at these words was one of blank, savage hatred—a killing hatred.
This startled Lee. He had never given Tasker Scott cause to hate him that way. They had never been friendly back in the old days, and there had always been a mutual dislike, but as far as Lee was concerned, nothing worse than that. But here, with a few mocking words, he had roused something that was deadly. He stared at Scott, unable to figure it out.
Tasker Scott seemed to gather himself as he returned the stare, as though about to launch himself physically at Lee. Then he turned and plunged away, his boot heels rapping hard and sharp on the worn planks of the store porch.
Jack Dhu looked at Lee with raised eyebrows.
“Man! What you said sure seemed to have twisted the knife in that fellow. I don’t think he likes you.”
Braz Boland had pulled a wad of currency from a hip pocket. He counted off several bills and handed them to Jack Dhu, who pocketed them and said: “Looks like you made enough off the deal, Boland, to square up with that granger for his tent and other gear that your crazy horses wrecked for him.”
Boland grunted, then declared: “To hell with him! Think I’m sucker enough to let some fool granger gouge me? Let him whistle.”
He turned to Lee, stuffing the balance of his money back into his jeans, and squaring himself belligerently.
“The way I figure it, Cone, you owe me money instead of the other way around. I put you up there at point last night to keep the horse herd under control. You didn’t do it. You lost your nerve and let them run. I lost four of the best. Two came up with broken legs and had to be shot. Another foundered itself at the river. And the fourth broke its neck falling over the tongue of the wagon at that damned granger camp. When I add up the value of those four broncs, it comes to way over what I might have owed you in wages.”
Lee looked at Boland, not sure he was hearing right. Did this fellow actually think he could get away with anything as raw as this? Lee’s lips thinned and little knots of muscle bunched at the sides of his jawline.
“If that’s your idea of a joke, Boland,” he said softly, “consider that I’ve laughed. Now pay me. Our agreement back in Carbide Junction called for thirty-five dollars, and thirty-five is what I want.”
“Joke be damned!” blurted Boland. “Where money is concerned I never joke.”
He gave Lee a look from toes to head, then turned and would have walked off, but Lee caught him by the shoulder and whirled him around.
Lee stood as tall as Boland, though a good fifteen pounds lighter. But Lee was wolf lean about the flanks, with a lot of his weight in the depth of his chest and the breadth of his shoulders. His gray eyes turned dark.
“Thirty-five dollars, Boland,” he repeated, his hand digging to Boland’s shoulder now. “And while I’m about it … fifty more for the granger, John Vail. Long as you don’t aim to deliver it to him yourself, I will. So you’d better come across.”
Braz Boland jerked his arm free and spread his feet. “Come across, eh? Sure, Cone. Like this!”
He swung savagely at the side of Lee’s head.
The manner in which Boland settled his weight on his spread feet had given Lee some inkling of what was coming, and he instinctively dropped his jaw behind a hunched shoulder. That shoulder took up most of the power of Boland’s punch, but not all of it. Boland’s fist bounced off Lee’s shoulders, then skidded across his face, cutting his mouth. Then, before Boland could recover, Lee stepped in and sank his fist into the pit of Boland’s stomach.
It was a deadly blow, carrying with it days of accumulating dislike, plus the sharp, cold anger that whipped through Lee when he realized Boland was deliberately intent on beating him out of his hard-earned wages.
Braz Boland, supremely confident that his own surprise blow would end the argument on the spot, was caught with his belly muscles loose and flaccid. The wicked right fist of Lee’s, smashing into his solar plexus, brought him far over, gasping and half paralyzed. Lee gave him no chance to recover, but charged in, both fists slashing and clubbing. He st
raightened Boland up with a looping belt to the mouth and then nailed him full on the point of his sagging jaw.
Boland went off the store porch, rolling into the street’s dust, half under the startled hoofs of a buckboard team tethered at the hitch rail.
“All right, Jack,” Lee said to Dhu back over his shoulder. “Just so nobody can argue the point later, you collect my wages for me.”
“I can do that with pleasure!” chortled Jack Dhu. “Your wages, and the granger’s damages. I’ll do it, even though I hate to touch this cheating hombre. Why, the damned, crooked whelp … trying to pull a blazer like that!”
Braz Boland was so nearly out, he showed no move of resistance as Jack Dhu bent over him, pulled out the wad of currency, counted out eighty-five dollars, then shoved the rest back into Boland’s pocket.
Straightening up, Jack Dhu grinned wickedly.
“No, he shouldn’t have tried that. When he gets through gagging for air, he’ll realize that himself. I never saw anybody get hit harder. Cone, you surprise me. I never figured you were that tough.”
Lee said nothing as he pocketed the money. Then he jerked his head. “Let’s get out of here before a crowd gathers and begins asking questions.’’
“Get out where?”
“I know a ranch we can bunk at for a few days while we figure out what our future plans are.”
Jack Dhu shook his head. “I got no future plans. Gave up that foolishness a long time ago. Planning the future always makes life complicated. Besides, coming across that damned desert left me with a long thirst. But I’ll probably be seeing you around.”
Lee didn’t argue. He’d come to like Jack Dhu, but he’d also recognized a certain wild streak in the man, and a deadly one, if aroused.
“All right. Jack,” he said. “That’s a promise. I’ll be seeing you around.”
* * * * *
Lee had left his horse tied at the far end of the store’s hitch rail. Now he freed the reins, stepped into the saddle, and threaded a way through the crush of wagons on the street. There was a warm moistness seeping down his chin and when he scrubbed a hand across the spot it came away stained crimson. He dabbed at his cut lips with the tail of his neckerchief, while another twist of anger went through him. That sure had been a raw one Boland had tried to pull.
Nearing the edge of town, the jam on the street forced Lee to rein in while a big freight outfit, lead wagon, and back action, creaked ponderously by. Just behind the freighter came an open-topped buggy, bright and new and sparkling in the sun. A matched team of spirited bay horses drew the rig, and handling the reins with deft control was the person Lee Cone had been trying for two years to forget.
She saw Lee the moment he saw her and with that recognition she pulled back on the reins and drew her fretting team to a halt. Her dark eyes widened and her full lips parted breathlessly.
“Lee!” she cried. “Lee Cone!”
Lee touched his hat. “Hello, Lucy. Or maybe that’s being too familiar … Maybe I’d better change that. Missus Scott, how are you?” Lee couldn’t keep a touch of bitter irony from his tone.
She was just as beautiful as she’d been back in the days when she had so completely blinded his eyes and his heart—her dark eyes, her raven-black hair, her willful, crimson mouth.
He saw her flinch slightly at his words, but her glance did not waver.
“I’ll forgive you that, Lee, for perhaps I deserve it. But now … Oh, it’s good to see you again! I want to talk to you.”
Lee stared at her soberly, then shook his head. “I’m afraid your husband would object to that, Missus Scott. Our chance to talk came a long time ago. We did a lot of it back then, concerning our relationship and what we could do with the future. But apparently it didn’t mean a thing. And now … considering where we both ended up … I can’t think of any kind of talk that could do either of us any good.”
He touched his hat again, gigged his horse, and rode on.
III
Tasker Scott’s office took up a corner of the first floor of a big, two-story, newly built warehouse. He was pacing back and forth, chewing on an unlighted cigar when the door opened and his wife came in. He turned on her angrily.
“What are you doing in town?”
She looked him up and down coolly. “Because I felt like riding in,” she replied tartly. “That was part of the bargain … remember? You do as you please, and I do as I please.” She studied him again for a moment, then added: “I see that you know about it, too.”
“Know about what?”
“Lee Cone is back.”
He flared at her. “You’ve seen him … talked to him?”
She shrugged her shapely shoulders. “I saw him. I’d like to have a talk with him, but he didn’t seem very interested. Not that I blame him, of course.”
“You’ll leave him alone. You’ll stay away from him, understand!”
Lucy Scott looked her husband up and down again. “You always were a jealous fool, Tasker. Jealous of all your possessions. Greedy, too.”
He barked a harsh, mirthless laugh. “You should talk about greed!”
She nodded and spoke evenly. “You’re quite right there, Tasker. We’re very greedy people, you and I. Two of a kind. A fact I realized when I married you. Probably the main reason I did marry you. I saw in you a man who could get me the things I wanted in life.”
“Just the material things?” he said.
It was her turn to laugh without mirth. “You never knew about the more tender emotions, Tasker. Let’s not turn sentimental … it would be a very poor act. Now let’s come down to cases. What are we going to do about him?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Lee Cone is back. What about him?”
Tasker Scott dropped into the chair behind his desk. He tried to light his cigar, found it too badly frayed, threw it aside, pulled a fresh one from his breast pocket, and lit this. He scowled into the smoke for a moment before he answered.
“I’ll take care of Lee Cone. I ran him out of Maacama Basin before. I’ll do it again.”
“That’s a very empty boast,” said Lucy Scott smoothly. “You ran nobody out of Maacama Basin. Let’s consider a few facts. Lee Cone left Maacama Basin because he was hurt emotionally. He’s had time to get over that. Now he’s back. He’ll be looking up Buck Theodore and he’ll hear about the ranch. I doubt very much that he’ll take that lying down. He could cause us a great deal of trouble.”
Tasker Scott shook his head, blew out a mouthful of smoke. “Not that way,” he assured her. “There isn’t a thing he could do to hurt me that way. He can’t prove a thing.”
“I hope not. You’ve traveled pretty fast, Tasker … maybe too fast to cover your back trail.”
He pounded a fist on the desk. “I don’t like that kind of talk, especially from you. Makes me out a crook.”
She laughed again. “You wouldn’t try to make me believe you’re a thoroughly honest man, would you?”
Tasker Scott grew quiet as he studied her with narrowed eyes. “You are the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” he said, “and the most cold-blooded. There have been others like you in history, and every now and then a man has come along who knew just how to handle them. It’s high time you were handled the same way.”
He was out of his chair and had her by the arm before she could move. His fingers pinched deep and she twisted at the pain and tried to pull loose.
“Let go of me!” she cried.
Instead, he jerked her close and kissed her hungrily. He held her away from him and jeered at her. “My loving wife! From now on, when I bark, you bounce!”
She pulled back her free hand and slapped him across the face. Instantly he was shaking her, shaking her until her head snapped loosely and her hair fell across her shoulders.
There was that burni
ng in his eyes that was worse than the physical manhandling.
When he let go of her, she leaned weakly against the wall. And for the first time, Lucy Scott was physically afraid of her husband.
Tasker Scott saw that fear in her eyes, and laughed.
“Now,” he said, “we actually understand each other. I see that I should have brought this understanding about earlier. A final word to you, my dear. Stay away from Lee Cone.”
She did not answer. With unsteady fingers she tidied up her hair and smoothed her dress. Then she went out, passing Braz Boland just beyond the door.
Boland stared at her curiously, then went on in. Boland’s lips were puffed, one side of his jaw was lumpy. His breathing was a little unsteady.
Tasker Scott faced him harshly. “What in hell do you want?”
“Where will I find the law in this town?”
“There isn’t any yet. What do you have in mind?”
Boland told him, concluding with: “He went off with eighty-five dollars of my money, Cone did. I was down and couldn’t do anything about it. But I heard what was said. That was robbery, Mister Scott. And I want something done about it.”
Scott considered him narrowly for a moment, then nodded.
“Pull up a chair, Boland. I think we can do business.” Scott shuffled around in one of his desk drawers before leaning back and saying: “No, there isn’t any law in this town right now, so maybe we’d better set up some. How would you like to be town marshal?”
Boland stared, before he exploded: “Me! Town marshal?”
“Why not? Cone will continue to stay in town for a while, probably. Be a lot of satisfaction in slapping an arrest on him yourself, wouldn’t it? And,” added Scott smoothly, “maybe he’d try and resist. In which case …” Scott ended with a shrug.
Their glances met, and both men smiled.
“You got a badge?” asked Boland.
“I got a badge,’’ answered Scott, and produced one from a desk drawer.