Gunsmoke and Trail Dust

by Bliss Lomax

  Old jealousies and enmities boiled up in Dufors, for Clay Roberts was no stranger to him. In the long ago, they had started out on even terms in the Texas Panhandle. He damned the whim of fate that seemed to have gone out of its way to throw them together again.

  Webb Nichols, who had called young Harvey Hume a fool, walked in as Dufors sat slouched down at his table. “Reckon you’ve heard what they done,” he said.

  “Yeh,” Dufors growled. “How do you boys feel about it?”

  “Wal, we expected worse,” Webb declared frankly. “We shore figgered they was goin’ to turn a bunch of gun slingers loose. Don’t seem like one man could make much hell for us, though I reckon he’ll have his nose into everythin’.”

  “He won’t push you folks around if I know it!” Dufors said flatly. “Roberts has got a big reputation, but he’s just a stock-detective. He doesn’t have any authority from the law. You men want to remember that. You don’t have to get out of his way!”

  Nichols eyed him shrewdly. “You sound as though you knew somethin’ about him, Frank.”

  “I know all about him!” Dufors rapped. “He may be poison to some people, but he doesn’t want to try to walk over me!”

  His truculent manner and brave words failed to arouse any marked enthusiasm in Webb. The deputy sheriff had proved to be a pliant tool of the faction the bearded Mormon represented. It did not make for respect. In fact, Webb had a secret scorn for the man’s judgment and courage. In the present instance, he felt that Dufors was only whistling in the dark in proclaiming what he was going to do, with Roberts still some hundreds of miles away.

  “He’s tough, eh?” he demanded bluntly, and there was a definite feeling of contempt in his eyes as he regarded Dufors.

  “Sure, he’s tough!” the latter growled. “I can be tough too! I don’t propose to walk wide of him, I can tell you!”

  Webb was not interested in Dufors’ bragging; he wanted some information about the Association’s new agent. With some prodding, he got it, and though he discounted some of it as exaggerated and biased, it was still of a nature to cause his habitual soberness to rest more heavily than usual on him as he turned down the street.

  The group of men in front of the blacksmith shop had grown to a dozen or more. They gathered round Webb to hear what he had learned from Dufors. His news had a disquieting effect on all save Shad Caney, a dark-browed, violent-tempered man.

  “Why the long faces?” Caney demanded fiercely. He was the only Gentile in the crowd. “I don’t know what’s got into you Mormons! There used to be some fight in you, but now you take back talk from a boy and pull in yore horns ’cause Ringe’s crowd is bringin’ in a stock-detective!”

  “I ain’t pullin’ in my horns, nor am I figgerin’ on goin’ hog wild!” Webb said thinly, taking it as a personal affront. “You’ll find me standin’ up for my rights, no matter what they do!”

  His dark eyes had narrowed with cold hostility. Caney and he had come in with the first settlers, but though they had gone through the Magdalena Basin War together, there was a long and bitter hatred between them that had flamed into gunfire on one occasion. A borrowed saddle, which Webb insisted Caney had never returned, was the cause of their long quarrel. Both were frugal and industrious and few among the basin homesteaders were as prosperous. Within the year they had been elected to the board of commissioners for the Willow Creek school, along with John Ringe. They were in Mescal today to attend a monthly meeting of the board.

  “Lettin’ a young squirt like Harvey Hume talk you down, and runnin’ to Frank Dufors to see what he’s goin’ to do may be yore idea of standin’ up for yore rights, but it ain’t mine!” Shad snarled, ready, as usual, to make the most of anything from Webb that even faintly resembled a challenge. “If we play it yore way, them highbinders will have our ears pinned back before we do anythin’!”

  Webb’s rocky face drained white with wrath and he broke away from one of his adherents who tried to hold him back as he started to rush at Caney. Virgil Hume, Harvey’s uncle, a brawny, barrel-chested man, famous all over the basin for his feats of strength, stepped in between them as they stood toe to toe, glaring their implacable hatred.

  “Take it easy!” Virgil warned, getting them apart. “Shad, you got no call to be poppin’ off. If trouble comes, we’ll hold up our end, but as Webb says, we ain’t goin’ to be stampeded into doin’ anythin’ foolish.”

  He not only had the backing of the crowd but was formidable enough in his own right to be an effective, if unappreciated, peacemaker. Caney looked him over from head to toe.

  “I know what you’ll do!” he snorted contemptuously. “You’ll steal off to meetin’s like a bunch of scared rabbits till it’s too late to do anythin’ else!” He shoved through the crowd, growling, “I ain’t interested in hearin’ any more of yore mouthwash! You go yore way and I’ll go mine!”

  “Let him go,” someone exclaimed. “He’ll cool off.”

  “I don’t care whether he does or not,” said Virgil. “We’ve worked and fought too hard for what we’ve got to risk losin’ everythin’ by flyin’ off half-cocked, as he’d have us do. If we have to start packin’ our rifles, we’ll do it; but no hothead is goin’ to drag us into this fight if I have anythin’ to say about it.”

  Webb Nichols and he were the best of friends, but the glance he gave the latter left no doubt that what he had said was as much for him as for anyone else.

  Webb held his tongue. Though no one else seemed to notice, he caught a strong echo of the stand young Harvey was taking in what his uncle had to say.

  It was almost noon, and in a few minutes the crowd began to melt away. Together, Webb and Hume walked down to the wagon yard of Huntsinger’s livery stable to feed their teams. When the chore was finished they got their lunches from the wagons and sat down in the shade of the barn to eat.

  “You haven’t said anythin’ in ten minutes, Webb,” Virgil remarked. “I didn’t hurt yore feelin’s by anythin’ I said, I hope.”

  “No, I was jest thinkin’. When Harvey pitched into me this mornin’ I didn’t know what to make of it. But I can see you feel about the same as he does. I never figgered he was gittin’ such ideas from you.”

  Virgil shook his head. “It’s the other way around; I been listenin’ to him and the young fellows of his age. They were just boys when they came here. They’ve had a tough time, Webb; workin’ themselves to the bone, and often never half enough to eat, while they was growin’ up. Things are a little better now, and they want to hang on to what they got. They’re willin’ to forgit the old grudges. They claim Ed Stack and a couple others are ready to meet them halfway. I don’t know; maybe they’re all wrong. But they’re young; maybe they’ve got more sense than we have.”

  “I doubt it!” Webb growled. “Their meddlin’ won’t help us none. It’s too late, after all these years, to think anythin’ can be worked out on those lines. You ought to be the one to know it.”

  “I suppose I should,” Virgil admitted. “Ringe still says I fired the first shot, seven years ago. I’ve never let an opportunity slip to hurt ’em. I helped to acquit Mescalero Joe Salazar last fall when I knew he was guilty as a man ever was. I wouldn’t do it again—nor any of the other things. Like blowin’ up Pat Redman’s dam. I can see now that it was all wrong; peace could never come of it. Maybe Harvey and the other young fellows like him won’t git very far with the stand they’re takin’ but they’re entitled to a chance.”

  Webb Nichols stared at him, astounded. “I can’t believe it!” he groaned. “You saw yore brother Travis killed, our homes burned down and our stock slaughtered by Ringe and the rest of ’em, and you can still talk of forgivin’ those men and meetin’ ’em halfway?”

  Virgil nodded soberly. “More bloodshed won’t bring Travis back. There’s just a chance that Harvey may be right, and I’m stringin’ along with him.”

  Chapter Three

  THE NEW TEACHER

  IN THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE wedg
ed in between Stoddard’s Drugstore and the Mescal Mercantile Company’s establishment Eudora Stoddard hummed a gay little tune as she set the table for the noonday dinner. She wore her auburn hair pulled back rather tightly from her forehead and done up high in back, in the style of the day back East, from which she had come a few months ago. It made her look older than she was and gave her sensitive young face added dignity.

  A tarnished spoon at her uncle’s place caught her eye. She picked it up and examined it critically. “Egg stains!” She said to herself. “I better get it out of sight before Aunt Jude sees it.”

  She hid it in the pocket of her apron and got a fresh spoon from the sideboard before she placed the chairs for aunt and uncle and herself.

  “You ’bout ready, Dora?” her aunt called from the kitchen.

  “Yes, Aunt Jude. I don’t see anything of Uncle Dan yet. Someone must have come in for a prescription.”

  She stepped into the parlor and glanced through the curtained window. The street was deserted. Mescal seemed to drowse under a warm noonday sun. Her attention went first to the lodge room above the firehouse, the town’s only meeting place, where, at two o’clock that afternoon, she was to appear before the commissioners of the Willow Creek District School who were to act on her application for the position of teacher. The worst they can do is to say no, she thought.

  A faint flush of excitement gave color to her cheeks today. Never having been exposed to a long Arizona summer, with its blinding sunshine and strong winds, her skin had lost none of its fresh, creamy loveliness since her arrival in Mescal, late in October. She had a good chin and mouth and intelligent blue eyes. In speaking of Eudora, however, other women oftener referred to her as sweet, rather than pretty.

  The familiar figure of her uncle, a short, rotund, and jolly little man, careless of his clothes, appeared on the sidewalk. Old Gyp, a liver-colored hound, whose daily exercising was limited to following his master from the front porch to the drugstore six times a day, padded along behind him.

  Eudora smiled fondly to herself as she watched them, thinking again how much her Uncle Dan and old Gyp had in common. Neither had a mean bone in him. Other dogs might snarl and fight, but Gyp never permitted his curiosity to embroil him in their quarrels. Having demonstrated that he could not be induced into taking sides or engaging in strife and conflict seemed to have won him the respect of his canine world, and his rights were seldom invaded. The same could be said for Dan Stoddard. Through all the trouble that had plagued the basin, he not only had never allowed himself to become a partisan of either faction but, unlike Dad Beazley and other professed neutrals, had refused to be drawn into any discussion regarding it. He either had a good word to say of a man, or nothing at all. It followed that both stockman and homesteader held Dan Stoddard in high esteem.

  “I’m a couple minutes late,” he said, as Eudora opened the door for him. “Mrs. Bascom came in just as I was about to close up for noon.” He sniffed at the appetizing odor that filled the house. “Fried chicken, eh! I thought I smelled it, coming up the walk. I’m here, Jude!” he called to his wife. “I was just telling Dora Mrs. Bascom came in and held me up a few minutes.”

  Mrs. Stoddard came to the kitchen door. She was a birdlike little woman, with quick, darting movements. “Someone sick at the Bascoms, Dan’l?”

  “No, she just wanted some red cinnamon drops to color the frosting on a cake. It’s been quite a morning in town.”

  “I should think so, and in more ways than one!” the little woman declared pointedly. Her eyes snapped disapprovingly in her thin face. “And I’m not speaking about the action the Association took. I needed some sugar. Dora was dressing, so I ran down to the market myself. Webb Nichols and Shad Caney were in a crowd in front of the blacksmith shop and ready to tear each other to pieces. They’d have fought if Virgil Hume hadn’t got them apart.”

  “Shucks, Jude, you shouldn’t pay any attention to one of their arguments,” Dan protested, with a chuckle. “They like to blow off steam. But it doesn’t mean anything. By and large, Webb and Shad are all right.”

  “Dan’l, don’t you dare to stand there and try to defend those men to me!” Mrs. Stoddard exclaimed indignantly. “That Shad Caney is a lawless, bloodthirsty ruffian, and Webb Nichols isn’t much better! The idea of electing such men to a school board! My blood runs cold when I think of Dora taking that school and living at the Nichols’s place!”

  “Now, don’t take on,” he protested, as he removed his coat. “I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. They’ve had other teachers at Willow Creek and I never heard tell of them having any trouble.”

  “They’ve never had a young, inexperienced girl like Dora out there! I don’t know what you call trouble, but I’ve heard Myra Krumbine say that in all the years she was teaching she never had such a time as at Willow Creek. Those Nichols and Caney children was fighting every day, even the little girls. Myra says they been raised like heathen. That oldest Nichols boy—Verne, they call him—is almost man-grown. There’s one of the Caneys who’s just as big. I don’t see how Dora is going to handle them. I tell you, Dan’l, the more I think about it, the less I like the idea. I wisht I’d put my food down in the first place!”

  “Please, Aunt Jude, don’t feel that way,” Eudora pleaded. “Getting the school means so much to me. I couldn’t withdraw my application now, even if I wanted to.”

  “Huh! I don’t know why not; you ain’t obligated yourself any. You sit down, Dan’l. Dora can bring the things in. I’ll brown the gravy, and we can eat.”

  Mr. Stoddard sat down at his accustomed place and buttered a piece of bread. When Eudora came in from the kitchen with the fried chicken and the potatoes, he beckoned for her to bend down.

  “Don’t let Jude discourage you,” he whispered. “You’ll make out all right. John Ringe stopped in a few minutes ago. He told me there wasn’t any question about your being appointed.”

  He pinched her cheek affectionately. Eudora was his dead sister Eliza’s only child. In the long ago, on a visit back to Ohio, he had seen her as a tot of two or three, and not again until the morning she stepped down from the Lund-Mescal stage. Left alone in the world, she had come to Arizona to make her home with Jude and him. Being childless themselves and set in their ways, they had received her with some misgiving. But Eudora had quickly taken complete possession of their hearts and filled their rather empty lives with exciting interest.

  Mrs. Stoddard placed the gravy bowl and the coffeepot on the table. “I wanted to have a lemon pie for Dora, she’s so fond of ’em, but there just isn’t a lemon in town.”

  “I like apple pie just as well, Aunt Jude,” said Eudora. “It looks wonderful.”

  Mrs. Stoddard shook her head. “I like an apple pie a bit juicy—I guess we can eat. You say grace, Dan’l.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. Dan glanced at his wife and saw her chin quiver as she kept her eyes on her plate.

  “What is it, Jude?” he asked, solicitously.

  “Our last meal together,” she answered, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. “How big this house is going to be again—just the two of us here.”

  “Why, I’ll be coming into town, Aunt Jude,” Eudora insisted. She reached across the table and gave the little woman’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll find a way. Mr. Nichols or someone will be driving in.”

  “Of course you will!” Dan agreed. “It ain’t like you was going to the end of the world. The whole spring term is only ten weeks.”

  Mrs. Stoddard failed to find anything reassuring in their protestations. “It’s almost forty miles out to Willow Creek!” she exclaimed, with a touch of irritation. “You know as well as I do, Dan’l, that if anyone comes in from out that way at this time of the year, they ain’t likely to come in on a Saturday, when they’ve got their boys home from school and can get some work out of them. When she writes, it may be days before we get it, and our letters will most likely lay in the post office for
ages. We won’t know for weeks at a time how she is making out.”

  She was thoroughly aroused by now, and her mouth was a determined, resolute line.

  “Dora, I’m going to speak real plain!” she declared. “You don’t have to take that school because you’re a burden on us. Your Uncle Dan’l can provide a living for his sister’s only child. This is your home as much as it’s ours. Have we ever said anything to make you think otherwise?”

  “Oh, Auntie, no!” Eudora cried. “Please don’t think that! I’ve been so happy with you. It’s only that I want to stand on my own feet. I know the Willow Creek school has its drawbacks; but it’s a beginning for me. With some experience, I can get a better school next fall.”

  “You’re right, Dora!” Mr. Stoddard said with an air of finality. When necessary, he could take a firm stand, and he was prepared to take one now. “I admire the spunk you’re showing. I’m sure if you’ll promise Jude that you won’t try to stick it out if you find it’s too much we won’t have to say any more about it.”

  Eudora made the promise without examining it too closely. Mrs. Stoddard gave in reluctantly, but only after repeating several times that it was against what she called her “better judgment.” The matter was too closely related to the action the stockmen’s association had taken to be dismissed from their conversation completely.

  “I suppose it’s being discussed over every dinner table in town,” Dan admitted, when he was pressed for his opinion regarding the latter step. “I don’t believe any serious trouble will come of it. There’s saner judgment on both sides than there used to be. It’ll make itself felt.”

  “You don’t believe anything of the sort,” Mrs. Stoddard asserted reprovingly. “You know there’ll be trouble, and Webb Nichols and Shad Caney will be the first to get into it. You could go out on the street and ask a dozen men and they’d all tell you the same.”

  Dan shrugged patiently. “I was only giving you my opinion. I know Shad likes to keep a chip on his shoulder. Webb will do his share of talking, too. Feelings may run high for a time; but that’s beside the point as far as Dora is concerned. If I thought she was going to be in any danger out there, I wouldn’t let her go.”