by Frank Bonham
“Well, I heard somebody choppin’ wood,” Doyle explained. “Reckoned I’d bird-dog around a spell. You boys met?” he asked. “This is an old friend, Red … Troy Cameron. Marshal Cameron, that was. Cameron, Red Roth. Timber man.”
Roth nodded at Cameron. He was short and sturdy, looking like the first ax helve out of the barrel, picked for trim toughness. His hair was roan red with a dusting of gray, and cut short like the mane of a work horse. Roth raised the ax at his side and made a backhand stroke at the tree.
“This here,” he said, “is some of the best tie timber in Arizona. Be a pleasure to log it out.”
“When do you figure on starting?” Cameron asked him.
“That’s kind of up to Big Jim Jackson. Whenever he and I get together on some things.” Roth grinned like a top sergeant. There were flecks of chewing tobacco on his teeth. He had thin, slick, liver-spotted skin.
“One of the things,” Cameron told him quietly, “had better be ownership of the timber, or trees won’t be the only thing falling up here.”
Roth frowned at Tom Doyle, then studied the tall man on the horse. “You ain’t sayin’ Jackson don’t own it!”
“Not yet he doesn’t,” Cameron said tightly. “The timber you’re cruising belongs to a man named Gil Becket. Maybe someone had better remind Jackson that some of us are patenting land up here. He can’t come back and strip off the timber just because he used to run cattle in these mountains.”
“Now, ain’t that queer?” Roth remarked. “Jackson told me he held notes on all you boys’ ranches.”
“A note,” Cameron declared, “isn’t a foreclosure.”
“Damn soon gonna be,” Tom Doyle snapped. He broke the match he had been chewing and stood up with the compact ease of a quarter horse. Cameron, keeping his eye on him, swung from the saddle. As he came around his horse, he drew off a glove. He stopped before Doyle, and Red Roth, watching them, took his shoulder from the tree and began tucking in his shirt tail.
“How soon is this foreclosure going to happen?” Cameron asked Doyle.
“Few weeks. In a few weeks Jackson’ll have his papers.”
“In a few weeks some of us may be able to raise the money we owe him.”
“Maybe you’d better take that up with Jackson. All I know is what he told me. He’s coming back here, only he’s cuttin’ timber for railroad ties this time, instead of raisin’ cows. Jackson’s got a funny idea that having a government lease for over twenty years ought to give a man prior rights to a range. He tamed these mountains, chased the Apaches and cougars out, and then they took it all away from him and ran him down to the desert.”
Cameron smiled. “Don’t break down, Tom. Poor old Jim Jackson’s still got over a hundred thousand acres in the desert. For a few cents an acre he had the use of the Defiances for twenty years. But now that we’ve been ranching them for three years, we figure he’s out … for good.”
Doyle winked at Roth. “Speakin’ of people bein’ out, did you hear how he got a hold of those notes, Red?”
“Four times,” Roth said dryly. “Jackson told me three times and you told me once.”
“Let’s make it five,” the gunman said, “so the marshal will savvy that you don’t need a tin badge to be smart. There was this old mercantile fella in Frontera, see, that was carryin’ too many bailin’ wire outfits on the books. Finally his wholesaler tells him no more supplies until he covers his credit with mortgages. He gets ’em. One day Jim Jackson hears that the store’s got that passel of notes plasterin’ all this range he used to lease, and he buys the store to get the notes. So now, by Henry, he owns the Defiance Mountains from buck teeth to crupper.”
His blunt features glistened with pleasure. The dislike between Jackson’s new ramrod and Troy Cameron went far back, to another time and another place, when Cameron was a cow-town marshal, and Doyle was a hard-drinking cowboy careless with his gun. But now, when Cameron no longer had his skill or his badge, Tom Doyle had come to his prime.
That was what Cameron thought as he looked at him and knew that what he did now must be done forcibly but with good judgment. “That’s a good story, Tom,” he said. “But when you go back, tell Jackson he’d better come legally or not at all. That’s the story we’re telling up here.”
“You ain’t changed a bit, have you?” Doyle mocked. “Still tellin’ folks how it’s going to be. This fella used to be a real fire-eatin’ marshal, Red. He ran me out of town once, when I was just a little old big-eared kid. Ain’t that so?”
“That’s so,” Cameron agreed, looking Doyle over. “I see you’ve got your growth now, Tom. You aren’t the boy desperado any more. We’ll have to measure you by a man’s yardstick, won’t we?”
Doyle rubbed his jaw. A wicked delight rutted his face, a knowledge that something was coming. “How about it?” he asked, setting his feet wide. “Going to run me out of this country, too?”
“Not as a lawman. I’m a rancher now. The pay’s poor, the work’s hard. But I like it.”
“How come you quit marshalin’?” Doyle prodded. “Slow down? Guts turn to water?”
The fingers of Cameron’s right hand moved. They worked stiffly, calloused by roping. The smoothness and the swiftness were gone; they had begun to go even before he quit. “If I told you that,” he said agreeably, “it might encourage you to ask something that’s none of your damned business.”
Doyle’s grin broke. Something ugly came into the young, vicious features. Just then Red Roth walked to his buckskin horse and shoved the ax into a gun boot.
“Don’t know about you boys,” he said, “but I get paid for workin’, not talkin’. I’ve got a contract to make ties for a railroad. I’ve got a contract with Jackson to cut trees. I reckon your quarrel’s with him, Cameron. I’ll be gettin’ along.”
“That’s what I was going to suggest,” Cameron said, his gray eyes cool. “That you both get along. We’re not going to have our range torn up by a gang of loggers like a bear sawing a rotten log.”
Doyle waited. “That all?” he asked.
“That’s all.”
“You go to hell,” Doyle said. “We’re moving Roth’s crew up tomorrow.”
Cameron had already made up his mind. Now he moved.
Doyle’s bantering smile broke like a twig as Cameron stepped in. He tried to duck the rancher’s swing and he tried to pull his gun. His hand took the bone-handled Frontier Colt from his holster, but Cameron’s fist jarred against his cheek bone and his other hand locked on Doyle’s wrist. The shattering blast of the gun went into the ground. Cameron felt the concussion in his belly like a kick. Twisting the gun, he wrenched it from Doyle’s hand and flung it into the brush.
Balanced and slightly crouched, he waited. He knew how Big Jim Jackson would react to this. But a brag was worthless unless a man backed it up. All at once Doyle drove at him like a bull. His fist crashed into Cameron’s shoulder. His rough features were white with fury. His blond brows pulled up as he swung at Cameron’s jaw. Ducking, the rancher took the swing on his forearm. There was a tremendous, aching power in Doyle’s fist. But Doyle was off balance now, half turned by the swing, his chin unguarded. Cameron smashed his fist up hard under Doyle’s jaw. Doyle reeled back and fell into a woolly-leaved thicket.
Troy shot a glance at Red Roth. Red was standing by his horse with a tense expression, but staying out of it. He turned back to Doyle.
Doyle got up as though his whole body were sore. He looked at Cameron with his bloody face, his blond hair mussed. He staggered. Then he shook his head and started back to the fight, spitting on his hands. Suddenly he drove at Cameron, hard bodied as a wild pig. Troy sidestepped, but Doyle swerved with him, shoved his fist into his belly, and hurt him. Cameron tore away. They shuffled in a circle about each other, the dust coming up and both men panting. Then Doyle hauled his right hand back and swung a blow that would have to
rn a man’s head off. It grazed Cameron’s ear. Doyle swung a right and a left and missed. He was open again, and Troy stepped in fast to jar him with a left. Then he got a right going, pivoting on his boot to drive clean and hard to Doyle’s face.
Doyle fell and hunched over on his face. He tried to get up on his hands and knees, then fell back, and lay there moving slowly on the ground. Cameron drew a breath and looked at Roth. Roth looked cool, hard, and unmoved.
“Jim Jackson’s not going to like this,” he drawled.
Cameron walked to his horse, feeling light-headed and giddy. Tiny points of light swam before him. “The day hasn’t come,” he told Roth, “when a man can move in on his neighbors without a paper of some kind. Tell Jackson that.”
“Sure. Anything else?”
Overhead the first hiss of rain in the tops of the trees could be heard. Troy swung up. “Tell Doyle to collect his gear tonight or we’ll dump it in the creek.”
Through a chill autumn rain he rode back. The rain ended and a dripping sunset flooded the sky. He was sorry it had happened, for he was a great believer in going slow and easy. But he was fighting for his life, and to make a point. The important thing now was to work out something with Big Jim Jackson before he brought his heavy guns up and blasted them out of the mountains.
II
Night came before he reached the roundup camp on Muddy Creek. Last in the association roundup, the camp was in the bottom of a wild canyon, just at the elevation where the mountains relinquished the land to the desert. Among the trees, etched against the night by the campfire, Troy saw cowmen and cowpunchers eating their late and weary supper. Camp gear and scraps of ancient harness littered the ground. In an old stone corral bawled a herd of maverick cattle.
Troy unsaddled at the picket line and got his tin plate of food. As he moved into the firelight, a very tall old man came up. Colonel Isaac Edwards was a pioneer rancher who was always asked to serve as roundup boss.
“Find Doyle?” he asked, and then grunted, peering at Troy’s bruised face. “I see you did.”
“He was helping Red Roth draw a bead on Gil’s timber,” Troy said. “I had to let them know they weren’t invited. One thing led to another.”
A heavy-shouldered man in a horse-hide coat and scarred chaps looked up from where he sat against a tree. Mike Saddler’s hard-cut face was pocketed by the firelight.
“One thing ain’t supposed to lead to another,” he prodded. “I thought you were going to bring Doyle back alive and happy.”
“So did I.”
“Who won?” Saddler asked. He had a jeering sense of humor that irritated Troy. Saddler, like the rest, had come to Arizona Territory when the Defiance Mountains were opened to settlement but already his ambition and steady drive had brought more land under his iron than any of the other settlers owned.
Cameron said: “It’s not over yet. Just, now I’m a round ahead.”
Saddler tossed his fork on his plate and looked sourly at the others. “Well, this is great, boys. Jackson will make this sound like the Mountain Meadows Massacre.” He stood up, tall and black-haired, a strongly made man with tough, tanned skin and an impatient vitality.
“Shut up, Mike,” Colonel Edwards said. His deep-set, tired eyes were worried. “Any damn’ fool knows Jackson will make the most of this. So we’ve got to play our ace before he lays down his joker.”
“We’re holding about as many aces right now as a greenhorn in Dodge City. Which ace were you talking about?”
The roundup boss tapped his temple. “Hoss sense. We know Big Jim Jackson’s in as tight a spot as we are. He owes thousands, where we owe hundreds. He wouldn’t trim his herds when they took his summer range away from him. He wouldn’t cut his payroll. He always had to be Big Jim, the toughest hombre, the richest cowman, and the damnedest fool in the county. Buying those notes will either be the smartest or the stupidest thing he ever did. If we let him bluff us out, it will be the smartest. But if we draw a line, I don’t think he’ll step across it.”
Saddler crossed his arms. “You were talking about horse sense,” he reminded the colonel ironically.
The colonel’s eyes snapped. “Which in this case means compromising with him. Him to have some of the timber, us to keep the rest. Us to say how it’s cut.”
No one spoke, and the colonel’s face softened. “You know, Jim ain’t really a bad feller. Just noisy and full of brag. Used to buy twenty pairs of boots at a crack. And a case of razors, so he wouldn’t have to sharpen them. Big Jim. By George, he is big! Git in his way sometime and find out.”
“Looks to me,” Saddler said, glancing at Troy, “like Cameron’s matched Gil against him. Little tough on Gil, ain’t it? I’d think it would have been for Gil to throw Doyle off, not Troy.”
Gil Becket was sitting wearily on his bedroll, a cigarette lax in his fingers. He was a slender young fellow, hardly stout enough for the trade. He had been just old enough to qualify for the claim taking, and Troy recalled times when he would have quit, without a neighbor to help him. Troy saw Gil gaze woodenly at Saddler, looking very young, very tired, but stubborn.
“What would you have done?” Gil demanded. “Told them to help themselves?”
Saddler shrugged. “No, but you know where Jackson will make his fight, now, if he feels like making one.”
“He’s going to make one,” Troy said, coming to a decision. “I’m going down tomorrow and set him straight.”
Saddler put his thumbs under his belt. “Why you? Because you used to be a fast man with a gun?”
“No,” Troy returned, “because I’m slow with my mouth. That’s a trick you learn when you’ve looked down enough gun barrels. Of course, it’s up to the rest who goes. But somebody’s got to, and I’m willing.”
The men listened quietly, some drinking coffee, some smoking in the firelight. They had had a month of brush popping, missed meals, and horse falls. They had had three years of scraping to pay expenses, and they had not made it. They were not only broke, but in debt to a man who despised them.
Colonel Edwards spoke in anger. “That’s easy settled, Mike. I pick Troy. Any opposed?”
No one answered, and even Saddler had the good sense to be quiet. “All right, Troy goes down to Frontera in the morning. There’s enough money in this timber to save Jackson and write off our notes, too. All we need is a little stretch on both ends.”
“Great,” Mike Saddler said. “Let’s just hope Troy don’t let Miss Serena Jackson make him forget we’re counting on him.”
The whole camp was silent. A horse stamped, the fire popped as Troy stared at Saddler, his face heated with anger. It was tough enough to have fallen in love with the wrong girl; he did not mean to be joshed about it. He set down his plate. At that moment Gil said: “Horsebacker comin’!”
Troy turned quickly from the light and saw the shadow of a horse crossing the cobbled stream. Tom Doyle rode in, collected his bedroll and war sack, and then stopped before Troy.
“Come down to my country some time, Marshal,” he invited. “Let’s try that caper again.”
“I’ll be down tomorrow,” Troy said. “Sure you wouldn’t want to call it settled?”
Doyle’s swollen lips tightened. “Not this season. See you around, Marshal. That’s a promise.” He rode out, his shadow lit by the fire.
As Troy spread his blankets, Gil came to him. The horses were quiet. The fire was a flat bed of coals, and tired men were beginning to snore. “I’m going to ask a favor, Troy,” he said hesitantly. “Will you take a room for me at the hotel for a week from tomorrow?”
Troy sank wearily into his blankets and raised his boot. Gil took hold and pulled it off. “When did you get too good for a shakedown at the livery barn?” Troy smiled.
“It’s my kid sister.” Gil sighed. “She’s coming out from East Texas. I tried to talk her out of it, but I reckon she f
igures she’s a big enough girl to come west now.”
“How big is she?”
“Eighteen. She’s been living with my aunt.”
“Eighteen’s a nice age,” Troy said solemnly. “How big a ranch did you tell her you’re operating?”
Gil colored. He said, “Go to bed, will you?” and walked off. Troy laughed. If Gil had a talent, it was for making a lean-to sound like the governor’s palace. He wondered how large his two-room cabin had become in his letters.
III
In the fresh desert morning, Big Jim Jackson and his daughter drove down from their foothills ranch in a buggy as black and glossy as a beetle’s back. Shortly after ten they reached Frontera. The town lay on the desert in a ring of withered hills, a dry creek brushing it on the west in a double file of salt cedar. The buggy bridged the barranca with a hollow clatter and flashed up the last swing of road into town.
Frontera was a village of low, flat roofs with jutting rain spouts, of tawny earth and black shade and a turquoise Indian bowl of sky upended above it. Many of the buildings were of new and unweathered adobe brick, raw and sandy, laid since the mountains west of town had been opened to settlement. Driving in, Big Jim Jackson felt strong and confident. Lately he had not always felt that way. He leaned back as he drove, his long-skirted black coat open, a large man with leather-dark hair and thick auburn brows. His mustaches gave him the look of a cavalry officer. His eyes were hazel, quick and incisive. Massively timbered, he had a body as tough as cow horn.
He glanced down at his daughter. “Relax,” he said. “You look like you were going to a burying.”
“Yes, and I feel like it,” Serena Jackson said nervously. She was a dark-haired, pretty girl with lively gray-green eyes and a wonderful freshness about her. As they drove into the village, she shrank into her cape. “Do we have to drive right up Front Street, Father?”
Jackson’s eyes glinted. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “So they can all see us. The damned turkey buzzards sat around long enough waiting for me to go under, didn’t they? Now that I’m on top again, let them have a good look!”