Cheyenne Pass

by Lauran Paine

  “Saw you coming over here to the barn,” he said to the deputy, “and figured you’d be heading out, so I brought this over. It’s the reply to that wire you sent.”

  MacCallister took the slip of paper, read it, carefully folded it before stuffing it into a shirt pocket. “Thanks, Al,” he said to the telegrapher, and might have turned away except that the telegrapher pushed out a hand to shake, saying he hoped Ethan and John had a safe trip.

  MacCallister, with his lifelong perceptive quickness, sensed something here. He reached out his hand, grasped the telegrapher’s hand, and pumped it once. As soon as their palms met, the telegrapher’s hand straightened. He carefully slipped a little piece of folded paper into the former sheriff’s palm in this manner. Then he withdrew his hand, never once altering his expression, bobbed his head curtly at the sheriff, and walked on back the way he’d come.

  His fist closed, MacCallister mounted up and watched as his son-in-law did the same, then the pair of them rode on out into the brightly lighted roadway and headed northward out of town.

  They were two miles along toward the country around Cheyenne Pass before MacCallister looped his reins, tilted his hat, and carefully unfolded the little slip of pale yellow paper in his hand. He read the thing, pursed up his lips, and read it again.

  Klinger asked: “What’s it say?”

  The sheriff obviously thought this second copy of a telegram was the answer to the wire his father-in-law had sent south the day before. But it wasn’t at all. The paper that the telegrapher had slipped Ethan was a duplicate of the telegram Ray Thorne had sent to Denver the previous day.

  “It says,” MacCallister told him, “that Thorne has hired four local men. That you and I are obstructing justice up here in Winchester. That we’re on the side of DeFore, and that Thorne needs reinforcements or at least funds to hire reinforcements.”

  Klinger sat astride his horse, looking dumbfounded. “Let me see that,” he said.

  Once MacCallister had passed the paper over, he reached into a pocket and drew forth the reply to his own telegram, reread this one, too, then handed it across. His reply, from the same source—the stage company’s head office in Denver—said simply that an executive of the establishment was coming north to Winchester on the first stage.

  The sheriff read and reread both telegrams before handing them back to MacCallister, saying: “That lousy gunfighter. I told you what he was trying to do, Ethan. He’s stirring this up into a big brawl so’s he can keep on drawing his professional gunfighter’s salary.”

  MacCallister had no comment to make, not just because what John had said was the truth, but because, ahead of them about a mile, he caught the quick, sharp reflection of sunlight flashing off metal.

  They were three miles out of Winchester now with the sun almost directly overhead. They were on DeFore’s range and had been ever since leaving the stage road to swing inland, or easterly a little ways, so as to eventually strike the main road leading to DeFore’s home ranch.

  Klinger had a few more uncomplimentary things to say about Ray Thorne, but eventually, when he noticed his father-in-law’s watchful silence, John stopped grousing, lifted his head with new awareness, and also began watching the roundabout country.

  They were within sight of a commonly used, broad road, which wound around the low-down slopes of rolling hills, when three cowboys suddenly appeared around a little knoll, stopped in the middle of the lawmen’s pathway, blocking additional progress. They sat there, silent and watchful, until MacCallister and his son-in-law rode up. The leader of these men was bitter-eyed Travis Browne, who put his stoic stare upon Klinger with obvious hostility, saying nothing.

  “Mr. DeFore around?” MacCallister asked, pretending not to notice the quick resentment between the two former friends.

  Browne continued to stare at Klinger before he finally swung his attention to MacCallister. He nodded. “Yeah, he’s around, Ethan. But he isn’t seeing anyone today.”

  “No? I don’t see it that way. I reckon he’ll see us, Travis.”

  “No, he won’t. Before we rode out, he said he didn’t want to see you … or him”—he shot a hostile look at his former rival—“particularly.”

  “Well, now,” Ethan said gently, “I’d like to make this a friendly call, Travis, but if that can’t be done, why then I’ll make it official.”

  “Ethan, you’re trespassing.”

  John Klinger opened his mouth to speak. His face was darkening the longer this exchange went on.

  MacCallister made a little silencing gesture and half smiled at Browne. “You don’t know much law, do you?” he said. “So, Travis, before you do something we will all be sorry about, let me explain something to you. The law of this territory specifically states that a man’s front door must be available to all public officials.”

  “I don’t give a …”

  “Easy, Travis, easy. You’ve walked a pretty narrow trail ever since this fight began. Don’t step off on the wrong side now.”

  “I got my orders,” the foreman insisted.

  “All right, but to law enforcement officials they don’t apply, and if you push for trouble, you’re going to be an outlaw ten minutes from now.”

  MacCallister and Browne stared hard at one another. MacCallister was no longer looking friendly; he wasn’t even looking amiable anymore. This was a standoff. Someone had to back down, and MacCallister was forcing Browne into a showdown.

  He asked: “Where is DeFore … at the house?”

  Browne nodded.

  “Then suppose you take us to him … like maybe you took us prisoner or something. That might just let you off the hook. At least it’ll show DeFore you were on the job.” MacCallister lifted his rein hand, kneed out his horse, and started past. As he came up even with Browne, he said quietly: “One other thing. The next time you lads lie atop a hill keeping watch … you might consider wrapping cloth around your carbine barrels. We picked up the reflection a mile off.”

  Klinger smirked as he rode past.

  For several moments Browne bitterly watched the two before he moved. Then he jerked his head at the riders with him, looking dour, and the trio of cowboys followed along, walking their horses down to the main road leading to the DeFore Ranch.

  Nothing was said until the ranch buildings were in sight—massive log structures aged and weathered, but, like their owner, solid as granite and knowledgeably seasoned.

  Browne, making a particular point of ignoring Klinger, said: “We heard that fancy-Dan of a gunfighter is Ray Thorne. Is that true, Ethan?”

  “Plumb right.”

  “Then we should’ve killed him day before yesterday at the pass,” the range boss hissed.

  “Or gotten killed yourself,” muttered the sheriff.

  Browne swung his head to look the sheriff in the eye. “Six to one?” he reminded him.

  “Yeah, six to one, Browne,” Klinger stated. “He had six slugs in each gun, and from the stories I’ve heard about Thorne, he could’ve emptied your saddles in five seconds.”

  “Maybe,” Browne grumbled, looking ahead where a big rawboned older man, having sighted the cavalcade of horsemen in his roadway, came walking out into the ranch yard to squint outward, seeking to identify them. “Maybe we’ll get another chance to see about that.”

  MacCallister was silent as he considered the big, craggy, roughly dressed, and tough-standing older man on ahead. He’d known Richard DeFore a long time. They’d never been especially good friends—they were too entirely different for that—but they’d both shown respect for the other at different times over the years, and Ethan could see, while he was still a hundred yards off, that DeFore finally had recognized him.

  When the five riders drew to a halt within twenty feet of DeFore, close enough to see his hard-set jaw and his uncompromising steely eyes, Browne spoke up.

  “Ran i
nto ’em on their way here. Brought ’em in because they pulled the law on me.”

  Richard DeFore was at least fifteen years older than Ethan MacCallister. From the looks of him, he had to be at least sixty, maybe sixty-five. But there wasn’t an ounce of surplus flesh on him anywhere. He was flat and angular, with snow-white hair that curled out from under a well-worn and tugged-forward old black Stetson hat. His mouth was a long, bloodless slit above a powerful jaw and his eyes were as direct, as challenging and fearless, as a man’s eyes could be. He exuded hostility now, and, as John Klinger had once observed, he was a prickly man full of yeasty pride and abruptness.

  Without wasting time on greetings, he looked from MacCallister to Klinger and said sharply: “What do you want here?”

  “Talk,” MacCallister answered for his son-in-law, “without an audience.”

  DeFore balanced this in his mind, jerked his head at Browne and the other two riders, waited until those men had reined off toward a log bunkhouse across the yard, then said commandingly: “Talk!”

  MacCallister didn’t dismount. He hadn’t been asked to, which was an almost unforgivable breach of cow-country etiquette. He could see, from the corner of his eye, that John was getting mad at this insolent treatment, so he spoke quickly, in this way hoping to divert his son-in-law’s hostility.

  “We’d take it as a favor if you’d keep your riders out of town for a few days,” MacCallister said.

  “Why?” barked the grizzled old cowman. “You afraid they’ll cut down that fancy-Dan of a gunfighter, Ethan?”

  “The other way around. I don’t want Thorne cutting them down.”

  “Hah! One lousy gunfighter! Even this Ray Thorne isn’t going to cut down any DeFore riders. I don’t hire weaklings, and you know it.”

  “Won’t be just Thorne facing your cowboys,” stated MacCallister, and although he added nothing to this, the implication was amply clear.

  He and Richard DeFore steadily regarded one another.

  “You?” asked the old cowman.

  “Us,” corrected MacCallister.

  “Taking the stage company’s side?” DeFore said, sneering.

  “You know a damned sight better than that. We’re supposed to keep the peace, and that includes keeping three or six, or even a hundred, DeFore riders from jumping one gunfighter.”

  DeFore swung his bleak look on over to Klinger. He silently but scornfully considered the sheriff’s badge on John’s shirtfront. His look spoke volumes, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Couple of days isn’t much,” MacCallister stated, bringing the older man’s attention back to himself. “There’s an official of the stage line coming up from Denver. If you’ll keep your men … specially Travis Browne … out of town until after he arrives, I’ll bring him up here, and you two can maybe work out your differences. If you don’t … if you turn Travis and the others loose on Thorne … you’ll blow this whole thing sky-high.”

  “Why shouldn’t it be blown sky-high … tell me that.”

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do. John and I don’t care how this thing is settled. All we want is to be sure that it is settled. And by legal means, not by your guns or Thorne’s guns.” MacCallister leaned across his saddle horn and stared at DeFore before saying: “You don’t really want a shooting war any more than we do, Dick.”

  “Oh, I don’t, don’t I?”

  “No, you don’t … because the minute you break the law, you know cussed well you’re going to lose.”

  Again DeFore ran his bleak, hostile look over to John Klinger, but this time he addressed the sheriff. “Boy, you used to be a pretty fair range rider. Whatever made you think you’d be a good sheriff, too?”

  Klinger stepped down off his horse, took five big steps forward, and halted with less than three feet separating him from big Richard DeFore. His eyes flashed fire points, and his lips were sucked flat against his teeth.

  “Because I couldn’t see myself spending the rest of my life working for damned old despots like you, and because a man never knows what he’s good at until he tries.”

  DeFore’s steely gaze never wavered, but his nostrils flared at this fiery confrontation. He was not used to being faced down, and he would not permit this to happen. Speaking very softly, the rancher said: “Get back on that horse, Sheriff, and don’t you ever challenge me again as long as you live. You hear?” He paused, shifted his gaze to run it down Klinger and back up again. In the same quiet but lethal tone he then added: “Let me tell you something, boy. That badge doesn’t mean a thing until you learn that more than a fast draw’s got to go with it.”

  “What do you mean by that?” demanded Klinger, ready to fight, almost eager to fight.

  DeFore turned and started walking stiffly, his legs obviously bothering him, on across the ranch yard toward the bunkhouse.

  Ethan kept watching the cowman until DeFore was out of earshot, then, still keeping his gaze riveted on DeFore, he said sharply to his son-in-law: “Do like he said. Get back on that damned horse.”

  Klinger turned to shoot his father-in-law a smoky, bitter glare. As he did this, Richard DeFore halted, swung, and called over to the older lawman.

  “Two days, MacCallister,” he called. “Two days and no more.”

  DeFore swung back and continued stamping on over to the bunkhouse.

  MacCallister let his body turn loose in the saddle. He finally dropped his eyes. “Get in the saddle, John, and let’s get on back to town.”

  * * * * *

  They were a mile southward back down through the hills before either of them spoke again. It was midafternoon, and it was hot.

  MacCallister was the first to speak. “Son, I hope you learned a lesson back there. You can’t fight a man like Richard DeFore without having a war. But you can give him enough cold facts to show him the futility of fighting you.”

  Glumly, John responded: “Another tomfool play. Ethan, I think I ought to resign as sheriff.”

  First, the shotgun guard had quit. Then Hank Weaver had threatened to quit. Now John was saying the same thing. MacCallister was getting weary of hearing those words.

  Chapter Seven

  The day was beginning to turn cool and misty by the time they arrived back at the livery barn, put up their animals, and soberly hiked on down to the jailhouse. As soon as they were inside, both of them headed for the water bucket. Klinger drank first. Being second, MacCallister took his time taking his fill.

  When Ethan set down the dipper to run his shirt sleeve across his mouth, John announced: “I’ll resign, and you can have the job back.” Then he walked over to a chair near the door and dropped wearily down upon it.

  Ethan finished drinking, hung the dipper on the designated nail above the bucket. He turned to gaze upon his son-in-law. “I don’t think I want the job again,” he told him. “So, if you quit and I don’t take the job, who’s left to take over?”

  John looked baffled. “What are you getting at?”

  “Well, if neither of us want to be sheriff, then it’d be up to the town council to appoint a successor, and let me tell you, John, with someone like Ray Thorne in town, no one would be willing to take it. So Sherman County would most likely be left without any law right at the time it needed it more than it has in the last ten years.”

  The former sheriff crossed to the desk, tossed his hat down, and rummaged around in his pockets for his makings. When he found the sack and papers, he went to work building a smoke.

  “Tell you something else,” he said, frowning with concentration as he made a trough for the tobacco. “If you were out of the game and I was out of it, it wouldn’t surprise me none at all if Thorne himself would try for the job.”

  “You’re kidding,” John said, aghast at this possibility.

  “No, I’m not kidding. He wouldn’t be the first gunfighter who got a badge and wore i
t, and he certainly won’t be the last.” Ethan lighted the cigarette. “And don’t underestimate Thorne, either. He’d know in a minute how valuable that badge would be to him. Not just against DeFore, but against anyone else who got in his way. Within months Winchester would become a safe haven for more outlaws, gamblers, gunfighters in it than …”

  “The town council would never appoint a man like Thorne,” Klinger broke in, standing up and dismissing what his father-in-law was saying with a wave his hand.

  “No? If no one else volunteered, they’d have to, John. You can’t run a place as big and as raw as Sherman County without any law. They’d not only have to appoint Thorne but he’d make damned sure no one else volunteered for the job.”

  MacCallister paused to smoke, watching his son-in-law through the gathering bluish haze. When he could see that John’s indignation over Ray Thorne possibly succeeding him as sheriff was crystallizing into solid opposition, he said: “Listen, you keep on learning about men like you did today out at DeFore’s place, and I still say you’ll make the best danged peace officer Sherman County’s ever had.”

  Before John could reply to that—if he intended to—the road-side door opened, and Clem Whipple stepped into their office.

  Without any preliminaries, Clem said: “Boys, them two mean-lookin’ customers you ordered out of town this mornin’ didn’t go. They’re over at the Teton Saloon right now, with Thorne and two others who look just about like ’em.

  MacCallister sighed, ran a resigned look over at Klinger, and shook his head. “One thing after another,” he said. “Clem, were you in the Teton?”

  “Yeah. The five of ’em were sittin’ at a poker table with a bottle, talkin’ back and forth. Ethan, it looked almighty suspicious to me.”

  “Clem, how’d you like to be deputized?” asked MacCallister.

  The wiry little stage driver’s eyes turned wide with apprehension. “Not me,” he said in quick protest. “I’m not the gunslingin’ kind. No, sir.” Then he ducked his head in a hasty nod at the two lawmen, whirled around, and passed swiftly back out of the office, closing the door carefully as if he were sneaking out.