by Lauran Paine
Klinger smiled. “Odd thing about people,” he observed. “They want law and order, but they don’t want to take any risks to achieve it.”
“You’re learning, son, you’re learning,” MacCallister said as he picked up his hat, sat it low on the back of his head, and headed over to the door. “Well, come on, we told them to leave town, and they didn’t, so now we pick ’em up, fetch ’em back here, and arrange for their keep.”
They walked out into the cooling afternoon, crossed the road, and struck along northward toward the Teton Saloon. In front of the stage office, Clem had joined Weaver upon the passenger bench bolted to the wall. Both were sitting there dejectedly.
Upon seeing the two there, MacCallister said to John out of the corner of his mouth: “See Hank and Clem over there? You can learn something from them, too. Everyone likes to witness a fight, and, badge or no badge, how you handle yourself determines whether folks sympathize with you or turn against you.”
They came to the saloon’s batwing doors, shoved on through, looked around casually at first before crossing over to the bar. Behind them at a table near the door was the gunfighter. He was as aware of the two lawmen as they were of him. MacCallister noted immediately that Thorne had only two men sitting there with him, not four, and the two rough-looking riders who had been ordered out of town were not the two at the table.
He leaned against the bar counter and sighed audibly as Rusty Millam came strolling up. “Two ales,” he said to Millam as he twisted and made a wry face at John. “That’s how it goes sometimes. You walk into a place expecting something … and grab a handful of empty air.”
Hearing this, Millam looked at MacCallister as he set the glasses down. He checked out Thorne’s table and, leaning in, he said barely above a whisper: “If you were expecting Thorne to have more than two fellows with him, you got here about ten minutes too late.”
MacCallister took a healthy chug of his ale. It was tangy and it was cold. “There were others?” he confirmed.
Rusty nodded. “Yeah, the two men you ordered out of town. They were here for an hour. Thorne and them others sat around over there, drinking and mumbling, then those two from before walked out. I saw ’em get their horses from the livery barn and head out of town.”
“Which way?” Klinger asked.
Millam shrugged. “Got busy right then and didn’t notice. I’ll bet Lemuel can tell you over at the livery barn, though.”
MacCallister said: “Good idea, Rusty. Thanks.” He finished his ale, dropped a coin on the bar top, and turned to John, saying: “Drink up.”
Klinger made no prompt move to depart, even though his glass was empty. Instead, he ran a slow look around the saloon and ran head on into the steady, cold gaze of Ray Thorne. Those two stared until the sheriff deliberately turned his back, leaned upon the bar top, commenting to MacCallister: “Let’s take all three of ’em in.”
“Can’t. Got no grounds that would hold up. This is what you got to be real careful about … never let folks start accusing you of persecuting them or anyone else.”
Klinger snorted and then grimaced, wishing there was something he could do to Thorne and the group he was putting together.
MacCallister smiled at him, brushed his son-in-law’s arm to indicate they should leave. They covered the ground to the door slowly, passed the poker table where the frozen-faced men watched their every move, and then were out upon the roadway again.
As they struck out for the livery barn, Klinger voiced the opinion that while he was beginning to understand some things which heretofore he’d never thought much about regarding law enforcement work, he wasn’t convinced those things were right.
“That,” the former sheriff declared emphatically, “is the first sign that you’re becoming a lawman. You’re never supposed to take sides in disputes … that’s the lawman’s code … and yet you’re human, so you have sympathies whether you’re supposed to or not. The trick is … and it’s hard … not to show anything. I wish it was easy. Like now … Thorne’s actions would rub any lawman the wrong way. But on the other hand, old Dick DeFore isn’t exactly winning any popularity contest with me, either. So it’s thinking about these things that makes it easy … for me at least … to remain neutral. But I don’t think things will stay like this. They never do where anger and high-strung feelings are concerned. Still, you’ve got to remain strictly neutral … no matter what.”
When MacCallister glanced over at his son-in-law, he could see he was listening closely to everything he was saying. While he was looking a little perplexed, he also seemed much less resentful than MacCallister had expected. The former sheriff looked ahead, taking in the doorless maw of the livery barn, and he smiled inwardly. He was encouraged that John seemed to be learning. Ethan was determined to make a first-class law officer of him yet. Still, he didn’t like the idea of a mess like this simmering feud between DeFore and the stage company being John’s first taste of law enforcement work.
Just before the pair stepped up onto the plank walk by the livery barn, though, MacCallister told himself that perhaps getting embroiled in a big lot of trouble right at the outset wasn’t so bad, either, since John would likely learn the basic things he had to know all at once instead of, as Ethan had wished, over a period of years.
Time would tell, he told himself. Time would prove whether John had what it took to be a worthwhile sheriff of Sherman County or not, and while time was working that out, Ethan MacCallister would concentrate upon keeping his son-in-law from getting killed, for the sake of his daughter.
Lemuel, the livery man, was rigging out a top buggy for a pair of middle-aged women. He saw MacCallister, nodded, and signaled that he’d be along as soon as he was finished, then hurried to get the buggy ready.
The two lawmen went over by the office door set up in the corner of the barn and waited there. It was dingy in this place, and it smelled strongly of hay and ammonia.
Klinger leaned back against the wall and drifted his moody gaze back out into the roadway, where dusky shadows were drawing down. “Why don’t you drop over for supper tonight?” he said to his father-in-law.
“I’ll do that. One thing about being single … a man sure gets tired of eating in local beaneries.”
Waving the wagon out once the women were settled on it, Lemuel ambled over, mopping his several pendulous chins with a greasy red bandanna. He planted himself squarely in front of the lawmen and raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve been told that two hard-bitten cowboys rode out of here an hour or so back,” MacCallister said. “Hoping you saw them and know which way they headed out.”
“Them the two you and John told to get out of town this mornin’?”
“The same two.”
Lemuel scratched his nodding head. “They rode north, but it weren’t no hour ago. I’d say it was more like two hours.”
Something suddenly seemed to hit Klinger hard. He drew himself upright and grabbed the livery man by the shoulders, looking like he wanted to shake him before he let go. Then he calmed himself down and asked: “Think back … this is important … did you hear those two say anything?”
Lemuel pulled out his bandanna again, beginning to sweat at Klinger’s urgency. “Did they say anythin’?” Lemuel echoed. “Well, I wasn’t payin’ too much attention. You know how it is … drifters come and drifters go.” He raised his beefy shoulders in a shrug. “They talked a little, but I can’t rightly recollect any of what it was about.”
MacCallister was puzzled by John’s impatience, so he put a hand on John’s shoulder and said: “What is it? What’s in your craw?”
But the sheriff didn’t answer. Instead, he thanked Lemuel and, taking Ethan’s arm, walked back out upon the yonder plank walk. There he stopped, let go of Ethan’s arm, and said: “I’ve been telling you all day Thorne would figure out ways of keeping this thing going. We stopped his stage this mornin
g. We also went out to DeFore’s and got his pledge to keep the peace.”
“All right,” MacCallister said. “What of it?”
“Ethan, those two didn’t leave town like they were told to. They sat around in plain sight all day, until we got back. That’s gotta mean that Thorne’s having us watched. Think about it. The minute we return to town, Thorne sends those two away.”
“Go on.”
“Northward, Ethan. That’s up toward Cheyenne Pass. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I’m telling you again that Thorne’s setting up some kind of bad trouble.”
MacCallister studied his son-in-law’s features in the gloomy dusk for a thoughtful moment, thinking over what he had just said. He threw a long look over toward the Teton Saloon, and then it struck him as powerfully now as it had earlier struck John. Thorne had not given up at all when twice he’d been circumvented in his efforts to start a fight. Instead, he had struck out on a new, more devious course, to achieve the same ends.
“You know,” he said as he continued to stare at the Teton, “I’m beginning to think you’ve got something here, John. To the north isn’t only Cheyenne Pass but DeFore’s ranch.”
“We’d better do some riding,” Klinger said, turning toward the livery barn. “But we’d better do it separately. One of us should scout the pass to be sure Thorne’s men aren’t setting up some kind of a bushwhack up there. The other ought to head over to DeFore’s ranch and have a good look around. I wouldn’t put it past Thorne to pay to have someone killed … maybe Travis Browne, or maybe even DeFore himself.
Ethan turned as John started forward. For a moment he simply watched his son-in-law moving toward the barn with a newfound determination. Then he followed John back into the barn.
It made him feel good inside, the way John had finally grasped the entire idea of what they were up against. He wasn’t thoroughly satisfied that those two hirelings of Thorne’s hadn’t heard that the sheriff and his deputy were returning to town, and had therefore decided it would be prudent to leave as they’d been ordered to do. But even if it meant riding around all night in the northward hills, Ethan was willing to do it, just to encourage John to think as a lawman.
Lemuel retrieved their animals, stood by as each lawman rigged out his own beast, and as they rose up over leather, he wished them: “Good huntin’, boys.”
John looked down from atop his horse. “Lemuel, you could do me a favor if you wanted to.”
“Shoot,” said the livery man. “Anythin’ you want, Sheriff.”
“Go by my house, and tell Ruth I might not be home for supper.”
Lemuel nodded with understanding. “Consider it done. After thirty years of married life, I know exactly how to handle women on things like that.”
MacCallister smiled to himself. Lemuel’s wife was a holy terror. He put up a bold front away from the house, but never within earshot of his wife.
Chapter Eight
There was no moon when full night finally came down across the land. All the little winking stars didn’t shed much light, either, because the heavens were a sootlike black. But it was a warm night, and barring the lack of light, it was pleasant enough as MacCallister and his son-in-law rode on through town and out upon the northward stage road.
They spoke a little, desultorily, as they rode along, mostly reviewing what had thus far occurred in their struggle to keep the DeFore faction from meeting the stage-line gunfighter.
Klinger said: “We’re still ahead, Ethan. That stage company fellow ought to arrive tomorrow. All we’ll have to do then is get him to sit down with DeFore.”
The sheriff smiled broadly when MacCallister shot him a skeptical look before saying: “Yeah, nothing to it. About like getting General Custer and Sitting Bull to sit down and have a nice talk.”
They laughed, then rode in silence until they came to the initial lift in the land leading on up into Cheyenne Pass. There they paused to look and listen and make some decisions.
“I’ll go on up into the pass,” Klinger said. “You head for the DeFore place.”
He had barely gotten the words out when a sudden rush of unseen horses on ahead up the trail brought both lawmen straight up in their saddles. The running horses made their passing quickly, and within moments all sound of their hoofs had disappeared into the night.
The younger man looked all around, plainly puzzled.
“More than just two riders,” he said.
The older man didn’t comment for a long while, but when he did, it was clear that he was no longer in favor of splitting up.
“Passing from east to west on across the road. That’s when we heard ’em … when they hit the roadway. After that, they hit tall grass. John, we better forget about DeFore’s ranch. I think whatever’s going on lies directly ahead. Come on … but we need to be careful and as quiet as we can be.”
They didn’t hasten for the same reason they’d been able to hear those other riders. Cheyenne Pass was rock hard from decades of travel, and in some places it was rocky enough to carry the clatter of shod hoofs for a long distance.
They were nearing the final long incline leading up to the place where, several days earlier, they had turned back the stage and met Ray Thorne for the first time. Ethan lifted his hand and, because it was so dark, said John’s name as softly as he could to bring him to halt.
Around them where they sat, the night was scented with roiled dust and a lingering smell of horse sweat, but there wasn’t a sound of those riders to be detected.
MacCallister tried to sight movement against the skyline, failed. They moved off the road in a westerly direction. They went along, still making no imprudent haste despite the muffling grass underfoot, until, far off, one solitary gunshot reverberated, shattering all the otherwise stillness of this troubled night. Then Ethan booted his animal over into a slow lope and went down the land toward the explosion.
There was no answering shot, so when they came to an open sidehill where they could ride abreast, John said: “They either got him or lost him.”
“Got him,” stated MacCallister. “Otherwise, he’d have fired back.” He reined suddenly to a quick halt and said: “Listen.”
The sound of riders came again, but quieter this time, and slower. Those invisible mounted men were evidently fanning out and beating the underbrush as they rode northward through this upended country. Neither of the lawmen sighted any of those men, but after a moment of listening, MacCallister said: “Not as many now as there were when they crossed the road.”
“It’s got to be DeFore’s riders,” murmured John. “No other outfit is up in the Cheyenne Pass country.”
“Sure, it’ll be DeFore’s riders, but what’s interesting me right about now is who fired that shot and why.”
“Maybe they ran across Thorne’s two men. They sure as hell were after someone when they crossed the road.”
MacCallister kept his head cocked until he’d placed the position of those unseen riders, then he eased out again, motioning with his free hand for John to be very quiet, even though he knew it was too dark for his partner to see the movement.
They had traveled nearly another full mile westward before they both saw the little flickering brightness of a struck match down in a gloomy, narrow canyon. Ethan grunted with satisfaction, dismounted, tied his horse, and, carbine in hand, started stealthily forward. Behind him John also tugged free his Winchester and came along.
The canyon was a narrow, dark place, made darker by this inky night sky, with a tangle of oaks growing in its marshy bottom. Both sides, despite their abruptness, were grassy and not too sloping for easy access.
MacCallister, scouting ahead of Klinger a hundred feet or so, started down. He paused once to let John come up.
“Stay behind me, and try to follow where I step. If we keep to the tall grass, we won’t scuff loose stones and let whoever’s down there k
now we’re coming.”
John agreed to try his best to follow in his father-in-law’s footsteps. A half hour later, the pair of them got all the way down where a little sluggish trickle of creek water aimlessly meandered, making the canyon’s narrow floor verdant and at the same time soggy.
Another match flared, halting both the lawmen. MacCallister had the location of that third man in this gloomy place fixed in his mind and needed no additional guidance, so he halted to wait for the light to flicker out. When it did, he started onward again.
It was relatively simple to move slowly along now without making a sound. The difficulty was in seeing. It had been hard enough in this poorly lighted night to make things out up above, but down in this canyon, it was much darker, much wilder with all the profuse, tangled growth, and because of this MacCallister struck his left foot against something which yielded to the touch but did not move, and he fell, whispering an angry curse as he flung out a hand to break the fall.
That hand came in contact with something furry and warm. He drew it quickly back, rolled to his knees, and strained to see into the surrounding darkness. It was impossible to make out shapes or silhouettes, so he put his hand gingerly forward again, found that same yielding warm and furry object, groped along it, felt something harder but also yielding, and leaned far forward to identify whatever it was that had tripped him.
He reared back, turned to put his head close to John’s ear, and whispered: “Dead horse with a saddle on it. I reckon that shot didn’t hit a man after all. It hit a horse.”
Somewhere ahead a man’s soft groan faintly echoed. MacCallister whipped back around, placed that sound, and eased gingerly around the dead horse. He took one long step at a time, paused between strides to listen, and came to a parting in the gloomy trees where faint starshine shone eerily upon a clearing of gravelly soil unfit to support vegetation. There, flat out and discernible, was the shape of a man.