The Law of the Trigger

by Clifton Adams

  “There's nothing to talk about. The Brunners raided Bellefront and murdered Frank and Edith Ransom.”

  “Did Judge Lochland want you to do something?”

  “He wanted to make me a special deputy to go after the Brunners, but I told him the same thing I told McKeever.”

  “You did right!” she said happily, hugging her arms about his huge shoulders. “They have no right to ask favors of you. If they had made you sheriff, perhaps it would have been different; but now...”

  “Yes,” Owen said tonelessly. “That's what I told Judge Lochland.”

  The coldness of his voice shocked her. She dropped her arms and stared at her husband's face. “Owen, don't you think you did the right thing?”

  “Yes. Of course I do.”

  But Elizabeth wasn't sure. “There are hundreds of men in this county,” she said quickly, to drive her point home. “Men without families and no farms to look after. Young men. Let them go after the Brunners, if they're so eager to break up the gang! Let Will Cushman do it. Let the freight company do it. They have detectives who get paid to do things like that.”

  Owen's face softened. His faint smile was that of a man who had loved his wife for a long time and knew her well. “You're absolutely right. Except that Will Cushman won't get out of Reunion. And freight-company detectives know nothing of those hills.” When he saw the stricken look on her face, he added quickly, “I was only joking.”

  When Saturday came around again, Elizabeth and the children went to Reunion with Owen. They reached town shortly before noon, and Owen let Elizabeth and the children out on Main Street before tying up in the alley. “Here,” he said, handing her twelve dollars. “You'd better take this to do your shopping.”

  Elizabeth frowned slightly. “But we have our account at De Witt's, don't we?”

  “I closed it last Saturday,” Owen said blandly. “I must have forgotten to tell you.”

  His wife asked no questions when she took the money, but he knew she was guessing what had happened. It won't last long, Owen thought. When the situation gets desperate enough, somebody willhave to go after the Brunners, and then it will be all over. He was glad that he had been firm with Judge Lochland.

  Knowing that Elizabeth and the boys could easily spend hours shopping at De Witt's or one of the racket stores, Owen felt free to make small purchases for the farm himself. His business took him in and out of a half-dozen stores, buying staples, a roll of wire, a new whetstone, but not until he reached Boss Tappit's barbershop did he become aware of the tight-lipped stares that seemed to follow him.

  Settling into the big leather-covered chair, anticipating the luxury of a professional shave, Owen felt the unusual silence in the room. “You boys look like you just buried your best friend,” Owen said. “Is anything the matter?”

  Talkative Boss Tappit said shortly, “Nope,” and slapped a hot towel on Owen's face.

  That was the last word spoken at normal volume in the crowded shop until Boss dusted him with a powder brush and said, “That'll be two bits.”

  Owen thought he could guess what was wrong, but he wanted to be sure. He searched the stores and street until he found Arch Deland.

  The deputy grinned without humor when Owen put the question to him. “Sure, I can tell you what's wrong. This county wants the Brunners stopped, and Ben McKeever has convinced the people that you're the only man for the job.” He shook his head. “People are funny animals. They've got to thinkin' you're responsible for the Ransoms' deaths because you didn't light out for the hills when McKeever told you to.”

  Owen couldn't believe it.. “They blameme?”

  “I told you people are funny animals. That's the way McKeever's got them to thinkin'. They figure it's just pure stubbornness on your part that the Brunner boys are still free.”

  “Stubbornness! How many ofthem ever tried to bring in a man like Ike Brunner? How many of them ever went after a killer on his own ground?”

  “I know,” the old deputy said soothingly. “But they don't.”

  “If they think it's as easy as all that, why don'tthey go after the gang?”

  Deland laughed quietly. “I guess they figure this is a job for a specialist. And you're the only one around.”

  “This is the damnedest thing I ever heard of!” Owen said angrily. He took Deland's arm and pulled him around to the side of the feed store. “Now start at the beginning with this nonsense; I want to hear it all.”

  “You know the beginnin' as well as I do,” Arch said, hunkering down with his back to the plank wall. “But maybe you don't know that Will Cushman took some deputies and a pair of freight-company detectives into the hills lookin' for the Brunner hideout.”

  “Will Cushman?”

  “It surprised me, too, but he did it.” Not that it did any good. They came back last night empty-handed, and Will wired Fort Smith that the gang must have scattered out in their direction.”

  Owen snorted. “That gang didn't scatter anywhere. They're right there in those hills.”

  Arch nodded. “And that's where they'll stay, too, I guess, if it's left up to Cushman or a few outsiders like those freight detectives to bring them in.”

  Owen paced a tight, angry circle. “What's Will going to do now?”

  Deland shrugged. “You know Will. I guess he'll sit tight and wait for the Brunners to plan another raid... and maybe kill another couple like the Ransoms.”

  “What doyou think ought to be done?” Owen demanded.

  “I'm just a deputy and an old man.” Deland smiled sadly. “I don't get paid to think.”

  Owen turned abruptly and glared down at his old friend. “Maybe that's what's wrong with this country. People are too busy worrying about their pay to do a job that needs to be done.” Then he saw immediately that he had overstepped the mark. “I'm sorry, Arch. I didn't mean you.”

  The old deputy was not angry. “I know you didn't. You were talking about Owen Toller.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don't know, exactly, but I think this thing is beginning to eat at you. Oh, I don't mean the pressure that McKeever's puttin' on, or the looks people give you here in Reunion: But I think you're beginnin' to have doubts about yourself. You think of the Ransoms and wonder if you could have prevented it if you'd done what McKeever said. You're beginnin' to wonder if these people are right —these people that don't have the least idea what it's like goin' after a killer. I'm afraid you're beginnin' to wonder if you don't have a duty to go after the Brunners.” Deland got slowly to his feet. “Don't let them confuse you, Owen,” he said earnestly. “You have no duty here. There's not a man in this county that's done as much for it as you have. These people...” He raked cold eyes over the faces of passers-by. “They always want somebody else to do the dirty work for them. Well, I figure you've done enough of their dirty work, and so have I.” Owen was silent.

  “There's just one more thing,” Deland added after a pause. “The man that goes into those hills meanin' business stands a mighty good chance of not comin' out alive. Think about that, Owen, before you let this thing eat too much at you. A write-up in theReunion Reflex and a good attendance at the funeral would be mighty poor comforts for Elizabeth and the children.”

  That afternoon, riding back into the darkening hills toward the farm, Owen thought over the things that Deland had said. He had known all along, of course, that the Brunners were none of his business, but it had been good to hear Deland say it. He was easier in his mind, knowing that he did not stand alone in his beliefs.

  Engrossed in his thoughts, Owen did not notice that Elizabeth was unusually quiet. They crossed the south bend of Lazy Creek and Owen let the horses rest for a moment before starting the hard pull into the foothills. Turning his head, he could see the rocky, dark green meadows below, and the orange sun moving sluggishly toward the western horizon.

  “We'll just about make it by dark,” he said absently, noticing that the children were asleep in the bed of the wago
n. Then he turned to his wife, and saw that she had not heard him. Deep in her own thoughts, Elizabeth had allowed her face to fall into a studied, thoughtful frown.

  “A penny for those thoughts.” Owen smiled at her.

  She looked up, startled. “Oh,” she said. “I'm afraid I was woolgathering.”

  “What kind of wool?”

  Her frown deepened as she shook her head slowly. “I don't know. Owen, I had the strangest feeling all the time we were in Reunion today. I can't explain it; it's not the kind of thing that can be put into words very well, but... well, I think it was a feeling that people wereavoiding me.”

  Owen scowled. “What do you mean?”

  “I told you, I can't explain it. It's nothing anyone said. Perhaps it was in the way they looked at me—women I've known since childhood. Or the way conversation seemed to lag when I came upon a group of women in the stores. I just don't know, but something's wrong.”

  “Well,” he said quickly, “it'll straighten itself out, whatever it is.” He cracked the lines over the team and the wagon moved slowly over the deep-rutted road.

  Owen was surprised and angered that Elizabeth should become involved in McKeever's efforts to bring him to heel. If they snub my wife, he thought furiously, they're going to have Owen Toller to contend with. I don't care what they think about me, but when they bring Elizabeth into it...

  “Now who's woolgathering?” Elizabeth asked.

  Owen looked at her and made himself grin. “Not me. I was just admiring the scenery.”

  Chapter Five

  Dunc Lester was not as pleased with himself as he might have been. Oh, they had got off with a lot of plunder in the Bellefront raid; he'd had Gabe Tanis take his share back to his folks. But he couldn't get over the idea that the price had been too high.

  The raid was more than a week old and most of the boys had scattered all over the hills. The wild, ragged peaks that surrounded Ulster's Cave were bleak and silent, and Dunc wished that he could have gone back with the others. This time of year his pa needed him to help work the fields, but here he was stuck in this wilderness, because this was the way Ike Brunner wanted it.

  Sometimes he got sick of letting Ike boss him around, but he guessed this fact hadn't really occurred to him until after Bellefront. This was the first time one of the gang had been killed in one of these forays. For Dunc, it had been sort of a lark until now. But not any more. Not after he'd seen a load of buckshot almost take Dove Wakeley's head off his shoulders.

  Dunc's stomach shrank toward his throat when he thought about it. Dove Wakeley, a simple, good-natured galoot. Dunc had been right beside him when that warehouse guard opened up on them with a twelve-gauge shotgun. There had been a dull thump, like an October pumpkin splitting on a sharp rock. Dove had run maybe a dozen steps, screaming, with no face at all and not much of anything above the shoulders. Dunc Lester would be just as happy if he never saw another sight like that.

  Now, sitting on the ridge near the first outpost, Dunc leaned on his shotgun and wondered what Dove's woman would do now that Dove was dead. How long was that Bellefront plunder going to last without a husband?

  Dunc got tired sitting in one place, and he got up to stretch his legs, walking around in a tight little circle. He looked down at the wooded crags below and shook his head. That dude sheriff in Reunion could scour this country till doomsday and never find the Brunner hideout. Just the same, Ike said the gang was to lay low a while after Bellefront. Except for eight or ten men to guard the cave, everybody was to go home and tend his fields as if nothing had happened.

  That's where you had to admit that Ike was smart, whether you liked him or not. He knew when to stop.

  But Cal—now there was a different story. Cal was a wild one, Dunc thought. Cal didn't take to these hills the way his brother did; he liked to be among people, especially women.

  Dunc shook his head in wonder. If the younger brother ever took hold of this outfit, it wouldn't last a week. And Dunc was getting to the point where he didn't care much, one way or the other. He was thinking that the next time Ike sent out the call, he might get himself laid up with the fever. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor was all right, but there were limits.

  He stood for a while, looking down on that dark sea of pine. He glanced at the sun and judged that he still had four hours of watch before Wes Longstreet would relieve him and he could go back to the cave. He began to get impatient and irritable. It seemed a sin and a crime that a man should do nothing in the spring of the year but sit on a hilltop holding a shotgun.

  At last he tramped over to the far end of the ridge, and in the distance he could see a thin ribbon of wood smoke rising up from Mort Stringer's chimney. Preacher Stringer, some called him. They said that Mort had been the head of a Baptist mission for the Cherokees once. They also said that Mort had given up preaching to the Indians because he figured the whites needed it more, and maybe he had something there. What Cherokees Dunc had seen were as smart as any white man you'd likely run up against. One of them had figured out an alphabet and started a whole new language, so the story went, and Dunc guessed it was true.

  So Mort figured the Cherokees were capable of looking after their own salvation, and he had moved up here to this cabin, where the hills were the wildest, where the woods were the darkest and the crudest, and started up to save the hillfolks. Him and his daughter.

  Leah, the girl's name was, but Dunc had never seen her, not being much of a Bible-pounder himself.

  Dunc gazed down at that lonely little clearing surrounded by darkness, the bleak little cabin with a mud chimney, and thought to himself that it was a mighty poor place to bring up a girl. Mort's woman had died a few months back, and they said the girl took it hard, not having any womenfolks at all to talk to. Now if I was Mort, Dunc thought idly, I'd stop bothering so much about these hill-folks and get that girl down among some women.

  At last he turned and tramped back to his position, sat on a rock, and set himself to wait out the hours for Wes Longstreet.

  Almost an hour had passed when Dunc spotted the gray stallion picking its way daintily through the rocks at the bottom of the long slope. He came instantly alert, his shotgun at the ready. Then he thought, Why the hell didn't I bring a rifle? A shotgun's no good at this range!

  But then the rider cupped his hands to his mouth and the mournful bark of the coyote hung on the still air. Dunc returned the call and thought, That's Cal Brunner. What does he think he's doin' this far from the cave?

  He watched with vague interest as the big gray picked its way to the far side of the slope and disappeared among the trees. Dunc shrugged. Well, he guessed Cal Brunner could do as he pleased... so long as Ike didn't have any objections.

  He sat on the rock again and waited, idle thoughts drifting in and out of his mind. He was bored.

  Perhaps another hour had passed when the muffled sound of a rifle mushroomed gently in the still of the afternoon. Instantly Dunc was on his feet again, running in the direction of the sound. Then he thought, That shot was too far away. I can't do any good without a horse. He turned and ran back to where his little bay grazed in the sparse grass among the rocks.

  He had to take a tortuous, twisting trail down the west side of the hill; plunging headlong down that incline would have been suicide. The shot probably meant nothing, he told himself. Probably it was Cal shooting game. Dunc swore as the little bay stumbled over the rocky trail. Goddamn it, why hadn't Cal warned the outpost if he was going hunting?

  When he reached the shelf at, the bottom of the trail, he brought the bay up for a moment, scowling. Here, he thought, was just about where he had seen Cal. Dunc called out the barking signal. The hills were silent.

  Dunc kneed the bay to the south, toward a heavy stand of trees, and called out again. There was no answer. He considered the possibility mat a posse might have penetrated this deep into the hills and Cal had run into it, but he dismissed that idea immediately. No posse could have got past the f
orward outposts without raising a commotion.

  Dunc worried this in his mind for a moment. Maybe it was another kind of trouble; maybe Cal had had an accident of some kind. This idea worried him more than the possibility of a posse. Ike would sure be hell to live with if anything happened to that hotheaded brother of his.

  After another short pause to orient himself, Dunc put the bay into the woods, beating a slow arc around the base of the hill, keeping in mind the direction from which the shot had come. He was about to call out again when he heard the scamper and clash of steel-shod hoofs on the rocks behind him, and through the woods Dunc glimpsed Ike Brunner's paint mare crashing through the trees toward the sound, and the gang leader's face was twisted and red with rage.

  Instinctively Dunc held back, glad that Ike hadn't seen him. When the elder Brunner got that kind of look on his face, he was nobody to fool with. Maybe Ike has taken this as a personal thing, Dunc thought carefully. Maybe I'd better let him take care of it to suit himself.