The Big Country

by Donald Hamilton

  "Yes?"

  Steve Leech's voice was a mild drawl. "That's a hell of a hat to bring to this country, friend. You don't watch out, some drunk cowboy's going to shoot it off your head just in fun."

  Chapter 5

  HE TIED THE TEAM in front of the house. While he was doing so, he heard the door open. When he turned around, she was standing there, awaiting him, still in her riding habit, but without hat or gloves. Her uncovered hair shone brightly in the sunlight. He walked up the path and stopped in front of her. They stood for a moment without speaking-and suddenly she was in his arms, and all the doubts and disappointments of the day vanished. It was some time before he became aware that they were embracing practically on a public thoroughfare, in broad daylight. He released her with some embarrassment.

  "I'm sorry, my dear. I didn't mean to compromise you before the neighbors-"

  She laughed breathlessly at this, and took his hand and led him quickly into the house, where she turned to face him again, and they repeated the kiss, at greater length and leisure.

  "Oh, darling, darling!" she whispered at last. "it's been so long! You don't know how long it's been!"

  "Don't I?" "If I'd known bow I was going to miss you I'd never have let you send me home!" she said. "I wanted to stay, remember, and get married right away, it was you who insisted on being stodgy and conventional and waiting until everything was settled. How could you do it?"

  "It's something I've wondered myself," he admitted.

  "There have been times I was positive you weren't actually Coming, in spite of your letters," she confessed. "Times when I thought you'd taken this way to-to get rid of me!"

  He grinned. "There have been times I wasn't sure you'd still have me when I did come, including about an hour ago when you walked right past me at the hotel."

  She flushed slightly. "Wasn't that awful? But I hadn't any idea the stage had already come. Nobody'd told me when it was in sight, like they were supposed to, and it usually stops for at least an hour, and it wasn't there. So I simply didn't dream you were in town yet. I wasn't looking for you at all, and I was so worried about those fool cowboys, and you do look different in those clothes-"

  He said, "Six months haven't changed your mind, Pat?"

  She smiled at him quickly, and took his face in her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. "Do I act as if they had? What about you?"

  He said, "No change here."

  After a moment she laughed, and stepped back, and lifted her hands to her slightly disordered hair. He watched her tuck the vagrant strands away Her-beauty, as always, frightend a little;a man could be too lucky.

  Patricia said, "Well, I guess I'm presentable again. Mrs. Canning's hiding in the kitchen to give us privacy. I think we can let her out now, don't you?" She raised her voice. "You can come out now, Aunt Maud. I'm through kissing him for the moment."

  A small, gray-haired woman with a lined, pleasant face came into the room. "So this is Captain McKay," she taking his hand. "I've heard ,a great deal about you young man, It's high time you got here, there's been no living with this girl the past six months."

  Patricia, laughed. "Aunt Maud has to put up with me whenever I'm in town."

  Mrs. Canning chuckled. "Well," she said, "I hate to seem inhospitable, but if you don't start for the ranch pretty soon it will be midnight before you get there. But first, Patricia, has this man of yours had anything to eat all day? If not, I can see that something's fixed for him while you're getting your things."

  Patricia squeezed McKay's arm, "Heavens, I really am neglecting you!" she said. "Everything's been so mixed up-"

  "It's all right," McKay said. "I had a 'bite to eat a little while ago."

  Mrs. Canning said, "Oh, dear, that greasy food at the hotel is a poor introduction to our western cooking."

  McKay hesitated. It was an opening, but he was not quite sure whether to take advantage of it or not. Sooner or later be would have to let Patricia know of his attempt to buy a ranch for them, But in view of what he had learned of the local situation he was not sure how she would receive the news of his effort to surprise her.

  He squared his shoulders slightly, and said in a casual voice, "Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't eat at the hotel. I had a cup of tea with-"

  "Tea?" said Mrs. Canning. "Where in heaven's name did you find tea in this town, young man? I thought I was the only person who had the stuff bathe house, with the possible exception of-"

  She broke off, with a startled look on her face, and the two women watched McKay, who said, "I had tea with Miss Julie Maragon and young man named Rainier." He glanced at Patricia. "She said she knew you."

  Patricia said, "Of course she knows, she used to be my best friend! But I don't understand-"

  Mrs. Canning laughed quickly. "Don't be so mysterious, Captain McKay-I mean, Jim. Can't you see we're just burning with curiosity to know how you managed to get yourself invited to tea by Clem Maragon's granddaughter within half an hour of coming into town?"

  "Why, I was trying to buy her ranch," McKay said, still casually. "It was supposed to be a surprise for Pat. I guess I made a bit of a fool of myself."

  There was a moment of silence, then Patricia gave an odd little laugh."You-were trying to buy the Lazy M, Jim?" she asked. "What happened?"

  "Why" he said, "Miss Maragon explained the situation. As you undoubtedly know, she's afraid that if she sells the ranch to a local buyer it will set off a neighborhood feud of some kind. She has the notion she can find somebody who'll act as kind of a buffer-"

  "I know, I know!" Patricia's voice was sharp. "I've heard all her silly arguments! For heaven's sake, Jim, what happened? Did you get it or didn't you?"

  He looked at her in surprise and some resentment. "No," he said rather curtly, "of course I didn't get it, Pat If she wouldn't sell to your father, how could she logically sell to me? When I admitted that I was about to marry into the Terrill family-"

  Patricia stared at him, shocked. "When you admitted-" she breathed. "You mean-you mean Julie actually didn't know who you were? You mean you could have had Lazy M for us just by-just by keeping your mouth shut? Oh, Jim!" She turned abruptly away.

  McKay glanced helplessly at Mrs. Canning, who shrugged and spread her hands in a resigned way.

  "Miss Maragon was honest with me, my dear," McKay heard himself say deliberately. "Whatever is between you now, she used to be your friend. Would you have wanted me to lie to her?"

  Patricia whirled on him, her face pale and angry. "Honest! she gasped. "Is it honest to betray your friends and have dealings with their enemies? Is it honest to ignore all claims of loyalty and gratitude? Julie's always been treated like my sister at home, ever since we were children. When Clem Maragon died, she lived with us for months. Dad and Judge Canning took care of everything for her, the funeral, settling the estate, rounding up and selling Off the cattle, finding her a place in town, getting her appointed schoolteacher. All Dad asked in return was the chance to buy Big Muddy. He didn't even ask for a bargain for friend-ship's sake, he was willing to match the best offer. She knows it means life or death to us. If the Hanneseys get it, sooner or later they'll manage to crowd Ladder out of existence unless we kill them first! And still she refuses to sell it to us-not only refuses, but plays us against the Hanneseys, even encourages that greasy killer of a Buck Hannesey to come calling on her with flowers. I declare, sometimes I think the girl's deliberately throwing away all sense of decency and responsibility. Even Ben Rainier can't seem to make her understand-" Patricia choked and flung her head back to face McKay. "Don't you dare preach to me about honesty, Jim McKay, or friendship either! You don't know what this means to us. Why, I-I'd strangle her with my bare hands, if I thought it would get us Big Muddy!"

  Then she began to cry, and Mrs. Canning came forward to soothe her, as McKay stood by awkwardly. "There, there," Mrs. Canning said. "Everybody's under a strain these days. Jim, if you'd just get her things out of the corner room and take them out to the buckboar
d. Shell be all right in a minute, won't you, dear?"

  Half an hour later the town was behind them, they were driving westward toward the sun that was already beginning to sink through the intensely blue sky toward the incredibly distant horizon ahead. It was very much like being at sea, McKay reflected, finding it more comfortable to focus his attention on the landscape and the restive than on the silent figure beside him. Presently he felt a touch on his arm, and looked aside to find Patricia smiling at him a little ruefully.

  "I declare, you've had quite a welcome to San Rafael, haven't you, darling?" She pressed his arm lightly. "I'm sorry, I really am. It wasn't your fault. There wasn't any way for you to know how important it was to us."

  "It was a foolish idea," he said more than ready to make peace. "I should have consulted with you and your father beforehand."

  "It was a sweet idea, wanting to surprise me," she said and leaned forward slightly so that he could kiss her. "You didn't know I had such an awful temper, did you?" she murmured, smiling into his eyes. Then she straightened up, and looked around. "Well, what do you think of Texas Jim? It's a big country, I do hope you're going to like it here."

  He said, "My dear I've voyaged to some pretty outlandish places without half as good a reason as I have for coming here. I'm not particular about where I live. If this is where you want us to make our home, that's good enough for me."

  She laughed softly. "I like it when you call me 'my dear.' It makes me feel as if we'd been married and comfortably settled for years?"

  McKay said, "I haven't got a deed to present to you with a flourish, but I did bring a couple of small things. Dad had a pair of eased dueling pistols-he was kind of an old-fashioned gentleman. He believed in sailing ships and affairs of honor, as a matter of fact, he fought a number of them. Strangely enough, Brockhurst, the lawyer, seems to have been present at one. Anyway, the pistols are obsolete, of course, but they're rather pretty pieces and I thought your father might like to have them."

  "I'm sure he would, darling, it was nice of you to think of it."

  "And there's a brooch that my mother used to wear that I brought along for you, kind of a family trinket. It's in the top of my valise if you care to look for it. I don't trust. these western broncos of yours enough to turn my back on them."

  Patricia rose to kneel on the seat, reaching for the luggage in the bed of the wagon behind them. McKay checked the ponies slightly so the jolting would not throw her off balance. He glanced around casually, his eyes sweeping the surrounding country in a practiced manner. Something caught his glance along the road ahead, and he said casually, ”I don't suppose there's much danger from Indians anymore."

  Patricia laughed. "Indians! Darling, don't act any more like a greenhorn than you have to. Whatever made you say that?" "That little gully ahead," he said, "There's somebody in it. Several somebodies, in fact. They seem to be waiting for us.

  She turned quickly to glance at him, then she looked ahead. He had pulled the team to a halt. As she looked, a group of horsemen rode out of the high brush that bordered the road where it passed through the wash ahead. There were six or seven of them. They swung into the road and started toward the motionless buckboard. They were obviously not Indians.

  McKay studied them for a moment. “Hannesey men, I suppose."

  "Yes, I think so. That looks like Buck Hannesey on the big bay. How did you-"

  “It seemed logical. They were routed by superior numbers in town so they decided to lie in, wait along the road...I don’t suppose we can outrun them.”

  "I wouldn’t run from that bunch of saddle tramps!” Patricia was on her knees again, reaching behind the seat.‘ She settled back “beside him with a short-barreled carbine in her lap. "Go on, Jim. If they start anything, I’ll take care of them!” She glanced at him impatiently. “Drive ahead, Jim!”

  “They aren’t likely to do you any harm, are they?” he asked.

  Patricia laughed scornfully. "Even the Hanneseys would hardly touch a woman, the whole country would help sting them up. But-"

  "That's what I wanted to know," he said. Before she realized what he was about, he had taken the carbine from her hands. "In that case," he said, "we'll dispense with the firearms."

  He the weapon into the back or the Wagon. A moment later the riders were all around them. The man on the bay horse rode up on McKay's side. He was young, and although it was difficult to judge height in the saddle, he gave an impression of rawboned tallness. He had dark hair that needed cutting, fully revealed when he bowed in an exaggerated manner and doffed his hat to Patricia. The red hair grew in long sideburns down his jaw, and he had a bushy red mustache as well. His clothes were rough and not clean, his eyes were small, deepset, and mean in his bony face.

  “Pleasant day, Miss Terrill,” he said. “The boys tell me there was a little trouble in town. If I‘d been there, it might have turned out different. Steve Leech don’t scare me the. way he does some people.” He looked down at McKay. as if discovering his presence for the first time. “This the fellow you’re going to marry, Miss Terrill? Mighty handsome little man, all dressed up in a fancy suit. And I sure do admire that hat he’s wearing-”

  Suddenly he spurred “his “horse forward, snatched the bowler hat from McKay’s head and, with a snapping motion of the wrist, sent it flying with a continuation of the same movement, he whipped out the big revolving pistol he carried at his hip, and fired. In an instant, all the men were yelling wildly and firing at the hat as it soared high, rising on the wind. At last it lost its forward motion and settled lightly to the ground, and the shooting stopped.

  “Mighty pretty little man," the rider on the bay horsed said. “Too damn pretty for a Texas girl. Get him boys!"

  There Was a whispering sound the air. A rope settled about McKay’s shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides, and snatching him from the seat of the buckboard. He heard Patricia cry out as he fell. Then the impact drove the breath out of him. He was dragged a way along the ground. The motion stopped.

  "Get up," said Buck Hannesey's voice.

  He got clumsily to his feet. Another noose came from nowhere, and the two ropes grew tight, holding him motion-less in the middle of the road. The red-haired man had dismounted. There was a wicked look of pleasure on his face as he walked forward and hit McKay hard in the pit or the stomach with the left hand then, as he doubled up, clubbed him across the head with the pistol still held in the right. . .

  McKay came back to full consciousness with Patricia kneeling beside-him. He looked around and saw that they were alone on this stretch of road, and he thought with relief, Well, that’s over, When he. rose, agony pounded through his head, but he made it nevertheless, and walked away from the girl. He returned to her, with the hard hat in his hands, dusted it off, and showed it to her.

  “I don’t think much of their marksmanship,” he said. “They didn’t hit it once, come on lets get out of here."

  Chapter 6

  JULIE MARAGON accompanied her visitor as far as the gate, and turned to face him. She found herself wondering just how it would feel to spend the rest of her life with a man who towered so high above her. He’s nice, she thought, he means so well, but everything about him is a little more then life size, even his failings. Somehow he never seems quite real. I’m being terribly unfair.

  “Good-by, Ben,” she said, holding our her hand. “It was nice of you to come.”

  He took her hand in his big one and held it gingerly. His big boyish face was pink. “Ah, Julie,” he said, “I can bend a rifle barrel with my hands, but my tongue’s no good to me at all. Here’s another day gone, and nothing I’ve said has come out the way I wanted it to. You must know why I come here, even if I can’t say‘ it properly. You must know what’s in my mind.”

  She said, “I know, Ben. But I don’t know what’s in my own. Not yet.”

  “I haven’t much to offer,” he said humbly, releasing her hand at last. “I guess when God handed me this body He figured I’d got
my share, He gave the ambition to smaller men. Would you like me better if I offered to help you. work and fight for Big Muddy? You love the place, I know. You’d like to keep it-”

  “I’d love to be able to keep it,” she said. “But it’s out of the question. I knew the minute Gramps died that the place was lost to me. No woman could hold it.”

  “A woman and a man could hold it,” he said, and flushed, and added quickly, “Sounds like I was trying to-to marry the ranch, doesn’t it? What I meant was, well, I’ve got a couple of hands that can take care of the little I’ve got at my place. You could, well, kind of hire me on as foreman for wages and we could put the Lazy M back on its feet again."

  She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Ben, you’re sweet, but I can’t let, you do it. If-if anything happened-’

  “What’s going to happen? The one thing my size is good for is that people mostly leave me alone.” She shook her head quickly. “No man is as big as a rifle fired from ambush. Besides”-she studied his face for a moment-“besides, it’s not really what you want, is it? A big ranch and a lot of responsibility?”

  “A man can’t have everything he wants. If you look down on me because I’m satisfied with my few acres and my handful of cows and don’t even raise a fuss when Major Terrill blocks me off from Caballo Springs-” He shrugged his great shoulders. “If an easygoing man isn’t what you want, Julie, why I’ll try to be some other, kind of man for you.”

  She shook her head again. “No, Ben. There are too many ambitious men around. here already. I wouldn’t want you any different.”

  “The question,” he said dryly, “is simply whether you want me at all.” He grinned his boyish grin. “Why, I’m improving, Julie. That was almost clever. . . . I wish we’d had a little more time to ourselves this afternoon. That was an odd coincidence, Miss Terrill's intended coming here to buy the Lazy M for her without having any notion of how hard the Terrills had already tried to get it."