“All right, Smoke.” Matt Coburn had placed the man. “Here I am, and there you are. You go right ahead and follow orders.”
The straggling line was motionless, each man calculating the odds. There was only one man down there, but they all knew what he could do. He could only get a few of them before they got him, but nobody wanted to be among the few who would die.
Suddenly, from behind Coburn, a voice spoke, the voice of the miner who had been at the windlass. “Don’t you pay no mind to that geezer on the left, Matt. I’ve got him right in my sights.”
From the cover of the building a second voice spoke up quickly. “An’ I’ve got another one!”
A third voice followed. “Let ’em come, Matt. This here’s goin’ to be like shootin’ ducks in a barrel!”
“Well, Smoke,” Matt spoke almost carelessly, as though it mattered not at all to him. “That sort of evens things out, doesn’t it? There’s four of us, three of us under cover, and you boys all out in the open. What’s it goin’ to be?”
Smoke took a slow step backward. “All right, Matt,” he said, “but this here’s only started. We hired on for the job.”
“Then you’ve bought yourself a ticket to Boot Hill,” Matt said quietly. “All right. Get off the hillside, and make it quick. And if you want a fight you can have it, any time, any place.”
Slowly, they turned around and started up the hill, but Matt Coburn knew what Smoke said was true, that this was only the beginning. Those men were not cowards. They had simply figured their chances and decided to fight another day when the odds might be changed. They were men who fought for hire, and who were hired because of their ability to get results.
A buckboard was racing along the trail, and just as Matt turned to walk back to the mine, it pulled up below. Madge Healy was there, with Pike Sides.
“You stopped them, Matt,” Madge said, putting her hand on his sleeve. “You stopped them again.”
“Your boys were right in there with me, Madge,” he gestured toward the miners. “They stood ready to fight.”
Pike stared at Matt. “You move fast, Coburn.” He paused. “Was that Smoke Benton up there?”
“Uh-huh.” Matt was watching Kingsbury, who was racing up in a buckboard, followed by several others.
Kingsbury drove a fine pair of bays, and they swung into the open area near the shaft and drew up in a cloud of dust. “What’s going on here,” he demanded.
“Mr. Kingsbury,” Madge said, “you are trespassing. You are to leave this property at once, and I do not want you to come here again—for any reason whatsoever.”
Kingsbury stared around, unwilling to believe his men were not in command. He started to speak when Pike Sides moved forward. “You heard the lady,” he said. “Get out!”
Ike Fletcher, a lean man with narrow gray eyes, sat beside Kingsbury. “Pike, you’re ridin’ a pretty high horse there. You better step down whilst you’re able.”
“Turn that team,” Pike said. “I’m giving you thirty seconds. I’ll kill you first, Kingsbury.”
Without another word the mining man swung the team and trotted them down the trail.
*
THE AFTERNOON WAS quiet. There was no sound except the usual sounds of a western town at work, and even these seemed muted. The sky was gray and lowering. Occasionally there were gusts of wind.
Dick Felton sat at the table in the building on Discovery, and waited. He wore the star, he had the gun belted on, and tonight he would take up his duties as marshal. As always, Zeller was guiding the work on the claim.
The place smelled of fresh lumber and of coffee. The door stood open; to the left was another unfinished wall of another room, still to be added. From where Felton sat he could see the street below. A stage coach had come in—they still ran only intermittently—and Wayne Simmons was talking to the driver. A dog lay in the dust in the center of the street, and whenever anyone approached he wagged his tail, as if to say, I’m comfortable—if you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.
A few scattered horses were tied to the hitching rails. In front of the new Bon-Ton Restaurant a man sat tipped back in a wooden chair, asleep in the sun, his hat over his eyes.
It looked innocent enough. Somewhere among the tents and wagons of the more recent arrivals, a hen cackled, announcing to all that she had laid an egg.
Felton looked down the street, wondering about tonight. For the first time he was fully aware of what he was facing, and aware that he stood almost alone. Dan would back him up, so would Clyde, but they were only two against so many.
Matt Coburn loomed in the door. “How about a cup of coffee?”
“Sure. Sit down.”
Matt took up the coffeepot and walked to the table with a cup, refilling Felton’s, then filling his own. “You got any idea what’s going to happen down here tonight?” he asked.
“I’m going to lay down the law,” Felton said.
“You’re going to need six sets of eyes and twelve hands,” Matt said dryly. “If anybody shoots a gun, pay no attention. The chances are it will be a trick to get you into the street. You’ll have to watch the dark alleyways and the roof-tops. Big Thompson may pick a fight with you, or maybe it will be Gorman or one of the others. Stay out of it. You wouldn’t have a chance.
“If a fight starts over a card game,” Matt went on, “stand off if you want to stop it; stand off a good distance, and watch your back. Don’t back up against a wall…remember a forty-five cartridge will shoot through six inches of pine, and none of the walls down there are more than an inch thick.
“You’ll have to move fast, and keep moving. My suggestion would be to tell them what to do and kill the first man who refuses, or moves too slow.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then you’re a dead man.”
Felton shifted in his chair. “How many bad ones are there down there?”
“Five or six who are really dangerous. A dozen more who are almost as bad, given a chance. I’d say sixty or seventy men you’ll have to run out if you want a clean town.”
“As many as that?”
“There are at least five hundred men around who are good, hard-working men who want no trouble with anyone, and most of them will have no trouble unless they strike it rich or show some gold around. There are at least three hundred who are all boots and shoulders. They’re not bad men, but they’re rough and they will fight at the drop of a hat, mostly with fists. Most of them are pretty good rough-and-tumble fighters, but they won’t push a law man unless he pushes them, then they’ll push back…hard. The secret is to know who they are, ask them to lay off, or joke with them. They will only be trouble if you force them into it, but it wouldn’t take much forcing…and be careful not to hurt their pride as men. Respect them, and you won’t have trouble from them. You’ll find men like that in every logging or mining camp, along every water front, and most of them are the salt of the earth. But if a green officer throws his weight around, they’ll tear him to pieces. Handle them with gloves.
“It’s the sixty or seventy bad ones who will give you trouble. Peggoty Gorman will shoot you from the dark, or stick a blade into you. Ike Fletcher won’t kill you himself unless he’s challenged.”
“What about Nathan Bly?”
“Leave him alone—strictly alone. He’s a killer. If you try to buck him you’ll have to kill him, and that will take some doing. On the other hand, Bly won’t go looking for trouble…and in time he’ll drift to another town.”
They were silent for a time, watching the street. The dog sat up, scratched, and trotted away. A man came out of the Bon-Ton and started to sweep off the walk. The sound of double-jacks on steel drills came from several quarters as the miners worked. There was the sound of driving nails, of a saw…a horse whinnied.
Madge Healy came out of the one-room shack that was the stage station, shading her eyes as she looked up toward Discovery. Matt wondered about her, as he had many times in the past few days. She was all
woman, that one, and strikingly attractive, but she was bucking almost impossible odds in taking on Willard & Kingsbury.
Their machinations had affected the life of more than one mining camp. They moved in, using the law when it served them, using force when necessary, but usually they tried to take over the law and use it with legal force to accomplish their ends. Not many of the miners had the money to fight them in the courts, but Kingsbury rarely let it come to that. He was a man of violence who employed men of violence. Matt Coburn had never had occasion to buck them before.
A man strolled out of a saloon now and stood on the walk. From the distance it was hard to be sure, but that affected walk looked like the style of Freeman Dorset. With him was another man…probably Kendrick, formerly of the Harry Meadows’ outfit.
Felton suddenly looked over at Matt. “Why are you giving me all this advice? I’ve never liked you, and you’ve had no reason to like me.”
“I don’t pay much attention to whether people like me or not. In my business you get over being thin-skinned. I like what you want to do here, and I am against them.” He gestured toward the town. “I suppose that basically we want the same things. No lawman ever gets rich. We suffer and we die, and usually we die young, and there’s precious little thanks for us when we go. Yet without us this country could never survive and grow, without us you could never have the town you’re wanting.
“If you’re going to have peace rather than violence, both sides have got to want it. One side alone can’t make peace. You cannot go down there and talk the law and the rights of the public to men who can only profit by breaking the law. They just aren’t going to listen.”
“What do you think will happen when I go down there tonight?” Felton asked.
“Tonight, or maybe tomorrow night, they will try to kill you. If you’re lucky you might get away with a wound. Dan Cohan and Newt Clyde will try to back you up, and the boys down there will know it. You may get one or both of them killed, too.”
“And then?”
“They’ll run wild. They’ll tear the town apart, they’ll burn, and they’ll kill, and then there won’t be any reason for staying on, so they’ll drift. And that will be the end of your town. A few of the mines may still be worked, and some ore shipped to one of the mills, but five years from now the town will be dead, and in time even its name will be forgotten.”
“What about the buildings?”
“Some will be carried away in pieces, some used by the miners who stay on, some will be broken up for firewood. After a few years there will only be a few holes in the mountainside and the fallen walls of what stone buildings there are. I have seen it happen before.
“The trouble with most folks coming out here is that they’ve been protected so long they’re no longer even conscious of it. Back where they come from there are rules and laws, curbstones and sidewalks, and policemen to handle violence. The result is that violence is no longer real for them; it is something you read about but that never happens to you.”
Matt paused for a moment, and went on. “You’re a brave man, Felton, but you’re a stubborn one. You will go down there tonight and get somebody killed. The only rule those men understand is force, or the threat of force.…Well, there…I’ve talked too much.”
Felton was silent. Despite his stubbornness, he had the feeling that what Matt Coburn had said was the truth. He frowned…he did not want to die, and he did not want anyone else to die because of his actions. But he made up his mind.
He stood up. “I’m going down there and talk to them,” he said. “I’m going to tell them what kind of a town we want—what kind of a town we’ll have if they will cooperate.”
Matt smiled at him. “Felton, that’s like asking a tiger to take up grazing with the sheep. It’s against their nature. But you can try it.”
“I won’t wear a gun,” Felton said. He unbuckled his belt. “I’ll go down there and reason with them.”
Leaving his gunbelt on the table, he strode to the door and went out. Matt drank the last of his coffee. He sat there for a few minutes more, watching the sunlight as it fell through the door.
He suddenly found himself thinking of Laurie Shannon, and how the sunlight had fallen through the flowered curtains at her windows; he remembered the smell of coffee and the quiet, pleasant room. She had a gift, that one, for realizing comfort, a feeling of security and rest.
He got up, hitched his gunbelt into place, and walked to the door. He stared down at the town, and at the bleak hills, so recently untouched by man but now ripped and torn by the feverish search for gold.
There was no beauty in the town. There was no tree, no flower, no shrub except for the gray-green drouth-resistant plants of the desert. Only two of the buildings had been painted, most were of new lumber. Only a few had boardwalks in front of them.
He did not want this town for his own. He did not want to know it better, and he did not want to remain here. The amateurs were trying to do a job that needed a professional. He knew that some of Felton’s dislike for him had abated, and he felt that the young man was perhaps half convinced by what he had said, but he had little hope for him or for the town. He knew what he himself could do—with a bit of luck—but he had no desire to do it.
He found himself liking Felton. The man was an idealist, but he was a solid young man with a future—if he survived Confusion.
He went outside, saddled his horse, and led it across to the stage station.
Dick Felton was walking down the street alone. Madge Healy was standing in the door, watching him go. She looked at Matt. “Are you going to help him, Matt?”
“No.”
“You helped me.”
“That was different. You’re a woman, and alone. No, Felton wants no help. He’s got his own ideas, and he has to go his own way.”
“They’ll kill him, Matt. Or maybe worse…they’ll break him.”
He stood beside her, thinking that she probably had seen even more of such towns than he had. For all the years since she was a small child she had been dancing and singing in the boom towns, in lonely camps…everywhere.
“What’s going to happen, Matt?” she asked.
He shrugged. “We’ve got two things going here: anarchy in the camp, and an organization working against you. They’ll feed on each other. Once the town starts to come apart at the seams, Kingsbury and Fletcher will move against you.”
He considered for a moment. “If I were you, I’d keep Pike at the claim, and whatever power you have. Whatever happens will start tonight.”
He saw that Felton had gone into the Main Chance Saloon.
Chapter 14
*
MATT, WHAT ABOUT you?” Madge looked searchingly into his eyes. “When this is over, what are you going to do?”
“I’m getting a ranch. I’m going to settle down and stay put.”
She smiled. “Do you think you can? Do you think they will let you? Or that you will let yourself? We’re two of a kind, Matt, and we’ve both been as homeless as a pair of tumbleweeds. That’s why I was so easy to convince when Scollard started talking to me about a home and lace curtains. I was lonely, Matt, lonely as only you could understand. I don’t think that way down deep I believed him for a minute, but I believed in what he was telling me because I wanted to so desperately.”
Their eyes were on the door of the Main Chance. Dick Felton had not come out yet, but a moment later he did emerge and walked on down the street, stopping in stores, saloons, restaurants, and the gambling tents. In each place he stayed only a few minutes. When he had visited every public place, he walked back up the hill to Discovery and went into the stone building.
It was Sturdevant Fife who came up the hill to explain. Wayne Simmons, Clyde, Cohan, and Zeller were there to listen. “He’s quite a speaker, that boy. Ever’ place he went, he gave them a spiel on what a fine town this was going to be; about the schools, the churches, and all, and the need for teamwork to make it thataway. I’d say he made him a g
ood talk.”
“What kind of response did he get?” Simmons asked skeptically.
Fife shrugged. “Well,” he said, “it reminded me of some politicians I’ve knowed, time to time. Those who were goin’ to vote for them anyway needed no convincing. You might say their response was downright enthusiastic. Then there was the other lot who wouldn’t vote for him a-tall, and they just listened. I’d say he put hisself on record, and he made a good try.”
There was silence in the room, and then Cohan said, “We’d better help him. We’d better go down there armed and ready.”
“You’d be wasting your time, Dan,” Simmons said, “and you know it. This town has gone too far without the law. They’d see us coming and there’d be an ambush.” Simmons sat down behind his desk. “Dick wants to play this hand alone, and as far as I’m concerned, he can play it.”
Zeller shifted his heavy body, and his chair creaked. “Vat aboudt Coburn? Su’bose ve hire him our ownselfs?”
“He won’t take it.” Fife said flatly. “Only if you give him a free hand. And he’ll run it with a gun.”
“I t’ink dere iss no udder vay,” Zeller said calmly.
*
TUCKER DOLAN RODE into the yard at the Rafter LS and swung down from his horse. He had been punching cows for Laurie Shannon for several days, and he liked it.
Laurie stepped to the door. “Come in, Tucker. Your supper will get cold.”
“Ma’am,” Dolan hesitated, then went on, “I ain’t been with you long, but I’d admire to have a couple of days off.”
“What is it?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s Matt Coburn. Matt’s goin’ to be wearin’ the badge over at Confusion by daylight tomorrow. I’ve got a feelin’ he may need help.”
“He’s been saying he would never wear a badge again, not for anybody.”
“It’s Felton, ma’am. That young feller who owns part of Discovery. I run into a traveler today, a man headed for Hamilton, Nevada. He told me that Felton’s going to wear the badge tonight. That means he ain’t goin’ to wear it long, and when he goes down the whole town of Confusion is goin’ to go with him. The only man who could stop it is Matt, so he’ll step in. No matter what he says, he’s a man who rises to trouble. An’ ma’am, he’s a-goin’ to need all the help he can get.”
Novel 1969 - The Empty Land (v5.0) Page 12