by Lauran Paine
That was all Sam Froman could take. With a ragged, savage oath, he reached the door leading into the clerk’s bailiwick, threw it open so violently it made the whole building shake, slammed across the room, and had the railroad man by the shirt front before that startled, wide-eyed individual could get out of his chair. By furiously bulging muscles alone, Sam brought the man out of the chair. Their faces were about three inches apart when Sam spoke through clenched teeth.
“Are you tired of livin’, hombre?”
The clerk’s Adam’s apple was going up and down in his throat like a squirrel in a cage. He tried twice to say something, his face an ashen white. Sam’s bloodless lips pulled down, and he released the clerk and shoved at the same time. The man hit his swivel chair briefly and went over backward. Sam turned his back in contempt and strolled out of the little office, closed the door behind him, and again stood bitterly beside Carrel. He jerked his head curtly.
“Come on. Let’s go find this Borein feller by ourselves.”
Sam had no sooner spoken than a door opened in the wall behind the clerk’s office, and Edward Borein stood frozen in the doorway. His eyes were on his disheveled, upset, and thoroughly rattled clerk who was peering around the edge of his desk cautiously and watching the cowmen. Borein’s startled glance slid quickly over Carrel and Froman, then swung in amazement to his clerk.
“Sanders! What in the devil are you doing?”
The clerk looked up helplessly but Carrel spoke first. He had his gentle, disarming smile on his face and his eyes held that lazy, indifferent look. “We came in here to find you, but your man there” — he gave a toss of his head toward the gingerly arising clerk — “was a little slow in answering.”
Ed Borein’s big bulk was balanced on his toes for just a second as Carrel’s meaning soaked in, then like a juggernaut of flesh and bone he heaved himself forward with an oath. Froman and Carrel stood across the counter as Borein slammed against it, his face livid.
“By God, Carrel, you’ve come into the wrong country this time. You think you’re tough. Well, I’m going to see you on your knees for this outrage!”
Carrel’s eyes were still cool but the faint smile had vanished. “Borein, I’ve come to see you about a dead bull. Know anything about it?”
The executive’s eyes softened with a crafty smile of triumph. He had been angry before, but now he was bitterly elated, too, and it showed. Normally he wouldn’t have been reckless in his speech, but now his caution and good sense were overruled by his fury. He ducked his head quickly in a savage nod. “You’re damned right I do.” The fiery eyes bored into Carrel’s face. “You asked for trouble, Carrel. Now let’s see how you like it.”
Sam Froman snarled as he crouched, his face a mask of violence. Carrel caught Sam’s steely wrist in a vise-like grip. The foreman tugged once and Carrel could feel the sinews going limp and relaxed his hold. He shook his head at Sam and turned back to Borein.
“All right, Borein. You had my bull killed for being on your tracks. That’s what I figured.” He nodded softly and his eyes were cold and dangerous now. “You’re the one that started this, Borein, remember that the next time we meet.” Under the steady, murderous glare of the railroad executive, Sadler Carrel and his foreman left the railroad office.
III
The Carrel cowboys rode up Isabelita’s main street. The day was clear and warm. They tied up outside the 66 Saloon and went inside where an atmosphere of coolness swept over them. The room was almost deserted and the smell of the place was heavy with the old odors of tobacco and liquor. At the far end of the bar five men, apparently section workers for the railroad, were the sole customers before Carrel’s men came in. The section hands had been drinking a lot, evidently, for their attitude was one of exultation, even that early in the day.
The cowboys ordered beer and lounged lazily against the bar as they drank. Sam Froman’s face was dour. He said nothing, and Sadler Carrel, standing beside his foreman, watched Sam turn his beer glass in its sticky little ring on the bar top.
“Was the easiest bonus I ever earned.” One of the section hands was speaking to his admiring companions. He was a big, massive Irishman with a slack mouth and a merry blue eye. “I jest waited till we was up close, aimed, an’ fired.” His big arms were up, shoulder level, holding an imaginary rifle. He ducked his head once, proudly, and let his arms drop. “The beast dropped like he’d been pole-axed.”
There was an awful moment of silence. The cowboys stood rigidly while Froman and Carrel stared slowly at one another, then let their glances run the length of the bar. The section hands, oblivious to the cowmen, were smiling approvingly at their champion. Sam stepped back from the bar several steps and his legs were wide apart. “Show us how he dropped, hombre, when the bullet hit him.”
Sam’s voice hadn’t raised enough to carry beyond the section workers but in an instant they heard and understood. The big Irishman looked Sam over with an initial gaze that slowly turned to uncomfortable awareness of Sam’s stance.
“What’s eatin’ into ya, cowboy?”
Sam’s face was hard and set. “I said show us, feller, and I meant it.”
The big Irishman moved massively around the edge of the bar with an uneasy, lop-sided grin on his face. “I don’t know what yer means, cowboy, but if it’s trouble yer atter, jest lay them guns on the bar an’ I’ll give ye all you’ll be wantin’.”
Sam’s shoulders drooped a little. There was no mistaking what was coming next. The Irishman hesitated, then stopped. “Mick, when I said show us how that there bull dropped, I wasn’t kidding. Now you either drop like he did, or, so help me, I’ll drop you myself.”
The Irishman blinked a couple of times. Unarmed, he could have broken Sam Froman with his hands, but he saw from the cowman’s stance that Sam had no intention of laying aside his guns. He thought for a long moment. There was no other way. The choice was simple, brief, and succinct. He shrugged, made a grimace toward his wide-eyed friends, and dropped to the sawdust-covered saloon floor. There was a long silence as the cowmen and the railroad workers looked at the red-faced corpse. Froman straightened up.
“All right, Mick. Get up.” The big Irishman arose and dusted himself off. “How much did you get paid for the job?’’ The man’s face came up and a dogged look of determination was on it. Sam shook his head and his voice was menacing. “Don’t get bravo on me, hombre.”
“‘Hunert dollars.” The voice was sullen.
“Who paid you?”
“Mister Borein.”
“Take your unwashed crew and clear out o’ here.” The section gang left, and Sam turned to Carrel. “Well, Kid, what’s the next move?”
Sadler Carrel’s face was pinched. He shrugged. “I reckon it’s going to be trouble for sure now, Sam.” His eyes fixed themselves knowingly on the foreman’s lowering features. Froman knew what Sadler meant. They’d intended to make a clean start, quit the owlhoot business, set up in the cow business, and finish out their days as respectable citizens. He shrugged slightly and shook his head.
‘‘Yeah” — the words were soft and dry — “but if we gotta fight to keep from bein’ walked on, well then, I don’t reckon we got much choice, have we?”
Before Carrel could answer, a man burst into the saloon, took one long look at the cowmen lined up along the bar, turned, and ducked out again. Sam looked in surprise after the man and Carrel strode quickly toward the batwing doors, took a quick, long look outside, swore, and turned back to his men.
“That mick and about twenty men are headed this way, boys. They’re carrying everything from clubs to shotguns.”
The Carrel men left the bar and peered through the dingy, grimy windows down the street in the direction of the railroad siding. An unmistakable crowd of section men was fanned out across Isabelita’s main street, walking slowly, purposefully toward the 66 Saloon. Froman swore heartily and spun to
ward the bartender, who was methodically clearing his shelves and stowing the bottles under the massive bar.
“You got a back way out of this trap, pardner?”
The barkeep nodded and jerked a thumb toward a heavy oaken door on the left of the bar. Sam crossed the room, opened the door a crack, peered out, and closed and bolted it again, shaking his head. “No good, Kid. They’s ten of ’em out there behind some baled hay.”
Sadler Carrel was wearing a peculiar little smile as he stationed the cowboys in places of vantage. He even chuckled as he faced his foreman. “Come on, Sam. This is better’n chasing cows anyway.”
Froman scratched his head ruefully. “Yeah, but I don’t like this damned saloon fer a hold-out.” He looked critically at the building. “Walls are like tissue paper. Hell!” He was suddenly disgusted with himself. “I should have blasted that mick when I had the chance.”
Carrel shrugged and was on the point of answering when a rifle crashed and a long, jagged splinter of wood flew out of the wall over the door. The fight was on. Quickly Froman and Carrel crouched near windows and the cowmen let go their first volley. It was a flurry of shots sent out by reckless and experienced fighting men and the railroad faction quailed before its accuracy. Screams, oaths, and shouts shook Isabelita’s quiet, staid business section. The town constable leaped on his horse and rode like mad for Borein’s office. He ordered, pleaded, and threatened to no avail. The railroad executive was adamant. The cowmen had started a war and the railroad would see them through to the bitter end. The constable swore mightily as he rode across the wide, rolling land toward Hendrix, the county seat and sheriff’s headquarters. He wasn’t being paid enough to try and stop a full scale war and, anyway, he wasn’t fool enough to try it alone. Let the sheriff of the county take a hand. Cursing grimly to himself, he thundered away from Isabelita and the faint thunder of popping, snarling guns sped him on his journey.
The saloon was a shambles. The bartender had disappeared and the acrid smoke lay like a gray shroud over the embattled cowmen. One of Carrel’s riders had been shot through the upper arm. A bandage had been contrived that stopped the blood and the man resumed his place. Through the broken windows the Carrel faction could count four perfectly still and inert bodies lying grotesquely along Isabelita’s roadway. Suddenly there was a violent fusillade of shots poured through the rear door of the saloon. The cowboys flattened themselves on the floor as the old door shook and trembled. Sam Froman swiveled his head around. His eyes were wide and concerned. He shouted over the furor to Sadler Carrel, who, hat tipped back, eyes dancing in pools of excitement, was thumbing shots into the attackers.
“Help me pile them damned tables in front of that door, Kid. If they knock it open, we’re a goner.”
Carrel and Froman sweated and fumed as they built their barricade. The flankers were pouring an erratic but consistent fire into the rear of the building. A bullet yanked Sam’s sweaty old Stetson from his head, and he swore with feeling as he surveyed the damage. Using a knothole for a gun port, the enraged foreman poked his gun through and fired three times into the hay pile behind the saloon. The flankers were momentarily stunned by the answering fire and lay low. Sam reloaded, still eyeing the Stetson with torn crown, poked his gun through the knothole again, hunted for a target, picked a carelessly exposed boot top, and fired. A howl of pain rewarded him. There was a moment of silence, then a venomous volley of lead came his way. Sam dropped to the floor until the firing was over, arose again, sought another target, and fired again. This time two railroad men broke and ran and Sam downed both of them before they had gotten twenty feet from their barricade. At this appalling accuracy, the balance of the flankers lay low and held their fire. Sam, avenged for the ruin of his hat, returned to the front of the building and got the surprise of his life. In fact he stood still, mouth agape, and stared. Sadler Carrel was dragging a spitting, fighting, clawing bundle of something inside the saloon window. Apparently he had found the attacker just below the sill trying to get into a position to throw something into the saloon. Holstering his gun, Sam rushed up to help. As he did so, Carrel released the howling dervish and leaped wildly backward just in time to miss a wild, furious swing that whistled past his face.
Sam’s hurtling form struck the wild-eyed, disheveled attacker like a battering ram and they went to the floor together. Carrel rushed forward to help just as Sam’s face, bleeding from four livid scratch marks, emerged from the threshing turmoil with a look of incredulity and horror on it. He pushed away from the furious attack of the smaller man and leaped to his feet. He faced Carrel, ran a grimy paw to the bloody gashes on his face, and there was a stupid look of disbelief on his face.
“It ain’t no man, Kid. It’s a....”
The kick caught Sam in the shins and he bellowed out a wild curse and grasped his wounded appendage and hopped crazily out of range. Carrel picked up his hat, blocked it slowly, and plunked it on his head.
“Come on, wildcat, cut it out. We ain’t fighting you no more. Calm down.”
The ragged, dirty, pug-nosed fighter came off the floor, chest heaving and eyes red. Sam limped up and poked an accusing finger at the stranger.
“You got no right to go around kickin’ folks. Why, fer two cents I’d....” He chopped it off suddenly and hobbled hastily backward as the smaller man began to take his weight off his booted toe. “Uh, uh, no more o’ that.”
Carrel’s faint grin was back. “Who are you?”
“None of your business.” The voice clinched it. The invader wasn’t a man at all. It was a girl.
IV
Sam nodded his head and looked helplessly at Carrel. “I knew it, Kid, when I was wrestlin’ with him...er...her.”
Carrel’s eyes twinkled and the girl’s blazing eyes snapped when she faced Sam.
“You shut up!” Sam held his respectful distance and looked from the furious girl to his boss. Carrel felt like laughing. She was so small, so obviously female, and so pretty, with her smudged face, flashing white teeth, and fiery eyes.
“Please ma’am, I don’t know why you wanted to throw that there stink bomb in here, unless you’re the wife of one of those unwashed section laborers, and let’s just quit fightin’ for a minute, will you?”
“I’m not a section laborer’s wife. I’m Ruth Borein. And if you think you cowmen run this country, you’re going to find out differently now. You’ve been riding rough-shod over the railroad long enough and my father’s going to make you eat crow.” She shook the mass of her taffy-colored hair and stamped her foot. “You’ve started something this time, Mister Cowman, that the railroad’ll finish!” Suddenly she stopped her harangue and her eyes widened. She thought back to the moment Sadler Carrel had stood bareheaded, punching his hat back into shape, and her face blanched a little. She stared at him hard for a long moment before she spoke again, and then her voice was small. “I know who you are.”
Froman stiffened and Carrel looked up quickly. The smile was gone now. “Who?”
“The Gila River Kid.”
For a long second the thundering, ear-splitting crash of guns wasn’t heard by the trio as their eyes locked. Carrel was the first to speak. “What makes you think so?”
Ruth Borein pointed a small hand at Carrel’s head. “When you lost your hat dragging me through the window, I saw the crescent scar.” Her hand dropped limply to her side. “In my father’s office there’s a description of you and it tells about the scar. You got it in a train robbery over in New Mexico. It’s all the law has to go on. No pictures, just that crescent scar.”
The girl was biting her lip now. There was fear in the eyes that only a moment before had been full of defiance. She watched Sadler Carrel with a sort of wide-eyed hypnotic stare. He looked slowly at Sam Froman and the foreman’s frown proved the jig was up. He swung back to the girl.
“I’m sorry, Miss Borein, but we’ll have to tie you up.”
Ruth Borein was silent while she was tied to a chair behind the bar. Her gaze seldom left Carrel’s face, and, although he avoided looking at her, he was acutely conscious of her intent study of him. He arose and stood over the prisoner, looking gravely down. Froman dashed toward the front of the gutted saloon when a swell of yelling rose over the rattle of gunfire.
“Miss Borein, every man makes mistakes. I’ve made plenty. Maybe buying the old Garcia place and trying to settle down and become a respectable cattleman was the biggest.” The broad shoulders rose and fell. “Anyway, I’ve enjoyed my brief life as a decent rancher.” The faint smile flickered around the corners of his mouth again. “Well, you’ve pretty well busted all that for me now, so, as soon as Sam and I can get out of here, we’ll slip away with my riders and get out of the country, and your father can say he beat us.” The grin was being forced now. “I’m sorry you recognized me, Miss Borein, but I reckon that’s fate, isn’t it?”
Ruth Borein’s violet eyes held Carrel’s glance. She swallowed once with an effort. “I don’t know what to say. It’s all too confusing.” She dropped her eyes, but, as Carrel turned away, they flashed back up and ran quickly over his broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped form.
The railroaders were staying out of sight. They weren’t any match for the embattled cowboys and had found it out at no little cost. Big Ed Borein alone showed himself as he went from barricade to barricade talking, gauging, and directing the assault on the saloon. At Carrel’s orders he was spared when, a number of times, he could have been killed. Froman looked strangely at the Kid when he ordered his men to leave the railroad executive alone. Carrel shrugged.
“Hell, Sam, killing her old man won’t make it any better.”
The foreman started to speak but looked closely at the Kid, shrugged, and turned back to his bullet-pocked window without saying a word. Carrel’s sober eyes rested for a long time on Froman’s back. Sam had wanted to be respectable for so long. They had sat at the rendezvous many a starlit night and talked and planned with such high hopes, and here they were, again, hunted and hounded, and worse — as soon as possible they had to hit out for the dim, narrow, and crooked trails of the owlhoot world. The Gila River Kid felt a pang of sadness flash through him. Sam had an orphaned niece somewhere, living in the Middle West with relatives, that he doted on. He’d talked of bringing her to live with him someday, when he had hung up his guns. The Kid turned away with a smothered oath.