by Lauran Paine
Around the room voices began to mumble, to lift and strengthen and rush all together. Men began relating what they’d just seen as though they’d been the only ones in the saloon.
Everett Champion strolled over, looking droll. He had both hands plunged deep into trouser pockets when he halted and gazed down his long, thin nose at Perc Whittaker. “Deputy, you got your work cut out for you. I’m withdrawing every complaint I ever made against Logan and am transferring ’em to that bull-necked, ape-built, bushy-bearded wild man instead. Keep him out of my saloon. Never mind the table and chairs. I’ll pay for those. You just keep that madman out of my saloon. And as for me closing next Sunday, or any Sunday for that matter …” Everett shook his grim-featured head from side to side. “Not on your tintype.” He turned and strode back over where his barman was setting up drinks as fast as he could fill the glasses, for men crowding to the bar with their loud talk whose backs were turned solidly toward Perc Whittaker.
The only one who made no move to leave his seat was Sam Logan. He sat there, nursing his nickel beer and watching Perc. Even Abner hastened forward to get into the conversation over at the bar.
Perc stood around a while longer, then went outside. Afternoon was marching down the land, leaving its shadowy footprints always on the southeast side of things. Several cowboys were loping into town from the west, raising a banner of dun dust that hung high in the still air like a dirty old shredded blanket. Here and there wisps of smoke stood up from stovepipes where wives and mothers perspired at their Sunday chores of getting the big meal of the day.
Over behind the public corral a little thin drift of smoke stood up from Jonah Reeves’s askew stovepipe, too, where Abigail was also doing her Sunday chores.
Perc thought before he braced Jonah again he’d have a little talk with Abigail. For one thing he couldn’t outshout Jonah. For another, he wasn’t convinced Jonah was a man susceptible to logic or reason. He’d first hear Abigail out and after that, if she didn’t have a solution to Jonah’s destructive impulses—in the name of the Lord of course—why then Perc, would have to do things his way.
Not that he envisioned the outcome of any tussle they might have as leaving him virtuously triumphant. Those three range men Jonah had put down were all good men. He knew every one of them, but especially he knew that Snowshoe rider. Still, Jonah’s brand of revivalism was unique and it was also somewhat breathtaking, not to mention disruptive, so whether he looked forward to tangling with the bearded old coot or not—there it was. It would have to be done unless Jonah was prepared to listen to reason.
Doc Firth Farraday strolled up, hands in pockets, cocked an eyebrow, and said: “I left the minute the fireworks started in there. A medical man can’t run the risk of being made bedfast when he’s duty-bound to look after an entire community. And also when he’s kind of cowardly to boot. How did it end? Did you corral that bull of the River Styx and lock him up?”
“No,” Perc replied, “I didn’t. I just warned him.”
Doc Farraday pursed his lips and considered a minute speck on his vest for a moment before saying: “Won’t work, Perc. He’s not the type.”
“What won’t work? What type isn’t he?”
“The kind that’ll hitch up and drive on. Or who will listen to reason. I’ve seen his kind before. Perhaps not as eager to wade in and smite right and left in the service of the Lord, but at least as stubborn and loud.”
“I didn’t say anything about him having to move on, Doc.”
“No,” agreed the medical man. “No, sir, you didn’t. What I was thinking, Perc, is that all of a sudden Ballester is getting full of disruptive elements. First Sam Logan. Now Jonah Reeves.”
Perc gazed thoughtfully at Farraday. That was the truth. First Logan, then Reeves. If people were upset about Logan’s hanging around town, what would they now say after the parson’s arrival? Moreover, Reeves had played hob at the Golden Slipper. That was the sanctum sanctorum for all the menfolk from miles around. If before, in the case of Sam Logan, outside of Johnny West, Ab Fuller, and one or two others, the complaints had been more or less limited, at least outwardly, what would happen now after that sky pilot treed everyone at Everett Champion’s place?
“I see what you mean,” Perc told Doc Farraday.
The medical man smiled and moved on. He was gray and a little stooped, a former Army doctor, sometimes sweetly pleasant as he’d been just now, and sometimes very acid-tongued. He was about fifty-five but he looked and acted much older. It was rumored he’d contracted malaria during the war in the swamps around Georgia, but no one knew for sure and he rarely spoke of himself.
But one thing was certain. Firth Farraday was a shrewd, observant, highly intelligent man. As far as Perc Whittaker was concerned, he’d just proved it.
Chapter Four
One time, some years back—in fact, many years back—Perc had known a girl. She’d had golden hair and eyes like Abigail had—cornflower blue—and full red lips that used slowly to smile up at him while she flirted with her eyes. Her name had been Mary and she’d been twelve years old the winter the measles had carried her off.
It was odd the memories a man carried rattling around inside of him. There never could have been much between Perc Whittaker, the grown man, and Mary, the smiling little twelve-year-old girl, but he thought of her every now and then.
He’d known a few women, too, in his time, but he’d never felt much urgency toward them. Probably because he’d never had anything but a range rider’s pay to spend on them, which wouldn’t have been enough anyway, so when he met Abigail the Tuesday next after Jonah’s scene at the Golden Slipper Saloon, he felt a little awkward and uncomfortable. He had his need to talk with her and yet he felt self-conscious about it because he could guess without much divining that she’d probably heard the same words before in other places.
It was early afternoon. She’d borrowed Ab Fuller’s stone boat, had one of Jonah’s old pelters hitched single to it, and had a water cask roped on the stone boat that she was bucketing full down beside the eastward creek.
It was pleasant down there, except for the myriad flying critters including mosquitoes that acted like they hadn’t had a square meal in a year. Willows filtered the heat from the reddening sunlight and a breath of cooling air rose up from the water. She was bending to scoop up a bucket full when he came along and saw her, stopped to watch, and noticed how the sun got tangled in her soft, wavy brown hair and how her skirt drew taut around a solid, muscular thigh. She was something to see. Not very tall but solid and sturdy with her flesh turned golden from the heat and the burn of a July sun.
She heard him, or sensed him, straightened around, and met his glance. He moved over, took the bucket, and upended it into the barrel on the stone boat. “Hot kind of work,” he said, avoiding her gaze, turning back to scoop up another bucket load. “Not exactly woman’s work, either, ma’am.”
She was a little shy with him, at first, but forthright. “Work is medicine, Mister Whittaker. It’s the best thing in this world to make sleep come quickly and to keep a person’s muscles firm.”
He dumped the bucket, peered in to see how nearly full the cask was, and idly said: “Yes’m, but unless a woman’s thinking of taking up wrestling or hod hauling, I don’t know what she’d need muscles for.” He wasn’t surprised that she knew his name. Ballester was a small town. It only had one peace officer. He turned and leaned a moment upon the barrel, looking at her. “I’ve been aiming to talk to you.”
“Yes,” she murmured, looking him straight in the eye. “I’ve been expecting you to.”
He sighed. That made it a little easier. He turned to scoop up another bucket load. “It’s about your pappy.”
“Yes, it usually is.”
“Well. He sure upset things last Sunday in the saloon.”
“Doing the Lord’s work, Mister Whittaker.”
He emptie
d the bucket and leaned a moment, watching the water foam and eddy. “There must be more than one Lord, ma’am. Your pappy’s Lord seems to talk one way and act another.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Parson Jonah laid out three cowboys with his fists. At the same time Parson Jonah was roaring about humility and repentance until the windows shook.”
“Mister Whittaker, one fights fire with fire, doesn’t one?”
Perc leaned upon the barrel, gazing down at her. She stood there half in light, half in shadow, her blouse full and thrusting, her cornflower blue eyes dead level, and her heavy red lips lying closed without pressure. She was a picture of beauty in his sight, and also, more disturbing, of righteousness personified. He stooped to put aside the bucket. Their cask was full.
“There are different kinds of fire, ma’am,” he drawled at her. “Even if using his fists was the right way, believe me, Miss Abigail, he’s only one man. If he sets a precedent of beating religion into folks, they’re just naturally going to beat back, and like I just said, he’s only one man.”
She half turned to gaze down where the creek was making soft, lapping sounds. Her profile was delicate and fine, putting him in mind of a cameo he’d once seen years ago on a haughty woman in Kansas City. Something about her, aside from her obvious attractions, came over and touched deep down into him. She wasn’t very tall, maybe that was it, and except for that old beaver-faced brimstone pappy of hers she seemed alone, or at least lonely. She was sensitive; he could tell that, and she also was not a person who smiled readily, which meant somewhere over the years life had knocked a lot out of her.
He said: “I’m in favor of prayer meetings, Miss Abigail. I’ve often thought Ballester could even use a church. But folks in cow country just aren’t like other people. You can’t whang the tar out of them, then turn around and get them to a prayer meeting.”
She turned back toward him, looking, he thought, a little wistful. “Mister Whittaker, that man Logan … what does your town propose to do about him?”
He didn’t understand, so he said: “Do? Well, it’s pretty much of a free country, ma’am. As long as Logan doesn’t get bronco, folks’ll leave him alone.”
“No, Mister Whittaker. I think you know better than that.” She stepped over in the stone boat and looked into the barrel, found it full, and picked up the lid. “Sooner or later they’ll run him out of Ballester. We were told how he killed those two Snowshoe riders. We’ve seen this before in other towns.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at, ma’am.”
“I’ll tell you, Mister Whittaker. We arrived here in the nick of time to save Sam Logan, and to save you people of Ballester from the worst of sins … judging your fellow men.”
He gazed at her, feeling some bitterness and a lot of disappointment. He’d thought, being a handsome woman, she’d have less bigotry and more warmth, be less like old Jonah and more like—well, like he thought a lovely woman ought to be. It was a big let-down for him.
“The judging of Sam Logan is all over,” he told her, a slight gruffness coming into his speech. “Anyway, he killed two men. I’d figure you and your pappy’d be dead set against killing, even justifiable killing.”
She lifted her eyes to his face. They weren’t standing far apart, just the width of the water barrel. He couldn’t find a flaw anywhere. “Killing is a part of life, Mister Whittaker. Killing provides us with food, makes it possible for us to survive, keeps our beliefs and our faith triumphant. Nothing that has been ordained is evil … unless it’s used to further the ends of evil.”
He thought on that a moment while they stood there, eyeing one another, then he smiled and wagged his head at her. “Like I said before, ma’am, there are different kinds of fire. Frankly I’ve never before heard a preacher … or a preacher’s daughter, either, for that matter … preach that killing was justified.”
“Each of us interprets the Lord’s Word and his works differently, Mister Whittaker,” she murmured, meeting his smile with a very vague, very faint twinkle. “Evil isn’t simply something black, any more than all virtue is always something white.”
“Well, he’s sure converted you, ma’am,” Perc said, and straightened up off the water barrel.
“Give him a chance to do the same for you, Deputy. Give him a chance in your town.”
“I can’t. Not if he goes around busting up saloons and whaling the stuffing out of the menfolk. Don’t you see, Miss Abigail, folks are beginning to put him in the same category with Sam Logan. This is summertime, to boot. Riders will be coming into town in droves to drink a little and bay at the moon after a hard day’s work on the range. They’re entitled to that.”
“On Sunday, Mister Whittaker?”
He drew in a big breath, and let it out slowly. “Even on Sunday, ma’am. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s probably the way it’s going to go right on being.”
She reached over to lay a small, brown hand upon his aim. “Mister Whittaker, does doing something over and over again make it right?”
“Well …” He was thrown off balance by that little hand.
“Of course not. All my father asks is that you let him show them, that’s all.”
“With his fists, ma’am?”
“No, let me handle that part of it.”
“I’ll be right glad to. If you can restrain him.”
“Let me try. And you … promise me you’ll give him a chance?”
Her earnestness kept him off balance, as well as her closeness. He felt prickles of sweat start under his shirt. He hadn’t won this encounter; he knew that. He hadn’t even come up with any acceptable compromise She had. In fact, right from the start, she’d dominated this meeting. He nodded his head while prying his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
“He’ll have his chance. But if he goes into the Golden Slipper like he threatened to do next Sunday, Miss Abigail, I’m going to have to lock him up.”
She withdrew her hand and stepped back to take up the lines. He saw sunlight strike her wedding band and bounce fiercely off it.
“Thank you, Deputy,” she said, clucked at the old horse, and walked away beside Ab Fuller’s creaking old stone boat.
He stood there beside the creek for a while, made a cigarette, and smoked it all the way down. He did not believe she’d ever in this world be able to control her father, that old furry-faced cuss had long ago been warped into a particular mold. Fists might beat him down, but, unless Perc Whittaker was far wrong, no words, especially from a slip of a handsome woman, would turn the trick. As Doc Farraday had said, Jonah Reeves was a particular kind of a man—unshakable and probably also unchangeable.
He strolled back up into town and saw Abner Fuller coming out of the jailhouse, angled over to intercept the liveryman in the doorway of his barn, eyed Sam Logan who was sitting there, carving, and followed Abner inside. It was getting late, the light was failing, and over near Abner’s harness room a hostler was meticulously filling two coal-oil lamps from a gallon can.
Fuller turned when they were well down the runway and said in a low tone: “Perc, Johnny West was around, looking for you a while back. He asked me to tell you he wanted you to ride out to the ranch as soon as you could.”
Perc digested this thoughtfully. West wasted no one’s time including his own. “Did he say what was on his mind, Ab?”
“No. But I sort of got an idea it’s got to do with that preacher knocking one of his men silly last Sunday.”
Perc gazed at the liveryman. “Took him a long time to speak out, if that’s it,” he said.
Fuller shrugged. “Maybe he’s been busy. Running an outfit as big as Snowshoe wouldn’t leave a feller a lot of time to ride into town every day or two.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Perc said, and returned to the roadway. Sam Logan was gone from his bench out there. Evening was s
oftly settling, lights glowed, four riders passed up the roadway in a walk, talking back and forth. He couldn’t make out their faces or the brands on their horses, but he thought they might be Rainbow men. Abigail Reeves stepped forth from the general store over across the road and moved off.
He watched her. She had a good walk; when an otherwise handsome woman tracked well, it was something to see. Some women sort of quivered when they walked, full of heavy softness. Not Abigail Reeves. He sighed. A good horse walked like that, surer of himself and set solidly in the muscles. It was a hell of a note, comparing a woman like Abigail Reeves to a horse, but he had nothing else to compare her with. Nothing else he knew about, anyway. Besides, it wasn’t such a bad comparison. A man who’d come to maturity with horseflesh always around was actually flattering a woman to make such a comparison. But he reflected now, standing in the evening gloom, that probably Miss Abigail wouldn’t consider it much of a compliment.
He looked up and down the roadway, then back at Abigail again. She was coming straight across the road toward him, hadn’t seen him yet evidently, and was probably headed on through the livery barn to the yonder back alley where the wagon was parked beside the public corral.
He felt uneasiness stir behind his belt buckle. She did that to him, made him feel suddenly less than satisfied with himself, with his lot in life, and in fact with life itself. He wished he hadn’t stood there, watching her, because now it was too late to escape.
She looked over and saw him, recognized him, and kept right on walking until she stepped up onto the nearside plank walk and started to move around him into the barn.
“Good evening, Mister Whittaker,” she murmured, unsmiling, and passed on by.
“’Evening, ma’am,” he replied, keeping his back to her until she’d stepped into the barn, then he slowly turned and looked some more.
“Hell,” he growled at himself, straightened back around, and glared across the roadway toward Ev Champion’s bar. “Women! What is it about females that makes a man feel like he’s got four left feet?”