by L. P. Holmes
* * * * *
Dave Wall was not one to make the same mistake twice. At the Gravelly headquarters he’d come perilously close to being shot in half. Luke Lilavelt had given his orders there. Whether he’d been able to get the same kind of orders to the Crimson Hills by this time there was no way of telling. But it wouldn’t pay to take chances.
There was a light in the bunkhouse, but the cook shack and cabin were dark. Wall left his horses some distance back in the night, and went in afoot. He scouted the surrounding blackness carefully before stealing up to a bunkhouse window and making a careful survey of the place.
A three-handed card game was going on. Olds, Challis, and Caraway were the players. Aside from them, as far as Wall could see, the bunkhouse was empty. Hippo Dell—where was he?
Wall stood for some little time outside the bunkhouse window. The three riders played like they were bored, disinterested, more or less sick of the company of each other. Wall moved on around to the bunkhouse door, which stood open. Alert for anything, he stepped swiftly in and to the side, putting his shoulders to the weathered planking beside the door.
The card players grunted with surprise, started to come to their feet, then settled back again as they recognized him. Wall rapped a cold query. “Dell … where is he?”
“Don’t know,” answered Olds. “In hell, I hope.”
“You mean he’s pulled out?”
Olds nodded. “This afternoon. Didn’t say where he was going, didn’t say when he’d be back. He took his war bag with him, so maybe he’s gone for good. Which suits the rest of us right down to the ground. Not that it matters much, for unless things straighten out in this damn’ layout and get to meaning something again, we’re not going to be around much longer, either. We’re about fed up.”
“Fed up with what?”
“Everything.” Olds was truculent. “Damn a job where nobody is boss, or if they are, they don’t stick around long enough for a man to get used to them. This layout’s been coming apart at the seams ever since Tom Burke left. Nobody else seems to give a damn, so why should we?” Olds kept meeting Wall’s eyes stubbornly.
Wall grinned mirthlessly. “That’s right … why should you? Any word come in from Lilavelt directly of late?”
“Not unless you bring it now.”
Wall shook his head. “Lilavelt and I don’t get along any more.”
It was Challis who jerked a startled head. “You mean you’re not riding for Window Sash any more, Wall?”
“That’s right. What about this mix-up between Tres Debley and Hippo Dell?”
“That,” said Challis flatly, “was dirty. Hippo … he’s a damn’ animal. No man should ever try and mix it with him, hand to hand. A whiffletree or a pick handle is the medicine for Hippo.”
“Or a slug,” put in Caraway. “Dell ever starts after me, I throw a gun, for keeps. Tres Debley wasn’t a bad sort. In fact, he’s a pretty damn’ good man. Made me sick to see what Dell did to him. Dell kept right on smashing him after Tres was cold as a wedge.”
“You could,” said Wall harshly, “have stopped it. Why didn’t you?”
They stirred uncomfortably and Challis blurted: “You know how those things are, Wall. An affair between two men is their business. But when it got too bad, we did call Dell off, and he gave us a blistering cussing for it. But he knew better than to take on the three of us. Then we did what we could for Debley, put him on a horse, and headed him for town. We figgered it was best for Debley that we get him away from here entirely, else Hippo might have caught him alone again and finished the job.”
Wall, seeing that there was no hostility in these men, relaxed and built a smoke. “There was a little affair of somebody trying to dry-gulch a Square S rider out along Soda Creek. You fellows know anything about that?”
He could tell by their expressions that they did not. “News to us,” declared Olds. “Don’t know who could have tried that kind of a thing unless …”
“Unless … what?”
“Well,” said Olds slowly, “after you left the last time you were here, Hippo Dell took to riding some. He had plenty to say about that affair in Crater City, when Nick Karnes and Whitey Brewer got theirs. I think he more or less blamed Tres Debley part way for that. Anyway, he quit living so much in the cook shack and took to riding. After seeing how he treated Debley, I wouldn’t put it past him to dry-gulch a man … or anything else.”
Wall nodded, sucking deeply on his cigarette.
Challis asked: “Where do we go from here, Wall … if anywhere?”
Wall shrugged. “Up to you … strictly. Understand that Lilavelt has got Cube Spayd bringing five hundred head of two-year-olds up from Gravelly. Maybe Spayd will get ’em here … maybe he won’t. All I can promise is this. There’s a rocky trail ahead for Luke Lilavelt and the Window Sash. Not only here, but at Gravelly, at Durbin Springs, at Pinnacle, Brockway Creek … everywhere he owns range, runs cattle.”
“Don’t get you,” said Challis, startled. “Who’s to cause the trouble?”
“I am, for one,” said Wall flatly.
Challis considered this, eying Wall carefully. “I’m meaning no reflection, Wall … but I doubt you’re big enough. A lot of chore for one man.”
Wall smiled bleakly. “I won’t be alone. I can think of a lot of men who’ve been tromped on at one time or another by Luke Lilavelt and who’d like nothing better than a chance to kick a spoke out of his wheel.”
“That,” admitted Challis, “is true enough.”
Wall had moved to the door. “Think on it,” he said briefly, before slipping out into the darkness.
The three men in the bunkhouse did not go on with their card game. They sat there, silent for a long time. Then it was Caraway who got up, went over to a bunk, dragged a war bag into sight, and began packing it with odds and ends of clothes and gear. “There’s been the smell of something hanging over this layout for some time,” he growled. “Now I think I know what it is. Luke Lilavelt’s got too big for his britches … and in the wrong way. This layout is dying and I can’t think of a single reason for staying on and dying with it. I’ve had a hunch for some time that I’d be wise to haul out. Now I’m going to. I don’t owe Lilavelt a damned thing.”
Olds stretched and stood up. “Jake, I think you got something there. Never stayed this long in one place before. Time to be moving.”
Challis said: “Well, if you hombres think I’m going to make a one-man stand of it, you’re crazy.”
Half an hour later Jake Caraway, Luke Challis, and Harry Olds rode away into the night. In the distance a Window Sash cow bawled forlornly, as though mourning a deserted headquarters.
* * * * *
Back in Crater City, Dave Wall put his horses in the livery corral, threw his blankets in the bed of an old freight wagon that stood nearby, and made a night of it. He lay for some time in thought. He was going to have to revise his original great plan. He wasn’t going to be able to fight Lilavelt through Bart Sutton after all. The talk he’d had with Sutton this night showed that. At first a wave of bitterness ran over him, but on more sober consideration he realized that he couldn’t blame Sutton for feeling as he did. He couldn’t expect people to take him at face value as one kind of a man when he’d been, for so long, another kind. Maybe he’d never get out from under the stigma of having been Luke Lilavelt’s toughest troubleshooter. If he did, it was going to take a lot of time and a lot of proving.
Of course, maybe it would have been different with Sutton if he’d laid all his cards on the table, told Sutton the true story of why he’d been Lilavelt’s man. But he instinctively shrank from this, either from a deeply ingrained sense of modesty, or equally deeply placed pride. He clung to the wish to prove himself in other ways, be accepted for his real qualities first, before letting that story out. Especially with Bart Sutton did he wish it so—and with Tracy Sutton.
>
He wished now that when he’d told Sutton that Cube Spayd would be bringing that herd up from Gravelly, he’d emphasized the fact that Spayd was a real tough one who’d be rough to handle, very rough. Wall hoped, if Sutton made any move to stop the herd, that he’d be smart enough to send a strong crew to handle a man-size chore.
The next morning, going into Charlie Ring’s hash house, Wall found that Tres Debley had come back a long way after sound rest and reasonable care. The bruises still stood out, stark and cruel, on Tres’ face, but a lot of the swelling had been reduced and so Tres could see out of both eyes and he was able to sit up and eat a fairly solid breakfast.
He showed a gargoyle grin to Wall. “I feel like hell and I know I look worse, Dave. But when you ride again, I ride with you.”
“When I do, you will, cowboy,” Wall answered. “But not today. Right where you are is right where you stay for at least another twenty-four hours. After that, we’ll see. You hear, Charlie? This jigger stays put. Don’t you let him out of bed.”
Charlie Ring chuckled. “Agreed.”
Charlie Ring went out front to tend to business and the grin faded from Tres Debley’s beaten face. “You go out to Crimson Hills headquarters last night, Dave?”
“Yeah … I did.”
“Hippo Dell … what did he have to say?”
Wall shook his head. “Dell wasn’t there. Only Olds, Challis, and Caraway. According to them, Dell had packed a war bag, saddled a horse, and headed out somewhere.”
“Good!” exclaimed Tres.
“Why good?”
“Because,” said Tres with a slow, harsh emphasis, “I don’t want you or anybody else getting at Hippo Dell before I do. That guy belongs to me, Dave. His trail is one I’m going to take and I stay with it until I come up with him. When I do …”
“You’re a hard one to convince,” mocked Wall mildly. “You asking for another mauling?”
“When I call Hippo Dell,” said Tres quietly, “it’ll be over a gun. Then we’ll see.”
“That’s in the future,” said Wall. “Lots of things in the future, Tres. Just now your chore is to get able to fork a saddle again. I’ll stick around until you’re up to it.”
A good breakfast under his belt, Wall saddled up, left his pack horse in the livery corral, and headed out of town, riding south for several miles before swinging gradually over to where the dry plain and the desert joined and blended. This direction he held to until nearly midday. His glance was roving and reaching continually ahead and in time he picked up what he was searching for—a long, low banner of dust.
It was many miles distant and to an untrained eye could not have been seen or, if it had, would probably have been taken for a quirk of the heat haze. But Wall read it correctly and a twenty-minute watch told him it was traveling north. The herd from Gravelly was on its way.
It was as he’d figured it would be. Cube Spayd, recovered from the gun-whipping Wall had dealt out, and knowing that the gloves were off, had reasoned that Wall would probably try and organize some sort of resistance to the movement of the herd. At best, he knew that Wall had already sided Bart Sutton against Luke Lilavelt’s interests,
Spayd would decide that Wall would at least warn Sutton of the herd. So Spayd had thrown the herd into movement right away and was probably force-driving it, aiming to break through between the Monuments and Stinking Water before Sutton could build up enough resistance to stop it. Yeah, it looked like that was the way Cube Spayd had figured things.
Wall headed back to Crater City, riding in there at midafternoon. He put up his horse, had Charlie Ring cook up a delayed dinner for him, learned that Tres Debley was sleeping again. So then Wall rolled a smoke, went over to the porch of the general store, took a round-backed chair there in the warm shade of the store’s overhang, and settled down to kill the rest of the afternoon from this point of vantage where he could watch the street and all that went on along it.
Within an hour there was movement on the cut-back trail down the face of the lava rim and Wall was startled to see Tracy Sutton riding into town. Trailing behind her was a grizzled rider leading a pack horse with an empty sawbuck saddle. Tracy was in blouse and divided skirt and her fair head was shadowed by a flat-brimmed Stetson. Wall liked her better that way than in jeans and admired her silently while she and the old cowpuncher rode up to the store and stopped.
Wall saw her glance swing his way, saw her slight start of surprise, and he touched the brim of his hat gravely and let it go at that. She and the old cowpuncher went into the store and presently the cowpuncher began moving in and out, lugging sacked flour and other grub staples that he slung to the led animal’s pack saddle. He made up the pack expertly, covered it with a tarp, and threw a diamond hitch over all of it. Then he stood waiting, puffing a stubby pipe. Once or twice his glance touched Dave Wall, but he wasn’t close enough for Wall to read any expression in it.
Presently Tracy Sutton came out, started to leave the store porch, hesitated, and came over to Wall, who got to his feet and took off his hat. She eyed him with that grave soberness she’d shown the night before out at Square S headquarters.
“I hope you’ll never think that my father and I are unappreciative of the favors you’ve done us, Dave Wall,” she said simply. “I’m afraid you carried away an opposite opinion last evening, and I wanted you to know the truth of things.”
“Sure,” said Wall. “I understand. Now you heard me tell your father about a herd coming up from Gravelly. Well, I took a ride south of town along the edge of the desert this morning. That herd is on the move … it’s coming in. I’d say it will reach that stretch between the Monuments and Stinking Water around noon tomorrow. So you tell your father that. Tell him this, too. That the man in charge of that herd is Cube Spayd, a rough, tough hombre who’ll stop at nothing to break through … nothing. Tell your father to be prepared for that and not to send a boy out to do a man’s job.” His voice had become harsher while he spoke, but now it took on a gentler note. “I wish I could have given you better news than that.”
She was studying his face intently while he spoke. “Thank you. I’ll tell it to Dad just the way you’ve told it to me.” And then she added impulsively: “How queerly fate can mix things up. There was a time when, to me, your shadow was a dark and frightening thing. But now I can see so plainly the deep strain of goodness that is in you …” And then, as though overwhelmed by her own temerity, she flushed hotly, turned, and hurried to her horse.
Wall stood at the edge of the porch, a tall, sun-blackened figure, watching her ride away. He watched while riders and horses worked their way up the lava rim trail, and once, he was sure, she turned in her saddle and looked back.
That night Wall slept in the old freight wagon again, and when he went into Charlie Ring’s place for breakfast, there was Tres Debley sitting on one of the counter stools, cradling a cup of coffee between his hands.
“Don’t you holler at me, cowboy,” said Tres. “I’m stiff as a sun-dried pine log, but I’m a whole man again and ready to go.”
Wall took the stool beside him. “Ready to go where?”
“Wherever you go.”
They traded glances and far back in the eyes of each a glint of understanding grew. “That,” said Wall quietly, “I’m going to like.”
They rode east out of town, facing the sun’s morning sweep, their pace an easy jog, with Wall’s pack horse shuffling along behind. Tres twisted and squirmed in the saddle under the loosening torment of his stiffened muscles, swearing softly now and then. But the growing warmth of the sun and the steady movement began to bring back some of the old suppleness and presently Tres was riding fairly easily.
“Thought you said something about taking Hippo Dell’s trail and riding it to a finish?” jibed Wall, grinning.
“Where is Dell’s trail?” retorted Tres. “You say he’s pulled out of the Crimson Hi
lls, so there’s no use heading there. Besides, I’m not an old man. I got lots of time. But I would like to know where we’re heading now.”
“Basin,” Wall told him. “But first I want to sit in and watch something.”
Wall stood tall in his stirrups, swung his head, peering intently to the southeast. He lifted a long, pointing arm. “See it?”
Tres looked and saw. A long, lazy banner of dust in the distance. “What’s under it, Dave?”
“Five hundred Window Sash critters. Aimed at forcing the gap between Stinking Water and the Monuments. Bart Sutton knows about it. We’ll look on and see what happens.”
They came in time to Soda Creek and turned south along it. Free of its drop from the Crimson Hills, Soda Creek became a sluggish, lazy stream, reaching ever farther south until, in the far, heat-hazed distance, it lost itself in a ragged smear of rusty green. This was Stinking Water, a bitter, alkali swamp on the edge of the desert where the waters of Soda Creek, which had started clear and cold and sweet far to the north, turned foul and died in slime-scummed sinkholes.
Some three miles to the west and a little farther north than Stinking Water lifted three gaunt, weathered spines of sandstone. These were the Monuments. The movement of the dust cloud indicated a line that would cut between the Monuments and the alkali swamp. This was the gateway of conflict for the Square S and Luke Lilavelt’s Window Sash.
Dave Wall led the way to the far bank of Soda Creek, then pressed on toward the swamp. Sour willow and a kind of rank greasewood lined the creekbanks and behind the shelter of this Wall and Tres Debley rode. At a point approximately opposite the Monuments, Wall reined in.
“Let’s find a chunk of shade, Tres. We got some time to kill.”
They lounged in the thin shadow of a clump of willow, Wall propped on an elbow, Tres flat on his back, easing his muscles. Presently Tres stirred.
“When you pulled out at Crimson Hills after that Nick Karnes and Whitey Brewer affair, you said that while you were through with Luke Lilavelt in one way, you were just beginning with him in another. This part of it, Dave?”