The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five

by Louis L'Amour

  “Will it help if you crowd those cowhands into a gunfight an’ get killed? How would your families leave the country then? Who would care for them? Be patient, man!”

  They were silent, acknowledgment of the truth of what he had said obvious on their faces. Grim, lonely, frightened men. Not frightened of trouble for themselves, for they had known thirst, dust storms, and flash floods, they had fought Indians and hunger. They were frightened of an uncertain future and what would become of their families. “We’ll sit tight,” Loring said. “I never heard of you giving a man a raw deal yet!”

  AT THAT MOMENT the three ranchers awaited him at the Longhorn Hotel up the street, and Sartain knew their appearance now would have led to shooting. Furthermore, their riders would be in town tonight, so the situation was like a powder keg.

  The quiet authority he remembered in Noll’s voice made him wonder, it was so unexpected. The man seemed to have judgment and might provide the essential balance wheel the community needed.

  Quarterman was a tall man of nearly sixty with a white mustache and goatee. He stood up when Sartain entered, an immaculate man in a black broadcloth coat and white hat. His blue eyes twinkled as he held out his hand. Beside him was a tall girl with dark eyes and hair, her figure lovely. She looked at him, then again. “How are you, Colonel? I’m Sartain.”

  “Recognized you, sir, from stories I’ve heard. Mr. Sartain, my daughter, Carol.” He turned slightly toward a big young man with red hair and a rugged face. “This is Steve Bayne, and the other gentleman”—he indicated a short, powerful man with a broad-jawed face and keen blue eyes—“is Holston Walker, of the Running W.”

  Jim Sartain acknowledged the introductions, aware of the possessive air adopted by Bayne toward Carol, and to his wry amusement, he found himself resenting it.

  It was Walker who interested him most. Holy Walker was a successful rancher, but stories of his skill with his deadly six-guns were told wherever cowhands congregated, and also of his almost fabulous treatment of his hands.

  As their hands gripped, Sartain thought he had never felt such power latent in any man as in the leonine Walker. His rusty hair showed no hint of gray, and his face was smooth, the skin taut over the powerful bones of his face.

  “There’s been a lot of range burned off,” Sartain commented. “Who did that?”

  “The nesters,” Bayne said irritably. “Who else would do it?”

  “They claim some of you did it,” Sartain suggested mildly. “Maybe you’re both wrong.”

  Bayne stared at him. “Who did you come here to act for?” he demanded. “Those infernal nesters or us?”

  “For neither of you,” Sartain replied. “I’m to see justice done, to find who is breaking the law and see they are punished, whoever they may be. The law,” he added, “is not an instrument to protect any certain group against another.”

  Bayne turned on Quarterman. “I told you it wouldn’t do any good to send for Rangers, Colonel! We could handle this better our own way! Let me turn John Pole loose on them! He’ll have them out of here, and mighty fast!”

  “Let me hear of you starting anything like that,” Sartain said coolly, “and you’ll be thrown in jail.”

  Bayne turned on him impatiently. “You fatheaded fool! Who do you think you are? I’ve fifty riders at my call, and a dozen of them better men than you! We don’t need any overrated, blown-up Ranger braggarts to do our fighting!”

  Sartain smiled. It was a rare smile and had a warm, friendly quality. He glanced at Quarterman, and then his daughter. “Evidently opinions are divided,” he said dryly. He turned back to Bayne. “I’m not here to resent your opinions of the Texas Rangers”—there was no smile in his eyes now—“I’m here to settle your trouble, and I will settle it. However,” he added, “if you have any more riders of the quality of John Pole, it’s no wonder you’ve got trouble. He’s a known killer, and a suspected rustler. He’s been a troublemaker everywhere he’s gone. It might go far toward solving the situation if he were fired and packed out of the country.”

  Bayne snorted his contempt. “Riders like Pole helped build my ranch,” he said. “I want men in my outfit who can handle guns, and as for his being a killer, at least he hasn’t been hiding behind the skirts of the law!”

  “Here, here, Steve!” Quarterman interrupted. “That’s no way to talk! Sartain is here at my request, and we aren’t getting any results this way!”

  “By the way, Colonel”—Sartain turned toward Quarterman—“I want to get about six head of beef to feed those people in the creek bottom. We can’t let them starve.”

  Stephen Bayne had started to walk away, now he whirled and charged back, eyes bulging. “What?” he roared. “You ask us to feed those lousy beggars? Why, you—”

  Jim Sartain’s face was suddenly hard and cold. “You’ve said enough, Bayne! I’ll let you get away with it because I’m here on business! You finish that statement and I’ll slap all your teeth down your throat!”

  Devilish eagerness sprang into Bayne’s face. “Stinkin’ coward, was what I was goin’ to call you,” he said deliberately.

  CHAPTER III

  Sartain’s hands were chest-high in front of him as he was rubbing the fingers of his right hand against the palm of his left. Now, at Bayne’s words, his left leaped like a striking rattler and his hard knuckles smashed Bayne’s lips back into his teeth. The blow stopped Bayne in his tracks momentarily, and that was all Sartain wanted. He moved in fast with all his bottled-up anger exploding in smashing punches.

  A left and right to the wind that jerked Bayne’s mouth wide as he gasped for his lost wind, and then a cracking right to the jaw that felled him to his knees, his face contorted with fury and pain.

  Sartain was cool. He glanced quickly at Quarterman, who was obviously astonished, and at Holy Walker, who smiled faintly. “You move fast, friend,” he said quietly.

  Then his eyes went to Carol, who was staring down at Steve Bayne, a peculiar expression on her face, then she looked up at Jim Sartain. “I’m sorry, Miss Quarterman,” he said. “He asked for it. I wasn’t looking for trouble.”

  “You accept your opportunities quickly, though, don’t you?” she asked coldly. “No wonder you’ve killed men.”

  “Nobody would have been surprised had I drawn. Men have been killed for less,” he replied. He turned back to Quarterman. “I want to renew my request, Colonel. I appreciate the situation, but your fight is not with women and children, and these are good, honest people. How about it?”

  Quarterman hesitated, gnawing his mustache, resenting the position he was in. Behind Sartain, Walker spoke. “I reckon I can spare a few head, but those are proud folks. Will they take them?”

  Sartain turned. “Thanks, Walker. An’ let’s go see, shall we?”

  “May I come along?”

  Sartain turned on Carol, surprised and pleased. “Glad to have you, ma’am. We sure are!”

  FIRES BLAZED CHEERFULLY among the huddle of wagons. There were ten families there, and seventeen children in all. As the three rode toward the fires a man stepped from the shadows with a shotgun. It was Peabody.

  “What you want?” he demanded suspiciously, glancing from Sartain to Holy Walker. Then he detected Carol Quarterman and he jerked his hat off in confusion. “Pardon me, ma’am.” His eyes went back to the men. “What is this, Ranger? What you want?”

  “A talk with you, Loring, and McNabb. Right here will do.”

  “I reckon not.” McNabb stepped from the shadows near a wagon with a Spencer over his arm. “Anything to be said will be said to all of us, right in the circle!”

  DISMOUNTING, THEY FOLLOWED MCNABB into the firelight. Loring got to his feet, and beside him, Strider. A buxom woman with a face crimson from the fire turned and looked up at them, and a young woman holding a very young baby moved closer, her eyes grave and frightened.

  Surprisingly, Walker took the initiative. “You folks know who I am, but I don’t think we’ve been very neighborly.
Now I know what it means to lose an outfit because I lost mine a couple of times. If I can help any, I’d be right glad to.”

  McNabb’s voice was brittle. “We ain’t askin’ nor takin’ any help from you! We ain’t on charity!”

  Strider thrust forward. “This here’s a trick!” he exploded. “I don’t like the look of it! Why should you give us anythin’? So’s you can find the hides in our camp later, after you kill us? Look mighty bad for us, wouldn’t it?”

  “Don’t be a fool, man!” Walker replied impatiently. “We didn’t want you people here, but you’ve come an’ stayed. You never bothered me, but you did take water we needed. That’s not the question now. You’ve been burned out, an’ we’re neighbors.”

  “So you want to help?” Strider sneered. “Well, we don’t need your help!”

  “Walker volunteered, Strider,” Sartain interposed. “I told Quarterman the situation and Walker offered to help.”

  “We don’t need no help! Why didn’t he think of that before he burned us out?”

  “I didn’t burn you out!” Walker declared irritably. “I—”

  “You didn’t burn us out?” A wiry little man with a face like a terrier thrust himself forward, his eyes burning. “You’re a dir—!”

  Loring grabbed the man by the arm and flung him bodily back into the darkness. “Grab that man, somebody!” Loring shouted. “What’s the matter? You men gone crazy? Do you want to start a gunfight here among our women and children?”

  For once Sartain was stopped. The deep antagonisms here were beyond reason, and Walker, although a generous man, was also an impatient one. He would take little more of this. Then into the gap where anything might have happened stepped Carol Quarterman. She went directly to the woman with the baby in her arms. She was smiling with genuine interest, and holding out her arms to the child. “Oh, look at him! Isn’t he a darling? And his hair…it’s so red!”

  The girl flushed with pleasure, and the baby responded simply and stretched out his little arms to Carol. She took him, then looked at the girl, smiling. “What’s his name? How old is he?”

  “He’s ten months,” the girl said, wiping her palms on her apron, “his name’s Earl…after my husband.” A tall, shy young man with big hands and a shock of blond, curly hair grinned at Carol.

  “He’s big for his age,” he volunteered. “I reckon he’ll be quite a man.”

  Sartain looked at Carol with genuine respect. In the moment when the situation seemed rapidly slipping out of control she had stepped neatly into the breach and in one instant had established a bond of warmth and sympathy. Strider stared at the girls and the child, and Holy Walker’s face relaxed.

  “How about the beef?” Sartain asked Loring.

  “Not for me!” McNabb was stiff-necked and angry. “I won’t take charity!”

  The woman bending over the fire straightened up, holding a ladle in her hand which she pointed at the man. “Angus McNabb! I’m surprised at you! Talkin’ of charity! These are good folks an’ it’s right neighborly of them to offer it! Have you forgotten the time Lew Fuller’s house burned down back on the Washita? We all got together an’ helped them! It ain’t charity, just bein’ neighborly!”

  The blond-headed Earl looked around. “You send one of your hands with me, Mr. Walker,” he said, “an’ I’ll ride for that beef, an’ thank you a mighty lot.”

  “Then it’s settled!” Walker said. “Maybe if we folks had got together before we’d not have had this trouble.”

  CHAPTER IV

  Jim Sartain built a smoke and looked thoughtfully at the men. For the moment the issue was sidetracked, yet nothing was settled. Underneath, the problem remained, and the bitter antagonisms. McNabb was bitter, and Roy Strider belligerent, and he knew that Steve Bayne would be likewise. The real sore spot was still to be uncovered.

  Back at the livery barn George Noll had watched the three ride by, and there had been no gunfire from the bottom. He bit off a corner of his plug tobacco, and watched Steve Bayne draw nearer. An instant his jaws ceased to move, then began again, a methodical chewing.

  “Howdy!” He jerked his head toward the bottom. “Looks like that Ranger an’ Holy Walker fixed things up. First thing you know they’ll be back in the canyons livin’ off beef.”

  “Not mine, they won’t!” Bayne turned his angry eyes on Noll. “Holy may soften up for that Ranger’s talk, but not me! The Colonel was a fool to send for him! We can handle our own affairs!”

  “That’s what I always say,” Noll agreed. “Well, that fire was a godsend, anyway. It got them off the range. If they are smart they’ll keep movin’…fact is,” he suggested, rolling his tobacco in his cheeks, “they oughta be kept movin’.”

  Bayne scowled. Success had made him bigheaded, and he was unable to distinguish between luck and ability. He had had luck, but more than that, he owed much of his success to John Pole’s running iron. More of it than to his own handling of cattle.

  Colonel Avery Quarterman, he had decided, was an old fool. He said nothing because he wanted to marry Carol. Holy Walker he resented, partly for his reputation, and partly because there was no escaping the fact that Walker’s was a tightly managed outfit, and a very profitable one. Bayne had the feeling that Walker despised him.

  He was positive now that they were taking the wrong tack. He was confident that the nesters would not fight, but would run at the first show of force. Nothing in his experience fitted him to judge men like McNabb, Peabody, or Loring. Bayne had respect for obvious strength and contempt for all else, a contempt grown from ignorance.

  Had anyone suggested that his feelings had been carefully nurtured by George Noll, he would have been furious. Noll had found many men open to suggestion, but the two he handled most easily were Strider and Bayne.

  Seated unshaven against the wall of his barn, his sockless feet in broken shoes, his shirt collar always greasy with dirt, his gray hat showing finger marks, he was not a man to inspire respect or confidence, yet the barn was a focal point, and he heard much and was able to drop his own seemingly casual remarks.

  He was a cunning man, and he possessed the power to hate beyond that of most men. His hatred had been a rambling and occasional thing until that day in the livery barn when he made advances to Carol Quarterman.

  He had mistaken her friendly air for invitation, and one day when stabling her mare, he put his hands on her. She sprang away with such loathing and contempt that it bit much deeper than the lash of her quirt across his face, and something black and ugly burst within him. He sprang for her, and only the arrival of Holy Walker had saved her. Walker had come quickly into the barn, but had seen nothing.

  Not wanting her father to kill Noll, Carol said nothing, but took care to avoid him. Yet George Noll’s anger burned deep and brooding, and he began to plot and plan. If Quarterman were destroyed, and the girl in need, he would see her pride humbled. Had it required much effort, the chances were that he would have done nothing, but the situation was sparking, and needed only someone to fan the blaze.

  He chewed tobacco in silence while the insult to his pride grew enormously. As all ignorant men, he possessed great vanity, and nothing had prepared him for the loathing on the face of Carol Quarterman. His lewd eyes watched her coming and going, and her bright laughter seemed to be mocking him. He could not believe she had almost forgotten his action, and believed she deliberately tormented him.

  CAREFULLY, HE FED the flames of envy and resentment in Roy Strider, and the vanity and contempt of Steve Bayne. It was only a step to outright trouble, which began when Roy Strider gave a beating to a Bar B cowhand in a fistfight. Bayne was furious and would have ridden down on Strider at once but for Quarterman.

  Noll, who knew most things, knew that John Pole was rustling, but hinted to Quarterman and Walker that it was the nesters. All he actually said was a remark that they always had beef, but such an idea grows and feeds upon uncertainty and suspicion.

  His hints to Bayne had apparently sow
n the seeds of action, for he saw the young rancher stride purposefully down the street to join in a long conversation with John Pole, Nelson, and Fowler. Pole, a lean, saturnine man, seemed pleased. Noll spat and chuckled to himself.

  Sartain walked up the street, his boot heels sounding loud upon the boardwalk, and Carol Quarterman, watching him draw near, felt a curious little throb of excitement.

  How tall he was! And the way he walked, it was more the quick, lithe step of a woodsman—speaking of strong, well-trained muscles—than the walk of any rider. Yet she sensed worry in him now. “What’s the matter, Ranger?” she asked, smiling. “Troubles? I thought we settled things.”

  “We’ve settled nothing.” His voice was worried. “You know that. There is a bit of kindly feeling now, but how long will it last? The basic trouble is still there, and what is it? Where is it? Who can gain by trouble?”

  She caught something of his mood. “I see what you mean. It is strange how such things start. Father and Holy griped a little when they moved in, but only Steve seemed much impressed by it, and he is always being impressed by something. Then cattle were missed and we warned them off. They wouldn’t go.”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen these things start before, but always with much more reason. It’s almost as if somebody wanted trouble. I’ve seen that, too, but who could profit from it here?”

  “Nobody ever seems to win in a fight,” Carol agreed. “Everyone gets hurt. The only way anyone could hope to win would be to stay out of it and pick up the pieces.”

  Sartain nodded, musing. “There are other motives. Men have been known to do ugly things without any hope of gain, over a woman, or out of envy or jealousy. There seems no way to realize any gain, but unless there is somebody around who hates either the ranchers or the nesters, I can’t figure it.”

  “There’s nobody I know of,” she said doubtfully. It was odd that right then she remembered George Noll, but it was absurd to think all this could stem from so small a thing.