by E. R. Slade
“If twenty-five was good enough for Skeetland, it ought to be good enough for anyone else,” Buck said, aware the two men still working on the barn could overhear.
“That was a cut-rate funeral,” Dunderland said in disgust. “But this man is dead because he worked for you, took a chance with his life—just like these fellows is doing. You going to give the poor man’s widow a cheap funeral? What else has she got left, now?”
Buck noticed the two farmers had stopped working to listen. He couldn’t decide what they were thinking.
“I didn’t say nothing about a cheap funeral,” Buck said. “I want the best. All right. If you’re going to charge fifty dollars you’re going to pull the hearse with that team of blacks the liveryman keeps for special occasions. And another thing. You make sure there ain’t no dogs or pigs rooting around, or small boys throwing stones at them. You understand? And anything else the widow wants you to do, you do it. I catch you trying to get any money out of her, I’ll take my fifty dollars back out of your hide.”
Dunderland smiled thinly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Maxwell. It’ll be a very fine funeral. I’ll be wanting my cash now.”
When Dunderland had gone, one of the farmers shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” Buck asked him.
“Ain’t nobody don’t get took by that coyote.”
~*~
When church let out, a number of farmers came to look over the wrecked machinery. One man bought a hay rake, another was planning to come back the next day with a cow he wanted to trade for a mower the blacksmith said he could fix. Buck was still in the machinery lot when the Parkers’ wagon stopped at the hitch rail. Only Parker himself climbed down and came over to talk to Buck.
“The wife don’t want me to stay long,” Parker said. “But I heard that the Church Committee give you back your store on account of the wrecked machinery. And everybody’s been talking about how you shot off Markham’s hat at two hundred yards—is that so?”
“More like sixty or seventy yards.”
“There’s a lot of folks’d like to fix that bastard. Only day before yesterday the critter done it again. Shot a boy driving a milk cow over to Foster’s place. Just called him a rustler and shot him down.” Parker looked angry.
Beyond Parker, Buck could see Mary Ellen sitting straight and proud, her eyes straying to him then quickly away. Her mother snapped a glance over her shoulder about every three seconds.
“You’d best move your family on out of town,” Buck said. “There may be doings with Snake Ed any minute. We just had a gunfight here.” He told Parker about it.
“Guess you’re right,” Parker said. “Martha’s already nervous after hearing that shooting. Don’t it make you mad, though, to see a man like Darholm shot.”
They walked back to the wagon. Mary Ellen looked down, pale and wide-eyed. Everything he’d ached to say to her seemed meaningless after the killing of Darholm. He could promise her nothing that she wanted.
Buck lifted his hat. “Mrs. Parker. Miss Parker.”
“Good morning, Mr. Maxwell,” Mary Ellen said. As dignified and distant as could be.
Parker climbed up beside his wife, took the reins, and after a nod to Buck drove away. As Buck watched the wagon go jolting down the rutted street, he suddenly wondered if Markham’s killing of the boy driving the milk cow had been a result of being humiliated by Buck. It had been the same day.
The horror of the idea made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Yet the worst was the thought of Mary Ellen wondering the same thing, and what that would make her think of him.
Dunderland was scuttling across the street with a peculiar wheelbarrow shaped like a coffin, complete with lid. Buck followed him around back. Dunderland went to the rear of the corral, loaded Snake Ed’s nephew.
“I gather Snake knows,” Buck said to Dunderland.
“He knows.”
“Talk about revenge?”
Dunderland turned cold eyes on him. “He didn’t have to.”
“When does he want the funeral?”
“Tomorrow at three. I’ll be back for the farmer in a few minutes.”
The day wore on. No Snake Ed.
Buck’s mood went sour and forbidding. He was back to seriously considering going to finish the thing with Snake. While Snake was around nothing would be possible with Mary Ellen.
Several times he went to look down the street at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. As many times he went back into his store feeling beaten. Not by fear of Snake Ed but by a fear that to give in to the primitive lawless fury would be to reveal fatal failings Mary Ellen would never be able to forgive.
Snake Ed failed to appear that day. Buck turned in late, slept fitfully. Every so often he got up to check on the machinery, the stock, and all the buildings. Everything remained quiet and undisturbed.
Monday morning he climbed out of bed tired and in a bad mood. He began the day by spilling his coffee.
“Goddamnitalltohell,” he said, and sloshed the table and floor indiscriminately with a bucket of water. Then he poured another cup of coffee and it tasted bad. He emptied the cup and coffeepot out the window, tossed them into the dish basin, which was already full. He decided he wasn’t hungry anyway and went into the store strapping on his pistol, thinking he was going to locate Snake Ed’s lair, haul him out of bed, cuff him around a little.
Instead he went to feed animals.
“This was a stupid thing to agree to,” he muttered aloud, as he forked hay. “Where the hell’s that damned farmer, anyway?”
“Right here,” said a voice. “Had to feed my own stock before I could come.”
“All right then,” Buck said, wishing he hadn’t sworn at the man, but not apologizing.
He stalked back into the store. For a few minutes he shuffled papers uselessly on his desk, then he pulled out his Colt and checked the load, snapped it back into its holster. “That son of a bitch,” he said. “Ain’t no reason to hold off.”
Yet, he did hold off. Mary Ellen’s words repeated themselves over and over in his head: couldn’t he avoid provoking a fight, couldn’t he avoid provoking a fight? Couldn’t he?
As though there was something wrong with him if he couldn’t.
“There ain’t,” he denied aloud. But somehow, because of Mary Ellen, he felt as though there was. He felt trapped, no way out.
He started to stride up and down past the racks of rifles.
Somebody pounded on the door. Buck spun on heel, ready to draw, he was that on edge. Then he relaxed and went to see who it was.
Just a man who asked, “Don’t you open at a regular time, or what?”
Buck hauled out his watch. It was ten after seven.
“Didn’t know it was that late,” he told the fellow. “Come on in. What can I do for you?”
And so the day began.
Trade was heavy again. Machinery moved off the lot at an astonishing rate considering the condition of some of it. Livestock moved in and out, though he wasn’t sure if he was really gaining much from all the activity. Some of the farmers were fairly sharp traders. The one sure thing was that the corral he’d built was never going to be big enough. He hired three more men, put them to work on an extension.
Then he went to get the blacksmith to make him a Box TC brand. Tar wouldn’t care and the brand was already in the book. With a little luck he could get the stock accepted in the Association roundup and sold before they figured out who he was. If that didn’t work he’d have to deal with the men rustlers dealt with or trail the little herd out of the Territory—neither alternative acceptable in his mind.
When the blacksmith appeared with the Box TC iron, Buck took the new men off the corral building and set them to branding. One of the three was a cowhand turned rancher named Mack Payson, who had done a lot of roping and branding for the Swan outfit before setting up on his own. He had a pretty good cutting horse and undertook to instruct the farmers helping him.
Then at about eleven the st
age came in. The driver brought him a letter from the railroad depot at Casper: the farm machinery had arrived.
Casper was thirty miles away. At least a two-day trip, probably more like three or even four if he couldn’t find a buyer or had trouble with stock detectives. Going away for that long now would be risky. Yet he had to get the stuff here.
He was still thinking the problem through just after noon when one of the farmers came rushing in the rear door, stumbling over the stoop, calling to Buck to come quick.
Buck left a customer standing at the counter, followed the farmer out, Winchester in hand.
One of the Texans was looking over the stock while the men who had been roping stood to one side uncertainly. The three working on the barn were down behind foundation stones, rifles in hand, watching and waiting for a signal. Buck cocked the Winchester and went to the corral gate.
The Texan looked up from examining an unbranded milk cow.
“Get out of there,” Buck said. “Now.”
“Stock detective,” the Texan said calmly, and took the thong off his low-slung hogleg. “Where’d you get them mavericks?”
“Traded for them. Part of my business. But if you’re a stock detective I’m your grandma. Now, get out of my corral.”
“I never heard of Box TC,” said the Texan. “Rustler brand.
Buck snapped the Winchester to his shoulder, the Texan starting for his gun, but then stopping dead still when he saw Buck was ahead of him.
“Move off,” Buck said.
The Texan licked his lips. Then his mouth thinned into a straight line. He used his gun hand to shift his pampered Stetson. “Don’t matter,” he said. “I’ll see you blackballed.”
He walked off.
“Think he can do that?” asked Payson, coming to stand with Buck, watching after the Texan.
“Likely,” Buck said heavily.
Chapter Thirteen
Not a half hour later, Payson stalked in from the rear, red-faced, eyes snapping.
“Olinger’s arrested the men shot it out with Smithly,” he said.
“When?” Buck asked, startled. He’d never thought about what Olinger might do.
“Just now. He’ll be marchin’ ’em along to jail this minute, if you want to stop him.”
Buck grabbed the Winchester, which he’d laid under the counter, and went to the front door cocking the weapon, several customers backing warily out of the way.
Down the sidewalk Olinger was prodding the three farmers along at gunpoint.
Teeth clenched, Buck whipped the Winchester to his shoulder and people between dove into doorways or off into the mud.
Olinger and the farmers, still unaware, continued on.
Buck held the sights on Olinger’s back for some seconds, but when Olinger finally looked around, the rifle was down at Buck’s side in his right hand, pointed at the walk.
Olinger stopped, moved his prisoners so he could cover them and watch Buck at the same time.
For as much as a minute he and Buck looked at each other, silent.
Then Buck slung the Winchester into the crook of his arm and went back inside.
Payson was disappointed. “You could take Olinger easy enough,” he said. “I know you could. I never see a man get a Winchester to his shoulder ready for business faster than a man can draw his hogleg. Especially a Texan. That fellow wasn’t even halfway when he quit.”
Buck didn’t look at Payson as he laid away his Winchester under the counter with hands that shook slightly.
“Tend store,” he said. “I’ll be at Thompson’s office if there’s trouble before I get back.”
~*~
“I see you managed to retrieve your store without any further help from me,” Thompson said, looking up with his characteristic wrinkled brow. “I’ve got a bill for what I did do.” He pulled it out of a drawer and handed it over.
Buck raised an eyebrow, looking at the bill. “It’d ‘a’ been cheaper to let the store go,” he said.
Thompson grinned his out-of-place grin. “You really ought to go into my business,” he said. “With two of us in town, we’d both make more money.”
“Well, you’re about to make more, anyway. I need advice.” He told Thompson the situation briefly. “I figure no jury from this town will hang them. That sound right to you?”
“It does indeed,” Thompson said warmly. “I’d say people will think those men heroes for beautifying High Plains to such an extent. I’ve never heard of anybody who really liked that kid.”
“Think a jury will be scared of Snake Ed’s revenge?”
Thompson canted his head, scrunched up his cheeks. “Could be a problem—but remember that if they vote to convict they’ll have to explain it to their friends. I’d say I can be sure to get a jury that will make the right choice.”
“What about the judge? Will he find a way to hang them anyway? You said he don’t like you.”
“He doesn’t, but for a cattleman he’s reasonably fair. And there’s another little thing. Smithly tried to fool with his daughter a couple of years ago and came near getting shot for his trouble. I’d say we don’t have to worry about this too much.”
“When is the trial likely to be?”
“Dudley’s rounds bring him here in a couple of weeks.”
“No chance of his being called here earlier?”
“No. He’s got trials in other places.”
“I’m counting on you being right about this. If you’re wrong, I’ll have to do what’s necessary to make sure those men don’t swing.”
“What do you mean, break them out of jail?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“I’d think twice about that. It could set off Snake Ed.”
“So could a verdict of self-defense.”
“Maxwell, you really should take up the law. Then I could send risky cases like this one along to you.”
~*~
Back at the store, he said to Payson, “Somebody better go tell the families.” He gave Payson the details of the conversation with the lawyer.
“I don’t trust them bastards,” Payson said. “I think it would be smarter to break our boys out and deal with Olinger and Snake Ed now.”
The raw, angry parts inside agreed entirely with Payson. But Buck said, “If Snake Ed is willing to let Olinger handle retaliation for Smithly, it looks to me like he don’t care much more about him than anybody else does. The smart move will be to go along with it.”
“Maybe. I better get on with the brandin’.”
“Finish if you can. We’ll be trailing to Casper tomorrow. Got machinery to pick up. Tell the boys, will you? See who wants to go with me. Warn ’em, there could be trouble. I need about four or five wagons, too. Big ones. See if you can round them up. We’ll start about four-thirty in the morning.”
“I hear Darholm’s widow wants his funeral tomorrow afternoon. At two o’clock. The boys will want to go.”
“I didn’t know that.” Buck rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “All right, we’ll go Wednesday instead.”
~*~
Promptly at three, a customer came in and said Dunderland was hauling Fred Smithly to boot hill. Buck went to the door.
Dunderland had hired the fancy livery horses, and was dressed to the nines. Snake Ed, decked out in broadcloth, top hat, and brace of ivory-handled Colts, looked almost distinguished aboard his handsome big black. It was hard to make out his mood at this distance.
After him came Calpet and the five Texans, then a bunch of gamblers and lowlifes from the Bucket of Blood. Olinger, looking as self-important as a rooster on a manure pile, brought up the rear. Buck didn’t see any hogs or dogs.
“The last time he wore them guns, that I know about,” said one of Buck’s customers, “was when he shot that kid from Texas who thought he was so fast.”
“I hear tell he wears them guns just for formal gunfights,” said another.
“Guess he ain’t likely to get no challengers today,” observed
somebody else.
Buck let the procession reach the end of town and start up the slight rise to boot hill. Then he called in Payson to tend store and clumped along the nearly empty board sidewalk to the little wooden jail next to the marshal’s office.
It was of logs, with no windows except a small, barred-over opening in the heavy iron-strapped door. There was just an iron pin for a lock.
“Hello, boys,” Buck said.
“Is that you, Mr. Maxwell?” A face appeared behind the bars—Bill Tihlman.
“It’s me. Can I bring you anything? I’ve sent word to your families and hired Thompson to defend you. He says the judge’ll be here in two weeks or so.”
“Let us out of here!” said Tihlman. “You know it was self-defense.”
Buck set his teeth together for a few seconds, looked longingly at the pin. It would be so simple to pull it out. But this was clearly a time to ignore his instincts and use his head.
“No jury would see it any different,” he told them. “Be a lot better all around if the law frees you instead of me.”
“But suppose it don’t?”
“Thompson says it will.” Buck told them about Smithly and the judge’s daughter.
“I don’t trust that,” Tihlman said. “Let us out. Give us back our guns and we’ll go take care of Olinger and side you against Snake Ed.”
Buck hesitated. The whole pack of wolves was at the graveyard right now. The fight could be over in twenty minutes—or even less.
“We all got families to feed,” said Horsely, looking out from behind Tihlman.
“I know,” said Buck. “The idea is to make sure you’re alive to do that.”
“We won’t be if they hang us,” said Horsely.
“They ain’t going to.”
“But you can’t be sure.”
“I give you my word. That means, if the law won’t free you, I will.”
“I still don’t see what the point is of taking a chance,” Tihlman said.
“He just don’t want trouble from the Church Committee,” Horsely said, disgusted. “They tell him don’t mess with Snake Ed and he don’t. Making too much money, don’t want to risk it, just the same as Hastings or any of them other storekeeper kinds.”