by Paul Lederer
Ned said, ‘Let me know when you see Lyle Colbert’s place. I’d like to look it over.’
‘You’re planning on going ahead, then? With Father’s plan?’ she asked with concern.
‘What else can I do?’
‘Besides getting yourself killed, you mean? I can think of a lot of things!’
Andy Bright, still sullen, followed them closely. The young man was carrying a grudge, but Ned Browning was not exactly sure who, or what, he held it against. Maybe life itself.
Eventually they emerged from the forest and Tess slowed and then halted the team on a hill overlooking the long valley below. In the distance to the north was the town of Hoyt’s Camp, founded, if that was the right word, by an early settler, a fur trader who had first camped there to escape the dreadful high-mountain winters. There was the river rambling past, and long grassy plains. It hadn’t taken other westward-bound travelers long to find the pretty little place.
‘To the south,’ Tess said, pointing, ‘right on the edge of the river. That’s Lyle Colbert’s outfit.’
What Ned could see of the camp through the scattered trees was a collection of rough log cabins, thrown up without pattern or planning. Shelter from the hard weather, quickly erected. Beyond these was a single larger building, also of log, but more carefully built. It had a peaked roof unlike the smaller cabins. There seemed to be several outbuildings of sawn wood and a corral farther along. It was difficult to make out the details. Andy Bright had been sitting his buckskin beside the wagon. Now Ned Browning asked, ‘Where is the chain, Andy?’
‘You can’t see it from here,’ Andy said, still scowling. ‘It’s a few hundred yards downriver. What do you intend to do about it, Lavender?’
‘Don’t call him that,’ Tess said, but neither man seemed to hear her.
‘I haven’t had the time to give it a lot of thought,’ Ned Browning replied, shifting his eyes from the river to meet Andy’s dark gaze. ‘Before anything else is done against Colbert, I believe it’s essential that we remove the chain.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ Andy demanded in his bitter way. ‘Bite through it?’
‘Look,’ Ned said, with a patience he was not feeling, ‘it can be easily done. How is the chain anchored?’
Andy blinked and said dully, ‘Padlocked around a five-foot-thick pine.’
‘That figures,’ Ned replied. He gave a half-shrug and rubbed his sore left shoulder thoughtfully. ‘What is it that you men do for a living?’
Andy scowled. ‘You know what we do. We’re timbermen.’
‘Have you ever seen a tree you couldn’t fell?’ Ned asked.
‘No,’ Andy said defensively.
‘Well, that one,’ Ned said, lifting his chin toward the river, ‘is just another task. Take it down to a stump and throw the chain off it.’
Andy laughed sarcastically. ‘And you think Lyle Colbert is going to just stand by and watch.’
‘No,’ Ned said, frowning himself now. ‘That is the tricky part of the plan, isn’t it? We’ll have to come up with an idea to distract Lyle Colbert’s men.’
Andy laughed again, this time with outrageous mockery. ‘That is why you’ve been brought here! To tell us the obvious? That we have to remove the chain! Lavender, you’re a genius,’ Andy said and heeled his horse downslope through the trees toward the town of Hoyt’s Camp.
‘Don’t mind him, Ned,’ Tess said quietly as she restarted the team.
‘I don’t. He has a point. I was just stating the obvious, but remember I just arrived here. I have to learn a lot more about matters before leaping with both feet into what could be a bloody quagmire.’
Neither of them spoke for a long time, until they emerged onto the flatlands where tall August grass waved in the scented breeze off of the mountain slopes. Ned pondered silently, but his thoughts were not on Lyle Colbert’s chain and the battle which might lay ahead, but on the nape of Tess’s neck where a loose curl had escaped to twist free, soft and golden in the summer breeze. He watched the intent look on her face, the pursed lips and anxious blue eyes of Tess Bright and decided that the girl was right – there were a lot of better ways for a man to spend his life than getting himself killed over a fight that was not even his own.
‘Isn’t there any local law here?’ Ned asked as they approached outskirts of town.
‘Only the sheriff over at Bainbridge. That’s about twenty miles north.’
‘Have your father, the other timbermen, considered taking their troubles to court?’
‘Hire lawyers? With what money? And wait months for their case to be decided while they slowly go broke? No, I don’t think they have considered that,’ Tess said with a hint of irony. ‘The others have continued to pay Colbert’s exorbitant fees. Father refuses. He says that no man can own a section of the river and that Lyle Colbert is nothing but a pirate. He will not yield.’
‘Instead, he sent for me,’ Ned said.
‘Yes.’ Tess glanced at him as she slowed the team. ‘And what can you do, Ned?’
‘I don’t know. I honestly have no idea what can be done … if anything.’
The town of Hoyt’s Camp wasn’t much to look at. The great majority of the structures were of unbarked logs, that having been the only building material in the days before the sawmill had been erected. There were more men and horses around than Ned Browning had expected, most of them idle. Tess told him without having been asked:
‘Timbermen without any work to do if their employers aren’t wealthy enough to pay Lyle Colbert’s fees for river passage.’
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘To the general store over there,’ she said nodding toward yet another log structure. ‘To beg for credit. I’d rather not have you there watching me lower myself to it, if you don’t mind.’
‘Whatever you like.’ They were just passing a low building where the sour smell of stale beer was heavy in the air, and the occasional shout of a man within could be heard. Tess frowned and pointed out her brother’s buckskin among the row of horses tethered in front of the saloon.
‘Andy’s in there. You might as well go in as well and have a quiet drink.’
‘If you say so,’ Ned agreed as Tess halted the buckboard. He stepped up onto the plankwalk in front of the building and watched as Tess crossed the street to park the rig in front of the general store. After she had entered the building, he shrugged mentally and entered the smoky saloon.
Andy Bright had already had his quiet drink. He was still drinking as Ned Browning entered the low-ceilinged building, but he was no longer quiet. A loose circle of men was standing around Andy, listening to him spout off, not soberly.
‘…You’d all listen to me, we could run Lyle Colbert off his property and open the river up again. How else are we to make a living?’
A few men laughed, others stood listening intently, if dubiously. Two men seated at a round table across the saloon glared at Andy. Those two, Ned Browning realized, did not have the look of timbermen about them. They wore their revolvers low, and their shoulders were too narrow and their hands too soft-appearing. Andy Bright was continuing with his discourse. Ned decided that it was time to take the bull-headed kid out into the fresh air before trouble could start.
Before Ned could reach him, one of the two men rose from the round table and called out tauntingly: ‘Hey kid! If you’re thinking of trying to run Lyle Colbert off, you might as well start with me.’
There was a vicious smile on the sneering man’s face. He wore a thin, dark mustache. His hand dangled loosely near his holster. The knot of men surrounding Andy Bright separated so that Andy had a clear view of the narrow man.
‘You, Traylor! You think I’m afraid of you?’ Andy said, not too wisely. He had just enough whiskey in his veins for false courage. The gunman’s sneer did not alter.
‘If you had any sense you would be,’ the man called Traylor said, taking two steps forward.
The bystanders had faded away until they
were nearly lined along the walls of the low building. Traylor eyed them, seeing no man who appeared ready to risk his life with Andy Bright.
‘It looks as if you’re playing a lone hand, Bright’ Traylor said. Andy glanced around, concern showing in his eyes now. He had been doing a lot of talking, but he hadn’t been prepared for the idea of actually starting a fight. Not this soon.
Andy’s eyes flickered toward Ned Browning, halted there and then returned to Traylor. ‘Not quite a lone hand,’ Andy said, his confidence returning. Traylor’s small eyes shifted to Ned Browning, took him in without apparent concern and focused again on Andy. The gunhand’s friend had not bothered to rise to his feet. He sat at the table smiling, sipping at his whiskey.
‘One more lumberjack doesn’t frighten me,’ Traylor said, spitting on the floor of the saloon.
‘He should, you damn fool,’ Andy said so that every man in the room could hear him. ‘This “lumberjack” happens to be Frank Lavender!’
Ned Browning silently cursed. He supposed that he, too, would have to eventually tangle with men like Traylor, but he preferred it to be a time of his own choosing, not over a trifling bit of boasting in a saloon. Andy had been cautioned not to mention the name of Lavender, but fear or braggadocio, or both, had caused him to rope Ned into the fight.
Traylor shifted his attention again to Ned. He licked his lips. ‘I don’t believe you, Bright,’ he said. Those were the last words he spoke before he went for his gun. They were the last words he ever was to speak. Ned had been ready for the Colbert man’s draw. His own wrist twitched, his fingers snapped the Colt from its holster and before Traylor had brought his gun up, Ned’s Colt roared.
The spinning .44 bullet caught Traylor’s heart. Blood trickled from his mouth as he swayed on his feet for a moment before burying his face in the planking of the floor. The second Colbert rider had started to rise, but by then Ned Browning had shifted his sights that way and the man gave it up, raising his hands, his expression one of twisted, impotent rage.
‘Get his pistol, Andy,’ Ned Browning commanded, ‘then let’s get out of here.’
Andy Bright strode across the room, his bullish gait cocky, his hat tilted back. He lifted the Colbert man’s pistol from its holster, backed away from him, paused to give the gathered timbermen a triumphant glance, tucked the pistol behind his belt and walked behind Ned to the green-painted door of the saloon.
Outside, the air was fresh, clean, cool. ‘I knew you could handle things, Frank,’ Andy said, clapping a hand on Ned Browning’s shoulder.
‘Next time keep your mouth shut,’ Ned snapped. ‘Get your horse.’
Several people had emerged from the surrounding buildings, summoned by the sound of the gunshot, Tess Bright was among them. She stood watching nervously from the porch of the general store. Ned started that way, alert for any sound or motion behind him. The Colbert rider they had disarmed had been stunned by the rapid turn of events, but Ned had no idea that the man was a coward. If he were, he would have chosen another way to make a living.
‘What happened?’ Tess asked as Ned stepped up onto the porch to join her. Her blue eyes were clouded with fear.
‘Nothing,’ Ned replied calmly, ‘just a couple of troublemakers making noise. Did you get your supplies?’
Tess wore a frown. Glancing up the street she saw her brother walking his horse toward them, and that seemed to relieve her anxiety a little.
‘All I could get,’ she said, nodding toward the few provisions stacked in the buckboard’s bed. ‘I don’t think there will be any credit for us here next time.’
‘Let’s hope you won’t need any the next time you come,’ Ned said with a confidence he did not feel. He saw now that Tess’s hands were trembling. ‘Do you want me to drive?’
‘No!’ she said somewhat defensively. ‘It’s my team. I know them, they know my touch.’
‘Let’s get going, then,’ Ned suggested, and he helped her up onto the seat as Andy, flushed with excitement, rode up beside them.
‘That was some shooting, Frank!’ he said. ‘You should have seen him, Sis. Royce Traylor never had a chance against Lavender’s draw.’
Tess’s mouth tightened. Ned glowered a warning at Andy who for once understood. Or maybe, Ned reflected, he had purchased the kid’s respect with another man’s blood.
It was not until they were well clear of the town, into the deep timber again, before Tess spoke, and when she did it was numbly, her eyes fixed on the trail ahead.
‘A couple of troublemakers, huh? You killed a man back there, didn’t you, Ned?’
‘There wasn’t a lot of choice.’
‘There’s always a choice,’ Tess said, believing it. Ned didn’t bother to reply. They were in sight of the Bright cabin before she added, ‘It would have been better if you had never come here, Ned. They’ll never let you leave alive. Not now.’
FIVE
Orson Bright and Andy tried to turn that evening’s supper into a heroic banquet of sorts. Amos Shockley and Bert Smart had been invited down from their cabin in an apparent effort to bolster their spirits. Both of the lumberjacks looked uncomfortable, their hair slicked back, their shirts buttoned to the throat. Andy Bright regaled them with the tale of the shoot-out with Royce Traylor, stretching it out as if the fight had lasted hours. He repeatedly told the others how lightning-fast Frank Lavender was with a gun, as if by sharing the story enough he could bask in shared glory.
‘There never was a faster man,’ Andy concluded. Even Orson Bright who had been beaming at his son and his guests had grown tired of the tale before Mother Rose and Tess began serving the fresh-caught brook trout, red beans and cornbread with molasses that was their dinner.
The men ate silently for the most part, the ruddy, big-shouldered Amos Shockey eating everything that was placed in front of him, the narrow Bert Smart nearly keeping pace. Finally full, Shockley leaned back in his chair, his thick hands folded on his stomach.
‘I guess it’s a good thing for us that Lavender here met Tess,’ he said affably but a little offensively. Tess had been clearing the platters away. Now she shot an unhappy glance at her brother, her father and Ned in turn, flushed slightly and scurried away to the sink where she dumped the dishes unceremoniously into the water. So, someone had been telling tales about her … untrue tales. Mother Rose washed the dishes without a word, but she glanced at Tess and saw the annoyance there.
‘Back in a minute,’ Tess said, and she stepped through the kitchen toward the back storage area where she leaned against the wall, folded her arms and glowered fiercely.
Orson Bright was saying, ‘So you see boys, I wasn’t trying to string you along. We’ve got a chance of fighting our way through all of our problems now. Just keep loading the barge tomorrow. We’ll soon be floating our timber downriver again, won’t we, Frank?’
Ned nodded, dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and pushed away the bony remains of his fish. Something was expected of him and so he muttered, ‘Sure we will, Mr Bright.’ Unexpectedly he rose then and said, ‘If you boys will excuse me. I’m still kind of beat up, and I think I’ll turn in early.’
‘No whiskey, Frank?’ Orson Bright asked, bringing up a jug from under the table as Mother Rose began serving coffee all around.
‘Never when I’m working,’ Ned said. He looked around for Tess, did not see her and, nodding to the others, started for his room.
Lying on the bed, the bed that had belonged to Orson Bright’s dead son, Dan, Ned Browning clasped his hands behind his bed and stared at the ceiling. Beyond the door the men’s humor seemed to be improving as the evening wore on.
What now? Ned asked himself. How far did his obligation toward Orson Bright go? He had killed a man today only because of that promise, a promise he could not even remember making. Ned had proven two things to himself on that day – for one, he was good with a gun. The other was that he had no taste for killing. He did not even know the man he had shot down. Of course, Royce Traylor had d
rawn on him, but that did not mean that Ned felt justified in the shooting, that he felt any sense of triumph in having survived after having sent a man to his grave. Maybe Tess had been right.
Maybe there was always another way.
Always a choice.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. He listened to the muffled voices of the men at their whiskey and continued to stare at the low ceiling as the long hours passed.
Tess could not remain forever in the storage room. She did not wish to return to the table where the men spoke. The eyes of the timbermen would now turn toward her, wondering how well she knew Frank Lavender, how intimately. She had become a scrap of gossip, of amused speculation and after Andy’s lies – she could throttle him for that – she couldn’t say that any such intimacy was complete fabrication. Rather, she could, but she would not be believed. The story would get around the valley, of course. She was now the killer Frank Lavender’s lover, or would be in the common mind. She wished again that Ned had never come into her life.
‘Grab me a rag, Tess!’ Mother Rose called. ‘I sloshed some water on the floor.’
‘All right.’
Resignedly, Tess went to the rag bag in the corner of the tiny room and searched for something suitable. The first cloth her fingers tightened around and extracted proved to be a familiar one. It was the red shirt that Ned Browning had been wearing when they had first pulled him from the river. She started to jam it back in the bag in disgust, but hesitated. The shirt was the only tangible evidence they had of Ned Browning’s true identity. She turned the torn shirt around in her hands, remembering what Mother Rose had cautioned them about on that first night.
The brass grommets on the shirt’s front, above the left breast, Rose had told them, could only have one possible use – to keep a badge from tearing the cloth. Tess fingered the small brass eyelets. Who then was Ned Browning? She knew that they had lied to him when they informed him that he was Frank Lavender, lied when they had told him that he owed them a favor as they had lied to Shockley and Bert Smart when they told the timbermen that the reason for the obligation was because Lavender was enamored of Tess.