High Desert

by Wayne D. Overholser

  “Abel Purdy,” he grunted. “Past the post office.”

  “Thanks.” Morgan swung to the door and, pausing, looked back. “If that sign isn’t there the next time I come in, I’ll hang your hide up in its place, and don’t you forget it.”

  The storeman’s lips twitched, his sullen curses reaching Morgan only as incoherent growls. Grinning, Morgan turned into the street. Irish Bend had been geared to Broad Clancy’s pleasure. The land sale would change that, along with everything else in Paradise Valley.

  Purdy’s office was beyond the post office, with a weed-grown vacant lot between. Morgan stepped through the doorway, and had a quick glance around, and said: “Howdy.” There were three straight-backed chairs against the wall, a roll-top desk in the corner, covered with a litter of books and papers, and an ancient swivel chair. That was all except for the dust, the splinters of a broken stool in the corner, and Abel Purdy.

  “Good morning.” Purdy rose and held out his hand. “I’m Abel Purdy and I believe you’re Murdo Morgan. I’ve heard of you.”

  Morgan shook the proffered hand. “I’m not surprised. A stranger gets talked about.”

  “You’re like the new broom, Morgan. Sweeps up a lot of trash until somebody saws off the handle. It ain’t much good after that.” Purdy motioned to a chair. “Sit down. I never like to talk with a standing man.”

  Morgan took the chair. He liked Purdy, as he had instinctively disliked the smart-aleck storekeeper. Purdy might have been thirty or fifty. It was hard to judge his age. His head seemed to be entirely without hair and was ball-round. Then Morgan saw that he was wrong. Purdy had hair, but it was clipped short, and was so thin and light-colored that it took a second glance to realize it was there.

  “Maybe nobody’s going to saw this broom off,” Morgan said.

  “Somebody will try.” Purdy removed his thick glasses and rubbed his eyes, red-streaked from too much reading, the pupils nearly as colorless as his hair. “Time always catches up with us, Morgan. Broad Clancy thought it never would, but things that happen in the rest of the country will sooner or later happen here. Half of the valley is owned privately. Ignoring a fact like that don’t change the fact.”

  “Well,” Morgan said, “I’m glad somebody around here knows that.”

  Purdy laid a marker between the pages of the book he had been reading and closed it.

  “You’re the law, aren’t you?” asked Morgan.

  “Yes, I’m the law.” Purdy’s smile was self-mocking. He wiped a sleeve across the shiny star pinned on his shirt. “That, of course, all of us here understand. I’m the marshal, the mayor, and the justice of peace. I preside over the town meetings. I arrest a drunk if he is a settler. Then I jail him.” He motioned to a door behind him. “We have one cell. I sit as judge if a trial is necessary, but a trial is never necessary unless the arrested man is a settler. You understand?”

  Morgan nodded. It was plain enough, the same as Broad Clancy’s rule was plain to see everywhere that Morgan looked.

  “But it’s like you said a while ago. Clancy can’t change facts by shutting his eyes. The company is selling the wagon road grant to settlers.”

  “Maybe,” Purdy said skeptically. “It will take a lot to beat Clancy, and my experience with nesters tells me they won’t stand against a show of force.”

  “This is different, Purdy. We’re selling the land now to people in the Middle West. They pay ten percent down when they sign their contract and give a note for the balance, payable at the time of the drawing. I’m gambling they’ll fight for what they already own.”

  Interest sharpened in Purdy’s pale eyes. “It might work.”

  “Another thing. This isn’t free government land, so we’re bound to get a better class of farmers than the usual raggle-taggle outfits that show up every time there is a land rush.”

  “That might be,” Purdy admitted thoughtfully. “Does Clancy know this?”

  “I aim to tell him today. He wasn’t of a mind to listen the time I saw him in the Silver Spur.”

  “Suppose you die?”

  “Then I’ll be dead, but the land sale will come off regardless.”

  “Clancy may have a different idea.”

  Morgan shrugged. “I aim to keep alive. I didn’t come in here to talk about Clancy. What I want to know is this. When the settlers come...that’ll be the middle or the last of August...will they get the protection of the law as fully as you can give it?”

  Purdy reached for a corncob pipe, that self-mocking smile turning his mouth bitter.

  “You’ll have it, as well as I can give it. Notice what I say, Morgan...as well as I can give it. I’ll explain that. I have a job. It pays a living. I don’t know what I’d do or where I’d go if I lost it. Love of security does that for a man, and my security lasts as long as Broad Clancy lasts.”

  Purdy was making it as plain as he could without admitting his own abasement. The hard years had reamed the heart out of this man, leaving only the shell.

  “I’ll depend on that,” Morgan said, rising. “Broad may not cut quite as wide a swath in another month or two as he does now.”

  “Time is a great sea washing in around us,” Purdy murmured. “We’ll see how well Broad has built his walls. And, Morgan, if you’re going out to Turkey Track, watch this man Flint. Wounded pride can make even a coward dangerous.”

  XII

  A familiar sight greeted Morgan when he reached the Turkey Track, a sight that reminded him strongly of his Montana cowpunching days, for it was a scene that changed only in detail wherever cows were run. The constant rising dust cloud. The smell of wood smoke from the branding fire. Loops snaking out. Bawling calves and bawling cows.

  It was a sort of organized chaos. Half a dozen Turkey Track irons in the fire. The rush of smoke as a hot iron burned through hair and into flesh. The smell of it, the smell of blood as knives flashed. Turkey Track run on the left side. Underbite off both ears.

  “Rafter L from Dry Lake!” a buckaroo yelled.

  “Nothin’ but Turkey Track on this range!” Broad Clancy shouted arrogantly. “Put the iron on him.”

  Smell and sweat, pain and blood, dust and smoke, and over all of it that never-dying bawl of worried cows and scared calves, curses, and Broad Clancy’s taunting laugh if a rope missed. Throw him! Burn and cut him! Hot iron and steel blade! Drag up another! The cycle repeated until a buckaroo yelled: “This is the one we want!”

  “I don’t want him. Looks just like the last one to me.”

  “Sure. It is the last one.”

  Dusty, sweating faces grinning as men stretched and wiped sleeves across cracked-lipped mouths. Somebody kicking out the fires. Cleaning the irons by running them through the dust. Heads sloshed into troughs to come out snorting. Spitting water that was close to mud. A good job well done. Pride here among these knights of gun and horse.

  Morgan, watching from the fringe of activity, understood and smiled. He would feel the same as Broad Clancy if he were in Clancy’s boots. It was an old scene to Clancy, one that had been repeated every spring since he had ridden north from California with his herd. Today he had viewed it for the last time, if Morgan’s plans went unchallenged.

  If Morgan had been seen, no one gave the slightest hint. Riders were hazing the cow and calf herd away from the corrals. Broad Clancy, riding a chestnut gelding as only a man can ride who is a cowman born, grinned at young Rip and said something Morgan didn’t hear. He motioned to Short John and Jaggers Flint and, as if by previous agreement, the four reined their horses toward Morgan and rode directly to him.

  Morgan had remained away from Clancy because he knew that as long as the branding was going on, the little man wouldn’t talk. He had been waiting until he found the moment that seemed to be the right one, thinking they had been too busy to note his arrival. Now he knew he had been seen from the first and ignored, a co
mmon treatment Clancy prescribed for unwanted guests, exactly as he had prescribed it for Morgan that first day in the Silver Spur.

  Morgan had not come with the intention of fighting. He had avoided it in Irish Bend only by a show of toughness, but young Rip hadn’t been there that day, and Rip was the most dangerous man old Broad had. Now, watching them come at him, Morgan had a moment of doubt. Triumph was on Rip’s ugly face. Short John, out of place in this tough company, was afraid. Jaggers Flint’s muddy brown eyes held the smoldering rage of a man who lacked the cold courage it took to make a play, and hated himself for that failing.

  But it was Broad Clancy who surprised Morgan most. He reined up a dozen steps from Morgan, green eyes smiling from under the bushy gold-brown brows. He had shown a nervous fear that day in the Silver Spur when he had learned Morgan’s name. He had not wanted to know Morgan’s purpose in coming, assuming it was revenge.

  Perhaps he had never forgotten the Morgan kid who had left the valley sixteen years before. It might have been that his mind had held the shadowy tear of the boy’s return, and he had been shocked by that fear when he discovered that the thing he had been afraid of had become stark reality, instead of a black dread held in the recesses of his mind.

  Today Broad Clancy was a different man. Morgan saw no fear in him. There was pride, the dignity of a small man who feels his position, the old arrogance that Morgan had remembered most of all about him. He seemed entirely sure of himself and his own future, as if Murdo Morgan was nothing more than a bothersome gadfly that could be swept away with a motion of his hand.

  “We’re busy, Morgan,” Clancy said crisply. “What do you want?”

  “Trouble,” Rip breathed. “Let’s give him some.”

  “Shut up,” Broad ordered. “Speak your piece, Morgan. Then get off Turkey Track range. This is wrong ground for you.”

  Rip was a stick of dynamite, a short fuse sparking. He was the one of the four to watch. Jaggers Flint was the next, but Flint would not start it. Short John wanted none of the trouble, and old Broad, for some reason Morgan did not understand, was filled with a confidence that his position did not warrant.

  That was the way Morgan read it, and he hesitated a moment, uncertain what his own play would be. He could beat Rip to the draw and kill him. He was certain of that, and he was equally certain that if it happened, he would lose the last slim chance of a compromise peace.

  “Rip’s on the prod,” Morgan said at last. “If he pulls his iron and starts smoking, I’ll kill him, but that isn’t what I want.”

  “Behave, Rip!” Clancy bawled imperiously, without looking at the boy. “Talk, Morgan. Cuss it, I haven’t got all day to set here.”

  “You said I was on wrong ground,” Morgan said evenly, keeping Rip within range of his vision. “It so happens I’m on my own ground.”

  Broad Clancy threw back his oversize head and laughed. It was a deep laugh, as if this was a moment to savor, to be enjoyed to the last full second.

  “Look, Morgan,” he said at last when he could talk, “you surprised me the other day in town. When you said your name was Morgan, I naturally figgered you’d come back to square up for what happened to your brothers. Since then, I’ve learned different. I know why you’re here, and you don’t scare me worth a hoot. I’ll tell you why. You haven’t got the chance of a snowstorm in Hades of pullin’ this off. The Citizens’ Bank will close you out, and I’ll deal with them.... That all you’ve got to say?”

  Questions prodded Morgan’s mind. Clancy knew about the Citizens’ Bank, so he must have found out through Cole. But what was back of it? There was no time to consider it now.

  “Not quite all, Clancy,” he said. “You’ve made a lot of money off a range that never belonged to you. I’ll give you whatever credit you’ve got coming for fighting Paiutes and the other troubles you had, but those days are gone. You’d be....”

  “We’re still here,” Clancy cut in tauntingly. “One blasted company or another has owned the wagon road grant for years, but my cows keep on eatin’ company grass. I haven’t paid a nickel for it and I never will. Now get out!”

  “Not yet,” Morgan said. “I had hoped to make a deal with you. I want everything cleared up before the settlers start coming in. If you want to buy the tract your buildings are on....”

  “Save your breath,” Clancy jeered. “I’ll hold a patent to every acre of company land before I’m done.”

  “You’ve had your chance,” Morgan said harshly. “You can save part of the Turkey Track or you can lose it.”

  “I’ll save all of it and I’ll bust you.” Suddenly Broad Clancy was deadly serious, the last trace of good humor fading from his wrinkled face. His eyes were emerald slits, the corners of his mouth working under the stress of emotion. “I let you alone after our ruckus in town because I thought you had sense enough to slope out. Now I can see you’re short of savvy. You figger you’re a tough hand. You got the jump on Rip at Royce’s place, and you licked Arch Blazer. All right. You’ve used up your luck. Get out of the valley, or, by the eternal, I’ll hang you with my own hands before I’m done.”

  “There is such a thing as law,” Morgan flung at him. “That law recognizes the right of private property. You aren’t as big as the law.”

  But no one was listening. Broad and Short John had ridden off after the herd. Rip’s prodding laugh cut into Morgan’s words. Then he and Jaggers Flint wheeled their horses toward the house.

  There was no regret in Murdo Morgan as he sat staring after Broad Clancy and Short John. He had done all he could. Clancy’s ears were stone.

  But why was he so supremely confident? The only answer lay in his certainty of Morgan’s failure, and he must have a better reason for that certainty than his belief in himself. Again Morgan considered Ed Cole, but failed to find the answer to his question.

  Morgan smoked a cigarette, sitting his saddle there by the corrals. There was no sign of life about the big log-and-stone house. Rip and Flint had disappeared.

  Morgan thought of Jewell Clancy. She had offered to help. She was the only one of the Clancys who had foreseen the inevitable pressure of time and what it would do to the Turkey Track. He reined his black toward the house. Since he was here, he might as well see Jewell.

  Morgan had seen the Clancy house only at a distance. Now that he was here in front of it, he felt his admiration for it. Broad Clancy, coldly self-confident, had picked the spot beside a spring where he had wanted to build years before. The fact that it was company land and not open to entry had made no difference to him. Yet he had built well. Morgan, who had seen ranch houses from Yellowstone to the Río Grande, had never seen a better one.

  Tying his horse at the pole beyond the row of Lombardy poplars, Morgan’s gaze swept the house. It was east of the bunkhouse and cook shack. The barns and corrals were across the road and a short distance to the south. From the wide porch, the Clancys could look across the sage-floored valley to the pine hills and the sharp point of Clancy Mountain. Old Broad had named the peak. It had been his boast that he stood out among men the way Clancy Mountain stood out above the rolling hills.

  The house was of stone, two stories high, the wings on both sides of lodgepole pine. There was no yard, but there was a row of red hollyhocks along the front of the house. Jewell’s work, Morgan thought, an expression of a woman’s love of beauty, the same as the yard in front of the Royce cabin was a mark of Peg’s character.

  Morgan crossed the porch and knocked. The door was open and he could look into the big living room with its tremendous stone fireplace on the opposite wall. Bear skins were on the floor, there was a scattering of homemade furniture, including a sort of divan covered with Navajo blankets, and a collection of firearms on the wall. A man’s place, yet clearly marked by a woman.

  There was no sound within the cool gloom of the interior. Morgan knocked again, louder this time. He heard the pad of f
eet and the Chinese cook shuffled into the room.

  “Is Miss Jewell here?” Morgan asked.

  “Missy out liding,” the Chinese answered. “Back welly soon. You come in?”

  Morgan nodded and stepped in. The Chinese pattered on across the room and disappeared.

  Morgan twisted a smoke, his gaze swinging around the room. A huge picture within a carved walnut frame hung above the fireplace. Broad Clancy’s and his wife’s wedding picture, Morgan guessed. He had never seen Mrs. Clancy, but now, studying her face, he felt he would not have liked her. Lips too thin, too tightly pressed.

  He grinned when he looked at Broad’s picture. Young, with a long curling mustache, the gold-brown brows not so bushy then, and hair. Plenty of it. But Broad didn’t look entirely happy. Sort of disappointed, Morgan told himself. Morgan’s grin widened. Maybe the picture had been taken after they’d been married.

  Morgan swung around the room. There were other pictures, mostly of the children, but the one in the little office at the end of the long living room shocked him. The door into the office was open. On the wall above the desk was a picture that was startlingly familiar, so familiar that he thought for a moment it was his own mother. Then he wondered if it could have been her sister.

  Taking the tintype of his mother from his pocket, Morgan studied it, then lifted his gaze to the picture on the wall. They were so alike it was fantastic. The only difference was a matter of age. The wall picture was that of a younger woman, hardly more than a girl.

  A squeak on the floor brought Morgan around, the tintype still in his right hand. In that way he was disarmed, a fact that saved his life. The slightest motion for his gun would have brought death. Rip Clancy stood there, a cocked Colt in his hand, his thin face utterly wicked.

  “I’ve been waitin’ for this ever since you got lucky that day at Peg’s place,” Rip said with taunting malice. “You ain’t as smart as Pap figgers, or you wouldn’t have stepped into it.”