High Desert

by Wayne D. Overholser

  Then the old man did a surprising thing. He brought an ancient cap-and-ball revolver out from under his ragged coat, fondled it for a moment as a small girl might fondle her favorite doll, and put it back. He looked up at Jim, lips pulled away from toothless gums in a wicked smile. He said without the slightest trace of braggadocio: “Someday I’m gonna kill that old rooster.”

  “They hang old men for murder,” Jim said.

  Gramp got up, faded eyes staring at Jim from under hooded brows as if arguing the sheriff’s intent. He was as sober as Jim had ever seen him. “Here’s one old man they’d never convict of murder,” he said. ‘I ain’t sure it’d be murder salivating a Wyatt nohow.”

  Gramp lurched on toward the Bonanza in his peculiar stilt-like walk, rheumatism and whiskey having combined long ago to stiffen his legs. Jim watched him until he disappeared into the saloon, wondering if his unexpected threat of violence was perhaps symbolic of what lay ahead.

  Jim was still there in the doorway when the Wyatts reached town and turned eastward along Main Street.

  Latigo nodded and called courteously: “’Morning, Jim.”

  “’Morning, Latigo,” Jim said, and lifted his Stetson. “’Morning, Kitsie.”

  She smiled in a cool, impersonal way, saying: “How are you, Jim?” Neither of them thought that Latigo or her father, Boone Wyatt, guessed their feeling for each other. The four of them rode on to rein up in front of the bank and rack their horses. Boone and young Stub had not even glanced at Jim. There was an understandable pride in Latigo that was never offensive. In his son and grandson, it became snobbish arrogance. They might have spoken condescendingly to Jim if he had spoken first, something Jim would never do.

  Still watching, Jim saw Latigo go into the bank where he would have a long conference with Zane Biddle. They would decide, Jim thought with biting sourness, which of the Poverty Flat ranchers would lose their spreads and which one Biddle would let go another year. Latigo would do the deciding, and he would reach his decision on the basis of how each one of the Poverty Flat boys had treated him.

  Kitsie went into the Mercantile where she would examine the new dress goods that had come in. Later, she would drop over to Nell Craft’s place. Nell made her dresses, and her kitchen was the one sanctuary where Kitsie and Jim could meet.

  Stub went into the Bonanza where he would drink too much. Then he’d get into a poker game and lose anything from $50 to $1,000 to Chris Vinton, the only Poverty Flat rancher who consistently paid his interest at the bank when it was due. Usually Boone trailed along with his son, obligingly paying his losses when the game folded.

  It was Boone’s habit, while young Stub was throwing good money away over the green-topped table, to spend his time at the bar, drinking sparingly and basking in the respect given him by the Poverty Flat boys. But today Boone did not follow Stub into the Bonanza. Instead he came directly toward Jim, a scowl lining his face, thick legs driving hard against the boards of the walk in sharp, echoing cracks.

  Latigo Wyatt, for all of his pride and restlessness, was a likable man, but Jim found nothing likable in Boone. He was in his middle forties, heavy-shouldered and bull-necked, and anything but constant yessing brought his temper to an instant boil. He had spoiled Stub, had tried to make a boy out of Kitsie, and, failing, piled dislike upon her, except when Latigo was around. Kitsie, in manners and disposition, was a throwback to her grandfather with none of Boone’s truculence in her.

  Jim stepped out of his office and strode toward Boone, knowing that this was the moment in which he must take his stand. A year ago, he had been riding for Wagon Wheel when the sheriff, Bill Riley, had been killed by a dry-gulcher’s bullet. Latigo had secured Jim’s appointment, and everybody, except Jim himself, conceded that he was a Wyatt man, a mistake he had found no occasion to correct until today.

  Boone was ten feet away from Jim when he bawled: “What kind of a damned ninny of a sheriff are you, Hallet?”

  Boone Wyatt bullied everybody except his father who he feared and his son who he pampered. Others took it, the Poverty Flat cowmen. Zane Biddle, and the rest. Even Jim had taken it because of Kitsie, but all the Stillwater folks had been pushed nearly as far as they could be pushed and Jim was quite a bit ahead of the others.

  “I’m a good sheriff,” Jim said clearly, spacing his words so that each hit Boone Wyatt like the slap of an open palm. “What kind of a damned cheap thief are you, Wyatt?”

  They had stopped a pace apart, and for an instant Boone looked as if he had ceased breathing. He stood spread-legged, head tipped forward, his face as set and hard as if it had been worked out of granite. Morning sunlight beat upon it, and in that sharp unrelenting light Jim saw doubt flow across the full-jowled face, saw arrogance wash out of him. It was, Jim thought, the first time since Latigo Wyatt had brought his herd and family north from California a generation before that a Wyatt had been talked to like that.

  There was this moment of silence between them while Boone made up his mind. It was not fear that troubled the man, Jim saw. It was a case of battered pride, of mental struggle while Boone decided upon the best way of holding his shattered dignity, and Jim knew that regardless of what happened to them, he would receive from this moment the full force of Boone Wyatt’s soul-deep hatred.

  “Reckon I didn’t hear right,” Boone said.

  “You heard. Or maybe you want me to repeat it.”

  “Once was one time too many. Write out your resignation, Hallet. We’ll have no sheriff in office who tries to cover his incompetence with insults.”

  “I won’t do that until the county court asks me for my resignation,” Jim said flatly. “You can get them to call a special meeting. Maybe they’ll fire me, but if you call that meeting, I’ll tell them what you tried to do to Ernie Craft. I’ll write the story and take it to the newspaper. I’ll send it out to the Portland dailies. I’m calling the Wyatt hand, Boone. What are you going to do about it?”

  Fury grew in Boone Wyatt, the kind of fury that insulted dignity raises in a man. It showed in the squeezing together of his meaty lips, the corded jaw muscles, the beat of his temple pulse. For a moment Jim was afraid that he had gone too far, that Boone would draw his gun. Then Boone shrugged casually as if the affair was of no importance.

  He said: “Why should I do anything, Hallet? I get madder’n hell when a fly buzzes in my ear, but I never heard of a fly hurting a man.”

  Boone swung on his heel and strode along the boardwalk to the Bonanza. Jim, staring after the man, felt doubt stir in him. He had declared his independence. He had protected Ernie Craft against a phony rustling charge, something Bill Riley would not have done. Riley had been a Wyatt man. When Latigo or Boone wanted a settler moved away from the edge of Wagon Wheel range, Riley could always find a way if the banker could not. Now the Wyatts knew how Jim Hallet stood, and the answer to what they were going to do would not be long in coming.

  The sheriff loitered in front of Hoke Foster’s saddlery, rolling a smoke and lighting it, letting his presence show his defiance to Wyatt rule. He saw Kitsie leave the Mercantile and walk around the corner. She would go, he knew, to Nell Craft’s house, and impatience tightened his nerves.

  Jim smoked his cigarette, tossed it into the dust, and crossed to the hotel. Again he paused, gaze raking the street. Boone had disappeared into the Bonanza. Stub was still inside, and Latigo had not come out of the bank. Usually Jim waited an hour or more before he followed Kitsie to Nell’s house, but he didn’t wait today. He had made his decision. Kitsie must make hers.

  He paced along the boardwalk, turned the corner, and went directly to Nell’s house. It was a white cottage set behind a picket fence, the yard in lawn, a tall row of red hollyhocks along the front, the only house in town that showed pride of ownership.

  II

  He pulled the bell cord and waited. A moment later he heard Nell’s quick steps. She opened the door, ste
pping aside and saying: “Jim, you’re early.” She was a small brown-eyed woman, almost forty, who had somehow missed marrying in a land where women could take their pick, but although she disdained romance for herself, she did all she could to further Kitsie’s.

  Jim followed Nell into the kitchen, doubt crowding him again. He stood in the doorway looking at Kitsie. Stetson in his hand, a tall slender man with a strong chin, a thin beaky nose, and smoky-gray eyes that said things to Kitsie he could not put into words. Kitsie, turning from the sink where she was peeling potatoes, smiled to tell him she understood.

  “Aren’t you running a big risk coming here so soon?” Kitsie asked. “And through the front door?”

  “I aimed to run a risk,” he said with unusual violence.

  She put down her knife and gave him a straight look. Jim took a long breath. No matter what she said or did, or what the rest of the Wyatts did, he would never stop loving her. She was twenty-four years younger than he was, a tall, high-breasted girl with blue eyes and red-gold hair that reminded him of a sunset behind a field of ripe wheat, and full lips that were quick to smile but now had been turned sober by his tone.

  She came to him, asking: “What is it, Jim?”

  “It’s got to be one way or the other,” he said more roughly than he intended. “Seeing you for an hour once a week in Nell’s kitchen isn’t enough. Pussyfooting in and out so nobody will know I’ve seen you isn’t any way for a man in love to do.”

  “But there isn’t any other way, Jim. Not now.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  “What?”

  He pulled her to him, knowing that his hands were as rough as his words, but still unable to help it. He said: “I’ve loved you since the day I rode into Wagon Wheel and asked Latigo for a job. You were standing under them poplars, your hat hanging back of your head, and I looked at you and knew I wasn’t going anywhere else. Not unless you went along.”

  “I guess I loved you then, too, Jim,” she breathed. “We didn’t need any more hands. If I hadn’t asked Grandad to hire you, he’d have sent you on.”

  “Then if you love me, you’ll marry me,” he said.

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  “Today?”

  Her eyes widened as she looked at him. He felt the pressure of her breasts against him, smelled the fragrance of her hair, and he was stirred as he was always stirred by her nearness. The need of her was pressing him and adding to the violence that was in him, but he could not turn back. This was decision day. He would not be a slave to Wyatt pride and greed, even for the girl he loved.

  Kitsie drew away from him and walked to the window. She stood there, staring at the zinnias Nell had planted along the base of the house. She said, without turning: “You know we can’t, Jim. What’s happened?”

  “I just told your dad what I thought of him for trying to frame Ernie Craft for rustling,” he said. “From now on it’ll be me against the Wyatts. I’ve got to know where you stand.”

  She whirled to face him, suddenly and terribly angry. “Jim, are you crazy? My father wouldn’t frame Ernie Craft for rustling.”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “No.” He told her what had happened between him and her father. Then he said: “When I was buckarooing for Wagon Wheel, I knew Latigo and your dad would get Bill Riley to give anybody a kick who settled within shooting distance of Wagon Wheel range, but it wasn’t any of my business. Now that I’m wearing the star, it is.”

  Her tanned face had gone white; her mouth was pressed so tightly that it was a long-lipped line. Utterly miserable, she said: “But why would Dad want to get rid of Ernie Craft? He never bothered anybody.”

  Jim shrugged. “He claims the settlers eat Wagon Wheel beef.”

  She threw out her hands in a gesture of disbelief. “It doesn’t make sense, Jim. There is only a handful of settlers, and we’ve got a lot of cows.”

  “There’d be more settlers if Latigo and Boone hadn’t kept pushing,” Jim reminded her.

  She nodded reluctant agreement. She had, he thought, known it all the time, but she had kept her eyes closed to it, and it worried and bothered her. The things Wagon Wheel did were not governed by limits of justice and moral right. The only consideration was how far the Wyatts could go without inviting the Poverty Flat cowmen to strike back, and Jim had often thought that if Boone Wyatt ever dictated Wagon Wheel policies, even that would not be a limiting factor.

  “I can’t marry you today, Jim,” she said finally. “You know that.”

  “Why?”

  “A girl can’t just get married any day her man says so. There’s things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “A wedding cake to be baked,” she said defiantly. “And I’d have to get Nell to make a dress.”

  He wiped her objections away with a sweep of his hand. “It’s you and me that’s important, Kitsie. Not cakes and dresses.” He swallowed and forced himself to say: “And it ain’t the Wyatt men and it ain’t Wagon Wheel. That’s what you’ve got to decide. It’s whether our love is as important to you as a ranch that’s become a god to the Wyatt men.”

  She stood straight and tall beside the window, hands clenched at her sides, knuckles white with tension. “You can’t say that,” she cried. “It isn’t true. You have no right to doubt my love, but how can I marry you after what you said to Dad?”

  “How could I marry you if I got on my knees to him like the other men in the valley do?” Jim demanded. “Chris Vinton is crazy about you. He’d bow and scrape to get a chance at part of Wagon Wheel. So would Zane Biddle. Your dad would like Biddle for a son-in-law. A banker who’s taken orders from Latigo ever since he opened his bank. Do you want a man like that?”

  “No, but I don’t want a man who calls my father a cheap thief.”

  “All right. Maybe I said too much, but that isn’t the point now.” He came to her and took her hands. “Look, Kitsie. We’ve both been cowards, and it’s gone against the grain all the time. Sneaking in here to see each other. Afraid to tell Latigo or Boone how we felt. Trying to be satisfied with a kiss and one hour a week with you. If you love me you wouldn’t ask me to wait. We’ve waited and waited and kept on waiting. For what?”

  “For something to change,” she whispered.

  He laughed, a hoarse, humorless sound signaling the misery that was in him. “You think your dad will ever change? Or Latigo? The only thing that would change them would be for me to come up with a million dollars and I never will. So what’ll happen? We’ll put it off and off until you get tired waiting and you’ll marry Zane Biddle, which same is what your dad wants.”

  “But not Granddad. He wants me to be happy. Oh, Jim, we’ve got to keep on waiting and having faith. Something will happen.”

  Something would happen, but it wouldn’t be what they’d want. He was certain of it. He couldn’t tell her why. It was a feeling that had been in him from the moment Boone Wyatt had walked along the street toward him that morning.

  He put his arms around her and held her hard against his body. He felt her softness and her strength. “We can’t Kitsie. It’s your family or me. There’s a fence between us. Which side are you going to be on?”

  She stared up at him a moment, suddenly angry. “If there is a fence, you built it,” she cried. “Let me go.”

  But he didn’t let her go until he had kissed her. She stiffened and tried to break free and her fists beat against him.

  Then, as she had that first time he had kissed her when he had been riding for Wagon Wheel less than a week, she went slack, her arms coming around his neck, her body molding to him. There was this moment when she could not get enough of him and she could not give him enough, a moment when the rest of the world faded into nothing and there were just the two of them. It was passion, mad and wild a
nd crazy, but so real that there was no doubting what was in her heart.

  Then Nell Craft’s cough broke dimly into their consciousness. He let Kitsie go, anger stirring him. Nell had never done anything like this. She stayed out of the kitchen as long as Jim and Kitsie were together. But now when Jim looked at her, his anger melted, for he always held a pity for her. She was a hungry-faced woman whose eyes held a lingering ghost of a long-dead past.

  “Excuse me,” Nell said, “but I wanted to tell you something, Kitsie. Don’t let your grandfather’s or your father’s notions make you lose the only thing in life that is worthwhile.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kitsie said.

  “You will after it’s too late. And don’t doubt what Jim said about your father trying to frame Ernie for rustling. I was home last Sunday when Jim came out. He found the hide where your father said it would be.”

  III

  The doorbell gave out its metallic jangle. Someone was pulling the cord repeatedly and angrily. Nell moved across the kitchen to the door that opened into her living room, her thin face hard-set by the worry that gripped her.

  “You won’t keep your secret now unless Jim wants to hide,” Nell said, “and I don’t think he will. Your father and your brother are outside.”

  For a moment Jim forgot to breathe. He looked at Kitsie. He heard Nell close the door, heard her cross the living room. He saw fear squeeze Kitsie’s face, saw the beat of her throat pulse, and knew that the same thought was in her mind that was in his. If he killed her father and brother, their last chance for happiness would be gone.

  “Why don’t you hide?” she whispered. “Or go out through the back?”

  “We’ll face it,” he said harshly.

  Boone Wyatt’s loud insistent voice came to Jim. He heard Nell arguing. Then the stomp of booted feet as the Wyatts crossed the front room, the jingle of spurs, and he opened the door before Boone reached it.