by Les Weil
Grandfather Evans' old words came to memory. "A man likes to grow up with the country. And when he gets growed up, he likes the country growed up, too." Now Evans understood what was meant. A country didn't grow up alone. It grew up through men, who, if they were worthy, wanted to feel that something of themselves, some strength and hope and work and vision, went permanently to public benefit.
He reached town and slowed the team. He'd done some things already, he told himself. He'd been active in the church. He'd served the school board as well as he knew how, though marrying the schoolteacher, approved though the wedding was in a section short of women, hardly could be called assistance. He'd lived honestly and honorably. He was, he thought he could say, generally respected. He wanted to do more.
So much of everything he owed to Joyce! He drove straight to the house and tied up at the fence.
Joyce turned from her work table as he opened the back door. Her eyes widened and lighted in welcome. She put a floured finger over her lips. "Sh-h! I wasn't expecting you."
"Baby asleep?" He walked softly over and kissed her. "You don't have to hold your hands out like a bird stretching."
"I'll get flour on you, silly. And yes, Little Lat is asleep." Her eyes laughed into his. "Have you forgotten he takes naps?"
"How is he?"
"Oh, Lat, he's just fine. Still getting stronger every day. The doctor came through yesterday. He says when spring really comes there's no reason we shouldn't move back to the ranch."
"Hallelujah!"
"What brought you to town?"
"Things, including you."
She rinsed her hands. "There's fresh coffee. Let's sit down."
He did. "I feel fine today."
"Because this is one day you're not killing yourself?" She poured the cups and set the pot back on the stove and took a chair across the kitchen table from him.
"Naw! Because I'm here."
She looked him over, a shade of worry on her face. "You work too hard, Lat. Roundup, branding, trailing, feeding, making hay, breaking horses, one thing after another. You haven't an ounce of flesh on your bones."
For the fun of it he sang a piece of hymn they'd just learned. "'Work, for the night is coming ..."'
She joined him in the next words, softly so as not to awaken the baby. " 'Rest comes sure and soon.'" It was like her, he thought, to shift moods, to turn quick from the light to the serious and back again, and often to laugh at the way things appeared and to make him laugh, too. A man couldn't tell what she might say.
Her smile went away. "I don't want that kind of rest to be sure and soon for you, Lat."
"It won't. I'm even thinking of buying some more cows."
"Oh?"
"After this winter a lot of men will have to sell, if they can."
"It doesn't seem fair." Her hair, drawn back from her brow and wound in a pug, made her look girlish. Actually she was girlish, girlish in appearance, in the play of her thoughts, in her quick, brimming pity for those in distress. She was unseasoned yet, unhardened, resentful of the harsh facts and the hard necessities. Not that he was so reconciled himself. He pushed away the shadow of tonight's meeting.
"I didn't make the weather, sweetheart," he said. "And don't hold it against me that I was prepared."
"Lat, I don't hold anything against you!"
"Maybe we have a right to sit pretty."
"You don't sit long enough to be pretty." Now she was smiling.
"So I'm ugly?"
"As a mud fence." She put her hand across the table and laid it on his. "I love mud fences."
"I'll just go on being one, then. You can explain to people that tastes have a right to diffeh, as a Texas man once told me.
"He's the man that kissed a cow. Are you comparing me to a cow?"
"Now where did you get that? Out of the crazy box? But all right. Not a cow, though. A prime heifer."
"With calf."
It took an instant to understand. "No! Not really!"
"I mean Little Lat, of course."
"Oh." He hadn't understood after all. He said, "You're blushing."
She put her hands over her cheeks. "You make me."
"I love you for it."
"Let's get back to the subject."
"What was it?"
She took her hands away. The flush was fading. "Being a man of highly unusual taste, you had just kissed a cow."
He got up and gave her a kiss on the forehead and sat down and drank the rest of his coffee. "Now that the cow's taken care of, any mail?"
"Saw, boss!" she said. Then, "No mail for you. I got a letter. Things are all right at home."
"None for me?"
"Lat?" Her face was suddenly sober again. "How long since you've written your folks?"
"I sent them a check."
"In lieu of a letter?"
"In lieu of them being hard up."
"They'd rather know about you, about us. As long as we can afford it, it's so easy, just to make out a check. But I keep seeing them, those two lonely old people, waiting and waiting to hear."
He saw them, too, saw them earlier, saw them at the time of the wedding trip there to the old home in Oregon. His mother was flushed and smiling with pride, and her worn hand was warm and tight on his arm. "Why, Lat, she's just lovely! So good-looking and so refined! She's already like a daughter." She pushed him away to look in his face. "I always knew you'd choose a girl to be proud of."
Joyce asked, "Why don't you write now, Lat?"
But Pa was pushing into the room, on his mouth a strange little twist. "You're a picker all right, son. Yup, some boy, you!" The twist moved uncertainly. Pa might be speaking of other things besides a bride, of land and cattle maybe as against a stingy farm. Age was in his face and some hint of pleading; and Evans felt a sudden loss, an emptiness, as if time had dwarfed a giant. Pa put his hand on Ma's shoulder. The smile left his mouth. He wasn't known for his praise, but these words came like sworn words, "If she makes as good a wife as your mother, God has blessed you."
Joyce's voice sounded over the old conversation. "Right now, Lat?"
"Today," he answered, seeing her and himself and the pair of them before and since. He had been bursting proud then and was just as proud now, proud to be seen with her, proud to hear her recite, proud to claim her as wife. Pride? It was pride and still more. She was Joyce, and she was his. It was as simple and great as that.
"I'll get you a pencil and paper."
"Not now, dear." He came to his feet. "This afternoon. While I've got the team hitched, I'll load up what I need for the ranch so as to get a good start in the morning."
"You'll be here tonight then?"
"Sure thing."
"There's choir practice."
"Can't make it. Got a meeting."
"What kind?"
"Range business." He chucked the uplifted chin and turned away. "General ranch matters. I'll be back before long."
Reverend Bradford was passing the Tansytown Merc., as Evans tied up. He stepped over to shake. "How are you, Brother Evans?" He had a hand as big as two, with something left over for seed. It crossed Evans' mind that God's men all seemed to be large men, the Methodists anyway.
"Fine, Reverend. I hope that you are."
"By the grace of the Lord. You'll be in for services Sunday, of course?"
"If I can. There's lots of work to be done."
"In the vineyard." The eyes in the square face were mildly reproachful.
"Sometimes I think I might as well get out of the choir. I have to miss practice again tonight."
"Go on with you!" Reverend Bradford gave Evans a playful little push. "I know what you've been up against. You wouldn't play hooky."
"The winter's been a fright, I don't need to tell you."
"The lean years." Reverend Bradford thought about them.
"With the Lord's help we'll make out."
"Yes."
Reverend Bradford put his heavy hand on Evans' arm. "God bless you and your go
od wife!" He walked off slowly.
Before Evans reached the store door, someone hailed him. Flannery, Pete Flannery, it turned out to be. For a wisp of a man he shook hands hard. "And how is it?" he asked.
"Fair enough. You?"
"Niver a cow left, I'm thinkin'," he answered brightly. "Free as a damn bird in the hivens."
"Not that bad?"
"So good I can be thinkin' of politics and what thievin' friend gits into high office."
"Oh?"
The lively eyes cocked at Evans. "And me of the true faith, meanin' Dimocrat! May my old man and old woman forgive me, not to mention the saints!"
"Don't strain yourself, Pete."
"Sure enough, the divil's got in me." He gave Evans' arm a last pump.
No customer was in the store except for Mrs. Murdock, who sang alto in the choir and now was screwing a potato stopper in the spout of a can that Marshall Strain had just filled. She shook hands, too, leaving on Evans' fingers the smell of coal oil.
Strain was a man who honestly liked to shake, not that the others didn't. "How are things, Lat?"
"Missing mostly. I need barbed wire, grub, tobacco, Lord knows what all. I've got a list."
Strain took him by the arm and led him back toward the post-office grill where Clarence, the young clerk, wouldn't hear. "Well?" His eyes and the sprouts of hair in his ears waited an answer. "I hear the meeting's tonight?"
"I'll go along with them, but I don't like it." Evans could see them riding, the Vigilantes, the Avengers, as they called themselves, in secret joined in a war against rustlers that appeared to them, or some of them, holy. "What do you do without law? Take it into your own hands, I guess."
Strain nodded soberly. "It will just be the one time."
"One time and over. One time and never again." Evans wondered if he believed what he said. "Anyhow, this will be my first and last."
"If it gets out, it could hurt you politically," Strain said, not in argument.
"Then it will have to."
"And there's Joyce." Again Strain wasn't arguing.
"If I must, I'll try to explain," Evans said, seeing her catching sight of the shapes, the falling, the swinging, the dying shapes that were taking shape in his head. Even in himself he found the scene hard to justify.
"She's so gentle." Strain let out a sigh. "I could talk to her, Lat, in general terms. Let me talk to her!"
"In general terms then. My answer has to be yes."
Strain repeated, "It has to be yes," and reset the pencil that rode behind his ear. "Now where's that list?"
27
WHEY BELLY HECTOR leaned forward in his chair, his thick hands on his knees. The eyes in his frog's face were wide. They caught a glitter from the lighted lamp. "Well, Evans?"
Antelope Rax sat on the hotel bed, lacing and unlacing his fingers. His gaze held the question, too.
"I thought this was supposed to be a meeting," Evans said, looking from one to the other. Behind Rax the wall at the side of the bed was smeared with the mashed leavings of Jackson House bedbugs.
"McLean and Chenault left word they'd go whichever way you did -which they told you a full week ago. What you want? A vote of the Bible class?"
"Unanimous," Evans answered and closed his mouth on the rest.
"Not so loud," Rax told Hector. Except to tone Hector down, he had hardly spoken. He was a small, hard nut of a man, almost Indian in appearance, who kept pretty much to himself at his ranch over east on the Muddy. People said he'd rather live on straight antelope meat than butcher one of his cattle. Now, being looked at, he barely parted his lips. "We've stood enough."
"The winter was enough," Evans said quietly.
"Hah!" Hector broke in. "Sure, the winter busted everyone but you, Evans, or damn near did. You and your goddam hay! But what's the weather got to do with rustlers?"
"You can take it out on the rustlers."
"Look! You came through in fine shape. You wintered fat by comparison."
Rax lifted a finger. "Not so loud!"
"It's enough to make a man yell," Hector told him in lowered tones. He turned back to Evans. "Maybe you can afford to feed thieves. But what about us? We're scrapin' bottom, us that ain't scraped it already clean."
He had a point, and Evans nodded to it.
"All right, then," Hector said and began counting on his fingers. "There's Whitlock and Johnson and Howie, besides me and Rax, all feelin' the same way, and there's you and McLean and Chenault maybe, dependin' on you. You talked to Marshall Strain, of course?"
"Yes."
"He's too pretty -pious for me, but he cuts a quiet swath in this section. There was reasons we let him in on it, and him alone besides us.
"For the influence he might have on me," Evans said.
"Well, sure. Why not? For Christ or customers, I'll say, he saw things straight. But that isn't all. We wanted to know would he stick up for us if it came down to that. There's just a chance the law might try to move in if our names get whispered around. Then we'd need him."
"The law that you say doesn't exist?"
"Good God! You think you can get it to chase down these jacklegs and get the evidence and throw 'em in the crowbar house? Strain regardless, it just might tackle us if there's talk enough, so we got to be secret like the old Vigilantes, but no law dogs will ever tree them." Hector's mouth curled. "Or do you think so?"
This time Rax hissed out, "Sh-h!"
Evans had to answer, "No. Not soon, anyhow."
"And we can't wait. Kohrs and Ford and Fergus and Stuart and that bunch didn't wait over east three years ago. They couldn't, no more'n we can. They shot 'em up and hung 'em high, and some they only scattered. It's part of that scatterin' that's plaguin' us now."
"Stuart's Stranglers," Evans said. "Next, Hector's Stranglers?"
"Names don't count," Hector answered. A smile put the corners of his mouth almost in line with his ears. "They don't, that is, unless it's a name like Senator."
Evans grinned, for no real reason. "I wasn't counting much on the outlaw vote. Friends like you will put me in."
Rax said, "We sure will, won't we, Whey Belly?"
"Senator Evans."
"Thanks," Evans said and waved that talk away, though he imagined that Rax, for one, spoke honestly. "What have your losses from rustling been running?"
"It's a guess, but with cows not less than four or five per cent. They'll for sure run way higher now we got so few head. Ain't it so, Rax?"
"All of that."
"God knows about horses, but I can tell you one thing. They're bein' stole right now, the rustlers thinkin' we're too busy cryin' at winter kills to notice the broncs. That's why we ought to hit 'em quick."
"I'm missin' two horses since the other night," Rax put in.
Hector pointed at Evans. "You asked about our losses. What about yours?"
"Smaller."
"So I heard. So I heard."
"Keep listening to Tom Ping! Some day he might tell you why the Blackfeet call me their brother."
"Hold on now! I didn't mean anything, and I don't take much stock in Ping. Who does?"
"And you might remember I watch my cows closer."
"Sure. Sure."
"Let it go."
Hector got out a cigar and moved over and puffed as he held it over the lamp. He sank back then and crossed his legs and squinted at Evans through a spiral of smoke. "If Injuns are still on your mind, I already told you this won't be a scalp hunt. We'll leave your red brothers alone. Sure, the rest of us lose beef to 'em, but we ain't askin' for trouble from Injuns and government both. It's the whites and some breeds that we're after."
"Who in particular?"
"All rustlers in particular."
"By name?"
"Hell, I don't know all their names. Who does but themselves? But there's Casteen and French Joe and Hartwig that don't look so clean. At the head of 'em, it's my guess, is Bigsbee." The name brought blood to Hector's face. "He's a damn troublemaker besides b
ein' a horse thief. I'll smile when I see him laid out. For a fact, though, there's no real he-elephants in the crowd, but just little bastards. Ten men, ten good men, could handle the kit and caboodle."
Evans said, "Maybe."
"They won't be expectin' us unless some fool unties his tongue. Why should they? We never tried to lay a hand on 'em yet, and all the time they been cabined up north there in the breaks snug as a bug. We can jump 'em."
Evans threw out, "And because they're there, they'll all be guilty?"
"There ain't any innocent men in them breaks, like no angels in hell." Hector took a tatter of cigar from his thick lip and flicked it away. "Evans, you got a reputation as a man slow to make his mind up, so take a look ahead. With pickin's scarce as snake tits, what's left for the buzzard boys? Lat Evans and his hand-nursed cattle naturally. Oh, it'll be riskier and harder, but wires'll cut and critters drive. You'll take sides then, my friend."
Rax kept twiddling his fingers, his eyes on them. "You're a key log in this jam."
Hector motioned toward Evans with his thumb while he looked at Rax. "And I can remember, just six or seven years ago, he was too small to keep, almost."
"Big enough to hold my claim," Evans reminded him.
"Yup," Hector answered agreeably. "But you ain't big enough, alone, to keep your stock."
Rax lifted his swarthy face. "Whey Belly's right as rain."
"Hector," Evans said, "you and your boys will be drilling everything in sight."
Hector chewed on his cigar. He took the cigar out and pecked at the air with it. "That's in your craw?"
"It is."
"Tell you what, then," Hector said, still pecking. "A promise. No shootin' 'less we have to. No hangin' till we're sure."
"You can speak for the rest?"
"Do my best."
From the first there had been just one answer, but at least this much had come out of his stalling, Evans thought, this much out of his questions, this pledge for what it was worth. No blind blood-letting-maybe. He got up abruptly. "All right. I'm in. Good night," he said and made for the door, hearing Hector say, "Good!" hearing Rax say, "Fine! Whey Belly, we'd best wait and get out of here one at a time."