Burnham kicked the dirt with a gesture of impatience. “Damn it, Jim, a man’s got a right to fence his property if he wants to, and Noble knows that as well as anybody. He’s starting a war for the benefit of his own pocket-book and pride, and somebody’s going to get bad hurt. Virginia ought to be lined up square with you instead of letting Noble make a monkey out of her. I feel like a skunk. I don’t know what’s happened to the girl’s brains.”
“Forget it,” Woodbine said. “She’ll learn.”
“Maybe. And maybe it’ll be too late. Coming?”
“I think I’ll ride over to Churchill’s first. I’d like a talk with old Enos. I’m going to need all the help I can get. I’ll be along later.”
* * * *
The Churchill place lay across the creek south of Woodbine’s Circle W., and Woodbine crossed the creek and took the trail up to the old man’s house.
At the edge of the woods after he had crossed the creek he caught sight of a mounted figure spurring towards him, and although he was not sure of it, he was under the impression that he had seen a second horseman fade into the woods. The light was bad, but he had the impression that the man who disappeared so quickly was Hugh Ambler, a small rancher with a place a few miles up the creek on the same side as the Churchill spread.
He reined up as the approaching figure waved at him, and Amy Churchill rode up beside him.
“Howdy, neighbor,” she greeted him. “You sure have been keeping yourself scarce around these parts lately. I was tempted to steal one of your calves, just so you’d come over here looking for it. How goes?”
The girl’s voice was casual and bantering, and Woodbine turned it over in his mind, weighing her words. They were too casual. She sat her horse, young and straight as an Indian, and there was a black sheen to her hair and an ivory undertone to her transparent skin which no amount of sun could make rough. Her eyes were misty so that the light made shining crosses in them like those in a star sapphire, except that their pupils were black like the irises, and you could not see deeply into them. She was casual, but she was alert and on guard, and her banter was that of a person talking to give herself time to make up her mind, to form judgments under the cover of her words. Woodbine saw this and wondered about the man she had just left. And he, as she had done, said the usual things.
“Just thought I’d drop by and see your dad,” he said easily. “How is he, anyhow?”
The girl’s smile was queer. “Have you forgotten that you saw him in town yesterday? He’s about the same as he was then, thanks.”
She was mocking him, reading into his mind and letting him know that he was not fooling her. She was always that way, deep and shrewd, and saying things two or three moves ahead of where his mind was working. She was lovely, and to him she had always been a mixture of elusiveness and almost open invitation to explore the innermost recesses of her strange heart. He had often felt a strong longing for her, mixed with a distrust of her agile mind, and this had puzzled him. He had just about reached the conclusion that he was the kind of man who didn’t like girls who were very smart. And the way she was acting now, he knew that she had guessed his errand and was mocking him for trying to hide it from her.
He saw that though she was toying with his words, she was studying him even more carefully than when she first came up beside him. And he did not intend to let her worm his business out of him. She was too good at that sort of thing.
“I wanted to see him on business,” he said shortly.
“Yes, I know,” she answered sweetly. “He’s mighty popular right now. More business than he’s had in ten years.”
Woodbine arched his eyebrows and offered no comment, but his expression was a question. This girl liked to entangle people in their own words too well. Let her do the talking.
She waited for him to question her, and when he didn’t, she said with a trace of annoyance, “Yes, everybody’s wooing him now. Even Noble Fry. That’s what you wanted to know, wasn’t it?”
Woodbine had to smile a little. “All right, Amy, let’s cut out the fighting. You probably know all about it, anyway. Where’s Enos?”
Amy slapped the ends of her reins on her saddle thoughtfully. “All right, you big ox, I’ve practically thrown myself into your arms a dozen times, and you sat me down like I was still a child. You never did know that I had grown up. But now you want my friendship. Want to make a deal for it?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t got anything that would interest you.”
“Stop beating around the bush,” she said impatiently. “You have and you know it. All right, you saw me with Hugh Ambler a minute ago, and you know what Pop thinks of Hugh. He might misunderstand things, so, what’ll you take to keep your big mouth shut about seeing us together?”
“So?” Woodbine smiled. “You’re a big girl now. Well, the secret is yours. I won’t beat you over the head with it, so forget I saw it. Now, where’s your dad?”
“He was down on Magee Creek meadow all day, and was supposed to be home by now. Noble Fry came by a couple of hours ago and I told him where Pop was, and he rode out to meet him. They’ll all probably be in for supper. If you think you and Noble can keep from shooting it out across the table, then come on up and help us wreck a new leg of venison that’s in the oven.”
“Who was with Fry?”
“Two or three of his boys. I don’t remember. You won’t let them keep you from having your visit out, will you?”
She was mocking him again, knowing, as she must, that the trouble was brewing.
“Why should I?”
“Well,” she answered speculatively, “I thought maybe you were one of those who wouldn’t do anything to provoke trouble.”
“Did you think I would run from it?”
“You seemed to have been running from me when I tried to marry you, didn’t you? I thought you figured I was trouble.”
“I didn’t know you had tried to marry me!”
“Don’t tell me you’re that dumb, Jim,” the girl laughed, but there was a peculiar quality to her laugh, despite its banter. “Anyway, it’s your funeral. Let’s ride.”
* * * *
Enos Churchill was an old-timer in these parts, and his house was low and long and sturdy like he had been. Enos was old and stooped now. His hair was white and his clothes fitted him loosely, but he had that seasoned quality about him which matched the hewn oak beams in the ceiling of the big living-room.
Enos had taken his land many years before, and had fought to hold it and to build his acres and his walls about him, but now he was tired, and he had nothing more to interest him except the daughter born to him of a young wife long after he was fifty years old. He had never feared a living man, and he had had to kill more than one of them in his day, but he had never knowingly done an injustice to even his worst enemy.
When Woodbine came in after leaving Amy in the long hall he saw the old man sitting at his flat-topped desk in one corner of the living-room. And with him were Noble Fry and Moody Shay and another of Fry’s men whose name Woodbine did not know.
Churchill said, “Howdy, Jim. Take a seat.”
The old man seemed lost in thought, and his face was grave. His greeting was neither distant nor cordial enough to indicate to anybody in the room where his sympathy might lie, as he sat here in judgment on what he knew to be an appeal by two factions who were checking the roster of their friends. Churchill had seen his range wars, had even been in them, but he was a weary man now, and all he wanted was peace.
Woodbine’s tight face went to Fry and his eyes tried to read in Fry’s face whether Fry had got a favorable answer. He judged that he had not, but was not through trying to get one. He turned and looked at the burly Moody Shay, and the burly man licked a new-made cigarette and looked back at him with eyes that crinkled slightly with amusement, as though they had a secret between them.
Out of courtesy to
his host, Woodbine had removed his gun before coming into the house, and had hung it on the horn of his saddle. He noticed that Fry and his party had ignored such a gesture, and wore their weapons, and he saw also that Moody Shay was thinking of the same thing. This was a different set-up than the one in town when Moody had been caught without his weapon, and Moody was flashing that message to him through the faint knowing smile on his face.
Woodbine was caught flatfooted. He dropped into a rawhide chair and pulled out the makings.
Fry turned and looked him over speculatively, could not have failed to see that he was unarmed, and came to a sudden decision. He nodded stiffly without speaking, then turned to the old man, turning his back on Woodbine.
“Enos,” he said persuasively, “I’ve already told you the whole story. It just sums up into this; open range, or fences, which means no range at all. You’ve spent a lot of years carving out a home for yourself, and you’ve done the job without fences. Do you want to see this country that you helped make ruined, cut up into little fields of ploughed ground, no water for your stock, nor access to water, no place for your cattle to go when they’ve grazed off one place? That’s what fencing means, cattle without food or water, dead cattle with the buzzards getting fat on their carcasses. Is that what you’ve spent a lifetime working for? I can’t believe it. Enos, your neighbors know you. They know you’re as wise as you’re honest, and they respect your judgment. If you say no fences, then they’ll support you in your judgment, for they’ll know you’re right. If you permit this fencing, then you’ll see bloodshed, and in a sense some of that blood will be on your hands, for you could have prevented it by influencing your neighbors to do the right thing and keep the fences out. It’s a great responsibility, for all of us, Enos, but you know we’re right, and you’re a big enough man to take that responsibility. We need you there at the meeting to-night, Enos, to lend the weight of your judgment to the decision. Your voice raised for the right side will mean peace; if you keep silent, remember the bloodshed that might flow before this thing is over.”
Woodbine sat in his chair with his face bleak and his eyes on his cigarette. He had pictured Fry and Churchill in his mind and he was comparing them in that picture. Although the two men were of about the same height, Churchill’s age had taken some of the meat off his bones and had weighted his broad shoulders with a stoop, while Fry was still youngish and filled out and full of energy. But still Churchill, seated, seemed to tower above the other man. It was not physical, Woodbine saw, but a moral stature that made the difference. Fry had spoken, and he had urged the moral force of his cause, but because these were merely canny words used for a selfish motive, they sounded hollow in Woodbine’s ears, and the very silence of old Enos Churchill as he sat and weighed the appeal had a greater strength than all Fry’s arguments.
When Churchill answered Fry, his words were slow and carefully chosen, and had a finality in them which Fry could not fail to understand.
“I have thought of what you have said,” Churchill said. “In my day I have fought men who tried to fence public land. I own land, and I will not fence it. But there is one fact that we cannot avoid. If I wanted to fence my land, no man on earth could stop me, old as I am. Whether Woodbine is wise in fencing his land or not, it is not my business to say. But I do say this, he has a right to fence it if he wants to, and I will not lift a hand to stop him. And I will not take sides in your trouble. I see no other answer to your proposition.”
The old man turned and opened the drawer of his desk and started pushing papers around in the drawer, as though he were looking for something, and thus indicated that he had said his last word on the subject.
Noble Fry stood up, hooked his fingers in his belt and took a few nervous steps around his chair while he tried to get his impatience under control. He was wise enough to recognize the indomitable will of the older man, and while the refusal angered him, he carefully refrained from creating an open breach with Churchill. He was having to play a smarter game now than his former blustering one.
“All right, sir, if that’s your decision. I’m disappointed, of course, and I even go so far as to say that I do not believe it will help keep the peace when Woodbine starts his war. But I respect your right to your own judgment.”
He turned to Moody Shay. “All right, boys. I guess we’d better be getting on.”
Woodbine got to his feet, carefully extinguishing his cigarette and throwing it into the big fireplace.
“I guess, Enos, you’ve answered me as well as Fry, so I’ll be going, too.”
Churchill said, “Wait, Jim. I’d like to see you. I have some business with you.”
Moody Shay’s amused eyes fastened on Woodbine, and the cold smile spread around his thick lips. The cat wasn’t going to let the cornered rat escape him this time. He walked over and stood in front of Woodbine.
“I’ve got a little unfinished business with you, too, haven’t I, Woodbine?”
“Have you? About Pecan Creek?”
He saw a bleak veil quickly come and go across the big man’s eyes, and the smiling crinkles return.
“No. About you interfering in my personal affairs this morning. You see, I was having my word questioned, and you didn’t give me the chance to get satisfaction for that insult. I’ll have to get it now while the getting is good.”
His massive hand formed a fist and caught Woodbine across the jaw before Woodbine knew it was coming. Woodbine fell half-way across the room, landed against the fireplace and slipped to the floor before he could catch himself. He scrambled back to his feet and took three steps towards Shay.
The unnamed rider stuck his foot out and tripped him, and Woodbine fell sprawling face down on the floor at Shay’s feet. Shay hauled off and kicked him in the ribs while he was down, using all his great force, knocking the wind out of Woodbine. Woodbine struggled for his breath as he rolled over out of Shay’s reach and got to his feet again. And Shay was coming after him.
Woodbine had not completely recovered his breath, and when Shay reached him he grappled and bored his head into Shay’s chest, holding on until he could get his breathing under control again.
But Shay had no intention of letting him get set, and having him off balance, he was prepared to finish him off quickly. He tried to tear Woodbine loose from him in order to get a free swing, but Woodbine clung tightly until he got his lungs pumping. By this time Shay was pounding him in the back of the neck with sharp rabbit punches, trying to paralyze him.
Woodbine turned loose suddenly and stepped backward to give himself room to swing. And then the other rider yanked his gun from his holster, lifted it and hit him on the back of the head with it. Woodbine never saw the blow, but sank to the floor and lay there a long moment while he fought to recover his reeling senses.
The man was dancing in his excitement. “There he is, Moody, finish him.”
And Moody was coming in to do that when Churchill’s voice stopped him.
Old Enos Churchill had fished his big Beasly model Colt with the drop handle out of his desk and was pointing it at Moody Shay, its muzzle as big as a barrel.
“Stand back, young man,” he ordered. “The next man that lays a hand on him, I’ll blow a hole in him.”
Shay studied the gun in the old man’s hand, then studied the old man’s face and got his answer there. He backed away, with his hands clear of his own gun. The rider also got his eagerness under control in the face of the weapon in the old man’s hand.
Noble Fry, who had been standing back letting these men settle the matter between themselves, rolled a cigarette and waited for developments.
Churchill probably had never shown the dignity and fearless integrity in his make-up that he did then. Old as he was, his hand was steady on his gun, and though seated, he dominated his own room. He was probably the least stirred of any man there.
He did not speak to Moody Shay nor the non
descript rider, but to Noble Fry.
“Fry,” he said with a quiet firmness, “I invited you into my house, but these rowdies you brought with you are only suffered here on your account. You are responsible for their conduct, and it has been that of a couple of polecats. I overlooked the rudeness of the three of you in not taking off your guns when you came in, but I didn’t expect that even such trash as they are would use them while a guest in another man’s house. I hold you responsible for their acts, since they are your men, and I’m going to have to ask all three of you to get out and not come back. Good night!”
Fry was snapping his fingers, looking for an explanation which would salve the old man’s feelings. “But you don’t understand, Enos, Woodbine gave Shay cause—”
“I understand that it happened in my house. That’s enough. Good night.”
Fry was seething inside, as Churchill must have also observed, but even then, Fry did not let his emotions go, but made an effort to appease the old man.
“I’ll go, of course, Enos. And I’m sorry about all this. I’ll let Shay know how I feel about such an act.”
Churchill’s face was frigid, and Fry nodded to his men and they all went out. Moody stopped as he passed Woodbine, who had got to his feet, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.
“Looks like somebody’s always spoiling our little party, don’t it?” he smiled. “Maybe we’ll have better luck next time, huh?”
“Yeah,” Woodbine answered coldly. “Maybe up at Pecan Creek.”
Moody Shay’s eyes tightened a moment, and he licked his thick lips. Then he got the smile back.
“Sure. I kinda like that section. Always brings me luck.” Then he went out with the others. Woodbine was left alone with old Enos Churchill.
CHAPTER 4
The Little Man
The girl must have been hovering outside the living-room door during the fight, for now she came in, and seeing Woodbine’s bloody head, she rushed over and became concerned about his hurts.
“It’s nothing,” he assured her, but she insisted on going for water and sponging the scalp wound inflicted by the pistol barrel. The touch of her hands seemed to have something extra special, something personal, in it, as though she were trying to show him the tenderness in her which was reserved especially for him.
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