The Sixth Western Novel

by Jackson Gregory

  Woodbine agreed with this decision. “You boys just stick around the place to see that they don’t burn the house and barn down,” he advised. “I’m going to keep pushing now until I bring it to a head. I’ve stirred ’em up enough so it shouldn’t take long. Doc Ellis showed up?”

  “That might be him now,” Jess returned, pointing to a slowly moving speck of dust up the road. “Bob and them brought Moody’s body, and told me about the fight up at the gap. I told ’em to dump it on the front porch. The calves are throwed in valley meadow. Merle and them went on to town, and Bob went on home.”

  By the time Woodbine was washed up, Doc Ellis had arrived. The doctor was a large man having a heavy face etched with the lines of his neighbors’ troubles. He was quiet and efficient and didn’t have much to say, for it was his duty to treat the halt and the lame without regard to their morals and without passing judgment upon them. Woodbine did not discuss the affair with him, for which the doctor was grateful.

  “Now what was it you wanted me to do?” Doc asked. “Merle said something about an autopsy.”

  “Moody was shot twice,” Woodbine said. “If both bullets are still in him, I’d like to have them. So far as I know, Moody has no family to object to an autopsy.”

  Doc laid down his bag and got his black alpaca coat off. “We’ll have to get him laid out on a table of some kind. Out in the shade of that sycamore tree would be good.”

  They made a pine table under the tree by placing three boards across saw horses, and the doctor set about his autopsy while the other men went out and dug a grave across the road on Fry’s property. By the time they were through, Doctor Ellis had washed his hands and rolled down his sleeves, and was back at the front porch.

  “Here are your bullets,” he said. “The steel jacket rifle bullet went through his stomach and lodged against the backbone. The lead slug went in the bone under the eye and lodged in the skull. It’s mashed out of shape, of course, but it’s a .45, I’m certain.”

  Woodbine hefted the two bullets in his hand, then dropped them into his pocket. “About that rifle bullet first. The way the wound was, could it have killed Moody instantly?”

  “Not a chance. It went through the intestines and liver, but it didn’t strike his heart. He would have died either from internal bleeding in a few hours, or from peritonitis after a few days. But it was the bullet in the head that killed him.”

  Woodbine stored this information in his mind and said, “Thanks, Doc. We’ll bury him after dinner. Come on and eat with us before you start back.”

  * * * *

  At about noon Noble Fry rode into his own place in a black humor. There were thirty gun-hands sitting in the shade of the bunkhouse, playing cards, talking and idling, and this did not improve his temper. He strode up to them and looked them over.

  “I thought I told you last night that I wanted you to start today and pick up every Woodbine animal you found eating my grass. I’m going to pen them up and hold them for damages to my range in case he starts his fencing. What are you sitting around here for?”

  A tall hairpin of a man by the name of Red Dog was usually the spokesman for the bunch, and now he grinned insolently back at Fry.

  “Well, I reckon you forgot our deal. Our wages was payable weekly in advance, and today is payday. Then, too, these new boys you hired, they kinda wanted to get their hands on their pay before they started to work. So, if you want to pay off, we’ll take the money and get to work.”

  The man watched the effect of his ultimatum on Fry, and he saw Fry’s face go blank for a moment.

  “Don’t worry about your pay,” Fry assured him. I don’t happen to have the money in the house at present, but I’ll get it the first time I go to town. In the meantime, get to work.”

  “The boys don’t like the idea of working without their pay in their pockets. You know how it is; a man might take a notion to travel sudden-like, and he’d want his money. Or something might happen to you, and where’d he get his pay? Or maybe you might run short of money and couldn’t pay us, and where’d we be?”

  “What do you mean by that hint?” Fry demanded. “Ain’t my word good?”

  “Money’s better.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “When?”

  “The first time I go to town, I told you. What’s the matter, are you afraid I won’t get it?”

  Red Dog looked at Fry with a searching glance. “Some of the boys thought maybe you’d already got the money—and had maybe lost it. Maybe somebody had come into your house and stole it or something. In that case, there’d be a question whether or not you’d be able to get any more to pay us with. Little things like that worry people like us.”

  Fry searched Red Dog’s face and saw nothing but the cynical smile. “What the hell do you know about me losing money?” he demanded.

  “Oh, nothing,” Red Dog shrugged. “I just happened to be in the house looking for you early this morning, and I saw your safe open and some blood on the floor. Little things like that sometimes add up to big things, you know.”

  Fry tried not to reveal his worry to Red Dog, but the man’s eyes were on him, and Fry saw that the man knew he had hit upon the truth.

  “Well,” Fry said, forcing a smile, “I was knocked over the head last night and robbed, but I know who did it, and I’ll have the money back in a few days. You boys stick around.”

  Red Dog gave him a negative shake of the head while still holding his perpetual grin.

  “No can do! The boys is sensitive to little things like that. They’d feel right put out if you was to ask ’em to do it.”

  Noble Fry weighed the situation and the result brought grave worry to him. Things had been piling up fast in the last few hours, and there could be an explosion at any time. Not that Woodbine had anything definite on him, but he, Fry, had the strong feeling that Woodbine was laying a fire under him and that it might burst into flame at any minute. There were too many unknown quantities here, and there was too much going on that he didn’t know anything about. He needed these men.

  “There’s only one thing I can do,” he explained. “I can ride to town and cash a check and pay you. You want to work until I get back?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Red Dog answered. “We’ll all ride in with you, then when you pay us we can take the rest of the day off and have a few drinks to celebrate our friends joining up with us.” He turned to the crowd. “How about it, boys? Take your bedrolls, and if he don’t pay us we can keep going. There’s gonna be a dance over at Kiowa tonight, I hear.”

  That broke up the poker game, and the boys got to their feet and went into the bunkhouse to throw their rolls together. Fry’s mouth went hard, knowing that he did not have enough money in the bank at Kiowa to cover the check he would have to ask Merle Roberson to cash for him. But that problem would have to wait.

  The boys were pushing him into a corner, and he had the feeling he was going to need them.

  They all rode to town and reached it in the middle of the afternoon. Fry rode on to Roberson’s while the boys stopped off at the Parisian to wait for him.

  Roberson, sitting in his office in the back of the store, heard Fry’s story without comment.

  “That two thousand you cashed for me recently, I had to send that away to cover some other debts. I need another thousand now, if you’ll cash a check for me. You know how wages run up.”

  Roberson twiddled a pencil. “I just can’t do it, Fry. I haven’t got the cash to spare, and I can’t get over to the bank at Kiowa for several days yet. You’d better just ask your boys to wait.”

  “They want their money.”

  “I understand. But I just can’t cash your check this time,” Roberson answered with a finality that Fry couldn’t miss.

  Fry got up and went out of the store trying to piece together the pattern of things that this sudden turn in even
ts had tom apart for him. He sensed that things weren’t going right and he sensed further that there was some kind of a showdown fast approaching. He walked down the street, went into a small saloon and had several drinks while he searched his fertile mind for a move to counter this bad break.

  As he reviewed matters, a way suddenly came to him. He threw a silver dollar on the bar and walked down to Race Greer’s stable.

  “Race,” he said, “I don’t need those gun-hands any longer. They’re waiting down at the Parisian for me to pay them for next week’s work. Do me a favor, will you, and go down and tell them that the whole deal is off, and that they might as well drift.”

  “Off?” Old Race repeated, looking at him sharply. “You and Woodbine make up?”

  “Not a bit of it. But I can handle him without putting out the money for those two-bit gun-hands. Go tell ’em.

  “You sure you don’t need ’em?” Race asked. “I was going to ride out after a while and have a talk with you. You got any idea what’s going on around here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Race said, “Come on back here,” and led the way to a feed room at the rear of the stable, where he went in and closed the door behind them. Seated on two full feed bags, the men faced each other.

  “You always been a friend of mine, and a free man with a dollar,” Race began. “This information might be worth something to you. You saw me with Merle and Woodbine and them others this morning. You know what they’re up to?”

  “Looking for Moody. So was I, and I found him first and killed him. Caught him running stolen cattle over the mountain.”

  Race shook his head wisely. “That’s just part of it. You and Woodbine is at each other’s necks, and Bob Burnham is in with Woodbine, of course. You know they got a case against you?”

  “A case of what?” Fry asked sharply.

  “Murder! I didn’t hear all they said, them having their heads together. They found money in Moody’s pockets that Merle remembered he’d given you. They know you was covering up something in not mentioning that money, and they figure it was money you paid Moody for killing Ab Sterling. Also, they got it doped out that you didn’t have a battle with Moody there on the mountain, but that you murdered him. Two bullets, of different calibre, and the shots was fired a long time apart. The first bullet wouldn’t have killed Moody, but would have wounded him and knocked him down. So you must have fired the second one to shut his mouth when you heard the posse coming. You had both guns, Fry. Moody didn’t have one when we got there. They call that murder, and they’re going to make a case against you with it. Murder, Fry! Woodbine plans to put your neck in a noose.”

  “And what are they going to use for evidence? The sound of those shots?”

  “Them two bullets in Shay’s body. Merle sent Doc Ellis out to Woodbine’s to cut them out of Moody.”

  “And Woodbine is going to hold those bullets and hang me with them, is he?”

  “Yep.”

  Fry got to his feet. “I won’t forget that, Race. Just as soon as I get things straightened out around here I’ll show you how much I appreciate it. So he’s going to hang me with those bullets, is he?”

  “He can danged near do it,” Race said. “Them two bullets, and the whole posse hearing how far apart them shots were, and the money and everything. They don’t think you told a straight story.”

  Fry turned and went out the door. “Thanks, Race. I’ll sure fix you up for that. Just as soon as I attend to a few other matters. Go on down to the Parisian and break the news to those gunmen like I asked you, will you? I’ve got an errand to do.”

  He started out, paused uncertainly, then turned back and asked, “By the way, they didn’t stumble over anything connected with Hugh Ambler, did they?”

  “It was Ambler’s horse Moody was riding.”

  “Ambler could give them an answer to that.”

  “And Woodbine back-trailed the cattle towards the creek crossing at Ambler’s.”

  “Then the cattle had been hid on Ambler’s place?”

  “Sure,” Race grinned. “You was kind of nervous this morning. Your story about finding the stuff at Moody’s didn’t check with Woodbine. He smelled it, and got busy looking for things to tear it apart. You’d better figure some way to cover yourself.”

  “Yeah,” Fry said absently. “I think I’ve got a way. I’ll be seeing you.”

  Fry speeded up his steps to his horse, mounted, and rode out of town rapidly.

  CHAPTER 12

  Two of a Kind

  The afternoon had begun to get cool when Noble Fry rode into Hugh Ambler’s clearing. Ambler had seen him from where he was chopping firewood, buckled on the pistol he had laid on a stump, and came forward to meet him, his face deliberately set into a blank expression.

  Fry said, “Wanted to have another little talk with you, Ambler. Thought maybe we could still get together.”

  He made an effort to speak agreeably, but there was a false ring to his voice, for he did not like nor trust Ambler. He had seen too many of his own characteristics in Ambler to permit of anything but suspicion of him, and it was only the pressure of the growing danger which threatened him that brought him here.

  Ambler pointed briefly to a stump, and then sat down on a log facing him and began rolling a cigarette and lighting it, making it apparent by his silence that it was up to Fry to do the talking. Fry saw this maneuver and it angered him, but he held his rage under a tight rein.

  “We should have managed to get together before,” Fry said with an effort at being persuasive. “We’ve almost got to do it now. For our own profit—and our protection.”

  “Protection?” Ambler arched his eyebrows.

  “Yes. You need it, same as me. I’m doing you a favor telling you this, but here it is. Woodbine has got the deadwood on you. You’ve been sleepering stock around here ever since you’ve been here, and now Woodbine has got you over a barrel. He’s backtracked the stuff here, he’s got your horse and the stock on his place, with the brands all vented to the D-in-a-C brand you use at Deerlick—

  “He knows everything about you, Ambler, the same as I do,” Fry lied. “About your being too handy with your gun down on the Brazos River five years ago, and about a whole herd that disappeared on the St. Joe trail a year before that.”

  “Now, listen,” Ambler snapped. “Moody Shay couldn’t have told him those things, because he didn’t know them.”

  “Who said Moody Shay told him? A dead man can’t talk, and you owe me for seeing to that.”

  “Oh, Moody’s dead, is he? Woodbine didn’t mention that.”

  “Didn’t he? Ambler, Woodbine hasn’t told half he knows about you. He’s got a rope around your neck—unless you get busy in a hurry.”

  “About this Texas business,” Ambler asked. “How’d you and him find that out?”

  “I suppose he found it out like I did. I made a point of back-tracking you.”

  “You’ve got a hell of a lot of interest in my affairs. Why?”

  “I spotted you a long time ago, and I like to know who I’m dealing with. Maybe Woodbine feels the same, but for a different purpose. Ambler, you can save your own neck, and I’m willing to help you, in exchange for your helping me. You know this fence trouble. Well, if you were to protect yourself by seeing that Woodbine wasn’t around to hang you, it would, of course, solve my problem, too. In short, if Woodbine wasn’t around, we would both have our problems solved. I’m offering to help you.”

  Ambler sat and reviewed Noble Fry’s proposition, seeing clearly some of the things that lay behind it, and suspecting others. He recognized that Fry had been holding back this trump card for a time when he needed it desperately, and therefore he must be in a pretty tight corner. Fry had come and walked into his, Ambler’s, web, and Ambler had him where he wanted him.

  “You want everything on t
he other side of the creek,” Ambler said. “You planned to marry the Sterling girl and kill Woodbine, and you would have wanted to marry the girl before you killed Woodbine because the girl might not have married you if you had blood on your hands. But Woodbine has found out that you hired Shay to kill the girl’s father, and she might know it by now, too. So you’ve got to get Woodbine out of the way before he hangs you, and so you want me to do the killing for you, to keep your hands clean before the girl. That’s what you’re trying to say, Fry. Isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean, I had Sterling killed?”

  “Stop it,” Ambler snapped. “I get around. You’re afraid to face Woodbine with a gun, and you want me to kill him. Well, what’s your offer?”

  Noble Fry saw that this man’s mind was almost a match for his own, and he hated him and feared him a little. But he was thinking that after he had got Ambler to pull the trigger on Woodbine, he, Fry, could kill Ambler as a cattle rustler, and he would have his problem solved. Woodbine’s blood would not be on his hands, and Virginia Sterling could still be persuaded to marry him. That opened up the possibility of a lot of additional land, counting hers, Woodbine’s and Ambler’s.

  “Now you’re talking sense,” he said to Ambler. “What do you want out of the deal?”

  “It would be kind of nice if you and me, who understand each other, were neighbors, wouldn’t it? You having all of one side of the creek and me the other.”

  Noble Fry looked at him with a sly grin. “Amy Churchill, eh?”

  “She’s a fool. I wouldn’t want to be bothered with her.”

  “I see,” Fry said. “Well, the old man’s old, and hasn’t got much time left, anyway. I suppose Churchill doesn’t like you any more than Sterling liked me. That’s unhealthy, as Ab learned. All right, Ambler. I’ll help you. As soon as you’re ready after we get rid of Woodbine.”

  Ambler said, “I knew we could get together.”

  He knew that Fry had no intention of later helping him kill Churchill, because Fry would have to close Ambler’s mouth as well as Woodbine’s. Woodbine had to go, Ambler knew, not on Fry’s account, but for Ambler’s own safety. And then Ambler could play the same game Fry intended, and he could play it better. But first, having Fry along when he faced Woodbine would be some help.