One Notch to Death

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘Unpleasant duty,’ he said. He was plainly embarrassed in front of the women. ‘Bein’ the law ain’t much fun at a time like this.’

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ Will asked.

  ‘I’ll give it you straight, Will,’ the sheriff said. ‘I have to take Mart in.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Murder.’ He lowered his eyes modestly at having to use such a word in front of ladies.

  ‘Murder?’ Will said. ‘That’s not the way I heard it. When two men brace you and you kill one of ’em, that ain’t murder in my book.’

  ‘Your book don’t come into this,’ Ransome said, ‘with respect, Will. Witnesses tell another story. Mart shot a man to death last night in cold blood and wounded another. He didn’t give ’em a chance.’

  ‘Witnesses?’ Will snorted. ‘What witnesses? Them Broken Spur rannies yonder?’

  ‘Broken Spur or no Broken Spur,’ the sheriff retorted, getting a little blood in his eye, ‘don’t make no difference. I have to take Mart in.’

  ‘He ain’t here,’ Will said.

  The sheriff locked slightly at a loss.

  ‘Where’d he go?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Which direction he take?’

  ‘It was dark. I didn’t see.’

  The sheriff looked at a greater loss.

  ‘I’ll have to search,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t like to do this, but this is murder and Mart can be a mighty dangerous man. You know that.’

  ‘Search all you want,’ Will said, ‘he ain’t here.’

  ‘All right, boys,’ the sheriff ordered. ‘Take a look around. Won’t inconvenience you more than necessary,’ he told Martha.

  Saddle-leather creaked as men stepped down from the saddle. Martha was mad and started to protest angrily, but Will gave her one of his steady looks from his calm brown eyes and she became still. The men went through both parts of the house and, of course, they found nothing. The sheriff bumbled around, looking like a man who had made a fool of himself. Will didn’t say much, except that if the men were hungry the Storms would happily offer them hospitality. Ransome thanked him and said they couldn’t put Mrs. Storm to that trouble. If it was all right with Will, he and his men would camp the night on Storm range and move on in the morning.

  They moved a little further south of the house and put their horses out on grass. When dark fell, their cook-fires made small circles of light along the edge of the creek. In the dawn, they rode out, scattering into the hills to the south and west, looking for sign.

  Will said to George and Pete Hasso, as they watched them depart: ‘Ole Mart sure is goin’ to have a whole passle of varmints pushin’ at his butt.’

  This morning, he saddled his blue roan gelding and rode out to do cow-chores with the boys. His mind stayed with Mart on the run through the hills.

  Chapter Six

  Ed Brack laughed.

  This was a rare event and he usually did so when he had won a hard deal or somebody was hurt. This time he laughed because somebody was hurt. And that somebody was a Storm.

  Brack was sitting in his office, drinking whiskey. He seemed to drink more whiskey as he got older, his sexual and physical powers grew less and his joints grew stiffer. Everybody ran around and obeyed him, but time heeded him not. Neither did the Storms. Brack was a big man and, in his opinion, the Storms were little men. Which meant that they should get out of his road.

  He wasn’t supposed to be in the Broken Spur headquarters at all. Unlike his usual self, he had come quietly into the country, while his men spread the word that he was down on his land in New Mexico.

  When he laughed, his son Riley, who was everything his father wasn’t and was nothing his father was, laughed too. Charlie Dwyer who ran Broken Spur for Brack laughed also. It suited Dwyer to laugh when Brack laughed, jump when Brack said jump and burn out a squatter when Brack gave the word. Dwyer was working for his own future and when he hated Brack’s guts the most, he kept his mouth shut and thought about that future. He was going out of here with a good herd of cows and money in the bank.

  It was he who had brought news of Mart’s downfall from Spring Creek and he had nearly killed a horse to be first with the news. Maybe Mart had killed Shaw and wounded Aintree who had been sicked onto him, but luck had turned in favor of Brack, as it had a habit of doing, and the three Broken Spur boys had been there to witness the shooting. They were good hands and believed in being loyal to the man who paid them their miserly wage. On top of that, Burt Ransome, the sheriff, was a Brack man. And who wasn’t, in this neck of the woods, except the Storms and a handful of cow-thieves?

  Charlie Dwyer was a tall handsome man with a ready smile and cold eyes. God’s gift to women. In his own opinion. Which made it all the harder to accept the fact that Kate Storm, the most desirable of women, looked at him as if he were something a coyote wouldn’t chew on.

  Brack was aware of this situation and it amused him. Other men’s anguish always did. Likewise, he knew that his son, Riley, was struck on the sassy little wench too. Time the kid found himself a woman, any road. If he was anything at all like his old man, he surely did. But he wasn’t. He took after his mother who had been, in Brack’s opinion a cold whining bitch if ever there was one. Happily, she had deserted him for a penniless adventurer ten years back.

  Riley, had he been given half a chance, might have turned himself into something worthwhile. But he didn’t have much chance tied to his old man’s coat tails. He was a slimly made golden lad with gentle eyes that looked a mite wistfully out onto a cruel and rough world. He did his best to be the man his father expected him to be. He rode tough horses, toted a couple of guns he wasn’t too good with and even tried chewing tobacco. But it didn’t seem to do the trick somehow. While Dwyer feared and despised the father, he just despised the son.

  Brack’s laugh turned to a throaty chuckle.

  ‘Like throwing a chicken to the wolves—Ransome goin’ after a man like Mart Storm,’ he said.

  ‘There’s ten men after Storm, Mr. Brack,’ Dwyer reminded him.

  Brack looked up at him from under thick eyebrows.

  ‘All together they’re not worth Mart Storm,’ he said. He didn’t believe in underestimating an enemy.

  ‘The other two’ll settle Storm’s hash,’ Dwyer said.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder about that too,’ Brack told him. ‘By God, Pat Shaw wasn’t any slouch. You ever see a man who could handle a belt-gun like Shaw did that rifle of his? And the way you told it, Storm was caught in a crossfire. That’s nerve. Dwyer, there’s no substitute for nerve.’

  He wanted Mart Storm dead. Then he’d cut down that black trash, Joe Widbee. After that the Storms would be at his mercy. But his mind settled on the quiet one of the family and he wondered if he had gotten his priorities right. It had been Will Storm who had forced him to back down last year. It had been Will Storm who had made him admit defeat. He pondered on the problem while the other two watched him, waiting on his word. No, he was right. Get rid of the two obviously dangerous

  men and then settle Will Storm.

  ‘All right, Dwyer,’ he said finally. ‘Go do some work.’

  Dwyer turned and went out.

  Riley Brack said: ‘Dad, I think it’s time we had a talk.’ He was nervous and it showed. He was bracing himself to talk to his father.

  The elder Brack turned his head and looked at his son skeptically.

  ‘And what,’ he said, ‘do you want to talk about, son?’ Riley felt the cold irony in his voice.

  ‘Heck, dad,’ he said, ‘I’m your heir. I’m not a kid any more. Isn’t it time I had some responsibility?’

  Ed Brack stared at him.

  ‘And what makes you think you can take responsibility?’ he demanded.

  The boy’s voice was sharp. ‘We shan’t know that till I have some, shall we?’

  Brack gave a short hoarse bark that could have been a laugh of derision.

  ‘What do
you suggest?’ he asked.

  The boy flushed. He always grew angry and hopelessly confused when his father patronized him. He fought to keep calm, but he failed. He failed at everything in his father’s eyes.

  ‘Let me stay her and run Broken Spur.’ Now it was out. He held his breath as he waited. He was surprised that his father did not shout at him in his usual burst of rage.

  Ed Brack asked quietly: ‘And what does Dwyer feel if I put you over him? Running men isn’t just a matter of giving orders, you know. I have to consider Dwyer. He’s useful to me and I need him here.’

  ‘He doesn’t object to you when you’re here.’

  ‘I pay his wages. I can make him or break him.’

  ‘I could pay his wages. I could make him or break him.’

  Father and son glared at each other.

  Ed Brack said, ‘You want to make your way in the world, boy. You go out and do it. You take a horse and you go ride and make your way.’

  The boy said: ‘I just might do it.’

  ‘You might. But I’m damned sure you won’t.’

  The boy clenched his teeth.

  ‘To hell with you!’ he shouted.

  The father looked surprised.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘To hell with you. I’m sick to the back teeth of you and your bullying ways. I’m choked on your goddamned money, your power and your plain damned foolishness.’

  Ed Brack was on his feet. He’d seen rebellion in his son’s eyes before, but he had never heard words like this from him before.

  The father reached out for his quirt lying on the desk in front of him, but before he could strike out at his son, the boy strode from the room. Ed Brack heard him stamp off along the stoop. He went to the door and watched Riley cross the yard to the corral. He expected him to waver, to turn back. He couldn’t believe the kid had the guts to defy him. His rage simmered down and he watched with something like wonderment as the boy roped his own horse, saddled it and mounted. Now the father called out and moved. He walked across the yard to his son.

  ‘You really mean it?’ he demanded.

  ‘I mean it.’

  The boy’s eyes were level. His anger too had calmed. Only determination showed there now.

  Ed Brack put a hand in a pocket and brought out a roll of notes.

  ‘The first time I walked out on my old man,’ he said, ‘he gave me fifty dollars to give me a start. I can do no less for my son, here take it.’

  The boy looked at the money offered him. He told his father exactly where he could place it. Before Ed could react to the insult, the boy had put spurs to his horse and was riding out. The father stood there so enraged that he couldn’t speak. He watched his son ride out of sight, then turned on his heel to go back into the house. The damned young fool would come running back. He couldn’t survive on his own for one day. Not one single day.

  He saw Dwyer standing outside the bunkhouse. He could swear that he saw a fleeting smile on the foreman’s face.

  ‘Don’t you have any goddam work to do?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Brack,’ said Dwyer.

  Brack stormed into his office, poured himself a drink and told himself that he was the most misunderstood man on earth. Tomorrow the kid would come crawling back.

  But what if he didn’t?

  If he didn’t—to hell with him. Ed Brack didn’t need a living soul. It occurred to him, as he poured the whiskey down his throat, that he didn’t have a living soul, except the ones he hired. But, he consoled himself, money could hire ‘most everything.

  At that moment, the two men who had come to Lazy S asking after Mart Storm were headed west. They weren’t slouches at tracking and they followed Mart’s trail without too much difficulty. That worried the older man a little, for he couldn’t believe that a man like the man they hunted would leave so plain a trail without purpose. He wondered, not without some discomfort, if Mart had circled ahead and was now waiting at the side of the trail to blast one of them out of the saddle.

  But nothing of the sort happened.

  Something far less likely did.

  They rode clear through the day until they came to a wild and idyllic spot deep in the hills. They found here grass, timber and water and night was fast coming down. Both knew that they would not come up with the man ahead that day. So they halted, put their horses out on grass and, after a brief meal, retired to their blankets. They did debate shortly if they should keep watch, but agreed that more would be gained by their both enjoying a good night’s sleep.

  They never made a bigger mistake in their lives. They knew of the mistake when dawn arrived.

  The young man’s name was Mort Cromby. He hated camp chores. He liked coffee when he woke. So, as soon as he rose from his blankets, he said, maybe rashly: ‘Dill, you build the fire for coffee, I’ll go check on the horses.’

  Dillon Wells, the older man, swore at him for a sassy kid, and sleepily threw off his blankets. He had the fire going by the time the boy came running back, yelling: ‘The horses’re gone.’

  The big man stood up and looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘You sure you looked good?’ he demanded.

  The kid was mad.

  ‘You think I don’t know when horses’re gone. They was lifted?’ he almost screamed.

  ‘Lifted?’

  Dillon Wells followed him to the open stretch of grass where they had left the horses hobbled. No horses. He stared around him.

  ‘You followed their tracks?’

  ‘They been lifted.’

  ‘Indians? We didn’t hear nothin’.’

  ‘Sure,’ the boy snarled, ‘Indians wearin’ boots.’ He pointed to the soft soil. Wells saw the unmistakable sign of a bootheel.

  ‘Well, I’ll be goddamned,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’ the kid said. ‘What the hell do we do now?’

  ‘You’re allus askin’ me that, son?’ the other said. ‘You think I know the answer to everythin’?’

  They walked back to the camp and started morosely to drink their coffee. The kid filled their cups and placed the pot back on the stones of the fire.

  They nearly jumped out of their skin when the hills seemed filled with the flat slam of a rifle shot. The coffee pot took off.

  Both men scrambled back hastily from the fire. The boy drew his revolver, drove himself to his feet and, doubled up, ran for the nearest rocks. Wells rolled, stretched for his rifle and rolled to the right, levering and firing with a speed of reaction that did him credit.

  Whoever it was above them was apparently in no great hurry. He fired and changed his position in a leisurely fashion that was more than slightly unnerving. The two men moved this way and that and whatever they might do the marksman had sight of them. However much they hugged cover, his lead came alarmingly close. The third shot whisked Mort Cromby’s hat from his head. It was all quite demoralizing. It was a full ten minutes before the high rifle grew silent and they pulled themselves together enough to start stalking the rocks in which he was hidden. They did so with murder in their hearts.

  When they reached the area in which he had moved, however, they found him gone. They searched through the rocks, their guns held ready, but they found nothing but the marks of his boot heels and, sometime later, where he had tied his horse, mounted and ridden away.

  Disgusted, they returned to their camp. Their pride was hurt. They were men who could look out for themselves and they had been treated as the merest greenhorns.

  It took them the rest of the day to pick up the sign left by their horses and to follow them. They found them in the dusk, contentedly grazing far to the south. Their hobbles were off and they had trouble catching them. When they did finally mount them, bareback, they headed north back to camp. But in the darkness, they couldn’t find the spot and were forced to stop for the night without shelter and without even blankets to keep them warm against the chill upland air. The following morning, they found their camp and were t
hen torn between hunting down the man who had perpetrated the crime against them and going on after Mart Storm.

  They reckoned that Mart was a pretty smart operator and that, now they had lost so much time there was little hope of ‘ coming up with him. So they decided to find the man who had lifted their horses and to decorate his hide with several well-placed leaden slugs. Either that or they would stretch his neck so that he was a few inches taller than the Almighty intended him to be.

  However, their luck seemed to have run clean out. Though they picked up his trail from the rocks, they lost it a couple of miles west where he had taken to water. They hunted up and down stream, but they could find no sign. The man, they had to admit, had vanished like a ghost into the hills.

  During this time, their relationship had suffered somewhat. Young Mort Cromby’s respect for the older man had diminished noticeably. Dillon Wells now turned his mind to their original quarry. If they couldn’t vent their spleen on one man, they would do so on another. And they were being paid handsomely to kill Mart.

  They picked up his trail again and continued west with, as the saying goes, murder in their hearts.

  Chapter Seven

  Mart Storm was alerted by the clatter of hoofs on rock. He was working his way west slowly over the shoulder of the hills, riding Old Stripes and leading Darky. The time was the late afternoon, but the sun was still strong enough even at that altitude to bring the sweat out on a man’s back.

  The sound of hoofs, coming from one horse, was enough to alert him, the sound of the shrill scream that followed close on it was enough to alarm him. For it was a woman who had screamed.

  He urged his horses forward over the rounded shoulder, heading for the sound. The animals picked up their feet and ran. Within a few minutes, he came out above a long slightly sloping bench of grassland. Beyond he could see the tangled gully of a long valley. He slowed his horses and looked around. The scream came again, sharp with terror.

  Movement jerked his eyes to the right.

  The horse was rearing. The red of the rider’s hair caught his attention for a brief moment. Then it settled on the man clinging to the horse’s bridle, torn off his feet as the animal reared up, the man’s weight dragging the horse back onto all fours again.