Land Grab: Jim Hatfield takes a hand in a range war! (Prologue Western)

by Jackson cole

  The drink juggler vigorously polished the shining bar with a towel.

  “Oh, Haynes gets along with the spread owners, all right,” he replied. “Flint’s the one who has trouble with ‘em. Haynes keeps his men in camps on his holdin’s. They’re a salty lot and they raise hell every now and then and shove chunks under the corners, but they don’t interfere with the cow business. Haynes buys beef critters from the spread owners, and feed for his horses and mules at the camps. Flint’s different. First off, he bought up this end of the valley, fenced in the land and brought in nesters. They raise truck and beef for him and he don’t have no dealin’s with the ranchers further down the valley. The spread owners always looked on this end of the valley as open range — neglected to get title to it — and they’re sort of sore because Flint got the jump on ‘em and moved in.”

  “Been trouble between ‘em?” Hatfield asked casually.

  The barkeep glanced suspiciously around before replying. He looked at Hatfield and hesitated.

  “How’d you get me to talkin’ about all this?” he demanded querulously. “Feller, there’s somethin’ about you that sort of loosens up a jigger’s tongue like too many shots of redeye. Oh, well, seein’ as you’ve got me gabbin’, I might as well keep on. Yeah, there’s been trouble ‘tween them farmers and the cattlemen. The spreads up in the valley have been missin’ beefs. They didn’t miss any till them nesters showed up.”

  Hatfield finished his drink and shoved the empty glass across the bar.

  “How would wideloopers get cows out of the valley?” he asked. “Those cliffs look mighty steep to me.”

  The barkeep shrugged as he refilled the glass.

  “There’s ways up the cliffs, for them what knows ‘em,” he replied. “Them cliffs are full of caves and tunnels, and there’s slides and washes hid by brush and weeds, and some side canyons, too. A whole herd can be shoved out of sight mighty fast. You’d have to comb out all them brakes before you found out where they’d gone, and by that time the chances are they’d be plumb on their way somewhere. It ain’t over far to the New Mexico line from here, and not too far to mañana land for a slick rustlin’ outfit to make it to the River.”

  “Any proof the new settlers are doing widelooping?”

  “Nope, not any of the kind what would stand up in court,” the barkeep admitted; “but it’s almighty funny that it started after they got here. Don’t figure there’d been any cow stealin’ to amount to anything in this section for years. Then all of a sudden it busts loose. Looks funny. Them fellers and the cowhands have had a ruckus or two here in town, and right after that some barns and haystacks was burnt, and a couple of water holes poisoned.”

  “The settlers been making any complaints?”

  The barkeep shrugged.

  “Oh, yeah, they claim they’ve had wire cut, and beefs stole from their pastures, and fires set, but that’s what you expect ‘em to say, ain’t it? That’s the way to cover up — blame the other feller.”

  “You seem to sort of side with the cattlemen,” Hatfield commented.

  “Well, they was here first, and I’ve knowed ‘em longer,” was the equivocal reply. “I always got along with ‘em pretty well. They’re easier to handle than them damn loggers, who are always kickin’ up a ruckus of some kind or other. Well, be seein’ you, feller. The Boss is about due to drop in and I don’t want him to ketch me loafin’.”

  Hatfield finished his drink, found a vacant table and enjoyed a leisurely meal which he consumed with the appreciation of a man who remembers what it is to find good food scarce at times. After the waiter had cleared the table he sat smoking thoughtfully.

  Night had fallen and the saloon was filling up. The orchestra had taken their places and were scraping away industriously. A number of short-skirted dance-hall girls had put in an appearance and the sprightly click of high heels mingled with the more solid thump of cowboy and logger boots in keeping time to the music. Two more roulette wheels were whirling, the little balls jumping from slot to slot with a cheerful clatter. A faro bank had got underway, and a dice game was booming on a green cloth-covered table in a far corner.

  A bulky individual wearing a ponderous watch chain in which there was much fine gold, had planted himself at the far end of the bar, near the cash drawer, and stood stroking a pair of fiery, red moustaches that reached almost to a line with his ears, his twinkling little gray eyes alert to all that was going on. Two lookouts, sawed-off shotguns across their knees, had perched on high stools near the swinging doors. Cards slithered silkily in the hands of waxen-faced dealers. Two additional bartenders were abetting the efforts of the talkative drink juggler. The clink of bottle neck on glass rim mingled with the musical clink of gold pieces dropped on the “mahogany.”

  “Looks like a busy night,” the Ranger told himself. He looked up as a man with his hat drawn low over his eyes entered and glanced sharply around the room, as if in search of a familiar face. His gaze met Hatfield’s eyes, held for an instant, then slid away with a sudden furtiveness. A moment later he hurried across the room to pause at the table which accommodated Clyde Cranley and the lumberman, Nelson Haynes. He spoke to Cranley in low tones, touching his shoulder with an explaining forefinger as he did so. Cranley swore angrily, his voice rumbling through the noise and bustle, but Hatfield was unable to catch his reply to the newcomer.

  Haynes said something that was inaudible to the Ranger. Then both men rose to their feet and hurried out in company with the man who had spoken to them.

  “Now what’s up?” Hatfield wondered. “That feller looked like a cowhand, and I’ve a notion he brought some kind of bad news. Chances are he’s one of Cranley’s riders. Sure set Cranley off, whatever it was. He looked mad as a steer with a cactus spine under his tail when he left. Well, wonder if Doc’s got back to town yet? Looks like he’d ought to by now. Reckon I’ll drop around to his diggin’s and see.”

  He rolled and smoked another cigarette first, however, contemplating with interest the colorful scene the Anytime afforded. Then he rose to his feet and strode out leisurely. More than one pair of eyes followed his progress across the room, struck by the rhythmical perfection of his movement.

  “Who’s that feller, Andy?” the moustached proprietor demanded of his head bartender as Hatfield vanished through the swinging doors. “Looks like Buckskin Frank Leslie, Wyatt Earp and John Ringo all rolled into one.”

  “Darned if I know, Sunset,” the barkeep replied. “I started talkin’ to him when he bellied up to the bar, figurin’ to sort of draw him out, but after he left and planted himself at a table, it come to me all of a sudden that I’d been doin’ all the talkin’ and he hadn’t said nothin’. Didn’t know any more’n when I started. Did you see the eyes on him? Never saw such eyes! Go right through you like a grease bullet. Sure wouldn’t want to have them eyes lookin’ at me across gunsights.”

  “Packed two guns, I noticed,” commented Sunset Bowles, the owner of the Anytime, “and they was slung like they meant business. We been gettin’ some prime characters in here of late, but that one looked like the top skimmin’ of the lot. Funny, I got a feelin’ I’ve seen him someplace before, or heard somebody of his gen’ral build and appearance talked about. Can’t recollect where, but I got the feeling plumb for certain that it was tied up with some almighty hell raisin’ of some kind or other. Keep an eye on him if he drops in here again. We been havin’ a mighty big take of late, and payday is just around the corner.”

  The bartender nodded understandingly and hurried off to supply the wants of impatient customers.

  Hatfield walked in a leisurely fashion to the side street where Doc McChesney’s office was situated. He passed a couple of more saloons on the way and noted that each appeared to be doing a good business. There was evidently plenty of loose money in the town.

  He was surprised upon approaching the doctor’s office to find its windows dark.

  “Looks like Doc’s got his work cut out for him with that jigger,”
he mused. “Figured he’d be back by now.”

  He was on the far side of the street as he drew near the office and diagonalled across toward it. He was nearly opposite the door when he noted, in a vagrant beam of light from a lantern hung on a nearby pole, that the front door was slightly ajar.

  “That’s funny,” he muttered. “I’d have sworn Doc shut the door when he went out. Maybe he’s come back and gone to bed.”

  This seemed out of order, though, and Hatfield’s black brows drew together as he neared the stoop. For some reason he would have been unable to clearly define, he hesitated at the lowest step.

  In men who ride much alone with constant danger as a stirrup companion, there develops a subtle sixth sense that warns of menace where none is apparently present. This sense was highly developed in the Lone Wolf. And now this silent monitor set up a disturbing clamor in his brain. Hatfield had learned through experience not to disregard this wordless warning when it came. He paused a moment, then slowly mounted the steps, taking the greatest care not to make the slightest sound. In the shadow of the building wall, he paused again, peering at the suddenly sinister narrow opening between door and jamb. As he strained his ears to listen, there came from the dark interior of the office a faint scraping, as if somebody had cautiously moved a booted foot on the board floor. Accompanying the scraping was the tiniest jingling.

  “Sounded like the rowel of a spur turning when a jigger moved his foot,” Hatfield muttered under his breath. “Now what in hell — ”

  He hesitated a moment longer. The sound was not repeated, nor was there any other evidence of movement inside the darkened room. Only that black crack between door and jamb hinted that all was not as it should be.

  Hatfield acted. Standing close against the wall, he reached out a long arm and shoved the door violently open. It crashed back against the wall and as if its movement had touched off a trigger, the building rocked to a booming explosion. A lance of reddish flame gushed through the opening and Hatfield heard the vicious whine of passing lead.

  Sliding his guns from their sheaths, the Ranger laced a fusillade of shots through the black opening. There was a scraping, scuffling sound, and then, like an echo of the reports, a prodigious slambanging of smashed glass followed by the thud of running feet outside the building.

  Guns ready, Hatfield bounded through the door. Something struck him across the knee and he hit the floor with a crash, his head whirling, red flashes storming before his eyes.

  CHAPTER II

  FOR SOME MINUTES Jim Hatfield lay partially stunned, trying to coordinate his reeling senses and gain some control over his nearly paralyzed muscles. Finally, he managed to sit up, although shakily, and grope in the darkness for his guns.

  He found one of them within arm’s reach, and the touch of the cold metal was decidedly comforting. He crouched motionless for some time, listening intently, trying to fathom the darkness with straining eyes. But he could hear nothing, and no gleam of light or shifting of shadows relieved the gloom.

  Slowly and silently he gained his feet, listened a moment longer, then decided to take a chance. Fumbling a match from his pocket he struck it with a quick movement, shifting his position instantly as he did so.

  The brief flare showed him he was alone in the room. He was conscious of a steady draft fanning his face.

  “Reckon that sidewinder knocked one of the windows clean to pieces on his way out,” he muttered, striking another match and touching it to the wick of a nearby bracket lamp.

  The light showed what he had already suspected: a rope had been drawn tautly across the doorway, knee high.

  “Smart jigger, all right,” he muttered. “Fixed it so if his shot missed he’d be all set for a get-away. Anybody bargin’ in here would naturally take a header, just like I did. Just a mite too smart, though. The rope kept the door from closing and left the crack I noticed. If it hadn’t been for that, I’d have opened the door and walked right in without suspecting anything. And would have got blown clean from under my hat. Sidewinder must have let go both barrels of a shotgun loaded with blue whistlers, judging from the racket it made.”

  A door leading to the inner room that old Doc used for sleeping purposes stood open. A glance through it showed the window of the room smashed to a jumble of shattered glass and splintered sashing.

  “Sure vamoosed in a hurry,” Hatfield chuckled. “Reckon those slugs of mine came mighty nigh singeing him. Well, they didn’t lose any time trying to even up for that shindig in the valley. Fast working outfit all right, and salty. Smart, too — figured out I’d be coming back here to get Doc’s report on Hawkins. But what in blazes happened to Doc? Is he staying the night with Hawkins, or — ”

  He did not finish the thought, but his black brows drew together. Hatfield had known Doc McChesney for many years and he hated to think that anything might have happened to the old man. He started to give the small building a thorough going over, but paused as his eye caught sight of a sheet of paper lying on McChesney’s desk. Written on it in the doctor’s crabbed handwriting was a note addressed to himself:

  Just got in but got to go right out on another chore. See you tomorrow.

  McChesney

  Hatfield read the note with a feeling of relief. He noted that the canny old doctor had addressed it formally to Mr. James Hatfield, evidently sensing that it might not be advisable to hint at intimacy or past acquaintanceship.

  His anxiety as to Doc’s welfare relieved, he removed the rope from across the door, decided that nothing could be done about the smashed window and, after paying a visit to Goldy and ascertaining that the big sorrel was all right, he went to bed.

  There were two bunks in Doc’s sleeping room. Hatfield tumbled into the one nearest the shattered window and was soon fast asleep. He was awakened shortly after daylight by somebody opening the front door. An instant later he recognized McChesney’s cracked voice, glaring at his smashed window.

  “What the hell did you do? Come in drunk and fall through it?” he demanded of his overnight guest.

  Hatfield raised himself on one elbow and grinned at the irate McChesney. In a few words he acquainted Doc with what had happened the night before.

  “Trouble just naturally follows you around!” McChesney complained. “There’ll be no peace or quiet here till after you’ve gone. Not that there was any before you got here,” he added. “What you doin’ up here, anyhow?”

  “What you doing here, Doc?” Hatfield countered. “Thought you were planted solid at Plano.”

  “Folks got so damn healthy over there I was gettin’ locked up once a month for vagrancy — no visible means of support,” Doc returned. “So I come up here. Folks are healthy here, too, but there’s always so many busted heads and sliced hides and bullet holes to look after that I’m gettin’ rich. Why, there’s fellers around here I have to treat regular to keep them from starvin’ to death. They’re so leaky from bullet holes they spill out all their vittles. How’s things down at Franklin? And how’s Bill McDowell — ornery as ever?”

  “He’s still up and kickin’,” Hatfield replied. In a few words he informed Doc of his mission to the Montuoso Valley country.

  “Yeah, I’ve a notion hell’s goin’ to bust loose around here if Flint and the cowmen don’t stop pawin’ sand at each other,” Doc agreed.

  “What do you think of Flint?” Hatfield asked.

  “Well,” Doc replied slowly, “he’s snorty and he’s salty, but damned if I can help likin’ the old hellion. Him and Clyde Cranley are a heap alike in some ways, and it’s a pity they can’t get together. The country needs folks like him and Cranley, but it don’t need ‘em on the prod against each other. Maybe you can do somethin’ about it, Jim. You sort of got a knack for gettin’ folks together.”

  “What about that other lumberman, Nelson Haynes?”

  “A gentleman if I ever saw one,” Doc answered instantly. “He’s got a knack for gettin’ along with most everybody. Him and Flint don’t seem to hit
it off over well, from what I can learn, but maybe that’s sort of natural under the circumstances. I’ve a notion Flint would have liked mighty well to have got hold of the holdin’s Haynes has, only he got here a mite too late. I’ve a notion, too, that Haynes was plannin’ to buy up the timber land Flint has, when he got enough money together. Folks tell me he’s been cuttin fast and free to cash in as quick as possible. Seems to want a lot of money for somethin’, and I reckon that was it. But before he’d been here much over a year, Flint comes along and buys up all the loose tracts in the section. Chances are that didn’t set over well with Haynes, but he’s never showed it, and he goes out of his way to be nice to Flint. That old shorthorn don’t reciprocate, though, and shows plain he’d rather Haynes kept away from him. He’s an uppity old bird — Flint.”

  Hatfield got out of bed and began pulling on his clothes.

  “How’s your patient — Hawkins — making out?” he asked.

  Doc stuffed his old black pipe full of blacker tobacco before replying.

  “Oh, he’ll pull through,” he said at length. “That kind is hard to kill, even with a forty-four calibre rifle slug. I got the bullet out of him and stopped the bleedin’ and patched him up. Thanks to you, he ought to be up and kickin’ in a month or so. But if you hadn’t got me to him in a hurry like you did, he’d have bled to death in another hour. A slow internal hemorrhage that would have taken him off it hadn’t been stopped pronto. I left him restin’ easy when I ambled back here last night.”

  Hatfield buckled on his guns and straightened up.

  “Where’d you sashay off to after you got in last night?” he asked.

  “That was a funny one,” Doc said. “I’d just got in and was rustlin’ a snack back in the kitchen when in bulges Clyde Cranley and Nelson Haynes and one of Cranley’s punchers, Sam Pack. Seems Pack and another of Cranley’s riders, Tom Dennis, ran onto a couple jiggers runnin’ some of Cranley’s steers into the brush alongside the north wall of the valley. There was a shootin’ and Pack got his head creased a mite, nothin’ to get excited over. Dennis wasn’t so lucky. He got drilled through the left shoulder — pretty hard hit. The two wideloopers got away. Pack got Dennis to the ranch house and then hightailed for me. I left that note for you and lit out with Cranley for the Box C. Patched Dennis up and left him cussin’. Didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. Figured I’d better get back here.”