“Why, they tell that whole villages have picked up an’ come west, just achin’ to get rich. You ain’t been around Cheyenne much, but you can see trains come in with fifty, sixty families getting off, all to once. An’ it’s even worse in some places back along the line.”
“What’s that got to do with enemies of mine?” I asked.
Corbin stopped and pushed his hat back. He started to build a cigarette.
“Seems like some crackerjack salesman went into the Tennessee country and fetched ’em such tales they all packed up, bag an’ baggage, to come west. I was sort of perambulatin’ around when they come in, and heard some talk. Somebody mentioned that they shouldn’t be too anxious to leave town, not with a hangin’ to watch.
“Well, when they heard who was being hung, they all swore they’d not want to miss seeing the boy hung, when they’d helped hang his pa.”
“Was one of them a big, burly man with a reddish face?” I asked.
“A loud-mouth…but big and mean,” Corbin said.
“Stud Pelly. Well, what about that? And I figured I’d have to traipse all the way back to Tennessee to see him.”
We went into the doctor’s office and helped Bob Tarlton back into bed. By now he was in bad shape, for exposure and loss of blood had robbed him of his strength. It would take a while to build it back.
“We’ll get a wagon, Bob,” I told him, “maybe one of those army ambulances. We can carry our grub in it, and you too. This Wyoming air and a lot of buffalo steaks will put you back in shape in no time.”
Handy Corbin walked with me to the hotel and we got us a room. Come daybreak, we’d be going back to the herd, and would be driving north to the Hole-in-the-Wall country. If we took short drives the first few days, Tarlton might be able to drive the wagon, leaving the four of us to handle the herd. It was not enough, but so far we hadn’t found another hand. We could have used two or three more.
Folks in the hotel looked sharp at me when I came in, and more than one of them glanced at my empty holster, but nobody said anything. The crowd who’d been around the saloons had mostly gone home or to wherever they slept, and the folks I now saw were a different sort—men who’d been working, and up late…good people, for the most part.
The hotelkeeper, too, gave me a sharp look. “I’ll deny no man a place to sleep, but I want no trouble, do you understand?”
“Mister,” I said, “you’re looking at a man who’s had more than trouble enough. All I want is a few hours’ sleep.”
Then I went to the register and started to sign my name. The name in the space right above it was Martin Brimstead.
I did not even look at the other names. All I could see was that name, which seemed as if it was burned into the page.
Stud Pelly was a brute; but whatever Stud had done, he would not have done if Brimstead had lifted a hand to stop him. Stud might have held the rope, but it was Martin Brimstead who had hanged my pa.
And Martin Brimstead was here…in this hotel! Carefully, I replaced the pen.
Martin Brimstead had come west to speculate in Wyoming land…and now I was going to see that he got a piece of it. I was going to take particular care to see that he got the right piece, and of the right size.
It had to be about six feet long, and about three feet wide.
Chapter 13
WHEN I ROLLED out of bed the sun was already high in the sky. It was a bright, sunny morning. I pulled on my jeans and stomped my feet into my boots, and then headed for the washbasin. I could see that the first thing I needed was a razor and a shave.
When I went to the window I pulled back the curtain and looked up and down the street. Everything looked about as it should in a western town on a nice morning.
There were a dozen horses tied at the hitching rails, a buckboard stood in front of the bank, the team dozing in the warm sun. Farther down a wagon was being loaded. A few idlers loafed along the boardwalk, enjoying a morning smoke. Nothing seemed out of kilter.
Putting on my gunbelt with its empty holster, I checked my rifle and then put it carefully to one side. Only then did I realize that Corbin was gone.
The blankets and heavy comforter had been heaped in such a way that I’d paid his bed no mind, but now it bothered me that he had managed to get out of the room without me knowing. It showed how tired I’d been.
I lathered my face and shaved, and put everything carefully away. In the cold light of day I was having second thoughts about Martin Brimstead. A man like him would find trouble a-plenty in these western lands. If there was to be trouble with me, he must bring it on himself. Pa, I thought to myself, would not kill him.
Stud Pelly was a horse of another color. Stud was big and he was rough, but the years had done a few things for me. Besides giving me confidence, they had put some height on me, and some weight. I knew how to treat Stud Pelly, with the only medicine he’d understand.
This morning I slung my rifle from my left shoulder. I’d been experimenting and found I could get it into action a split second faster that way. The left hand would already be well up on the barrel when I swung the rifle forward, and the right hand would come naturally to the trigger.
When I walked into the restaurant, I stopped dead still. For right in front of me was Martin Brimstead, and seated at the table with him was Kitty Dunvegan…Kitty and Priss, her sister.
Brimstead looked up, and it took him a minute to recognize me. “Well,” he said loudly, “the horse thief’s boy!”
“No.” I walked right up to his table. “The son of the man you helped to murder.” I leaned on the table. “Let me tell you something, Brimstead. In this country what you just said to me is an invitation to a shooting. The next time you open your mouth about me, or about my pa, you better be wearing a gun.”
He reddened with anger, and then as he realized what I’d said, rather than who was saying it, his face paled a little.
Glancing at Kit, I said, “Hello, Kit. Where’s your pa?”
She was not the long-legged, freckled girl I had known—she was beautiful.
“Pa’s dead, Otis Tom,” she said. “He died last year.”
“I was figuring on coming back yonder, come spring. I was hoping to see you.”
Priss spoke suddenly. “Kit wouldn’t want to see you, or anyone like you. I’ll have you know she’s going to marry Mr. Brimstead.” I had never liked Priss, and liked her less now.
Kit’s face was white, and she looked stiff and scared. I stared at her.
“You don’t mean that,” I said. “Not him.”
“Yes, she is going to marry me,” Brimstead said. “And I’ll thank you to leave my table. At once!”
I looked at him. “Brimstead, when I heard last night that you were in town, I went to bed with one idea. To get up this morning, hunt you down, and kill you. When I woke up this morning I told myself you were carrion. You weren’t worth the trouble. I’d be wasting lead I might use to kill a coyote or a skunk. So don’t you make me change my mind. You just set there quiet, and you can stay. Open your fat mouth again, and you’ll get the back of my hand.”
Coolly, I pulled back a chair and sat down. There were a dozen people in the restaurant, all seeming to ignore us, but I knew they’d heard every word.
“I was coming back for you, Kit. You knew I was coming back, didn’t you?”
“I hoped you were.”
Then, coolly and with sudden defiant glances at her sister, she explained. “Pa owed Mr. Brimstead money…quite a lot. At least, Mr. Brimstead had papers that said pa owed him, although I never saw any of the money and I don’t believe that pa did.
“He wanted to marry me after his wife died, and Priss told me it was the only way we could pay him—else he’d take our place. I refused.
“Then there was all this talk about land in Wyoming. We’d had two very dry years, everything was burned up and dried up, and people were planning to move out west. Mr. Brimstead was coming out to buy land. He said we could come with him, and al
l I could think of was that it was a chance to get away from the valley, and I knew you were somewhere out here. So I came west.”
“It isn’t every day a girl gets a chance to marry a man like Martin Brimstead,” Priss said to me, “and you’ve got no right to come barging in here making trouble.”
“You like him, you marry him,” I told her. “Kit is going to marry me.”
“I’d like that, Otis Tom,” Kit said. “I surely would. I’ve wanted nothing so much since first I saw you.”
Folks around us were grinning. They were liking Kit, and they felt that I was western. Brimstead was from the East, and he had a manner they didn’t take to. They were enjoying the show, and I didn’t blame them in the least.
“Now, see here!” Brimstead began, but I just looked at him.
“You set down, Brimstead…or whatever your name is.”
That one hit the mark. It got him in the wind, and for the first time I really believed that story I’d heard—that Brimstead wasn’t his real name. He sagged back into his chair as if he’d been punched in the belly, and he sat there staring at his hands on the table before him.
“I’m in the cattle business,” I said, “with one herd in the Hole-in-the-Wall country, another herd just outside town. I’ve got a good partner…he’s been a cattle buyer for the eastern market. I’ll be driving north when I’ve finished my business here.”
Seeing Kit had made me forget where I was, and who was in town, but suddenly I remembered, and I glanced toward the door. There was no one there.
Somewhere in town I had enemies, and unless Handy Corbin was so inclined, I had not a friend to help me.
“Get your things, Kit,” I said. “If you’ll have me, we’ll be married tomorrow.”
“I’ll have you, Otis Tom. Oh, I’ll have you, all right, and it would be a happy day for pa if he were here to see it.”
“You talk like a fool!” Priss flared. “After all I’ve done for you, to leave a man like Martin Brimstead and take up with a no-account.”
“Martin who?” I suggested quietly. “Now, look, ma’am. He spoke of me as a horse thief’s son, so it’s only fair to ask who he is. But you ask him, Priss. We don’t care.” I pushed back my chair and stood up. “Coming, Kit?”
She got up, standing fair and tall before me, trim as a clipper ship. Would I dare take her to the Hole-in-the-Wall? Then, looking into those proud, brave eyes, I knew she would never stay behind. Where I had the courage to go, there she would go also.
When she paused at the foot of the stairs that led to the rooms above, I warned her. “There are men out there a-looking for me, Kit. They are men I have to meet. Remember this: if anything should go wrong, Bob Tarlton, at the doctor’s office now, is my partner. He knows about you, and you’re to have all that’s mine.”
“Is it that bad, then?”
“It’s that bad, Kit. They are dangerous men, killing men, but I am a fair hand with this.” I touched my rifle. “And I’ve a lot to live for. I’ll be meeting you, but I’d be a poor man to tie to if I didn’t think of what might come. So stay off the street until I come for you.”
“You’re going to look for them?”
“For Queenie, the girl that’s with them. She’s a bad lot, Kit, but I’d like her to tell the marshal about that killing when I got the ivory-handled gun. She was there, and she saw it. She is the only one who can clear me…there are some in this town right now who believe me guilty.”
It was warm in the street that day, warm and sunny, with the gray, silvery boards of the walk hot under foot. Men leaned against the awning posts, smoking limp cigarettes and squinting their eyes against the Cheyenne sun—men who only the night before had been looking to hang me…at least, some of them.
They looked at me now, and their eyes were cold. Here and there a few might reserve opinion, but they all knew I was free only on condition, and that the matter was not resolved. I also knew, too, that with the coming of night when they got together to talk, and had a few drinks under their belts, they might be out to look for me again.
Pausing briefly before a store window, I glanced at the tall young man reflected there. Yes, I had come a good distance since that day in the village when they had hung pa. My shoulders were broad, and I was strong…stronger than most men. Yet the distance I had come was only a fraction of where I had to go to become the man I wished to be.
Suddenly hard boots sounded on the walk, and a loud, bullying voice said, “Hell! There’s that horse thief’s boy! Looks as if they’re weaving a rope for you, boy, just like for your pa.”
He stood there before me, and he was big, even bigger than I had expected—broad and thick and strong. There was a stubble of beard on his face, and his small, cruel eyes were sneering at me, his red lips holding the stub of a cigar. It was Stud Pelly.
There was only one language that Stud understood, but it was a language I knew how to speak.
Turning my head, I saw a cowhand lazing against the rail. He had a tough, wedge-like face, and cool, measuring eyes. He looked down-at-heel and dust-covered, but I liked the look of him.
“Amigo,” I said, “I have enemies around town. Would you keep them off my back while I tidy up a bit?”
I handed him my rifle, and unfastened my gunbelt, with its empty holster. He took them from me, not smiling, but his eyes went to Stud. “You’re taking in a wide belt of country, friend,” he said. “Luck to you.”
Pelly stood there, his cigar in his teeth, chuckling. “You don’t really mean you’re goin’ to try to fight me?” he said, as if he couldn’t believe it. “You’re not somebody to fight, you’re somebody to spank!”
“Spank me, then,” I said, and hit him.
I mean I tried…but I missed. I’d forgotten how good he really was, for he’d served his time on the river boats, where it was knuckle-and-skull until who flung the chunk. I swung, but I was too confident, and when I missed he flattened me. I mean something exploded alongside my head—that hamlike fist of Stud’s—and I hit the dust as if I’d been thrown from a sun-fishing bronc.
No sooner did my back strike the ground than panic hit me. He was coming for me, and I knew what he could do with those boots of his. I rolled over, came up with a lunge, and he kicked me in the chest. I went down again, knocked well back, and he rushed at me, his body a solid chunk of beef and bone.
Again I came up and again I went down, and then he rushed me to put his boots to my head and guts. I lunged at him and he spilled over me. He was up as fast as I was and dove at me, head down and charging, meaning to butt me over. I’d heard about that skull of his; he boasted he could break down an oak door with it, and I turned just in time, so he missed me and I tripped him up.
I stood back as he got up, not from fair play but simply to catch my wind. He came at me again, feinting a charging butt, but suddenly looping a heavy overhand right at me. That was more my style and I let it go over my shoulder and smashed a short one to the wind. It was the first time I’d hit him, and I think he was surprised, but he clinched and tried to back-heel me.
He had me off balance and I was going down, so I simply kicked up the other foot and fell, thowing up my feet as I hit the ground. He went over me, and I gave a great shove with my hands and he fell free. I came up fast and caught him on the rise with a right that pulped his lips.
He put the back of his hand to his mouth and stared at the blood, then he came at me, slowly, hands poised to grapple. I feinted, but he did not take the offer, coming right on at me. I stepped back, and back. Suddenly I realized the boardwalk was behind me and that in a moment I’d be flat on my back, so I stepped in, punched to the side of his neck; and when he tried to rush me back so I’d trip, I hooked a short one to his ear.
We stood there then, looking at each other. “How do you like it, Stud?” I said. “Don’t welch on me now. I’m going to put a reef in your lip.” My right hand was moving but I jabbed with my left, a solid, bone-jarring blow to the mouth, that sore mouth that was al
ready mashed. Blood started to flow, and he dove at me, swinging his short, powerful arms in hooking blows that hurt, every one of them. I braced my legs and let him come, and moved in at the last instant and grabbed by the belt, front and side, and twisting, whirled him around, smashing him head-on into the hitch rail.
The rail broke under the impact, and he sat there stunned, while I stood back, getting my breath.
There must have been a hundred people standing about by now, cheering us on. Pelly got up and staggered a little, but he wasn’t hurt as much as I’d hoped, for he bulled into me suddenly, going under my punch and butting me in the belly. I felt a stabbing pain and my breath left me in a grunt. I hit the dirt, but was saved by his own weight, which carried him by me.
My breath was gone, but I struggled up, backing off to catch my wind. He came in, slower this time, planning to finish me off, and I let him come. He was bleeding now from a scalp cut too, where his skull had met the rail.
I backed off, gasping, and he closed in. He hit me with a heavy left, pushed me into position with another left, and drew back his massive right fist. Then I moved. I knocked his left aside with my right forearm and chopped down with the right fist, catching him on the cheekbone. Then I threw myself into him, butting him in the face, and grabbing his belt, threw him as I had before. This time he went into the dust.
He was up with a lunge and I hit him left and right in the face, and he went down again. He was slower getting up now, and when he was up I feinted to bring his hands up, and I uppercut to his wind. He bent far over and I chopped down with a hammer blow at his kidney. He screamed, and straightened up, his mouth wide with agony, and I took a full swing at his jaw with a roundhouse left and smashed it. I could hear the bone break, and saw the lower part of his face go askew.
The blow turned him half around and I walked in, put a hand on his shoulder and uppercut to his belly. He started to fall, but I held him up and hit him again.
He went down into the dust, and I turned him over with my boot. “Stud,” I said, “the next time you want to take a rope out and hang a man, you remember this little mix-up. When you’re able, you leave town. You go back to Tennessee and tell them what happened, and if I ever see you again, I’ll whip you again.”
Novel 1968 - Chancy (v5.0) Page 14