Raw Land

by Short, Luke;

  EARLY BIRD BOOKS

  FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

  LOVE TO READ?

  LOVE GREAT SALES?

  GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS

  DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!

  Raw Land

  Luke Short

  Chapter One

  A BLEAK WELCOME

  As the long freight train rolled to a groaning halt, Will Danning stepped out of the caboose door onto the rear platform and sniffed the desert night. A brakeman was framed in the door by the light of the lantern behind him.

  Will said in the deep silence, “This is the Long Grade tank, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how long have we got?”

  “Ten—fifteen minutes.”

  Will grunted and swung down onto the roadbed. Beside the red lantern glow, he paused to touch a match to the cigarette he had already rolled. The confusion of lights, with the match flaring suddenly, pointed up his lean, bored face for the brakeman to see. It was the face of just another big puncher, maybe twenty-five, with town clothes and a new shave and haircut, the brakeman thought. He’d got on at Hortense and he’d get off at Yellow Jacket, and now he was sick of the long ride and he’d take a stroll down the long line of cars for the night air, like they all did. The brakeman wasn’t surprised to see Will Danning stretch his thick shoulders and long legs, and then, whistling thinly, stroll out of sight forward. The brakeman spat over the rail and forgot him.

  Which was what Will Danning hoped he would do. Once out of sight, Will tossed away his cigarette and increased his pace. Far ahead, he could see the high water tank and its skeleton legs against the star-spangled sky, and this side of it there was a tool shed, he remembered.

  He was hurrying toward it when he heard a low whistle off in the brush beyond the right of way. He headed for it, his high heels digging into the steep slope of the bank and checking his speed. At the bottom of the slope he paused, and then he heard a low laugh in the night.

  “Milt?” he called softly.

  The laugh came again, and close to him. A voice said, “You even remembered the name, Will?”

  “Just so you do,” Will said gently, and they met and shook hands briefly, in silence.

  Will said, “What about it? Have any trouble?”

  “You wouldn’t call it trouble,” the other voice said. “They spotted us coming in, and they stopped us and asked questions.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Their ponies were branded Nine X.”

  Will grunted. “That’s Case, all right. What did they want?”

  “To count the herd. That seemed important to the surly blond devil bossing them. He named our boundaries and asked for you and then warned us to stay close to home until he’d talked with you.”

  “But he didn’t warn you off?”

  “No.” There was a pause, and the voice said with quiet humor, “You picked a lonesome spot, Will. The world ends right there, just forty feet north of the shack.”

  “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  “Exactly. But will they let us stay?”

  “I’ll tell you that tomorrow,” Will said. The locomotive ahead began to thrash, and then the long line of cars jerked noisily. Will raised a careless hand in parting and climbed up the bank, swinging on the caboose as it trundled by.

  Three hours later and some two thousand feet higher, Will Danning saw the sparse lights of Yellow Jacket blotted out by the stock pens. He threw his sacked saddle off against the pens, shouldered his war bag, and stepped off the moving train, waving to the brakeman when he came to a full stop. The train picked up speed and vanished. Will went back along the right of way, found his saddle, carried it as far as the depot platform where he left it and his war bag, and then surveyed the town. Its principal street held a few lights and a half-dozen hipshot horses at the tie rail of Hal Mohr’s saloon.

  The depot was at the head of the street. Will cut across the cinder apron and hit the boardwalk by Settlemeir’s feed stable on the corner. Nothing had changed in ten years, not even the smell of rotting wood from the horse trough in front of the stable. He tramped on down the street, his footsteps ringing hollowly along the deserted street. As he neared the saloon the ponies lined out there turned their heads and lifted their ears as they watched him.

  He didn’t pause but shouldered through the swing doors of the saloon and squinted against the bright lamplight. At that moment he wore the face of a truculent man, but that might have been because of the scowl. The two men at the bar, wearing guns, who didn’t turn around but observed him in the back mirror, felt a small stir of excitement at sight of him. And then his eyes became accustomed to the light, the truculence disappeared, and he tramped past them. He was a tall man, they saw, big mostly at the shoulders and in his fists, which were scarred and tufted with black hair. His face was faintly hollow-cheeked, burned brown, and his gray eyes were hooded under thick black eyebrows as dark as his hair that was covered by a very worn Stetson. The black suit with the trousers tucked into half boots they recognized as the town-going outfit of any prosperous cattleman.

  He tramped past them, heading for a table in the rear that held two men. Behind them, against the back wall, there was another puncher playing solitaire.

  Will came up to the table where the two men were and said to the older, “You never take a chance, do you, Case?”

  The man addressed thoughtfully played a card, then raised his glance to Will. He might have been sixty, for his hair was plentifully sprinkled with gray. It capped a squarish, stubborn face, seamed and weathered and made alive only by a pair of troubled and suspicious blue eyes. He wore a mussed and careless dark suit, and carried a gun in his outside coat pocket.

  He said, “Not very often. Sit down, Danning.”

  Will looked around the room, at the two punchers at the bar, at the single man studiously playing solitaire, and finally at the other man at the table. Then he said, “Chase these bums out of here first.”

  The man at the table with Case started to rise in anger, when Case shook his head. This man was thick-bodied, blond, and ugly, and the pale skin of his face was burned a deep red instead of tan. The air of iron authority in his pale eyes and the loose set of his lips told Will he was Case’s foreman, the man who had questioned Milt.

  Case said, “You stay, Pres. Send the boys out.”

  Will watched in silence while Pres whistled. The solitaire player looked up, got his boss’s nod, rose, and took the other two at the bar out with him. Then Will sat down and rammed his hands deep in his pockets, after thumb-prodding his Stetson to the back of his head. He regarded the two men with taciturn hostility and waited for them to speak.

  Case said, “You keep your engagements, anyway.”

  Will said dryly, “Don’t bother to be polite, because I won’t. This isn’t any engagement. It’s an order from you. The only reason I’m following it is because I figure I’ll have to talk to you sooner or later, anyway. We might as well get this settled now.”

  Case nodded. “Chap Hale sent you word?”

  “He wrote me you wanted to see me the minute I got here.”

  “That’s right. I wanted to ask you some questions.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “You’ve bought the old Harkins place out by the brakes, the Pitchfork brand, Chap said. That right?” When Will nodded, Case said, “I’m wondering why.”

  Will smiled faintly. “Maybe I like it.”

  “The grass is no good. Water’s scarce over there. It’s a bad buy, I’d say.”

  “Nobody asked you,” Will murmured insolently.

  Pres Milo looked at his boss, but Case was not to be prodded. He looked baffled and uncertain, but not angry. He leaned forward
now and said earnestly, “Just so we understand each other, let me tell you what we both know. The Pitchfork is against the Sevier Brakes. Nobody knows all those trails through there, but lots of people know that they lead to Sevier Valley on the other side, where a lot of vented beef is shipped. You agree?”

  Will nodded.

  “Now,” Case said slowly, “I had a little experience with that place until I wiped Harkins and his rustlers out.”

  “Harkins wasn’t a rustler,” Will murmured. “Go on.”

  “And you worked for Harkins,” Case finished. “You were fifteen then.”

  Again Will nodded. “I even took a couple of pot shots at your Nine X men before they got Harkins,” he said gently. “Go on.”

  “That’s all there is,” Case said flatly. “You worked for a rustler once. And now you’ve bought his God-forgotten, dreary place.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’m wondering why.”

  “To ranch.”

  Pres Milo broke in bluntly. “With five hundred head of beef?”

  Will regarded him lazily. “You counted ’em?”

  “I took your ramrod’s word. He said you were bringin’ in five hundred. It looked more like two hundred to me, but you can fill out the count with beef you steal.”

  Will said gently, “Fella, you’re a damn liar. Milt told you two hundred.”

  Pres flushed. “That’s enough to screen a rustlin’ business.”

  Will raised a foot under the table and shoved Pres’s knee. Pres lost his balance and went over backward in his chair. Slowly, almost indolently, Will came out of his chair and around the table just as Pres crashed onto the floor on his back. Pres clawed for his gun, and Will placed a boot firmly on the wrist of Pres’s gun hand and looked up at Case. Will’s hands were still rammed in his pockets, and he said mildly to Case, “He’s got a pretty big mouth, ain’t he?”

  Case was looking at his foreman, surprise in his eyes. And then a subtle shift in expression crossed his face, a look of alarm, and Will looked down. Pres had crossed his free arm over his body and drawn his gun. It was just clearing leather as Will looked down. Swiftly, savagely, Will kicked the gun out of Pres’s hand, and then leaned down and hauled Pres to his feet. Pres swung wildly, and Will blocked the blow and then drove his fist into Pres’s face. The heavy man fell into the next table, its legs gave way, and he crashed to the floor.

  Rubbing his knuckles gently, Will looked again at Case. “If I’m goin’ to get shot in the back,” he drawled, “I’d better stop this, hadn’t I?”

  Case came out of his chair and said sharply, “Pres! Drop it, now!”

  Will looked over just in time to see a chair leave Pres’s hands. Will dodged it, and then Pres came at him. Will shot a fleeting glance at Case, saw that his gun wasn’t drawn, and then turned his attention to Pres. He didn’t wait for him; he went toward him, a low growl in his throat, knowing this would have to be short and final. The two of them met with such force that the tables danced. Will brought up a knee in Pres’s groin as they grappled, and when Pres knifed over in pain, he lifted an upper-cut into Pres’s face that straightened the man up. Then he sent two savage hooks, a left and right, into Pres’s face, following them with an elbow into his jaw. Will caught him, then, as Pres sagged unconscious into his arms. Without pausing, Will started lugging him to the door. He shifted his grip to the seat of Pres’s trousers and to his collar and then, almost running, literally threw him through the door just as two of the Nine X men swung in. Pres bowled them over, and the three of them fell into a moiling tangle on the boardwalk.

  Will turned his back and walked over to the table where Case, goggle-eyed and mouth agape, stood and stared at him.

  “I think I’d better hide behind you,” Will drawled. “They’ll likely come up shootin’.”

  Case started for the door, and a second later two of his crew, guns in hand, rushed through the door.

  Case bawled, “Put those guns away, you fools!”

  They stopped and looked at Will. Sheepishly they obeyed Case’s orders.

  As they were going Case said to them, “Put Pres on a horse and take him home with you. Now get out!”

  At that moment the bartender, who had been absent, came through the doors. Case snarled at him, “Send me a bill for this stuff, Hal,” and to Will he said, “Come on!”

  Will fell in beside him. They swung under the tie rail, passed the silent trio of Nine X men loading Pres on his horse, and crossed to the hotel directly opposite.

  There was a dim light in the lobby, and Case stepped just inside the door. He turned and surveyed Will and said, “We’ll finish this right here, Danning. I admit I tried to bluff you and scare you tonight. It kicked back on me. But I can say everything I was going to say.” He paused, isolating what came next. “I’ve looked you up. You rodded Murray Broome’s spread until he got in this shootin’ scrape and disappeared. Nobody I talked to connected you with Broome at all. Everybody had a good word for you, even Chap Hale.” His voice lowered to a half snarl. “All right. I’ll take a man at face value! I’m a neighbor of yours until I miss cattle! Then, by God, I’ll run you out of the country or kill you!”

  He turned and bumped into a girl that neither of them had noticed approaching.

  “Becky!” he said sharply. “What are you doing down here?”

  Will couldn’t see very well in that half-light. He heard a cool voice say, “Waiting for you, until I got run into, Dad. Now I’m trying to keep from yelling over a mashed foot.”

  Will could make out only a girl of medium height whose light hair was golden even in that half-light. He couldn’t even see the color of her dress.

  Case said impatiently, “Becky, meet Will Danning. He’s our neighbor over on Harkins’s old Pitchfork. Now come to bed. Good night, sir.”

  Becky Case didn’t even have time to speak. Angus Case took a firm grip on his daughter’s hand and headed resolutely for the stairs.

  Will said sharply, “Wait a minute, Case!”

  Case and his daughter paused, and Will tramped over to them. He still couldn’t make out the girl’s face, but he wouldn’t be talking to her anyway. He said flatly to the older man, “You spoke your piece, and I’ll speak mine. I don’t aim to rustle your beef. All I want out there is to be let alone. If I’m not, you’ll have more trouble on your hands than seven swarms of hornets. That’s a promise. And this time, you won’t be fightin’ an old man that can’t fight back, like Harkins.”

  Case watched him in the half-darkness for five full seconds, then he swung around and tramped upstairs, propelling his daughter beside him.

  Will, legs spraddled, hat on the back of his head, watched them go, and his anger died. He turned his head, and through the lobby window he saw four men, one leaning far over in his saddle, line out down the street, heading north.

  This, he thought bleakly, was his welcome. Anyway, he’d called Angus Case’s bluff, and he would keep the Pitchfork, and that was enough. A man couldn’t ask for a whole lot in this world.

  A tired voice said, from the depths of one of the lobby chairs. “Still the same fire-eater, aren’t you, Will?”

  Will’s head swiveled, and he walked toward the sound of the voice. Out of the gloom an old man rose. While he couldn’t see Chap Hale’s face, Will remembered it—old, shrunken, paper-white, and delicately veined. He shook Chap’s hand and was saddened to feel its frail bones and leathery skin.

  “What are you up to, old-timer?” Will asked.

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Let’s go where I can see you,” Will said. “Let’s get a drink.”

  “If you don’t mind, let’s not,” Chap said wearily. “I’m an old man, Will, and liquor’s lost its kick. I’m tired and I’m sleepy and I’m going home. I just wanted to see you didn’t come to any harm, son.”

  “But I want to talk to you.”

  “And I want to talk to you, Will, but not now. You’re not in any shape to talk.”

 
Will scowled in the dark, and Chap went on. “You’re mad now, son. You’ll keep me up till daylight asking me about Case and Preston Milo and how to beat them. I don’t know, Will. Case is a good man, a friend of mine, one of my oldest friends. But he’s scared of you. I bought your place for you. From now on, it’s your fight.” He paused, and then said mildly, “I’d like to ask a question, Will.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m not going to be so foolish as Case and consider that you might want the Pitchfork for a cattle-stealing gang. I’m only wondering why you want it at all.”

  Will said gently, “You, too, Chap?”

  “Yes, me, too. It’s an ugly place, Will. It’s set in the deep jaws of a canyon where the sun never rightly reaches it. Those bare hills crowd it. It’s worn out, dead, evil. You’re a young man and you’ve earned your stake. You want a place in the sun, Will, not a rathole. Why did you buy it?”

  “I’m going to ranch, Chap.”

  Chap sighed. “I didn’t think you’d tell me. Come see me in a couple of days, Will, when all this fighting is out of your blood. Good night.”

  Will watched him go. He was an old man now, crowding eighty, and his steps were uncertain and feeble as he pushed his way out the lobby door. Will watched him turn upstreet and lost him in the dark.

  Chap. too, wanted to know why he’d bought it. And he could no more tell Chap than he could tell Case, or anyone else.

  He suddenly felt lonely, and knew the burden of keeping a secret. It was only fleeting, and then he soberly took a key off the board behind the desk and went upstairs.

  Hal Mohr was sweeping up the last of the chair splinters in his saloon when a man came in.

  “Too late for a drink?” the man asked pleasantly.

  “Be with you in a minute,” Hal said.

  He dumped the splinters in the cold stove in the corner, rearranged the chairs, shoved the broken table against the wall, and came behind the bar. He was breathing hard when he finished, for his body was sheathed in a thick layer of fat that made every movement an exertion. He had a heavy, cunning face, and his tight lips and opaque eyes told the stranger that here was a man who kept his own counsel.