Just as they expected, a man came in, opened the cage door and spoke in low tones to the telegrapher. After a moment or two he was given a sheet of paper. Dillon followed the man when he left.
Cleve spoke to the telegrapher.
“You on Forsythe’s payroll?” he asked bluntly.
The man was so surprised that he almost choked on the wad of tobacco in his jaw. His lips worked, and his frightened eyes darted first to the window and then to the door before he answered.
“Why . . . why do you ask that?”
“You gave the man a copy of my wire.”
“Mister, I have to live here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ve got a wife and five kids. Does that tell you anything?”
“Plenty.”
“When asked, I tell some of what they want to know, but not all. That way I keep my family safe and my pride intact.”
“Good idey.”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t hang around here. They’ll get the wrong idea.”
“The word’s out, huh?”
“Reckon it is. It seems you and your friend are on the wrong side of the fence.”
“I won’t ask what wires they’ve sent or received about me.”
“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.”
“I’ve got to trust you enough to tell you that I’m a United States marshal, and I’m tryin’ to break the hold the man’s got on this town and on the land surrounding it.”
“Good luck to you. You’ll need it.”
“I’ll be back in a day or two to send a wire down to Fort Kearny. At the same time I’ll send one to a friend over at Trinity. When they ask, give them one or both. It’s up to you.”
“I hear you.” The man turned his back.
Cleve joined Dillon on the street in front of the meat market.
“Went straight as a string to Lee’s office,” Dillon said as they passed the dressmaking establishment and crossed the street to step up onto the boardwalk that fronted one of the two mercantiles.
The inside of the store was cool and dim. Both walls were lined with shelves. On the dry-goods side were bolts of cloth, a J. & P. Coats thread case, ribbons, ready-to-wear and medicines.
On the other side, a long greasy counter sat directly in front of the grocery shelves stacked with canned goods. At one end stood the lord of the counter, the mechanical cheese cutter. One turn of the wheel moved the golden disc of cheese around to a “nickel’s worth.” One stroke of the handle sliced it off. Flanking the cheese counter were barrels of rice, beans and crackers. Over the cracker barrel the sign said: “ONE HANDFUL, ONE NICKEL.”
Dillon headed for the cheese counter. He rounded a corner and bumped into a lady wearing a large-brimmed hat covered with a thin veil that floated down over her face. The encounter tilted her into the table holding chewing tobacco, snuff, cigars, vanilla extract, baking powder and epsom salts. A package slipped out of her hands.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Dillon gripped her arm to steady her but released it quickly when he heard a little cry of pain. “Did I hurt you? Golly-bill, I’m sorry.” He stooped to get the package she had dropped. “I was in a hurry to get to the cheese,” he finished lamely.
“I’m all right. Don’t fret. I . . . should have been looking where I was going.” She stepped around him and hurried out the door.
With a slab of cheese in one hand and crackers in the other, Dillon joined Cleve, who was paying for his purchases: a cigar and a needle and spool of thread to sew up the holes in his socks. Dillon dropped two nickels on the counter.
“Who was the woman in the black hat? She just bury somebody?”
“Mrs. DeVary, Colonel Forsythe’s housekeeper.” The clerk’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Some of her folks die?” Dillon asked with a mouthful of crackers.
“She don’t have no folks that I know of.”
“Then why the black cloth over her face?”
The clerk lifted his shoulders indifferently and turned to replace the needle packet on the shelf. When he turned back Dillon and Cleve noticed a muscle jumping in his jaw and his eyes darting toward the door.
“Listen. I don’t ask questions. The lady has taken to wearing the veil lately. If she don’t want her face seen, that’s her business.”
“We saw the lady when we first came to town. A week ago, wasn’t it, Cleve? She had a bruise on the side of her face and one of her eyes was swelled almost shut. Somebody had beat on her. I’m thinkin’ it was that bastard she works for.”
“Young fellow, if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut about Colonel Forsythe and his affairs . . . unless you want your hide full of holes.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
“Why do folks stand for it?”
“ ’Cause, well— You’re about to find out.”
Three men had come into the store. One was a husky young rowdy they had seen in the saloon. Still in his teens, he was loud-mouthed, swaggering, and because of his size, intimidating to some.
A second man looked as if he had been in a hundred barroom brawls. His nose was off-center, and a deep scar ran from the corner of his eye down into the whiskers that covered his cheeks. His eyes were red and watery.
The other man was a short, mustached Mexican, one of only a few Cleve and Dillon had seen in Big Timber. He wore a black, round-brimmed hat with a snakeskin wrapped around the crown.
The older man stopped just inside the door. The young one swaggered up to the counter as if he owned the store and tried to elbow Dillon out of the way.
“Gimme some chawin’ tobacco, and be quick about it,” he demanded of the clerk, and pushed his hand down on the stack of crackers Dillon had placed on the counter.
Dillon planted himself solidly on the floor, taking the big kid’s elbow in the ribs. He decided right then that he was going to hit the cocky bastard. One reason he was going to hit him was that the kid needed a lesson in manners, but mostly it was because he’d wanted to hit someone since he first came to this one-horse town.
“The clerk’s waiting on us, you stinkin’ pile of shit. Take your turn.”
The kid spun around. He looked like a riled-up bull ready to charge. His small dark eyes focused on Dillon and he bent his elbow as if to reach for the gun that lay against his thigh.
“What did ya—”
He never completed the sentence. Dillon’s fist lashed out and struck viciously. The blow landed flush on the side of the kid’s face. He hit the floor, full-length, like a poleaxed steer.
Dillon looked across the fallen man to the other two who were with him.
“You dealing yourselves in?”
“We’re studyin’ on it,” the scar-faced man said.
“Make up your mind . . . fast.”
“Ya hit hard, Señor.”
Dillon’s eyes flicked to the Mexican.
“I can hit harder.” He answered in fluent Spanish. “Be glad to show you.”
“It is not necessary, Señor,” the Mexican said with raised brows.
“What ya jabberin’ ’bout?” the scar-faced man snarled.
“About the gringo on the floor,” the Mexican said in English. He knelt down beside the unconscious man on the floor and muttered in Spanish as if to himself. “Yi, yi, yi, they come to kill you, Señor.”
Lounging against the counter, Cleve watched the scarred man’s hands when he turned to confront Dillon.
“So you can hit hard. How are you with a gun?”
Dillon didn’t answer immediately. He looked the man up and down, then stepped away from Cleve and the clerk.
“You’re wearing one. If you want to know, you’ll have to pay to find out.”
There was a long quiet. Neither man moved. Dillon let his gaze travel over the man with a deliberateness that was blatantly insulting. The air was charged with tension. Suddenly the scar-faced man knew that this blond-headed cowboy from the south would kill him if he m
ade a move.
“Just askin’.” The careful way the man spoke revealed his awareness of the tight spot in which he’d found himself.
There had been no movement from the kid on the floor. Dillon poked him with the toe of his boot.
“Is he dead, Señor?”
“Naw,” Dillon said in Spanish. “Head’s hard as a rock and full of horseshit.”
“Sí, Señor, it is so.”
The Mexican lifted the kid’s head and let it fall back to the floor with a thump. After he had done that several times, the kid blinked, groaned, rolled over and sat up.
“Take his gun,” the clerk said. “Sonofabitchin’ kid’s got no sense a’tall. Thinks he’s all balls and rawhide.”
“Let him keep it,” Dillon said. “He pulls it on me, there’ll be one less shithead in town.”
The Mexican helped the kid get to his feet. He stood swaying with his hand to his jaw and tried to focus his eyes. Suddenly he remembered and looked at Dillon.
“If you’ve got a mind to use that gun, get at it, or get the hell out of here.”
Jerking his arm out of the Mexican’s grasp, the kid stumbled toward the door, the scar-faced man close behind him. The Mexican followed, but turned and winked at Dillon.
Dillon went to the door and watched the trio walk down the street toward the saloon. Cleve saw the clerk slip a shotgun back under the counter and looked at the man with a little more respect.
“You don’t take much pushin’,” the clerk said when Dillon returned to pick up his slab of cheese.
“Not from a mouthy asshole who smashes my crackers.” He fetched another handful of crackers from the barrel and dropped a nickel on the counter.
“Not this time.” The clerk pushed the coin back. “Thanks. I’ve been listening to that jackass bray ever since we came here. Next time I’ll break his damn neck or the neck of the bastard he works for.”
Cleve was grinning and shaking his head.
“Who’s tickled your funny bone?” Dillon snarled. “I ’bout busted my fist on that hardhead.”
“I’d swear, Dillon, that you’re more like John Tallman every day.”
“I’m John Tallman’s son, dammit to hell! Don’t you or anybody else forget it.”
The clerk watched them leave, wondering what had made the young blond giant so angry at being called John Tallman’s son. Even up here in the Montana Territory folks had heard about John Tallman and his legendary father, Rain Tallman.
Well, well, well. John Tallman’s son was in Big Timber and had been here for a week. How come he’d not heard about it? Tallman and his friend were keeping that information under their hats. Had the older man let it slip on purpose? If he had, the clerk mused, he’d not be the one to spread the news, that was certain.
* * *
Two ladies on the porch moved hurriedly out of the way as the groggy young man was helped down the steps. They fearfully eyed the two men who minutes later came through the door. Cleve and Dillon tipped their hats, then went to stand at the edge of the porch. The women scurried into the store.
As Cleve bit the end off the cigar he had purchased and struck a match on the porch post, his sharp eyes scanned the dusty street. The three men were not in sight.
“I’ve seen the Mexican somewhere before.” He held the flame to the end of his cigar.
“It’s the first I’ve seen him in town. You heard him warn me the ugly one wanted to kill me.”
“I heard that.”
“I’m getting sick of this town.”
“As soon as we find out what Forsythe is goin’ to do, we’ll hightail it out to the Larkspur.”
“I don’t understand why he’s so dead set on getting that particular section of land. He’s takin’ a risk using a forged deed and framing an old man for murder to get him out of the way.”
“Buck will have the answers to all that. There’s more to this than just a land grabber out to make a dollar. Buck has lived with the Sioux and speaks their language. They’ll back him if Forsythe’s men try to take over the Larkspur. There’ll be killin’s. It could start up another Indian war and kill hundreds of homesteaders like what happened in Colorado after the Sand Creek Massacre.”
“The bastard must know that! He doesn’t care.”
“Got to have some hard evidence against him before we can arrest him. I’m counting on him presenting that forged deed to do it. I told Buck in my letter to keep his eye on Miss Anderson. If she’s killed, it will be hard to prove the signature is not hers.”
“How’d it go with the telegrapher?”
“I think he’s a good man, but he’s scared. The engineer will send my message to the fort from up the line.”
A wagon with a man and woman on the seat and three children in the back rolled down the street. In front of the hotel several men stood talking. On the surface Big Timber was a calm and peaceful town.
* * *
In a room at the hotel, Colonel Forsythe was talking to a man in a wrinkled brown suit. He took the envelope the man had placed on the bed and put it in the inside pocket of his coat.
“I knew that oil out there would be a gold mine,” he said gleefully, and patted his breast pocket. “This proves it.”
“Depends on how much there is of it.”
“I’m told there’s sinkholes all over the place.”
“In that case I won’t have to go all that deep to tap in on it.”
“How long will it take to set up the rigs?”
“Give me two months to set up after I get in there and decide where to drill. And in another two months we’ll be shipping oil.”
Forsythe rubbed his hands. “I can’t wait to announce to the world that oil, and not sheep or cattle, will be the making of Montana.” A knock sounded on the door. “Here’s Mr. Lee with your check.”
“Morning.” Mark Lee shook hands with the man, then handed him an envelope.
“Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll keep you advised. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get a few hours sleep before I catch the 3:40 back to Bozeman.”
Mark went to the door and closed it behind the man. He waited until he heard the closing of a door down the hall before he spoke.
“How soon can he start?”
“Two months.”
“The deed to the Larkspur will be recorded in a week or two.”
“Why that long?”
“I didn’t want to take it to Helena myself and draw attention to it. I wanted it to appear like a normal transaction and so I mailed it.” Lee fidgeted nervously. “I’m afraid that damn woman is going to show up.”
“Don’t worry about it. If she’s at the Larkspur, all the better. As soon as we get the recorder’s stamp on that deed, the men will ride out and take over.” Forsythe looked around to see if he had left anything in the room before he went to the door. Lee followed.
“What’s this about Meader and Shorty Spinks getting shot?”
“They met the Gateses and that old man that works for them about twenty miles out on the old freight trail. Meader said before he knew who they were they opened up on them with an old buffalo gun. Spinks is shot up pretty bad.”
“Where could they be going but to the Larkspur?”
“Good. We’ll be rid of her, and Del will stick to business.”
“I don’t like the thought of killing—”
“Then don’t think about it.”
The harshness that always alarmed Lee was in the colonel’s tone. The man was cold as a stone, and Lee was aware that he would turn on him in a second if it were to his advantage. He had wished a hundred times over during the past few weeks that he had never met the man. He knew with a certainty that now he was in so deep that he had to go along, or . . . be killed.
They walked through the hotel lobby, came out the double doors to the boardwalk and came face-to-face with Cleve and Dillon. Forsythe stopped.
“Mornin, Mr. Stark.” He ignored Dillon. “Have you found any land for your Kansas City investor?”
>
“No, but I’m still looking.”
“You won’t find any. If there was a piece of land that hadn’t been filed on between Billings and Bozeman, I’d know about it.”
Dillon stood on spread legs, his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. Despite his easy pose, the skin at the corners of his intense blue eyes had tightened, narrowing his gaze, and his mouth had thinned. Wanting nothing more than to destroy the arrogant man in front of him, he clamped an iron control over his impulse to reach out, fasten his hands about the man’s neck and choke the life out of him. A bullet would be too quick.
“Well, howdy, Mistah Colonel, suh.” Dillon spoke with an exaggerated Southern accent. “Ya had any old men killed yet this mornin’? Have ya beat up any ladies? Oh, ’scuse me for askin’, suh. I done forgot. It ain’t noon yet.”
Forsythe’s cold eyes passed over Dillon and settled on Cleve.
“You’d better put a rein on this mouthy piece of horseshit before he gets his head blown off.”
“He’s his own man. I don’t tell him what to do or say. But I’ll tell you this. If you set him up for killin’, you’d better be sure your gunman gets both of us, because I’ll come looking for you and you’ll die Apache-style. I think you know what that is.”
Forsythe felt a chill travel down his spine. He tried to pierce the surface of Stark’s inscrutable eyes, and failed.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Stark.”
“That’s the way the cards fall sometimes.”
“Let’s go, Colonel. We’ll be late for our meeting.” Mark Lee tried to steer Forsythe around the men, but Dillon sidestepped, barring the way. He gave Mark Lee a dour grin as he pulled a paper from his shirt pocket.
“The next time you want a copy of a wire we’ve sent, ask us. You’ll find the dumbhead you sent to fetch it in the alley behind your office with a split lip. He didn’t want to be sociable.”
Dillon swept the high-crowned hat from Lee’s head, shoved the paper inside, slapped the hat firmly back down on the startled lawyer’s head. He patted the top with his open hand.
“There ya go, little feller. Golly-bill, Cleve, ain’t this hat somethin’? The only man I ever heard who wore one like that was old Abe Lincoln.”
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