the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980)

by L'amour, Louis

  Pennock wanted that claim, too, and any way a man looked at it Pennock was in the way.

  Cap Pennock finished eating and went outside, ignoring Bostwick. Pennock stopped outside the boardinghouse window picking his teeth with the ivory toothpick that had been hanging from his watch chain. He was looking across the street at the covered wagon. That decided Bostwick. He would get them out of trouble first and then decide about the claim.

  "You better lay off Pennock," Harbridge warnedhim. "He's a killer. He'll be out to get you now, one way or the other.

  "He'll get out that book of city laws and find something he can hang onto you."

  Bostwick had a sudden thought. "Is there just one of them law books? I mean, does anybody else have a copy?"

  "I have, I think," Kate replied dubiously. "My old man was mayor during the boom days. I believe he had one."

  "You have a look. I'll talk to that girl."

  There was worry in Kate's eyes. "Now you be careful, young man! Don't take Pennock lightly!"

  "I surely won't. I ain't anxious to get hurt. You see," he said ruefully, "I had my heart set on Squaw Creek myself!"

  He splashed across the street to the wagon and rapped on the wagon box. Dusk was falling but he could see her expression change from fear to relief as she saw him.

  "Ma'am, how much does that marshal want for your horses?"

  "He said fifty dollars."

  "How's your grandad?"

  "Not very good." She spoke softly. "I'm worried."

  "Maybe we better get him inside Kate's house. It's cold and damp out here."

  "Oh, but we can't! If we leave the wagon the marshal will take it, too."

  "You get him fixed to move," Bostwick said. "You leave that marshal to me."

  When he explained to Kate she agreed readily but then wondered, "What about the wagon?"

  "I'll find a way," he said doubtfully.

  "I found that book," Kate said, "for whatever good it will do you."

  It was not really a book, just a few handwritten sheets stapled together. It was headed boldly: City Ordnances.

  Bostwick was a slow reader at best, but he seated himself and began to work his way throughthe half-dozen pages of what a long-ago town council had decreed for Yellowjacket.

  Later, when he had grandad safely installed in the room where Kate's husband had once lived, he had a long talk with Kate.

  "I'll do it! I'll do it or me name's not Katie Mulrennan!"

  Watching his chance to move unseen, Bostwick ran through the mud and crawled into the wagon, burrowing down amidst the bedding and odds and ends of household furniture. He had been there but a few minutes when he heard a splashing of hoofs and a rattle of trace-chains. Pennock was, as he had expected, hitching grandpa's team to the wagon.

  Crouching back of the seat, he waited. Pennock had learned of his moving grandad Into Kate's but had no idea Bostwick was inside the wagon.

  It was dark and wet, and the big man was watching his footing as he started to clamber into the wagon. He missed seeing the hand that shot out of the darkness and grabbed the lines from his hand, nor the foot until it smashed into his chest.

  Pennock let out a choking yell and grabbed at the leg as he toppled backward into the mud.

  Scrambling to the seat, Bostwick slapped the horses with the lines, and the heavy wagon started with a jerk.

  Behind him there was an angry shout. Glancing back Bostwick saw the big man lunge after the wagon, then slip and fall facedown in the mud. Then the team was running, and the wagon was out of town on the trail to Squaw Springs.

  Jim Bostwick drove for thirty minutes until he came to what he was looking for, an abandoned barn that had stood there since boom days. He drove over the gravel approach and into the doorin the end of the barn. Fortunately, somebody had used the bam during the summer and there was hay in the mangers. He unhitched the horses and tied them to the manger, and then going outside, he eliminated what tracks he could find. The rain would do the rest.

  When he had finished he went back to town riding one horse and leading the other. He took them to the livery stable, then scouted the boardinghouse, but as Kate had foretold, most of the townspeople were present.

  When he entered, Cap Pennock half-started to his feet but Bostwick had a thumb hooked in his belt near his gun, and slowly Pennock sat down again.

  "You the one who drove that wagon off?"

  "I was. And I was completely within my rights."

  Astonishment replaced anger on Pennock's face. "What do you mean... rights'?"

  "You quiet down, Pennock. We've got business." Bostwick glanced at Kate. "Are you ready, judge?"

  "Judge?"Pennock's hands rested flat on the table. He looked like an old bull at bay. "What's going on here?"

  Kate Mulrennan banged the table with a hammer. "Court's now in session !"

  Pennock looked from one to the other. "What kind of tomfoolery is this?" he demanded.

  "It means," Bostwick replied, "that the town council met this afternoon and appointed me the town marshal according to the regulation set forth in the city ordnances of Yellowjacket, which decrees--read it, Katie."

  The aforesaid town council shall meet on the fifth day of January, or as soon thereafter as possible, and shall appoint a judge, a town marshal and town clerk. These officials shall hold office only until the fifth of January following, at which time the council shall again meet and re-appoint or replace these officials as they shall see fit.

  Bostwick's eyes never left Pennock. It was the first time the man's bluff had been called, and he was expecting trouble. Appointed to the office almost three years before, he had run the town as he saw fit and had pocketed the fines.

  "That means," Jim went on, "that you are no longer the town marshal and I am. It also means that for two years you have been acting without authority. As there was no meeting of the town council in that time we will waive that part of it, but we must insist on an accounting of all the fines and monies collected by you."

  "What? You're a pack of crazy fools!"

  "According to regulations you get ten percent of all collected. Now we want an accounting."

  Cap Pennock clutched the edge of the table. Month after month he had bullied these people, fining them as well as strangers, and no man dared deny him. Now this stranger had come to Yellowjacket and in one day his power had crumbled to nothing.

  But had it? Need he let it be so? Watching Pennock, Bostwick judged that he had been wary of tackling a tough man who might be a gun-fighter, but driven into a corner, Pennock had no choice. It was run or fight.

  "I haven't the money." Pennock was very cool now. "So you'll pay hell collecting it."

  "We thought of that, so you have a choice. Pay up or leave town tomorrow by noon."

  "Suppose I decide to pay no attention to this kangaroo court?"

  "Then it becomes my job," Bostwick replied quietly, "as the newly elected town marshal..."

  Cap Pennock got to his feet. Bostwick had to hand it to him. When the chips were down Pennock was going to fight for what he had. "You won't have to come looking for me, Bostwick. I'll be out there waiting for you."

  Pennock started for the door and Kate calledout, "Hold up a minute, Cap! You owe me a dollar for grub. Now pay up, you cheapskate!"

  Pennock's face was livid. He hesitated, then livid with anger he tossed a dollar on the table and walked out.

  "Well, Jim," Harbridge said, "you said if it came to this that you'd handle it. Now you've got it to do.

  "He's a dangerous man with a gun. Sandy Chase was good, but he wasn't good enough. I never would've had the nerve to go through with this if Kate hadn't told us you'd face him, if need be."

  "Are you fast?" Grove asked.

  "No, I'm not. Probably I'm no faster than any of you, but I'll be out there and he'd better get me quick or I'll take him."

  Bostwick disliked to brag, but these men needed to believe. If he failed them they would take the brunt of Pennock's ange
r.

  When they had trooped out of the room and gone to their homes, Bostwick sat down again, suddenly scared. He looked up to see Ruth watching him.

  "I heard what was said. You've done this for me... for us, haven't you?"

  Bostwick's hard features flushed. "Ma'am, I ain't much, and I'm no braver than most, it's just that when I see a man like him something gets into me."

  "I wish we had a few more like you!" Kate said.

  She gestured to the table. "You set, I've some more of that pie." She looked around at Ruthie. "You, too, you look like you could do with some nourishment."

  When the sun hung over the street, Bostwick stood in a doorway thinking what a damned fool he was. Why, Shorty, who laid no claims to being good with a gun, was better than he was. Yet he had walked into this with his eyes open.

  He must make no effort at a fast draw. He was not fast, and he would be a fool to try. He must accept the fact that he was going to be hit, and he must hope that the first shot didn't kill him.

  He might have time for one shot only, and he must be sure that shot would kill. Jim Bostwick was a man without illusions. He knew he was going to take some lead, and he had to be prepared for it. Yet he was a tough man, hard years of work and brutal fights had proved that. He was going to have to take some lead and keep a'comin'.

  He was a good shot with a pistol, better than most when shooting at targets, only this time the target would be shooting back.

  The sun was baking the wetness from .the street and from the false-fronted buildings. Somewhere a piano was playing. He stepped into the street

  "Bostwick!"

  The call was from behind him! Cap Pennock had been lurking somewhere near the livery stable and had outsmarted him, played him for a sucker.

  Cap was standing there, big and rough, a pistol in his hand. And he was smiling at the success of his trick. Cap fired.

  Take your time!The words rang in his mind like a bell. He lifted his bone-handled gun and fired just as Cap let go with his second shot. Something slugged Bostwick in the leg as he realized Cap had missed his first shot!

  His eyes were on that toothpick on Cap's watch-chain. He squeezed off a shot even as he fell, then he was getting up, bracing himself for a careful shot.

  Cap seemed to be weaving, turning his side to him like a man on a dueling field. Bostwick fired from where his gun was, shooting as a man points a finger. This time there was no mistake. Where the toothpick had hung there was a wideningstain now, and he fired again, then went to his knees, losing his grip on his gun.

  Somewhere a door slammed, and he heard running feet. He reached out for his gun, but his hand closed on nothing. He smelled the warm, wet earth on which his face rested, and he felt somebody touch his shoulder.

  "I think he's waking up," somebody said, some woman.

  He moved then and a bed creaked and when his eyes opened he was looking up at a ceiling and he heard Ruthie saying, "Oh, Katie! He's awake I He's awake!"

  "Awake and hungry," he grumbled.

  He looked at Ruthie. "How's your grandad?"

  "He died . . . only a little while after your fight. He said you were a good man."

  "Cap Pennock? Did I--?"

  "You hit him four times. He's been buried these two weeks."

  "Two weeks?You mean I've been here two weeks?"

  "You have. Two weeks and a day, to be exact." She took his hand. "Jim? Kate told me that you planned to file on Squaw Springs yourself."

  "Forget it. That will be a good place for you and as for me, I'm just a forty-dollar-a-month cowhand."

  "We could do it together."

  "Well, you know how folks talk. You being a young girl, and all."

  "What if we were married?" she suggested doubtfully.

  "Well," he admitted cautiously, "that might do it." He stole a look at her from the corners of his eyes. "Did you ever take a good look at me? Even when I'm shaved--"

  "You are shaved, silly!" She laughed at him. "Kate shaved you. She said she always wondered what you looked like under all that brush."

  He lifted a hand. It was true. He had been shaved. "You think you could marry a man like me?"

  "Well," she said, "just to stop the talk--"

  *

  MERRANO OF THE DRY COUNTRY

  Nobody even turned a head to look his way as Barry Merrano entered the store. They knew he was there, and their hatred was almost tangible, he felt it pushing against him as he walked to the counter.

  Mayer, who kept the store, was talking to Tom Drake, owner of the TD and considered the wealthiest man in the valley; Jim Hill, acknowledged to be its first settler; and Joe Stangle, from the head of the valley. After a moment Mayer left them and walked over to him.

  The storekeeper's lips offered no welcoming smile although Barry thought he detected a faint gleam of sympathy in the man's eyes.

  In a low voice, Barry gave his order, and several times the others glanced his way, for they could still overhear a part of what he was saying and he was ordering things they could no longer afford.

  "I'll have to ask for cash," Mayer said. "With the drouth and all, money's short."

  Barry felt a sudden surge of anger. There was a moment when he thought to bring their world crashing about them by asking how long it had been since the others had paid cash. He knew what it would mean. Suddenly they would be faced with the harsh reality of their situation. The Mirror Valley country was broke... flat broke.

  No sooner had the feeling come than it passed. He had no desire for revenge. They hated him, and he knew why they hated him. They hated him because he was the son of Miguel Merrano, the Mexican vaquero who married the most beautiful and sought-after girl in the valley. They hated him because he had the audacity to return after they had driven his father from the area. They hated him because when they built a fence to keep his cattle from water he had found water elsewhere. Worst of all, he himself had kept up the fence they built, building it even stronger.

  They hated him because he had the nerve to tell them they were ruining their land, and that drouth would come and their cattle would die.

  "That's all right," he told Mayer, "I have the money and I can pay."

  He took his order and paid for it with three gold pieces placed carefully on the counter. Joe Stangle looked at the gold, then stared at him, his eyes mean. "I'd like to know," he said; "where a greaser gets that kind of money. Maybe the sheriff should do some looking around!"

  Barry gathered his armful of groceries and put them hi a burlap sack. "Maybe he could"--he spoke gently--"and maybe you could, too, Joe. All you'd have to do would be to use your eyes."

  He went out, then returned for a second and a third load. "That greaser father of yours knowed what he was doin' when he bought that land," Stangle said.

  "The land my father bought was the same sort of land you all have. Once there was good grass everywhere but you overstocked your land and fed it out of existence. Then the brush came in and the underlying roots killed off more grass. When the grass thinned out your stock started eating poison weeds. There's nothing wrong with your land that a few good years won't cure."

  "We heard all that preachin' before. No greaser's goin' to come around and tell me how to run my range! Jim Hill an' me were runnin' cattle before you was born I"

  Merrano took his last armful of groceries andturned toward the door. White with fury, Joe Stangle stuck out his foot and Barry tripped and sprawled on the floor, spilling his groceries.

  Nobody laughed. Tom Drake threw an irritated glance at Stangle, but said nothing.

  Barry Merrano got up. His face was very cold and still. "That was a cheap thing to do, Stangle," he said. "There's not much man in you, is there?"

  Had he been slapped across the mouth it would have been easier to take. Stangle trembled, and his hand dropped to his gun. Only Jim Hill's grabbing his arm prevented him from shooting Merrano in the back as he walked out the door.

  "Yellow!" Stangle sneered. "Yellow, like any g
reaser!"

  "You're wrong, Joe," Hill said quietly, "he's not yellow, nor was his old man."

  "He run, didn't he?" Stangle said. "He quit, didn't he?" His voice was hoarse with hatred.

  "Yes, he left, but if I recall correctly he backed you down, Joe."

  Stangle's face was livid, but Hill turned his back on him and asked Mayer, "I'll have to ask for credit again, Mayer. Can you carry me?"

  "I always have." Mayer tried to smile. He had carried them all, but how much longer he could afford to do it he did not know. Only the cash Barry Merrano had spent with him enabled him to meet his own bills, but scarcely that.

  Barry Merrano's buckboard rattled out of town, hitting the long, dry road to Willow Springs. It was almost sundown but heat lay over Mirror Valley like a sodden thing, dust hanging heavy in the air. It was always here now, that dust. A few years back, his mother told him, this valley had been a green and lovely place. There had been fat cattle around then, and it was here she had met his father, that pleasant-faced, friendly Mexican--slim, wiry, and elegant--and it was here they had courted and here they were married.

  "I'm glad she didn't live to see it," Barry muttered, "it would have broken her heart."

  In the rush to get rich from beef cattle the grass . had been overgrazed, and the creosote, cat-claw, and tarweed had started to move in. The grass had grown thinner. It had been eaten down, and worn down, wind had whipped the dust from around the roots and rains had washed out the clumps of grass. The water holes, once plentiful, never seemed to fill up or remain full anymore.

  "Climate's changing," Drake had suggested to Hill, and the latter nodded his agreement.

  "Don't ever recall it being so dry," Hill added.

  They watched with sullen impatience when Barry Merrano returned to occupy his father's ranch. And they turned away in contempt when he told them the climate was not changing, but they were simply running more cattle than the range would support.

  Willow Springs loomed before him, and Barry kept his eyes averted. It was at Willow Springs where his father and mother first met. It had been green and lovely then, and the pool had been wide and deep. Now most of the willows were dead and where the pool had been, the earth was cracked and gray. There had been no water since early summer.