“News travels fast,” Clay said dryly. “Did you also hear I think you hired Coniff?”
Vanner shook his head easily. “I hadn’t heard,” he answered. “But I’m not surprised.” His voice tightened almost imperceptibly. “Don’t make the mistake of confusing issues, Belden. Mr. Damson doesn’t want you around, but that doesn’t mean he’s trying to kill you.” Vanner’s smile was touched with contempt. “When he gets ready to run you out of the valley, he’ll do it his way. With his fists.”
Clay’s uneasiness increased. Vanner was being too obvious. There was something behind these words, something more than just the bare threat against Clay himself.
“He sent his hired gunhands to run me out,” Clay said. He watched Vanner carefully.
Vanner shook his head. “That was their own idea. They thought they were helping the boss. Let’s say they were a little too eager.”
A heavy-set man with an apron tied under his armpits came up to the table with Clay’s dinner. Vanner stood up. “We’ve got a good cook,” he said. “Enjoy your meal.”
He stopped and glanced down. “And when you start blaming Mr. Damson for all your troubles, Belden, stop and ask yourself what he would want with your land. He has enough of his own. And ask yourself too — who really profits if you leave the valley?” He smiled his thin smile and walked quietly away.
X
CLAY RODE the dun slowly through the valley and down the road toward the warm lights of the Winged L ranch house. Vanner had been right in one thing, he had to admit. The beefsteak and potatoes the cook at the Cattlemen’s had whipped up were better than anything he had tasted in quite a while.
Outside of that, he reflected sourly, he had wasted his time going to the saloon. Molly had not appeared again while he was there. And all he had got from Vanner was the uneasy knowledge that Vanner’s talk meant more than Clay was able to read into it. There was a threat to someone besides himself in Vanner’s soft-spoken words, but he couldn’t put his finger on anything solid.
He swore in helpless frustration and pushed the dun a little faster down the moon-dappled road. The task that lay ahead of him wasn’t going to be a pleasant one, but it had to be done and he wanted to finish it quickly and get some rest. By starting early tomorrow, he hoped to complete the job of rounding up the judge’s cattle before nightfall.
He trotted the dun to the front of the big house and dismounted. He was halfway up the veranda steps when the door opened. Tom Roddy stood framed in the lamplight, looking out. Surprise flickered across his face.
“It ain’t Bert. It’s Clay,” he called behind him.
He stepped back to let Clay step into the warm, richly furnished room. The judge and Tonia were having their after-dinner coffee before a crackling fire in the huge fireplace. With the exception of Tom Roddy, they were alone, although Clay knew their custom was to have all the hands in for coffee of an evening.
Clay had his news ready to blurt out, but now he couldn’t find the words. “You’re looking for Bert Coniff?” he asked finally.
“The men are hunting him up in the mountains now,” the judge said. “Someone claims they saw him riding toward your place earlier.”
Clay was watching Tonia. She sat with her eyes downcast, her cheeks pink as though she was embarrassed by the memory of her outburst the last time they met.
The judge said, “Excuse our lack of welcome, but we’re worried about Bert. We’re afraid he might have been thrown from his horse. I can’t imagine what else might have happened to him.”
Clay said slowly, reluctantly, “Bert’s all right. He’s in jail.” He saw their startled expressions and added, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Judge, but I caught Bert sniping at me today.”
Tonia whispered, “Oh, no!” and stared at Clay with shock-widened eyes.
“That’s impossible!” Judge Lyles cried.
Tom Roddy said nothing, but looked from Clay to the judge with a strangely thoughtful expression on his face. The judge rose abruptly. “Are you sure?” he demanded.
Clay explained as he had to the sheriff. When he finished, Judge Lyles strode back and forth across the room, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “I can’t believe it.” He stopped and looked pleadingly at Clay. “Did he have anything to say? Did he give any reason at all?”
“He claims he was up hunting deer. That’s all he’ll say,” Clay answered.
“Hunting deer in the middle of haying?” Roddy said. “That ain’t what he said here. He told everybody he was feeling a little sick and was going in to see the doctor,” he explained to Clay. “But I was in Doc Fraley’s office a good part of the afternoon and I didn’t see him at all. When I come out here and said so, one of the boys remembered thinking it was Bert he saw riding for the mountains. So after supper, they went looking for him.”
The judge stopped his pacing. “I’ll go talk to him,” he said decisively. He nodded toward Clay. “I don’t doubt your word, but there must be some reason for his doing this. He’s been a good man for a long time.”
Clay sensed the pain under the bewilderment in Judge Lyles’ voice. He tried to find words to help the older man but none would come. The best thing to do right now, he decided, would be to let the judge be by himself for a while.
Clay moved awkwardly toward the door. “The sheriff said he’d be around this evening if you wanted to ride in and talk to Bert. Otherwise, he’ll wait for you to come tomorrow.”
The Judge gave no sign he’d heard. Tonia rose and touched his arm, leading him back to the couch. “Wait until tomorrow, Dad. It’s too late to go out tonight.” She left him and came toward Clay. She was wearing a wine-colored dress that highlighted her dark beauty, but at the moment Clay was aware only of the shock filling her eyes.
She said, “Tom, will you ride up with Clay and tell the men to come home?”
“I already figured on that,” Roddy said gruffly. He murmured something to the judge, who was sitting staring at the floor, and then went quickly out a rear door.
Clay and Tonia went onto the veranda. She stopped at the top of the steps. “Clay, what do you think this means?”
“I think Damson’s money got to Bert,” he said flatly. He looked out over the moonlit yard. “I’m sorry I had to be the one to bring the news.”
“Why didn’t you bring him here instead of taking him to jail?” she cried. “At least you could have given us a chance to talk to him first!”
“Is that what the judge would have wanted? A chance to cover up for Bert?”
She lifted her head defiantly. “Is that what you think I meant?”
He recalled her strange actions of a few days before. Then she hadn’t seemed like the frank, forthright Tonia he had always known. He felt the same sensation of her withdrawing, holding something back from him now.
“I don’t know what I think,” he admitted. “I only know Bert tried to kill me. So I took him to the sheriff.”
Tom Roddy came riding around the house on the old white plug he favored. Tonia said in a dull voice, “Of course. I see, Clay. Good night.”
Roddy and Clay rode silently side by side until they reached the edge of Clay’s land. Then Roddy said, “Don’t got the wrong idea about Tonia, Clay. Remember, she came back from the coast just a little while ago. And a lot of things had changed in the short time she was gone. She just ain’t got herself squared around yet to understanding them.”
“She acts as if she’s trying to protect somebody — from me,” Clay said bluntly.
Roddy turned shrewd eyes on him. “There’s only two people I know that Tonia would protect — lie for — her dad and you.” He spat tobacco juice onto the moon-dappled trail. “And she’d do more than he to help either one of you. But just remember, she can still shoot a nut out of a squirrel’s teeth at a hundred paces and never muss his whiskers. Under them fancy clothes and ladylike talk, she ain’t much different from what she was.”
“What are you driving at?”
Clay demanded. “What’s all this got to do with the way she’s been acting toward me?”
“I’m trying to tell you,” Roddy said. “She thinks a heap of both her dad and you. But if it came to a choice, the judge’d come first.”
“Why should there be a choice?” Clay said angrily. “Does she believe I’m trying to hurt her father? He’s my friend. Without his help, I wouldn’t be able to get my ranch started. That’s a foolish way to talk, Tom.”
“It ain’t what she believes you’d do,” Roddy said. “It’s what she’s afraid you might think.” He spat again. “She was afraid all along that Bert was the man behind the sniping. She’s been out to the ranch a lot more than the judge lately, and she’s known Coniff was acting funny — claiming to be sick so he could get out of working, and then disappearing for hours at a time. And then I let slip to her that Bert’s been doing a lot of heavy courting these past months — at the Cattlemen’s Bar. He’s sweet on one of the dancing girls Molly brings in for Saturday nights. A cowhand’s pay don’t buy many fancy gewgaws for a girl like that.”
He added worriedly, “And what with the judge in the hole from buying extra stock and a lot of haying equipment ever since he started using your meadows for summer pasture, it don’t look so good.”
Clay stared at him. “Are you trying to tell me that Tonia believes the judge hired Bert to drive me away from my own land?”
“Nope. But she believes you’ll get around to thinking just that one of these days,” Roddy said. “Look at it her way, Clay. The judge has always been the biggest man in the valley since Tonia remembers. Now Bick Damson has got rich and he’s sure trying hard to make folks think that makes him important. Now the judge is a nice man but he’s human, and he didn’t take friendly to being asked to share this little puddle of his with another big frog.
“He kind of puffed up the number of steers he put on your graze and he was right generous in the amount of his land he put to hay. Then he buys the fanciest haying machinery you ever did see. Went into debt doing it. Now you come back with a plan to turn that graze into a ranch for yourself. What’s the judge going to do when he’s got no place for all that extra beef he’s bought? Stands to reason he’ll have to sell it off, probably taking a loss. And he’ll be left with a lot of expensive hay he can’t use.”
He spat out his quid of tobacco and wiped his hand across his lips. “That’s what they’re saying in town,” he told Clay. “Everyone figures your coming back is going to hurt the judge mighty bad. Tonia knew you’d hear the talk.”
“She knows me better than to think I’d believe it,” Clay said.
“She knows you wouldn’t believe it without proof,” Roddy said. “But I think she figured that once you found out Bert Coniff — one of the judge’s top hands — was doing the sniping, then you’d start thinking the other way.”
“That’s crazy,” Clay said. “The judge and I talked all this out when we met in Helena. I’m the one who wrote and told him to use my graze in the first place. And we both knew what my coming back could do to him. The judge was willing to take the chance that we’d figure out someway to get him out of the hole.”
“Sure, that’s like the judge,” Roddy said. “He’ll do anything for someone he believes in, no matter what it costs him. Everybody knows that down inside themselves. But they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t grab at the chance to pretend that maybe someone bigger than themselves is just as mean and ornery as big people are supposed to be.”
He glanced at Clay. “And just saying that you trust the judge won’t stop all the talk.”
“I’ve thought of a way to keep the judge from losing anything by my coming back,” Clay said. “I’m going to channel the water from my swamp to his dry south section and irrigate it. Then he’ll have all the grass he needs. Tell that around town. It will prove the judge has no reason to want me out of the valley.”
“What does the judge think of that idea?” Roddy asked.
“I haven’t had a chance to tell him yet,” Clay admitted. “I didn’t think of it until a few days ago.” He swore suddenly. “I suppose since I haven’t told the judge, people will still claim he hired Bert to run me off and protect himself from a big loss.”
“Some sure will,” Roddy said gloomily. “And Tonia doesn’t know your plans either, remember. She don’t believe anything against her father, but she’s sure scared you might.”
“She should know me better than that!” Clay exclaimed.
“How much does anybody really know anybody else?” Roddy retorted. “And anyway, most people don’t think with their heads. Most of the time they think with their feelings. Take the folks in town. If they stopped to think with their heads, not one would trust Bick Damson or Kemp Vanner any farther’n they could spit. But they ain’t thinking that way. They just think how fine and generous Damson is with his money, never stopping to figure that no one — least of all a bully like Damson — gives away money for nothing. They’d do better to think about what reason he might have for being generous. But it’ll probably be too late when they get around to that.”
“So that’s why Roy Ponders doesn’t want any trouble with Damson or Vanner,” Clay said. “He thinks the people would side with them.”
“That’s right,” Roddy said. “And all he wants is to get re-elected and live peaceable for the few years he’s got left as a sheriff.”
Clay thought of the quiet way Ponders had accepted the charges against Bert Coniff. He felt worry stir inside him as he thought Ponders might have turned more politican than lawman. In that case, he would be apt to let Bert Coniff sneak out of the valley, just to avoid unpleasantness. It occurred to Clay that Ponders might already know that Vanner and Damson, rather than the judge, had hired Coniff.
Clay swore angrily. This was worse than he had thought. His catching the sniper hadn’t solved anything as he had expected it to. It had only made the whispered rumors about the judge sound as if they had more truth to them. And that meant another victory for Vanner and Damson, because Clay knew without being told that Vanner must have started the rumors about Judge Lyles not wanting him to come back and build up his ranch. It was just the kind of situation a man like Vanner would take quick advantage of.
Roddy let out a soft shout. “Up ahead — that fire.”
“That’s my camp,” Clay said. “The Winged L men are probably thawing out after looking for Bert Coniff.”
They rode across the bench toward the fire. Five men were gathered around it, drinking coffee. Roddy hailed them and led the way into the camp.
“You can go home boys. Bert’s been found.”
“Pete Apley, the Winged L foreman, grunted with relief. “It’s about time,” he said. He nodded at Clay. “We borrowed some of your firewood and coffee,” he said.
“My pleasure,” Clay replied. He looked at the tired, drawn men. He wondered how they would react after they found out about Bert Coniff. They wouldn’t be happy after putting in a hard day haying to find they’d wasted cold, weary hours hunting for a man who was in jail.
Clay saw that Roddy wasn’t about to break the news right now. The old man merely said, “Let’s ride, boys, and let Clay roll in his blankets.”
Apley and his men mounted their horses. “When you get squared away, drop in and we’ll pay you back for this coffee we drunk,” Apley said.
“I’ll do that,” Clay answered. He stood by the fire until they were out of sight. Then he unsaddled and rubbed down the dun. He picketed it on the bench and went to his blankets. He was tired all the way through, but the fire had burned to coals and he still lay awake, staring up at the night sky.
Roddy’s explanations had helped him understand Tonia’s strange behavior, but at the same time they had planted a cold seed of suspicion in his mind. It was crazy, he told himself, even to consider suspecting the judge. Everything Clay knew about him made it too foolish to even think about. But he couldn’t shake Vanner’s softly taunting words out of his head: Ask yourself w
ho really profits if you leave the valley.
Not Damson. He had no use for Clay’s mountainous land. Not when he already had his big hand squeezed down on a good piece of the valley. Not when he had a silver mine to bring him in all the money he needed.
Clay turned restlessly in his blankets. That mine of Damson’s. Everytime he thought about it it seemed to him that there was something wrong with it. Or maybe he was just envious because a man like Damson had struck it rich. Whatever it was lay tantalizingly just beyond the reach of his mind. He finally fell asleep, the hours of wakefulness having accomplished nothing.
XI
CLAY AWOKE with the first light and drove himself throughout the cool, sunlit day to round up the last of the judge’s stock and pen them with the others corralled behind the brush fence that closed off the mouth of Deadman Canyon.
After eating his noon dinner, Clay noticed a weak spot in the fence. But the cattle were all grazing at the upper end of the canyon and he decided it was safe to leave repairs until he had the last animal inside. The fence only had to hold one more night anyway. Tomorrow he planned to get Tom Roddy and drive the whole herd down to Winged L graze.
Clay was ready to return to work when he heard horsemen coming up the trail to the bench. Quickly he put the dun in the protective angle of rock where he had his camp. He drew his rifle and laid it across his legs. Then he watched the spot where the trail came onto the bench and waited.
He let tension run out of him as he saw Roy Ponders come into view. Thrusting the rifle back in its boot, he rode out to meet the sheriff.
Ponders looked grave and drawn, as if he had been up a good part of the night. “I came to see those heelprints,” he said. He indicated Bert Coniff’s boot hanging from his saddlehorn.
Clay nodded and reined the dun around. “Follow me,” he said briefly.
He led the way to the high meadow country. They rode single file along the narrow trails, not speaking but concentrating on helping their horses keep solid footing. Only after Clay had shown the sheriff the deadfall with its view of the dugout trail across the gorge, and the clear heelprint in the stand of pines, did Ponders break his silence.
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