by L. P. Holmes
“Your old friend, Martell. The man on the black horse. Get some lights going. I got Hack Asbell here, and he’s hurt.”
This word cleaned the bunkhouse in a hurry. They came running, half dressed, and Carp Bastion had a lantern. They crowded around and threw the lantern light on Martell and Hack Asbell.
“You!” blurted Carp. “The boss … what’s wrong with him?”
“A dirty wallop on the head,” explained Martell tersely. “Tell you all about it, later. Right now we got to get Hack comfortable as possible. He’s on a slippery trail. Easy, now. Watch his head.”
There were plenty of brawny arms to cradle the old cattleman and carry him into his cabin. Martell stepped down, stamped the stiffness from his legs, and followed them in. Hack Asbell lay still on his bunk, his grim face drawn, his eyes closed. The bandage that the woman at the hotel had put on his head was still in place. They pulled off his boots, undressed him, got him between blankets. Then they faced Martell.
“Tell us,” they said grimly.
Martell gave them the story. Carp Bastion cursed harshly. “Those damn crazy sodbusters. We never hung that feller, Hendee. We never did nothin’ but go through a few camps, lookin’ for slow-elked beef. That Jason Spelle hombre is the world’s biggest liar. I’m gonna ride up on that guy and …”
“The point is,” broke in Martell, “that you boys didn’t lynch Hendee. But somebody did. And they left a sign on him pointing at Rocking A. The more you think on that angle, the bigger and uglier it gets.”
“Old Hack,” said one of the other riders. “He needs a doctor. And there never was one in Starlight. Where—?”
“A doctor couldn’t do much more for him than we can do,” said Martell. “If that rock caved Hack’s head, he’s done for, doctor or no doctor. But I don’t believe it did. But he has got a concussion. And the thing that’ll straighten that out is complete quiet and rest. Give him a few hours, just as he is, and we’ll have a pretty good idea.”
Butte Allen said, “Then let’s get out of here to do our palavering. Muley, get your fire going in the cook shack and brew up some coffee. We’ll do our talking in there.”
Which was what they did. They gathered around the long cook shack table, drank hot coffee, and had their say. Butte Allen fixed Martell with grimly questioning eyes.
“Why did you side Hack?” he demanded. “What was it to you whether the sodbusters lynched him, or not?”
“For one thing, I like the old man,” said Martell simply. “I like the layer of salt along his backbone. Again, I don’t like mobs. I don’t like that guy, Spelle, who was leading the settlers. And then, a man always has a feeling for his own kind of people. I don’t agree with some of Hack’s ideas, as you know, but he’s a cowman, and my kind.” He shrugged. “There were a lot of reasons.”
“Come mornin’,” said Carp Bastion savagely, “we’ll saddle up and ride, and scatter sodbusters all over the prairie.”
“No you won’t, Carp,” said Martell. “The outfit stays right here at headquarters until Hack Asbell gets well enough to have another long talk with me. After that, we’ll see.”
“You got your damn nerve,” blurted Carp. “Who are you to tell us what we do?”
“I’m the guy who brought Hack Asbell home, Carp. I got him out of that mess … you didn’t. He’d have been kicking on air long before this, but for me. I’m not bragging or asking for thanks or any of that sort of thing. But there’s an angle there that gives me a big say in things, whether you can see it or not. For once, use your head. I don’t want a fourth tangle with you. I’d rather shake hands and call it square. Can’t any of the rest of you see what I’m driving at?”
Butte Allen nodded slowly. “I see it. Carp, Martell here is right. We sit tight.”
Carp, pugnacious, intolerant, stared at Martell. Then, slowly, he grinned and put out his hand.
“You win. I’m the guy who don’t want any fourth tangle with you. Last time you beat my ears off. My jaw still feels lopsided. You could have murdered me without half tryin’. I don’t know where you learned to fight that way, but I want no more of it. Quits it is, Martell.”
* * * * *
In the first warming touch of a new day’s sunlight, Hack Asbell looked better. The pulled tautness of his face had softened and his color was better. He was sleeping quietly.
In the bunkhouse, Martell got some sleep himself. At noon Carp Bastion shook him awake. “Hack’s come out of it and is askin’ for you.”
Martell went into the cabin, grinned down at Asbell, who gave back a grim smile. The cattleman’s voice was not quite up to normal strength, but it was clear and steady.
“Carp’s been telling me how I got here. Thanks, son. I never even saw the damned rock that hit me. Must be getting softheaded in my old age to go out and stay out like I done. What do you make of it all?”
Martell pulled up a chair, built a smoke. “Rocking A didn’t lynch that Jake Hendee. But somebody did. So we start from there. Why did they lynch him, and why did they put that lying sign on him?”
Hack Asbell squinted his eyes. “Only one answer to that, I reckon. Somebody wants to get the sodbusters hating me and my outfit mortal bad.”
“That’s the obvious answer,” agreed Martell. “There could be some more. But we’ll stay with the first one for a while. Hack, I wish you’d listen to reason. Like I told you before, there are some mighty fine people down in that basin. I’ve got a brother down there, tying in with one settler family. It’s a fine break for the kid, something he’s needed. The settler he’s with, Jeff Clebourne … he’s the kind of a man you could sit down with, swap ideas, and be happy to call your friend. There’s another family I met … the Carlings … well, they don’t come any better. You need folks like that for friends, Hack … and you can have ’em as friends if you’ll just open your mind and be practical about things.”
“Huh,” grunted Asbell. “I can see where you’re heading. Still want me to sell beef to them sodbusters, don’t you?”
“That’s one angle,” Martell admitted. “It would help things a lot. You only get back from people what you bring to them, Hack. Indio Basin needs fresh beef. The settlers will get it from you, or from somebody else. You show ’em you’re willing to do business with them, and I know they’ll meet you more than halfway. And it would put a damper on this slow-elking that’s been in your hair. Of course, you know Donovan who runs the general store in Starlight?”
“Sure I know him. Good man, if the sodbusters don’t spoil him.”
“You could work out a beef deal through him. Let him peddle it to the settlers. Good business for you, good for him. And good will toward you on the part of the decent settlers. You admit that Hendee’s lynching points to someone who was out to get every settler in the basin to hate your guts. Here’s a chance to fight back with something more worthwhile and enduring than guns.”
“You’d talk a man out of his lone pair of pants,” growled Asbell irritably. “Get me a cheroot outta that box yonder. I want to think.”
Martell got the cheroot and scratched a match. Asbell puffed furiously. “All right,” he agreed suddenly. “On one condition. You ride for me. You take over as foreman. You take Carp’s place. Carp won’t mind too much. You licked him, fair and clean. That makes you a better man than him, in Carp’s eyes. And you are a better man. You think with your head. All Carp uses his for is to bump it into things. A deal?”
Martell took a turn around the room, stopped, and looked down at the grizzled cattleman.
“You don’t know much about me, Hack. You don’t—”
“I know all I need to know. A man’s got it the first time you meet him, or he ain’t. Time’s got nothing to do with it. That damned rock pounded something into my head. It made me realize I ain’t as young as I used to be. It made me see that, like you said the other day, the world moves on and things ch
ange. I’d be a dead man right now, but for you, son. Damn it all … I like you, and I want you with me. How about it?”
Martell was gravely still for another moment.
“Now who’s being bullheaded stubborn?” asked Asbell plaintively.
The breaking smile warmed Bruce Martell’s face. He put out his hand. “It’s a deal, Hack.”
“Swell! Great! There’s a bottle hid in that corner yonder. Get it. A drink is just what I need.”
After they both took a swig, Martell slapped the cork back into the pint. “Who’s to tell Carp?”
“You’re foreman, ain’t you? You tell him.”
Martell said, “All right. I may not see you again until tomorrow. When I do, I want to see you right where you are … in that bunk. That’s an order.”
“Huh? You don’t need to bully me. Couldn’t get up if I wanted to. I’m still shaky as a newborn, bald-faced calf. Watch yourself, son.”
Hack Asbell stared at the doorway for a little while after Martell left.
“Son,” he murmured, wistfulness in his eyes. “Why does it come so easy for me to call him that? I could have used one like him.”
Out at the corrals, Martell drew Carp Bastion aside and told him of the agreement he’d reached with Hack Asbell. “I hope it ain’t going to make a bit of difference between you and me, Carp.”
Carp was still for a minute, then his grin came. “You licked me, didn’t you? That makes you top dog. Think I’ll be happier this way. Fact is, I know I will. And I’ll back your hand from here to China, cowboy.”
“Now,” said Martell gruffly, “I know why I’ve been liking you better all the time.”
Chapter Ten
At the Clebourne camp, Martell was greeted with open relief. Kip covered his feelings with gruffness.
“Where the devil you been? I’ve been fit to tie, what with all the rumor flying around. Feller came by with the word that the Rocking A had lynched a settler named Jake Hendee. That was yesterday evening. Then, this morning we heard that Hack Asbell had been cornered in town, and about to be strung up in payment for Hendee, but that he got away because a guy answering your description helped him. What’s the truth of things?”
Bruce gave them the story and watched the frown deepen on Jeff Clebourne’s face. Bruce headed off the settler’s obvious thoughts.
“The Rocking A positively did not lynch Hendee, Mister Clebourne. But somebody did.”
“Which means … what?” growled Clebourne.
“It could mean that somebody is out to make suckers of the settlers in this basin, to point the finger at Rocking A for some shady purpose of their own. Who that person or persons may be, or what their purpose is, I don’t know. But I’m going to try and find out. Men like you can help.”
“How?”
“By being a steadying influence. By advising the less thoughtful settlers, the more excitable and easily led ones, not to jump at conclusions. That mob business that Jason Spelle was trying to stir up could have led to something very bad. It could have put dead men all up and down the street in Starlight. What do you know about Spelle?”
“Nothing much. He gets around a lot. Mighty popular with the settlers … always doing somebody a good turn. Met up with the man a couple of times. Seemed a pretty decent sort to me.”
Bruce did not press the question. He looked at Cadence, who stood between her father and Kip, big-eyed and silent.
“Had a sack of grub for camp in town last night, youngster.” He smiled. “Also a couple of surprises for you. Had to leave it when I lugged Asbell out on my horse. Next time I’ll bring it, sure.”
She had a grave, intent way of studying a man. Now she smiled back shyly. “Just so you got out of that affair all right,” she said. “You had us worried.”
“Lesson one. Never worry about me. I generally land on my feet.”
“You’ve got a look about you,” observed Kip. “When you first rode in, there was nothing in your eyes beyond the satisfaction of locating me. Now there’s something else. Like a day in that camp of Rawhide when you walked down the street to break up a ruckus between a flock of miners and muleskinners. You wore a badge, but that was a small part of it. There was something else, something that made you ten feet high and wagon-wide across the shoulders. You’ve got the same look, now. The old fires are burning, ain’t they? I know.”
Gravity settled Bruce’s features again. “There’s something loose in this basin, kid. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not good.”
He let it go at that, turning to his horse. He tipped his hand as he rode off. “I’ll be around, every now and then.”
“Strange man, your brother is, Kip,” murmured Jeff Clebourne. “And he has got that look about him. Plenty big in the saddle, right now.”
“Somebody,” said Kip, “is in for an awful rough ride. I know old Bruce. Even when I was a little bit of a kid, he was that way. When there was a mean chore to be done, Bruce did it. If a bully needed being worked down to size, Bruce worked him. If there was a mean bronc’ to be topped, Bruce was the one who stepped into the saddle. It ain’t that he likes to throw his weight around, because he don’t. It’s just that there’s something in him … call it a strong sense of elemental justice, maybe. Anyhow, it’s there. Take ramrodding the law, for instance. Most men in that game just work at it as a chore. But Bruce was born to it. When he packs a star, it fills the street.”
“There’s no law in this basin now,” said Clebourne.
“No,” admitted Kip. “But it’s on its way. And yonder rides the man most liable to put it there.”
Chapter Eleven
There was a small room in back of the Land Office where Cashel Edmunds did his sleeping. Behind its locked door, four men sat. Cashel Edmunds, Jason Spelle, Pitch Horgan, and one known only as Brazos. The last was a hardcase, and looked it. He had a broken nose, bracketed by little, lead-colored eyes. It was dusky in the room, and warm, for the single window was closed and the shade drawn.
“All right, Brazos,” growled Horgan. “Tell ’em.”
There was a whiskey bottle on the table, and some heavy glasses. Brazos poured one of these nearly full, and sighted it against the crack of sunlight at the edge of the window shade, as though to savor it with his eyes before he did with his tongue. He had a voice as rough as his physical appearance, with a somewhat guttural run to it.
“This Bruce Martell hombre is poison … nothin’ less. I know. I seen him work.”
“Where?” asked Jason Spelle.
“Ravensdale. A tough camp. An awful tough camp. Wide open and with a tough ring runnin’ things. But the ring got greedy. They weren’t satisfied with the usual pickin’s from their dives. They got to buyin’ high-grade off the miners. That’s when the mine owners stepped in. They hired Martell to marshal the town and dry up that market for high-grade. He dried it up … plenty.”
Spelle stirred restlessly. “He’s only one man. He don’t stand so tall.”
Brazos gulped his whiskey, wiped a hairy, grimy wrist across his lips. “How tall was he when he stood over Hack Asbell up on the hotel porch and made you and that mob of sodbusters back down, Spelle? I wasn’t here to see it, but I heard tell of it. I heard he stood plenty tall, damn near as tall as the sky. How about it?”
Spelle flushed and his eyes burned, pale and marble hard. “Those damn settlers weren’t quite ripe enough for a rush.”
Brazos laughed hoarsely.
“I’ve heard them who backed down in front of him in Ravensdale make other excuses damn near as good as that one. Let’s not try and kid ourselves. This Bruce Martell has got something. I ain’t got it, you ain’t got it. But he has. It’s something that rings a bell in you when you meet up with it, and the bell rings slow, like at a funeral. Your funeral. So you pull in your ears and duck. That’s me. I want no part of Bruce Martell. Not any.”
> Cashel Edmunds spoke, thinly sarcastic. “Horgan, I thought you said this fellow Brazos was tough.”
The glass Brazos held splintered on the floor as he dropped it. Then he was around the small table, had Cashel Edmunds by the shoulders, and was hauling him bodily out of his chair. He ran Edmunds backward across the room, slammed him against a wall, and held him there, his left hand jammed hard up under Edmunds’ chin.
“Now what do you think, mister?” he snarled. “I’m plenty tough enough to twist the neck of a damn slippery snake like you. I don’t see you offerin’ to brace Martell. Who are you to talk?”
“Take your dirty hands off him, Brazos! You hear me!”
It was Jason Spelle. There was a gun in his hand, the muzzle bearing on the center of Brazos’ thick body.
Brazos stepped away, still snarling. Edmunds dropped down on his bunk, his hands rubbing his throat.
“Let’s get something straight and clear right now, once and for all,” said Spelle. “Cashel and me are running this show. We give the orders. Horgan, you and the others do as you’re told. That was our first understanding, that’s the way it stays. Play along and there’s plenty in this for all of us. Try and double-cross Cashel and me, or try and get out of line, and you’ll wish you’d never been born. Let’s understand that, finally and for good. Do we?”
Jason Spelle’s face was suddenly as beaked and cruel as that of a bird of prey. His eyes held a glitter.
“We’ll play along,” muttered Horgan. “But the boys will feel better when they see the payoff for that first job. Brazos, sit down and stay down!”
“The payoff will be as agreed,” said Spelle. “A third to you. You’ll have it in your pocket when you leave town tonight. But we were talking about this Bruce Martell. You feel about him the way Brazos does?”
Horgan stirred restlessly. “Only met up with him once in my life and I didn’t know who he was, then. It was out at that sodbuster camp along the river when I was trying to run down that brother of his. Brazos is right. The man’s got something about him that slows you up. I’m no coward, but I don’t mind putting it this way. I’d either have to have a big edge, or there’d have to be plenty of chips on the table before I asked to see his smoke.”