Free Winds Blow West

by L. P. Holmes

  Tracy went very pale, but her eyes blazed. She saw no handsomeness in this man now, no charm. She saw only an ugliness of spirit that revolted her thoroughly. She tried to twist away from him.

  “Let go of me!” she cried. “You complete … fool! Let go of me!”

  Spelle laughed, his grip tightening. Here was a narrow alley between piles of stacked lumber and, at this moment, empty but for the two of them. Spelle pulled the struggling girl toward him.

  One of Tom Nixon’s yard hands, a new arrival in the basin and one who had never seen Jason Spelle before, came around a pile of lumber. He saw Tracy Carling trying to pull free of Spelle’s grasp, heard her angry, frightened protest. The yardman wasn’t particularly quick-witted, but he was a decent and honest man, and one no longer young. He hurried forward.

  “Here, you!” he called sharply. “Let go of that girl!”

  Spelle cursed, swung around. His lips peeled back, and he drove a powerful, wickedly unexpected blow. His fist smashed into the side of the elderly yard hand’s face, driving the man heavily against a lumber pile. The man’s head thudded against the lumber, his eyes rolled, and he went down in a senseless, bleeding heap.

  Tracy was free. She could have run, but she didn’t. She stood there, head back and eyes blazing, straight and taut, small fists clenched stiffly at her sides.

  Suddenly she wasn’t a bit afraid. She was just more furiously angry than she’d ever been before in her life. “You coward!” she flamed. “You … you—!”

  Words choked her. She dropped on her knees beside the unconscious man, pulled a handkerchief from her jacket pocket, and began dabbing at the blood seeping from a corner of the man’s mouth. She began to weep softly.

  Spelle stared down at her, his mouth ugly. Once he made as if to grab her by the shoulder, but pulled his hand back. The creak of an approaching wagon sounded. Spelle cursed and walked swiftly away.

  Tracy kept on weeping. These were tears of anger, more than anything else, burning anger and self-disgust. To think that once she had admired Jason Spelle, believed in him. To think that she had been so completely blind and girlishly silly not to see past the suave mask and recognize what lay beneath it.

  That creaking wagon turned into the alley between the lumber piles and came along it. The driver was Kip Martell. From the height of his wagon box, Kip could look over the piled lumber and so saw and recognized the disappearing back of Jason Spelle. And then Kip saw Tracy kneeling beside the beaten yard hand. Kip’s wagon was loaded and he was heading back to camp. But now he set his brake, leaped down, and ran ahead.

  “Ma’am … what happened? How’d the old feller get hurt?”

  “A … a cowardly brute hit him.”

  “You mean … Jason Spelle clubbed the old feller down?”

  Tracy nodded her bright head. “Yes. Jason Spelle.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of me,” said Tracy, her lips stiff. “Jason Spelle was becoming … offensive. This man interfered, and Spelle hit him.”

  Kip had a canvas water bag slung to his wagon. He got this and sloshed the yard hand’s head and face. The man groaned and stirred, his eyes opening. They were vague for a moment, then cleared as they settled on Tracy.

  “Miss,” he mumbled, “you’re all right? That feller …?”

  “He’s gone,” said Tracy quietly. “Thanks to you. And I do thank you.”

  The yard hand sat up. “That’s all right, miss. Glad I happened to come along. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right.”

  Tracy stood up. “Thanks again,” she said. Then she hurried away. Kip stared after her a moment before turning to the yard hand again.

  “Who is she?”

  The yard hand shook his head. “Dunno. She come in with a wagon after some lumber. Me and another feller was loading it, over yonder. I come looking for her to tell her the load was ready. I saw her trying to get away from some big guy in a corduroy coat. The youngster was scared and mad. When I moved in, this jigger came around fast and hit me. That’s all I know. Thanks for the water.”

  The yard hand got to his feet, shook his head, and plodded off.

  Kip drove his wagon out of the lumberyard and down the street as far as Donovan’s. He stopped in front and went in, dug in a pocket for the grub list Cadence Clebourne had given him. From a corner of the store a drawling, familiar voice reached him.

  “The old sodbuster himself. How’s that cabin coming?”

  Kip turned, grinning. “Good enough. Just hauling out the last load of lumber. What you doing in town?”

  Bruce came over to him. “Snooping. Keeping an eye on the weather. No more sign of Horgan around?”

  “Not since the first day you showed up. I see Jason Spelle is back in circulation.”

  Interest flashed in Bruce’s eyes. “How do you know?”

  “Up at the lumberyard. He slugged one of the yard hands. Seems Spelle was pestering a girl who’d ridden in for a load of lumber. This yard hand stepped in and Spelle knocked him cold.”

  Bruce’s voice went brittle. “Who was the girl?”

  “Darned if I know. Never saw her before. But she seemed mighty nice and with awful pretty hair. Why … that’s her now.”

  Kip pointed out the door to a wagon rolling past. On the wagon box Tracy Carling sat, her shoulders very straight, her eyes straight ahead. Her face was still slightly pale, her lips tightly locked over disturbing emotions.

  Bruce Martell’s eyes took on that smoke-dark look, the angles of his face hardening. He started for the door. Kip caught him by the arm. “Where you going?”

  “I want a word,” said Bruce harshly, “with Mister Jason Spelle.”

  Bruce went out, with Kip trailing anxiously at his heels. A cold glance showed Bruce that Spelle was nowhere in immediate sight along the street. He went up to the Land Office, where Cashel Edmunds was puttering over some records.

  “Spelle,” said Bruce. “Where is he?”

  Cashel Edmunds was startled at the chill that had come into the office with Bruce Martell. And Edmunds had been ruminating morosely over the contemptuous way Spelle had treated him. Edmunds was afraid of Spelle and he was the sort of individual who when he feared a man also came to hate him. Of late, Edmunds had known increasing uneasiness—the threat to put him in the street just as had happened to Dyke and Bully Thorpe if he, Edmunds, tried to pull out of the original deal they had made. There was a meanness, a smallness, and a lack of courage in Cashel Edmunds. He hated Bruce Martell for the same reason he hated Spelle—because he was afraid of him. But he was smart enough to recognize the darkness of Bruce’s mood, and in it he read something that boded no good for Jason Spelle. Here was a weak man’s way to hit back. So he answered truthfully.

  “I saw him go into the Frontier just a little bit ago.”

  Bruce went out, headed for the Frontier. Kip tugged at his brother’s arm again. “Listen, cowboy … what’s set you off? You know that girl, maybe?”

  “I know her. No finer girl ever breathed. And Spelle … why damn his crooked soul!”

  He was too full of it to hold it all under cover, this black, bitter rage that had become an ever-increasing torrent in him. Some it broke into the full open with his final words. Kip was awed. But he said, “Right with you, big feller.”

  They went into the Frontier side by side.

  And Cashel Edmunds, locking the door of his office, slipped cautiously toward the Frontier himself.

  Jason Spelle was at the bar, tossing off a whiskey. Savage currents were loose in him, too. He was reviewing the sequence of events since he first came into Indio Basin. He had laid his plans carefully, provided for all foreseeable angles. It had been a wicked plan and a ruthless one, but it was big and daring and promised rich gain. In his heart, Jason Spelle had never known anything but contempt for the settlers, the contempt of a ruthle
ss predator for the intended victims. He knew from the first that many of them would be easily swayed, easily led. Even while he murdered and looted the richer camps, he could blind the others by playing on their dislike and suspicion of cattle interests, and so keep them looking along the false finger of blame toward Hack Asbell’s Rocking A. And in the end, using the mass of their numbers as a club, he would have the Rocking A, too.

  That was how he had figured things, and everything was working smoothly toward this very end, when the one thing he had been unable to provide against took place. A man had ridden into Indio Basin. One man. Bruce Martell. And from the day Martell appeared, the smooth workings of the great idea had begun to falter. Black, murderous hate came easily to a man like Jason Spelle. It was working in him now toward Bruce Martell.

  That girl—that fool Carling girl. Sure she was a pretty thing, attractive to any man’s eye, and of interest to him, insofar as any girl could interest him. It wasn’t, he told himself savagely, that he really gave a thin damn if he ever saw or spoke to her again. No, that wasn’t what galled and punished him. It was the fact that here, too, Bruce Martell had become an opposing factor.

  Spelle ground his teeth, and his eyes pinched to a hardness that made them ache. The little fool! He should have twisted her neck.

  Something hard and round and menacing bored against the small of Spelle’s back. And a voice, Bruce Martell’s voice, laid flat emphasis in his ears.

  “Turn around … slow.”

  Spelle turned. Now the muzzle of Bruce Martell’s gun prodded him in the pit of the stomach. “Lift your hands.”

  Spelle licked his lips, cursing himself soundlessly for being so consumed with his raging thoughts as to allow himself to be taken so completely off guard. His pale brown eyes took on a yellowish cast. He lifted his hands.

  Bruce shot his free hand up under Spelle’s coat, lifted away the shoulder-holstered gun strapped under Spelle’s left armpit. He stepped back, handed the gun to Kip.

  “All right,” he grated harshly. “Now take off your coat. I don’t trust a snake like you. There might be a second set of fangs. Take your coat off and drop it.”

  There was nothing Spelle could do but obey.

  “Step away from that bar.”

  Spelle stepped, and Bruce moved around him, making sure there was no other weapon. Satisfied on this score, Bruce jammed his gun back into the holster, stripped off his gun belt, and handed it to Kip.

  “Now,” said Bruce flintily, “I make a dirty cur crawl. Coming at you, Spelle.”

  A raw, savage light flickered in Spelle’s eyes as he understood. He was a big man physically, in his own right, with plenty of confidence in his ability in a rough-and-tumble, all-out fight. He flexed his arms, clenched his fists, and leaped forward.

  They met, he and Bruce Martell, chest to chest, with a crash that shook the room. For a moment or two there were no blows struck. The initial test was one of brute strength, and in this there seemed little to choose. They swayed from side to side, neither winning nor giving an inch. Then, with a hard gust of expelled breath, Spelle loosed one clawing hand and jabbed it forward and up, fingers stiff and spread, aiming at Bruce’s eyes.

  Bruce got his head back far enough to save his eyes, but Spelle’s gouging fingers skidded up his forehead, leaving scalding lines of torn skin and bruised flesh in their wake. He kept on falling back, dragging Spelle with him. Then he pivoted, hard and fast, gaining the leverage to throw Spelle spinning away from him. Spelle smashed into a poker table, which went skidding wildly across the saloon and left Spelle floundering and off-balance momentarily.

  Bruce went after him, fast, his right fist sailing ahead of him. Spelle threw up a warding arm, partially deflected the blow that otherwise would have found his jaw. As it was, Bruce’s fist slammed against the side of Spelle’s head and shook him up. Spelle circled, nimble for a big man.

  They came together again and Spelle brought up a bunched and driving knee, aiming to disable, then and there. Bruce twisted barely enough to catch the blow on his hip. Then he dropped both hands and pumped them into Spelle’s stomach. Spelle grunted and gave ground. Bruce leaped after him and ran into a punch that filled his head with exploding fire. Spelle came at him, whining like a killer jungle cat. Bruce wrapped his arms about his head, covering up, and Spelle stormed all over him, beating at him with both swinging fists.

  A stockman with little, hard, flat eyes and a bared head, covered with a mop of tightly curled black hair, bawled from the end of the bar. “Now you got him, Spelle! Give it to him … beat his head off!”

  It was Curly Garms, swinging his burly shoulders back and forth, half pumping his heavy arms in unconscious reaction to the fight. Kip Martell, a little taut and white about the lips, shot a glance at Garms and marked him in memory. Then, even as Kip’s eyes came back to the battlers, he gave a yelp of delight. For Bruce, crouched and covering, now half straightened and brought a slashing fist up and inside of Spelle’s guard. It found Spelle’s jaw squarely, and Spelle went down in a long, scrambling fall. For a moment he stayed on one knee, shaking a dazed head. Then he was up, pallid with rage and charging in again.

  It wasn’t good judgment on his part. That punch had slowed his reactions slightly. Now he saw Bruce’s fist coming again and he was not fast enough to dodge it or ward it off. It was a wicked blow, with all the drive of Bruce’s weight and shoulders behind it. It landed squarely on Spelle’s snarling mouth, pulping and crushing. It was the hardest blow of the fight and the most damaging.

  Spelle reeled back, his mouth sagging open and spouting crimson. And Bruce went after him mercilessly. Spelle was dazed and sick, his whole lower face feeling paralyzed. Instinctively he raised his arms to ward off another such crushing blow, and that left his body open. Bruce beat at it with thundering fists. A crashing blow under the heart brought Spelle over, gasping. He gave ground faster and faster. A left to the side of his neck spun him half around, and then Bruce cornered him against the bar, knocking him back against it again and again.

  Curly Garms began edging in, his black, hard eyes burning with treacherous purpose. Kip’s voice struck at him, bright and cold.

  “Get away, you! This is a ride Spelle has to make alone. I mean it—get away!”

  It was Spelle’s own gun that Kip was balancing suggestively in his hand, the muzzle bearing on Curly Garms. Garms snarled soundlessly, but he quit trying to edge in.

  Spelle couldn’t get away from the bar. Each time he tried, Bruce hammered him back. That smash under the heart had weakened Spelle. Now another came thundering in to the same place. His knees began to shake. He was being whipped—whipped by the man who he had come to hate as he had never hated any man before, in a lifetime that had seen a great deal of hate. The knowledge sent a new gust of fury burning through him, and he threw himself forward in a wild, crazy rage.

  He got a handful of Bruce’s shirt and tore the garment clean from him. He tried to claw at Bruce’s face again, at his eyes. Bruce beat the hand down with his left fist and threw his right into Spelle’s face, a face swollen and blood-smeared and misshapen now. The punch broke the proud arch of Spelle’s nose and hung him back over the bar again, shuddering. Spelle’s arms began to sink down and Bruce reached past them with a fist that thudded solidly under Spelle’s ear.

  That was the end of it. Spelle’s knees caved. He spun to face the bar, clawed at its smooth surface, trying to hold himself up. There was no grip on the bar, no strength in his hands. He skidded down the face of the bar, bounced off the brass foot rail, rolled on his face on the floor. He stayed there, retching and shuddering.

  Bruce Martell caught up the remnants of his tattered shirt, mopped his face with them. Kip stripped off the denim jumper he was wearing, hung it over Bruce’s naked shoulders. Kip’s voice was gruff and a trifle choked as he said, “That, big fella, was one complete and high-class job. Let’s get out of here
.”

  The Frontier, with only a scattering of customers when the fight started, was by now jammed to the doors, for the word had spread rapidly, and men had come rushing to see. Pat Donovan was there and he fell in on the other side of Bruce as Kip steered a way to the door. Pat was so excited his nearly forgotten Irish brogue broke loose in a torrent.

  The crowd gave back, letting them through in silence. There were some ominous looks thrown at Bruce, but even in these, there was a grudging aspect. Jason Spelle was still on the floor after Bruce was gone, and the crowd closed in to stare.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The period of one big, ripe, golden autumn moon was passed. Now the nights were deeply dark and chill. Chill enough for a fire to feel good in the lath-and-tar-paper shanty where gaunt, old Ezra Banks sat, smoking his pipe. A small lamp on the table at his elbow filled the single room with a dim yellow glow. Ezra was ruminating over the news he’d heard that afternoon in town. The news of the meeting between Bruce Martell and Jason Spelle in the Frontier.

  Two days previous it had happened, so Pat Donovan had said. Memory of the fight still brightened Pat’s eyes. Never, so the storekeeper had declared, had he seen any man so completely whipped as was Jason Spelle.

  “That Bruce Martell,” ended Donovan. “What a broth of a lad he is. Sure, and Jason Spelle will never be the same after that licking.”

  Here and there, Ezra had picked up rumors of the cause. Some of these made sense, some did not. But the one that intrigued Ezra most was a chance remark he overheard, uttered by a worker from the lumberyard—an elderly man with the darkness of a bruise staining one side of his face.

  “It was over before I could get there,” this man was telling another. “Which I’ll always regret, for I’da give my right arm to have seen that feller Spelle get it, after him smashing me the way he did. Now it wasn’t because Spelle hit me that this feller Martell crawled his frame, because Martell don’t know me from shucks. So it must have been because Martell knew that girl Spelle was pesterin’. And she was a mighty nice girl, too, with the prettiest hair I ever saw.”