by Matt Rand
“Tom!” Dave called guardedly. “You all right?”
There was no acknowledgment, no reply.
“Tom!” Dave called a second time, only this time he raised his voice.
An uneasiness that rapidly became fear came over Dave. He was motionless for a moment, then crouching down, he made his way toward the table, wheeled around it and cursed under his breath when he collided with something that refused to give way to him. He touched it gingerly, ran his hand over it before he knew what it was. It was a door splintered and ripped off its hinges, and it had fallen to the floor. He crawled around it to the window that looked out over the barn. Glass crunched under him. He stopped abruptly when his hand came in contact with something that he could not move out of his way. It was a body, a sprawled out body, and a bulky one. He knew at once why he had not heard any shooting from the lower floor. It was because Tom Cox was dead.
CHAPTER FOUR
In every cattle-raising area, there was always one ranch that was far bigger and far richer than any of the others around it. That one man managed to stand out above the others was simply a tribute to his ability to make more out of his original investment than his neighbors were able to make out of theirs.
Harlow County included the towns of Stone City, Dugas and Bannerman. Stone City was the largest of the three and in the middle of the county; Dugas was at the north and Bannerman at the south. In Harlow County people were always quick to boast of the Box-Dot, and were equally eager to tell of the Box-Dot’s vastness, richness, of the great herds that bore its brand and of the McKeons who owned the spread.
First, there was old John McKeon, who stood a mere six-feet-four inches in his stockinged feet. Then there were his sons, Bud, Charlie, Jim and Denny, who were all well over six feet, too. None of the McKeon boys looked like their father, but rather favored their mother who had gone to her reward some years before. In her lifetime Mary McKeon had served them well, lovingly and loyally, and had been extremely proud of each of them. They, in turn, had laid her to rest in a flowered, fenced-off spot atop the highest point in the Box-Dot, where gentle, lulling breezes sang happily to her, and where the sky above appeared to be the richest blue. It was said, and in truth, too, that none of the McKeon boys was ever too busy to stop for a minute or so daily at his mother’s resting place to let her know that she was always in his thoughts. John McKeon always arose at dawn, seven days in the week. He always began his day with a visit to Mary McKeon’s side. That was the kind of man he was, and Mary’s sons were just like him.
Of course, in a man’s country, where there were always far more men than women, a woman was always of prime importance. When she happened to be a McKeon and a particular pretty one like Janey McKeon, that provided the people around with something else about which to boast.
Everyone liked Janey, and she in turn liked everyone. She was her father’s favorite, but the boys did not resent it because she was their favorite, too. Brown-haired and brown-eyed, erect and graceful in her every move, she was always the object of everyone’s eyes and attention.
When Janey met and married Lee Fowler, everyone was stunned. He was the very last man with whom they would have expected Janey to fall in love. John McKeon had great misgivings, but he was willing, even eager, to overlook everything he had ever heard about the Fowlers, if only Lee would prove himself a worthwhile man. But given every opportunity, Lee proceeded to make every ugly rumor about the Fowlers a reality.
After a while there were whispered rumors that everything was not as it should have been with Lee and Janey. The boys were for bringing Janey home, but old John made them stay their hands. McKeon was not one to interfere until he felt that it was vitally necessary, and he would not permit anyone else to interfere. Janey, he told his sons, would let them know when she wanted them.
Then it happened. Seven years of marriage with Lee Fowler came to an end when Janey appeared at her father’s home one morning. “I’ve left Lee Dad,” she said.
“For good?”
“Yes, Dad, for good.”
“He knows it, does he?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be said.”
“Nothing, Dad. It just didn’t work out. Of course, people will talk.”
McKeon’s blue eyes glinted. “They’d better not,” he said darkly.
“But it’s their privilege to talk,” Janey pointed out.
“They’d better not abuse the privilege.”
That was where the matter had ended. Of course, there was talk, but because everyone’s sympathies were with Janey, the talk died away before it got very far. Lee Fowler made no attempt to see his wife and effect a reconciliation, and everyone took their parting as final. Jane lost the somewhat haggard look she had brought with her fairly soon, and after a while even the troubled look in her eyes disappeared. She stayed pretty close to home, and on the few occasions when she went to town, her father and one or two of her brothers were always close at hand.
Once, when Janey, her father and Bud were coming out of Jess Hildebrand’s general store and walking toward the curb to the buckboard, they saw Lee Fowler emerge from the saloon. He looked up, saw them, scowled, wheeled around and stalked back inside. They went on, but no one said anything then or afterward.
John McKeon was not as active these days in the running of the Box-Dot. A well-organized, well-functioning outfit with exactly twenty-five names on its regular payroll, it seemed to run itself. Of course, had anyone dared suggest such a thought to John McKeon, doubtless he would have exploded, or at least reared up to his fullest height and looked indignant. Dobie Cantwell, however, the Box-Dot’s foreman, would have smiled a knowing smile.
Dobie, a ramrod of the old school, really ran the Box-Dot, even though he would have been the last to admit it. Long, lean, bronzed and as tough and hardy as saddle leather, Dobie was a character out of the old West, right down to his ancient .44 and his droopy, walrus mustache. Actually, he should have been a McKeon in name, too, for he was a McKeon in everything else, loyalty, thought and principle.
It happened one day that Dobie was riding out through the arched gateway with the huge Box-Dot brand insignia above it when Lee Fowler came up the incline. Dobie pulled up squarely in front of him, eased back in the saddle and eyed him critically. Lee, he could see, had been drinking. His face was flushed, and his eyes were blood-shot.
“Lose your way, Fowler?” Dobie asked. “The road to town’s down there.”
“Goddam McKeons!” Lee said thickly. “I’m gonna show’em somethin’, awright. Damned if I ain’t!”
“Awright,” Dobie said curtly. “Show th’m.”
“Who the hell d’they think they are anyway, huh?”
“If you don’t know by now, I don’t think there’d be any point in my tryin’ to tell you.”
Lee tried to get his gun out. Somehow or other, it became wedged in his holster, and he tugged at it with mounting rage. Dobie, with his gnarled hand on the butt of his .44, watched him alertly. When Lee’s gun finally came loose, and the muzzle cleared the lip of the holster, and the gun jerked upward, Dobie decided it had gone far enough. His .44 roared protestingly. A slug tore the big Colt out of Lee’s hand, and it plummeted into the churned-up dirt of the incline. Lee grabbed his numbed right hand with his left and clutched it to him. He stared wide-eyed at Dobie as though he had never seen him before. Suddenly he wheeled his mount and rode down the incline. Dobie dismounted, picked up Lee’s gun and with a yell of ‘Hey!’ flung it after him.
There was a rush of booted feet from the direction of the bunkhouse, and a half a dozen men came sprinting up to Dobie, gathered pantingly around him and looked at him questioningly. Even old John McKeon, who had been sitting on the veranda of the big ranch-house, came lumbering down to find out what had happened.
“Awright, you fellers,” Dobie said to the punchers. “T’wasn’t anything so you might as well go on back to what you were doin’.”
The men tramped
away.
“What was that shot?” McKeon demanded.
“Oh, that? Wasn’t anything, John.”
“All right, but I still want to know what it was,” McKeon persisted.
“You ever have your gun go off on you without you shootin’ it?”
“Nope,” McKeon answered. “An’ you want me to believe that that’s what happened to you?”
“Uh-huh,” Dobie said calmly. “Funny, huh?”
“Yeah,” McKeon said dryly. “Very funny.” Dobie pushed past the old man to his horse, climbed up on him and rode down the incline. Expertly he wheeled in the roadway and loped off toward town. McKeon was mumbling to himself a minute later, when he turned and trudged back to his chair on the veranda. For days afterward, he eyed Dobie rather suspiciously, but the foreman pretended not to notice.
Then, just when Dobie had begun to think that the incident had been forgotten, it was revived. He was riding fence with Bud McKeon, the youngest of the boys. They stopped after a while to let their horses blow themselves. Bud eased himself, looked at Dobie and smiled.
“S’matter?” Dobie wanted to know. “What are you lookin’ at me like that for?”
“I’m just wondering about something,” was the answer. “That’s all.”
“Wonderin’ about what?”
“Dad’s kinda worried about you, Dobie.”
“He is?” Dobie asked, and he looked surprised. “How come?”
“On account of what happened the other day.”
“Y’mean when my gun went off?”
Bud’s smile broadened “Yes,” Bud said, but his smile persisted.
“Heck, that could happen to anybody! You, me!”
“But that isn’t what happened to you though, is it?”
“Y’mean you don’t believe me either?” Dobie asked, and he looked hurt.
Bud’s smile broadened again. “Nope,” he said.
“Well, if that’s the way it is—” Dobie jerked the reins and wheeled his horse. Bud reached out, caught the reins and stopped him.
“You’re not gonna get away that easy,” the young man said. “Come on, out with it.”
“You fellers are tryin’ to make something out’ve nothing,” Dobie protested. “What d’you want me to do? Want me to cook up somethin’, an’ tell you that, just so’s you’ll be satisfied, bein’ that you aren’t satisfied with the truth?”
Bud released the reins and Dobie rode away. Bud pursued him, and when he overtook the foreman and pulled alongside of him, he leaned toward him and said: “I’m gonna tell Dad not to let you wear a gun any more,” he said. “If you go shootin’ at ghosts in broad daylight, there’s no tellin’ what you’re liable to do next. You’re liable to shoot yourself.” Dobie, returning from town one day shortly thereafter, instead of stopping at the corral and turning his horse into it, rode up to the house and came sauntering up the walk to the veranda steps. John McKeon, who had been dozing in his chair, opened his eyes. “Oh,” he said when he saw Dobie. “Where’ve you been?”
“To town,” Dobie answered. He perched himself on the top step, eased his hat up from his forehead, took out his bandana and mopped his face with it.
“Anything happening in town?” McKeon asked, though not particularly interested since he wanted to return to his nap.
“Nothing outta the way. Sure is hot, y’know? Oh, you wanna tell Janey she’s rid o’ Lee Fowler, or d’you want me to, John?”
John McKeon sat upright. “What d’you mean she’s rid of him?” he demanded.
“He’s dead.”
“Dead?” McKeon echoed. “Doggone you, Dobie! Don’t go givin’ me bits o’ things. Tell me the whole thing. Y’hear? Now, gimme that all over again!”
“Awright,” Dobie said. “Lee an’ Bill Cox gunned each other, an’ they’re both dead. That’s the whole of it.”
“Like hell it is!” McKeon roared. “You begin at the beginning, and tell me everything you know. Come on, damnation! Start talkin’, and don’t stop till you’ve told me everything.”
“Well,” Dobie began. “Seems like Bill an’ Lee’d been buckin’ Doc every day f’r about a week now. Today it wound up.”
The foreman related the story of the card game and the shooting.
“So Al Spencer figures that young feller who was standin’ at the bar wasn’t just standing there, huh?” McKeon asked.
“Al ain’t the kind to come right out an’ say one way or another, y’know,” Dobie answered. “But the way he gave it to me, that’s the impression I got. No tellin’ these days. Young fellers seem to get all kinds o’ crazy ideas. Most o’ th’m don’t wanna work, an’ earn th’mselves a day’s pay. They’re after the big dough. If they think they’re good with a gun, they make it pay off. They hire out as killers, grab off a couple o’ hundred bucks here an’ there, an’ they go on till somebody comes along who’s better’n they are with a gun an’ kills th’m. Helluva way to make a living, huh, John?”
McKeon sank back in his chair. Dobie looked at him, waiting for him to answer.
“This is gonna be hard on Janey,” McKeon said. “She always seemed to favor Bill more’n she did Tom. An’ now Bill’s dead.”
“There’s something I never could figger out,” Dobie said. “How come a feller like Bill Cox hooked up in a partnership with a—well, with a feller like-Lee?”
John MeKeon shrugged, arose from his chair.
“You gonna tell her?” Dobie asked.
“’Course.”
Dobie looked relieved. When McKeon wheeled and went trudging into the house, Dobie got up, stamped down the steps and went down the path to his horse. The animal shied away from him.
“Awright, awright,” Dobie said. “I know it’s hot same’s you do. I’m not aimin’ to get up on you. We’ll go down to the barn, give you something to drink, an’ let you cool off in there. Awright?”
The horse whinnied, craned his neck and nuzzled Dobie who pulled away.
“Awright, awright now,” the foreman said crossly. “You don’t hafta go slobberin’ all over me. When I wanna take a bath, I’ll take one, an’ I won’t need any help from you. So g’wan now. Quit lickin’ me.”
Dobie trudged off toward the barn. The horse wheeled after him and plodded along at his heels. When Dobie stopped and looked towards the sky, the horse, tramping along with his head bowed, came crowding up behind him and nudged him with his head. Dobie swung around and glowered at him. The horse backed under Dobie’s baleful glare, circled around him and trotted away with the empty stirrups swinging a little wildly and thumping against his sides. When he reached the barn, he turned and trotted inside.
“Awright!” Dobie hollered. “Long’s you’re gonna act up on me, you c’n go ahead an’ fix yourself up, an’ see if I care. I’m gonna take care o’ myself!”
Dobie swerved away from the barn and strode briskly past the corral and went into the bunkhouse. He emerged a minute later, stripped to the waist. He wheeled around the bunkhouse to the trough at which the men washed themselves and stood over it briefly. Then he drew a deep breath, bent over and pushed headfirst into the water. When he came erect again moments later, he was wet down to the waist, and he was sputtering and choking. He pushed his wet hair back from his eyes and groped his way around the building to the door.
“Gimme a towel somebody!” Dobie hollered.
“Comin’ at you, Dobie!” someone answered.
A towel was flung at the foreman. It soared, billowed, opened like a sail caught in a sudden breeze, and finally flapped around his head. He was mopping himself with the towel when he heard approaching steps, and he turned as John McKeon came up to him.
“You told her, huh?” Dobie asked, his voice filled with concern.
“Yeah, sure,” McKeon replied.
“How’d she take it?” Dobie wanted to know. “Awright?”
McKeon nodded. “Took it even better’n I’d hoped she would,” he related.
“Good for her.”
“He musta been pretty rotten to ’er, Dobie. Y’know? Not that she said anything. But I could tell fr’m the way she just sat there so quiet-like an’ kept lookin’ at me as I told her.”
“Uh-huh,” Dobie said. He flipped the towel over his shoulder and pulled it up and down as he dried his back. “Hey, John, y’remember that day when I told you about my gun goin’ off by itself?”
McKeon frowned. “Yeah,” he said curtly. “Gonna tell me it happened again?”
“Nope,” he answered. “Only it didn’t happen that first time, either.”
“I knew it didn’t,” McKeon retorted. “I knew it was something else, an’ you were keepin’ it to yourself.”
“Guess I c’n tell you now what it was.”
“I’m listening.”
Dobie related the incident of Lee Fowler’s appearance, and McKeon grunted when he finished.
“Well, he’s out of our lives now,” he said, “an’ I’m not sorry.”
“Neither am I, an’ if Janey’s satisfied, everybody else oughta be, too.”
“There’s somethin’ cold to drink up at the house,” McKeon said. “When you get finished, come up an’ get some. Janey told me to tell you.”
Dobie looked pleased.
“She did, huh? What d’you know! She’s my girl, awright!”
“She is, huh?” McKeon retorted. “Why, you—you ol’ coot! Your girl, huh?”
Dobie laughed, and the two men parted, McKeon tramping off toward the big house, shaking his head and muttering to himself darkly; and Dobie hustling into the bunkhouse for a clean shirt.
* * * *
Dave Moore got up on his feet, backed away from Tom Cox’ dead body, wheeled and scurried out to the kitchen. He caromed off the portiered doorway and spun completely around. Quickly he righted himself and bounded out to the stairway. He took the stairs two steps at a time.
“Millie!” Dave yelled when he reached the landing. “Come on!”
The girl came scrambling out of the room to meet Dave. They collided in the darkness. He struck her with his shoulder and sent her spinning away. He lunged after her in a flash and caught her before she fell against the wall. Dave gripped her by the shoulders and steadied her as he peered hard at her. “You all right?” he panted. “I hurt you?”