The stirrups were down in the dark somewhere below the farthest reach of Pink’s toes—he never once located them. But Pink was not known all over Northern Montana as a bronc-peeler for nothing. He surprised Glory even more than that deceitful bit of horseflesh had surprised Pink. While his quirt swung methodically, he looked often over his shoulder for the posse and wondered why it did not appear.
The posse, however, at that moment had run into troubles of its own. Happy Jack, not having a night horse saddled, had borrowed one not remarkable for its surefootedness. No sooner had they sighted their quarry than Jack’s horse stepped in a hole and went headlong—which was bad enough. When the horse got up, he planted a foot hastily on Jack’s diaphragm and then bolted straight for the peacefully slumbering herd—which was worse.
With stirrup straps snapping like pistol shots, he tore down through the dreaming cattle, with nothing to stop him. The herd did not wait for explanations. As the posse afterward said, it quit the earth, while they gathered around the fallen Jack and tried to discover whether it was a doctor or coroner who was needed.
It was neither, cowboys being notoriously tough. Jack rebounded from the earth, spitting out sand and a choice collection of words which he had been saving for just such an occasion. The other cowboys would have admired to stay and listen, but stern duty called. The herd was gone, the horse was gone, and so was Pink.
Hoofbeats heralded Weary’s return, already laughing at his joke and expecting to see a crestfallen Pink surrounded by his captors. Instead he saw Jack emitting language and the cowboys scrambling for their horses to go hunt for the herd.
“Mama mine!” said Weary feebly. He knew at once that it was useless to try and compete with Jack when that worthy was going at full steam. Instead he turned his horse and headed back to camp as fast as he could go.
Chip woke up as Weary crawled into the tent and grabbed the foreman by the shoulder.
“Saddle my horse,” he mumbled. “I’m ready.”
“Chip!” Weary gasped. “Cadwolloper’s gone!”
“Huh Who? Oh.” Chip’s face showed disgust as he removed his shoulder gently and lay down again. “Hell, don’t let that worry yuh.”
Weary was puzzled but game. “Then it’s all right,” he said. And added as an afterthought, “The herd’s gone, too.”
“What!” Chip bounded out of bed like an uncoiled spring. Language began to pour out of him, and the blushing Weary afterwards testified that, when really wound up, he far outclassed Jack.
By sunrise, the hard-riding members of the once-Happy Family came upon the herd. It was quietly grazing in a little coulee and Pink was holding them, all by his lonesome.
“Yuh low-down, spavined, wind-broke, jug-headed bunch of locoed sheepherders!” Pink roared, his blue eyes flashing. “If yuh think the whole bunch of yuh are capable of holding these critters now that they’ve run theirselves out, you can take over an’ let me go get some breakfast! When I took this job, Chip told me I’d be workin’ with men! Don’t make me laugh!
“On Milk River they’d tie a picket rope to every one of yuh to keep you from gettin’ lost between the bunkhouse and the cook shack. And jokes! Oh, Mother! Next time you try to play a joke on somebody, Mr. Weary, don’t pick out a horse so feeble that he’s like to fall down before anybody climbs aboard him. I thought this Glory would put on a show from all the braggin’ about him. What a disappointment. I’m plumb wore out, but not from his buckin’. From tryin’ to keep him awake! Come get him and give me somethin’ that’s half-alive!”
The erstwhile Happy Family gulped, blinked, and shuffled its feet under the tirade. The joke had backfired with a crash and they wanted nothing now but holes to crawl into.
Then, amazingly, the fire died out of Pink’s voice and eyes. He slid to the ground and came forward. The dimples flashed as he held out his hand to Weary.
“Meet Milk River Pink,” he said.
Then the uproar broke loose as the Happy Family crowded around to pound his back and shake his hand.
Thomas Thompson’s career is the sort that most of his contemporaries looked upon with great admiration and at least a bit of envy. Born in 1913, he graduated from high school in 1930 and embarked on a variety of careers that included sailing, working as a nightclub entertainer, and selling furniture. But by 1940, he was working as a full-time writer, his fiction leading him to such great positions as associate producer and writer of the Bonanza TV series and the story consultant for the Temple Houston crime dramas. Thompson’s writing displays genre virtues at their best—his stories and books are tight, precise, and laid out with maximum drama, all these being virtues he no doubt learned by writing for motion pictures and television.
Gun Job
Thomas Thompson
He was married in June, and he gave up his job as town marshal the following September, giving himself time to get settled on the little ranch he bought before the snows set in. That first winter was mild, and now, with summer in the air, he walked down the main street of the town and thought of his own calf crop and of his own problems, a fine feeling after fifteen years of thinking of the problems of others. He wasn’t Marshal Jeff Anderson any more. He was Jeff Anderson, private citizen, beholden to no man, and that was the way he wanted it.
He gave the town his quick appraisal, a tall, well-built man who was nearing forty and beginning to think about it, and every building and every alley held a memory for him, some amusing, some tragic. The town had a Sunday morning peacefulness on it, a peacefulness Jeff Anderson had worked for. It hadn’t always been this way. He inhaled deeply, a contented man, and he caught the scent of freshly sprinkled dust that came from the dampened square of street in front of the ice cream parlor. There was a promise of heat in the air and already the thick, warm scent of the tar weed was drifting down from the yellow slopes in back of the town. He kept to the middle of the street, enjoying his freedom, not yet free of old habits, and he headed for the marshal’s office, where the door was closed, the shade drawn.
This was his Sunday morning pleasure, this brief tour of the town that had claimed him for so long. It was the same tour he had made every Sunday morning for fifteen years; but now he could enjoy the luxury of knowing he was making it because he wanted to, not because it was his job. A man who had built a bridge or a building could sit back and look at his finished work, remembering the fun and the heartache that had gone into it, but he didn’t need to chip away personally at its rust or take a pot of paint to its scars.
In front of the marshal’s office Anderson paused, remembering it all, not missing it, just remembering; then he turned and pushed open the door, the familiarity of the action momentarily strong on him. The floor was worn and his own boot heels had helped wear it; the desk was scarred and some of those spur marks were as much his own as his own initials would have been. He grinned at the new marshal and said, “Caught any criminals lately?”
The man behind the desk glanced up, his face drawn, expressionless, his eyes worried. He tried to joke. “How could I?” he said. “You ain’t been in town since last Sunday.” He took one foot off the desk and kicked a straight chair toward Jeff. “How’s the cow business?”
“Good,” Jeff said. “Mighty good.” He sat down heavily and stretched his long legs, pushed his battered felt hat back on his thinning, weather-bleached hair, and made himself a cigarette. He saw the papers piled on the desk, and glancing at the clock, he knew it was nearly time to let the two or three prisoners exercise in the jail corridor. A feeling of well-being engulfed him. These things were another man’s responsibility now, not Jeff Anderson’s. “How’s it with you, Billy?” he asked.
The answer came too quickly, the answer of a man who was nervous or angry, or possibly both. “You ought to know, Jeff. The mayor and the council came to see you, didn’t they?”
Annoyance clouded Jeff Anderson’s gray eyes. He hadn’t liked the idea of the city fathers going behind the new marshal’s back. If they didn’t like th
e job Billy was doing, they should have gone to Billy, not to Jeff. But that was typical of the city council. Jeff had known three mayors and three different councils during his long term in office, and they usually ran to a pattern. A few complaints and they got panicky and started going off in seven directions at once. They seemed to think that because Jeff had recommended Billy for this job, the job was still Jeff’s responsibility. “They made the trip for nothing, Billy,” Jeff said. “If you’re worried about me wanting your job, you can forget it. I told them that plain.”
“They’ll keep asking you, Jeff.”
“They’ll keep getting no for an answer,” Jeff said.
Billy Lang sat at his desk and stared at the drawn shade of the front window, the thumb of his left hand toying nervously with the badge on his calfskin vest. He was a small man with eternally pink cheeks and pale blue eyes. He wore a full white mustache, and there was a cleft in his chin. He was married and had five children, and most of his life he had clerked in a store. When Jeff Anderson recommended him for this job Billy took it because it paid more and because the town was quiet. But now there was trouble, and Billy was sorry he had ever heard of the job. He said, “You can’t blame them for wanting you back, Jeff. You did a good job.”
There was no false modesty in Jeff Anderson. He had done a good job here and he knew it. He had handled his job exactly the way he felt it should be handled and he had backed down to no one. But it hadn’t been all roses, either. He grinned. “Regardless of what a man does, there’s some who won’t like it.”
“Like Hank Fetterman?”
Jeff shrugged. Hank Fetterman was a cattleman. Sometimes Hank got the idea that he ought to take this town over and run it the way he once had. Hank hadn’t gotten away with it when Jeff was marshal. Thinking about it now, it didn’t seem to matter much to Jeff one way or the other, and it was hard to remember that his fight with Hank Fetterman had once been important. It had been a long time ago and things had changed. “Hank’s not a bad sort,” Jeff said.
“He’s in town,” Billy Lang said. “Did you know that?”
Jeff felt that old, familiar tightening of his stomach muscles, the signal of trouble ahead. He inhaled deeply, let the smoke trickle from his nostrils, and the feeling went away. Hank Fetterman was Jeff Anderson’s neighbor now, and Jeff was a rancher, not a marshal. “I’m in town too,” he said. “So are fifty other people. There’s no law against it.”
“You know what I mean, Jeff,” Billy Lang said. “You talked to Rudy Svitac’s boy.”
Jeff moved uneasily in his chair. Billy Lang was accusing him of meddling, and Jeff didn’t like it. Jeff had never had anything to do with the marshal’s job since his retirement, and he had promised himself he never would. It was Billy’s job, and Billy was free to run it his own way. But when a twelve-year-old kid who thought you were something special asked you a straight question you gave him a straight answer. It had nothing to do with the fact that you had once been a marshal—
“Sure, Billy,” Jeff said. “I talked to Rudy’s boy. He came to see me about it just the way he’s been coming to see me about things ever since he was big enough to walk. The kid needs somebody to talk to, I guess, so he comes to me. He’s not old country like his folks. He was born here; he thinks American. I guess it’s hard for the boy to understand them. I told him to have his dad see you, Billy.”
“He took your advice,” Billy Lang said. “Three days ago.” He turned over a paper. “Rudy Svitac came in and swore out a warrant against Hank Fetterman for trespassing. He said his boy told him it was the thing to do.”
Jeff had a strange feeling that he was suddenly two people. One was Jeff Anderson, ex-marshal, the man who had recommended Billy Lang for this job. As such, he should offer Billy some advice right here and now. The other person was Jeff Anderson, private citizen, a man with a small ranch and a fine wife and a right to live his own life. And that was the Jeff Anderson that was important. Jeff Anderson, the rancher, grinned. “Hank pawin’ and bellerin’ about it, is he?”
“I don’t know, Jeff,” Billy Lang said. “I haven’t talked to Hank about it. I’m not sure I’m going to.”
Jeff glanced quickly at the new marshal, surprised, only half believing what he had heard. He had recommended Billy for this job because he figured he and Billy thought along the same lines. Surely Billy knew that if you gave Hank Fetterman an inch, he would take a mile… .
He caught himself quickly, realizing suddenly that it was none of his business how Billy Lang thought. There were plenty of businessmen in town who had argued loudly and openly that Jeff Anderson’s methods of law enforcement had been bad for their cash registers. They had liked the old days when Hank Fetterman was running things and the town was wide open. Maybe they wanted it that way again. Every man was entitled to his own opinion, and Billy Lang was entitled to handle his job in his own way. This freedom of thought and action that Jeff prized so highly had to work for everyone. He stood up and clapped a hand affectionately on Billy Lang’s shoulder, anxious to change the conversation. “That’s up to you, Billy,” he said. “It’s sure none of my affair.” His grin widened. “Come on over to the saloon and I’ll buy a drink.”
Billy Lang stared at the drawn shade, and he thought of Hank Fetterman, a man who was big in this country, waiting over at the saloon. Hank Fetterman knew there was a warrant out for his arrest; the whole town knew it by now. You didn’t need to tell a thing like that. It just got around. And before long, people would know who the law was in this town, Hank Fetterman or Billy Lang. Billy colored slightly, and there was perspiration on his forehead. “You go ahead and have your drink, Jeff,” he said. “I’ve got some paperwork to do.” He didn’t look up.
Jeff went outside and the gathering heat of the day struck the west side of the street and brought a resinous smell from the old boards of the false-fronted buildings. He glanced at the little church, seeing Rudy Svitac’s spring wagon there, remembering that the church hadn’t always been here; then he crossed over toward the saloon, the first business building this town had erected. He had been in a dozen such towns, and it was always the same. The saloons and the deadfalls came first, the churches and the schools later. Maybe that proved something. He didn’t know. He had just stepped onto the board sidewalk when he saw the druggist coming toward him. The druggist was also the mayor, a sanctimonious little man, dried up by his own smallness. “Jeff, I talked to Billy Lang,” the mayor said. His voice was thin and reedy. “I wondered if you might reconsider …”
“No,” Jeff Anderson said. He didn’t break his stride. He walked by the mayor and went into the saloon. Two of Hank Fetterman’s riders were standing by the piano, leaning on it, and one of them was fumbling out a one-finger tune, cursing when he missed a note. Hank Fetterman was at the far end of the bar, and Jeff went and joined him. A little cow talk was good of a Sunday morning, and Hank Fetterman knew cows. The two men at the piano started to sing.
Hank Fetterman’s glance drifted lazily to Jeff Anderson and then away. His smile was fleeting. “How are you, Jeff?”
“Good enough,” Jeff said. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“You twisted my arm,” Hank Fetterman said.
Hank Fetterman was a well-built man with a weathered face. His brows were heavy and they pinched together toward the top, forming a perfect diamond of clean, hairless skin between his deep-set eyes. His voice was quiet, his manner calm. Jeff thought of the times he had crossed this man, enforcing the no-gun ordinance, keeping Hank’s riders in jail overnight to cool them off. He had no regrets over the way he had handled Hank in the past. It had nothing to do with his feeling toward Hank now or in the future. He saw that Hank was wearing a gun and he smiled inwardly. That was like Hank. Tell him he couldn’t do something and that was exactly what he wanted to do. “Didn’t figure on seeing you in town,” Jeff said. “Thought you and the boys were on roundup.”
“I had a little personal business come up,” Hank Fetterman said. “
You know about it?”
Jeff shrugged. “Depends on what it is.”
The pale smile left Hank Fetterman’s eyes but not his lips. “Rudy Svitac is telling it around that I ran a bunch of my cows through his corn. He claims I’m trying to run him out of the country.”
Jeff had no trouble concealing his feelings. It was a trick he had learned a long time ago. He leaned his elbows on the bar and turned his shot glass slowly in its own wet circle. Behind him Hank Fetterman’s two cowboys broke into a boisterous ribald song. The bartender wiped his face with his apron and glanced out the front window across toward the marshal’s office. Jeff Anderson downed his drink, tossed the shot glass in the air, and caught it with a down sweep of his hand. “You’re used to that kind of talk, Hank.” He set the shot glass on the bar.
“You’re pretty friendly with the Svitacs, aren’t you, Jeff?” Hank Fetterman asked. He was leaning with his back to the bar, his elbows behind him. His position made the holstered gun he wore obvious.
Again, just for a moment, Jeff Anderson was two people. He remembered the man he wanted to be. “I don’t reckon anybody’s very friendly with the Svitacs,” he said. “They’re hard to know. I think a lot of their boy. He’s a nice kid.”
Slowly the smile came back into Hank Fetterman’s amber eyes. He turned around and took the bottle and poured a drink for himself and one for Jeff. “That forty acres of bottom land you were asking me about for a calf pasture,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it. I guess I could lease it to you all right.”
“That’s fine, Hank,” Jeff Anderson said. “I can use it.” He doffed his glass to Hank and downed his drink. It didn’t taste right, but he downed it anyway. The two cowboys started to scuffle and one of them collided with a table. It overturned with a crash.
A Century of Great Western Stories Page 15