Boomer

by Clifton Adams

  “How's the boy?” Grant asked.

  The doctor wiped his hands on a flour-sack towel and began fastening his soiled cuffs. “He's full of opium now. Likely he'll be sicker from that than from the gunshot wound.” He got into his coat, buttoning it all the way to his scrawny throat. “How come the marshal let you go?”

  Grant ignored the question and walked quietly to the boy's cot, but Rhea still did not look up. “You look like you could use some sleep,” he said.

  At last she raised her head and fixed her cool gaze on Grant's face. “There'll be time for sleep... later. What happened to the timbers?”

  At a time like this, with her brother full of opium and in the hands of a whisky-soaked quack, her principal concern was still with the well. Grant smiled stiffly. “The timbers are bought and paid for; they belong to us.”

  Surprise jarred her out of her frozen calm for a moment. Grant's smile felt like a crack across the face of an earthen jug, but he held it and inclined his head toward the runner. “Valois paid for it.”

  She glanced quickly at the runner, her eyes narrowed and suspicious. Valois caught and held her gaze for just a moment, but both their faces were blank, and Grant could not guess what they were thinking. “Thanks,” Rhea said briefly. “You'll get your money back when we're spudded in.”

  “I'd like to have that in writing,” Valois said, and high color appeared suddenly in Rhea's face.

  “You'll have it in writing,” she said stiffly, and looked away, but the dollar-sized circles of crimson still burned in her cheeks.

  On the other side of the sickroom there was another occupied cot, and Grant became aware of Kirk Lloyd's gaunt face and the pale, humorless eyes watching them. “So you're awake, are you?” Doc Lewellen said, but made no move toward the cot.

  “And still alive, no thanks to your filthy bandages,” the gunman said bleakly, but his steady gaze was on Rhea. He shifted himself on the sagging cot and studied her with brazen admiration. “You're lucky that crazy brother of yours is still alive,” he said at last. “I don't usually miss.” Then, in the same voice, “Am I under arrest?”

  No one made a sound. Somehow, it didn't seem decent to speak to this man who had tried to gun them down a few hours before. Lloyd laughed abruptly, but the sound quickly degenerated into a spasmodic fit of coughing.

  Still he had his bleak gaze fixed on Rhea Muller's face, and he lay for a moment quietly admiring what he saw there. “I don't know how you swung it,” he said finally, “but Farley won't take kindly at bein' made to look a fool. You've got your job cut out for you, lady, if you mean to go on fightin' him.”

  For the first time Rhea turned and looked at this man who had tried to kill her brother. Nothing changed in the smooth, stonelike contours of her face, no hate flamed up in her eyes. She studied the man coldly, thoughtfully, and at last she said, “You hired your gun to Farley, but you sound as though you hate him.”

  The man's eyes narrowed, and Grant could see that Lloyd would not soon forget those kicks that Farley had delivered while the gunman had been helpless. He eased himself down on the cot and gazed flatly at the naked ceiling. “That's puttin' it mildly,” he said at last quietly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A COLD, SLASHING wind swept through the Glenn Basin that day. There had been no snow for three days—since the night they had brought Bud Muller home from Doc Lewellen's sickroom—and the ground was frozen and wind-dried to the hardness of iron ingots. Tall, dead weeds in the draws rattled like bones, and the mangy patches of buffalo grass that carpeted the land were powder dry, brittle, incendiary, and dangerous.

  Most of the rigs in the basin had fire watches out that day, but the Muller lease was more watchful and tense than the others. Since sunup Grant and Turk Valois had been riding the boundaries, watching sharply for the faintest whisper of smoke to the north. This kind of weather was made for men like Ben Farley. A spark could set off the entire lease, burn it out, delay construction beyond all hope of meeting the deadline.

  For once Grant was glad that Valois had hired on, for two sets of eyes were not too many to cover that wide expanse of grass. And all of them knew that it was time—past time, maybe—for Farley to make his next move.

  From behind a stand of naked blackjack Grant swept the northern boundary with a searching gaze, from Slush Creek to the derrick, to the dugout, to the bunkhouse, and for a moment he watched the derrick builders climb like monkeys in that flimsy lacework of wood, fifty feet above the frozen ground.

  The derrick itself was almost finished; Rhea's dream was nearing reality. Zack Muller was dead. Bud Muller limped about the bunkhouse with a bullet hole in his side, but every minute brought Rhea's dream closer to being true, and that, Grant thought grimly, was the thing that mattered. And yet he found his gaze returning to the dugout door again and again, searching for a glimpse of her.

  Even now, as he sat the shaggy claybank stallion on that gusty hilltop, Grant could not be sure why he stayed here risking his neck by the hour for a woman who wouldn't even look at him unless she wanted something. If this was love, he'd rather have nothing more to do with it. He had been happier on the Missouri farm, womanless, or on the trail in the company of cowhands like himself.

  It was a strange thing, this feeling that a man could have for a woman, and perhaps there was no logical explanation.

  He hunched a bit deeper into his windbreaker. Then, as he started to rein the claybank around, he saw a rider approaching from the direction of Sabo. Grant frowned and forgot everything else for the moment. Even from that distance, as the horseman rode through the scrawny line of gaunt cotton-woods, Grant sensed that danger was approaching.

  Instinctively, he reached into his windbreaker for the comforting feel of his revolver, then he hauled the claybank around and quartered across that stretch of barren land to cut the stranger off between the creek and the dugout. Away to the south, near the far corner of the lease, he saw Turk Valois standing in his stirrups, one hand shading his eyes. Grant started to pump his arm, a signal that would have brought the runner up from the south, then he realized that this might be a trick that would leave half the lease unguarded, and he motioned for the runner to stay where he was.

  Now, as the strange horseman rode out of the frozen draw, Grant could see the hunched, gangly figure leaning heavily on the saddle horn. He made a small sound of surprise and nudged the claybank to a faster gait. The rider was Kirk Lloyd, Ben Farley's imported gunman.

  The gunman's face was even more gaunt and drawn than Grant remembered it, the skin stretching like yellowed rawhide drying over a hickory frame, the mouth a thin line, the eyes hollow and feverish. How he had escaped the sickroom Grant didn't know, and at the moment he didn't care. He grabbed the .45 from his waistband and approached Lloyd with the revolver in his hand.

  “That's far enough!” he called as soon as he was within shouting distance.

  The gunman gave a bare suggestion of a shrug, dropped the reins, and let his animal stand. “One day,” he said bleakly, “you're goin' to grab your gun and I'll be ready.”

  “I can wait,” Grant said steadily. “Now haul your animal around and head back across the creek.”

  But Lloyd shook his head and almost grinned. “I'm a special visitor. I got an invitation from the Muller girl.”

  Grant came a little straighter in his saddle. It must be true, for not even Lloyd would have tried so brazen a lie. But Grant found it hard to believe.

  “Rhea couldn't have talked to you. She hasn't been off the lease for three days.”

  Lloyd lifted his head as though it were an effort. “I didn't say she had. Turk Valois came to see me yesterday at Doc Lewellen's place. He said the Muller girl sent him.”

  Grant hesitated, remembering that Valois had gone to Kiefer the day before to buy groceries. Beyond that, he did not want to think. “All right,” he said, motioning shortly for Lloyd to lift his hands. Quickly he reached inside the gunman's coat and drew out an oak-handled .45. “We
can see soon enough if you're lying.”

  They dismounted in front of the dugout, Lloyd climbing slowly, painfully out of the saddle, holding his left elbow hard against his side. The door to the dugout opened and both men stood for a moment, staring.

  Rhea, wearing the white dress that Grant had seen once before, stood in the doorway, straight as a lance, cool and beautiful, with the gusty wind whipping the tiered organdy about her ankles. And at that moment Grant knew that Lloyd had told the truth. She had sent for him. She had expected him and had worn that new white dress especially for his coming.

  Whether the sudden glimpse of beauty—in this land where women were rare and beautiful women almost nonexistent-had its calculated effect on Lloyd, Grant could not tell. He merely stared for a moment in a kind of blank surprise.

  “Your man, Valois, said you wanted to see me,” he said at last.

  She almost blinded him with a smile, but Grant noticed that the slaty flatness of her eyes did not change, and Lloyd noticed it, too, for he bowed stiffly, the corners of his mouth twitching, and limped down the sod steps ahead of Grant.

  And now Grant knew what was coming next and waited for Rhea to work her magic. He felt wooden and awkward and was angered when she glanced at him, quickly, as if in some manner to say this was their secret, between just the two of them. And then he heard her saying, “How much did Valois tell you, Mr. Lloyd?” And made it sound as though she were asking important company if they would have another cup of tea.

  The gunman sank slowly to the edge of a cane-bottomed chair and sat erect, his elbow against his side. And for one long moment he studied Rhea Muller's face, and then, with supreme arrogance, he let his gaze move up and down the length of her slender figure until slow, hot color began to show above the high neck of her organdy dress.

  “Valois said you had a job for me,” he said, but did not change his expression of blunt appraisal.

  If it had not been so deadly serious it might have been amusing to see a girl like Rhea choking on her pride. Lloyd voiced no off-color word or suggestion; only his eyes spoke his thoughts. And Rhea, her body growing more rigid, the color of anger climbing steadily in her face, fought to control her instincts.

  In the end, of course, she succeeded. Grant, watching silently from the far side of the room, held the brief hope that she would break and react like a real woman. But she held her ground, bit back her anger—and perhaps she even convinced herself that she had misread the things she saw in Kirk Lloyd's eyes—and when she spoke her voice was steady.

  “Yes,” she said, “I have a job for you. My brother is... indisposed,” and Lloyd made no sign that he knew what she was talking about. “We must have a man to take my brother's place, to help protect the lease against Farley's attacks.”

  “I see,” he said. But the tone of his voice said that his mind was on other things. “My services come high.”

  “We're willing to pay anything within reason,” Rhea said quickly, emphasizing the word reason.

  The gunman never took his eyes away from her face. “I usually get paid in advance.”

  “As soon as we're spudded in we'll pay you.”

  “That's a gamble,” Lloyd said flatly, “and men in my position can't afford to gamble.”

  Rhea went on as though she hadn't heard him. “You have reason to hate Ben Farley, don't you, Mr. Lloyd?”

  Something happened behind the gunman's eyes, and it was not pleasant to watch. “Enough to kill him,” he said quietly.

  Rhea glanced quickly at Grant and almost smiled. “That's up to you,” she said to Lloyd. “But murder is no small thing, even here in the Nations. There's a deputy marshal in Kiefer, and he'll see you hang if you go gunning for Farley.”

  Even a man like Lloyd respected Jim Dagget's ability as a lawman, and it was clear that Rhea's thought was not new to him. “What do you suggest?” he asked.

  And now Rhea would not look at Grant. She did not like the way Lloyd looked at her, and she did not like putting her thoughts into words. But the gunman would not accept implication; he would meet her only on his own level of cold violence. To accomplish this, all he had to do was remain silent.

  The color mounted to Rhea's face, and it was not so much from anger now, but shame. In a desperate attempt to skirt her own conscience, she said, “Don't you see! If you worked for us, the Muller lease would protect you against Dagget!”

  He understood perfectly well, and said, “Tell me how you could protect me against Dagget?”

  And Rhea knew that he would have it no other way. He was determined to make her say it, thereby declaring him her moral equal.

  There was nothing Grant could do to help her. This was her decision and she would have to make it her own way and for her own reasons. And he could see her pride deserting her, and her haughtiness, but not her determination. She wheeled suddenly, the full white dress swirling like foam around her ankles, and she paced nervously to the dugout's single small window and stood for one long moment staring out at the blustery sky.

  “All right,” she said at last. “Farley killed my father, he's responsible for my brother being wounded. But he's still alive and free, and the marshal does nothing about it!” For the first time she was exposing all her hate in these few words. “I want Farley killed, do you understand! I want to see him dead, the way I saw my father, and I don't care how it happens!”

  Now she wheeled away from the window and her face was a fine, delicate mask of hate. “You'll have your chance to kill Farley, if you work for us. Sooner or later he'll make his play to wipe us out. Then, if you kill him, there's nothing Dagget can do about it, because you'll be on our pay roll, protecting our property. They don't call it murder, Mr. Lloyd, when a person fights back to protect his property.”

  A kind of grim admiration showed in Lloyd's eyes; it was not every day that a gunman found a woman like Rhea Muller to meet him on his own level, talk to him in his own language. He got to his feet, his gaze fixed hungrily on Rhea's face. “Tell your man to hand back my pistol. I think we can do business together, Miss Muller.”

  And by “business” he didn't mean murder alone, but Rhea chose not to understand the full meaning. She nodded to Grant, without actually looking at him.

  Bleakly Grant handed over the revolver. He wanted to be angry, but strangely he found that he had lost most of his capacity for anger. From start to finish it had been a mistake, and he tried to tell himself that he was lucky to have it ended. But he didn't feel lucky now.

  The gunman said, his voice full of meaning, “I'll be seeing you, Miss Muller,” and started toward the door.

  Grant turned toward the dugout steps when Rhea said, “Joe, I want to talk to you.”

  So it's Joe again, he thought, with a kind of grim humor, but he paused for a moment in the doorway, looking back at her, and finally, when Lloyd had reached the top of the outside steps, he closed the door again.

  “Joe, we needed him! You understand, don't you?”

  “Sure,” he said wearily.

  She came toward him, pausing directly in front of him, but her eyes never quite met his. “Joe, I'm fighting for my life! For everything I ever wanted! And I'm not going to let Farley take it away from me!”

  “I gathered that much. Well, maybe you're right. Maybe Farley deserves to be gunned down by a man like Lloyd, but I'm through with it, Rhea.”

  Her eyes widened as they flitted about his face. “What do you mean?”

  “I'm not working for you any more. I quit the minute you hired a killer on your crew. I don't know, maybe I'd do the same thing in your place, if it had been my father who was killed. I guess I can't be sure just what I would do if things were turned around. But they're not turned around, so I'm quitting.”

  Her lips came together tightly, and her eyes narrowed, as though she were trying to see inside his brain. “Joe, you can't mean it. You can't run out on us when we need you!”

  Grant shook his head. “You don't need me, Rhea. Once I felt sorry
for you, one lone girl going up against a man like Farley. I guess I should have felt sorry for Farley.” He pulled his hat down on his forehead. “You'll find another man to take my place, another Joe Grant, or Turk Valois. One man more or less needn't bother you, Rhea.”

  Abruptly, she laughed. The sound was edged with a wild-ness that chilled him. “You wouldn't dare walk out on me! I know all about you—that bank robbery in Joplin—I'll call Jim Dagget the minute I see you getting your roll together!”

  Grant stood motionless, looking at her. Here was a Rhea that he had never seen before; here was feminine uncertainty and fear skirting the thin edge of hysteria. “Nobody's ever been able to stop you from doing as you please,” he said stiffly. “I guess there's no use of my trying it now.”

  He put one hand on the door latch and suddenly she was on him, her arms about his neck. “Joe, I didn't mean that! I wouldn't call Dagget!”

  He had almost forgotten what it was like having a woman, like Rhea, in his arms again, having a woman clinging to him, depending on him. “Joe, you've got to listen to me! I'm afraid of Lloyd—the way he looks at me! You can't leave me here alone with him!”

  “You'll have Turk Valois to look after you.”

  “Valois!” She spat the word. “He thought he could buy me! I loved him once—or thought I did—but he thought he owned me with his money! And when he had no money...”

  “You quit him,” Grant finished.

  “No!” she almost shouted the word. “He let me quit him. There's a difference.”

  “I guess I don't see it.”

  She made a small sound of helplessness and pressed her face against Grant's chest. “I don't want to talk about Turk Valois. He's dead. His manhood went out of him when he lost his money in Bartlesville. Joe, I want you to stay, not because of Lloyd, but because I love you!”

  It was the word itself, the shock of hearing it spoken, that chilled his anger, numbed the truths that he should have known instinctively. Clinging to him, her arms tightening around his neck, she said it again. And for a moment he could think of nothing else. Her mouth was fire against his, her body warm, her hair and clothing smelling cleanly of lavender. And he knew that he would never forget her; time would never erase this particular moment, and he would always see her in his mind just the way he was seeing her now.