Walter Van Tilburg Clark

by Les Weil

  Mapes fired the shot, and we heard it echo in the mountain as Ma and Farnley cut their horses sharply across the haunches and the holders let go and jumped away. The horses jumped away too, and the branch creaked under the jerk. The old man and the Mex were dead at the fall, and just swung and spun slowly. But young Tetley didn't cut. His horse just walked out from under, letting Martin slide off and dangle, choking to death, squirming up and down like an impaled worm, his face bursting with compressed blood. Gerald didn't move even then, but stood there shaking all over and looking up at Martin fighting the rope.

  After a second Tetley struck the boy with the butt of his pistol, a back-handed blow that dropped him where he stood.

  "Shoot him," he ordered Farnley, pointing at Martin. Farnley shot. Martin's body gave a little leap in the air, then hung slack, spinning slowly around and back, and finally settling into the slowing pendulum swing of the others.

  Gil went with Davies to help young Tetley up. Nobody talked much, or looked at anybody else, but scattered and mounted. Winder and Moore caught up the rustlers' ponies. The Bartlett boys and Amigo remained to drive the cattle, and to do the burying before they started. All except Mapes and Smith shied clear of Tetley, but he didn't seem to notice. He untied his big palomino, mounted, swung him about and led off toward the road. His face was set and white; he didn't look back.

  Most of the rest of us did, though, turn once or twice to look. I was glad when the last real fall of the snow started, soft and straight and thick. It lasted only a few minutes, but it shut things out.

  Gil caught up and rode with me after he and Davies had helped Gerald. I'd thought, seeing him drop, that the kid had been killed, but Gil said no, it had been a glancing blow, that snow on his face and a drink had fixed him up enough to ride.

  We rode slowly because of my shoulder, letting the others disappear ahead of us, and Gerald and Davies come up behind us. It was difficult to turn in my saddle, but I did, to get a look at Gerald. His face had a knife­edge, marble-white look, and the circles under his eyes were big and dark, so that he appeared to have enormous eyes, or none at all, but empty sockets, like a skull. He wasn't looking where he was going, but the trouble wasn't his injury. I don't think he knew now that he had it. He was gnawing himself inside again. Passionate and womanish, but with a man's conscience and pride, that boy kept himself thin and bleached just thinking and feeling. Davies, riding beside him, kept passing his hand over his face in a nerveless way unusual to him, rubbing his nose or fingering his mouth or drawing the hand slowly across his eyes and forehead, as if there were cobwebs on his skin.

  We were all tired, even Gil half asleep in his saddle, and we nearly rode into the horses standing in the clearing before we saw them. They were quietly bunched under the falling snow.

  "It's the sheriff," Gil said. "It's Risley."

  Then he said, "Jesus, it's Kinkaid."

  It was too, with a bandage on his head, and a bit peaked, but otherwise as usual, quiet, friendly and ashamed to be there. The other three men, besides the sheriff, were Tyler, Drew and Davies' pimply clerk Joyce. The Judge was red in the face and talking violently, but through the snow his voice came short and flat.

  "It's murder, murder and nothing less. I warned you, Tetley, I warned you repeatedly, and Davies warned you, and Osgood. You all heard us; you were all warned. You wanted justice, did you? Well, by God, you shall have it now, real justice. Every man of you is under arrest for murder. We'll give you a chance to see how slow regular justice is when you're in the other chair."

  Nobody replied to him, that I could hear.

  "My God," Gil said, "I knew it didn't feel right. I knew we should wait. That bastard Tetley," he finished.

  Everybody would hang it on Tetley now. I didn't say anything.

  The sheriff was stern, but he wasn't the kind to gabble easily, like Tyler. He was a small, stocky man with a gray walrus mustache and black bushy eyebrows. He had a heavy sheepskin on, with the collar turned up around his ears. His deep-set, hard, blue eyes looked at each of us in turn. Nobody but Tetley tried to hold up against his look, and even Tetley failed.

  When he'd made us all look down, he said something we couldn't hear to the Judge. The Judge began to sputter, but when Risley looked level at him too the sputter died, and the Judge just stared around at us belligerently again, thrusting his lower lip out and sucking it in and making a hoarse, blowing noise.

  Risley sat silent for a moment, as if considering carefully, looking us over all the time. Finally he stared into the snow over us and the milky blue shadows of the trees through it and said, "I haven't recognized anybody here. We passed in a snowstorm, and I was in a hurry."

  "That's collusion, Risley," the Judge began loudly, getting redder than ever. "I'll have you understand I won't."

  "What do you want to do?" Risley cut in, looking at him.

  The Judge tried to say something impressive about the good name of the valley and of the state, and the black mark against his jurisdiction and Risley's, but it was no use. Everybody just waited for him to stop; he couldn't hold out against all of us without Risley.

  When he was just blowing again, Risley said, "I'm not even looking for the leaders. Nobody had to go if he didn't want to."

  He went on in changed tone, as if he had finished unimportant preliminaries and was getting down to business.

  "I'll want ten men for my posse."

  We all volunteered. We were tired, and we'd had plenty of man hunting and judging to hold us for a long time, but we felt he was giving us a chance to square ourselves. Even Tetley volunteered, but Risley didn't notice him; he passed up Mapes also. But he took Winder, which added Gabe Hart, and he took Moore, and after looking at him for a long time he took Farnley. Kinkaid looked up at that, smiled a little and raised one hand off the horn just enough so Farnley could see it. Farnley straightened as if he'd had half a life given back to him. Farnley was mean with a grudge, but honest. If he didn't like Risley right then, he liked himself a lot less.

  When Risley had selected his ten men, he ordered the rest of us to go home. "Go on about your own business," he told us. "Don't hang around in bunches. If you have to tell anybody anything, just tell them I'm taking care of this with a picked posse. You can't stop the talk, but there'll be a lot less fuss if you keep out of it. Nobody knew these men."

  He turned to the Judge. "It'll have to be that way," he apologized.

  "Perhaps, perhaps," the Judge muttered. "All the same" and he subsided. Actually, though, he was relieved. We didn't have to worry about him.

  Risley and Drew pushed through us, the chosen men falling in behind them. The rest began to drift down toward the valley. Tetley was left to ride by himself this time. But he was iron, that man; his face didn't show anything, not even weariness.

  Davies stopped Risley and Drew. Both his manner and his speech were queerly fumbling, as if he were either exhausted or a little mad. While he spoke to them he twisted his bridle, occasionally jerking a length of it between his two hands, and then halting his speech for a moment while he rubbed his forehead and eyes that feeble way. When Drew had questioned him a bit they got it straight. For some obscure reason, connected apparently only with the way he felt, he didn't believe he should take that letter to Martin's wife. He wanted Drew to take it. He wanted Drew to get a woman to help Martin's wife too; he was much impressed by the need of the woman, and repeated it several times, saying it should be an older woman who had had children and wouldn't gush. He insisted that Drew must be able to see why he couldn't take the letter.

  You could tell by Drew's face that he couldn't see. He was a big, fleshy man with gray eyes, a yellow tan and a heavy, chestnut beard. He was wearing a gray frock coat and a Spanish sombrero with silver conches on the band, and was smoking a thin Mexican cigar. He talked with the cigar in the corner of his mouth. He was taking the whole thing impatiently, as business to be done. But then, he hadn't seen what we had. And he wasn't totally without concern, because,
when Davies asked him, as if, somehow, the answer was very important to him personally, if he had sold the cattle to Martin, he answered only after a delay, and then said, "Yes, poor kid. A lot better for him if I hadn't. It don't do to change your regular ways," he added. "Men get to banking on them."

  You could see he thought there was something queer about the way Davies was acting, but he took the letter and the ring from him, assuring him that he would send somebody he could trust if he couldn't take them himself. He promised he would send a woman too, a woman who would take care of things and not be a sympathy monger. When Davies was still fretful, like a man with a very orderly mind who is dying and can't remember if everything is arranged, Drew became short in his answers. But he also thought of the thing which seemed to relieve Davies most for the moment; he hadn't wanted to ask about it.

  "I'll give his wife the money he paid me for the cattle, of course," Drew said impatiently. "I have it with me; I haven't even had a chance to get back to the house yet."

  Then he got ready to go, but looked hard at Davies, and decided to risk an opinion on something which wasn't strictly any of his business.

  "You'd better get some rest," he told Davies. "You're taking this too hard. From what I've heard, you did all you could; there's nothing you or anybody else can do about it now."

  Davies looked at him as if Drew were the crazy one. But he didn't say anything, just nodded. Risley made a come-on motion with his hand to the posse, and they filed off slowly on the snowy road. When they had entered the aisle between the big pines they picked up to a little jog, and finally disappeared, dimming away man by man through the screen of falling snow. In the clearing there was already beginning to be sunlight in the snow.

  "Must have been that other bunch after all," Gil said.

  "What?" Davies asked.

  "The bunch Small and Carries told us about."

  "Oh," said Davies, "Yes, I suppose so."

  When we reined around, Gil said, "What the hell's going on now?"

  There weren't more than half a dozen riders left in the clearing; they were all bunched on the farther edge, where the ravine pitches down to the creek. Among them were two horses without riders; one of them was young Tetley's black.

  We rode over to the edge too, and looked down with the others. About half way up the steep bank, scram­bling in the snow and among the loose stones, and slip­ping on the pine needles, were Smith and Gerald. Smith had one arm around the boy, and was grabbing from bush

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  to bush and at saplings to pull himself up. The kid didn't seem to be hurt, though, he just wasn't doing anything to help himself. Sparks dismounted and went part way down to give a hand to the pair. They came up that way, stumbling and sliding to the top, the kid dragging his feet and not even hanging on.

  When they got up he stood by himself all right. Sparks kept a hand on his shoulder.

  "What you want to try a thing like that foh, Mastah Tetley?" Sparks asked him. He was trying to prod the kid awake, but console him too. He was scared at what the kid had been doing. The others were scared too, but they were tired and they didn't care so much; they were resentful.

  "He's crazy," Ma said, looking down at him.

  Gerald didn't say anything. He shook Spark's hand off his shoulder and walked over slowly to his horse and struggled up into the saddle.

  "Keep an eye on him," Ma said. "He's crazy. You got the gun?" she asked Smith.

  Smith held it up for her to see. "Damned young fool," he said proudly. "I didn't get down there any too soon. Maybe you think that bank isn't steep," he boasted, "and slick. By Godfreys I went down; thought I was gonna dive right in the creek."

  "He wouldn't have done it," one of the riders said. He was a thin, middle-aged man with a long, thin nose and a thin, down-turned mouth. He looked sandy, weedy and sour. I didn't know him, or where he came from.

  "What was he up to this time?" Gil asked.

  Smith was excited and wanted to prove how quick he'd been.

  "First thing we just noticed his horse," he said, "and nobody on it." He pointed at the horse, but if young Tetley heard he didn't look at us. "Well, I knew what he was thinking, of course. Who didn't? He hadn't been making any secret about it. Right off I picked the creek canyon as the place. Sure enough, there he was, standing by himself down at the bottom. He was just staring at the water then, but he had this gun in his hand," Smith held the gun up again, "and it didn't take more than one look to know what he was going to do. I tell you, I piled down there in a hurry. Lucky he didn't hear me till I was right on him; noise of the water, I guess. When he did hear me, he was going to do it quick, but I got to him." He looked around at us for admiration.

  "He wouldn't have done it," the sour man said again.

  "The hell he wouldn't," Smith said, raising his voice.

  Young Tetley still didn't look at us, but started his horse for the narrows. Smith didn't notice; he was going right on to prove Gerald would have killed himself.

  "We saw it," Ma said. She was watching Gerald.

  But Smith had to convince the sour man. He lowered his voice, but went on waving the gun. The sour man was watching the gun; it made him nervous. Smith was going to explain how Tetley had made a fool of his son in front of everybody.

  "You're certainly taking a lot of responsibility," the sour man said.

  "Somebody had to," Smith yelled at him. "I didn't see you in any hurry."

  "He wanted to, maybe," said the sour man, "but he couldn't have done it."

  Smith was still going to argue it, but we were all moving away. He stared after the sour man for a minute, then spit and went over to his own horse.

  He caught up with us and kept trying to prove Gerald would have shot himself, and on the side that Tetley was responsible for all the trouble. We didn't want to talk, or hear him talk, and finally he gave up and rode on ahead to try it on Ma.

  On the way down we just stopped on a few level spots to give me a breather. My shoulder felt stiff and very big. We didn't talk except when I asked Gil for a drink or to light me a cigarette.

  By the time we got to the fork at the foot of the grade it had stopped snowing and the sky was beginning to clear, not breaking up, but thinning away everywhere at once and letting pale sunlight through. It was still cold though, and the mountains on both sides of the valley were white to their bases.

  On the edge of town Gil asked me, "How do you feel now?"

  It seemed to cheer him up when I told him I was coming all right.

  "The quicker we get out of this town," he said, "the better I'll feel."

  I didn't feel like two days' riding right then. I had my mind set on food and a change of bandage and a bed. I didn't say anything.

  He saw what I was thinking, though.

  "Still," he said, "I wouldn't mind getting good and drunk and staying that way for a couple of days. We'll lay up at Canby's. Canby's as good as a doctor. And he don't gossip."

  "I'll be all set by tomorrow," I told him.

  "Sure," he said.

  When we went in at Canby's Smith was already there, drinking and arguing. He was working himself up to a fit of righteousness. Canby was standing behind the bar, listening to him, but not showing anything or saying anything. Smith was quiet when he saw us, and began staring down into his drink as if he was thinking hard but keeping his thoughts to himself.

  "What'll it be?" Canby asked us, like we'd just come in from work.

  "We want a room," Gil said, looking at Smith hunched over his drink.

  Canby looked at me. He knew all right. "Go on up," he said, "the front room's empty.

  "The whole damn place is empty, for that matter," he continued, looking at Smith, "but the front room's all made up."

  Gil put a hand on Smith's shoulder. Smith started to shake it off, but when Gil clinched it he stood still, not even trying to look around.

  "Listen, fellow," Gil said, "don't talk so much."

  We went up to the front room, which wa
s bare and clean. There was a dresser with a wash bowl and a pitcher of water and a glass on it, a curtain strung across one corner for a closet, one chair, an iron double bed, and a small stove with nickel trimmings. Everything but the stove was painted white, and the curtain was heavy white canvas. The bed had clean but wrinkled linen on it. There was no carpet on the floor and no curtains on the two windows, which made the room seem scrubbed and full of light. Through the eastern window we could see the mountains with the snow on them, and through the other the street, with Davies' store right across from us. But it was cold in there too. While I lay down on the bed Gil built a fire in the stove. There was fresh-cut wood in a heap on the floor beside it. Then he came over and pulled my boots off for me.

  "You lay here and take a rest for a while," he said. "I'll take the horses over to Winder's."

  When he'd left I could hear Smith talking again downstairs. Then, after a bit, it was quiet. I was half asleep when the door opened and Canby came in. He had another armload of wood for the stove. He dumped it, and started putting some in.

  "Monty won't talk for a while," he said, without looking around. "He's back in the poolroom with a whole bottle. Then he'll have to sleep it off."

  "It doesn't matter anyway," I said. "Everybody knows."

  "Yes," Canby said, straightening up, "but Smith strengthens the facts a bit."

  He came over and stood by the bed.

  "How's the shoulder?" he asked.

  "Not so good," I admitted. "Smith tell you about that too?"

  "No," he said, "he was telling me mostly about how he saved young Tetley, and what a first-rate bastard Tetley was, and more about how he saved young Tetley. You didn't walk right," he explained.

  "Let me have a look at it," he went on, starting to undo my shirt.

  "You a doctor?" I asked him.

  "You have to know a little of everything in this business," he said. "Somebody's always getting hurt. They come in to get their courage up, and then they have to prove it."