by Alan Lemay
But it was apparent to Bill Roper that even this man, much older than himself, seemed older than he had ever seen him before.
"I'm pretty near ashamed," Dry Camp said, "to ask you for any more money now."
"Go ahead and be ashamed," Roper said, grinning his clean grin. "I hope it pretty near kills you. Because you know as well as I do, there's no money here."
"I was scared of that."
"In the name of Christ, Dry Camp," Roper said, "the first money that comes to me, that money belongs to you. If you don't think I'm good for it-"
Dry Camp Pierce shot straight up on his heels, and his voice rose. "God damn you don't I tell you-"
Bill Roper the kid, the youngster who had hardly been born when Dry Camp first haunted the trails Bill Roper sat motionless, his face a lamp-lit mask. "Then what do you want"
"Bill-it's only-it's only-"
"Well, spit it out!"
"Bill, I can't carry these camps no more. God knows we strung "with you while we could. We've et beef, beef, beef without salt or flour, we've et bobcat meat. But Bill, there's no lead in our guns, and there's no patches in our pants, and it's time I got to let the boys go, to make out any way they can."
Roper laughed in his face. "Your boys getting too good to eat beef?"
Pierce angered. "You tell me and my bunch-"
Bill Roper looked older than Dusty King had ever looked; his face was like granite, with hard lines cut into it by the weather.
"Okay," he said. "I understand how you feel, Dry Camp."
Dry Camp's anger was gone as quickly as it had come. "Bill," he said pleadingly, "it's only it's only-"
"It's only that you've had a lot of men out working for us," Bill Roper said more reasonably.
"Near fifty men," Dry Camp said, "and I swear I couldn't have held them, if it hadn't of been forfor--"
"If it hadn't been for Dusty King," Bill said.
Pierce was silent.
"How many you got working now?"
Dry Camp Pierce hesitated.
"Not a damned man," Bill Roper said.
"Bill, it's been the shiningest fight I've ever seen in all my days. I don't blame nobody but myself"
"What do you mean by that?"
"You was only a kid, Bill the kid that Dusty left. I never told you this before. I'll tell you now. I was with Dusty King, that time he picked you up."
"It seems funny," Roper said, "you never told me that."
"I don't know why I never. I was with Dusty King, that first drive up from Uvalde. Tom your father he was trying the old way to Sedalia. Dusty figured something was wrong; we rode over and cut into Tom's trail. I was with Dusty when he rode into your father's wrecked camp. I seen it all. I saw but let that go. I was there when Dusty King dropped down on one knee, and kind of held out his arms to the buckbrush-and you ran out, a little kid....
"And now you quit Dusty King," Bill Roper said.
"Look you here," Dry Camp said. "I've strung with you when I wouldn't have strung with any other man, let alone an upstart kid. I'll say this for you, by God-you've made a game fight. But kid, take my word for it they're too big, and they're too strong."
"You think so?" Bill Roper said.
"I know so. I don't know what you had, made men like Lee Harnish and Dave Shannon and Nate Liggett throw in with you, but they did the damnedest wild bunch Texas ever seen. Half the renegades of the Long Trail, and your part of KingGordon, has gone into beating Cleve Tanner. And where are we now?"
"Well?"
"We aren't any place! Damn it, kid, I tell you we're beat, and we're long beat!"
"And I say we've only begun!" Bill Roper thundered.
"You're broke," Dry Camp Pierce said, "and everything you've tried is busted. But I swear to God, if you can show me one place more we can hit, I'll swing along."
"I can't show you anything," Roper admitted. "How can I show you anything when I can't pay you anything?"
April melted into May, and Roper had nothing to fight with any more. Those units of his wild bunch that had not quit had not been heard from at all; he knew already that the ones he had not heard from were the ones who had completely failed. Cleve Tanner prospered, seemingly; and all was well with Ben Thorpe.
Bill Roper waited at the Pot Hook now, trying to think of some way that he had missed. His broad campaign had been effective in one thing only; he could no longer expect anything from Lew Gordon. Roper's fantastic foray against Tanner had made itself felt on such a widespread front as to have earned the name of a Rustlers' War; King-Gordon denied him, and Lew Gordon expressedly would advance nothing more against Dusty King's share of the partnership which had been broken by death....
Dry Camp Pierce still loafed at the Pot Hook, dejected, hopeless. No one knew what he was waiting for. Roper never heard from the rest of them now. In spite of everything that Maxim could do, the Rangers were on the loose. The wild bunch that had threatened to dominate Texas was broken and split, scattered far and wide, every man for himself. Day and night, a saddle pony waited beside the door of the bunkhouse in which Roper slept....
Now, unexpectedly, came Shoshone Wilce.
Roper had not seen him since that first dark, discouraging news that Shoshone Wilce had brought eight weeks before.
Nothing could tell more of Roper's present position than this:-as Shoshone Wilce rode up, Bill Roper already had his gun in his hand, and the other hand upon the bridle rein of his pony.
Shoshone Wilce almost tumbled into Bill Roper's arms. He grabbed Bill by both lapels of the black, town-going coat that Roper always wore when he was about to travel a long way. Shoshone's bottle-nose gleamed and quivered, and his eyes were like shoe buttons.
"It's done! He's bust-he's split he's cracked
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Cleve Tanner, by God! I tell you, he's gone to hell!"
Suddenly Bill Roper turned into the unaccountable kid that his years justified. Like a man suddenly coming alive, he took Shoshone by the throat, shook him as if he had weighed no more than a cat. His teeth showed bare and set.
He said, "Shoshone you fool with me-"
Shoshone cried out through the grip on his throat, "I tell you, Cleve Tanner-"
He couldn't say any more; and now Bill Roper came to himself, and let go of Shoshone so abruptly that the little man almost dropped in his tracks.
"Come in," he said unsteadily; "come in and have a cup of coffee, and set."
"Listen, damn your soul; I tell you Cleve Tanner is through!"
Bill Roper was cool again, now. "What makes you think so?"
"He failed his delivery at the Red. Where he was supposed to bring up fifteen thousand head, a little handful of punchers showed up with a few hundred. He can't round his cattle if he's got any cattle and he can't make delivery at the Red!"
Bill Roper walked a little way off from Shoshone Wilce, and he leaned against the butt ends of the poles that formed a corner of the corral. He said, "I ought to have known it. There isn't the outfit nor the string of outfits, in all the plains, that can stand up against the punishing Cleve Tanner took.
"We didn't believe you," Shoshone Wilce babbled on. "We all said it couldn't be done. But by Christ, we've done it! All over Texas, Tanner's notes are being called, as the word spreads. Wells Fargo refuses to honor his signature for a dime. They say now that Ben Thorpe won't back TannerThorpe denies him, and the Tanner holdings are being closed up and sold out-"
"I ought to have known," Bill Roper said again, "I did know, only, they all quit me, and took to the tall, and talked me out of it...."
Shoshone Wilce seemed to realize what had happened better than Bill Roper was able. After all, Shoshone was the one who had been, and seen.
"He's beat, and he's whipped, and he's wiped out, and he's through!" Shoshone exulted.
"You sure?" Roper asked, looking up from the ground again.
"Am I sure? You think I'd risk my damn throat coming here to tell you something like
this, if I didn't know for sure?"
"No," Roper admitted "I guess not."
"It's all over," Shoshone tried to tell him. "Can't you realize it, man?"
"No," Roper said.
TROLLING, easy-going, but somehow reluctant, Bill Roper walked the streets of Tascosa, between the false-fronted wooden buildings that lined the hoof-stirred dust.
Sooner or later, he knew, Cleve Tanner would appear upon this one main street; but as the days dragged by and Tanner did not come, Roper could not have said whether he was anxious to get the meeting over with, or whether he would have put it off if he could. The word that Shoshone Wilce had brought to the Pot Hook was on everybody's tongue now. All Texas seemed to know that Ben Thorpe had refused to pull Cleve Tanner out of the hole had sacrificed his own interests in Texas, to let Tanner take the full brunt of the disaster. And everybody knew that Tanner was on the warpath, determined to seek out Bill Roper. It was said that Tanner's only remaining interest was to bring down the youngster who had cut Texas from under him.
Yet ten days passed before Cleve Tanner came.
It was eleven o'clock on a sunny Saturday morning when Dry Camp Pierce brought Bill the word.
"Well, kid, he's here. You were right again you won't have to hunt him out. He's looking for you; all you have to do is wait."
"Where is he now?"
"In some bar, a block up the street. He's walking from bar to bar, asking if you've been seen. You might's well wait for him here."
"No," Roper said. "I'll walk out and meet him, I think."
"Every man to his own way. First better have a drink."
Bill Roper stood leaning on the bar, his fingers twirling the whiskey glass the bartender set out. This moment was the one he had worked toward, constantly and insistently, ever since the killing of Dusty King. He had thrown everything he had into the breaking of Cleve Tanner, as a necessary preliminary to rubbing him out, and canceling the first of the three who had put Dusty under the prairie. Five minutes more would finish forever the job he had worked on unflaggingly for more than a year.
Yet now that he faced it, Roper felt no sense of triumph or success. He knew he was going to go through with what was ahead, but he found now that he hated it, more than anything he had ever gone against. His only sense of anticipation was one of bitter distaste.
Dry Camp peered up into his face. "Kid, you look sick!"
"I don't feel real happy," Roper admitted.
"You shaky, kid?"
Roper held out his right hand, fingers extended. They showed no tremor.
"Steady as rock," Dry Camp commented. "Don't worry. You'll come through."
"I know I will."
"Draw deliberate and slow," Pierce counselled, "Take your time,-don't hurry, whatever you do. But don't waste any time, either. Fast and smooth
"I get you," Roper said with a flicker of a grin. "Take my time, but be quick about it. Move plenty slow, but fast as hell. All right, Dry Camp!"
He gave the butt of his gun a hitch to make sure it was loose in its leather; then he spun the whiskey away from him untasted, and walked out.
Dry Camp Pierce looked at the full glass, and exchanged a worried glance with the bartender. Then he followed Bill.
"Walk in the middle of the street," he told Bill as he caught up. "There ain't so much chance of killing some fool that sticks his head out of a door to see the excitement."
"Okay." Roper stepped into the dust, between the tied cow ponies, and walked down the middle. "I'll be seeing you."
"Oh, I'll get out of the way. When it's time."
Dry Camp kept blinking his eyes in the bright light, as if they were dry; his lids looked tight, and there were white patches at the corners of his mouth. When he tried to spit he could not.
"Don't give him too much of a break, kid. He's awful bad. But you'll get him, all right," he added hastily.
Little groups of punchers that stood on the board sidewalks drew back close to the building, or into doorways. The whole street seemed to become motionless, and very quiet. A man ran out of a saloon, untied a beautiful three-quarters-bred mare, and led her into the saloon. She reared at the doorway, but he got her in. Dry Camp laughed. "Get your toys in, children! Going to rain lead!" His face looked feverish.
Half a block ahead another man stepped into the street, and walked toward Bill. Before his face could be seen in the black shadow under his hat, Bill Roper knew by the set of the broad shoulders, by the rolling swing of his stride, that it was Cleve.
"Here he comes," Dry Camp said unnecessarily.
"'Bye, Dry Camp."
"Good luck, kid." Dry Camp dropped away from Roper's elbow, and was instantly out of Bill's thoughts.
The moments during which the two men walked toward each other drew out interminably. Their eyes were upon each other's faces now; Bill could see that Cleve Tanner looked happy, almost gay, as if this was the first good thing that had happened to him for a long time. A little nearer, and it could be seen that there was a touch of craziness in his eyes, in his half grin.
At twenty paces Tanner suddenly spoke. "Draw, kid, if you've got the guts!"
"Draw yourself," Roper said.
At twelve paces Cleve Tanner drew; to observers the men seemed so close together that it was impossible that either of them should live. Tanner's gun spoke five times, fast, faster than most men could slip the hammer. Nobody knew where the first four shots went; but the fifth shot was easy to place, for it blew a hole in the street as Tanner's gun stubbed into the dust.
Bill Roper holstered his own smoking fortyfour. He had fired twice.
Dry Camp Pierce was at his elbow again. "Here's the horses. It's time to ride. By God, I knew you could take him, kid."
Roper was feeling deathly sick.
T WAS well into the summer as Bill Roper once more rode south out of Ogallala toward the pile of stones that marked the grave of Dusty King. Jody Gordon rode with him. In the few days he had stopped over in Ogallala he had hardly seen her at all. At first she had refused to ride with him today; but at the last moment, as if on an impulse, she had changed her mind.
A hot summer wind was sweeping across the prairies, a dry and shriveling wind that parched the needle grass, cracked the lips of riders, and turned tempers short and irritable. It seemed to Roper that Jody Gordon looked sad and lifeless. She rode with her face set straight ahead; the loose ends of her soft hair, whipping in that hot wind, kept striking across her cheeks, like tiny whips, but she didn't seem to notice or care.
Roper, studying her sidelong, thought that Jody seemed to have aged several years in one. Impossible now to find any trace of the irrepressible, up-welling laughter that had been so characteristic of her a year before. Her eyes were unlighted, and a little tiredlooking; her mouth was expressionless except for a faint droop at the corners, which suggested perhaps resignation, perhaps a hidden bitterness.
She didn't have much to say; but finally she asked him, "What did my father decide?"
"He says now that I'll never have another penny out of Dusty King's share until until he's able to dictate to me what I'm going to do with it; or, that's what it amounts to."
"You mean, until you quit this ghastly wild bunch stuff?"
"That's it. But he goes farther than that now. He says now that if I go any further, he's through with me forever. But I guess you knew that already, didn't you?"
"It's about what I expected," Jody said.
"About what you wanted him to do, too, I should think."
"I can't see that it mattered, either way. Whatever we whatever he thought or did, you'd go on just the same. You're the hardest man I've ever known. Nothing could possibly change you; I can see that now. I think you don't care about anything or anybody in the word, except this one terrible purpose."
"It's true I have to go on."
"Did you quarrel with my father?"
"No. He said some kind of bitter things, but I didn't say anything. I asked for certain things five camps in
Montana, mainly. Of course, that was a waste of breath."
"I suppose," Jody said, "you could force an accounting through the courts."
"I wouldn't do that; wouldn't feel I could."
"But you'll go on, and throw yourself against Walk Lasham in Montana?"
"Yes; I have to go on."
"But how?"
"I don't know how, yet," he admitted.
"With your wild bunch broken up and scattered, and without any money, or any way to get any, you'll still try to break Walk Lasham"
"I'll have to find ways."
They were silent after that; and presently they sat, almost stirrup to stirrup, but somehow infinitely far apart, looking down at the stacked boulders from which rose the wooden cross that Bill Roper had made, nearly a year and a half ago.
After a few moments Bill Roper stepped down, and replaced a boulder that had rolled to the ground. As he did so, something between the stones caught his eye; leaning closer, he saw that some little handfuls of Indian paintbrush had been put here, tucked down in the crevices so that they were secure from the hot clawing of the wind. It was late in the season for prairie flowers; whoever had gathered them must have ridden a long way to find the few survivors.
Bill said to Jody, "You put flowers here?"
"Sometimes."
He looked at her hard. He thought her lips were trembling; and for a moment he hoped that the barriers behind her eyes were about to dissolve, so that she would be a little closer to him again, if only for a little while. But she bit her lips, and her eyes as she returned his gaze, were bleak, empty.
He turned away, grim with a sense of illimitable loss. But he had chosen his way, and he had no thought of turning back.
For a little while he stood looking at the cross which he had made of railroad ties. He said, half aloud "One down. Dusty...."
"I suppose," Jody said, "you'll be cutting a notch on the handle of your gun, now."
He was surprised to hear her say that. He had no way of knowing how much she had heard, or what she had heard, about his shoot-out with Cleve Tanner.