Neal’s hand dropped from the doorknob. “Why?”
“I’m not much good,” she said miserably. “I’d do almost anything for money and I guess I have. I’ve been around men like Darley and Shelton all my life. You’re different, Neal. I wasn’t lying to you when I said I’d had my dreams about you. I wanted a decent man, and you are . . . so decent that you’d throw your life away because of something you believe to be your duty.” She walked to him and gripped his arms. “I’d take you on any terms. I’d do anything you wanted me to do. Just go away with me. Now. Before it’s too late.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Why did Darley hire you to be his wife?”
“He wanted a wife to help him appear respectable. He’s worked these swindles in little communities like this before. He knows how these people think and feel. He said he wanted an attractive woman who could work in his office, but who would go with him to church, too, and to people’s homes when he was invited. People like Olly Earl and Harvey Quinn. So I took his money and came here and moved into the boarding house with him. I’ve slept with him and acted like the loving wife and all the time I’ve hated him. I didn’t think I could ever hate anybody like I have him. He’s no good, and Shelton’s worse.”
He saw misery in her face, and regret and shame, and he knew beyond any doubt that she was telling the truth, but the truth didn’t change anything as far as he was concerned.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, “but even if I wanted to go with you, I couldn’t. If they kill me, I’ll be killed, but I can’t run.”
Tears were in her eyes when she said: “I guess I knew all the time that’s what you’d say. Well, I’ve known one decent man in my lifetime.”
She stood on tiptoes and kissed him, then he stepped away from the door. She opened it and walked out, heels striking sharply against the floor. Neal watched her until she stepped into the street, then she disappeared in the direction of Darley and Shelton’s office.
She could have told the truth, he thought, and still be doing exactly what Darley wanted her to do. It seemed to him that every move Darley and Shelton had made lately was prompted by the frantic desire to get him out of town before Stacey arrived.
Neal felt Abel’s eyes on him. He turned to face the cashier. He said: “Henry, I may not live very long. If they get me, I expect you to stay with the bank.”
“Of course I’ll stay with the bank.” Abel glanced at the street door, then brought his gaze back to Neal’s face. His eyes were blinking constantly, the first indication that Neal had had of the tension that had seized the little man. He said: “Neal, don’t go out there.”
“I don’t have much choice,” Neal said.
“Yes, you do,” Abel said. “If they kill you, they’ll come after me. They’ll force me to make the loans we’ve been refusing.” He looked at the floor, licking his dry lips. “Neal, I suppose I’m a coward, but I almost died once right here in this bank. I don’t want to go through it again.”
Neal could understand that. He told Abel about the notes he’d been receiving, then he said: “Maybe they don’t have anything to do with Ed Shelly. If they don’t, then Darley and Shelton must be the men who are responsible for me getting them. I’ve got to find out. Maybe I’ll find out today.” He nodded at the street door. “Out there.”
Abel took a white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face. He was afraid, almost panicky.
Funny how people fooled you, Neal thought. He had always considered Henry Abel a machine, born with a pen in his hand and the green eye shade on his forehead, a machine lacking the passions and fears that ordinary people had. With one exception. He was afraid of his wife.
“Maybe I won’t throw my life away, Henry,” Neal said, “but, whether I do or not, don’t tell your wife or anyone what you saw, or what you’re thinking about me and Fay Darley. In the first place, you’d be wrong. In the second place, you’d hurt Jane. And in the third place, you’d be doing exactly what they want you to do because they’ve been here long enough to know that your wife is the damnedest gossip in the county.”
“I won’t tell her. I won’t tell her anything.”
Neal returned to his office, having no confidence Abel could keep his word. But he had tried. It seemed to him that was all he was doing lately, just trying. He closed the door and stood at the window, staring at the crowd that was gathering on the other side of the street.
Good men, individually. He recognized most of them even at this distance. O’Hara, Sailor, Tuttle, Olly Earl, Harvey Quinn—men who had done business with Sam Clark for years. But Darley and Shelton were there, too, and they were the yeast that was making this human dough bubble.
Liquor, talk, greed, a sense of persecution slyly worked upon until it had become a savage feeling of being wronged—these were changing men from individuals into a mob. It would take only one act to bring it to fulfillment. The moment he tried to keep Stacey from investing in the irrigation project, they would be upon him, but that was the thing he must do.
Suppose he didn’t say anything to Stacey? Darley and Shelton would get his $10,000 and they would probably leave the country within a matter of hours, taking the money that had been given to them by these very men who were standing in front of O’Hara’s bar. Fay Darley had said that, which was exactly what Joe Rolfe had said all along they would do. For a moment he thought of asking Fay to tell publicly what she had told him, then decided against it. Even if she did, she wouldn’t be believed.
The trouble was, as Joe Rolfe had said, he could do nothing until a crime had been committed. By the time this was known to be a crime, Darley and Shelton might be out of reach. If they succeeded, the county would be hurt, badly hurt, and the fine dreams Sam Clark had had would be set back a generation.
No, he couldn’t let it happen. Even if he could get Stacey to postpone his decision until Neal had the report of the surveying crew, he would accomplish something. It was a matter of time. Sooner or later men like Darley and Shelton would be known for what they were.
He looked at his watch. Almost time for the stage. He checked his gun again. He thought of Laurie and Jane, of the ranch and the bank. If he died today, was Henry Abel man enough to do the job that would fall upon him? There was no way to know, but Neal thought he was.
Neal left the bank, his gun riding easily in his holster. He saw Doc Santee standing alone on the bank side of the street, and turned toward him. Neal had never seen the doctor wear a gun before, but he was wearing one today.
Santee grinned at him. “Almost time for the reception.”
“I figured it was,” Neal said.
Joe Rolfe was not in sight. Across the street the crowd was milling around in front of O’Hara’s bar, impatient now. Shagnasty Bob, the driver, took pride in being on time. He was seldom more than a minute or two late in good weather, but he wasn’t in sight yet.
Rolfe appeared, leaving the crowd to stride across the street to where Neal and Santee stood.
Santee said: “There’s fifty of them, looks like, and three of us. You figure it’s worth dying for, Joe?”
“Nobody’s gonna die,” Rolfe said. “Neal, go take that gun off.”
“Are you crazy?” Santee demanded. “Trying to make a sitting duck out of him?”
“No, you know damned well I ain’t,” the old man snapped. “I’ve been talking to Darley. He says he don’t have no objection if Stacey talks to Neal. But it’s got to be inside the bank. If Neal jumps Stacey on the street, there’ll be hell to pay, the crowd feeling the way it does.”
Rolfe looked at Neal, waiting for him to say he’d wait.
Santee nodded as if he saw sense in what the sheriff said. “What about it, Neal?” Santee said. “You could wait inside the bank. We’ll fetch Stacey.”
Neal didn’t answer. At that moment Ruggles shoved and elbowed his way through the crowd until he stood alone on the other side of the street, a bitter, vindictive man.
He called: “Clark? You hear
me, Clark?”
“I ain’t gonna stand for this,” Rolfe said angrily. “I told that bastard not to make trouble.”
Santee caught his arm. “You’ve lived too long in this country to think you can butt into a deal like this. They’ve got to have it out, after Ruggles said what he did.”
“What did he say?” Neal asked.
“That he saw you and Missus Darley in the brush . . .”
Neal stepped off the walk, not waiting for the rest. He called: “I hear you, Ruggles, and I want everybody else to hear! You’re a liar, a god-damn’ liar!”
The crowd parted behind Ruggles, leaving him alone as Neal was alone, in the morning sun, sharp and bright on the gray dust of the street.
Chapter Fourteen
Neal had seen men face each other with guns on their hips right here on this very street, never dreaming that someday he would be playing a part in the same grim drama. Cascade City was an island around which the current of civilization had flowed. It would change when the railroad came, but it had not changed yet. Here men still decided their personal differences with guns. Doc Santee understood this. So did Joe Rolfe.
This was not like the time Neal had shot the Shelly gang to pieces. That had been spontaneous, but this was deliberate, and Ruggles let it play out, hoping to break Neal’s nerve. Suddenly—and he was surprised by it—Neal discovered he was not afraid. He didn’t look around for Shelton or Darley; he kept his attention riveted on Ruggles, his right hand close to gun butt.
There was this moment that seemed to drag on and on. A wind raised a faint haze of dust, and from somewhere behind the Mercantile a dog barked, a sudden, disturbing sound in the silence. In the end it was Ruggles who broke, not Neal. He threw out a curse and went for his gun.
Ruggles was fast, recklessly and unbelievably fast, and that was his undoing. He squeezed off two shots before Neal fired; one bullet kicked up dust in front of Neal and to his right, the other came close enough to his head for him to hear it snap past. Then Neal’s gun sounded, powder flame a quick burst of fire, the report hammering into the silence to be thrown back between the false fronts in slowly dying echoes.
Ruggles was knocked back and partly around as his finger jerked off a wild shot that was ten feet over Neal’s head. Neal’s second bullet put him down. His gun fell from slack fingers, his hat came off his head to topple over so it lay with the crown in the dust.
Joe Rolfe stepped into the street, his gun in his hand. “Don’t make no fast moves. Hear me, Shelton?”
“I got nothing to do with this fight, Sheriff,” Shelton said indignantly.
Neal ran to the fallen man, Doc Santee a step behind him. Neal knelt beside Ruggles, asking: “Who hired you to kill me?”
Blood bubbled on Ruggles’s lips. He said: “I wasn’t supposed to kill you. Just wound you so . . . you . . . couldn’t . . . see . . . Stacey.”
“Who hired you?” Neal demanded. “Who paid you?”
“Easy, boy,” Santee said. “He’s not going to answer any questions.” Santee motioned to the men on the walk. “Earl. Tuttle. Give me a hand here. Let’s get him off the street before the stage gets here.” In a low tone, he said: “Get over there where you were. Watch it now.”
Neal walked back to the other side of the street. He punched the two spent shells out of the cylinder and reloaded, then dropped the gun back into the holster. The reaction hit him and he began to tremble; sweat broke out all over him. He leaned against the front of the bank, his eyes closed. He was sick, he wanted to get back inside the bank, but he couldn’t. They were watching him from the other side of the street, Darley and Shelton and the rest, hating him and now maybe fearing him a little. Joe Rolfe and Doc Santee had publicly sided him. That, too, might have a quieting effect if there was anything to this lynch talk.
He heard the stage, and someone yelled: “Here she comes!”
The coach made the turn at the north end of the street, careening wildly for a moment before it settled down on all four wheels, dust piling up behind it in a stifling gray cloud. That was Shagnasty Bob’s way, an old-time Jehu who used to make the run into Prineville from the Columbia before the railroad had been pushed south to Shaniko. He’d put on this same show as long as he was able to sit there on the high box and bring the stage roaring into Cascade City, or until the railroad came.
Neal wasn’t sure which would end Shagnasty’s career, old age or the railroad, but it was a good show, a relic out of the past just as the gunfight with Ruggles had been. Time would eventually put an end to both, and Cascade City would be tamed, but right now it was rough and wild and primitive. That was why men’s tempers flamed high as they did, why lynch talk could be more than talk, even with Joe Rolfe wearing the star.
Ruggles’s death had quieted the crowd for a time, but now the tension broke. Men ran into the street and formed two lines, yelling for Stacey and waving their hats. The stage wheeled between the lines, the silk flowed out over the horses to crack with the sharpness of a pistol shot. One moment the six horses were in motion, the stage rumbling and rattling behind them, then all motion stopped, and the street dust whirled up almost to hide horses and stage.
Shagnasty Bob, bearded and leather-faced with the front of his hat brim rolled up, yelled: “I fetched him, boys! It’s up to you now. I done my part.”
Darley opened the coach door and extended his hand. “This is a grand day for Cascade City, Mister Stacey. I’m Ben Darley.”
“I’m glad to be here, Mister Darley,” Stacey said as he stepped down. “When I return, if I’m still alive to return, I’m going to Shaniko by oxcart. I’ll never trust my life to this wild man again.”
Shagnasty Bob bellowed a great laugh and slapped a leg. Dust boiled up from the blow. “I got you here, didn’t I, Stacey? What more can you ask from a man?”
Shagnasty Bob had his moment and only one, then he was forgotten. The crowd surrounded Stacey as the stage wheeled away. They all had to shake hands with Stacey, from Shelton and Harvey Quinn and Olly Earl on down to Sorrenson, the livery stable kid. Then, studying the crowd, Neal suddenly realized that Jud Manion was not here and he wondered about it.
Aside from Manion, Henry Abel was probably the only man in the county who wasn’t on hand to greet Stacey. He remained inside the bank. Joe Rolfe and Doc Santee waited with Neal in the fringe of the crowd, letting the others go ahead. Noticing this, Neal wondered what was in their minds.
From where he stood, Neal had a chance to study Stacey. The man was middle-aged with gray hair and mustache. He was small, but he moved with bird-like spryness that convinced Neal he was tougher physically than his size indicated. He was no fool, either. Neal was sure of that as he watched the man’s animated face. He would listen, Neal thought, if they had a chance to talk.
Suddenly the handshaking stopped, and there was a moment of awkward silence as if nobody knew what the next move should be. Then Santee and Rolfe stepped up and introduced themselves. Santee said something, and Stacey nodded.
He said: “Sure, I want to meet your banker. If he wasn’t here, I’d look him up.”
“Hold on!” Tuttle bellowed. “He ain’t no man for you to talk to, Mister Stacey.”
And O’Hara: “He ain’t for a fact, Mister Stacey. Let’s step into my place and we’ll have drinks all around on the house.”
The crowd howled its pleasure and started toward O’Hara’s bar, but Stacey didn’t move with it. Darley and Shelton stood beside him, Darley showing his irritation, but, to Neal’s surprise, Shelton was affable enough as if this didn’t cut any ice with him either way.
Neal moved toward Stacey, his hand extended. “I’m Clark, the banker. I want to talk to you, but I don’t think the street’s the right place. Why don’t we step into the bank . . . ?”
“No,” Darley interrupted. “Mister Stacey has had a long, hard ride. He’s tired and he needs a drink.”
“No hurry,” Stacey said. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t talk to Clark, Darley?”
“He thinks so,” said Neal. He liked the way Stacey shook hands, the way his sharp eyes met Neal’s. “You see, I’m opposed to this project. So are the sheriff and the doctor. I want to give our side of this business before you make any commitments.”
Most of the men, realizing Stacey was not with them, turned in time to hear what Neal said. With Tuttle in the lead, they charged back. Rolfe stopped Tuttle by stepping in front of him, and Santee drove a shoulder into O’Hara and almost upset him.
Then Shelton, to Neal’s surprise, called: “Let him talk, boys! Clark will hang himself if we give him enough rope.”
“By God, we’ll give him the rope!” Tuttle bawled.
The forward motion stopped, the angry voices subsided. Bewildered, Stacey said: “It strikes me there’s more to this than mere opposition, Clark. Is it simply that you’re taking a banker’s natural stand against speculation?”
“It goes deeper than that.” Neal nodded at Darley. “Will you come into the bank with us? I understand you told Joe you didn’t object to me talking to Stacey?”
Red-faced, Darley said: “Later, Clark. I object strenuously to your talking to him the minute he gets to town.”
“All right,” Stacey said. “Clark, I’ll drop over to the bank as soon as I cut the dust out of my throat.”
“No, I’ll have my say now,” Neal said. “First, I want to assure you that we welcome men with capital. Someday Cascade City will be a big place. It needs your money the same as any undeveloped town needs capital. So does the county. As far as the people are concerned, you will never find better folks. I’m asking you to do just one thing, and I’ve got to say it before Darley talks to you.”
“Not now,” Darley said. “Mister Stacey, it’s important that we don’t waste any more time than . . .”
“This is the damnedest thing I ever ran into,” Stacey interrupted. “You’ve been here six months, Darley. You’ve been writing to me almost that long. What does a few minutes mean right now, one way or the other?”
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