“Listen who’s giving the orders,” he said, but grinning.
“Yeh, I guess I was at that,” he said seriously. “Maybe I ought to give him back his money. Say, the money,” he said quickly.
“I’ve got it,” I told him, and gave him the sack. He weighed it in his hand and ran his tongue over his lower lip.
“You think I ought to give it back?” he asked unhappily.
“Not all of it,” I said. “Most of it was won fair. But not the last pot; that was no poker.”
That cheered him up. “Yeh, the last pot,” he agreed, “that was the one.”
He stared at the sack. “Maybe you’d better give it to him,” he said. “How much was it?”
“No, you give it to him,” I said. “That will fix it better.”
He looked at me, thinking about it.
“You don’t need to say anything, just that you were pretty drunk,” I advised.
That seemed to satisfy him.
“How much was it?” he asked again.
“Ten dollars is near enough,” I said.
“Is that all?” he said, feeling better.
He poured coins out into his hand, counted out ten dollars, dropped the rest back in, drew the sack tight, tied it around the neck and slipped it into his pocket. It still made a big bulge. With the ten dollars in his hand he started for the back door.
“Better kind of sidle up,” I said.
He stopped short and looked at me. “The hell I will,” he said. He was coming back all right. He had a wonderful strong head when his belly was clean. “Why should I?” he asked, as if he was willing to be reasonable if I didn’t expect too much.
“You hit him plenty hard,” I said, “and you made him look foolish.”
“Did I?” he asked. Then, “Did I get him?”
“You got him. I thought you’d busted his neck.”
Gil grinned. “Well, I’ll try and go easy,” he said.
We went in through the kitchen and the back room where Canby served meals and had a pool table now. But when we got to the bar door I could see right away something was wrong. Farnley was standing at the other end, by the front door, looking like he hadn’t come out of his daze yet, and Moore had hold of him by the arm and was talking to him. Davies was trying to say something too. Just when we stopped, Farnley shook Moore off, though still standing there.
“The lousy sons-of-bitches,” he said, and then repeated it slowly, each word by itself.
At first I was going to try to get Gil out the back way again. It wouldn’t be easy. When he heard Farnley he pulled the sack out of his jeans again and dropped the ten dollars back into it. And it wasn’t his drunk fighting face that was coming on now, either.
Then I saw how the men were, all gathered together along the bar there, looking quiet and angry, and not paying any attention to us. When they heard our boots a few glanced at us, but didn’t even seem to see us. They’d been watching Farnley at first, and now they were looking at a new rider who was talking excitedly, so I couldn’t get what he said. He was a young fellow, still in his teens, I thought, and he was out of breath. He was feeling important, but wild too, talking fast and waving his right hand, and then slapping the gun on his thigh, which was tied down like a draw-fighter’s. His black sombrero was pushed onto the back of his head, and his open vest was flapping. There was a movement and mutter beginning among the men, but at the end the kid’s voice came up so we could hear what he was saying.
“Shot right through the head, I tell you,” he cried, like somebody was arguing with him, though nobody was.
Farnley reached out and grabbed the kid by the two sides of his vest in one hand, yanked him close and spoke right in his face. The kid looked scared and said something low. Farnley still held him for a moment, staring at him, then let him go, turned and pushed through to the front door and out onto the walk.
Some of the men followed him, but most of them milled around the kid, trying to get something more out of him, but not being noisy now either.
“Come on,” I told Gil, “it’s not us.”
“It better not be,” Gil said, starting slow to come with me.
“It’s the kid that was riding so fast,” I explained.
They were all beginning to crowd outside now. Only Smith was trying to push in past them, with his eye out for drinks they’d left on the bar. And they’d left a lot, seven or eight that weren’t empty. And Canby saw Smith and didn’t say anything either, but went and stood in the door behind the others, looking out. Something was up.
“What’s up?” I asked Canby, trying to see past him. He didn’t turn his head.
“Lynching, I’d judge,” he said, like it didn’t interest him.
“Those rustlers?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he said, looking at me kind of funny. “They don’t know yet who. But somebody’s been in down on Drew’s range and killed Kinkaid, and they think there’s cattle gone too.”
“Killed Kinkaid?” I echoed, and thought that over quick. Kinkaid had been Farnley’s buddy. They’d been riding together from the Panhandle to Jackson Hole ever since they were kids. Kinkaid was a little, dark Irishman who liked to be by himself, and never offered to say anything, but only made short answers when he had to, and then you had to be close to hear him. He always seemed halfway sad, and though he had a fine, deep singing voice, he wouldn’t often sing when he knew anybody could hear. He was only an ordinary rider, with no flair to give him a reputation, but still there was something about him which made men cotton to him; nothing he did or said, but a gentle, permanent reality that was in him like his bones or his heart, that made him seem like an everlasting part of things. You didn’t notice when he was there, but you noticed it a lot when he wasn’t. You could no more believe that Kinkaid was dead than you could that a mountain had moved and left a gap in the sky. The men would go a long way, and all together, to get the guy that had killed Kinkaid. And I was remembering Canby’s joke about Gil and me.
“When?” Gil asked.
Then Canby looked at him too. “They don’t know,” he said; “about noon, maybe. They didn’t find him till a lot later.” And he looked at me again.
I wanted to feel the way the others did about this, but you can feel awful guilty about nothing when the men you’re with don’t trust you. I knew Gil was feeling the same way when he started to say something, and Canby looked back at him, and he didn’t say it. But we couldn’t afford to stand in there behind Canby either. I pushed past him and went down onto the walk, Gil right behind me.
2
Farnley was climbing onto his horse. He moved slowly and deliberately, like a man with his mind made up. A rider yelled, as if Farnley was half a mile off, “Hey, Jeff. Wait up; we’ll form a posse.”
“I can get the sons-of-bitches,” Farnley said, and reined around.
Moore said, “He’s crazy,” and started out into the street. But Davies was ahead of him. He came alongside Farnley in a little, shuffling run, and took hold of his bridle. The horse, checked, wheeled his stern away from Davies and switched his tail. The way Farnley looked down, I thought he was going to let Davies have it in the face with his quirt. But he didn’t. Davies was an old man, short and narrow and so round-shouldered he was nearly a hunchback, and with very white, silky hair. His hollow, high-cheeked face, looking up at Farnley, was white from indoor work, and had deep forehead lines and two deep, clear lines each side of a wide, thin mouth. The veins made his hollow temples appear blue. He would have been a good figure for a miser except for his eyes, which were a queerly young, bright and shining blue, and usually, though not now, humorous. Farnley looked at those eyes and held himself.
“There’s no rush, Jeff,” Davies said, coaxing him. “They have a long start of us, anyway.”
Farnley said something we couldn’t hear.
Davies said, “You don’t know how many of them there are, Jeff. There might be twenty. It won’t help Larry to get yourself killed too.”
&nb
sp; Farnley didn’t say anything, but he didn’t pull his horse away. The horse yanked its head up twice, and Davies let go of the bridle, and put a hand on Farnley’s knee.
“We aren’t even certain which way they went, Jeff, or how long they’ve had. You just wait till we know what we’re doing. We’re all with you about Kinkaid. You know that, son.”
He kept his hand on Farnley’s knee, and stood there with his hat off and the sun shining in his white hair. The hair was long, down over his collar. Farnley must have begun to think a little. He waited. Moore went out to them.
Osgood was standing beside me on the walk. “They mustn’t do this; they mustn’t,” he said, waving his hands and looking as if he were going to cry. Then he thrust his hands back into his pockets again.
Gil was behind us. He said to Osgood, “Shut up, gran’ma. Nobody expects you to go.”
Osgood turned around quickly and nervously. “I’m not afraid,” he asserted. “Not in the least afraid. It is quite another consideration which prevents …”
“You can preach later,” Gil cut him off without looking at him, but watching Moore talk to Farnley. “There’ll be more of us needing it, maybe.”
“You ain’t even got a gun yet, Jeff,” Moore was repeating.
Osgood suddenly went out to the two men by the horse. He went busily, as if he didn’t want to, but was making himself. His bald head was pale in the sun. The wind fluttered his coat and the legs of his trousers. He looked helpless and timid. I knew he was trying to do what he thought was right, but he had no heart in his effort. He made me feel ashamed, as disgusted as Gil.
“Farnley,” he said, in a voice which was too high from being forced, “Farnley, if such an awful thing has actually occurred, it is the more reason that we should retain our self-possession. In such a position, Farnley, we are likely to lose our reason and our sense of justice.
“Men,” he orated to us, “let us not act hastily; let us not do that which we will regret. We must act, certainly, but we must act in a reasoned and legitimate manner, not as a lawless mob. It is not mere blood that we want; we are not Indians, savages to be content with a miserable, sneaking revenge. We desire justice, and justice has never been obtained in haste and strong feeling.” I thought he intended to say more, but he stopped there and looked at us pathetically. He talked with no more conviction than he walked.
The men at the edge of the walk stirred and spit and felt of their faces. It was not Osgood, really, who was delaying them, but uncertainty, and perhaps the fear that they were going to hunt somebody they knew. They had been careful a long time.
Davies saw that Osgood had failed. His mouth tightened downward.
Farnley paid no attention, but having admitted he would wait, just sat his saddle rigidly. His horse knew something was wrong, and kept swinging his stern, his heels chopping. Farnley let him pivot. He reared a little and swung his tail back toward the Reverend. Osgood backed away hurriedly. One of the punchers laughed. Osgood did look queer, feinting and wavering out there. Moore looked back at us angrily. Farnley’s back had gone stiff under the cowhide vest. The man who had laughed pulled his hat down and muttered.
“We’ll organize a posse right here, Jeff,” Moore promised. “If we go right, we’ll get what we’re after.” For Moore, that was begging. He waited, looking up at Farnley.
Then Farnley pulled his horse around slowly, so he sat facing us.
“Well, make your posse,” he said. He sat watching us as if he hated us all. His cheeks were twitching.
Canby was still leaning in the door behind us, his towel in his hand. “Somebody had better get the sheriff, first thing,” he advised. He didn’t sound as if it mattered to him whether we got the sheriff or not.
“And Judge Tyler,” Osgood said. He was impressed by the suggestion, and came over to stand in front of us, closer. “Judge Tyler must be notified,” he said.
“To hell with that,” somebody told him. That started others. “We know what that’ll mean,” yelled another. A third shouted, “We know what that’ll mean is right. We don’t need no trail for this business. We’ve heard enough of Tyler and his trails.” The disturbance spread. Men began to get on their horses.
The kid, Greene, had been forgotten too long. He pushed through toward Osgood with his fist doubled. But Osgood faced him well enough. Greene stopped at the edge of the walk. “This ain’t just rustling,” he yelled.
“Rustling is enough,” Bartlett told him; then he pulled off his hat and waved it above his head. His head looked big when it was uncovered. There was a pasted-down line around it from the sweat under his hatband. He curled his upper lip when he talked angrily, showing his yellow, gappy teeth and making his mustache jerk.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” he cried. He had a big, hollow voice when he was angry enough to lift it. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve had enough rustling. Do we have rights as men and cattlemen, or don’t we? We know what Tyler is. If we wait for Tyler, or any man like Tyler,” he added, glaring at Osgood, “if we wait, I tell you, there won’t be one head of anybody’s cattle left in the meadows by the time we get justice.” He ridiculed the word “justice” by his tone. “For that matter,” he called, raising his voice still higher, “what is justice? Is it justice that we sweat ourselves sick and old every damned day in the year to make a handful of honest dollars, and then lose it all in one night to some miserable greaser because Judge Tyler, whatever God made him, says we have to fold our hands and wait for his eternal justice? Waiting for Tyler’s kind of justice, we’d all be beggars in a year.
“What led rustlers into this valley in the first place?” he bellowed. “This is no kind of a place for rustlers. I’ll tell you what did it. Judge Tyler’s kind of justice, that’s what did it. They don’t wait for that kind of justice in Texas any more, do they? No, they don’t. They know they can pick a rustler as quick as any fee-gorging lawyer that ever took his time in any courtroom. They go and get the man, and they string him up. They don’t wait for that kind of justice in San Francisco any more, do they? No, they don’t. They know they can pick a swindler as well as any overfed judge that ever lined his pockets with bribes. The Vigilance Committee does something—and it doesn’t take them six months to get started either, the way it does justice in some places.
“By the Lord God, men, I ask you,” he exhorted, “are we going to slink on our own range like a pack of sniveling boys, and wait till we can’t buy the boots for our own feet, before we do anything?
“Well, I’m not, for one,” he informed us, with hoarse determination. “Maybe if we do one job with our own hands, the law will get a move on. Maybe. And maybe it never will. But one thing is sure. If we do this job ourselves, and now, it will be one that won’t have to be done again. Yes, and what’s more, I tell you we won’t ever have to do any such job again, not here.
“But, by God,” he begged, “if we stand here yapping and whining and wagging our tails till Judge Tyler pats us on the head, we’ll have every thieving Mex and Indian and runaway Reb in the whole territory eating off our own plates. I say, stretch the bastards,” he yelped, “stretch them.”
He was sweating, and he stared around at us, rolling his bloodshot eyes.
He had us excited. Gil and I were quiet, because men had moved away from us, but I was excited too. I wanted to say something that would square me, but I couldn’t think what. But Bartlett wasn’t done. He wiped his face on his sleeve, and when he spoke again his voice went up so high it cracked, but we could understand him. Faces around me were hard and angry, with narrow, shining eyes.
“And that’s not all,” Bartlett was crying, piping. “Like the boy here says, it’s not just a rustler we’re after, it’s a murderer. Kinkaid’s lying out there now, with a hole in his head, a Goddamned rustler’s bullet hole. Let that go, and I’m telling you, men, there won’t be anything safe, not our cattle, not our homes, not our lives, not even our women. I say we’ve got to get them. I have
two sons, and we all know how to shoot; yes, and how to tie a knot in a rope, if that’s worrying you, a knot that won’t slip.
“I’m for you, Jeff,” he shouted at Farnley, waving his hat in a big arc in front of him. “I’m going to get a gun and a rope, and I’ll be back. If nobody else will do it, you and I and the boys will do it. We’ll do it alone.”
Farnley raised one hand, carelessly, in a kind of salute, but his face was still tight, expressionless and twitching. At his salute the men all shouted. They told him loudly that they were with him too. Bartlett stirred us, but Farnley, sitting there in the sun, saying nothing, now stirred us even more. If we couldn’t do anything for Kinkaid now, we could for Farnley. We could help Farnley get rid of his lump. He became a hero, just sitting there, the figure which concentrated our purpose.
Thinking about it afterward I was surprised that Bartlett succeeded so easily. None of the men he was talking to owned any cattle or any land. None of them had any property but their horses and their outfits. None of them were even married, and the kind of women they got a chance to know weren’t likely to be changed by what a rustler would do to them. Some out of that many were bound to have done a little rustling on their own, and maybe one or two had even killed a man. But they weren’t thinking of those things then, any more than I was. Old Bartlett was amazing. It seemed incredible that so much ferocity hadn’t killed him, weak and shaky as he appeared. Instead, it had made him appear straighter and stronger.
He turned around and pushed through us in a hurry, not even putting his hat on. I could hear him wheezing when he shoved past me, and his lower lip stuck out, reaching for his mustache.
Osgood called to the men. “Listen, men,” he called. Most of them were already on their horses. “Listen, men,” he called again. Old Bartlett stopped out in the sun on the walk beyond us. He was going to come back and collar the preacher. “Listen to me, men. This insane violence …”
Gil walked over close to Osgood. “You listen to me, preacher,” he said. “I thought I told you once to shut up.” Osgood couldn’t help backing away from him. He backed off the walk, and stumbled in the street. This mortified him so he grasped his forehead with both hands for a moment, as if trying vainly to get himself back together again; or else to protect his skull. When we all laughed, businesslike, contemptuous laughter, in a short chorus, old Bartlett grinned and turned around and went off up the walk again.
The Ox-Bow Incident Page 5