The Ox-Bow Incident

by Walter van Tilburg Clark

  Suddenly Osgood uncovered his head and ran to Davies, holding both hands out in front of him, first like a child running to beg for something, then weaving them back and forth while he talked.

  “They won’t listen to me, Mr. Davies,” he babbled. “They won’t listen. They never would. Perhaps I’m weak. Any man is weak when nobody cares for the things that mean something to him. But they’ll listen to you. You know how to talk to them, Davies. You tell them.

  “Oh, men,” he cried out, coming back at us, “think, won’t you; think. If you were mistaken, if …”

  He gave up, and stared at us, still moving his hands like birds with their legs caught.

  Davies, without moving away from Farnley, said clearly, “Mr. Osgood is right, men. We should wait until …”

  “What do you know about it?” Gil asked him.

  A voice from the door called, “The trouble with Davies is that he can’t see no profit in this. It’s hard to move Davies when he can’t see no profit. Now, if you’d offer to buy the rope from him …” It was Smith. He still had a whisky glass in his hand, and he’d pushed past Canby and was standing on the top step with his legs apart and his other hand in his belt, where it hung under his belly.

  Davies did look sharp at that, but Moore acted for him. He reached up and grabbed Smith by the belt, and pulled him down among us.

  “If we go, you’re going, porky.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Smith laughed. He pushed Moore off. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said. “The only thing would get me out faster, would be your necktie party, Moore.” A few men watching them laughed, and this encouraged Smith. “Who knows,” he added, “maybe this is yours.”

  They’d all been afraid for months that they’d know the man. This was a hit. Moore, though, just looked Smith in the eye until the big drunk couldn’t face him. Then he said, “I’ll remember that. I’ll see that you get to handle a rope!”

  Gil had been pleased, his words to Osgood having made things better for us. Now suddenly he was quieter, and sober.

  Canby said, “You’re wasting a lot of time. Whoever you’re after has made five miles while you argued.”

  “You gotta get guns,” Greene piped. “They shot Kinkaid. They got guns.”

  Only two or three of the men had guns. Gil and I had ours, because we were on the loose and felt better with them. They called to Farnley they’d be back and went off after guns, some of them riding, some running on the walks.

  To the rest of us Davies said, “There are only a few of you now. Will you listen to me?” Moore and Osgood were looking at us too.

  “We listened once,” Smith said, “listened, and heard nothing. As for me,” he grinned, “I think I’ll have a couple of drinks on the house. I want to be primed.”

  Canby blocked the door. “Not here, you don’t,” he said. “Two more and you’d have to be tied on. If you went.”

  “It’s past talk, Davies,” a puncher told him. “You can see that.” He didn’t sound angry.

  “Yes,” Davies said. “Yes, I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m going to have a drink,” Gil said; “I want a hell of a long drink.”

  I told him that suited me. There were only a few men left now, talking quietly in the blue shadow of the arcade. Up and down the street you could hear the others, their boots on the boardwalk or their horses trotting. A few called to each other, reminding that it might be a long ride, or to bring a rope, or advising where a gun might be borrowed, since most of them were from ranches outside the village. The sun was still bright in the street, but it was a late-in-the-afternoon light. And the wind had changed. The spring feeling, warm when it was still, chilly when the air stirred, was gone. Even right out in the sun it was pretty cold now. I went out in the street to take a look west. The clouds over the mountains had pushed up still more, and were dark under their bellies.

  Davies stood on the walk while I was looking at the sky. I thought he was waiting for me, and took longer than I had to, hoping he would go in. But there’s only about so much to look at in one sky; I’m no painter. I gave it up and he came in with me, though not saying anything. He stood up to drink with us too. There were half a dozen of us drinking. Canby had left the door open, and through it I could see Farnley still sitting in his saddle in the sun. Nobody was going to change his mind with Farnley sitting there. Gil kept looking out at him too. Gil felt partly to blame for how hard Farnley was taking this; or maybe it was the ten dollars.

  “What made you so hot for a drink?” I asked Gil, to keep ahead of Davies.

  “Nothing; I’m thirsty,” he said, drinking one and pouring another.

  “Yes, there is too,” he admitted. “I’d forgot all about it until Moore told Smith he could hold a rope that way. I was layin’ up in Montana that winter, stayin’ with an old woman who put out good grub. Sittin’ right on her front porch I saw them hang three men on one limb.”

  He took his other drink down. That didn’t worry me now. Feeling this way he could drink twenty and not know it. He poured another. He talked low and quick, as if he didn’t mind my hearing it, but didn’t want anyone else to.

  “They kicked a barrel out from under each one of them, and the poor bastards kept trying to reach them with their toes.” He looked down at his drink. “They didn’t tie their legs,” he said, “just their arms.”

  After a minute he said, “That was an official posse though, sheriff and all. All the same …” He started his third drink, but slowly, like he didn’t want it much.

  “Rustlers?” I asked him.

  “Held up a stagecoach,” he told me. “The driver was shot.”

  “Well, they had it coming,” I said.

  “One of them was a boy,” he said, “just a kid. He was scared to death and kept crying, and telling them he hadn’t done it. When they put the rope around his neck his knees gave out. He fell off the barrel and nearly choked.”

  I could see how Gil felt. It wasn’t a nice thing to remember with a job of this kind in front of you. But I could tell Davies was listening to Gil. He wasn’t looking at us, but he was just sipping his drink, and being too quiet.

  “We got to watch ourselves, Gil,” I told him, very low, and looking up at the woman with the parrot.

  “To hell with them,” he said. But he didn’t say it loudly.

  “Greene was all mixed up,” I said, still muttering over my chin. “He wasn’t sure of anything except Kinkaid was shot in the head. But he thought it was about noon.”

  “I know,” Gil said.

  Then he said, “They’re gettin’ back already. Hot for it, ain’t they?” It sounded like remembering that Montana job had changed his whole way of looking at things.

  I could tell without turning who was coming. There wasn’t a big, flat-footed clop-clop like horses make on hard-pack, but a kind of edgy clip-clip-clip. There was only one man around here would ride a mule, at least on this kind of business. That was Bill Winder, who drove the stage between Reno and Bridger’s Wells. A mule is tough all right; a good mule can work two horses into the ground and not know it. But there’s something about a mule a man can’t get fond of. Maybe it’s just the way a mule is, just as you feel it’s the end with a man who’s that way. But you can’t make a mule part of the way you live, like your horse is; it’s like he had no insides, no soul. Instead of a partner you’ve just got something else to work on along with steers. Winder didn’t like mules either, but that’s why he rode them. It was against his religion to get on a horse; horses were for driving.

  “It’s Winder,” Gil said, and looked at Davies and grinned. “The news gets around, don’t it?”

  I looked at Davies too, in the glass, but he wasn’t showing anything, just staring at his drink and minding his own thoughts.

  Winder wouldn’t help Davies any; we knew that. He was edgy the same way Gil was, but angry, not funning, and you couldn’t get at him with an idea.

  We saw him stop beside Farnley and say somethi
ng and, when he got his answer, shake his head angrily and spit, and pull his mule into the tie rail with a jerk. Waiting wasn’t part of Winder’s plan of life either. He believed in action first and make your explanation to fit.

  Gabe Hart was with him, on another mule. Gabe was his hostler, a big, ape-built man, stronger than was natural, but weak-minded; not crazy, but childish, like his mind had never grown up. He was dirty too; he slept in the stables with his horses, and his knees and elbows were always out of his clothes, and his long hair and beard always had bits of hay and a powder of grain chaff in them. Gabe was gentle, though; not a mean streak in him, like there generally is in stupid, very strong men. Gabe was the only man I ever knew could really love a mule, and with horses he was one of them. That’s why Winder kept him. Gabe was no use for anything else, but he could do everything with horses, making clucking, senseless talk in his little, high voice and just letting them feel his hands, which were huge even for a man his size. And Winder liked his horses hard to handle. Outside of horses there were only two things in Gabe’s life, Winder and sitting. Winder was his god, and sitting was his way of worshipping. Gabe could sit for hours if there wasn’t something to do to a horse. Sometimes I’ve thought Gabe just lived for the times Winder took him on the coach because he had a really ugly team or had some heavy loading to do. Riding on the coach got everything into Gabe’s life that mattered, Winder, sitting and horses, and he’d sit up there on the high seat, holding on like a scared kid, with his hair and tatters blowing and solemn joy in his huge face with the little, empty eyes.

  Winder had a Winchester with him, but he left it against the tie rail and came in, Gabe behind him, and looked at Davies like a stranger, and ordered a whisky.

  Canby offered Gabe a drink too, just to see him refuse it. He looked at Canby and grinned to show he meant to be pleasant and shook his head. Then he stood looking slowly around as if he’d never been in the place before, though he’d followed Winder in, almost every day for years.

  Winder winked at Canby. “Gabe don’t care nothin’ for drinkin’ or smokin’ or women, do you, Gabe?”

  Gabe grinned and shook his head again, and then looked down at the floor like he was going to blush. Winder cackled.

  “He’s a good boy, Gabe is,” he said.

  This joke was as old as Canby’s and Gil’s about the woman in the picture.

  Winder drank one down, put his glass out to be filled again, and looked at Davies. He was a short, stringy, blond man, with a freckled face with no beard or mustache but always a short, reddish stubble. He had pale blue eyes with a constant hostile stare, as if he was trying to pick a fight even when he laughed.

  “They’re takin’ their time, ain’t they?” he said.

  “They might as well,” Davies said.

  “Yeh?” Winder demanded.

  “They haven’t much to go on yet,” Davies told him.

  “They got enough, from what I heard.”

  “Maybe, but not enough to know what to do.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, for one thing they don’t know who did it.”

  “That’s what we aim to find out, ain’t it?”

  “You can’t tell who it might be.”

  “What the hell does that matter? I’d string any son-of-a-bitchin’ rustler like that.” He slapped the bar. “If he was my own brother, I would,” he said furiously.

  Gabe made a little noise like he was clearing his throat.

  “You’re getting Gabe stirred up,” Canby said.

  “Yes, suh, if he was mah own brothah,” Gabe said in his high voice. He was watching Davies, and swinging his hands back and forth on the ends of the long arms, close to his legs. We all knew there were two things made Gabe angry, seeing Winder angry, and being teased about niggers. Winder could handle him about getting mad himself, which was a good thing, he was mad so much; but Gabe was from Mississippi, and the worst about niggers I ever knew. He wouldn’t eat where they’d eaten, sleep where they’d slept, or be seen talking to one. That seemed to be the one idea he’d kept from his earlier days, and it had grown on him.

  “Well, there’s another thing,” Davies said.

  “What’s that?” Winder wanted to know.

  “What’s that?” Gabe asked too.

  “Shut up, Gabe,” Winder told him. “This ain’t none of your affair. Go sit down.”

  Gabe looked at him like he didn’t understand.

  “Go on, sit down.” Winder waved at the chairs along the back wall.

  Gabe shuffled back to them and sat down, leaning on his knees and looking at the floor between his feet, so all you could see was the swell of his big shoulders, like the shoulders of a walrus, and the top of his head with the hair matted and straw in it, and those tremendous, thick paws hanging limp between his knees. He made a strong smell of horses and manure in the room, even through the stale beer odor.

  “This sorta thing’s gotta stop,” Winder said, “no matter who’s doin’ it.”

  “It has,” Davies agreed. “But we don’t know how many of them there are; or which way they went, either. There’s no use going off half-cocked.”

  “What the hell way would they go?” Winder asked him. “Out the south end by the draw, wouldn’t they? There ain’t no other way. They wouldn’t head right back up this way, would they, with the whole place layin’ for them? You’re damn shootin’ they wouldn’t.”

  “No,” Davies said. He hadn’t finished his drink; was just sipping it, but he filled the glass again and asked Winder, “Have one with me?”

  “I don’t mind,” Winder said.

  Canby filled Winder’s glass again, and then Gil’s. He held the bottle at me, but I shook my head.

  “We might as well sit down,” Davies said. “They’re waiting on Bartlett anyway.” He included Gil and me in the invitation. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t see how to get out of it. We sat down at the table where we’d been playing cards. Canby had that want-to-grin look in his eyes.

  Winder pushed his hat back. “All the more reason to get going,” he said.

  “No particular hurry, though. If they’re from around here, they aren’t going far. If they aren’t, they’re going a long ways, too long for a few hours to matter when they’ve already got a big start.”

  “The sooner we get started, the sooner we get them.”

  “It looks that way to me, too,” Gil said.

  I tried to kick him under the table. I had a feeling Davies was working most on us anyway. He knew better than to think he could reach Winder.

  “And how do you know they’ve got a start?” Winder asked.

  “That’s what young Greene said.”

  “Oh, him.”

  “He was tangled, but if he had anything straight it was the time. He figured Kinkaid must have been killed about noon.”

  “Well?”

  “It’s four-thirty now. Say they have a four-hour start. You aren’t going to ride your head off to pick that up, are you?”

  “Maybe not,” Winder admitted.

  “No,” Davies said. “It’s a long job at best, and stern chase. And it’s more than five hundred miles to the first border that will do them any good. Part of that will be a tracking job too. The same way if they’re heading for a hide-out to let things cool. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours; three anyway. We won’t even get down to the draw in that time.”

  “It’s that much of a start if we get there tonight,” Winder said.

  “Yes, but there’s no hurry. We can take our time, and form this posse right.”

  “Who the hell said anything about a posse?” Winder flared.

  “He did,” Gil put in; “but it didn’t seem to go down so good.”

  “Why the hell would it?”

  “Risley’s here,” Davies said.

  “Risley’s been here all summer,” Winder said. “It didn’t stop Kinkaid gettin’ killed, did it?”

  “One man can’t be every place,” I had to chip i
n. “This is a big valley.”

  Gil grinned at me to say now who needed a kick.

  “He could be a hell of a lot more places than Risley is,” Winder told me, staring across at me so I wanted to get up and let him have one.

  “Risley’s a good man,” Davies said, “and a good sheriff.”

  “You ’mind me of Tyler and the preacher. What have they got us, your good men? A thousand head of cattle gone and a man killed, that’s what they got us. We gotta do this ourselves. One good fast job, without no fiddlin’ with legal papers, and that’s all there’ll be to it.”

  Davies had his hands out on the table in front of him, knobby fingers extended and fingertips together, and was looking at them. He didn’t answer.

  “It’s like those damn, thievin’ railroads,” Winder said, staring around at all three of us to dare us to disagree. “They got the law with them; they’re a legal business, they are. They killed off men, didn’t they? You damn shootin’ they did; one for every tie their son-of-a-bitchin’ rails is laid on. And they robbed men of honest to God men’s jobs from Saint Looey to Frisco, didn’t they? And for what? For a lot of plush-bottomed, soft-handed bastards, who couldn’t even drive their own wagons, to ride across the country and steal everything they could lay their hands on in Californy the same way they been doin’ in the East for a hundred years. That’s what for. And they got the law with them, ain’t they? Well, it’s men like us shoulda taken the law in their own hands right then. By God, I hate the stink of an Injun, but an Injun smells sweet comparin’ to a railroad man. If we’d wanted to keep this country for decent people, we’da helped the Injuns bust up the railroad, yes, by God, we woulda. And that’s the same law you’re tryin’ to hold us up for, ain’t it—the kind of law that’ll give a murderer plenty of time to get away and cover up, and then help him find his excuses by the book. You and your posses and waitin’. I say get goin’ before we’re cooled off, and the lily liver that’s in half these new dudes gets time to pisen ’em again, so we gotta just set back and listen to Judge Tyler spout his law and order crap. Jesus, it makes me sick.”