Ardell motioned for Mark to come close to the cot. He said: “Bronco ain’t got long, and he’s worried about not having time to tell you something.”
Mark stood at Bronco’s head. “I’m here, Bronco.”
Bronco’s right hand clutched his belly, blood seeping through his fingers. He raised his left hand, saying: “It’s dark, boy. I can’t see you.”
Mark took his hand. “I’m here beside you, Bronco.”
“I’ve got to tell you how it was,” Bronco said. “You’ll believe me now?”
“I’ll believe you.”
“I planned the robbery,” Bronco said. “Heard about your pa selling his farm. Me ’n’ Malone followed your wagon, but I never aimed to hurt your folks. I stayed outside to watch, figuring you’d wake up and tackle one of us. I knew Malone would kill you if you did, so I sent him into the wagon to get the money. If your folks woke up, he was to knock ’em out.”
Bronco stopped until a paroxysm of pain passed. He went on, his voice so low that Mark had to bend over him to hear. “I was the one who hit you. Malone tripped as he started to run. He fell and dropped the box. I picked it up, and we both ran. I took most of the money without him knowing it. When we counted it later, there was only a couple of thousand, and I cussed big, saying we’d been fooled. We got back to our camp and pulled out. We split up in case a posse took after us. I thought he was going to The Dalles. I didn’t figure on running into him in Prineville.”
He stopped again, biting his lower lip so hard he brought blood. He said: “It’s getting damned dark.”
For a moment Mark thought he was gone, then he whispered: “I didn’t know who you were when I found you beside the road. I’d just seen you at a distance. I didn’t believe you when you said your folks were dead. Not till I went back and found ’em. I couldn’t let you starve. After we got over here, I aimed to make you my partner ’cause it was your money I was using. I never wanted you to leave Cross Seven. I liked you. Didn’t know how you really felt … ’bout being chore boy. Move back onto it. … It’s yours by right. … Don’t let Jacob Smith … have … it.”
He tried to say something else. His lips moved, and Mark thought he wasn’t going to get it said, then the words came slowly: “I killed Orry Andrews. Didn’t aim to. Had to have the money back I paid him to buy stock. I took it away from him. He tried to kill me. … I shot … him in self-defense.”
His hand in Mark’s went slack. A moment later he was dead. Mark laid Bronco’s hand across his chest, glanced at Sharon who was still on her knees, and turned away, wondering what would happen between her and Cameron.
She had hated Bronco because he had sent her away, but now she regretted what had happened, and she would blame herself as long as she lived. If Cameron hadn’t been sure about her before, and about how she had felt toward Bronco, he would be now.
Mark went on through the saloon to the street, not doubting what Bronco had told him, for the man had known he was dying. He had been mostly bad, but not as bad as Herb Jackson believed. But bad or good, Mark could never forget what Bronco Curtis had done for him.
Orry Andrews? Mark believed Bronco had told the truth about that, too, and remembered thinking it could have been that way. Bronco had had an obsession about the ranch; it had been the only important thing in the world to him. Not that the killing or even the robbery could be overlooked, but it made the actions of a man understandable, a man who was a violent mixture of both good and bad.
Herb Jackson caught up with Mark on the saloon porch. “Wait till I get my horse from the livery stable. I’ll ride home with you.”
“Sure,” Mark said.
“Hold on!” Matt Ardell called, and joined them on the porch. He looked at Jackson. “Satisfied, Herb?”
“I’m satisfied,” Jackson said. “He’s paid for his crimes.” He turned to Mark. “It’s a pet belief of mine that good and evil are rewarded in their proper fashion, somewhere, sometime.”
Mark did not believe it, so he simply nodded and remained silent.
Ardell said: “We all heard Curtis. Cross Seven is yours, Mark. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said. “Chances are Jacob Smith will claim it.”
“Of course he will,” Ardell said, “but he’s got to be stopped, or he’ll wind up owning the whole valley once he gets his toe in the door at Cross Seven. I’m going to talk to Dave Nolan and John Runyan. They know how it is as well as I do. I’ll borrow money somewhere and get started again. I don’t know how, but I will. We’ll help you stock Cross Seven. It’s in your interest, too, Herb. You need a friendly neighbor to the east of you.”
“It’ll mean a fight with Smith,” Jackson said.
Ardell nodded. “You bet it will, but there’s one thing about your son-in-law. He won’t back away from a fight.”
“No,” Jackson agreed. “I’ve known that for quite a while.”
“How about it, Mark?” Ardell asked. “Will you try it if we back you?”
“I’ll try it,” Mark said.
“Good,” Ardell said, and turned into the saloon.
Mark tightened the cinch and untied his horse, then stepped into the saddle, feeling the eyes of the men who had gathered again into little knots along the street. He rode slowly out of town, thinking this had not gone the way they had expected. Some would survive, some would leave, but in time those who remained would forget their anger with Herb for his refusal to sell hay and would be neighborly again.
Presently Jackson caught up with him, and they rode together. Jackson said: “I’m a free man now. I know what you think of me on account of the way I’ve been about Orry’s murder, but it’s something I can’t explain.”
“Don’t try,” Mark said. “I know how it was.”
Jackson looked at him in surprise. “How can you?”
“I left Ruth alone when I heard Malone was in town,” Mark said. “I didn’t want to. I lied to her because I didn’t think she’d understand. But I was wrong. I should have told her the truth. This is something she’s got to understand about a man.”
“Yes,” Jackson said. “I think she will, in time.” He cleared his throat, then he said: “Mark, I hate to have you and Ruth leave the Circle J, and, if it doesn’t work out, I hope you’ll always feel free to come back, but you and I are different. I wouldn’t cast you in my mold if I could. You want to grow and I’d only hold you back, so go ahead and make your try at Cross Seven. Living is filled with fighting any way you look at it. I guess there’s no sense in trying to avoid it. I think you’ll lick Jacob Smith.”
“I aim to,” Mark said, glancing at Jackson’s face. He’d thought he knew this strange, gentle man, but he had underestimated his understanding just as, he realized, he had underestimated Ruth’s. He added: “Thanks, Herb.”
He touched up his horse and rode on toward the Circle J, and Ruth.
THE END
About the Author
Wayne D. Overholser won three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America and has a long list of fine Western titles to his credit. He was born in Pomeroy, Washington, and attended the University of Montana, University of Oregon, and the University of Southern California before becoming a public schoolteacher and principal in various Oregon communities. He began writing for Western pulp magazines in 1936 and within a couple of years was a regular contributor to Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine and Fiction House’s Lariat Story Magazine. Buckaroo’s Code (1947) was his first Western novel and remains one of his best. In the 1950s and 1960s, having retired from academic work to concentrate on writing, he would publish as many as four books a year under his own name or a pseudonym, most prominently as Joseph Wayne. The Violent Land (1954), The Lone Deputy (1957), The Bitter Night (1961), and Riders of the Sundowns (1997) are among the finest of the Overholser titles. The Sweet and Bitter Land (1950), Bunch Grass (1955), and Land of Promises (1962) are among the best Joseph Wayne titles, and Law Man (1953) is a most rewarding novel under the
Lee Leighton pseudonym. Overholser’s Western novels, whatever the byline, are based on a solid knowledge of the history and customs of the nineteenth-century West, particularly when set in his two favorite Western states, Oregon and Colorado. Many of his novels are first-person narratives, a technique that tends to bring an added dimension of vividness to the frontier experiences of his narrators and frequently, as in Cast a Long Shadow (1957), the female characters one encounters are among the most memorable. He wrote his numerous novels with a consistent skill and an uncommon sensitivity to the depths of human character. Almost invariably, his stories weave a spell of their own with their scenes and images of social and economic forces often in conflict and the diverse ways of life and personalities that made the American Western frontier so unique a time and place in human history.
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