“Is better you say nothing to these loco gringos, Amigo Jim,” Benito placidly advised. “You are one reasonable hombre, no? And do they like to listen to reason? Caramba. I think not.”
“Nobody invited you to talk up, Mex,” chided Dewey.
“One thousand pardons,” shrugged Benito.
Standing in the doorway, Dewey frowned at the Mexican, then at Jim, and asked:
“Tell me somethin’. How’d a smart, good-lookin’ hombre like you ever tie up with the likes of this no-account little wet-back?”
“If a man lives long enough and travels far enough,” Jim sourly replied, “he’s apt to run into all kinds—such as a bunch of hardcase cattlemen who’d let their own sister marry a stranger, all for the sake of getting their hands on a passel of dollars.”
Dewey scowled resentfully.
“Easy enough for you to talk,” he growled. “You’re no cattleman. You wouldn’t know how it feels to sweat and starve and get saddle-sore tryin’ to make a ranch pay for itself, tryin’ to keep the stock alive in time of drought. Us Gillerys had our share of bad luck, Big Jim. From now on, things are gonna be different.”
“You hope,” said Jim.
“It’s for sure!” snarled Dewey. He turned to bellow an order. “Arch! You saddle up and head for Byrne City rightaway! Find a J.P. and bring him back to Box G muy pronto, savvy?” Jim heard brother Archer’s muffled reply, after which Dewey flashed him a defiant grin and assured him, “You’re as good as wed—so you might’s well get used to the idea. Won’t take Arch more’n a couple days to make the big town, and then ...”
“If you think you can keep us stuck in this damn-blasted shack all that time ...!” began Jim.
“Can and will,” was Dewey’s parting taunt. “If you don’t think so, just wait and see.”
He pulled the door shut. Jim and the Mex heard the padlock secured and the bar lowered and, almost immediately, Jim set about checking every inch of their tiny prison, trying to devise some means of escape. Submit without protest? Not likely. Marry a nineteen-year-old girl? Not likely. Let them confine him to this clapboard shack? Not likely.
~*~
Far to the north in the large and thriving frontier metropolis called Byrne City, the attorney hired by the late Brigg Fullerton was receiving a visitor. Into the office of the austerely garbed Jonas Green sauntered a slender, arrogantly-handsome man twirling an ivory-knobbed cane. A beaver hat was perched jauntily on the well-barbered head of Calvin Truscott. An expensive Havana cigar jutted from the smiling mouth. The custom-made shirt was immaculate, the gray town-suit a masterpiece of the tailor’s art. Viewing him without favor, but with shrewd interest, the ageing attorney mentally conceded it was no wonder Truscott was so popular with the ladies. He certainly presented an imposing exterior. Too bad the man’s character was not in accord with his good looks. It was Green’s private and personal opinion that this indolent, supercilious spendthrift would end his days behind bars. The steel variety—not the polished mahogany across which liquor was served.
Without waiting to be asked, Truscott helped himself to a chair. His smile was bland. He ignored the expression of keen disapproval stamped on the craggy features of the veteran attorney.
“A beautiful morning, Mr. Green?”
“I’ve been too busy to notice,” was Green’s terse retort. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Oh, the usual thing,” grinned Truscott. “Something we’ve discussed before. I seem to be running short of cash, so ...”
“Running short, you say?” challenged Green. “Damnitall, Truscott, you’ll become a pauper inside a few more weeks unless you curb your tendency to squander every dollar on women—liquor—games of chance ...”
“It grieves me to admit,” drawled Truscott, “that Byrne City abounds in poker-players of greater talent than myself.”
“As I hear it,” jibed Green, “you’ve been equally unsuccessful at dice, roulette and faro.” He leaned back in his chair, placed the tips of his fingers together and studied his visitor intently. “Have you never heard the old saying? ‘It doesn’t grow on trees, you know.’ Your uncle worked hard, never sparing himself, making many sacrifices, to build Seven Bar into a paying proposition. Your share of the purchase price paid by Aaron McManus—exactly fifty percent—was ten thousand dollars. A great deal of money, Truscott. Most men would be more than satisfied. They could live on it, build on it, invest it wisely ...”
“Well ...” chuckled Truscott, “… try to think of me as an investor.”
“I would hardly describe gambling and dance-hall women as a safe investment,” retorted Green. “The simple truth is that you are squandering your inheritance, Truscott.”
“Come now, Mr. Green, no sermons if you please,” drawled Truscott. “I’m here on business.”
“I can’t imagine what you have in mind,” sighed Green. “When I arranged payment of your legacy, I fulfilled the commission entrusted to me by my client—the late Brigg Fullerton.”
“There is still the little matter of another ten thousand dollars,” Truscott pointed out. “If my memory serves me correctly, I am eligible to collect that—er—tidy sum ...”
“I’m sure you were listening very carefully,” said Green, “when I read the provisions of the will. You can’t have forgotten that the second half of Brigg Fullerton’s estate was bequeathed to Miss Lucy Rose Gillery.”
“Subject to certain conditions,” countered Truscott.
“Which the lady is bound to meet,” frowned Green.
“You’re surprised that she has not yet acquired a husband,” taunted Truscott. “Admit it, Mr. Green. You expected the lady would be married within a few days of learning the terms of the will.”
“She has time ...” began Green.
“Not very much time,” drawled Truscott. “The twenty-seventh? Less than a fortnight, Mr. Green. And let us not forget that the lady was given precious little notice. Apparently no marriage-minded swain was courting her at the time of granting of probate. Perhaps she’s downright ugly—or man-shy. She may never marry—quite apart from the inducement offered by my whimsical uncle.”
“I’ve met the young lady in question,” muttered Green. “She—uh—she comes of humble stock and, on your standards, I suppose she can’t be described as an outstanding beauty, but I assure you she’s far from ugly.”
“I contend there’s little or no chance of her marrying,” said Truscott. “Didn’t you say she lives on a ranch in a very remote region—far south of the county line? Be realistic, Mr. Green. The other half of Uncle Brigg’s estate is as good as mine already—so why not advance me a little something on account?” He grinned blandly. “Shall we say a couple of thousand?”
“Shall we say,” fumed Green, “that you are becoming presumptuous and insolent?”
“It’s in a very good cause,” Truscott cheerfully assured him. “Unless my luck improves, I’ll be in financial difficulty. I have, at this moment, less than twelve hundred dollars ...”
“Twelve hundred ...?” Green gaped incredulously. “Heaven forgive you! I knew you’d been squandering your inheritance, but I swear I never believed you could go through it so quickly. You must have spent every night in some gambling hell.”
“As a matter of fact, I have,” nodded Truscott.
“A ten-thousand-dollar legacy.” Green shook his head dazedly. “In a—a matter of mere weeks you’ve reduced it to—twelve hundred ...!”
“Tell me, Mr. Green,” prodded Truscott. “As a man of the world, don’t you regard my uncle’s bequest to the Gillery girl—and his proviso—as somewhat eccentric?”
“It grieves me to disappoint you,” said Green, and he didn’t sound at all regretful, “but you haven’t one chance in a thousand of proving mental incompetence on the part of your uncle—with whom you were barely acquainted. I knew him well. Eccentric? Not at all. He felt deeply obligated to Miss Gillery, because she nursed him through a severe illness and ref
used to accept any payment, any acknowledgement of her services. It was a simple, neighborly act of kindness, from her point of view, and ...”
“You digress, Mr. Green,” chided Truscott. “I refer specifically to that ridiculous proviso. In order to inherit, the girl must marry before her twentieth birthday.”
“Not so ridiculous,” insisted Green. “Seek the opinions of the people of this and other territories hereabouts. Ascertain the average age at which most of them married. A great many girls marry in their teen-years, Truscott. And Brigg Fullerton happened to believe that these are the best years for a woman to become a wife and mother.” He folded his arms, as he bluntly concluded, “There may come a time when the average marrying age for women may be twenty-five—or older. As for the age in which we live, this decade of the nineteenth century, a great majority marry while still in their teens. This is a fact. You can’t buck facts, Truscott.”
“But, really ...” began Truscott.
“In specifying that Miss Gillery must marry before her twentieth birthday,” frowned Green, “Brigg Fullerton was trying to ensure her future happiness. He felt that she should marry young. Had he been her father or an elderly blood relation would you question his right to take such an interest in her welfare? Of course not. You’re looking for loopholes, Truscott. Forget it! There are no loopholes.”
“Thank you,” Truscott sarcastically acknowledged, “for your concise but discouraging analysis of the situation.” He got to his feet. “I bid you good-morning, Mr. Green. We’ll talk again of course.” In the doorway, he paused to smile over his shoulder. “After the twenty-seventh, shall we say?”
“I wouldn’t depend on it, Truscott,” advised the lawyer.
Quitting the building in which Green’s office was located, the hard-drinking, free-spending nephew of the late Brigg Fullerton strolled along Byrne City’s busy main street. His handsome face was serene, masking the dark thoughts, the fury boiling within him. Lazy, unscrupulous, self-indulgent to extremes, it was only natural that this sole survivor of a once-wealthy Los Angeles family should have squandered the greater part of his inheritance, and so recklessly. He was disturbed—more so than he would admit to a man of Jonas Green’s caliber—at the speed with which his legacy had disintegrated. Only twelve hundred dollars left. How to build on that amount? Well, he daren’t try his hand at the gambling tables. He had gambled too often and too rashly; he couldn’t hope to recoup his losses.
Lounging in a boardwalk chair, puffing at his cigar, he idly surveyed the passing cavalcade of Byrne City townfolk, cowboys and vaqueros from neighboring cattle outfits, visiting drummers and the like. He saw them, but paid little attention to them, because his thoughts were far away. A girl he had never met stood in his way. If she married between now and the twenty-seventh of the month, he could kiss goodbye to his last chance of acquiring another ten thousand dollars.
“If you marry,” he reflected, “or—if you die before your twentieth birthday.”
He experienced no twinge of guilt when his mind dwelled on this latter aspect of his uncle’s proviso. If the girl died? Why not? But did he have the nerve, the skill? Did he have what it took for a man to cold-bloodedly trigger a killing bullet at a member of the opposite sex? That was the hell of it. At the final moment, his courage would probably desert him. How, then, did one handle such a situation? He had heard of hired assassins, gunmen who, for a price, would track down and liquidate a fellow-human, and no doubt many of that breed wouldn’t care a damn if their target wore skirts.
And now the coincidence, the quirk of fate that was to place the life of Lucy Rose Gillery in jeopardy.
While Calvin Truscott sat in that boardwalk chair finishing his cigar, he became a spectator of an interesting and somewhat melodramatic tableau. Four horsemen, tough-looking hombres straddling animals badly in need of rest, rough range clothes streaked with alkali, were being ordered to a halt a short distance from where Truscott sat. The man calling the order was the sheriff of Byrne County. And, while the sheriff said his piece, his two deputies materialized and stood beside him, both of them covering the four riders with cocked .45’s. From a nearby store, a townsman emerged. He was hefting a double-barreled shotgun. From an alley mouth, in response to the sheriff’s shouted summons, two more towners appeared—and they also toted shotguns.
Three – Ride With The Outcasts
Truscott cocked an ear to the muttered protest of the leader of this unprepossessing quartet, a hulking, scar-faced man sitting a bay stallion. The sheriff, with many an aggressive gesture, had ordered the four to keep riding— right out of town, right out of the county.
“We ain’t wanted in Arizona. You got no authority to ...”
“Damn right you aren’t wanted in Arizona!” snapped the sheriff.
“I mean by the law,” scowled the scar-faced man.
“I know what you mean, Holbrook,” nodded the sheriff. “But I’ll take no chances with you and your cutthroat crew. There’ll be shotguns covering you from now until you’re clear of the town limits and, if you’re found anywhere inside the county line after three o’clock this afternoon, you’ll be shot on sight. So get riding!”
“Unless there’s a New Mexico lawman here—with a warrant of extradition …” It seemed this Holbrook had some knowledge of the law, “… you can’t order us out. There’s no ordinance that says ...”
“I just now made up an ordinance—and passed it,” growled the sheriff. “You aren’t staying, Holbrook. I know your reputation. You’ve fouled up every piece of territory you ever rode through. You’re trouble—the kind of trouble we don’t want in Byrne County.” He thumbed back the hammer of his .45, drew a bead on Holbrook’s chest. “Last chance, Holbrook. You go now—or you stay—in a six-foot hole.”
“At least give us time to pick up a few supplies and rest our horses,” urged one of Holbrook’s sidekicks. “We got scarce any grub nor water.”
The sheriff looked at the speaker, a lean, hawk-faced hombre in checked cotton shirt and blue denim pants.
“I recognize you too — Clayburn,” he frowned, “and you’re about as welcome as Holbrook.” He gestured with his cocked .45. “There’ll be no waiting. I said move on—and I mean now!”
“It ain’t human to send us out without waterin’ our horses,” protested Holbrook.
“No more human,” retorted the sheriff, “than some of your crimes.”
“Nobody ever proved ...” began Holbrook.
“Shuddup and git!” snarled one of the deputies.
“Now!” growled the other.
The four unwanted rogues cursed in impotent rage, and it occurred to Truscott that, had they not been covered from all sides and by so many shotguns, they might have emptied their holsters and turned this crisis into a shooting showdown, a bloodbath. Byrne City men, it seemed, were more than law-abiding. As well as respecting the law, they supported it—actively. There were now almost a dozen locals aiming shotguns, revolvers or rifles at the four strangers, and looking more than willing to use them.
An aged, pipe-smoking towner emerged from the nearest doorway and quietly remarked to Truscott:
“There’s times when a good lawman has to make his own rules.”
“Such as on this occasion?” demanded Truscott.
“That’s for durn sure,” nodded the old-timer.
“These men are dangerous?”
“Dangerous enough. Pete Holbrook and his three owlhoot sidekicks — all the way from New Mexico. I guess things got too hot for ’em in their home territory.”
“The laws are indeed strange,” Truscott suggested, as the four riders nudged their mounts to movement again. “Simply by crossing a border, any cutthroat can win immunity from the law.”
“From the law,” corrected the old-timer, “of the territory where he raised hell. But it don’t always mean he can travel free. You take like now, for instance. If we had a slow-brained sheriff with no gizzard for a fight, there’d be nothin’ to stop the Holbr
ook gang from movin’ into this town and doin’ as they please.”
“But our sheriff,” smiled Truscott, “is made of sterner stuff.”
“Betcha life.” The old man nodded emphatically. “And we got two real gun-smart deputies and a whole vigilante, committee—maybe two-three dozen men that’ll back the sheriff in a showdown. I tell you, mister, that’s the only way to keep a town safe for decent folk. It ain’t enough to elect a good sheriff. You got to back him—lend a hand when needs be—you know what I mean?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Truscott. “And I certainly agree with you.”
Now that the four unwanted hardcases had ridden to the west side of town and showed no sign of turning their horses, the vigilant locals relaxed somewhat, but still kept them in sight. Unhurriedly, Truscott dawdled along Main Street to a livery stable to hire a saddle horse. Would he be using the animal all that day—two days ...?
“Let’s say a week,” he drawled, as he paid the livery proprietor. “I plan on visiting an old friend, and I may have to travel quite a distance.”
From the livery stable, he led the horse to a general store. The excitement of the brief intrusion of four known badmen had eased, and the proprietor of the store assembled the rations ordered by Truscott without once mentioning the incident. Truscott paid for the provisions, stowed them in a gunnysack which he toted outside and slung to the saddlehorn of his rented sorrel. At a nearby saloon he purchased several bottles of cheap whisky. These he packed into the saddlebags, before swinging astride and idling the sorrel off Main and along a side alley—a side alley leading west.
He was well out of sight of the people living on Byrne City’s outskirts, when he picked up the clear sign of his quarry. All the way to the county’s western boundary and for a half-mile beyond, he followed the tracks. And then, some short distance ahead, he noted the smoke of a campfire rising lazily to the hot noon sky. Holbrook and his men had obeyed the harsh commands of the Byrne County law; they had quit the county, but now their mounts could tote them no further, at least not until they had been rested.
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