Tex

by B. M. Bower

  *CHAPTER XIV*

  *TACT AND COURAGE*

  Things were going along smoothly for the new marshal until two of the CBar punchers, accompanied by two men from a ranch farther from town,rode in to make a night of it. It chanced that the C Bar men had beenwith a herd some forty miles north of the ranch, where water and grassconditions were much better, and they had become friendly with theoutfit of another herd which grazed on the western fringe of the samerange. A month of this, days spent in the saddle on the same rounds,and nights spent at the chuck wagon with nothing to vary the monotony ofthe cycle, had given the men an edge to be bunted at the firstopportunity; and their ideas of working off high-pressure energies didnot take into consideration any such things as safety valves. Actionthey craved, action they had ridden in for, and action they would have.The swifter it started, the faster it moved, the better it would suitthem. So, with an accumulation of energy, thirst, and money they toreinto Windsor one noon at a dead run, whooping like savages, andproclaiming their freedom from restraint and their pride of class by aheavenward bombardment which frightened no one and did no harm.

  It so chanced that when they passed the new marshal's office they weregoing so fast, and were so fully occupied in waking up the town, thatthe lettering over the door of the lean-to escaped their attention. Andthey were past, bunched in a compact group, and nearly hidden in dustbefore the mildly curious officer could get to the door. He watchedthem whirl up to the hotel, the stronghold and stamping ground ofWilliams and the miners and, dismounting with shrill yells, pause amoment to reload their empty guns, and then surge toward the door.

  Tex rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he considered them. Carney's wasthe cowman's favorite drinking place, yet these four cheerful riders hadnot given it a second glance, judging from the way they had gone pastit. This was no matter for congratulation, but bespoke, rather, adetermination to show off where their efforts would create moreinterest. Who they were, or what they came in for, he neither knew norcared. They were celebrating punchers from somewhere out on the rangeand they were going to hold their jamboree in the miners' chosen placeof entertainment. A less experienced marshal, filled with zeal andconceit, might forthwith have buckled on his guns, and started for thescene of the festivities, to be on hand as a preventive, rather than acorrective, or punitive, force; and very probably would have hastenedthe very thing he sought to avoid. Tex hoped to take the edge from theclass feeling, and determined to be openly linked with neither one sidenor the other. His place was to be that of a neutral buffer and hisjustice must be impartial and above criticism. So, after turning backto buckle on the left-hand gun, he did not sally forth to blaze theglory of the law and precipitate a riot; he sat down patiently to awaitthe course of events.

  Williams poked his head out of the door of his store and lookedanxiously down the street at the dismounting four. As they went intothe hotel he hurried across to the marshal's office and stopped,panting, in the doorway.

  "See 'em?" he asked excitedly. "Hear 'em?"

  "What or who?" asked Tex, throwing one leg over the other.

  "Them rowdy punchers!" exclaimed the storekeeper. "Nobody's safe! Go upan' take 'em in, quick!"

  "What they do?" interestedly asked the marshal.

  "Didn't you _see_ an' _hear_?" demanded Williams incredulously.

  "I saw 'em ride past, an' I heard 'em shootin' in th' air; but what didthey do so I can arrest 'em?"

  "Ain't that enough? That, an' th' yellin', an' everythin'?"

  "Sinful and his friends made more noise th' other night when they lefttown," replied the marshal. "I didn't arrest them. Hank was of a mindto see if it was true that a bullet only punches a little, thin-edgedhole in a pane of glass an' don't smash it all to pieces. Bein' wobbly,he picked out yore winder, seein' they was th' biggest in town; butSinful held him back, an' they had a scufflin' match an' made more noisethan sixteen mournful coyotes. There bein' no pane smashed I didn't cutin. A man is only a growed-up boy, anyhow."

  Williams looked at him in frank amazement. "But these here fellers arepunchers!" he exploded.

  "I shore could see that, even with th' dust," confessed the marshal."That ain't no crime as I knows of."

  "It ain't th' four to one that's holdin' you back, is it?" demandedWilliams insinuatingly. "They're punchers, too: bad as h--l."

  Tex languidly arose and removed the pair of guns and the belts, layingthem gently on the floor. He pitched his sombrero on the bunk and facedhis caller.

  "Mebby I didn't understand you," he coldly suggested. "What was it yousaid?"

  Williams raised both hands in quick protest, one foot fishingdesperately behind him for the ground below the sill. "Nothin' to makeyou go on th' prod," he hastily explained.

  "Listen to me, Williams," said the cool peace officer, his voice leveland unemotional. "Anybody callin' me a coward wants to go into actionfast, an' keep on goin' fast. That includes everybody from King Solomonright down to date. I'm responsible for th' peace in this town, an'when _anybody_ starts smashin' it I'll go 'em a whirl. Yellin', ridin'fast, an' shootin' in th' air, 'specially by sober men, ain't smashin'nothin' in a town like this. I don't aim to run no nursery, nor even akindergarden. I ain't makin' a fool out of myself an' turnin' th' lawinto a joke. Once let ridicule start an' h--l's pleasant by contrast.They ain't shootin' now. Th' first shot fired inside any buildin', ordangerously low, an' I inject myself an' my two guns. I can't make noarrests on a blind guess, mine nor yourn. You better go back to th'store an' keep th' vinegar from sourin' on its mother."

  Williams' jaw dropped. This was not Tex Jones at all, at least itdidn't sound like him. "As th' owner of th' most valuable property intown I want them coyotes stopped from ruinin' it. I----"

  "When they show any signs of ruinin' _any_ property I'll step in an'stop 'em," the marshal assured him. "I got my ears open, an' had myauthority buckled on--which I'll now resume wearin'." He picked up aheavy belt and slung it around him, deftly catching the free end as itslapped against him. "We'll have law an' order, Williams--even if Ihave to fill some fool as full of holes as a prairie-dog town; but Iain't goin' out an' trample on a man's pride an' make him get killeddefendin' it, unless I got good reason to. This is a long speech, butI'm goin' to make it longer so I can impress somethin' on yore mind.Bein' a busy merchant you've mebby never had time to think about itmuch; but me, bein' a marshal, I _got_ to think of everythin' like that.This is one of 'em: When bad feelin's exist between two classes, helpin'one ag'in' th' other, without honest reasons, is only goin to make morebitterness. It can be held down only by impersonal justice. That's me.I don't give a d--n what a man is as long as he behaves hisself."Picking up the second belt he slung it around him the other way andbuckled it behind him. As he shook them both to a more comfortable fita yell rang out up near the hotel, followed by a shot. Grabbing his hatfrom the bunk he pushed Williams out of his way and dashed through thedoor, flinging over his shoulder: "I'm injectin' myself _now_! Youbetter go look to th' vinegar!"

  He saw Whiskey Jim, the man whom he had caught beating the dog, in hisblind terror run against the side of the harness-shop, recover from theimpact and, stupefied by fear, frantically claw at the bleached boards.A spurt of dust almost under one of his feet made him claw morefrantically. The hilarious puncher walked slowly toward him, raisingthe Colt for another shot. Behind him, laughing uproariously, stood histhree friends, solidly blocking the hotel door.

  "Hold that gun where it is!" shouted the marshal, dropping into acatlike stride. He was coming down the middle of the street, not morethan forty paces, now, from the performing puncher.

  The gun arm stiffened in air as the whiplike, authoritative phrasereached its possessor and, grinning exultantly, the puncher wheeled toget a good look at his next victim. He saw a grave-faced man offorty-odd years walking toward him, a bright star pinned to the openvest, two guns hanging low down on the swaying hip
s, the swinging handsbrushing the walnut grips at every lithe, steady step.

  "See what we got to play with!" exulted the surprised puncher, callingto his friends. "I want his badge: you can have th' rest!" His handchopped down and a spurt of dust leaped from the ground at the marshal'sside.

  Disregarding it, the peace officer maintained his steady, swingingstride, his eyes fixed on those of the other, intently watching for achange in their playful expression. Another shot and the dust spurtedclose to his left foot. The hilarious laughter of the three in thedoorway died out, and their friend in the street stood stock still,trying to figure out what he had better do next. The deliberate marshalwas now only five paces away and at the puncher's indecision, plain tobe seen in the eyes, he leaped forward, wrested the gun from the feeblyresisting fingers, whirled the nonplussed man around and then kicked himhis own length on the ground.

  Ignoring the three men in the doorway, thereby tacitly admitting theirsquareness, the marshal calmly ejected the cartridges from the capturedweapon and, as the angry and astonished puncher arose, handed it to him.

  "It's empty," he said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Keep it that way tillyou leave town; an' when you come in again, intendin' to likker up an'raise h--l, either unload it or leave it with me, unless you promise tobehave yoreself." He turned to Whiskey Jim, who appeared to be frozeninto a statue. "Come over here, Jim," he commanded, and again turned tothe puncher, who did not know whether to laugh or to curse. "I reckonJim's th' only injured party. His feelin's has been trampled on to th'tune of about five dollars. Pay him before he takes it out of yorehide. He's a desperate bad man, Jim is!"

  The three men in the door, who were nowhere near drunk yet, knewsparkling courage when they saw it, and they shouted with laughter attheir crestfallen friend, who grudgingly was counting the fine into theeager hand of the aggrieved citizen.

  "Hey, Walt!" burbled one of them, a beardless youth on one end of theline. "Still want to play with that badge?"

  "If you do," jeered the man in the middle, laughing again, "betterrustle, _pronto_, 'cause I'm buyin' its boss a drink."

  Walt grinned expansively, shoved the money into Whiskey Jim's clutchingfingers, took hold of the quiet marshal, and turned toward the hotel."You come along with me, officer," he said. "I'll pertect you. Thatfool says he's buyin' you a drink--mebby he is, but I'm payin' for th'first one. Yo're about th' best he-man I've seen since I looked into alookin'-glass. I'm obliged to you for not losin' yore valuable temper."He waved a hand at the unbelieving Jim, who doubted his reeling senses.Five whole dollars, all at once! Gosh, but the new marshal was ahummer. "Now don't you lay for me, Jim," laughed the puncher. "We'resquare, all 'round, ain't we?"

  The cheerful three in the door grabbed the marshal of Windsor and hauledhim in to the bar, where he pushed free and surveyed them.

  "Four cheerful imbeciles," he murmured sadly. "Don't you reckon youbetter quit drinkin', or else empty them guns?"

  "Now don't you be too hard on us, Marshal," chuckled the eldest. "We'reso dry we rattles, an' th' dust, risin' out of our throats gets plumbinto our eyes. Here," he said, dragging out his gun and gravelyemptying it, "these are shore heavy. I'll carry 'em in my pocket for achange," and he made good his words. The others laughingly followedhis. example, Tex's smile growing broader all the time.

  "This ain't nothin' personal, boys," he said. "It's only that th' lawhas come to town. Knowin' you'll leave 'em empty till after you getout, I'll have one drink an' go about my business." He made no threatsand his voice was friendly and pleasant; and it did not have to beotherwise. He had made four friends, and they knew that he would gothrough with any play he started. "Know Tommy Watkins?" he asked as heput down his glass.

  "Shore!" answered Walt. "He's workin' with my outfit--C Bar. Ain'tseen him for a month, him bein' off somewhere when we rode in for ourpay. Marshal, shake hands with another C Bar rider--Wyatt Holmes.These two tramps is Double S punchers--Lefty Rowe, an' Luke Perkins. Myname's Butler--Walt Butler. What's Tommy up an' done?" he finishedsomewhat anxiously.

  "Glad to see you, boys," said Tex, heartily shaking hands all around."My name's Tex Jones. Come in ag'in," he invited. "Oh," he said inanswer to Walt's question, "Tommy ain't done nothin', yet. I was justwonderin'. Good boy, Tommy is. Sort of wild, I reckon, bein' young.Busy after th' gals. Most young fellers are hellers anyhow, or thinkthey are. But he's a likable pup."

  Walt laughed and the others grinned broadly. "You've shore figgered himwrong, Marshal. He's scairt of th' gals--won't have nothin' to do with'em; an' I ain't never seen him nowhere near drunk; but" he hastilydefended in loyalty to his absent friend, "he's all right, other ways.Yes, sir--barrin' them things, Tommy Watkins is a good man, an' I canlick any feller that says he ain't."

  "Which won't be me," replied Tex, smiling. "I like him, first-rate. Webeen gettin' acquainted fast. Well, boys," he said, turning toward thedoor, "have a good time an' come in often. I like a little company fromth' outside. It relieves th' monotony. So-long."

  "You shore had th' monotony busted wide open today," chuckled Walt."But Tommy's a good boy--whatever th' h--l he's been doin' since I sawhim last." Watching the marshal until out of sight past the door heturned and regarded his companions. "I'm tellin' you calves there's aman who'd spit in th' devil's eye," he said. "We was playin' with giantpowder like four fools. Here's to Tex Jones, Marshal of Windsor!"

  Lefty, tenderly putting the glass on the bar, looked thoughtfully aroundthe room and then at the partially stunned barkeep. "How's friend Budtakin' th' new marshal? Bud an' him shore will have an' interestin'Colt fandango some of these fine days."

  Baldy sighed, wiped off the bar, and looked sorrowfully at the group."Bud's planted on Boot Hill. They done had th' fandango, an' he did th'dancin'. My G--d, I can see it yet! It was like this--" and he left thebar, walked to the door, and painstakingly enacted the fight. When itwas finished, he mopped his head and slowly returned to his accustomedplace.

  Wyatt Holmes reached out and gravely shook hands with his friends andfinished by shaking his own. "You allus was a fool for luck, Walt," hesaid thoughtfully. "Giant powder?" he muttered piously. "Giant h--l!It was dynamite with th' fuse lit. Here," he demanded, wheeling on thestartled Baldy. "I _need_ this drink! Set 'em up!"

  Walt shook his head. "Now, what th' devil has Tommy done?" he growled.

  Baldy, remembering Tommy's share in the altercation, maintained adiscreet silence.