Just as they were leaving the shack, two fast shots split the evening air. Both men quickly stepped into the shadows and waited. But it was only a drunken cowboy firing toward the sky. They walked on.
“If it doesn’t blow wide open tonight,” Sam said, “I’ll be surprised.”
But Matt wasn’t all that convinced. “I don’t think Raner and Vernon will let it come to that. They’re both bull-headed fools, but I’m betting they know a full-scale riot in the streets would only work against them. Look over there,” he said, pointing.
A group of townspeople had gathered, all of them armed with rifles and shotguns, and now were fanning out for the rooftops. In front of the Red Dog, a cowboy watched it and stepped back inside. A moment later, Hugo and Blake stepped out and appraised the situation. They stood for a few moments, then walked back inside the saloon.
The brothers walked on through the night and stepped up on the boardwalk. The batwings of the Red Dog slammed open and a cowboy lurched out, spotting Matt and Sam.
“Bodine!” he yelled. “You just hold up right there.”
Matt stopped, turning to face the man across the wide street.
The cowboy cussed Matt in a drunken voice. “I’m callin’ your hand, you damn nester-lover!”
“Back off,” Matt said. “Just ease up, go back to the bunkhouse, and sober up.”
The cowboy cussed him, swaying in his drunkenness.
“Hugo!” Bodine yelled. Vernon! Get out here.”
The ranchers stepped out onto the boardwalk.
“I don’t know which brand this puncher rides for, but I don’t want to drag iron against a drunk,” Bodine called. “Now get your man out of here and sober him up.”
“Do it,” Mayor Dale called from in front of the hotel. “The man’s so drunk he can hardly stand. Bodine’s right.” The last was said with no small amount of bitterness.
“You’re yellow, Bodine,” the cowboy sneered.
“You know better than that, cowboy,” Matt called. “Go sober up. If you want to do this thing in the morning, I’ll be right here in town.”
“Come on, Jody,” Blake said. “Back off. That’s an order. Now do it!”
Hugo lifted his eyes. A townsman was squatting on top of the Plowshare, a rifle aimed directly at the rancher.
The Circle V hand lurched back into the saloon, still cussing Bodine.
“All right, people,” Hugo shouted to the night. “You’ve shown us how you feel this night. You’ve all taken sides against us and lined up behind them damn sheepmen and nesters. We know who you are and we won’t forget it. From now on you’ll not get a dime’s worth of business from any of us. By God, you’ll see who supports this town.”
“That’s not true, Hugo,” Simmons, the owner of the general store, called from his position on the roof of his store. “But if you want to take your business elsewhere, that’s fine with me. The nearest town is forty miles north or fifty miles west. Take your choice.”
“If you’re not against us, what the hell are you doing up there with a rifle in your hands?” Blake shouted across the street.
“To keep your damn rowdy hands from going on a rampage,” Simmons shouted. “If it’s any of your business.”
“Little man,” Blake said, pointing a finger at the store owner. “You don’t talk to me like that.”
Simmons shucked a round into the chamber and leveled the rifle, the sound carrying ominousness through the night air. Blake quickly stepped back into the Red Dog.
Hugo leaned against a support post and looked up at the man’s dim outline on the rooftop. “A lot of hard feelin’s is gonna come from this night’s actions, Simmons. A lot of things is gonna happen that can’t never be changed. You real sure you want to do this?”
“What’s right is right, Hugo,” Simmons called, and a murmur of voices from the other rooftops agreed with him. “Those farmers and sheep people ain’t causin’ no harm to anybody . . .”
“You lie!” Hugo yelled, throwing his cigar down into the dirt of the street. “Them sheep is ruinin’ the range and them damn nesters is cuttin’ me off from my water.”
“That’s not true, Hugo,” Walters of the saddle and gun shop called from the night. “A river runs right through your range. You don’t want to share, is the problem.”
“I’ve bought my last saddle and gun from you, Walters,” Hugo’s words were bitter.
“Suit yourself,” the man called. “I’ll get by.”
“And none of my men will trade with you, either.”
“If that’s the way you want it.”
“It’s coming apart,” Jack Linwood said to Mayor Dale. The men stood in front of the hotel. “Bodine’s done shoved some steel up their backbones.”
“I’m afraid you’re right. And since I own half the businesses in this town, guess which side that puts me on?”
The sheriff looked at him. “Suits me, Dale.”
“I’m a businessman, Jack,” Mister Dale cut him off. “I have to know which side my bread is buttered on. I have no choice in the matter.”
With a short laugh, Jack turned to walk away. Mayor Dale’s voice stopped him.
“And you’d better learn very quickly which side to take, Sheriff.”
Jack returned to the mayor’s side. In a low voice, he asked, “Now what the hell does that mean?”
“It means that you start being a real sheriff and enforcing the law . . . whoever breaks it.”
“I said it suits me.”
“Believe it. You’ve had it easy up to now, Jack. Now you have to start being a real sheriff. You treat everybody the same, Jack. And you’d better make that clear to your deputies.”
“Fine with me, but the boys will never stand for that, Dale. They won’t.”
“Then tell them to turn in their badges. It’s just that simple.”
“What happens when Hugo and Blake bust this range wide open? And you know they will.”
“You’re the sheriff of this county, Jack. A regular judge swore you in. If you can’t do the job, he can order you out and replace you with somebody who will do the job.” The mayor wasn’t real sure a judge could do that, but he was betting Linwood didn’t know that.
Jack wasn’t sure about that either. He walked away.
Mayor Dale heard footsteps on the boardwalk. He turned and looked into the smiling face of Chrisman. “If you really mean that,” Chrisman said, “stop both factions right now.”
“It’s only delaying what is sure to happen,” Mayor Dale replied.
“It’ll buy us time, Dale.”
“All right,” he said softly. “Jack,” Mayor Dale stopped Linwood again. The sheriff turned around.
“Yes, sir?”
“Order the men from the rooftops and order Hugo and Blake and their men out of town. Take your deputies and do it.”
“And if they want to make a fight of it?”
“You’re the law, Jack.”
Jack Linwood shook his head and walked slowly toward his office, mumbling about sheepdip and mule turds. Chrisman walked back to his saloon.
Matt and Sam slipped into the Plowshare and took a table after ordering beer. The place was nearly empty, with only a handful of men sitting at the tables. Paul Dennis was one of them, sitting with Chrisman. The bar owner got up and walked over to Matt and Sam and took a chair.
“It’s a start, at least,” he said.
“It’s a good start,” Sam agreed. “Maybe when those men get home and start thinking about the whole town being against them, they’ll wise up a little.”
“I’d like to think that’s what will happen,” Chrisman said. “But I know those men well. They’ll brood about this for a time, then they’ll start spilling blood. The good hands will leave, the troublemakers will stay, and both the Circle V and Lightning will hire gunhands and the war will be on.”
Matt slowly shook his head. “There’s got to be more to this than meets the eyes.”
Sam looked at him. “What do
you mean?”
“There are maybe a dozen farmers and three flocks of sheep in this entire region. They’re not taking up enough room or water to amount to anything. There is something we’re missing in this thing.”
Chrisman looked puzzled. “I don’t see what else it could be. Cattlemen been fightin’ farmers and sheep for years, all over the West.”
“Yeah, but Pete has the same suspicions I do. He started to say something about it a couple of times—I think—but changed his mind before he could complete his thought.”
“Where was I when all this was going on?” Sam asked.
“In the privy.”
“He didn’t say what he thought it might be?” Chrisman asked.
“No. But he was sure mulling something over in his mind; worrying at it.”
“Hell with all of you in this damn town!” Hugo Raner yelled from the saddle. “Damn every one of you.”
“I’ll strangle this town dry!” Blake boasted. “I’ll turn this place into a ghost town!”
The men thundered out of town, firing their guns into the air as they rode.
When the street had settled down, Sam asked, “Can they do that?”
“Strangle the town?” Chrisman asked. “No. There are a dozen smaller spreads out around. What with those and the miners and travelers and farmers, there won’t be much of a loss. There is talk the railroad will be through here in a year or so—or at least a feeder line. Oh, they’ll hurt by pulling their business out; but we’ll make it.”
“Since it appears likely that we’ll never be allowed on Circle V or Lightning range, and I know that cattle prices are down, tell me something,” Matt said. “How do you suppose Blake and Hugo are fixed for cash money?”
“Oh, they’re all right. Dale loans them money from time to time. But Dale would be the last person in the state to want to see this town dry up. Hell, he owns a big chunk of it. And he’s always traveling somewheres to drum up more people to move in. And he sure wouldn’t want to see two big ranchers fail. He’d lose money in the long run.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about Dale being up to something underhanded. I’m just trying to make some sense out of all of this.”
Sam looked at him. “Don’t try to think, brother. You know it makes your head hurt.”
Chrisman left the table with a smile on his lips, leaving the two brothers hurling insults at one another. All in all, Chrisman thought, things were working out very nicely.
Nine
“There’s no need for you boys to stick around now,” Jack Linwood told the brothers the next day.
They were enjoying breakfast at the café when the sheriff walked in and took a seat at their table—uninvited. He ordered a full breakfast for himself and a fresh pot of coffee for them all.
“How do you figure?” Matt asked.
Linwood shrugged his shoulders. “It’s over, that’s why. Blake and Hugo will stomp around for a few days and make a lot of threats, but in the end, that’s all there’ll be to it. They’re not goin’ to ride fifty miles for a drink or make a three-, four-day wagon trip for supplies. That’d be stupid, and neither one of them is that dumb.”
Neither brother had anything to say about that, although both of them thought it was a crock.
“Sure surprised me when Mister Dale give in so easy last night, though,” Linwood said.
“Why do you suppose he did it?” Sam asked.
“I guess he was willin’ to risk losin’ a lot of money to keep a range war from happenin’. It was a chancy move on his part. Took ever’body by suprise. Me, ’specially.”
“What’d Hugo and Blake do when you ordered them out of town?” Matt asked.
“Blustered up some. But me and my men were totin’ sawed-off shotguns. Nobody in their right mind wants to go up agin a sawed-off up close.” He looked at first one, then the other. “I’ll be flat-out level with you two: I ain’t got no use for either one of you; I just don’t like you. I think them hands was layin’ in ambush for you the other day and you turned it around on them. Cute. But chancy. I think you swept the area and hid your casin’s, then made a big deal out of your not knowin’ nothin’ about it to make them boys look like fools. Which about half of them is,” he admitted.
Linwood sighed. “Damn it, I don’t know which side I’m supposed to be on. It’s confusin’. First I’m told one thing, then I’m told another. I feel like a mule that’s been told to gee-haw; don’t know which way to turn.”
Sam chuckled. “Why don’t you just enforce the law equally for all, and come the next election, you might win honestly. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Jack Linwood grunted. “Sure would.” He smiled. “I’ve been a lot of things in my life. Marshal here and there. But to be elected, by the people . . . ?” He shook his head. “That would be something, for sure.”
Their food came and the men ate in silence, Linwood finishing first. He stood up and looked down at the brothers. “Maybe you two ain’t so bad after all. I don’t know. I got some heavy thinkin’ to do. See you around.” He paid for his meal and left the café.
“You don’t suppose . . .” Matt said.
“Could be. A lot of good lawmen have checkered pasts. Linwood just might be seeing right and wrong clearly for the first time in his life. For sure, he’s torn up inside about what to do. His deputies are another matter.”
Jack Linwood walked to his office and called his deputies in. “We play it straight from now on,” he told them. “You take orders from me, and no one else. Not from Mayor Dale, not from none of the big three ranchers, not from nobody but me. We enforce the law, we don’t hassle, and we don’t take no crap from nobody. Is that clear?”
The deputies looked at one another. “What the hell’s goin’ on, Jack? You know what we was hired to do well as we do.”
“All that’s changed. No more threatenin’ protection money from the merchants. We’re lawmen and we’re gonna be good ones. It’s about time we done something good in our lives.”
Three badges hit the desk.
“Git gone,” Linwood told the men. “Clear gone out of the town. I won’t have you in here. You got one hour to git your possibles together and clear out.”
“And if we don’t?” Buster Phelps sneered at him.
Jack laid a cosh up side of Buster’s head, knocking the man to the office floor. Before the other two could drag iron, Jack’s left hand was filled with a six-gun and his eyes were very cold and very steady as they bored into the men.
“Easy, Jack,” Sam Keller said. “We’re gone.” He pointed to the moaning Buster. “What about him?”
“Drag him out of here and get out of town!”
“We’re gone,” Wes Fannin said.
Matt and Sam watched the trio leave the sheriff’s office, Wes and Keller dragging the moaning Buster.
“They aren’t wearing badges,” Matt pointed out.
“Now it gets interesting,” Sam said. “Let’s wander over and sit on the bench outside the sheriff’s office. The mayor might have something to say about this.”
They walked over and sat down, waiting for the fun to start.
Mayor Dale brushed by them with a curt nod of his head. He closed the door to the sheriff’s office. But a window was open and the brothers could hear every word that was said.
“You want to tell me what’s going on here, Jack?” Dale demanded.
“I cleaned house,” Linwood said. “Now I’m lookin’ for a couple of new deputies.”
“You fool! Don’t you know the town council could replace you in a heartbeat?”
Jack smiled. “I wired the judge this morning—first thing.” He waved a telegraph reply. “The people put me in office, the people have to put me out. The town council ain’t got a damn thing to say about county business.”
Mayor Dale sat down and returned the smile. “All right, Jack. Good. You’re right and I’m wrong. I’ll work with you all the way.” He stuck out his hand and Jack Linwood shook it. “Now, ho
w about deputies? You have anyone in mind?”
“Jimmy Byrant comes to mind. He’s young, but he’s a good boy. And I think he’d stand if push comes to shove.”
“Agreed. Who else?”
“I don’t have anyone else in mind. I’ll just have to wait and see. I’m gonna ride out to the Bryant spread and talk to Jimmy right now. They’ve been goin’ through some tough times and could use the extra money, I’m thinkin’.”
Mayor Dale stared at the man. “I have to ask this, Jack: why the sudden change of heart?”
“I don’t know,” Jack spoke the words softly. “It come up on me sudden—last evenin’, after I ordered Raner and Blake out of town. They bulled up on me and told me I was supposed to be their man—bought and paid for. I didn’t like that. Didn’t get much sleep last night; tossed and turned most of the night. I haven’t been much most of my life. Time for a change, and by God, I can do it and I’m gonna do it.”
“Good man,” Dale said, getting up and patting the man on the arm. “I’m proud of you.”
Matt and Sam looked at each other. “This is getting more and more interesting with each day,” Sam said.
Matt agreed. “Linwood’s sure to need some help when the pot boils over.”
“And since we are both so very civic minded, that help is in the form of . . . ?”
Matt smiled and pointed first at Sam, then at himself.
“Right! Tell you what, brother, when Buster and his buddies leave town, let’s you and I sort of trail along behind them; see where they go.”
“Straight to either the Circle V or the Lightning spread.”
“That’s my thinking.”
“Let’s saddle up.”
They stood up just as the mayor exited the sheriff’s office, all smiles. “Going to be great things happening in this town, boys,” he said. “People all over are having a change of heart. Me included. You boys are welcome to come back to the hotel anytime you like.” He patted both of them on the arm and walked on.
Jack Linwood stepped out of his office, closing the door behind him. He looked at the blood-brothers. “I still don’t have much use for you, but I won’t hassle you none. But if you break the law, I’ll put you in jail. And that’s a promise.”
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