by Lauran Paine
“Mister Rockland, I already told them that.”
Bannion’s stubborn persistence in the face of Rockland’s attempt at dismissing this thing appeared to annoy the cowman.
He said: “Bannion, you enforce the law. Get those men out of Perdition Wells.” Then Rockland said exactly what Bannion knew he was going to say. “If you don’t, I will. I’m sorry about the old man, but it was an absolute accident, and I don’t care if he was old Jeff Davis or Robert E. Lee, he’s dead and that’s got to be the end of it.” Rockland waited a moment, then brought up his easy smile again. “Come, have some coffee with us,” he said.
Bannion turned, opened the door, and started back through it and out into the wild night. “No thanks, Mister Rockland. If I were you I wouldn’t try to run those men out of town, either.”
“No?”
“No, sir. Ride in tomorrow and take a good long look at them before you try it.”
Bannion closed the door very softly, resettled his hat on his head, and went out to his horse. He stood at the animal’s side for a moment, gazing across at the adobe bunkhouse where the music was coming from, then he stepped across leather and went back the way he had come, bowed forward in the saddle in the teeth of the wind, eyes pinched down against stinging dust, thoughts unpleasantly grim, and the knowledge of the futility of his ride out here making him look unnaturally bitter. He reminded himself that you could lead a horse to water, but you couldn’t make him drink. You could warn a man as rich and powerful as John Rockland, but you couldn’t make him use good sense if he didn’t want to.
But John Rockland owned the Texas Star, the largest cow outfit in Milam County. He was rich and powerful and unafraid. No living man could tell him what he had to do.
Bannion thought of dead Alpheus King. He thought that perhaps that was just it: no living man could bring down Rockland, but a dead man might.
He went along scarcely seeing those high-overhead wind-scoured stars or the pure pewter moon. He saw little of the prairie roundabout or night’s curdling shadows. He failed also to see the motionless horseman who let him pass along, then turned eastward tracing out Bannion’s rearward trail until he, too, was swallowed up by the wind and dust and drenching darkness.
Bannion got back to Perdition Wells while a few lights still burned. He put up his horse, cursed the night to Sam Ryan, the night hawk, and shook grit from his clothing and spat it from his mouth. Then he strode along to the Union Eagle Saloon and pushed inside out of the wind.
Inside, he stood clear of the crowd, running his rummaging glance here and there until he found them. He noticed that instead of there being four King brothers at the bar’s farthest curving, there were only three. They were turning, the three of them. Their glances came from a distance solemnly to consider Sheriff Bannion, to linger upon him.
Bannion understood at once where the fourth brother was. What he had done. Bannion wilted, and began to shoulder his way to the bar feeling weary to his spirit.
The barman showed Bannion a harassed face. “What’ll it be, Sheriff?”
“Sour mash, Fred.”
Bannion raised his glass when it came, emptied it in one swallow, and struck the bar with it. “Refill, Fred.” He leaned there, wondering how long it would take the fourth brother to finish his trailing, assess Rockland’s buildings, then return to report to the others.
The second drink came. Bannion drank this one more slowly. Probably not long, he thought to himself, fending off a jolly drunk who reeled against him. These were neither stupid nor procrastinating men. They did what they had to do with a minimum of wasted time. Bannion finished the drink, threw down a coin, and shook his head when Fred the barman came along and raised his eyebrows. He turned, hooked both elbows on the wood bar top, and stood there, watching the men, the girls, the poker players, and the few dancers brave enough in this shifting sharp-elbowed crowd of sweating humanity to try keeping time to the tunes of the piano player.
Then the fourth brother stepped through the yonder doors, and paused to seek his kinsmen before beginning to work his way forward. It was Al, third eldest, the one with the sheathed look of unforgiving cruelty to him. The one Bannion could not find it in his heart to condone at all.
Al sighted Bannion watching him. He pushed a blank look over to the sheriff and kept on edging through the crowd. There was no like or no dislike in Al’s gaze. There was nothing at all in the glance but recognition. Bannion might have been a once seen and now remembered horse or tree or cur dog.
Al and the others came together in that murky far corner and leaned close at the bar. Bannion knew exactly what Al was telling the others. He thought he should blame himself because Al had followed him out of town to John Rockland’s Texas Star Ranch headquarters, but he did not blame himself.
This was something that Bannion was only instrumental in because his job and his badge made him so. It was not of his doing or his making. He was that chip he’d thought of earlier, being blown along against his will by a powerful circumstantial wind that he could do nothing about. He straightened up off the bar. Yes, there was one thing he could do—stay alive.
So Bannion left the Union Eagle, turned up his collar against the Santa Ana, trudged to his office, and got comfortable there. Before morning some damned fool with a soiled apron would come busting in, wringing his hands or roaring out his anger because drunk cowboys had broken some furniture or upended another cowboy in a pickle barrel of brine, or some other tomfool thing. Hell, might even report a senseless gunfight such as the one in which Dale McAfee had killed the Durham Ranch cowboy, the cause of which no one rightly knew because everyone was drunk that Saturday night, or nearly drunk.
Everyone except the old deaf swamper who had been taking away the filled spittoons and replacing them with fresh ones.
Bannion made a smoke, inhaled, and leaned far back in his chair to consider the unclean ceiling. What was it that caused the unraveling of these life patterns among men? Where was the purpose for an old derelict’s killing to bring on the certain wild violence that was even now only a breath away from engulfing Perdition Wells and its countryside in a wall of devastating red flame?
The war was long over. No more than a handful of its white-thatched participants were still around. Where...?
Bannion sat up with a wrench, his philosophizing ended by one fierce-stabbing thought. How had the King brothers known their daddy was here in Perdition Wells, and who had not only known the Union Eagle’s swamper as Colonel Alpheus King, but had known how to get in touch with his sons?
Bannion’s smoke went out, forgotten upon the edge of his desk. There was something here.... It was entirely possible some enemy of John Rockland’s had done this. Rockland had his share of enemies. Maybe he even had a little of someone else’s share of them—he was an arrogant man at times, a hard and forceful man of great wealth and great power.
Bannion’s entire attention closed down around this one question. Who had known, and who had told?
Chapter Three
When Doyle Bannion went to the Shafter Café next morning, everything was covered over with a half inch of desert dust, but the wind had blown out and only the tan sky remained to remind him of it. He encountered Ray King and his youngest brother Austin at the counter eating breakfast hoecakes with coffee. They nodded without speaking and Bannion did the same.
He sat next to Ray King, ordered fried pork and potatoes, and said what was on the top of his mind. “You satisfied about what Al saw when he trailed me last night?”
Ray sipped coffee, then answered in his quiet voice: “We’re satisfied, Mister Bannion.”
“And at the saloon...they told you the name you wanted to know?”
“They did.”
“You’re satisfied there is no mistake?”
“I’m satisfied. How about you, Sheriff?”
Bannion looked over. “What do you mean?�
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“I wondered why you didn’t arrest this McAfee. I thought maybe it was because you weren’t certain he did it.” Ray King’s steady, solemn eyes didn’t move off Bannion. “That had to be it, Sheriff...you were uncertain. It couldn’t have been because he’s John Rockland’s foreman.”
Bannion let the counterman put down his plate. He eyed the food and found himself not as hungry now as he’d been earlier.
“I wasn’t in the Union Eagle when that thing happened, King, but I got there about five minutes later, and I talked to just about everyone in the saloon who saw the killing of your paw. There wasn’t any variation in any of those stories.”
“Then you’re plumb satisfied it was McAfee.”
“I’m satisfied, yes. I’m also satisfied it wasn’t his fault. He was defending himself at the time and your paw...like I told you...was pretty hard of hearing. Witnesses said a dozen people yelled at your paw. He evidently didn’t hear...and that’s how it happened. As for arresting Dale McAfee...there was no need. It’s plumb legal to defend yourself in Texas, Mister King.”
“No coroner’s inquiry, Sheriff?”
“I’m the coroner. That’s part of my job. I convened no hearing because, like I just told you, there was no need.”
Austin leaned over, said something harsh to his brother, and then rose up to leave. He put his hot stare briefly, fiercely upon Bannion, then walked out of the café.
Bannion drank his cup of coffee.
“Mister King,” Bannion said to Ray, “I’d like to ask you a question.”
“Go right ahead, Sheriff.”
“How did you know your father was here in Perdition Wells?”
“My brother Hank got a letter mailed from here.”
“Did it say your father was here?”
“It did.”
“Will you tell me who signed that letter?”
Ray drew his coffee cup to him and replied to this in a quiet way, saying: “No. We might need a friend here before we’re finished with our business, and, as far as we know, the person who wrote that letter is the only friend we’ve got in Perdition Wells.”
“How long had it been since you’d seen your paw?”
Ray drank some coffee, returned the cup to its saucer, before saying: “Four years.”
“He didn’t write?”
“No.”
Bannion nodded. “He wanted to be forgotten, I’d guess. He wanted the past to die.”
Ray looked at Bannion. “Did he ever tell you that?”
“No. I had no idea who he was. But I knew one thing about him. He was tired through and through. That’s what I tried to tell you last night. I honestly believe, Mister King, that your father would have welcomed that bullet, if he’d had time to reflect about it. I’m absolutely convinced of it.”
Ray King pushed his plate away, planted two elbows in its place on the counter, and said: “Sheriff, I figure you to be a pretty decent sort. I got that notion last night. I don’t hold it against you that you went right out to warn Rockland and McAfee. But I think from today on, the less we have to say to one another the better.”
Bannion called for a refill of his coffee cup. “We’re not as different as you think,” he told Ray King. “We believe pretty much the same about things. The only big difference is that I’ve lived about twenty years longer than you have. When you’re my age, you’ll understand what this means. Your views alter...you get a different insight. Right now you’re thinking of only one thing...revenge. I’m thinking of your paw and how he would consider this thing.”
“You think McAfee should get off scotfree?”
“No I don’t. I don’t think McAfee’s conscience will let that happen as long as he lives. But I know for a fact that killing him isn’t any answer.”
Ray King sat on a moment, considering Bannion’s face, then he arose, flung down a coin, and walked out of the café without another word.
Bannion picked at his breakfast, declared to no one, “Damn!” and also stalked out of the café without finishing the meal.
He halted upon the yonder sidewalk to look over the morning-washed roadway. There was the usual buggy and wagon traffic. Riders passed into town at both ends of it, and bonneted women with baskets on their arms were beginning the day’s shopping. Across the road in front of the livery barn, next door to the Perdition Wells Stage & Freighting Company, stood the King brothers, Ray and Hank and young Austin. Al, the stone-faced brother, was not with them.
Bannion turned this over in his mind. He was beginning to understand the pattern of how these men worked. When there was some scouting to do, Al did it.
What will it be this time? Bannion considered the obvious possibilities. Al is stalking Rockland’s Texas Star...perhaps he’s waiting for a chance to ambush Dale McAfee. No, no, that isn’t it. These aren’t dry-gulch killers. It’s possible Al is contacting their informant, and if that is so, he is probably right here in town.
Bannion would have traded a year off his life to know who that informant was.
He momentarily forgot about the Kings, bent to the chore of creating a cigarette, and very carefully went over in his mind everyone he could thing of with whom he’d seen old Alpheus King associate.
He lit up and exhaled a big, bluish cloud. The hell of that was that Doyle Bannion, like everyone else in town, hadn’t paid close attention to one old derelict. He’d seen him sitting in the sun on warm days and he’d seen him drinking an infrequent ale with some of the town’s other old men, but, to his knowledge, old King had stayed pretty much to himself.
Still, there was someone hereabouts who knew what he had been. Whoever this was, he’d had to have been old King’s confidant, too. Otherwise, how would he have known King had sons and where to send them a letter?
A rider swung in over at the livery barn, got down, and tossed his reins to the hostler. Then he stepped along where three other tall men sat idly looking up at him, and it was at that moment that Bannion saw that Al had returned. He watched closely, with curiosity up like a banner in his eyes, as the four King brothers sat relaxed upon that yonder bench. First they listened to Al, then quietly talked among themselves.
From that instant Bannion began to have a secret fear and a solid dislike of Al King. He smoked and looked and waited. There was nothing else he could do. He was frustrated. He couldn’t arrest them because thus far they had not done anything that constituted breaking the law. Nor, in so many words, had they actually said they were going to kill Dale McAfee. He couldn’t even run them out of town, and make it stick, because they hadn’t disturbed the peace. In fact they hadn’t even spoken to more than two or three people that Bannion knew of, and of all the people passing in and out of the stores, the saloons, the offices, not a one had any inkling that death with four different faces was sitting there relaxed in the soft sunshine of Perdition Wells’ roadway.
Bannion finished his cigarette. He tossed it into the road and saw that he was under veiled scrutiny from across the way. This didn’t bother him particularly. In fact, he ignored it in order to fit another piece into this puzzle. Al King had not been to see someone in town. He could have walked anywhere within pistol shot easier than he could have ridden, and therefore he hadn’t been in town, he’d been out on the range somewhere. Bannion thought that “somewhere” was the Texas Star.
He was still thinking this when seven horsemen, riding in a bunch, came swinging in from the east. They slowed with range dust settling behind them where they struck the main roadway, and came along at a deliberate walk.
Bannion recognized John Rockland, and turned cold in the guts. He had his answer about Al now. He’d been out scouting, had seen these Texas Star men, and had come back at once to report to the others.
Rockland was astride a fine, blood bay horse with a wavy black mane. He looked good on a horse any time, but, sitting his carved saddle now, a
foot or two ahead of his range crew, John Rockland appeared as something special.
Bannion shot his onward glance to Rockland’s men. Normally when the entire crew came to town, there were eight of them, including Rockland. The missing man, Bannion saw at once and with great relief, was Dale McAfee.
Across the way the four tall King men were sitting easy, with legs pushed far out, hats tilted forward to shield faces from warming sunlight, watching Rockland’s Texas Star advance steadily southward without speaking or moving their eyes or gun hands.
Bannion could feel a curdling of the atmosphere. Others, the length of the roadway, also saw those riding men and began to look, to wonder, to speak back and forth about this, perhaps also feeling something indefinable but jarring in the air.
Rockland saw Bannion and reined over. Behind him sat his riders, their attention holding to the sheriff, too, their backs squarely to the Kings.
Rockland nodded. He was distant this morning, distant and impersonally unapproachable. His nod meant nothing and he wasted no time with amenities. He said: “Did you take care of that matter we discussed last night, Bannion?”
Bannion, sensing John Rockland’s coldness, tried to keep hostility from his answer, but made no effort to keep out the irony. “No I didn’t, Mister Rockland, and, as a matter of fact, you just put your back to the four of them.”
Rockland didn’t move for what a seemed a long while. He regarded Bannion from eyes that grew misty with antagonism, then he gently raised his rein hand and turned his horse. He pushed past those crowding riders, and halted where he had a good view of the four men watching him impassively from the battered bench between the livery barn and the stage office. He nodded. None of the Kings nodded back or moved a muscle.