The Fifth Western Novel

by Walter A. Tompkins

  Flint was one of those animalistic men who are all bone and muscle. The muscle made a covering over his bones to protect him, and his nervous system was such that he felt little pain. Flint had stood all the beating Webster had given him, and had shown little effect from it. He was good for a long time yet, and when he had worn Webster out, he would still be in good enough shape to come in for the kill.

  Webster had to do something, for Flint was driving him backward. He backed up against a chair, upsetting it, then dodging in back of it. Flint picked up the chair and crashed it down over Webster’s head, just as Webster had done to him. The blow knocked Webster back against still another chair, and on to the floor.

  When Webster came up he had the chair in his hand, and now both of them were armed again and facing each other.

  When Flint raised his chair and brought it down, Webster sidestepped it. He knew by now that he could not stand and trade blows with the man. He could not outmatch the man’s strength; his only chance was to outthink him.

  When Flint brought his chair slashing downward, Webster dodged it and brought his own chair up. Flint raised his chair to protect himself.

  But then Webster did not hit him with a downward blow; instead, he thrust the chair forward, so that its four legs were punching at Flint’s body, and Flint could not watch the four legs at once. Now it was one chair leg that caught him in the teeth, then another of the legs caught him in the neck, and again another one taught him in the middle of the stomach knocking some of the wind out of him.

  Chair legs were everywhere in front of Flint, and with the chair thrusting forward in short jabs in front of him, Webster got Flint started backward. Every time Flint brought his own chair downward at Webster’s head, Webster lifted his own chair just long enough to catch the blow on it, and then again those four confusing chair legs were poking at Flint like four lances, each with a life of its own. He lost two teeth in one jab; another hit him under the eye and ripped the flesh clear back to his ear. Blood was trickling out of his nose, running down his whiskers and mixing with the perspiration that matted his proud red beard. One of his eyes was fast swelling shut, and his red lips were now purple and swollen.

  Webster was beginning to reach the end of his rope, but he saw how Flint was heaving, and knew that the man was also weakening. He watched the man more closely now, and when he saw Flint’s arms sag for a moment under the weight of the chair he held aloft, Webster suddenly swung his own weapon and knocked Flint’s chair out of his hands. As it sailed across the room into the crowd, he dropped his own chair and flew at Flint, who had backed almost to the pair of swinging doors.

  Webster hit Flint’s chest with his shoulder in his onslaught with such force that he drove the man tumbling backward out between the doors, where they both landed on the muddy plank sidewalk Webster pounded the man’s face mercilessly until Flint rolled over and protected his face in his arms. Then Webster got up off him and gave him a chance to get to his feet.

  Flint got up slowly, moved his feet several times to get himself in balance, like a day-old colt learning to walk. When he got steadied, he was facing away from Webster, and he turned slowly, looking for him.

  As he came around facing Webster and saw him, Webster hit him. He knew that this was about the last good blow that he had left in him, and he put every ounce of his remaining strength in it. That did the trick. It knocked Flint over backward into the gutter of running water, where he floundered as he crawled up into a sitting position. And he sat there with gully water up to his middle, his head bowed and his tongue hanging out, his breath wheezing through his open mouth in short spasmodic gasps.

  “Get up,” Webster said.

  Flint seemed not to hear him.

  Webster stepped out into the water and caught the man by the collar and dragged him out onto the walk.

  “Get up,” he repeated.

  And still Flint did not move, but sat where Webster had dragged him. If his mind was working, he did not show any evidence of it. The breath coming through his mouth was making regular noises; there were blood and water and mud covering him from the top of his head down, and water was dripping off his beard.

  “Get up and fight,” Webster said for the third time.

  And still the man did not respond.

  “Well,” Webster said. “If you ever want to finish it, look me up.”

  Jim pushed through the crowd that had followed them out onto the walk, and found his hat back in the saloon on the floor near the overturned poker table. He went over to the bar and threw a twenty-dollar gold piece down in front of the bartender.

  “For the mirror,” he said. “I didn’t break it, but maybe it was my fault.”

  Then he heard a voice beside him. “I reckon I was wrong, friend,” Jake said. “You didn’t need the gun, did you?”

  He handed Webster his weapon. “And now I’ll buy you a drink for a change.”

  “Some other time,” Webster answered, and again pushed his way through the crowd that was now pouring back into the saloon.

  He went out through the batwing doors, and Flint was no longer sitting on the sidewalk. He saw two men leading him down the street. He turned and went on to the hotel, and up to his room. He poured a full tumbler of whiskey out of his bottle and drank half of it.

  Then he stripped and filled the washbowl and washed himself. One eye was swollen almost shut; there was a long scratch on one side of his face, and there were great blue and purple bruises on his ribs where Flint’s powerful fists had crashed into him. Both his fists were bruised and skinned, and the wound made by the flying chair leg ran along his temple, red and raw. And all his muscles ached as though he had been tied between a pair of wild horses who had tried to pull him apart.

  It had been a battle that had taken more out of him than any battle he had remembered ever having, and he was wondering if it would accomplish its purpose.

  He drained the whiskey glass and rolled into bed, shoving his pistol under his pillow.

  Flint had at least been right on one count; there had been a purpose behind his fight. But whether it had been worth the punishment he had taken, that was a question that wasn’t easily answered.

  * * * *

  Coming in from the ranch the next morning, Dick Hammond let Eric Swanson and Sonia off at Mrs. Halsell’s, and went on down to the store to pick up some supplies. A few minutes later he stopped off in The Red River Bar for a quick drink. Coming up to the bar at the point where the backbar mirror was broken out, he ask Stoney, the bartender:

  “Some of the boys been tossing marshmallows gleefully one at the other?”

  “Call ’em marshmallows if you want to, but it was cuspidors, chairs, tables, I dunno, maybe a couple of brick buildings they tossed along with ’em. Boy, if I live to be a hundred I’ll never see another donnybrook like that one. Now I’ve seen everything.”

  “Must have been a couple of armies.”

  “Yeah. Only each army was incorporated in just one man. Two men—two armies. I never believed that there was that much fight in a living human being.”

  “Who tapped whom?”

  “Ike Flint and some stranger that just drifted in and didn’t like his looks. I couldn’t rightly say which one of them was who and which one was whom to begin with, but when it was over—would you believe it—the stranger was the big whom, and Ike was just a bundle of nerves and sore places, so to speak.”

  “You don’t mean it. I thought Ike was bullet-proof and fist-proof.”

  “So did Ike. But it seems that he had miscalculated somewhere. There was an error in his figures, apparently.”

  “Who was this giant killer?”

  “Ah, now! You have shot your question square into the heart of the mystery of mysteries. Nobody knows who the gent is, nor where he came from, nor where he is going, nor what his name is, nor what made him take a notion that he didn
’t like Ike’s looks. He just came, he seen, and he conquered, as one of them old Eyetalian generals once put it so neatly, and then he took off and was swallowed up in the great black mystery of the night. Out of nowhere, into nowhere. A shooting star that didn’t even need a gun to shoot with. Boy, I’m telling you, I never seed the like in my born days.”

  “What did this new bear look like? Grizzly or Kodiak?”

  “Funny thing, he didn’t look like no camp bully at all. Tall enough, all right, maybe a couple of inches over six feet. But not too much meat on him like Ike’s got. Clean cut, and all. Shaved up, and got one of them open, honest faces like a dollar watch. Wore a Texas creased Stetson, and kinda kept hisself clean. You wouldn’t take him for a lone rider, and you wouldn’t take him for a barroom brawler. That’s the puzzle of it.”

  “Maybe Ike egged him on just for the hell of it. He’s got to whip a couple of men before breakfast just to work up an appetite, or else his day is spoiled.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. And the guy wasn’t drunk. I gave him about three short whiskeys, and then he takes his gun off and hands it to Jake, the stage driver, and walks up and horns into the party. Ike is blowing off at the mouth as usual to a bunch of settlers, and this stranger picks up Ike’s glass of beer and throws it in his whiskers. I’d just as soon have spit in a lion’s face.”

  “Two-gun man, this stranger?”

  “No. One gun. Just a plain stag-handled gun, and not even a half-breed holster. I dunno. Ask me, there’s more than meets the eye there. A guy don’t just come in and invite suicide like that when he’s stone sober and ain’t got nothing but a pleasant evening on his mind.”

  “Oh, well,” Hammond said with a casualness which he did not feel. “You never can tell in a place like this. There’s men hitting for the hideouts in those mountains across the river with posses ten paces behind them. There’s plain nuts and locoed killers, and just everyday halfwits. You never can tell what’s back of the skin on a man’s face.”

  He threw down a coin and sauntered out. Stoney had described Webster clearly enough for him to have no doubt as to who had whipped Flint.

  But why? That was the question that puzzled Hammond. Flint was tough; a man had to be tough to drive freight up into the Territory. Flint was a bully, but at the same time he was no outlaw, or anything like that. He drove for J.B. Faulkner, who operated the Star Trading Company, doing business all over the Territory, and Faulkner was in a legitimate line.

  On the sidewalk, Hammond cast his eyes toward the hotel up the road a few doors. Webster was probably up in that corner room sleeping off the effects of the fight. And since Webster’s business here was Swanson’s business, it might not be out of turn to drop in on him and find out what it was all about. If Webster had already found out something, then perhaps Swanson should know about it.

  Arguing this way, Hammond was on the verge of walking up to the hotel and finding Webster when Webster himself came out of the restaurant not forty feet from where he was standing.

  Hammond saw that one of Webster’s eyes was black, and that he had a long scar on the other side of his face. He also saw the swollen knuckles of Webster’s hands as Webster stopped in front of the restaurant and began rolling a cigarette.

  Hammond started toward Webster, but he had taken only a couple of steps when Webster looked up. Webster’s gaze landed on Hammond for a moment, and there was no sign of recognition in it. Webster’s eyes went on down the street as he licked his cigarette and put a match to it. Then Webster, still apparently not having seen Hammond, turned his back and walked on down toward the livery stable.

  Hammond took one step to follow him, then stopped, his puzzlement growing. Then he grinned sheepishly to himself and turned toward the blackboard. Of course, they weren’t to recognize each other anywhere at any time.

  Still, Hammond had formed a liking for Webster on first sight, and that liking still held, although he was puzzled by Webster’s apparently being a saloon brawler.

  He untied the horses and got into the rig. It was too much for him; he felt better handling simple ranch jobs. Still and all, it was a thing that Swanson should know about.

  Hammond found Swanson, Sonia and Mrs. Halsell having dinner and, after washing up in the kitchen joined them at the table. He had spent several minutes eating quietly when Sonia asked, “What’s the matter you’re so quiet, Dick?”

  “I hadn’t noticed it,” he admitted smilingly. He hadn’t intended telling Swanson about Webster in the presence of the others, but they all looked at him as though they knew he had something on his mind.

  “It seems that Webster gets around pretty fast,” he said.

  “What’s he been doing?” Swanson asked promptly.

  “He seems to have made mincemeat out of Ike Flint, and to have torn up The Red River Bar pretty thoroughly in the process. Stoney’s backbar mirror was smashed to pieces with a flying cuspidor, and Stoney has got the splintered pieces of a hickory chair as a war souvenir. Way Stoney tells it, there hasn’t been anything to match it since David and Goliath put on their little shindig a few thousand years ago.”

  “What was it about?”

  “That’s the funny thing. Stoney says Webster started it out of a clear sky for no reason at all. Doused Ike’s whiskers with beer first, and then tried to pull them out by the roots like a bunch of weeds.”

  “I was expecting a man who could keep himself in the background and find out something for me. Instead, I’ve hired a drunken brawler who, instead of keeping himself in the dark, makes a public spectacle out of himself.” Swanson did not hide his disappointment. “Well, I never did think much of a professional gunhand, anyway.”

  “I don’t know,” Dick said. “There’s something about Webster that I like. Something about his looks. He’s not a bum, and he looks like a man who knows what he’s doing. And besides, Stoney says that he feels like there was something back of what Webster was doing. He doesn’t know what it is, but Stoney is a pretty good judge of men, and he felt it. Maybe Webster is working on a scheme of some kind.”

  “I don’t know what kind of a scheme it could be. He was supposed to stay under cover and find out things. How is he going to keep his movements dark when he goes out the first thing and brands himself as the town bully?”

  “I don’t know. He was worn out from his trip. Maybe his nerves were just on edge and he got tired of listening to Ike shoot off his mouth. Anyway, that was the excuse he claimed for starting the fight.”

  Swanson ate in silence for a while. “I don’t believe this man is going to be able to do me much good. I think we’d better tell him that we’ve changed our minds. Do that the next time he shows up, will you, Cora?”

  Mrs. Halsell was thoughtful. “If I were you, Eric, I wouldn’t be hasty at jumping at conclusions. My brother said he was a good and reliable man, and that he liked to do things his own way. Why don’t we wait a while and see what he’s up to?”

  “All right,” Swanson agreed. “But I haven’t been any too sold on this whole idea from the first. If he makes trouble around here we will be to blame in a way.”

  CHAPTER IV

  High Water

  After he had had a late breakfast, Jim Webster stepped out of the restaurant and stopped to roll a cigarette. He saw Dick Hammond look at him and then start toward him. He turned his back on Hammond and walked on down to the livery stable where he found old Jake sitting on a horseshoe keg talking to the liveryman.

  Little Jake’s enormous mustaches twitched, and his one eye was very red-rimmed this morning as he inventoried the bruises and cuts on Webster’s face and hands.

  “I warned you,” he observed sagely. “You’d have been better off listening to me gab than waltzing with Ike Flint.”

  “I don’t know, Jake,” Webster answered. “The scars show more this way, but they’re not as deep. Suppose it’s safe for me to be on the s
treet?”

  “Well,” Jake answered, “Little after daylight this morning, Ike came out of his room and knocked three men down that looked at him as he passed them. I’d say his pride is more or less mangled, and will take a lot of healing. He got his horse and rode out of town, probably figuring on hibernating until his natural beauty returns to his face and his natural meanness returns to his soul. After which, was I you, I’d take a look at the scenery down around Mexico or maybe the South Pole. It is right healthy down there, I hear, and maybe Flint wouldn’t find you.”

  “You may have something there,” Webster admitted. “But in the meantime I’m kind of in the market for a horse. You reckon they sell that kind of animals around here?”

  Nodding at the liveryman beside him, Jake said, “Well now, if you was to talk right nice to Barney here, call him Mister and the like, you might persuade him to let you have a good ten-dollar horse for fifty or sixty dollars. Course, for that price you couldn’t expect an animal with teeth or all four legs or anything like that, but maybe he could fix you up with something that would hold your saddle off the ground. Eh, Barney?”

  Barney had one wooden leg, flop ears and a sad face. “Tell you, Webster,” he said. “I’ve got a few hundred-dollar horses that I’ll let go for fifty dollars. I couldn’t let you talk me into taking any more than that for them, though, because I got them cheap. Only cost me eighty, and it wouldn’t be fair to my neighbors if I lost any less than thirty dollars apiece on them, considering the present high price of feed.”

  “Well, suppose I buy half of one of them, then if I like him, I’ll come back and take the other half.”

  “Fair enough,” Barney answered. “We’ll have a look at them.”

  Webster found a short-barreled roan that he liked, brought his saddle down from the hotel and tried him out.

  He took the trail down to the river and watched the bankful tide of red rolling water pouring downstream at an angry pace. Here and there trees bobbed and weaved, old deadfalls with many pronged roots bounced in and out of the tumbling water as the swift current carried them along. New oaks and elms, big trees with trunks two feet thick, green leaved, trees that had been growing along some outbank until the rushing water had undercut them, tunneling the dirt out from under their roots and casting them into the stream, big trees, dead trees, living trees, small brush and dead logs, anything the river could grasp in its greedy maw, all these things had been caught up and were being rushed down from somewhere to somewhere else as nature awoke from its winter sleep, and put on a tantrum before settling down to its summer business.