Joe Alford took a step toward her, then turned on his heel. “Go ahead and get your divorce. You was goin’ to marry Elkhart, anyhow.”
“Joe, I made the first move,” she warned. “Don’t turn your back on me.”
“Elkhart would own a right nice chunk of this country if he got hold of Spade by marrying you.”
He stomped out of the house. She screamed at him to come back, but he didn’t. She walked over to the front window and saw Clay Janner sitting on the top rail of the corral fence, watching the horse breaker. She dried her tears.
“All right, Joe,” she said under her breath. “You asked for it.”
CHAPTER 7
Clay got directions to Elkhart’s Arrow spread and set out after breakfast. With the early sun at his back he felt almost at peace. With a little rain this would be good country. A place where a man could put down his roots and get married… He swore softly. This was hardly the time to think about settling down.
Because the forty-mile fence hadn’t been finished, Clay was able to reach Arrow headquarters without going through a gate or cutting wire. He skirted a fence-building crew and topped a rise of ground overlooking the spacious barns and main house of Arrow. As he drew nearer he saw that the house was ’dobe with a red-tiled roof. The two barns were huge, the corrals filled with fine horses. Even the blacksmith shop seemed to be in better shape than the main house of most ranches. Beside the house a row of cottonwoods stirred in the breeze. It was a layout to make a man catch his breath. In a way he couldn’t blame Nina Alford for toying with the idea of marrying all of this.
Passing the blacksmith shop, he heard somebody yell: “Here comes Janner. Watch it, boys!”
Clay drew rein, dropping a hand to his gun. Three Arrow hands, holding rifles, ran out of the bunkhouse. Three more appeared at the corral, also holding rifles. Clay shifted his gaze. Elkhart had come to the porch of the house, a cigar clenched between his teeth. His big hands gripped the porch rail.
Clay felt the growing tension. He could turn and ride for it, but that would make him out to be a coward. Besides, now that he thought about it, the situation seemed amusing in a way. It appeared that Elkhart was so afraid that he had six men covering him with rifles.
Clay looked at the nearest man, young, bald, with a wedge-shaped face and small glittering eyes. “Welcoming committee?” he asked.
“Keep moving,” the bald man ordered.
Clay touched his horse lightly with the spurs and rode on toward the house, passing other groups of armed men who watched him coldly.
As Clay drew rein in front of the veranda Elkhart released his grip on the porch rail but continued to regard his visitor warily. Smoke curled up from his cigar to spread across his broad face. He wore a black suit and white shirt with a string tie.
“All right, you’re here,” Elkhart said. “Now what?”
Clay swung down. “I came to talk. No other reason.”
“Then talk,” the rancher said in a strained voice.
Clay narrowed his eyes, wondering at Elkhart’s apparent uneasiness. Something was wrong here, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was.
“You act like I’d come riding in here with a gun in each hand,” Clay said.
Elkhart’s lips barely moved as he murmured, “You said you wanted to talk. Get at it.”
The man’s blunt manner put a raw resentment in Clay, but he held himself in. Too many others were involved in this mess—Kate, for one. He told Elkhart why he had come: that some of Arrow’s neighbors wanted to know what was to be done about the forty-mile fence.
“Why didn’t they come themselves,” Elkhart said, “instead of sending a stranger?”
“I own a half interest in a herd of cattle,” Clay said. “I’m here because it’ll cost me money if I have to drive them across the Sink.”
“You want me to cry about it?” Elkhart snapped.
For a moment Clay’s temper almost slipped. Again he caught himself in time. He peered back through the cottonwoods. The Arrow hands were still watching him. He wondered where Lon Perry might be. He faced around again.
“We’d be obliged if you’d let us go through your fence, Elkhart.”
Elkhart leaned forward, glaring down over the porch rail. “You boys are in for a rough summer,” Elkhart said, “if I want to make it rough.”
Clay felt a pressure at his temples. He glanced at the windows behind Elkhart and wondered if someone in there had a rifle trained on his breastbone. Cold sweat chilled the back of his neck, but he did not show his apprehension. His brown face was as tight as it had been when the Mexican army officers questioned him endlessly about the rifles he had hidden for delivery to Monjosa.
“Don’t be a stiff-necked fool,” he warned. “Or your neighbors will ride with wire cutters in their saddlebags.”
“I’ll shoot the man that cuts my fence.”
Clay picked up his reins. “Now we know where we stand. I told the boys I might have a talk with you. And I have. I’ve done my part.”
He thought he saw a touch of worry on the big man’s face, but he couldn’t be sure. What did Elkhart have to worry about? The man probably had twenty-five riders, a lot of credit at the bank and a sheriff who would do his bidding.
“Things might be different,” Elkhart said, “if Nina was my wife and Joe Alford hadn’t come sneaking back—”
“Maybe Nina Alford won’t like this high-handed way of yours,” Clay said. “After all, she’s one of the basin ranchers.” He saw Elkhart chewing this over, and added, “What’ll it take for you to put a gate in that fence?”
“A fence keeps out trespassers,” Elkhart snapped. “I been in this country a long time. I’m tired of neighbors crowding me.”
“Then you won’t do anything about a gate,” Clay said quietly.
Elkhart seemed to be on edge. He kept glancing at the men at the far end of the yard as if to make sure they were still handy.
“For Nina’s sake I’ll make a deal,” Elkhart said. “Two bits a head for all the beef driven through my fence.”
Clay gave a short laugh. “If you figure to charge me four hundred dollars for the herd I’ve got you’ll have a long wait.”
“You’ll pay or you’ll drive across the Sink,” Elkhart said angrily.
Clay reined his horse away from the porch. “We’ll see about that,” he told the rancher.
Just as he started across the yard Lon Perry and five men rode through an opening between the corral and some sheds. At sight of Clay the gunman drew rein.
When Perry made a move toward his gun, Elkhart cried, “Let him ride out, Lon!”
“But don’t he know about—” Perry broke off.
“Know about what?” Clay said.
Elkhart had come down the steps-to stand half a dozen yards behind Clay. “You better get out, Janner,” he advised. “Now!”
Clay looked at Perry’s tight face, the small cold eyes. The men with him were all cut from the same pattern, and all loaded for bear. Without a word he put spurs to his horse. Many questions needed answering, but this wasn’t the time. Not with those odds against him. He rode at a gallop the length of the yard, past the men with the rifles. The young, bald man shouted an obscenity and Clay was tempted to pull up and do something about it.
But he couldn’t. Those tough-hands in the yard would like nothing better than to end it. They’d have done it already if Elkhart hadn’t checked them.
Why had Elkhart done that?
As he rode on, he realized that he did know the answer to that one. Nina Alford had not yet made up her mind, and that had prevented Elkhart from giving the order to jump him. It was a sorry situation, he thought as he cut along the valley floor, when a woman could call the turn between war and peace simply by deciding whether to go back to her husband or marry another man.
At the eastern rim of the valley Clay ran into a fence crew stringing wire. Coils of the stuff were still piled high on a flatbed wagon. The crew eyed him sullenly. One of them picked up a rifle and put it down again. They let him ride through the small gap that remained open in this vicinity, but before many more days Elkhart would have his entire range sealed off with that cussed stuff known as bobwire.
Five miles farther on Clay ran into Buck Bogarth who was driving to his ranch with a wagon-load of supplies. Bogarth pulled in the team and listened to Clay’s account of his visit with Elkhart.
“Two bits a head,” the rancher said in disgust. “Ain’t a one of us can pay that kind of money.”
“If Elkhart wants to get rich,” Clay said, “he better watch out that he don’t get rich and dead all at the same time.”
Bogarth looked grim. “I like Joe Alford, but if he’d stayed in Mexico we’d be havin’ a better time of it here. But we still got hope, maybe. If Nina marries Elkhart then we’ll get that gate in the fence. And it won’t cost no two bits a head. My wife had a talk with Nina. And that’s what Nina said, in so many words.”
“Friendship must not mean a damn to you,” Clay said shortly. The sun seemed to be baking the back of his neck. He felt out of sorts from his talk with Elkhart, and here was another gutless rancher like Joe Alford. Or almost as bad. Letting his whole future ride on a woman’s whim.
Bogarth glared at him. “Joe’s my friend, all right,” he said heatedly. “But I stand to lose everything—”
“Unless Joe’s wife marries Elkhart,” Clay finished for him and gave a grunt of disgust. “Don’t count on Nina turning down her husband. I’ve got a hunch they’ll make up yet.”
“You think so?” Bogarth snapped. “I just left Joe at Fierro’s. He’s on a drunk. Him and Nina had another fight. And I reckon this was the last one.”
Bogarth whipped up his team and drove off. Clay sat his saddle a moment, staring at the distant peaks of the Sabers. Up there, the pass which led directly to the railroad had been blocked off by Elkhart’s fence. And on top of all his other troubles Joe had to go and get on a drunk.
Angrily Clay turned his horse toward Reeder Wells. Married life, he thought. If there’s any good part of it, I’ve never seen it yet.
Why didn’t he just take off and to hell with Joe? Yet he felt a certain loyalty. There was something likable about Joe Alford, despite his faults. And he had known Joe a long time. Since they’d punched cows together years back in west Texas.
It was nearly dark by the time Clay came out on the trail above Reeder Wells and saw the glowing lights of the dismal little town far below. As he rode down the steep grade he could feel the hot evening breeze blowing off the Sink to the west. A man forced to drive his herd across the Sink would cut its value by at least twenty-five percent, he had learned.
Well, Elkhart was putting on the squeeze, but good. He’d end up owning the whole valley and do it without firing a gun. Do it with his forty-mile fence.
In a black mood Clay rode up to Fierro’s and dismounted in front of the squat ’dobe saloon. There were few people on the walks. He entered the cantina and Fierro, looking fierce with his spiked mustaches, nodded his black head at Joe Alford. Alford was slumped at the corner table where the basin ranchers had held their powwow not too long ago.
“Crudo,” Fierro said. “Drunk and sick. I try to get him to stop drinking, but—” The Mexican spread his dark hands and hoisted his shoulders ear-high.
Clay walked over and got Alford by the hair and jerked his head up from the table. Alford blinked at him out of bloodshot eyes that could not quite focus. His mouth hung open.
“I’ll have to tie him to a saddle,” Clay said.
“But he does not wish to go home,” Fierro said in Spanish.
“He’s going home,” Clay said, “and he’s going to like it. So is his wife going to like it. I’m getting damned sick of this.”
He gave a boy two bits and told him to go to the livery and get Alford’s horse and bring it to the cantina. Then he went to a cafe across the street, got a pot of black coffee and forced Alford to drink it. Alford spilled most of the first cup down the front of his shirt. The scalding helped to revive him.
The three customers at the bar watched all this with faint interest. Fierro stood by, wiping his hands on a greasy apron, shaking his head from side to side.
“It is bad when a man has trouble with his wife,” Fierro said. “He then does not have the sense of a goat.”
A sudden silence in the bar made Clay look up. He was holding the pot of coffee in one hand, steadying Joe Alford on his chair with the other. A tall fleshless man with a star on his shirt had entered the cantina. He let the swing doors flap shut and came tramping across the dirt floor. Clay noticed a wavering uncertainty in his brown eyes.
This, then, was Sheriff Bert Lynden—and no wonder Byrd Elkhart had found him so easy to buy. Not a forceful man, this sheriff. Backed by the power of his badge and the prestige of Elkhart’s Arrow Ranch, he still seemed unsure of himself.
“You’re Janner,” Lynden said, and Clay nodded. The men at the bar were all attention now. Fierro had quietly faded away from Alford’s table, leaving the three of them alone.
Alford goggled dazedly at Lynden. “What’s the matter, Sheriff?” he said thickly.
“I came down here to nip a range war in the bud,” the sheriff said. He went into detail, telling how he had arrived last night from the county seat.
“If there’s any range war, it’s Elkhart’s doing,” Clay said.
The sheriff lowered his gaze, seemed to be trying to marshal his thoughts. At last he looked up, hooking his thumbs in the wide shell belt which he wore under an old gray coat.
“Now about them six cows,” he said. “Elkhart was fully justified in—”
Clay set down the coffee pot. He stepped away from the table. “What six cows?” he said.
The sheriff blinked. “Why, the six that busted through Elkhart’s fence. Them Chihuahuas you and Alford brought back from Mexico.”
“None of our cows were anywhere near that fence,” Clay said.
The sheriff looked more uncertain than ever. “But I hear you went over to Elkhart’s today.”
“To talk to him about putting a gate in that fence,” Clay said. “You haven’t told me yet about those six cows. You better start talking, Sheriff.”
Bert Lynden backed up a step and put a hand on his gun. “This is the law you’re talkin’ to,” he said with a shrill dignity. “I won’t take your lip.”
The men at the bar had crowded up close, expecting trouble. They looked from the sheriff with his pale, fleshless face, to the tall Texan known as Clay Janner.
“Them six cows busted through Elkhart’s fence,” the sheriff said. “Some of his men shot ’em.”
Clay felt the blood drain from his face. “He had six head of beef killed?”
“They busted his fence,” the sheriff said defensively.
“The dirty sonofabitch.”
Lyden took another backward step. “Now don’t you go talkin’ like that. We got a jail here. I’ll lock you up, Janner. Sure as hell, I’ll lock you up.”
Alford had got shakily to his feet. For the first time he seemed to realize what was going on. “Elkhart had no right to do that, Sheriff.”
“He had every right. Elkhart is sorry his men took it into their own hands, but after all—” Lynden stood tensely, gripping his holstered gun.
Clay forced himself to take a deep breath to quiet his jumping nerves. “Whereabouts did this happen, Sheriff?”
“Squaw Creek,” the sheriff said, and cleared his throat twice. “What I come here to tell you is this. I don’t want no trouble from you, Janner. Elkhart’s sorry it happened, but like I say he was within his rights. So you just tuck your tail and figure you’re lucky there wasn’t more of
your cows busted that fence.”
“Who brought the word to you, Sheriff?” Clay made himself drawl. “About me being at Elkhart’s today?”
“Why, Baldy Renson.”
Clay remembered the bald young man he had seen that afternoon at Elkhart’s. And it meant that Elkhart had sent Baldy Renson high-tailing it for town to give the story to the sheriff.
“No wonder Elkhart was edgy today,” Clay said. “He figured I’d come out to Arrow to raise hell about those dead cows. And I didn’t even know about it.” He gave the sheriff a tight grin. “Looks like the joke’s on me, Sheriff.”
Lynden squinted at him suspiciously. “Just so you take it this way there’ll be no trouble. Just don’t go and try to settle with Elkhart for this business.”
“Elkhart must’ve yelled mighty loud to get you down from the county seat, eh, Sheriff?” Clay said, still in that drawling voice.
“He did—” The sheriff broke off. “I had some business down here anyhow. I do no man’s bidding.”
Someone in the cantina laughed softly. The sheriff wheeled to see who had laughed. But everyone wore a straight face. At last Lynden faced around to Clay again.
“Just so we understand each other. Them six cows is dead. They busted a fence. There’s nothing you can do about it. Understand?”
“Sure, I understand.”
The sheriff frowned painfully, trying to read something in Clay’s mild manner. “Don’t you try nothing or you’ll be in my jail.” With that he wheeled and clumped out of the cantina.
The tension in the place eased off. The drinkers went back to the bar to talk over this latest development. Clay put a hand on Alford’s shoulder.
“You get for home, Joe,” he said in a low voice. “I’m staying in town tonight. Got some business.”
Alford wavered up on his feet, both hands resting on the table top to support his shaky weight. “Listen, Clay, don’t go after Elkhart—”
Clay shook his head. “I’ve just got an idea I might scare up a cattle buyer. Get somebody to buy our herd and contract to drive it to the railroad. They’ll have all the grief, not us. Then we’ll be out from under.”
The Fifth Western Novel Page 46