The newcomers I avoided, figuring them to be even poorer—all except for a medium-young Norwegian in bib overalls working on a partially finished sod house. His wife was helping him, but she was clearly pregnant and unable to do much. The covered wagon they’d arrived in was parked nearby. The shack was some twelve feet wide by fifteen long, the finished walls formed of cut lengths of sod stacked like bricks and covered with tarpaper and wood siding with openings for door and windows, the roof fashioned of willow poles topped by layers of grass and sod. He was sweating heavily and stooped from the hard labor. I felt sorry for him, and in spite of myself I stopped and offered help for no more payment than a meal. He not only turned me down flat, he grabbed an old flintlock rifle propped against one of the finished walls and ordered me off his property. Unlike me, he wasn’t ready to swallow his pride, might never be. Care for his kind or not, you had to respect such a man.
Another long, hot, wasted day. It was after five when I got back to Keystone—dejected, tired, hungry. The only option I had left now, besides taking Mary Beth up on her offer, was to hunt some kind of job in Box Elder. Tate Reynolds had been a friend of Pa’s in the old days; maybe I could talk him into hiring me in some capacity, as a swamper if nothing else. But more likely not. I’d made a little trouble for him a couple of times when I’d had too much liquor in my wild kid days, and he’d been one of the jurymen who’d believed Cable’s lies and brought in the guilty verdict. But I had to try. Reynolds first, then the rounds of the other merchants, hat in hand, little better than a beggar humbling himself in front of hostile eyes.
The one good thing that might come of all this job hunting, whether I could find one or not, was that it was bound to put a question in the minds of some: If I’d stolen Tom Kendall’s fifty-four hundred dollars and hid it someplace, why was I after menial work? And why was I fixing to stay on at Keystone? Why didn’t I just fetch the money and head off for parts unknown? Those questions might—might—convince a few people besides Mary Beth, Etta Lohrman, Will Satterlee, and Fred Benson that I was innocent after all. If I couldn’t pry a confession out of Rufus Cable before he died, having at least some of my neighbors give me the benefit of the doubt would make rebuilding my life and my reputation some less troublesome.
I drove the buckboard into the barn, unhitched the chestnut, rubbed him down with a gunnysack, fed him some hay in his stall. Then I walked over to the house, thinking about supper, and opened the door. And stopped dead-still two steps inside, tensing up, staring.
A man stood spread-legged in front of the old horsehair sofa, his hat pulled down low, his face covered by a red bandana, a Colt six-gun aimed straight at my belly.
AL YANDLE
I couldn’t stop thinking about that money Tarbeaux stole. More’n five thousand dollars, a damn fortune. I could keep on working for forty-and-found until I was too old and stove-up to sit a saddle and I’d never see anywheres near that much total, never mind in one lump.
The things a man could do with all those greenbacks! The places he could go, the fancy women he could have—women a whole lot better-looking than the saloon girls and two-dollar whores in Box Elder and Miles City. He could even buy himself a piece of land, if he was of a mind to, and start up a little spread of his own. Down in Wyoming in the Powder River country, say. I’d ridden line for an outfit down that way one fall, before I come up here to Montana, and I kind of wished I’d stayed. I still had a notion to go back down there again someday.
Had Tarbeaux got the money yet from wherever he hid or buried it? Could be he had, but then why was he still here? Getting ready to run off with Colonel Greathouse’s daughter? Galled me as much as it did Kinch to think of a jailbird like him with that pretty, big-titted filly. But maybe he hadn’t gone after the money yet. Biding his time. Either way, that five thousand was where Tarbeaux could get his hands on it quick any time he felt like it, and on account of he’d already served his time nobody could stop him unless they caught him with it.
Or unless somebody took it away from him.
What could he do about it if somebody did? Report his stolen money had been stole from him to the marshal or the county sheriff? Hell, no! He’d just have to take the loss and keep his mouth shut.
It got so I couldn’t think about nothing else. Tuesday morning Kinch sent me and Collie Burns out to check the boundary fences separating Square G land from the sodbusters’ tracts along Big Creek, see if the furriners had tore down any more of the ones we’d mended. You couldn’t trust them boogers even after the lessons we’d taught ’em with the night rides. Colonel Greathouse’s orders, them raids. He was a hard man when he was crossed, no question about that. But a mostly tolerable boss until that last roasting the newspaper editor Satterlee give him. He’d been a holy terror since then, storming around snarling at everybody like a trapped bear. Kinch and Burns had worked for him long enough to take the abuse in stride, but I was fed up with it and about ready to quit and move on.
Anyhow, Collie and me rode out there and didn’t find any new breaks, but my mind wasn’t on the job. We finished early and started back, but halfway there I couldn’t fight the temptation no more. I told Burns I had a stomach complaint and needed to go into Box Elder to see the doc. He shrugged and said he’d tell Kinch. Soon as we split up and he was out of sight, I headed for the river. I found a place to ford it and rode straight to Tarbeaux’s ranch.
I left my horse in the cottonwoods like Kinch and me done last week, crept up close enough for a look down into the ranch yard. There wasn’t no sign of Tarbeaux or anybody else. I waited a few minutes, but the yard stayed empty. The barn doors was shut, so he wasn’t in there. Had to be inside the house if he was there at all. I mounted up again, rode along the backside of the rise and around close behind the house where there was more cover. Then I made sure that orangey hair of mine was tucked up tight under my hat, tied my handkerchief over my face, drew my sidearm, and eased up and around to the front of the house.
Tarbeaux wasn’t there, either. He’d of had to be deaf not to hear me banging loud on the door.
It wasn’t locked. I went in and made a search for the money. I looked everywhere I could think of, in all four rooms—even poked around in the fireplace hunting for loose stones, which there wasn’t none. If the money was in the house it was hid so I couldn’t find it. I was so riled by the time I finished I kicked over a table, scattering a rack of pipes and some other stuff across the floor.
That was when I heard the wagon come rattling into the yard.
I went across for a quick gander through the front window, near turning my ankle when my boot heel come down on something that broke and skidded. Tarbeaux, alone on the seat of an old buckboard. He drove it into the barn, stayed in there must of been ten minutes. My mouth was dry as dust, my heart hammering hard, when he finally showed. I watched him walk across the yard until he got close enough so I could see he wasn’t wearing a sidearm, then I backed up and put my Colt on him when he come through the door.
He stared at me a few seconds without moving. Surprised, but he didn’t look scared. Then he swung his gaze around the torn-up room and his mouth got tight and his big hands balled into fists.
“Mister,” he said, “whoever the hell you are, you’re a damn fool. I don’t have anything worth stealing.”
“You got five thousand dollars.” I hadn’t said a word when I come here before with Kinch, so I didn’t make no effort to disguise my voice.
“No, I haven’t. I didn’t steal that money.”
“Won’t do you no good to lie, Tarbeaux. You stole it, all right, and you got it hid somewhere. Not in here or I’d of found it. Where is it?”
He didn’t answer me. He was looking down at something on the floor, and he took a step in that direction.
“Stand still!”
But he didn’t. Took another step and leaned down and picked up what he’d been looking at. Hell, it was nothing but a tintype of a woman in a wood frame that must’ve been setting on the
table I’d kicked over. It was what I’d near tripped on going to the window, the frame splintered and the picture torn up some. He put the tintype into his pocket.
“Quit stalling,” I said. “Where’s the money?”
“Gone. Long spent by the man who did steal it.”
“Bullshit. You’re gonna tell or show me where it is, or else—”
“Or else what? You’ll shoot me?”
“Better believe it.”
“Gun hand of yours doesn’t seem too steady.”
He was right, it wasn’t. I’d never drawn down on a man before, not like this, and the thought of having to pull trigger on him scared me a little. More scared than he was, the way he looked and talked. But I was in too deep now, I had to see this all the way through.
“It’s steady enough,” I said. “Better believe that, too.”
“How do you figure killing me will get you the money?”
“I’ll kill you slow, that’s how. Bullet in the knee hurts like hell. You don’t tell then, I’ll blow out your other knee.”
That convinced him, by Christ. He sighed heavy and said, “All right, mister, you win. I’ll take you to the money.”
“Where?”
“In the barn. Under a floorboard in one of the stalls.”
“That better be the truth.”
“It is.”
“Move out, then. No more wasted time.”
Tarbeaux turned for the door. It was still partway open, and he pushed it wider and stepped on through, slow. The thought of the money was so hot in my head that I followed him too close, didn’t see he still had his hand on the door edge until it was too late. He flung the door back in my face the second he stepped outside. I tried to stop and dodge, but I had the Colt out in front of me and the door smacked into it and knocked it out of my hand.
Soon as Tarbeaux heard the gun hit the floor, he come back through raging like a bull and slammed into me and knocked me off my feet. I hit the floor on my ass, skidded backward into the couch. He jumped and landed on my chest with both knees, tearing the air out of my lungs and choking off a yell. I couldn’t roll him off, couldn’t hardly breathe, couldn’t stop him from ripping the handkerchief off.
“Oh, so it’s you,” he said, and hit me in the face. I felt my lip split, my nose break and spurt blood. I was all over pain then, half blind and more scared than I’d ever been before. He hit me twice more, then lifted off. My eyes were too full of sweat and blood to see what he was doing, but I didn’t have to—I knew he was after the Colt and that he’d get it before I could move.
I was all through. I knew that, too.
Crazy thing was, laying there hurting, gasping for breath, knowing I was a damn fool just like Tarbeaux said, I still couldn’t stop thinking about the money.
COLONEL ELIJAH GREATHOUSE
I have had cause to hate many men in my life. Confederate snipers and backshooters during the war, cowards and insubordinates among the troops under my command. Rustlers, Indians. The sawbones in Billings who couldn’t save Gloria when her female complaint turned life-threatening. The greedy speculators who’d overstocked the ranges before the Great Die-Up. The immigrant sodbusters ravaging the land like hordes of locusts. That no-account thief Tarbeaux still bent on turning Mary Beth’s head.
But I have never hated any man quite so much or in quite the same way as I did that goddamned scourge of an editor, Will Satterlee.
He had been a burr under my saddle for a long time, too long. Attacking me every chance, spitting in my face in print, tearing down my good name—hell-bent on turning everybody in the basin against me. That last editorial of his vilifying me and defending Tarbeaux was the final straw. Every time I thought about it the rage flared up all over again.
Tarbeaux I would deal with later. I had given Mary Beth a tongue-lashing when Kinch and Yandle brought her back from Keystone, warned her she better not set foot on that jailbird’s land or see him anywhere else again. Far as I knew she hadn’t taken it into her head to disobey me. Should I ever find out she had, both of them would pay the price. She wasn’t too old for me to take a willow switch to. And if Tarbeaux figured on sticking in the basin, it wouldn’t be for long—I’d burn him out if I had to.
Satterlee was another matter. One that had to be dealt with now, before he did me any more damage. No man can do what he’d done to me in print, talk down to me the way he had last week, and get away with it. I couldn’t live with myself if I let that happen. I am not a violent man by nature—all the killing I’d done had been justified in the name of the Union, or out of necessity to preserve what was rightfully mine—but in the old lawless days I would have found a way to prod Satterlee into a gunfight and then blown his goddamned head off. Now … no. The Territory, the whole country, was too tame, too law-conscious for that kind of retribution.
There was another way to teach Satterlee a lesson, warn him to back off or suffer worse consequences. I did not much care for the idea of it, but when a man gets pushed into a corner he fights his way out any way he can, with any method at his disposal.
Kinch had been around most of the day, supervising repairs on the corral fences, but I waited until late afternoon before I sent for him. I did not want him thinking too long and hard about what I wanted him to do. He had balked at first when I ordered him to show the goddamned sodbusters they couldn’t get away with rustling and slaughtering Square G cows, but I made it plain I would fire him if he refused to lead the night raids, and he went ahead and led them. He’d do this, too.
I had him come into my study and close the door. Then, short and direct, I laid out for him what I had in mind.
He chewed his lip, rolling his Stetson around in his fingers. “I dunno, Colonel. You sure it’s a wise idea?”
“Don’t try to tell me what’s wise and what isn’t.”
“No, sir. It’s just that … well…”
“Well what?” I said. “Afraid of getting caught? You won’t be if you’re careful and do it after midnight.”
“The noise…”
“Damn the noise. Nobody will be awake to hear it, including that stupid lazy night deputy. Besides, it won’t take you more than a few minutes.”
“Satterlee’s gonna know it was done on your orders.”
“Of course he will. I want him to know. But he won’t be able to prove it. Neither will the law. Even if by some off chance you should get caught, tell the marshal it was your idea.”
“Then what happens to me?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’d see to it you weren’t prosecuted.”
“Colonel, can’t you send somebody else?”
“I don’t trust anybody else. You’re not going to turn me down, are you? You know what it means if you do.”
Kinch was still reluctant, I could see it in his face, but he had the sense not to put up any more argument. “No, sir. I’ll do it.”
“I knew you would,” I said. “Good man. Ride out after dark. If anybody in the bunkhouse asks where you’re going, you’ve got a yen to visit Tillie Johnson’s parlor house. Wait someplace outside of town until the time comes, make sure you’re not seen. Report to me first thing tomorrow.”
He nodded, still fiddling with his hat.
“One last thing, Jada.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do a proper job and you’ll find a bonus in your next pay envelope.”
When he’d gone, I lit a cheroot and sat back in my swivel chair, feeling easier in my mind than I had in days. My only regret was that I wouldn’t be there to see the look on Satterlee’s face come morning.
MARY BETH GREATHOUSE
I don’t believe in eavesdropping any more than I do in spreading gossip, and I’ve never done so intentionally. Not until today, that is. And then only because of where I happened to be and what I happened to overhear.
The Colonel must have thought I was down at the stables, or inside the house someplace where voices wouldn’t carry to me through the thick wooden walls. Eith
er that, or in his dark state of mind he had no thoughts about me at all. In any case he must have opened his study window to let in the thin, late-afternoon breeze and left it open when Jada Kinch came in to see him. I was outside in the garden just beyond the window, tending to the row of scraggly rosebushes that I managed to keep alive and blooming by sheer force of will. I would have walked away if the Colonel’s voice hadn’t carried just enough so I could hear what he began telling Kinch he wanted him to do tonight. Then I stood still and kept on listening.
At first I couldn’t believe my ears. But I suppose it shouldn’t have come as such a shock. I knew Colonel Elijah Greathouse’s history better than anyone, how ruthless he could be when he felt he’d been unfairly wronged or wanted something badly enough. His inflexibility had cost him my love, and Mother’s during the last years of her life, but until he tried to come between Jim and me I’d respected him. What respect I had left was now completely gone, destroyed by the trouble he’d made for the immigrant farmers, threatened to make for Jim, and was now conniving with Kinch to make for Mr. Satterlee. This was the worst thing he’d done yet. It was as if his judgment had become clouded, as if he were losing control of himself.
I kept on standing there after they finished talking and Kinch left. I didn’t know what to do. If I went in and told the Colonel I’d overheard, it wouldn’t change anything. He would refuse to listen to reason, as always when his mind was made up—he never listened to me about anything important anyway. Curse me for an eavesdropper, rant and rave about how justified he was. And lock me in my room, forcibly if I resisted.
Give-A-Damn Jones: A Novel of the West Page 12