by Les Weil
* * *
The clouds gathered overhead, moving silently, closing all gaps. Monte Walsh pulled out of a doze in the saddle. Sudden wind rushed in violent gusts down the finger of plain toward the open. He looked around. The cattle were up, beginning to push against each other. Back a bit around the curve of the herd a dark blur was Chet Rollins on the black sweeping to head a batch of runaways. Another batch broke loose. Monte wheeled the roan, spinning on hunched hind legs, and lit out after them. He had them back. He snatched a quick look toward the camp. All he could make out was the flicker of the low fire licking up under the lash of the wind. It was blotted for an instant as a figure ran past it.
The wind increased in violence and whipped rain with it. The herd shifted and swayed with rattling of horns. Two men on a rat-tailed roan and a thick-necked black dashed back and forth, holding the frightened steers against the hills rising beyond. Over by the camp a sharp crack sounded, and another, and others following. The canvas top of the chuck wagon had ripped loose on one side and flapped up in the gusts like a huge whip snapping.
"Good God a'mighty!" said Monte, hearing the heavy rising roar of the herd in motion. "Here we go again!" A dark shape rushed past him, Chet Rollins bent low on the black, scudding fast for the head of the rushing herd.
Monte Walsh dug spurs in. The roan leaped into full gallop. "Yoweee!" yelled Monte, leaning forward to shout in one of its ears. "You let that fat-faced baboon beat me to the point I'll rip your hide off! Personal!"
Out from the camp in ragged sequence pounded other dark shapes, angling to join them. The trail crew of the Slash Y, seven men on seven tough little cow ponies, raced headlong into the rain-drenched dark.
* * *
"Yep, that's our Monte. I see you been talkin' to Sugar. That's the one he always tells. Scratch any of us Slash Y an' we'll come up with one about him. About Monte. Me, now, my favorite's the one about when we was up at Cheyenne. Took a bunch of cows up there. Kind of like the old days. We'd delivered an' we was seein' the town. Fed our faces at a fancy hotel for a starter. Good food but only little dabs an' we had to go the limit twice around to fill up. Then Sunfish got to talkin' how he'd never been to a real theayter an' when he's laid away he'd like to have that in his tally book. So Hat herded us down the street an' into this place. Fair enough but I seen better in Kansas City. Show was all about a pretty young gal whose father's rottin' away in prison for somethin' he didn't do. She's out to clear his name. Mix-up of some kind about a gold mine an' a killin' her father's thought to of done. Only one that knows the straight of it's an old prospector that's lost, hidin' away somewheres scared to show. She's got a job cut out for her--find that old boy an' coax 'im to speak up. There's a good-looking young one hangin' around, in an' out, an' why he don't take on the job for her beats me. Reckon he was just on hand for to have someone to marry her at the finish like they usually do. There's another gent around too, mean an' with wax on his mustache that he favors plenty, an' why that gal don't know that kind is no good beats me too. He's after the gold an' to keep her old man behind bars an' to grab her off too. Plain as a wart on a wasp's hind end that likely he's the one really did the killin'. But she's that silly she falls for his greasy palaver an' is always tellin' him her plans.
"Mighty attractive, that little gal, when she's rigged out in a buckskin outfit huntin' for that old boy. Has a cute little popgun she carries in a holster too. Finds him up a draw somewhere an' talks to him good. He's a shaky one not goin' to last long an' she makes him see that before he cashes in he ought to get up enough dander to set things straight. But it's gettin' night an' they got to make camp till mornin'. Old boy's asleep by the fire. They got a red light under some sticks up there on the stage that's right pretty. Young gal's some modest an' she sleeps behind a bush. Along comes this indian crawlin' mighty creepy with a knife in his hand. Yep, that no good one's hired him to knock oft the old boy. He's crawlin' along, makin' quite a thing of it with that knife, an' the gal wakes up, sees him, goes all to shiverin', pulls herself together, takes out that little popgun. Indian has the knife up, ready to start slicin', an' she pulls the trigger. An' the thing misfires. Blank in there's a dud. She tries again. Another dud. Indian's gettin' tired holdin' that knife up an' trying to stay lookin' fierce an' she tries again. Same thing. An' that's when our Monte takes a hand. He stands up an' he has his old hogleg in his hand an' he levels it at that Indian an' he says, ma'am, he says, if you'll kindly step a bit out of the way I'll take care of that painted-up polecat for you.
"Yep, that's what he did. You didn't know him, you'd think he was plumb serious too. Gal up there looked around wild an' let out a squawk an' went flat. Man they had bein' that Indian took one look an' dove right through some canvas they had painted to look like rocks. Manager of the place an' a couple others came runnin' to grab Monte. Some more in the seats around that didn't like havin' the show shook up started in to help. We wasn't going to let Monte be manhandled that way for a little thing like that so the rest of us took a hand too. A right lively little scramble in there for a while. Kind of like old times on the trail. Turned out to be kind of expensive when we forked over fines next day. But Monte come out of it all right. That little old gal herself showed up an' argued pretty with the judge he had no call to be hard on a man for being gentleman enough to want to help her out of a spot of trouble. Yep, Monte had his picture in the paper standin' alongside her."
Payment in Full
1886
SUNLIGHT AND SILENCE lay soft and limp over the range headquarters of the Consolidated Cattle Company. In the big corral a dozen or more cow ponies drooped in drowsy dejection, no longer even trying to push for places in the meager patch of shade from the water tank on its squat tower just beyond the side rails. The only indication of life near the long barn was a lone gamecock that stood propped on stiff spurred legs by one corner and occasionally rocked down to peck morosely at the dusty ground and relapsed into stillness again. Only a thin wisp of smoke from the tin chimney of the small cookhouse beside the weathered adobe bunkhouse betrayed any suggestion that there might be something able to move and moving in some activity inside.
Over by the straggling adobe ranch house a light buckboard rested in full sun close by the shallow veranda. Between the shafts was a bony fleabitten bay horse, apparently motionless, but pulling quietly, furtively, at the reins whose ends were looped around one of the scarred poles supporting the veranda roof. The rein ends fell with a soft plop to the ground and a tiny lizard that had been lying in sun on the veranda floor scuttled down a crack between two boards. Quietly, furtively, the bony bay began to move, obviously worried about squeaks from the buckboard behind. It eased forward a few feet, ten feet, fifteen feet, and was in the sparse shade of the one scraggly cottonwood by the veranda and immediately relaxed all over, drooping into a replica of the cow ponies in the corral. The lizard poked its head up between the boards and crawled out and lay again in the sun. Inside the house, in the dim interior of the big main room opening off the veranda, two men occupied two chairs looking at each other. One, near the door, relaxed back in the mouse-chewed remnants of what had once been an overstuffed leather-covered armchair, was long and lean within old worn range clothes set off by a wide belt with huge silver buckle and absurdly high-curved-heel boots. He was ageless, any age at all past the half century mark, with the deep tan of his lined face and its wide untrimmed mustache and the many wrinkles radiating out from the eyes defying any conceivable exact calculation. A bottle half-filled with an amber liquid was on the floor at the left of the armchair within easy reach. A small glass filled with the amber liquid was in his right hand. The other man, further into the room, sat on a straight ladder-back chair behind what had been a rolltop desk but now was a flattop with the marks of the forcible removal of the upper structure plain on the showing surface. He was medium in every way, in size, in shape, in apparent age. A tinge of soft plumpness bulged the cloth of his neat pinstriped suit. He wore, beneath the
coat and vest, a white shirt surmounted by a celluloid collar from which protruded a small snap bow tie and both, the shirt and the collar, offered signs of recent sweat and dust. His round face with features small and somewhat pinched in proportion to the bone and flesh behind them was a mottled pink from recent unusual exposure to wind and sun. On the desk top in front of him lay a derby hat.
The armchair man swirled the amber liquid in his glass. His voice was mild, carrying a bare suggestion of a drawl. "Sure you won't join me?"
The desk man frowned slightly. "You know I don't drink. It interferes with my figuring." He spoke with a slight unconscious sharpness of accent, a hint of habitual regard for his own words as valuable commodities that should be shaped with precision. He leaned back in his chair. "I'm not being intentionally rude. It's business, that's all." He sighed and ran a finger around inside the celluloid collar. "An aggravating business too, I must say. For me. The directors send me out here every year thinking they are giving me a kind of vacation. Nonsense. I have a sensitive nose. There's nothing out here but heat and dust and flies and smells and-" He stopped. He seemed to be a bit worried. There was movement in the armchair.
Not much movement. The body of the armchair man remained still, relaxed, but his right hand raised to tilt the contents of the little glass into his mouth and his left hand reached to take the bottle from the floor to replenish the glass. "An' rattlesnakes," he said gently. "An' hosses that don't handle easy. An' men that ain't always full civilized."
The desk man tried a small smile. "Well, yes. But I don't mean anything by that. You are used to it. Maybe you even like it. But me, I'm a city man." He pushed the derby to one side of the desk and sat up straighter. "I figure if we get right at this annual accounting I can clean it up this afternoon. Maybe in time to be back in town before the night stage. That way I can get in a few days at Kansas City before I have to be back east." He put both hands on the desk top and leaned forward on them. "Business first. Pleasure later. Now--where are the books?"
There was movement again in the armchair, a repetition of the previous maneuver. The amber liquid slid down the lean man's throat with no noticeable action of his neck muscles and no noticeable effect. "Where they always are," he said. "In the second drawer on the left."
The desk man pulled open the second drawer on the left and took out several limp dog-eared notebooks and laid them on the desk top. "I do wish you would use regular account books," he said. "I'd be happy to supply them."
"No," said the armchair man. "I'd get lost in the things. But I can make trail fair enough in those."
The desk man sighed and took a small pad of paper and a pencil from a side suit pocket and laid these too on the desk. He opened the first notebook and settled to his work. Outside sunlight and silence held undisputed sway over the surface showing of the range headquarters of the Consolidated Cattle Company. In the big main room of the ranch house were silence and relative dimness, broken only by the occasional tiny scritch of pencil on paper and the brief flare of a match lighting a cigar by the desk and occasional soft repetitious movement in the armchair.
* * *
The desk man looked up. "I make it an eighty-two percent calf crop this year," he said. "Isn't that a little low? It was eighty-six last year."
The armchair man swirled amber liquid in the little glass and regarded it with affection. He did not look up. "A rough winter," he said gently. "A mighty mean spring. I'd say eighty-two's a right encouragin' figure." His voice rose a notch and the drawl became a bit more definite. "As a matter of straight fact, if you can find another outfit in the whole territory that's done better'n seventy-five, I'll eat that silly hat lyin' there beggin' somebody to put a bullet through it." He raised the glass and amber liquid slid silently down his throat. His voice dropped back and the drawl faded. "Plain too. No sauce to help it down."
The desk man looked at the derby lying to the left on the desk top and reached to flick dust from it. He sighed and returned to his work.
* * *
The desk man held a finger in place on the page in front of him and looked up. "What's this? Eighty dollars for wolf poison! Good Lord! Eighty dollars! I don't recall anything about wolves in your reports."
The armchair man raised his head from contemplation of the little glass. Traces of what could have been a smile leaked out around the fringes of his mustache. "Just between you an' me," he said, "that wasn't wolf poison. The boys talked me into lettin' 'em have some doin's here for some of the other outfits along about Christmas time. That was for liquid reefreshment." He studied the expression on the desk man's face and something resembling a soft chuckle came from him. "They didn't have to talk much," he said.
The pink flush on the desk man's face had become a shade deeper. He sat up straighter on his chair. "A bit thick, I must say. Do you realize that it takes four good steers at the going price to make eighty dollars?"
"Certain I realize it," the armchair man said gently, very gently. "A rough winter. The boys were doggin' it hard. Pullin' plenty more'n four cows through."
The desk man chewed slowly on the eraser end of his pencil. Small frown furrows marked his pink forehead. Gradually the furrows smoothed away. He sighed and returned to his work.
* * *
The sun was lower in the west, opposite the open ranch house door, sending a patch of clean golden light into the big room. The armchair man raised his head, listening. Outside in the big corral a horse nickered and the sound of hoofs floated faintly in the stillness from beyond the corral. It came closer and the complaining creak of the corral gate drifted through the space between the buildings. Faintly, seeming to hang outside in the soft air, a voice followed. "Hey, look at the town rig. Bet you Plug-Hat Platt's here."
The desk man heard nothing. He was intent on his work. He closed the last notebook and consulted his paper pad, making a few more notations. He leaned back and looked up: "That's done. Everything seems to be in order. Of course, I found three errors in your addition. But an improvement, I must say. There were five last year." He permitted himself a smile. "And it looks moderately good. Moderately. Not up to last year. No. As you say, it was a hard winter. But I will be able to assure the directors they can expect another fair return on their investment when the fall shipments are made. Barring accidents, that is." He stopped, smile disappearing. He reached into an inside coat pocket and took out a small sheaf of folded papers. "Good Lord, I've been so busy I almost forgot these." He held them up, waggling them in his hand, and permitted himself another smile. "These were shoved into my hand the moment I got off the train to take the stage. Obviously a joke. I know about you people out here. Go to any lengths for a joke. I thought the man acted sheepish. He wouldn't even stay around so I could question him. It was smart of him, though, to get hold of some Santa Fe Railroad paper to use."
Amber liquid slid down the armchair man's throat. "I was wonderin'," he said, "when you'd get around to mentionin' them."
The desk man's hand stopped waggling the papers. The smile left his face. "So you know about them too?"
"Certain I know about 'em," the armchair man said. "They're real enough."
The desk man leaned forward, staring. He leaned back again. The smile returned to his face, this time with effort behind it. "Come now, man. Obviously you're in on the joke too. But it won't work. Not with me." His voice acquired a slightly triumphant tone. "Why, if there was anything to these things, they would have had to be entered in your books here. For the record, I mean. Not that I would ever endorse them for payment. Good Lord, no."
"Shucks," the armchair man said gently. "That Santy Fee man knew better'n to try an' present 'em to me. He saved 'em special for you."
The desk man sat still, very still. Shock showed on his face. Slowly he laid the papers down and unfolded them one by one. His voice came, hushed, almost a whisper. "Good Lord. Claims against the company. More than eighteen hundred dollars. Eight . . . teen . . . hundred . . , dollars. Doctor's bills. Salaries
for trainmen laid up with injuries. Repairs to a locomotive." He stared down at the unfolded papers.
"Shucks," said the armchair man. "It wasn't too bad. Some of the boys had a little run-in with a Santy Fee freight train."
The desk man jerked on his chair. His chest swelled under the pinstriped vest and coat. His voice climbed. "A little runin! Eighteen hundred dollars worth! Good Lord, man, what happened?"
"Shucks," said the armchair man. "I missed the fun. But my foreman was in on it. You wait a minute. I think the boys have been gatherin' outside here." Without moving in the armchair he raised his voice, a sudden surprisingly resonant roar rocking through the room and out the door. "Hey! You! Hat!"
Footsteps resounded on the veranda accompanied by the soft jingle of rusty spurs. The doorway darkened, almost filled by the big bulk, the wide sloping shoulders of Hat Henderson. The dust of the day's work lay thick on him. He stepped in and the smell of sweat and worn leather and horses and cattle and the far spaces of a big land came with him.
The armchair man bobbed his head a bit toward the desk man. "Platt here," he said, "has been combin' through my pen scratches as per usual. I think you met him last year."
"Sure," said Hat. "Sure. I remember him." He favored the desk man with a barely perceptible nod. He reached up and pushed his battered wide-brimmed hat back on his head. He looked down at the armchair man. "Now you lookahere, Cal. You plain got to do something about that windmill over on the west flats. We put in near half a day shoving cows all the way over by the creek because the damn thing ain't pumping hardly at all. It's all wore out. It ain't worth trying to patch any. I'm telling you we need-"
"Shut up, Hat," the armchair man said gently, affectionately. "You make a mighty poor liar. I checked that mill myself last week. An' I ain't needin' no help on ways of gettin' money out of the company right now. You know well as I do there's things that got to be played straight. Anyways, Platt here knows what it'd be for."