Wild West

by Elmer Kelton

  “You can’t very well throw them all in jail, Mark.” She lost her smile then. “Sam Vernon didn’t exaggerate. They’re saying plenty about you, and it isn’t good.”

  “Krisman?”

  “He starts it, and it gets bigger as it goes along. The paper came out a while ago. Southall gave you both barrels.”

  She handed him the paper. “I wasn’t going to give this to you till you’d finished your supper, but I guess you might as well read it.”

  In one column was a story about the battle with the Rankin brothers. In the adjoining column was a story about the incident in the sheriff’s office. Truitt glanced at the large headlines.

  SHERIFF A COWARD?

  CANDIDATE KRISMAN CHARGES

  TRUITT PANICKED, DID NOT FIGHT

  SHERIFF ASSAULTS OPPONENT

  Glancing down the story, he caught Betty Mulvane’s name. “One Betty Mulvane, proprietress of an eating establishment here and constant companion of Sheriff Truitt, hurled epithets at candidate Krisman.”

  Truitt threw the paper down. He felt himself trapped. What he wanted more than anything else was to pick up both Krisman and Southall bodily and throw them in the creek. But he knew he couldn’t do it.

  Betty said, “Don’t let it worry you. Southall will be in the cafe someday, and I’ll drop a little lye soap in his coffee.” She was smiling again, and she managed to coax a little smile from him. “Now eat your supper.”

  Mark Truitt watched her as he ate supper and sipped his coffee. She was a pretty girl, and maybe that was what caused most of the talk, when you really came right down to it. When a girl looked like Betty Mulvane, it seemed as if folks just couldn’t leave her alone.

  In the lamplight her hair seemed almost red, but in reality it was brown. She kept it combed back tightly and rolled up in a bun, so it was out of her way. Truitt had never seen her let it down, but he imagined it must reach nearly to her waist.

  There was comfort in sitting here like this, close to Betty, not thinking for the moment about anything else, or anybody else. They were a pair, Mark Truitt and Betty Mulvane. Neither one had any family, any place they could really call home. Maybe that was why they had been drawn together in the beginning.

  What she’d just mentioned, that nothing had been said about marriage, had set him thinking. He’d done a lot of thinking about it of late. He had meant to ask her—had really wanted to ask her—but he didn’t have much to offer. The only things of value he owned were two saddle horses and a gold watch. He had a little money in the bank, but it wouldn’t go far in setting up a business. Or in setting up housekeeping, for that matter.

  He didn’t want to ask her until he had something to show. And from the way things were going, that might be an awfully long time. There was something else, too—the Rankin brothers. Until they were out of the way, he did not know what might happen, when he might ride out and not come back. He didn’t want to leave a wife behind to the agony of a wait that would never end.

  T.C. stepped in through the front door and went on to the back room. Rail thin and getting along in years, he limped heavily. Rheumatism had knocked him out of a saddle job and set him afoot, and now about all he could do was tend the jail.

  Now T.C. was excited. “Mark,” he said, “some of the boys down at the Big Chance are getting likkered up. There’s talk of taking your prisoner out and hanging him.”

  “Serious talk?”

  “Drunk talk. It could get serious.”

  Mark frowned. “Who’s in on it?”

  “Some of the cowboys. Most of them are friends of Chip Tony’s, or Will’s.”

  “Is Will Tony over there?”

  T.C. nodded. “He’s sitting in a corner by himself. He’s been there all evening, they say, drinking alone. He wasn’t taking part in the lynch talk, as far as I could tell. But he’s a man who can pack a lot of hate. I reckon that if they came he’d come with them.”

  Mark Truitt stood up, reached for his gun belt, and buckled it on. “You’d better get along. Betty. I’m going over to try to clamp the lid on it. If I don’t get it done, this won’t be any place for you.”

  “Mark,” she said anxiously, “don’t take any chances. He’s not worth it.”

  “He’s my prisoner. If he were Edsel Rankin himself, it would be my duty to protect him.”

  He unlocked the gun case and checked the rifles there. The best thing in a situation like this was a good shotgun, and there were two in the case. He broke them open to make sure they were loaded.

  “Grab you one of these, T.C., and keep it in your hands. Stay just inside the front door. The other one’s for me, if I come back needing it.”

  T.C. gulped. “Think you will, Mark?”

  “I hope not. I’m going to try to stop it right where it’s started.”

  He cast a quick glance at the prisoner. Nichols was pretty much an ordinary cowboy, in appearance. There was nothing about him to stamp him as an outlaw, the way there was with some of them. He probably was just a weak-willed man who had wandered into outlawry with empty pockets and had stayed at it because he got spoiled by the easy money.

  Nichols was watching them, his face drawn with worry.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Mark told him.

  Nichols’s voice was shaky. “Damn the Rankins, anyway. They could have come back and gotten me. They just let me lie there and get caught. It’s them these fellers really want to hang, not me.”

  Mark Truitt could hear the angry voices before he got to the wide-open front door of the Big Chance Bar. They were loud voices, calling for the blood of the outlaw in the jail, the one who had helped kill Chip Tony.

  It was the liquor talking, the sheriff knew. Deep down, the men wanted to do it, but there was something—maybe fear, maybe guilt—that held them back. So they went to the bottle to drown that fear, or that guilt. Now they were getting dangerous, for their half drunkenness left nothing to hold them back.

  Mark Truitt stopped just inside the door. One by one, men saw him, and the sharp talk frazzled out to silence. Truitt studied the faces, trying to decide who the leaders were, whether any leaders had yet developed.

  “I hear you boys are talking about taking my prisoner,” he said evenly. “That kind of talk will get you in trouble. I want it stopped.”

  A belligerent cowboy with a freckled face took a step forward. “Maybe you think you can stop it.”

  “I can, and I will. I’ll do it peacefully, if I can. If that won’t work, I’ll do it some other way. But I’ll do it.”

  “There are too many of us here,” the freckled one said. “If we made a move, you wouldn’t try to stop us, any more than you tried to stop the Rankins when they killed Chip Tony.”

  The cowboy began to edge forward. Mark Truitt knew that if this one hadn’t been a ringleader up to now, he had just declared himself one. “Stop it right there, Speck,” Mark said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You’re not going to hurt me, Sheriff. You’re yellow. You lay down on Chip. You won’t try to stop me.”

  He kept coming, his shoulders hunched. He was drunk and angry. He was going to knock Truitt aside to show the others he could. He never got the chance. Mark Truitt’s hand blurred upward, his six-shooter in it. With a solid thump, the barrel struck the cowboy’s head. Speck sank like a sack of oats. The men gasped in surprise.

  “There’s not going to be any lynching,” Mark said again, his voice firm. “If anybody else thinks he can walk over me, now’s the time to try.”

  An angry murmur moved through the men, but they stayed still. Truitt glanced at Will Tony, who sat by himself at a table in the corner, just as T.C. had said.

  “How about it, Will? You’re not in on this, I hope.”

  Will Tony stared at him without answering, and Mark could read nothing in his eyes.

  The freckled cowboy stirred. Mark Truitt gripped him under the armpits, helping him to his feet. “Come on, Speck,” he said. “You’ve got a bed for the night. And the
re’s one waiting for anybody else who wants to try anything against my prisoner.”

  He didn’t think there would be, now. He thought he’d scotched the thing for good. But to help be sure, and in an effort to bring some reason into the men, he added, “In the first place, it’s my duty by law to protect my prisoner. In the second place, he’s not a Rankin. I doubt that he’s even a very good cow thief. But it may be that I can get him to talk. If I get lucky enough, he might even lead me to the Rankins. He sure can’t be any help hanging from a limb. Now think it over, and break this up.”

  He turned to the bartender. “Frank, I think you’d better close for the night.”

  Frank nodded solemnly. Truitt thought the barman was relieved.

  T.C. stood in the door of the office as Truitt came back, supporting the sagging Speck. He said nothing, but his eyes were wide as he opened the door, then looked back down the street to make sure Truitt wasn’t being followed. The prisoner, Claude Nichols, stood in the cell, gripping the iron bars nervously.

  “You can relax,” Truitt told him. “It’s over with. This is the headman of your reception committee.”

  Nichols eased and breathed a long sigh. He dropped back onto his bunk, trembling a little. He ran his hands across his face. His color was gone.

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” he said presently. “One thing about you, you stood up for me. The Rankins ran off and left me.”

  “It’s not all for nothing, Nichols. I’ve been hoping you’d lead me to the Rankins.”

  Nichols stared at him, then shook his head. “Not in a million years.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you. Lead me there and I’ll turn you loose.”

  Nichols thought a little; then he shook his head again. “No trade, Sheriff. I couldn’t run far enough to hide from them.”

  With Speck locked up, Truitt pitched the keys on the desk and sat down heavily in his chair. He kept remembering the way Will Tony had looked at him. They had been friends for a long time, he and Will. They had ridden together, hunted together, worked together on some of the cow outfits before Truitt became sheriff.

  He wondered if Will Tony believed the stories Krisman was putting out. The thought bothered him.

  The polls opened at eight o’clock. There was already a good stirring of people by then. By midmorning families were arriving from points far out in the country, the men to vote, the women and children to visit and buy provisions. There were other county offices on the ballot, but there was little competition for them. Only the sheriff’s race stirred any talk.

  By law, Mark Truitt could have closed all the saloons on election day. But he didn’t want to. For the men of this country, the saloon was more than just a place to get a drink. It was a social center, a place to sit and talk with friends, just about the only place there was to pass time. So Mark let the saloons stay open, with the one restriction that they couldn’t sell liquor until after the polls closed.

  Wherever he went, he felt the eyes of the bystanders following him. Sometimes he could hear men talking low after he passed by. He could feel the growing hostility.

  He walked past Southall’s newspaper office. Scott Southall stood in the doorway, enjoying the coolness of the morning before the onset of the day’s heat. At sight of Truitt, however, he turned back into the shop and busied himself at tearing down the type that had been set up for yesterday’s paper.

  Mark paused, watching him through the open doorway, wishing there were some way to even up with him for those snide lines about Betty. But he couldn’t touch the little printer, and he knew it.

  Even though sales were cut off, there was no shortage of liquor. Men knew enough to bring their own on election day. They gathered in the saloons, or along sidewalks on the shaded side of the street, or under the cottonwoods down at the creek, playing cards, drinking, telling windies and waiting for the votes to be counted. As long as things didn’t get out of hand, Truitt left people alone.

  At noon Betty Mulvane had all the crowd she could handle in her cafe. Expecting this ahead of time, she had cooked up two huge roasts, which made for faster serving. Betty and a Mexican girl who helped her were running their legs off, getting the crowd fed.

  Betty gave Mark a special smile, but that was the only preferential treatment she had time for. Later, as he passed by again, she motioned him in. The place was finally empty.

  “There are still some biscuits left, and I brought some wild plum jelly out of the cellar after the crowd was gone. Still hungry?”

  He shook his head. “I could use some coffee, though.”

  He toyed with the spoon in the cup, wanting talk more than anything else. “You’ve probably heard as much talk from as many people as anybody in town, Betty. What’re they saying?”

  Her eyes were troubled. “It isn’t good, Mark. You’ve still got friends, but lots of folks are turning in the other direction. They’re stirred up over the Rankins; you haven’t caught those two yet. Then there’s that story in the paper, and the things Dalton Krisman is saying. I’ve even noticed them looking at me a little oddly, Mark. I’m hurting your chances.”

  “Don’t say that, Betty.”

  She shrugged. “It’s the truth, though. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a dozen times today. ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ they say.”

  Mark sipped his coffee, his eyes narrowed in thought. So Krisman was going to win the election. And he was dragging Betty down to do it.

  Somehow Mark had known yesterday that he was going to lose, but he had been too tired to care. Now rested and thinking clearly, he could understand better what Sam Vernon and Luke Merchant had been driving at. Krisman could make a good speech, but he would never in a hundred years make a good sheriff. Talk was all there was to him. The people of Lofton County would be more vulnerable to the Rankins and their kind than they had ever been before.

  The Rankins were a hard pair. Edsel, the older, was cold and scheming, as dangerous as a javelina boar. Floyd, the red-haired younger brother, was wild and daring and as ruthless as they came.

  These two weren’t like some cowboys who went wrong because of a grievance, or just because of a search for easy money. They had grown up at outlawry, had been taught thievery and violence like other boys are taught reading and writing and arithmetic. Their father had been a cow and horse thief before them, an early day wolf poisoner who had been left over when the times moved on. Mark Truitt had seen the old man once, before somebody finally killed him. Old Harper Rankin had what the early cowmen called the “coyote eye.”

  And it had been his legacy to his two sons. They’d preyed on this country in a two-bit way for ten years, mavericking a little, or stealing ten or fifteen head and making off with them, when they could get away with it. The boys grew up learning how to work a running iron in one hand while holding a rifle in the other.

  They hadn’t really cut loose the wolf, though, until about two years ago. A Lofton County ranchman had caught Harper Rankin with twenty good young heifers, heading in the wrong direction in too much of a hurry. When the smoke cleared, Harper Rankin lay dead.

  Three nights later the Rankin boys had ridden up to the rancher’s house and cut the man to pieces with pistol fire, on his own front porch. They killed one of his Mexican cowboys for good measure.

  Word eventually worked back that the boys had sworn to ruin every cowman in Lofton County before they were through. Working out of the thorny tangle of the brush country down south, they made periodic sorties into Lofton County, always getting a hundred to three hundred cattle at a time, and sometimes killing a cowboy or a rancher while doing it. Then they would jump back across the border into Mexico, taking the cattle with them into the huge country below.

  Folks said old Harper had picked up many of the wolf’s habits while poisoning lobos back in the early times. Now he had passed them on to his sons, in spades. There would be no peace in Lofton County until the Rankin brothers were dead, or packed off to the penitentiary, never to return. But
Dalton Krisman was not the man who could do it.

  Most times, on election day there would be an impromptu horse race. Or somebody would bring in a mean horse or two, and there would be bets on whether one good rider or another could stay on him.

  There was none of that today. The mood of the people was against it. Mark Truitt could sense the futile anger that grew in the crowd in town. It was impossible to vent that anger on the Rankins, even though they were the cause of it. So people began to look for something or someone else to take it, and Dalton Krisman was helping them find the man.

  He was all over town, working like a ferret. By noon there was hardly a home where he had not at least stood on the front porch and talked with the people inside. He had been in every saloon, every store, half a dozen times.

  He had been down along the creek bank where groups of ranchers, cowboys, and families whiled away time in the shade. He had been down in the Mexican end of town, where hardly anyone ever voted. Dalton Krisman wasn’t missing anybody.

  Three o’clock came, and time for Chip Tony’s funeral. Mark Truitt put on the only suit he had and brushed the dust off his boots. He had hardly stirred out of the office since noon. Maybe he needed to get out a little more. Maybe, like some of his friends said, he was losing to Krisman by default.

  It wasn’t Truitt’s way. He liked people, but not in bunches. And he hated trying to sell anyone something, even himself. He had always known he would make a poor drummer.

  He went by the cafe and found Betty ready to go. “Are you sure we ought to go together?” she asked him.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  It looked as if most of the county was there to see Chip Tony buried. Chip had been a likeable kid, and a mighty good cowhand. He had had a lot of friends. But many of these people hadn’t known him. They were here out of curiosity, and because this was about the only thing there was to do.

  The funeral itself went off quietly enough.

  There were a couple of hymns, and a short eulogy by the preacher. Betty Mulvane stood beside Mark. Once, when he felt his throat tighten and the tears come burning to his eyes, Betty gripped his arm a little, and it became easier for him. He looked down at her, grateful for her presence, wishing she could always be there.