the High Graders (1965)

by L'amour, Louis

  There was Ben Stowe, of course, but where the other s had been wild and reckless, Ben had always bee n cold and ruthless, working for every last buck, and th e hell with anybody who got in the way.

  Of just one thing Gentry was sure now. Mik e Shevlin was too good a man to be shot from ambus h by a man like Lon Court. He strode down th e street to the livery stable and claimed his horse.

  "You seen Shevlin?" he asked Brazos. Hi s speech was thick, but to himself his purpose was clear.

  "I got to see him. Right away."

  Brazos threw him a sharp glance. Gentry wa s drunk, yes, but he wasn't fighting drunk.

  What showed in his eyes was anxiety, no t animosity.

  "He headed out toward Parry's claim,"

  Brazos said. "Over in the box canyon."

  Gentry stepped into the saddle and rode into th e night. Drunk or sober, he had always been abl e to ride anything he could get astride of. Now th e night air began to clear his whiskey-fogged mind.

  One thing stood out; Lon Court had a little list.

  Shevlin, Hollister, Babcock ... wh o else? Why, you damned fool, he told himself , your name will be on that list!

  After all, what was he to Stowe? There had neve r been any sentiment in Stowe, but always plenty o f greed; and now when Gentry's mind was capable o f thinking, and he remembered that his own share of tha t gold would come to more than a hundred thousan d dollars, he had the answer. Ben Stowe wouldn't share that kind of money with anybody.

  Somebody, Gentry had never known who, must hav e mortgaged everything he owned to put up the cas h to buy the gold from the stores, an operation handle d by Stowe himself. Only Stowe, his unknown backer , Ray Hollister, and Gentry himself knew th e setup.

  Ben Stowe had been hot to have Holliste r hunted down and killed; then it would surely b e Gentry's turn. After that, who would be the nex t target in the shooting gallery?

  Chapter 8

  The soft desert night, dark beneath the stars , seemed still, yet it was a night of restlessness, a night of movement.

  Ben Stowe had returned to his desk , irritable at the necessity for rearranging plan s because of Mike Shevlin, but not actually worrie d by it. Within an hour Lon Court would have hi s message, and the message called for immediate action.

  In his room in the jail building, Wilso n Hoyt lay awake. He had made his fina l rounds, and all had been in order, yet his instinc t warned him that behind the soft darkness and the quiet , trouble stirred.

  Throughout his life he had ridden on the side of th e law. Of course, in every community where he ha d held office there were certain things he wa s expected to overlook, because the town gave it s tacit consent to them. There had been towns where me n carried guns because it was the thing to do; there were othe r towns, in more thickly settled communities, wher e guns were not allowed to be carried, and in those town s he had forbidden strangers to carry them within the cit y limits.

  His role, as he saw it, was not to take care o f morals but to keep the peace. In a life on th e frontier he had come to accept rough living by roug h men, and he interfered only when such a way o f living threatened the peace of the town and it s citizens. He was here to prevent disorderl y conduct, within reason, to prevent theft or murder , and to punish the offenders if such things were attempte d or carried out. Here, the town had accepte d high-grading as a fact of its community life, s o he had done the same.

  He had been warned that a man named Ra y Hollister would come to town one day and try to caus e trouble, and he had been told that Hollister was a dangerous man. Wilson Hoyt had checked th e records and the memories of Hollister and ha d found this to be true. The man was undoubtedly a trouble-maker.

  But now this man Shevlin had appeared in town an d had laid it on the line for him. Wilson Hoy t knew that the time had come when he must take a stand.

  Trouble was surely here. It was being brought abou t by high-grading, and the peace of his town, quie t until now, was to be ripped apart. Shevlin ha d given him a choice, and Wilson Hoyt la y awake this night, trying to make up his mind wha t to do--and how to do it.

  His instinct, and his better judgment too, tol d him that the thing to do was to end the high-grading an d deliver the gold to its owners. He would, o f course, promptly be fired, but that did no t especially disturb him. He had been hunting a job when he had found this one. He could look fo r one again.

  As Hoyt lay on his cot trying to make u p his mind, Ben Stowe chewed on a dead cigar; an d at Dr. Rupert Clagg's, Mike Shevli n was sitting down at a table with the doctor, his wif e and daughter, and Laine Tennison.

  Not many miles away, Red was arriving a t Boulder Spring with a message for Lon Court; a nd Gib Gentry, wishing to warn his friend , was taking the trail to Burt Parry's claim.

  Ben Stowe foresaw no interruption in his plan s that could last more than a few days. Shevlin was a dangerous obstacle, but Lon Court woul d remove that obstacle smoothly and efficiently.

  Ray Hollister was somewhere around, but the ranches o f his friends were watched day and night, and when he wa s located he would be picked up.

  But even as he sat alone in his office, Be n Stowe had no way of knowing that there was a meeting a t the Three Sevens.

  The ranch house was ablaze with lights, an d Hollister was there, seated at the head of the table.

  Eve Bancroft was watching him with admirin g eyes; Babcock loitered at the back of th e room. The others at the table were ranchers or thei r foremen, and they were listening to Hollister.

  On the rugged slope of the mountain, half a mile or more away, Ben Stowe's watcher la y sprawled on his back staring at the stars wit h wide-open, unblinking eyes. There was little about hi m that resembled anything human, for he had bee n roped and dragged for two miles along the roug h mountain through broken lava and cactus, bunc h grass and cat-claw. Ray Hollister had don e the dragging, then had shaken loose his loop an d ridden away. Babcock, more merciful, ha d paused by the man who looked up at him, ruine d beyond recovery, but still conscious. "That draggin' w asn't my idea," Babcock said, and fired th e bullet that put the dying man beyond misery.

  The riders at the Three Sevens all wor e guns. On their horses there were Winchesters. The y had come prepared to attack the monster that wa s destroying their cattle business. They would blo w up the mine and drive out Ben Stowe and his crew; t hen the ranchers' water would be pure again, thei r business would once more be the focal occupation of th e Rafter country.

  They were, on the whole, honest, forthright men , protecting their livelihood by the only means the y knew, protecting, as they believed, their rang e land from destruction. They were men born to a life o f violence, men who did not approve of violence bu t who had been led to its use by a fanatic, a fanatic who was also an envious, embittere d man, fighting tooth and nail for a position in th e world that nothing fitted him to hold.

  Dr. Rupert Clagg faced Mik e Shevlin across the table, over their teacups.

  Dottie and Laine sat with them.

  Dr. Clagg, who had seen others like Mik e Shevlin in many places in the West, knew wha t a force such a man could be. On his occasiona l journeys back to the East, he had becom e impatient with those who spoke with toleran t smiles of the West, or of what they referred to a s "the western myth." Back of every myth there is a stern, harsh reality shaped by men and women of trul y heroic mold. Those soft-bellied ones who com e later find it easy to refer to things beyond their ow n grasp as myth; but the men Dr. Clagg had know n were men who created myth every day of their lives , usually without any consciousness of doing so, but quit e often with awareness that they were experiencing a life tha t was extraordinary.

  Dr. Clagg had been in Dodge when th e twenty-eight buffalo hunters who made th e fight at Adobe Walls against more than a thousan d Indians, returned from their fight. He wa s familiar, as were all western men, with the escape o f John Coulter from the Blackfoot Indians, a run compared to which the run from the battlefield o f Marathon pales to
insignificance. He knew th e story of Hugh Glass and the grizzly; the stor y of the ride of Portugee Phillips through a raging blizzard and thousands of Indians to brin g help to Fort Phil Kearny; and he knew wel l the story of the Alamo.

  The stuff of which such myths are made was born ever y day in the West, but at the moment of birth they were no t myth; they were hard reality, the very stuff of lif e itself.

  Dr. Rupert Clagg, who was more of such a man as these than he himself realized, recognize d another in Mike Shevlin.

  "I'm sorry to be so blunt," Shevlin said , "but there's no other way of putting it. Ma'am,"

  -comhe turned to Laine--"I want you to leav e town. I want you out of here on the first stage in th e morning, at the latest, but I'd prefer that you'd let me drive you out in a buckboard befor e daybreak."

  "It's as serious as that?" Clagg asked.

  Mike Shevlin outlined the situation as he sa w it. He told them what he had done about bot h Ben Stowe and Wilson Hoyt.

  "And the gold?" asked the doctor. "You stil l don't know where it is?"

  "No. I've got a hunch, but it doesn't shape up to much. Only I think they'll make a break to get it out of here. I think they will figur e it had better go now, for they may not get anothe r chance any time soon. And they won't."

  "I will not go." Laine Tennison spok e firmly. "I have business here, and I refus e to be run out of town. I shall stay right here and se e it through."

  "Now listen--was Mike began.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Shevlin." She smile d suddenly. "I think you knew all the time that I w ouldn't go, although I know you had to try. ... No , I shall stay."

  She glanced at his cup. "Mr. Shevlin, yo u aren't drinking your tea."

  He gulped it down, burning his mouth a little, an d wanted to swear, but refrained.

  "You do not know who is in this with Stowe?" Clag g asked.

  "I have an idea."

  "Clagg Merriam?"

  Shevlin looked hard at Dr. Rupert.

  "That's who I had in mind."

  "So had I," Clagg said, and added, "My remote cousin has always been well off. But I k now he has been strapped for money for some tim e now, and he is not the man to mortgage anythin g unless the return promises to be more tha n adequate."

  For a few minutes, nobody spoke. The y sipped their tea in silence, and then Laine said , "Mr. Shevlin, I am afraid I am goin g to discharge you."

  "Why?"

  "You mustn't risk your life for me."

  He grinned at her. "Ma'am, you've mad e a mistake. I am not risking it for you, but for te n per cent of half a million dollars, and fo r Eli Patterson." His eyes twinkled. "Althoug h I'd say if I was planning on risking m y life for anybody, you'd be about the pretties t reason I could find."

  Laine flushed, but she was not to be turne d aside. "A foolish reason, Mr. Shevlin.

  A girl would want a live man, not a dea d one."

  "We have simple feelings out here, Mis s Tennison," Shevlin said. "We're not a complicated folk. If a man want s to be bad or mean out here in the West, there's no t much to stop him if he's big enough and tough enough to ge t away with it.

  "On the other hand, if a man is honest it i s because he wants to be. It isn't like back east , where there's the law and all. Out here there's might y little gray, it is black or white, because there's no restraint, not even much in the way of publi c opinion--except as to cowardice or the valu e of a man's word.

  "And when it comes to a fight, a man can't wal k away from it if he's made it his fight. Not an d continue to live in the West. You would want a live man, I'm sure, but you'd also want on e who lived up to what he believed. Ma'am, I t hink this here is my fight now, just as much as it's yours, and I don't want a dime of your pay."

  He got up and took up his hat. "I'm going out there now and build the biggest fir e anybody ever built. I'm going to bust everythin g wide open and scatter the pieces so far Mr.

  Ben Stowe will never be able to put them together again.

  "I'm not a smart man, Miss Tennison , so I'm going to charge in, head down and swinging.

  You just keep out of the way."

  Brazos was dozing in his chair when Shevli n came up to the door of the stable. Startled, the ol d hostler stared up at him.

  "You see Gib Gentry? He started out you r way, a-huntin' you."

  "I didn't go out there." Shevlin glanced u p the dark street, then stepped into the stable, away fro m the light. He had left his horse a few yard s up the street in the shadows.

  "Brazos, where does Mason live?" h e asked.

  Brazos looked at him slowly, carefully , then indicated an alley across the street. "Abou t a hundred yards back of that alley, in a lon g shack with three windows on this side. You can't miss it."

  "Thanks," Shevlin stepped outside.

  "He won't be alone," Brazos spoke afte r him. "Deek Taylor will be with him." Dec k Taylor was a tough man, a very tough man.

  Mike Shevlin mounted his horse and rode acros s the street and up the alley. He stopped near th e long cabin and got down. He went up to the doo r and tried it. It did not open, so he put a shoulder against it and smashed in.

  "Who the hell is that?" Mason's voice sai d sleepily.

  Shevlin stood to the right of the door, listening.

  He had heard a sharp cessation of breathing somewher e ahead of him. "Strike a light," he said. "I w ant to talk."

  But at the same moment he struck a matc h himself, and saw a coal-oil lamp on the table befor e him. Lifting the still warm chimney, he touched th e match to the wick. Mason had his head lifted an d was blinking at him.

  Shevlin looked toward the other occupied bunk.

  Deek Taylor, a lean, lantern-jawed ma n with hard eyes, was there and he was looking a t Shevlin with no pleasure.

  "I'm talking to him," Shevlin said, jerking a thumb at Mason. "Are you in this or out of it?"

  "Well, now, that depends."

  "Not a damn bit, it doesn't. You spea k up now. If you're in it, you can have a bell y full. If you're out of it, you keep your tra p shut and lie quiet and you won't get hurt."

  "Hurt?" Taylor swung his legs to th e floor. "Well, now--wa s As his feet hit the floor, Mike Shevli n grabbed the front of his long-johns and jerked hi m up out of the bunk. As he jerked, he swung a rock-hard fist. Taylor tried to straighte n up, he tried to turn, but the fist smashed him o n the jaw, and again in the face, then jerked him bac k to meet the punches. A hard slug in the bell y pushed him into a corner.

  "If you're smart," Shevlin said, "you'l l lie quiet and hope I forget about you."

  He turned toward Mason. The gambler wa s staring, white-faced, and wide awake now.

  "Say, who the hell--his" And then Shevlin's face was in the light, and for the first time Mason sa w who the visitor was.

  "Mike! Mike Shevlin!"

  "Sure." Mike dropped on the edge o f Taylor's bunk, glancing once toward the ma n with the bloody face who lay sprawled in th e corner. "You should have known I'd be back , Mase. Now you tell me: Who killed El i Patterson?"

  Mason had picked up the stub of a cigar an d he tried to strike a match to it, but the matc h broke. He tried again, his hand shaking. Maso n had never been a brave man.

  "Now, Mike, you know I--wa s "Mase," Shevlin said quietly, "you sa w what just happened to Taylor. I'd have to work yo u over a damn' sight worse, and I haven't got time. Tell me who killed Eli, and then yo u can ride."

  He struck a match and held it to Mason's cigar.

  "Gentry," Mason began, "he--."

  "Gentry took the blame, and he lied. No w you tell me who he lied for. You tell me , Mase, and you've got a running start." He gestured toward the street. "You got any ide a what's going on out there tonight?" he went on.

  "Hollister's back. He's got the ranchers wit h him. They'll come in and they'll get hell shot ou t of them, but Stowe will get hurt, too. The n Hoyt and me, we'll pick up the pieces."

  He wished it would be that easy. Ra y Hollister's
timing was always bad, and it would be thi s time too. And Hoyt might not make up his min d fast enough, which would leave somebody in the middl e holding a handful of deuces.

  And that somebody would be Mike Shevlin.

  Chapter 9

  Mason hesitated, his lips trembling. He remembered Mike Shevlin, but this was a differen t man from the one he had known. This Mike Shevli n was bigger, stronger, tougher. He was a man o f decision, and Mason had just had an objec t lesson in that. What Taylor might have done ha d he gotten into action was not the question, for he had bee n put out of action swiftly and efficiently. An d Mason was no Deek Taylor.

  He thought of his horse. It was close by, i n the stable only a few yards back of the house. Th e pickings had been good, and he had been wise enoug h to keep his take cached near the town, for he ha d always known there would be a time for running, just as ther e always had been before this. And the time had come now.

  Only he had been a long time in Rafter, an d he wanted to stay. They had protected him her e because he had protected them.

  "Mike," he protested, "you got to believ e this. I don't know."

  "Don't give me that."

  "Honest to God, Mike! They needed a witness, and I was paid to swear that Gentry di d it."

  "Who paid you?"

  "Mike, you aren't going to believe this, but it wa s Gib. It was Gentry himself."

  Shevlin glanced over at Taylor. The ma n was moaning, and was clutching what was apparently a broken jaw. Mike's eyes returne d to Mason.

  "So?"

  "That's all I know--I swear it, Mike!

  Gentry paid me."

  "And you've no idea?"

  Mason hesitated, and then he shrugged.

  "Mike, I swear that's all I know."

  "Ben didn't do it?"

  "No, not Ben. At least, I don't think i t was Ben. Not that he'd hesitate. Gentr y didn't do it either. Gentry was close to Ben, s o there for a while I figured ...

  "But the last thing they wanted was any kind of a n investigation. They wanted the whole thing cleare d up, whitewashed and off the boards. Figure it fo r yourself, if somebody came in and started asking questions , somebody might slip up and the whole shooting matc h would go down the drain.