‘You’re the boss,’ Mart said, ‘but you’ll play it our way before you’re through.’
Will thought about this as he saw the body of riders coming through the grass towards him. He stood in front of the house alone, waiting for them and he would have been a liar if he hadn’t admitted to himself that he was scared. Sure, he had a gun at his hip, but a fat lot of good that would do him right out in the open when the lead started to fly.
He knew that behind him in the house, Martha and Kate waited with guns in their hands. He had tried to talk them out of it, but Martha had the bit between her teeth. This was her home and no no-good bunch of hired men was going to take it from her.
Joe was to the north, hidden in a natural ditch that was well-: covered with grass. Mart was farther south on the edge of the corral, flat and out of sight. They both had rifles and were both more than ready to use them.
It looked an incongruously lazy scene. The riders loped easily forward, the breeze softly ruffled the grass, the sun shone.
Dwyer was in the lead, riding a good sorrel horse. Behind him Will spotted Bob Dickson. Dwyer drew rein in front of Will and the riders fanned out behind him in a rough line.
Chapter Five
Dwyer put both hands on his saddle horn and eased himself in the saddle. His face showed no emotion. For a moment, not a word was spoken on either side. Will stood, a solitary figure with the riders above him, all watching him. Horses tossed their heads and flicked their tails.
At last Dwyer said: ‘I see you’re still here, Storm.’-
‘That’s right,’ Will said. ‘Like I told you.’
‘Like I told you,’ Dwyer said, ‘I’m goin’ to move you on.’
‘No,’ Will told him, ‘you ain’t goin’ to do that, Dwyer.’
Dwyer sighed as if to express genuine regret.
‘Right now,’ Dwyer said. ‘You’re goin’ right now.’
‘That ain’t so,’ said Will.
One of the hands laughed. Well he might. It seemed ridiculous.
Dwyer said: ‘I have more’n a dozen armed men here. There’s nothin’ you can do about it.’
‘There is,’ Will told him. ‘There’s plenty I can do about it. You ride outa here, Dwyer, before you an’ your boys meet up with a hull lot of grief.’
The sharp edge of annoyance showed itself in Dwyer’s voice.
‘I ain’t here to fool around,’ he said. ‘Get your women out here, load up your wagon an’ git. I’m bein’ nice about this. Nobody gets hurt. You just move outa here nice an’ quiet. Use your head, man. Nothin’s happened. Let’s keep it that way.’
‘I hope,’ Will said, ‘you fight as tough as you talk. Because that’s what you’ll have to do, Dwyer, if you want us outa here.; Get it into your fool thick head, man - we’re stayin’ and there’s precious little you can do about it.’
Anger touched Dwyer’s face. He didn’t like to hear words like that directed to him in front of his men. He started so violently that his horse shied. He reined it in with an iron hand and shouted to his men: ‘Get to work, boys. You know what to do.’
As one man they started their horses on the move. Dwyer jumped his horse towards Will, no doubt with the intention of running him down. Will dodged away to one side. The dust rose. One of the riders yelled and fired his gun in the air.
A rifle slammed flatly from the direction of the corral. The bullet whined closely overhead. Dwyer bellowed something. Men were reaching for their weapons, looking around for the man who had fired at them. A couple of them started firing in the direction of the corral.
At once there came two shots that sounded almost as one from either side of the scene.
A man yelled out that he was hit.
At the first shot, Dwyer had wrenched his gun from leather and looked as if he would cut down on Will who was now reaching for his own gun. But suddenly the fine sorrel horse went out from under him. Dwyer was hurled over its head, gun flying. The man hit the ground hard, tried to rise and collapsed.
The rifles slammed again. Lead flew close to the riders. They milled, purposeless, on the edge of panic.
Mart yelled: ‘Hold it or you’re dead.’
Will shouted: ‘Put away your guns, boys. You’re covered.’
They looked around them in a bewildered manner. When they didn’t immediately obey, Will demanded: ‘You want somebody to die?’ That seemed to get through to them. One by one, they put away their guns.
Dwyer stirred and got slowly to his feet.
The sorrel horse was kicking away its life. It had been hit in the head. Will walked up to it and killed it.
Dwyer gave a howl of rage, searched around and jumped to scoop up his fallen gun.
Will turned and pointed his gun at him.
‘Touch it an’ I’ll blow your fool head off,’ he said.
One of the riders fired and the bullet sang between Will and Dwyer. Mart over by the corral fired and knocked the cowhand out of the saddle. Pitching, the horse ran off to one side. The fallen boy lay groaning in the dust.
That brought all the others to a halt. It suddenly dawned on them that they were right out in the open and that if they did anything more foolish, it could be a massacre.
Mart bellowed—
‘Put your guns away.’
Dwyer walked up to Will. The man was beside himself with rage. He pointed a shaking hand at the dead horse.
‘My best horse,’ he said hoarsely. ‘There never was a horse like that one. By God, you’ll pay for this.’
Will said: ‘You came in here to ride roughshod over us, Dwyer. You think we was goin’ to kiss you for it? Now you take your hired hands outa here. One of you so much as peeks into this valley and you’re dead.’ He turned to the riders. ‘You men hear that? This is Storm land. The hull valley. You keep outa here. You touch one blade of grass an’ we’ll come on to your range and play hell with you. Now git.’
The fallen man said: ‘Help me, somebody.’
Two boys got down from their horses and helped him to his feet. He’d been shot through the right arm and the limb hung crippled. The boy was ashen-faced. They caught up his horse and brought it to him. Then they hoisted him into the saddle.
Dwyer said: ‘You two men ride double. I’ll take the bay.’
He walked to the horse and heaved himself into the saddle. He swung to face Will.
‘I’ll be back, Storm,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘I tried to do this the nice way. But, no, you want it tough. All right, so you can have it tough. I’ll make it so you wished you’d never been born. I’ll burn every stick.’
Mart and Joe sauntered into sight, their rifles in their hands.
Mart said: ‘Run back and tell Ed Brack what we done, Dwyer.’ Mart was grinning viciously. ‘Tell him good an’ tell him we’d like nothin’ better’n him to come ridin’ in here. I’ll put a bullet up his butt personal.’
Dwyer stared at him for a moment, remembering his reputation and hating the strength it gave Mart. But he kept his mouth shut. He turned his horse and rode away. The cowhands took out after him.
The three Storm men stayed still and watched them go.
Will let out a sigh as the tension gave.
Mart grinned at him.
‘Thought you was a dead duck there for a moment, hermano? he said.
Will smiled back shakily.
‘You wasn’t the only one,’ he said.
Martha and the two girls came out of the house. Martha looked furious and started talking about ruffians and murderers. Will said he was hungry and how about something to eat. Mart thought that was a good idea. Joe said he’d saddle a horse and go see that Broken Spur didn’t leave a few men in the valley. Mart reckoned that was good idea too and he didn’t mind if he went along. That Dwyer was sure mad enough to hang around for some mischief. They caught up a couple of horses and headed out.
In the house, Martha said: ‘What now, husband?’
‘You may well ask,’ Will said. ‘What now? It’s started. T
he old, old story. The strong trying to push the weak out. Only we ain’t so weak. I just hope Dwyer realizes it or there’s sure goin’ to be a heap of grief around here.’
Now that he had won the first round, Will was worried about the second and he knew that this wasn’t going to be too easy. The only thing to be cheerful about was that as yet he had no cows on the valley grass and at least the Broken Spur couldn’t run off his cattle. The second round was going to be the hardest of all. Dwyer now knew what he was up against. Next time he would plan accordingly. Will knew only what he had seen about Dwyer, but he could guess that he was a hard and merciless man. He was vain and ambitious, two characteristics that can make a man dangerous.
The valley was an immense amount of ground for three men to cover and Will had no intention of trying to cover it. For the moment he would hold the bank of the creek, the house, the corral and sufficient grass for the horses.
He sat by the creek, his rifle not far away, and thought. He, Mart and Joe had to hang on here till Clay came up the trail with the crew and the cattle. Then the odds wouldn’t be so bad.
But meanwhile, he had to anticipate what Dwyer intended to do. He had to put himself in the other man’s boots and think with his brain. Not an easy thing to do.
For a start, he thought, Dwyer would most likely inform Ed Brack what was going on. Will didn’t doubt that it was the reputations of Mart Storm and Joe Widbee that Dwyer feared. He would put Will Storm down as a no-account cowman who was good only for attending cattle. Knowledge that the two famous gunmen were on land he claimed for himself might bring Ed Brack himself into the country. Then the fur would really begin to fly.
What would Ed Brack’s first move be?
Faced with gunmen, he would bring in gunmen.
The thought sent a cold chill down Will’s spine and not for the first time he asked himself if he hadn’t been a damned fool to try and stay here, careless of his women. Maybe he ought to send Martha and the girls out of the country to safety. But where would he send them? Denver seemed the only answer. He thought about that, but he didn’t come to any decision.
If gunmen came in that could lead to wholesale killing. Men’s lives could be laid at his door. The idea made him uneasy. But, just the same, he hated to be pushed. He knew that Mart’s and Joe’s consciences wouldn’t be hurt in the slightest. They belonged to the life of tooth and claw, they were direct, honest with themselves. They lived mentally on the frontier and they survived by its rules. A man tried to kill you and you killed him. You spent your life being one jump ahead of the other fellow and being faster and deadlier.
That wasn’t altogether the way Will looked at life. To him life was for living. You raised kids and created a good family life for them. You worked the land and raised cows, you tried to amount to something. He wanted to create, not to destroy. He wanted the good opinion of other men. When he died, he wanted men to remember him as a man who put into life more than he took out. But just the same, he found himself facing the identical fight that Mart and Joe faced. He would find himself killing in the same way they would kill. And they were doing it all on his behalf. They were loyal to him to the death. It was a lot of responsibility for a man to carry. He wondered if he was strong enough to carry the load.
Martha called him to the house to eat. He toted his rifle inside and looked at his women. They looked pretty calm. Being the head of a family was one hell of a burden. He had to make decisions now that would affect his children and their children in turn.
He ate morosely, consumed by his thoughts. Martha and the girls saw how it was with him and let him be. After a while, when he was through eating, Mart and Joe rode in and told him that they had watched Broken Spur off the premises. They surely looked a pretty sick bunch.
‘Maybe,’ Will snarled, ‘but they ain’t goin’ to stay sick.’
‘That Dwyer,’ Martha said, ‘he’s a purely wicked man.’
‘He’s a mighty handsome one,’ Kate opined.
Her father glared at her.
‘We’ve got to watch for ’em,’ Mart said. ‘Do one of us stay up in the pass?’
‘No,’ Will said, ‘there’s a hundred different ways they could find their way into this valley if they wanted. There’s a high point across the crick. We keep a man there night and day.’
Joe said: ‘I’ll camp up there.’
Will was grateful. Joe was like a mustang, he could smell danger a mile off. If they could get in without Joe seeing them, they could get past anything.
Now there was the problem of building on the land that Mart had claimed. If they wanted to make the claim good, they would have to put a cabin up on it. That would have to wait now till Clay and the crew arrived. From now on, all their energies would have to go into defense.
‘I don’t know,’ Mart said, ‘that we shouldn’t hit ’em again so they stay hit. Sure, we rattled ’em a mite today. But they’ll talk themselves outa that. Couple of days and they’ll talk themselves into another fight.’
‘No,’ said Will, ‘the next move is for Dwyer to import some guns. All he had now is thirty and found cowhands. He’s thinkin’ of you an’ Joe right now. You’re both good with guns and he’s going to import something just as good. He has to.’
Martha looked at him, worried. She looked as if the whole truth of the situation had come home to her.
Chapter Six
Will Storm might have been reading Dwyer’s mind. Charlie Dwyer was no coward, but he didn’t like to waste his courage on something he couldn’t win. He sat on the stoop of the primitive ranch-house, looked across the Broken Spur valley and followed his thoughts. A great deal depended on what he decided. Mostly his own future.
He had plans for himself. Ed Brack and his power was no more than a stepping-stone. He feared Brack and he admitted the fact. But he knew that there would come a day when he would fear the man no longer. He was at present running his cows in with Brack’s herds with the great man’s consent. It was not an unusual arrangement for a foreman to make with his boss. It was also not unusual for an unscrupulous foreman to shift some of the ownership from the boss’s calves to his own. He didn’t doubt that Brack was fully aware of this possibility, for Brack was always aware of all possibilities. That was what made him what he was. Dwyer also knew that if the steal was ever proved, Brack would most likely kill him. Or have him killed. Brack was too big a man to do his own dirty work anymore. And Brack’s money made it possible for him to hire the best. Nothing but the best for Ed Brack. If he hired guns, he would hire more and better guns than anybody else could.
Dwyer decided that he would take the action that he thought Brack would want him to take and write and tell him what he had done. He no sooner decided this than he went into the house and sought out pen and paper. He was a fair hand with a pen and he wrote a letter of which he was proud. It looked good and neat. And that was the way he liked to do things. That done, he went into the yard and bawled for Hank Tristem.
Hank came slowly from the bunkhouse. He didn’t hurry himself for any man, mainly because he wasn’t afraid of any man. Dwyer watched him coming towards him, a tall, gangling man, somewhat lugubrious of mien, occasionally given to offering the world a wry lop-sided smile. In the face of opposition, he was loyal to the brand, but Just the same Dwyer reckoned he wasn’t above making a bit on the side for himself.
He came and stood in front of Dwyer, thumbs hooked in his belt.
‘Yeah? he said.
‘I’m ridin’ to Denver,’ Dwyer told him. Tristem stared at him blankly, but Dwyer was aware that the man knew what he was going to Denver for. Tristem was no fool. With his sad face and drooping moustache, he teetered on the edge of being a figure of fun. But he was a man who knew how to look out for himself. He was first-class with cows and horses. The men respected him. Dwyer went on: ‘You’re in charge. You carry on with the work like normal. You stay away from Three Creeks. You let the Storms be. Hear?’
‘Sure.’
‘I do
n’t aim to enjoy the sights of the city. I shan’t be gone more’n seven-eight days.’
‘Mart Storm an’ that there Negro,’ Tristem said. ‘You don’t reckon they’re just goin’ to sit on their butts on their side of the pass, do you? They ain’t the kind. They’re loaded for bear.’
‘Maybe they’ll come in here,’ Dwyer said, ‘an’ maybe they won’t. Keep out of their road if you can. We have two men hurt now, we don’t want any more. This outfit is here to nurse cows.’
‘A man expects to fight for his brand. None of the boys is chicken.’
‘I don’t reckon they are,’ Dwyer said. ‘But let’s play this smart. I don’t want this place littered up with dead men. I want the Storms clear outa the country. That’s the way it’s goin’ to be. I don’t have to tell you to keep your eyes open.’
‘How about shippin’ cows?’
‘That can wait till this is settled.’
Tristem turned and tramped back to the bunkhouse. He wasn’t unduly worried, but just the same he didn’t like being left with this little lot on his shoulders, not with two men like Mart Storm and Joe Widbee on the other side of that pass.
Charlie Dwyer rode out the following dawn, riding a good-looking bay and leading a sprightly grey. He aimed to make some speed. He’d ride change and change about and he wouldn’t let up except for the necessary sleep until he reached the city.
In the city, he was as good as his word. He let the drink alone, even though he was a drinking man. He mailed his letter to Brack, then set about finding the men he wanted. He asked around. Soon men knew that he was looking for men of a certain stamp. Some of them sought him out, offering their services, but none of them were what he wanted. He was paying top-prices and he wanted the best that money could buy.
Finally, he found Ira Murdoch.
He found him in a brothel, which didn’t surprise him. Ira was man who disliked human attachments, but he had insatiable appetite for women. As he was the deadliest of men, Dwyer didn’t approach him until his business with a red-head from County Donegal, Ireland, was completed. It was a classy joint where the girls were top-standard and top-price. Ira lived well as befitted a man at the peak his career and profession. Dwyer was sitting waiting in the lobby of the house talking with the madam when Murdoch came out from the depths of the place.
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