Of late, during their casual conversations, Devitt had talked at length, and Judge Riley was a good listener. With more and more disquiet he had heard Devitt express his feelings. Many of their friends would have agreed that Devitt was right. This was a growing country, an expanding country, and a man had to grow with it. If in the process he knocked over a few smaller men—well, competition was the law of growth.
Or was it? Judge Riley remembered that the Colonies had a bad time of it until they started working together. It was no different with men. There was a place for competition, but a bigger place for cooperation.
Judge Riley was a tall man, lean and quiet. His features and expression were those of the student rather than the man of action. He knew law, and adhered closely to the letter of the law, but since he had come west, here with these people of wider, more liberal view, he was beginning to feel what one of his old teachers had long ago told him. That no matter what the letter of the law said, it was of purely general application. It was the judge and his sense of justice that gave law its meaning. There were differences. All cases were not black or white—there were many shades of gray.
Two days before, buying a cigar in Kesterson’s, the storekeeper had said, briefly, “Good man, Bell. Hard-working, sincere. Country needs men like that.”
Kesterson gestured widely. “Most of these are drifters. When he came here nearly all of them were. Clay Bell came in here, scouted Deep Creek, put down his roots.”
Judge Riley had considered that. Kesterson was a man he understood. He was like his own solid New England-Pennsylvania ancestors.
Devitt, he was beginning to feel, was a man who considered the law a tool to be used, rather than a means to justice that should be treated with respect. That night in his room the judge turned idly the pages of his Blackstone.
Men had not arrived at these principles quickly. Within the covers of this book, and of all books that dealt with the laws of men, within those covers there was a little of Hammurabi, a little of Moses, memories of Greek and Roman, of the Magna Carta, and of the first Colonists—each had contributed something. The law was a maze of many turnings, justice was the one true path through that maze… .
On the upper veranda of the hotel he looked off toward the mountains. Was Bell awake at this hour? Of what did he think? Did he think of justice and the rights of man?
A faint wind stirred the sage and brought its scent to the judge. What must this country have been like when Bell first came? For that matter, when Sam Tinker first settled here?
CHAPTER 10
IN THE RANCH house at Emigrant Gap, Clay Bell was sitting beside his table staring at his accounts. He hated book work, and particularly when his books gave him no comfort, as tonight. To ride herd, to judge beef, to know grass land and range country—those were what he knew best.
And tonight it was worse. His shoulder itched and burned. It was healing, growing rapidly better. The rough life might not be conducive to comfort but it did build strength, and he was coming out of it rapidly. But behind and beyond the figures that stared up at him from the cheap tablet on the table, there was a shadowy figure. He had been shot at by a man who wanted to kill him.
That man could not have been Jud Devitt. He was positive, perhaps unreasonably so, of that. Devitt might try to kill him. He might even hire him killed, but it would not be by ambush. Devitt would be sure to be accused of such a killing—and Devitt, for all his ruthlessness, was not that sort of a fighter.
The fact remained that he had been shot at. By whom?
On the porch of the Tinker House sat a man who might have given him an idea, and that man was fat Sam Tinker, who whiled away his hours smoking on the porch. Smoking and observing life. Little could happen in the town that Sam did not know, and he understood more than anyone suspected.
Usually, people believe their motives and emotions are known to themselves alone, yet few things remain concealed from an intelligent observer with time to see, to consider, and to speculate. Sam Tinker, from the porch before the hotel which he owned, missed very little.
The bartender at the Tinker House was having trouble with his wife. The burly young blacksmith was flirting with Simpson’s oldest daughter. Sam Tinker observed these simple things and many more, watching the town named for him, with the kindly tolerance of a grandfather.
He had watched Clay Bell ride from town after his visit to the railroad station. He had seen Bell visit the bank, earlier. Bell, Tinker decided, was in trouble. He had gone to the station after seeing Wheeler, and that meant that the banker had refused to loan him more money. There would be no other reason for him to ship cattle at this season. Sam Tinker had talked with Bell, he knew his plans, knew he wanted to build a herd instead of selling, knew that most of his stock was young.
Clay had ridden from town, and not long afterward Noble Wheeler had left the bank by the rear door, had mounted his gray horse and gone away into the desert. Tinker had been watching Wheeler long enough to know that the banker disliked riding. He never rode for pleasure. He particularly disliked riding in the desert at midday. Come to think of it, Tinker recalled, Wheeler never did anything for pleasure. Unless you called making money a pleasure.
One more item had been apparent to Tinker. Wheeler had carried a rifle when he rode out of town. That rifle had not been taken from the bank. It must, therefore, have been kept in the barn. And that barn was no place to leave a valuable rifle with so many strangers in town; and Noble Wheeler, who valued a dollar no more than his eyesight, was not likely to leave a rifle in such a place.
Suppose, then, it had only been taken to the barn on the previous night and hidden there?
And if so, why?
A few days later the grapevine brought added information to the grist of Sam Tinker’s mill.
Clay Bell had been wounded when he charged the lumberjack camp in The Notch. Sam Tinker had listened to their excited talk, and all agreed that Bell had used his gun with his left hand. That his right side was bloody and he looked haggard.
Sam Tinker said nothing of these things, but sat quietly, listening, watching, and thinking.
Jim Narrows came walking up the street to dinner. Jim’s wife was gone to Denver and he was eating out these days.
“Howdy, Jim!” Tinker spat a stream of tobacco juice at an unoffending ant. “What’s new?”
“Nothin’ much.” Narrows took his pipe from his mouth. He stood there, enjoying the coolness after the heat of the day. Then, low-voiced, he said, “Sam, what’s got into Wheeler?”
“Wheeler? What’s wrong?”
“He sent a wire down state tryin’ to get that old killin’ case against Monty Brown reopened.” Narrows took his pipe from his mouth and stared into the bowl, then knocked it out against the edge of the porch. “A body would think Bell was havin’ trouble enough without his own folks openin’ up on him.”
“Clay shippin’ cows …”
“No cars—orders come down from main office. No cars for Bell.”
“Devitt?”
“Prob’ly.”
Sam Tinker turned the matter over in his mind. Bell owed Wheeler money. If Devitt logged off Bell’s best range, Bell could never pay that money. It scarcely made sense that Wheeler would cut his own throat that way.
“Now I wonder?” he said aloud. Then added, “You know, Jim, we folks here in town, we should oughta stick together. This here Devitt—tryin’ to ride roughshod over ever’body.”
He rolled his quid in his jaws and spat again. It was too dark to see if he had nailed the ant again.
“Jim, you see any of the B-Bar outfit, you tell ’em to see me. That means Bell himself, too.”
Jim Narrows put his pipe in his shirt pocket. “Never liked Noble Wheeler, anyway.”
Sam Tinker did not follow Narrows into the dining room, although he customarily ate at this time. Instead, he sat in the darkness listening to the familiar evening sounds of the town. The lumberjacks were off the street now. They were a morose lot,
not like the jacks he had known in his earlier days in Michigan, in the Saginaw country. Nor like the old days in Tinkersville when sixteen thousand belted men had been marching down to Hell the hard way.
It had been young and lusty then, with Indians in the hills and every man packing a gun and a chip on his shoulder. That was when there had been a big strike back in the hills and Cave Creek was alive. The old Tinker House had worked three shifts a day, nine bartenders to the shift, never closing its doors.
The Homestake had been big, too, and going all night. The old Diamond Palace had burned down twelve years ago, the night of the big wind when most of the town was snuffed out like a candle.
His thoughts returned to the present. Noble Wheeler had gone to the hills with a rifle, and he had never been known to do any shooting before. Never even hunted deer or sage hens. And he was not known to possess a rifle. Showed you never really knew about a man.
One idea led to another, and this was Sam Tinker’s night for ideas. Somebody had told Devitt about that timber on Deep Creek. It was not known to many away from the town itself. It was not easily seen. Somebody knew it was there, somebody who knew Devitt needed timber.
Sam Tinker heaved himself erect and walked into the hotel. Beat all what a man could learn, “jest settin’.” Folks wasted a lot of time and tired a lot of horseflesh just gallivantin’ around the country. Thing to do was “set to home” and keep your eyes and ears open. Only ask questions when you had to. That was the ticket. Most folks admired to talk. Just get them started and set by, they’d tell you all they knew or suspected, soon or late.
Sam Tinker had no liking for Noble Wheeler. Nor for Jud Devitt. More important, he had a warm affection for Clay Bell.
Wheeler believed he knew a lot about Bell. In outward facts, he knew a good bit. But he could have learned by listening to Sam Tinker, who understood Clay, and who knew on what shaky ground both Devitt and Wheeler walked.
Had he not liked him before, he would have begun the day he saw Devitt’s lumberjacks, who had been swaggering big around the town, come beefing it into town on their swollen and bloody feet.
The story had set the whole town to chuckling. Like Bell or not, and most people did, he was one of their own. Jim Narrows had passed the story down the wire until there were a lot of people laughing in Santa Fe and Las Vegas, and even Denver. Clay Bell had walked Jud Devitt’s tough lumberjacks over twenty miles of desert in their sock feet. It was a story worth telling.
They heard it in Dodge, and there were some who were not surprised. “Know that boy,” Bob Wright said. “They got off easy.”
Sam Tinker sat in his nightly pinochle game with Jim Narrows, Ed Miller, and the postmaster. Pinochle helped him to think.
Jud Devitt was across the room, sitting over dinner with Judge Riley and his daughter. Jud had become aware during the day that he was losing prestige in Tinkersville. Not that it mattered, except to his ego. This was a small town in a backwater of the West—and he would show them. In his pocket was an appointment for a Deputy U. S. Marshal.
Yet despite the satisfaction of that appointment that rested in his pocket, to confer upon whom he liked, Devitt was not pleased. Judge Riley was not talkative tonight. He seemed preoccupied. And Colleen was, if not cool, at least no more talkative than her father.
Several times Devitt tried to warm up the conversation and guide it down pleasant channels, but without success. Colleen excused herself and retired to her room. Judge Riley crossed the room to watch Sam Tinker and his cronies at their pinochle game. Restless and irritable, Jud Devitt got to his feet and walked outside.
He had made his decision as to the marshal. It would be Morton Schwabe. The Dutchman disliked Bell, but Judge Riley, who would be asked to recommend the appointment, could not know that. The appointment of a local man who knew conditions was what Riley wanted.
The night was cool. He walked slowly down the street toward the corrals. If all panned out as he hoped, this situation would soon be right in the palm of his hand. But what else might Bell have up his sleeve? Irritably, Devitt looked at his dead cigar. The man had an uncanny way of planning ahead.
COLLEEN WAS NOT in bed. She had gone to her room, but she stood now beside the window looking out into the night.
She had changed. The few weeks that she had lived in Tinkersville had brought about a change in her feelings such as she had experienced in no previous period of her life. It was not only her feelings toward Jud, although they, too, had altered. It was something within herself. Her own world, the world of cities and parties and gaiety, seemed suddenly far away and very empty. Out here—she looked into the night and toward the lonely stars—it was different. She felt different, she was different.
Her friends had warned her against going west. She would be bored in a small town. There would be nothing to do. Jud would be busy. She had come on her own decision, overcoming Jud’s objections and those of her father. And she was glad she had come.
The wind from the desert was soft. It brought intangible scents—sage, distant wood fire, the coolness of night. Somewhere a horse stamped and blew, and a tin-panny piano sounded from the saloon down the street, from the Homestake.
Down the street were empty buildings, and the foundations of those destroyed in the Fire. They always spoke of it so, for the Fire had been the biggest thing in their lives here, and it had been the final culmination of the mining boom. During her days in the town, while Jud and her father were busy, she had walked much and listened a lot. Dr. McClean was a man who enjoyed talking, and especially to a pretty woman. Sometimes when she helped him with Bert Garry she had listened to his talking of the old days. Once she had asked him about Bell.
“Clay?” The doctor paused, and seemed to be considering. “Colleen, he’s a fine man. Sincere, hard-working. He drives himself harder than his men, but he’s got a vein of poetry in him, too. And something else.”
She waited, and when he did not speak again she adjusted the blanket over Garry, who was in a troubled sleep, aided by something the doctor had given him.
“Something else?”
“Yes … you remember the stories of the old Vikings? How they went berserk in battle? Clay’s like that. He can be a cold, methodical, dangerous fighter up to a point, and then he goes completely hog-wild and reckless. Like the other night when he charged that campfire. The man would charge hell with a bucket of water.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Like him?” Dr. McClean paused briefly. “You bet I do.”
CHAPTER 11
UNABLE TO SLEEP, Clay Bell was out of bed before the first light touched the tip of Piety. He got into his jeans and struggled into his boots. From where he sat on the edge of the bed he could look down the dark valley where the only light was the thin white streak of the trail to Tinkersville.
He sat very still, feeling the silence. He must get into town and see Garry.
Straightening to his feet, he walked outside and splashed cold water over the upper half of his body, then dipped his head in the bucket and dried himself with a rough towel. He was combing his hair when he heard a door slam and then the splash of water. Mahafee was up and busy.
Clay got into his shirt, and buckled on his gun belts. From the veranda he looked down valley, but there was as yet no light near the camp of Devitt’s men. He crossed the hard-packed earth of the ranch yard, feeling the cold air coming down the pass. A rectangle of light showed at the kitchen window.
He gathered an armful of wood and carried it into the kitchen and dumped it into the box. Mahafee dried his hands on his apron and picked up the coffee pot. Without speaking, he filled a thick white mug with coffee and put it on the table. The kitchen smelled of woodsmoke, steam, and the fresh coffee. There was a comforting warmth from the woodstove.
Mahafee never talked at this hour and Bell respected the cook’s feelings. Sitting down at the oilcloth-covered table, Bell tried to assay his position. Early morning, the kitchen sounds, and the warm f
ire seemed to help him think. He must have supplies, and if the fight were to continue he must have more hands, men who would fight. And who could fight.
The black coffee was scalding hot. He touched it to his lips, then took it hastily away. Putting the cup down, he looked at his hands. He flexed the fingers on his right hand, feeling no pain. His shoulder was better, but far from well.
It was no use to think or plan now. So much depended on what Devitt did. Bell was irritated at leaving the initiative to him, but there was nothing else to do. And when he thought of Devitt his thoughts inevitably turned to Colleen.
It was impossible that she could love the man—yet why not? Love did strange things to people, and Devitt was a handsome man, if an obviously selfish one. Did she know he was entirely self-centered? Because he knew, that was no evidence that she perceived it.
Where would Judge Riley stand in the days to come? He had come to town with Devitt; apparently he was Devitt’s man. Yet there was a strength to Riley’s face that Bell detected beneath its seeming softness—a quiet man, not necessarily a pliable man.
He tried the coffee again. Still hot. Outside, footsteps crunched in the yard, and he heard the sound of the corral bars. That would be Hank Rooney. Hank always began his day by saddling a horse.
Hot cakes sputtered on the griddle and Bell could smell beef frying. Outside the window he could see a faint yellow above the rim of the far hills.
“Boss?”
Mahafee ran red work-coarsened hands over the floursack apron. “Boss, we’ll be needin’ grub. Short on flour an’ coffee, mighty low on sugar. Need most everything else.”
Clay flexed his hand again. Not reliable yet for a fast gun. He had always been ambidextrous, however, and his left hand was in good working order. But a trip to town for supplies was a vastly different thing from a trip to Doc McClean’s. It meant loading a wagon in the street or behind the store. A perfect time for the lumberjacks’ troublemaking efforts.
Guns of the Timberlands Page 8