The Two-Shoot Gun

by Donald Hamilton

  "It's young Grace who's behind it," Mort said. "He's also been getting together with the small ranchers down south—I don't know what for yet, but I'll find out."

  "Well, he's not alone in trying to make trouble for us, but we can worry about the others later. I want Grace," Dan Justice said, "and I want him legally, hear?"

  Tom Justice said angrily, "Since when do we have to wait for the law to deal with a known rustler?"

  Janet felt her father draw along breath, like a man at the limit of his patience. "I know what you're thinking, young man; well, put it out of your mind! You never saw the fellow you were chasing yesterday to identify, remember that. Grace can walk down the street of Santa Clara tomorrow and laugh in your face. And if he does, by God, you let him! I don't want to hear of you picking a fight with the man, for any reason, and shooting him dead; if I wanted him shot, I could have done it myself any time during the past eleven years. I want the goods on young Mr. Grace, plain enough for everybody in this valley to see. I want him tried by an impartial judge and jury and sent to prison for a long term of years. He's been smart so far, but he'll make a mistake eventually, if he lives; and he's going to live, you hear me?"

  "I hear what you're saying," Tom said sulkily. "I'll be damned if I can understand why you're saying it. Flying V doesn't have to put up with any damned—"

  "Young Grace isn't going to be a martyr on my time," Dan Justice said heavily. "We've got enough of those already, God knows. The fellow I strung up this afternoon is probably being spoken of as a saint already, even if he was a drunk and a thief alive. Well, people sympathize with a dead man; they don't sympathize with a jailbird, and that is what Grace is going to be. There's too damned much sympathy in this valley, anyway. It's like riding through a fog of sympathy to go into town these days. I'm going to blow some of that fog away; and I don't want you interfering with any hasty gun work. That goes for you, too, Jack." He turned to look at his foreman. "Now, what about this tenderfoot. Was he a tenderfoot?"

  The dark face of Jack Mort showed a hint of a smile. "The same question occurred to me, Mr. Justice. The man was too ready. He had it all worked out coldly in his mind: the first barrel for me and the second for Tom and, barring a lucky hit, I couldn't. have stopped him from going through with the program. He'd have died with us, to be sure, but I did not think you'd consider it a satisfactory exchange."

  Tom Justice said sharply, "What the hell are you talking about? The man was green as grass! Take him out of sight of a road, and he'd walk about in circles until he died of thirst."

  "That may well be," Mort said gently, "but it wasn't a question of getting lost in the desert, as I recall. Maybe he don't know north from south, but he damn well knows which end of a shotgun the trouble comes out of."

  "Birdshot!" Dan Justice murmured.

  Mort shrugged his shoulders. "There was no telling what he had in the gun; and at pointblank range like we were, any load would have done the work. And he was eager to try it; that's what made me back off. I never like to give a man the kind of fight he wants, there's no sense to it. Besides, something about the fellow put me in mind of . . . " He broke off. After a moment, he said, "I'll know when I see him again."

  There was a brief silence. It was Janet who spoke next, somewhat to her own surprise. "I saw him in town. He looked . . . rather nice, I thought. I mean, he looked like just an ordinary, harmless sort of traveler from the east."

  "Harmless?" Tom said. "You go ask Hankey if he's harmless! Sneaking up to shoot a man in the back—"

  Janet said, "1 would hardly call it that. Unless Mr. Hankey wears his back considerably lower than most men . . . And what was Hankey doing when he got shot, may I ask? The way I heard it in town, he was poking around where he had no business." She looked at her father. "You'd shoot a man who came prying around your property, with something a lot more permanent than birdshot! Will you allow nobody else the same privilege?"

  Dan Justice dropped his hand from her shoulder. "You don't understand, Princess. If we let them get away with—"

  "Them!" she breathed. "Who's them, Dad? All my life I've heard of them, as if it were an organized conspiracy against us; and always it turns out to be some hungry Mexican vaquero, or one of our neighbors, or a perfect I've spent my stranger in town who happens to resent . . . life surrounded by wicked thems, to hear you tell it; but every time I meet one of them, he turns out to be just a normal human being in all respects but one: he hates us! And maybe that's normal, too! Now you're going to set the dogs on this poor photographer who hasn't done a thing to us except protect himself against ..."

  She broke off, finding herself very close to tears, for no reason that she could understand except that she was tired. Her voice, she knew, sounded too much like her mother's on the days when her mother made the effort to raise her voice in nagging protest against the brutalities of this land—always blaming them on her father, just as she, Janet, was doing now. It was not fair; and she knew it: there had been a great deal of trouble and it was not her father's fault that he knew only one way to deal with trouble, which was to meet it head on with overwhelming force.

  The room held the embarrassed silence resorted to by men confronted with feminine irrationality. Janet drew a ragged breath, and looked at Mort. "What did the man remind you of, Jack?" she asked.

  The Flying V foreman shook his head. "No. I am not sure, Miss Justice; that's why I acted as I did." He swung his dark glance toward Dan Justice. "You hired me because you needed an experienced man, Mr. Justice. I acted as my judgment dictated. If you want a fool boy who'll go off halfcocked every time somebody crosses him, well, you've got one right here. In that case, you can give me my time."

  It was the nearest thing to anger Janet had seen in this sharpfaced man; and it brought another silence to the room. Tom Justice's lanky figure had tensed with the older man's words; his hand was close to his ivory-handled gun. His father turned on him. "What have you got, an itch on your belly? Get out of here, boy!"

  Tom flushed, wheeled, and rushed out of the room. Dan Justice turned on Mort. "And what's got your back up, Jack?"

  "l can either do my work or play nursemaid, Mr. Justice. I can't do both. Don't send him out with me again, at least not for the next couple of days." foreman paused, and went on. "I'm forty-eight years old, Mr. Justice. That's old, for a man in my business. I didn't live that long by being too proud to back off from a situation that didn't look right. If you don't like the way I handled it, say so, and I'll be riding on."

  Janet sensed the brief, sharp conflict taking place in her father's mind: he was not a man to pass up a challenge from anybody. But he needed Jack Mort; and he drew a long breath and laughed, and walked forward and clapped the foreman on the shoulder, speaking hearty and reassuring words that meant very little but cleared the air. Then Mort left the room, and Dan Justice closed the door and swung around to face her. It was a moment before he spoke, without referring to what had passed.

  "Well, did you have a good time in town, Princess? Let me look at you." His white eyebrows lifted. "What happened to you? You look like you'd been rolled down a mountain in a flour barrel."

  She brushed at her dress. "The road's kind of rough and dusty. "

  "Well, go change," he said irritably. "I like my girl to look fresh and pretty ... Ah, never mind, it's late. Did the Wellesleys have anything to say about Tom?"

  "His name wasn't mentioned. "

  "How did they treat you?"

  "Very well."

  "They'd better," he said with a laugh. "If I decided not to pay Howard Wellesley's bank what I owe, he'd have to close the doors."

  She said dryly, "That's one way of keeping friends. About the only way we seem to know, here at Flying V."

  Her father looked at her for a moment. "I had friends when I came here," he said slowly. "Hank Betterson, Jack Price, Johnny Grace . . . I even got along pretty well with Stuart and Primrose. And my herds kept melting away like spring snow. I've got no friends now, but my
cattle have been staying put—that is, until lately, when Johnny Grace's boy got the idea of putting a burr under Martinez's saddle. But I'll take care of that."

  "I'm sure you will," she said. "You always do."

  He said, grinning, "All right, Princess, give me hell."

  "To hang a man—"

  "It's the only language they understand," he said. His voice. became harsher as he went on: "You try to build something, and people keep tearing it down as fast as you put it up.... Dammit, if it's war they want, we've got it in small sizes and large, just waiting for them!"

  "l know," she said, feeling tired and helpless before his anger.

  "Have you seen your mother?"

  "Yes. She doesn't like Tom to wear his gun in the house."

  "l suppose she'd like to see him in a hard hat and a broadcloth suit like a whisky drummer. Where does she think we're living, New York or Boston? Did your sister come home with you?"

  "Yes. She must have gone to her room."

  "Better check," Dan Justice said. "That young lady's getting a little too free and easy these days."

  "I'll check," Janet said. "Good night, Dad."

  Down along the river, the trees cast a black and impenetrable shadow. Entering the whispering darkness, Sally Justice let her horse pick its own way. Presently she could see the gleam of water ahead where the stream wound its lazy and erratic way over a wide, sandy bed. She tied her mount at the river's edge and sat down on a log of driftwood to wait. For a while she amused herself by trying to roll a cigarette from the makings she had borrowed from the ranch hand who had saddled her horse—it had amused her to see how shocked the man had looked at her request. When she finally got a smoke that would stay together, strange and twisted though it was in appearance, she made an experimental attempt to smoke it, but it set her to coughing, and she did not like the thought of the tobacco smell drifting away through the trees to betray her presence here...

  It was well after midnight, and she was cold and a little frightened, when she heard him coming. He forded the river above her, tied his horse beside hers, and came to meet her. She forced herself not to rise too soon, and not to run toward him, because you could not have a man thinking he owned you; then she was in his arms.

  "Oh, Lou!" she breathed presently. "Oh, darling, I didn't know if you'd come tonight; I've been waiting for hours, hoping . . ." Her voice did not belong to the cool and dignified young lady she always planned to be while waiting for him. Something always happened to those plans when he kissed her. "Are you all right?" she whispered. "You aren't hurt? I heard them talking, boasting how they were going to catch you. They hanged a man, did you know that? Oh, I hate them, hate them, even if they are my own—"

  Lou Grace held her close. "It's all right, Sally," he said. "It's all right now."

  7

  Rising early, Burdick came down from his room and walked out on the hotel veranda to look at the morning. In this country, he had already learned, mornings and evenings were times to be treasured, as were the clear. cool, and starlit nights. The middle of the day, on the other hand, was merely something to be endured.

  "Morning, Mr. Burdick," said a man coming out of the hotel behind him.

  "Good morning," Burdick said, looking around. The man came up, a solid, grayhaired individual with the look and walk of a cattleman—none of that breed ever seemed comfortable or happy on foot. Burdick had never seen him before. "I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, sir," he said.

  "l know, son," the older man said. He held out his hand. "My name's Price, Jack Price. Got a ranch southwest of town. Be pleased to have you ride over some day."

  "Thank you, Mr. Price," Burdick said.

  "Well, I've got to be getting along," Price said. "Keep your eyes open, Mr. Burdick. It's a good rule in this country."

  He strode away along the plaza. Burdick looked after him with raised eyebrows: it had been an odd little encounter. It occurred to Burdick that this was the only town within two thousand miles where his name meant something to somebody: the only place this side of the Alleghenies where he had both enemies and, apparently, friends.

  He stood on the veranda for a moment longer, conscious of the shotgun over his arm, and of the fact that the intelligent thing for him to do would be to get away from here fast. There were other towns to the west. For that matter, California would undoubtedly have better opportunities for a man in his business than this dry and sparsely populated land. And he did not need a native to tell him that here he had let himself be caught between warring factions that would not deal gently with an interloper. He was already, it seemed, aligned with one side of the conflict in the eyes of the town. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to fight his way back to safe and neutral ground.

  The bells of the church at the end of the plaza began to ring, marking the hour. It was a massive and yet oddly graceful structure, he noted; and the play of morning light on the rounded adobe surfaces—there was not a straight line or a truly flat surface in the whole building—was delicately beautiful. He made a note of the time, in case he should have an opportunity to come back here on another morning with his photographic equipment: it would have to be this early, in another half hour all the fragile shadows would be destroyed by the full, harsh impact of the sun.

  Is that what you came here for? he asked himself. Did you drive two thousand miles looking for safe and neutral ground?

  He turned abruptly and walked back into the hotel, passed the desk, and went through the doors beyond into the dining room which was quite empty. He directed his course toward a table by the windows. The kitchen door opened behind him.

  "Not there," said a feminine voice that he recognized.

  He turned. "Miss Nelson," he said. "I looked for you last night."

  "The cook failed to show up, so I had to take over his job," she said, coming forward. "I think you'd better sit over here in the corner, Mr. Burdick, where you can see everyone who comes in."

  She led the way. Following her, Burdick said, "I'm beginning to feel like a bad man in a dime novel. Alexander Burdick, the Terror of the Plains."

  She paused at the table, and turned to look at him, unsmiling. He had not had time, the evening before, to take more than casual note of her appearance; now he saw that she was a tall and shapely girl. Her face was quite long, with the bony structure well defined, so that she would never be called pretty; nevertheless, it was a handsome face, made more striking by the way she wore her fair hair pulled smoothly and severely back from it and formed into a roll at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a gingham dress again today, protected by a white apron. The dress, Burdick noted, while clean and crisp, was faded and far from new.

  She said, "You seem to think it's a joke, Mr. Burdick." "It is a joke," he said. "I've always . , . Most of my life has been fairly peaceful. Now, suddenly, I find myself playing the role of a dangerous and hunted man, eating breakfast with my back to the wall and my shotgun beside me. Tell me, do you actually believe I'm in danger of being shot from behind?"

  "Not actually at this moment," she said. "Not yet. But it's just sensible to take precautions, and you might as well get into the habit. Yesterday you made yourself a dangerous enemy, even if he's never seen you, nor you him."

  "This man Justice?"

  "Dan Justice," she said. "Yes. He won't forget that you helped Lou Grace get away and made fools of his men, not ever."

  "He's a local rancher?" Burdick asked.

  She laughed at this. "You could say that he is the local rancher, Mr. Burdick. When you go north from here, you're on Flying V range from the time you leave Santa Clara until you hit the higher foothills of the Coronado range. It was an old Spanish grant. There are some small ranches around the edges of it—Lou Grace's place for one —and three moderate-sized outfits south of town, but the Justice place is as big as all the others put together, or bigger. Mr. Justice seems to feel that this gives him the controlling interest in the affairs of the town and the valley.
Since he has a guncrazy son and a crew of twenty or thirty toughs headed by an old gunfighter named Jack Mort—I believe you met him yesterday—nobody's been disposed to argue the point very strongly." After a moment she added, "Mr. Justice never believes that a 'single head of Flying V can die or disappear from natural causes. If a cow vanishes from Flying V range, or there aren't quite as many calves in the spring as Mr. Justice thinks there ought to be, it's all the fault of nasty men who come in the night to rob him blind. There isn't a rancher in the valley who hasn't been accused by Mr. Justice of stealing his cattle. He doesn't merely accuse; he rides up with a crew of armed men and searches the place, and anybody who objects or resists gets shot or beaten. Twice since I've been here the whole hotel's been ransacked by his ruffians looking for evidence that we were serving stolen beef to our customers." She hesitated, and smiled wryly. "After a few incidents like that, Mr. Burdick, people's sense of right and wrong kind of weakens. I wouldn't be surprised if there actually was a little rustling going on nowadays. After all, if a man's going to be called a thief anyway, he might as well have a few head of cattle for his grief."

  Burdick said dryly, "This would have nothing to do, of course, with Why Mr. Grace happened to be out in the hills yesterday with a saddle but no horse."

  She smiled. "Why, no, of course not," she said. "How could you think of such a thing?" She laughed. "I was just speaking in a general way, you understand, so you'd have some notion...." Her laughter died. "He's a terrible man, Dan Justice," she said. "He ran my father out of town seven years ago. Would you like to know why?"

  "If you want to tell me."

  "He ran my father out of town because Dad took some portraits of the oldest daughter and the didn't like them and refused to pay for the prints she had ordered. You understand, Miss Justice didn't discover that the pictures didn't flatter her adequately until she'd had my father print up a dozen copies—including a couple of the big imperials, no less! My father had worked hard over those prints; I know because I helped him. He was hoping they'd lead to more orders, and portraits of the rest of the family—he was very happy about doing some business with the Justice clan at last. After all, they are the wealthiest people in the valley. The day the girl came in, I wasn't there; I was out visiting a friend at one of the ranches. I suppose Dad showed his disappointment when she refused to accept the order. Maybe he even got stubborn and insisted on talking to her father. Perhaps he even demanded payment; he could get very obstinate when he knew he was in the right. Anyway, Dan Justice called in his men, and they beat Dad up and told him never to come back to Santa Clara or he would be killed." She drew a long breath. "When I came home the next day, he was gone. I had to ask the neighbors to learn what had happened. He wasn't in the best of health; I think they must have hurt him so badly that he died before he could let me know how to find him. Anyway, I never saw him or heard from him again."