Troublesome Range Part 2

Mike Saygar.

The sound of a woman's laughter striking across the quiet street took Joe Bonnyman's glance across there. He saw a man and a woman pa.s.s before the night-lighted window of a store almost opposite, and in a moment recognized Fred Vanover.

"Vanover married again?" he asked curiously.

"That's his daughter," Blaze said, immediately thinking of something else and adding truculently: "You've made a fine start at healin' up the old sore, friend."

"His daughter?" Joe still peered across the wide street. "You mean the kid that used to run around in short skirts and pigtails?"

Alongside, Clark Dunne's voice had an edge to it: "What's so strange about a girl growing up?"

"Nothing, only . . ." Joe didn't finish what he'd started to say, which in essence was that Jean Vanover's voice had sounded exceedingly pleasant and womanly.

"How you goin' to make it up to Merrill?" Blaze was insistent on getting an answer to his worry. "He's growed up, too. Casts a mighty wide shadow lately."

"It won't need makin' up," Joe told him. He decided not to mention Merrill's coupling of Clark's and Ruth's names. Anyway, it didn't matter. "I'm headed out."

"Out? Away from here?" Blaze was incredulous and added a ripe oath.

Joe nodded. "In an hour, unless they've stopped runnin' that late freight."

"But you can't drift again," Blaze insisted. "Take it from a man crowdin' middle age, mister. You'll never lick anything by runnin' from it."

Clark saw the angry turn of Joe's head and knew at once that Blaze's remark had touched on a sore spot. "Joe's not runnin'," he said quickly. "But there's something to what you say. Joe, I've got an idea."

"The answer's no," Joe drawled.

He was abruptly sobered by the thought that these two old friends, really the only two he cared anything about, would now urge him to stay on. Their att.i.tude was natural; what sobered him was knowing that from now on he'd be living among strangers, not among men like this pair with whom he could forget the ingrained wariness and suspicion that were the unwanted fruits of his absence.

"Wait'll you hear what I have to say," Clark insisted. "I'm in this land company now and I need help. Vanover's to be trusted, but, after all, he works for Middle Arizona. So long as I'm goin' at this thing at all, it'll be whole hog. I'll need a man to help me with the saddle work. Shippin' time is close, and we could divide the county, you workin' the south half, me the north, keepin' check on the gather. That way we could . . ."

"I said no, Clark."

"But listen, man. You get, say, twice the wages you can draw on a ridin' job. You're fifty miles from your old man, sixty from Merrill. What . . . ?"

"I told you I was leavin'!" Joe said sharply.

Clark thought he saw then how to carry his point. He wanted Joe to stay, wanted him badly enough to run the risk of his anger. "Then what are your reasons?" he asked bluntly, not denying the inference Joe had put to his mention of Ed Merrill. "Name me a good one."

"I'm fed up with the whole mess. If Merrill doesn't try and knock the chip off my shoulder, someone else will."

"Don't put one there to get knocked off," advised Blaze. "Stick it out here and make these jaspers admit you ain't the sidewinder they've pegged you for."

"No." Joe's refusal was as positive as it had been the first time.

And so it was an hour later, when Joe tossed war bag and saddle up onto the caboose platform of the freight. He gave his two friends a look that showed them none of his regret, no emotion whatsoever, as he drawled: "Give Yace my apologies for bein' in too much of a hurry to say good bye."

"Yeah, he'll be touched." Blaze's blocky face was cracked by a set smile that didn't quite hide his disappointment.

"No use tryin' to argue you out of it?" Clark was serious, sober.

"No use."

Far up beyond the station, by the water tank, the locomotive's whistle gave two sharp blasts to call in the brakeman. The waiting interval it took his lantern to crawl in along the tracks to the caboose was awkward for all three. But finally Joe was stepping up onto the platform after the brakeman and the conductor's lantern was arching the highball to the engineer. The long line of cars shuddered as slack went out of the couplings. The caboose finally lurched into motion. It was twenty yards down the track when Joe, lifting a hand in a gesture of farewell, turned and the orange-lighted caboose door swallowed his wide shape.

"Devil of a note," Blaze growled.

Clark Dunne didn't speak until the two lights of the caboose had almost gone out of sight in the darkness. Then he gave a gusty sigh. "Too bad," he said.

They were silent as they went back up the street as far as the Mile High, where Blaze's horse was tied, each too engrossed in his thinking to bother with talk. As Blaze jerked the knot of his reins, Clark said: "Sure you won't stay over? I can put you up."

Blaze shook his head, stepping into the saddle. A bleak look touched his eyes as he glanced toward the saloon's window, now covered with a tarpaulin nailed to the outside facing.

"He sure was a wild man, eh?"

"You talk like we weren't going to see him again."

"I got that feelin', friend."

Clark could think of no argument to use against this reasoning, and, when he remained silent, Blaze lifted his reins and turned the Anchor-branded gelding out into the street with a-"Be seein' you."

Clark watched him ride out of sight, feeling a strange and restless sense of unfulfillment. He was at a loose end, half angry without knowing why. The hour was late, yet he wasn't sleepy. His look went the way Blaze's had a moment ago, toward the Mile High's doors, and he regretfully ruled out the idea of going in there for a nightcap in the knowledge that Olander and his late customers would be talking about the fight and wanting his views on it. It occurred to him only then that neither he nor Blaze had asked Joe for any particulars on his argument with Ed Merrill. He wondered what had led to the fight. He had a hunch it had started over Ruth, over Ed's seeing Joe talking with her.

"Got a minute, Clark?"

The low-drawled words coming from beyond the walk startled Clark momentarily. He looked across to the head of the narrow alleyway running between the saloon and the adjoining building, and made out Neal Harper's indistinct shape. He glanced warily both ways along the walk before he stepped over there.

"You don't need to creep up on a man," he said curtly. "What is it?"

"Thought you'd like to know Vanover's lettin' us go." Harper's drawl bore a faint edge of insolence, of demanding an answer.

Clark was nervous under the implication lying behind those words. When he made no immediate reply, Harper went on: "We ain't exactly built a stake we could retire on."

Here was a reminder of an old promise. Clark was edgy under that reminder and said dryly: "Can I help it if they bury the hatchet?"

Harper's shoulders lifted meagerly. "I'm only tellin' you what happened."

"I'll see what I can do about it. When are you due to pull out?"

"Vanover didn't say exactly when."

"Then keep in touch with me. Something may come up."

"Such as?"

"How do I know?" Clark said sharply. He nodded back along the pa.s.sageway. "Get goin'. Someone might spot me standin' here, and begin to wonder."

Harper said-"Yeah."-and faded soundlessly back into the deeper shadows.

Back out at the edge of the walk, Clark put the Middle Arizona man from his mind and thought back on the matter that had occupied his attention when Harper interrupted him. It had been Joe and Ruth, his hunch that Ed Merrill had said something to Joe about his sister that had started the fight. This first insistent awareness of envy for Joe stung irritatingly, like the bite of a small insect. Clark tried to ignore it, couldn't. It was related to another sobering fact, one he had put off facing, and that fact concerned himself in relation to Ruth Merrill. Talking to Ruth this afternoon, he had learned that she was in town primarily to see Joe, as she put it, "to prove to myself how lucky I am in having you, Clark."

Ruth's bland statement now only heightened a growing distrust of her real feeling toward him. He thought he knew Ruth better than most men; he told himself he understood the guileful urgings that had left her unsatisfied with each conquest as a girl and pushed her on to the next. A year ago she had begun to favor him, but lately her interest seemed to be lagging. Clark wanted to believe it was because she had become so used to him that she had dropped the pretense of coquetry and flirtation for the more serious and deeper emotion that should eventually draw them together as man and wife. Yet, wanting to believe these things didn't rule out the suspicion that, had Joe stayed, Ruth might have switched her favors once again.

He rolled a smoke and forgot to light it, so somber were his thoughts. Yes, he would marry Ruth regardless of any doubt in his mind. It might turn out to be nothing but a marriage of mutual advantage, one in which there was respect, but no love. But, regardless of what the future held for him and Ruth, being taken into the Merrill family would strengthen his weak hold on the top-most rung of the ladder of this range's society. That, bluntly, was the thing Clark Dunne was after.

He had come to Anchor as the lowliest rider in a big crew twelve years ago, a gangling overgrown kid with a strong back and the guts to use it. He could admit now that he had been kept on because he and Joe got along so well together, not because Yace Bonnyman, or Blaze, found him indispensable as a rider. That had been his first toehold, and he had played it for all it was worth, ingratiating himself to old Yace to the point where he was allowed to run his own small herd along with Anchor's, and thus get his start.

Clark didn't like to look back on the first year he was on his own, after he'd cut loose from Anchor to homestead high along the Troublesome in the hills above the mesa. The temptation to comb the hills for strays and work over their brands had been too strong to resist. It had been plain rustling, with not much risk involved. For Mike Saygar had also made his start in this country that same year, and Clark's petty thievery had been obscured by the outlaw's, which was on a wholesale scale.

The sharp rise in Clark's cattle count had pa.s.sed unnoticed by everyone but Saygar himself. It hadn't taken the wily outlaw long to trace the small bunches of Anchor-and Brush-branded beeves he was blamed for stealing, but hadn't taken. And it was typical of him not to expose Clark. Rather, he had asked a favor in return for his silence.

Clark, accepted as an up-and-coming young rancher, was on the inside as far as the law was concerned. All Saygar wanted was advance notice from Clark of any moves the sheriff's office proposed making against him. Thus it was that a posse of forty men, that first spring after Mike Saygar's coming, found his hill cabin deserted when they thought to surprise him and his wild bunch at dawn one morning. And in these last years of trouble with Middle Arizona, the partnership of rancher and outlaw had profited handsomely, dividing the blame for continued rustling equally between the cattle company and the Mesa Grande outfits. Clark's Troublesome Creek layout had a.s.sumed mushrooming proportions, due, according to Yace Bonnyman's own statement, to a mighty fine mixture of brains and muscle.

To all appearances, Clark had worked hard. He'd had a little luck, too, in the form of a publicly proclaimed legacy of some $4,000, left him by an uncle back East. That uncle had in reality been Mike Saygar, who was willing to loan the money when Clark had the chance to buy out a neighbor's ten sections. Clark had also increased his indebtedness by added borrowing from Middle Arizona's land company. With the money he had thrown up an earth dam to catch spring flood water, and thereby increased the potential value of his newly acquired land. Lately Saygar had become a little impatient over the repayment of his loan. Clark had no idea how he was going to take care of it.

This unwanted inspection of his past, prompted by his brief meeting with Joe, now increased Clark's feeling of uneasiness. He was angry without that anger being directed at any one thing or person, unless possibly he blamed Joe for leaving. His way of life had lately left a bad taste in his mouth, and he had looked for Joe's return to bring back the carefree feeling of the old days, when he and Joe and Blaze traveled together and horsed around at any deviltry Joe could think up.

Then, abruptly, Clark saw something he hadn't taken into account before. Joe's staying wouldn't have helped beyond the diversion of erasing a little of the sense of guilt that had lately begun crowding him. They might have had some good times together, but, all in all, his friendship with Joe would have been held against him. Yace's putting him up to head the land company, along with the ready compliance of the men he had once envied, the big augurs of this country, opened before Clark a vista of influence he hadn't realized until just now. He had suddenly become an important person. In years to come he might even gain the prominence and influence Yace Bonnyman now held in the affairs of this country. His prospective marriage would see him topping the last long rise that blocked the wide vista of his future. And, come to think about it, friendship with a man who had betrayed his father and his friends would have counted against him in the end. Joe had served him well in the beginning, but that service was no longer important. He was on his way, and he didn't need Joe.

Clark felt better immediately after taking this line of reasoning. He dragged in a deep breath of the chill night air that still bore the taint of the freight's coal smoke, remembering only then the unlighted cigarette between his lips. The flare of the match broke the solemn run of his thoughts as they dwelt briefly on Neal Harper. As he sucked the smoke alight, he abruptly felt good, better than in a long time.

His downward stare as he flicked the match away showed him something in its waning light, something that lay on the walk almost at his feet. He stooped and picked it up. It was a black-and-white braided horsehair hatband. He studied its woven design in the faint light, admiring it, trying to remember where he'd seen it before.

All at once he knew. This was the hatband that a Texas raw-hider had years ago traded Joe for a cheap clasp knife. It was so long ago that Clark couldn't remember the Texan's looks. Joe would miss this, for he had worn it all these years when he could have afforded a better one. Trying to think how Joe could have lost it, Clark remembered his friend bending over to pick up his Stetson after the fight with Merrill, and knew then how it had happened.

He folded the circle of horsehair and thrust it into a pants pocket. Then, still reluctant to turn, but unable to think of anything better to do, he sauntered over to the hotel and into the lobby. Snores sounded from the clerk's cubbyhole room under the stairway behind the counter. Clark tiptoed over there, reached down the key to his room from the board over the desk, and climbed the stairs.

A few strides from the door to his room he stopped at sight of a sliver of light shining through at the sill. He frowned, and the automatic gesture of hand to gun was as swift as the change of expression on his face. He approached the door and opened it. As it swung wide, he looked across to where Mike Saygar sat tilted back in a chair, boots c.o.c.ked on the foot of the bed, and smudging its clean, gray-blanketed surface.

Clark took his hand away from holster, but something tightened in him as he stepped in, closed the door, and said flatly: "I thought we didn't know each other, Mike."

"We don't." Saygar's full round face tilted up and he regarded Clark directly, his squat frame relaxing from the c.o.c.ked att.i.tude it had a.s.sumed at sound of the door latch clicking. His expression was his habitual one, a faint meaningless smile, as he added: "Don't worry. I come in the back way."

Clark tossed his Stetson toward the row of pegs on the back of the door. The hat missed and fell to the floor. He ignored it. "Well?"

"Can't a man drop by to offer congratulations?"

"For what?"

"Your new job. Brother, you're in."

Clark was irritated at what he made out as a certain note of disdain in Saygar's voice. He was about to speak, when Saygar added: "And I'm out."

The puzzled frown that crossed Clark's face was intended to mask his foreknowledge of what was coming. "How come?" Saygar shrugged his thick sloping shoulders and deliberately lowered his boots to the floor. He carefully dusted a peppering of dried mud from the blanket, and only then said: "Sort o' dried up our well, didn't it? This sc.r.a.p bein' settled so lady-like."

"Did it?" Clark queried cautiously.

"That's the way I figure it. They been layin' off me lately and I've kind o' got used to it. Now all that'll change."

"You can work something out, you and Harper together." "Sure. But it'll be penny-ante stuff. No one to blame it on now. Maybe I ought to be pullin' out."

Here it is, Clark was thinking, and said aloud: "You'll travel plenty far to beat this set-up."

Saygar shook his head, his look mock sober. He came up out of the chair with surprising ease, a slight forward motion of his thick torso giving him all the momentum needed. Erect, he was a brute of a man, barrel-chested, long-armed.

"Nope," he drawled, "I'm about washed up here. The boys won't stick if the goin' gets hot again."

The suspense was grating on Clark's nerves. Before he realized it, he had worded his worry. "Then you'll be wantin' the four thousand?"

Saygar's two big hands made an outspread gesture of helplessness. "I reckon there ain't no choice."

Clark paced the width of the room to the window, turned there, and said querulously: "You'll have to give me time."

"How much?" Now that the formalities were over, Saygar wasn't wasting words.

"That's something I can't tell. A month, maybe longer. The crew finishes gatherin' week after next. It takes a week to ship and collect my money. What happens in between depends on the weather and how our luck holds. This means I'll have to comb my range pretty clean."

"It'll sure clean it out, brother. What if your friends wise up?"

"It's none o' their blasted business!" Clark flared.

"But it'd be nice if you didn't have to ship all that stuff." Clark eyed the outlaw coldly, reading something behind the remark without quite knowing what it was. "Meanin' what?" he asked tonelessly.

"Meanin' there are other ways of layin' hands on money. After all, you're president of a bank, or somethin' awful close to one." "They wouldn't carry me to the tune of another four thousand. You know I already carry a loan with them."

"Did I mention askin' for it?"

The shock of Saygar's words had a visible effect on Clark. The belligerency that had been gathering on his face faded before a look of studied calculation. He appeared to be about to say something, then changed his mind. Saygar sauntered to the door, his hand reaching out for the k.n.o.b.

"Say a week from now, in Hoelseker's cabin above the basin, Clark," he said.

When Clark appeared not to have heard him, Saygar let himself quietly out into the hall, glancing both ways along it before he closed the door and made for the back stairs.

The Man at the Safe.

Bill Lyans had been pulling on his coat as he came out the door of his house and followed Ernie Baker, the Mile High swamper, down off the porch and out onto the dark street.

"How'd it happen?" he asked.

Baker shrugged. "No one knew a thing until Merrill come backward through the window. There ain't a mule alive could have kicked him any harder."