Coroner Creek (17 page)

Learning that O'Hea was over at the house with Mrs. Miles, Younger said good night and stepped out into the darkness, heading for the house. O'Hea's horse was tied to the picket fence enclosing the yard. As he went through the gate, Younger heard, over the clamor of the rushing Coroner, the sound of his wife playing the piano, and he thought,
That damned racket tonight, of all nights
.

Entering the kitchen, he was reminded of his hunger. He pocketed a handful of cookies, put one in his mouth, and went on into the dining room. Abbie was playing softly, absently at the grand piano in the living room; O'Hea, head back and eyes closed, sat in a chair beside her listening. Miles tramped in and said around the cookie, “Hullo, O'Hea. Good thing you came tonight.”

Abbie ceased playing. O'Hea reluctantly sat up and took a last look around this tasteful room, as if he knew the peace would soon go out of it.

Younger looked at Abbie now, and noted the unnatural flush of her cheeks and the brightness of her eyes, and a hot disgust rose in him. “Boozing again?” he asked.

Abbie didn't answer him; her face only grew a little sullen.

Younger said disgustedly to O'Hea, “Since when did you sit around watching her pour booze into herself?”

“She can do what she wants,” O'Hea said tiredly. “She's grown up.”

Younger crammed another cookie in his mouth and rubbed his sugared hand across his coat. Dragging a heavy rocker across the rug he sat down in it, facing O'Hea.

“You're feeling better, O'Hea. Did you know it? Well enough to take up your duties again.” The heavy irony in his voice was undisguised. He chewed on his cookie, completely unself-conscious.

“Now what?” Abbie asked cynically.

“I'm in trouble, kind of,” Younger said, not looking at her. “I had a tangle with Danning tonight. I may get scolded for it tomorrow, and I want you back in office. They can kick Mac out as not elected, but they can't kick you out.”

“What kind of a tangle?” Abbie asked.

Younger put another cookie in his mouth and told them. It was an artless telling of it, as if they, like Ernie, would be disinterested in the ethics of what he was relating. But he did not tell what fate he had planned for Yordy at Station. He had underestimated Danning, he said, but that was only incidental. He wanted everything in order, so that if his denial were disbelieved, there was still nothing anybody could do about it.

“You think they'll believe your story?” Abbie asked.

“Likely not. I don't care.”

“Since when don't you care?” Abbie asked dryly.

Younger looked fully at her for the first time. “Since tonight. After it wouldn't do any good to care. I'm a practical man.”

“But not so practical you'd take my advice about leaving Yordy alone.”

Younger's hooded dark eyes regarded her for three long seconds and then he said, “I had to take a chance on Yordy. I'll take any chance, so long as I can run Danning out of here. And I'll run him out.”

“I don't think you will,” Abbie said slowly. “I met him today. I don't think you will.”

“You met him?” Younger asked. “Where?”

“Up at Tip's shack. I rode up there.”

“What was he doing up there?” Younger asked, alarmed now. “Taking over?”

“No, I asked him if he was, and he said no.”

“You asked him if he was?” Younger said slowly. “How did he know Tip was gone? How did he know he could take it?”

Abbie, too late, realized that she had betrayed herself. It was true she had been drinking, and now the drink had died in her she was tired and sleepy and her mind not quick. She thought now of her brave verbal defiance of Younger to Danning today and it gave her a sudden and real defiance.

“How did he?” Younger repeated, and came to his feet.

“I told him,” Abbie said.

Younger's reaction was instinctive. He slapped her heavily across the mouth, and when she cried out and shrank back on the piano stool, he raised his hand again, but let it fall in a kind of angry bafflement and contempt.

He looked hotly at O'Hea, who had not moved. “There's your daughter, man! Sells her husband out with a smile. I could have bluffed Danning about Tip, and for six months I could have held that shack and used it, and fenced that canyon against him.”

He looked down at Abbie, who was crying quietly, her head bent.

“If you can't be for me, then keep your drunken mouth shut!” he said in a cold anger.

He looked now at O'Hea, and the sight of him seemed to anger him further. “Just once, so help me, I wish I could say either one of you did one thing right. Just once.”

He glared at O'Hea and then, seeing that he could not even provoke a protest, he said, “Ah-h!” in a fathomless disgust and started for the kitchen. Remembering his original errand now, he paused and said to O'Hea, “Bright and early in your office, O'Hea. And have your letter written.”

He went out and they heard the kitchen door slam.

Presently, O'Hea rose and went over to Abbie and put his hand on her shoulder and patted it. He took a turn around the room, staring unseeing at each picture on the wall as he passed it, and then he was back at his chair. He sank into it and said, “That happened before, Abbie?”

“It's the first time,” Abbie said.

O'Hea stared at the pattern of the rug, not seeing it. The whole sorry history of these past few years was parading across his mind. It had started with his wife's death eight years ago, out on the ranch. Before he'd really found his bearings again after that, the bad winter of the next year had smashed him. The outfits close to the Blackbows hadn't suffered so much, but his place out on the flats to the north had been wiped clean of stock by the succession of blizzards—stock that was bought on borrowed money. He'd been forced to work for other outfits, then, putting Abbie in town with friends, but even that didn't last after his health began to fail. His old friends had backed him for sheriff then, and he'd won the office and its small salary, which Abbie supplemented by working at the hotel.

She was still working there when Younger met and courted and married her. O'Hea wondered now, with a passive bitterness, why he had ever thought they were badly off in the old days. He had his pride then, and a remnant of health and manhood left him, and he would have killed the man who laid a hand on Abbie. But a moment ago he had sat here and done nothing when Miles hit her. A scalding shame flooded him and he looked over at Abbie.

“You fed up as I am, Abbie?”

Abbie only nodded.

O'Hea stood up and his tone when he spoke was humble, soft. “You've stayed on my account, haven't you? You figured a sick old man was entitled to lie comfortable in the sun after he was through, didn't you? Well, so did I, maybe, and maybe I was worried about who'd take care of you.”

Abbie didn't answer and O'Hea held out his hand and looked at it. It was trembling; it had never ceased trembling. He hid it in his pocket and said with a soft stubborn gentleness, “I'm goin' to fight him, Abbie. I've made up my mind. I'd rather die fightin' him than live this way.”

Abbie looked up quickly, and she and her father regarded each other with unfaltering gaze. “We used to make out when I was at the hotel. We can again,” Abbie said swiftly.

O'Hea shook his head. “Don't go back on my account, Abbie.”

“Then on my own!” Abbie said quickly, passionately. “Oh Dad, think of it! We don't need much, and together we can make out. If you'll fight him, I'll leave him. I'll never want to take another drink, even.”

She came into his arms then, and he held her tight to him, neither of them saying anything.

O'Hea kissed her then and went out into the hall and got his hat. Abbie opened the front door, and O'Hea halted and regarded her fondly. “You're too fine a girl to drink.”

CHAPTER XIII

Leach stopped at the house first and wakened Della. They talked for a while, and by that time dawn was breaking. Leach came over to the bunkhouse and lighted the lamp, waking both Chris and Andy.

He stood in the middle of the floor and said sourly, “Della wants to see you both,” and walked out.

When he was gone, Andy climbed out of his bunk and looked sleepily at Chris. “What's this?”

Chris didn't know and said so. They dressed rapidly and in silence, and walked together through the fading night toward the lamplit house.

Leach was seated in the kitchen at the table where Della sat, too, and a tall-chimneyed, shadeless lamp sat on the table between them. Della wore a belted wrapper and her brown hair was loose, cascading down over her shoulders. She sat sideways in her chair and her back was to the wall, one arm thrown over the back of the chair. Her face was cold and unfriendly and Chris, seeing it, had a premonition of trouble.

Andy dragged a chair against the sidewall and sat down, and put both big hands on his knees in an attitude of patient expectancy.

Chris stood by the other chair, and when Della saw he wasn't going to sit down she said, “Falls Canyon was fired last night, Chris. Every steer lost.”

A sick and dismal feeling hit Chris like a blow, then, and he said nothing, thinking nothing. Della watched him without any friendliness about her now, and presently she said, “It happened before midnight, Leach said.”

Chris shuttled his gaze to Leach, who sat taciturnly in the corner, an arm on the table. “Where were you?” Chris asked him.

“He was sleeping in the line shack at the Salt Meadow,” Della said quietly. “He's not to blame, Chris. You didn't even bother to tell him it was fire you were afraid of. He thought you were afraid of the cattle being driven off, and he could have heard that at the shack.”

Chris didn't say anything; he only looked at Leach, thinking
I should have known
, and his eyes were hard and unforgiving.

“You were afraid of fire, weren't you?” Della went on.

Chris only nodded.

“Then if you were afraid of it, you knew somebody planned it. We didn't. I didn't. Did you, Andy?”

Andy cleared his throat and crossed his legs and said, “Yes, ma'm.”

Chris looked swiftly at him and then said, “Andy didn't either. Thanks, Andy.”

Andy cleared his throat again and said nothing.

“Why didn't you tell us?” Della asked relentlessly.

“I should have, maybe, but it was my responsibility.”

“And you turned it over to Leach.”

“He knew what to do,” Chris said quietly.

“You never told me it was fire you was afraid of, or I'd of stayed,” Leach said flatly.

“Are you blaming Leach?” Della asked, and now she could not keep the anger from her voice.

“Yes, ma'm,” Andy put in calmly.

“No,” Chris said.

There was a long silence now, and Della's face was still unfriendly, still strained with a dislike of him she could hide no longer, Chris saw.

“If you knew somebody planned it, maybe you'll tell me who it was—now that the cattle are dead. About six thousand dollars worth of beef, if you'll allow me to mention it.”

Chris told them then of how pure chance, the result of his argument with Kate Hardison over the truth of Miles' story, took them to Briggs' place, and of Yordy's subsequent confession. He told also of the inconclusive fight last night, and the reasons for his wanting to leave the beef, guarded by Leach, in the canyon, so as hot to alarm Miles and risk missing him. His reasons for each move still seemed sound to him as he talked, although he did not take the trouble to justify himself.

When he had finished, Della said, “So, Younger Miles did it?”

“Not if Leach was right about the time. It was Yordy.”

“Ah,” Della said, with a small malice. “You didn't think of Yordy, did you, while you were watching Miles?”

“He put Leach there, didn't he?” Andy asked softly.

Temper flared in Della's violet eyes now as she looked at Andy, and he received her look placidly, his eyes steady.

Della's glance shifted to Chris, and he said gently, then, “Mother was right, wasn't she, Della?”

For a moment he thought Della was going to pretend ignorance of his meaning, and then she nodded slowly. “Yes, mother was right about you. You're not our stripe, are you?”

Chris shook his head in negation.

“The day I hired you, I told you Box H was all mother and I had, and that you had to put it first.”

“And I did.”

“Do you call it putting us first when you lost us six thousand dollars just so you could prove your point about Younger?”

“Leach was there,” Andy repeated stubbornly.

“Stop saying that, Andy!” Della said sharply. “It wasn't Leach's fault.”

“It was, too,” Andy said, unruffled. “Seems to me you're sorry for your bargain, so you're blamin' Chris.”

“Why shouldn't I be sorry?” Della demanded hotly. “All he's brought us is trouble.”

“And Thessaly Canyon,” Chris said dryly. “Your cattle are there. Tip Henry's quit the country, and his homestead's void. You've got your old range.”

Della only shook her head, her face sullen and determined. Nobody spoke. Chris noticed in the silence that day was here. The lamp burned brightly on the table and nobody made a move to blow it out.

Chris said then, “You want me to go, Della?”

“Yes. I wish you'd go away. I wish you'd never come. Maybe when you're gone, Leach and Andy and I can figure some way to pay off that note without the beef money. We can't with you here.”

Andy stood up now. “You and Leach, maybe, but not me.”

“Just as you like,” Della said, coldly. “All you've got to do to quit is walk in and ask Truscott for your time.”

“Yes, ma'm,” Andy said.

Chris turned and went out now, into the morning, and Andy followed him. Under the big cottonwood, Chris halted and Andy halted too, looking at him expectantly.