Fight for Powder Valley! (10 page)

“I'll try to have a talk with that feller tomorrow. Maybe I can make him see sense. I'll … I'll see that he has enough money to go on with, Sally. But I've
got
to get him out of there. If we let one settle … more'll settle alongside 'em. And right now the boys in town are blaming me for this afternoon. They'll be saying I tricked them, Sally.”

Sally sat with her chin in her palms, staring into the fire while Pat paced up and down restlessly. She tried to think things out, but there wasn't any simple answer. It was all wrong. That was all she knew. There was no reason why the Hartsells and the Stevenses should be enemies. There was room enough in the West for everybody without trampling on each other's toes. Why had peaceful Powder Valley been singled out for this tragedy?

She couldn't get the thought of the Hartsells out of her mind. Why hadn't she invited them to come to the ranch for at least tonight? Then she and Pat could have talked to them, pointed out how impossible it was.

But it wasn't only the Hartsells. She knew they were only the vanguard of hundreds like them who would soon be swarming into the valley. Gaunt men and faded women. Undernourished children. Pat was right. For their
own
sakes, they must not be allowed to settle in the unproductive mountain valley. The ranchers would never allow the dam and irrigation ditches to be built. That was a foregone conclusion. Winter would come and the miserable immigrants would never survive the snows and bitter cold. The merciful thing would be to drive them out now—

Sally's thoughts were interrupted by the strident sound of bootheels thudding up the walk outside. She jerked her head aside and saw Pat going to the door.

He opened it to admit one of the cowboys who worked on the Lazy Mare. In an excited voice, he panted:

“Thought you'd wanta know, Pat. They're fixin' to burn them pilgrims out tonight. I rode like a bat outta hell from town. They ain't meanin' to tell you 'cause Miz Stevens bought 'em groceries this afternoon an' they figger you've turned on 'em. I knowed that weren't so an' I thought you'd wanta get in on it.”

Pat rapped out, “Thanks.” He shoved the puncher toward the door. “Saddle me a hawse.” He whirled and trotted for the bedroom before Sally could get to her feet.

She intercepted him when he came out buckling on his guns.

She clung to him and cried, “Pat! You're not going to.…”

He shoved her aside. His face was lined and impassive. He reminded her sharply, “You brought this on, Sally. If you hadn't interfered this afternoon the boys wouldn't have been driven to do this.”

She ran after him as he stalked toward the door, tried to pull him back. “Pat! Please don't do it. I can't stand it …”

Pat went out into the night darkness without looking back. Sally leaned against the door and each thud of a bootheel on the walk vibrated through her as though Pat were walking on her heart. She heard the creak of saddle leather, and the shod hoofs of two horses leaping away at a gallop. She shut the door on the sound and went back to stare into the dancing flames and try not to think about what was happening down by the creek where an innocent family was spending its first night in Powder Valley.

8

There was no moon overhead, but brilliant starlight lay on the road south from the Lazy Mare ranch. Pat Stevens sat erect in the saddle, spurring his horse on, staring straight ahead over the silvered sweep of sage, so peaceful and seemingly so remote from violence.

But Pat knew the temper of his Valley neighbors, understood the seething anger that had been aroused in Dutch Springs that afternoon by his wife. He knew they were calling him a traitor tonight, that they were blaming him for the fact that the Hartsells had settled on the creek.

He couldn't blame them for that. He had forced them to listen to him these last few weeks, had averted an open outbreak between ranchers and employees of the land company by urging them to meet the situation by legal means instead of going outside the law.

Well, they had listened to him. For years the counsel of Pat Stevens had carried a lot of weight in Powder Valley. They had been willing to wait, to see if the hoe-men could be discouraged from settling by refusing to sell them the necessities of life from the only local store.

It had looked like a good idea, but that bubble was exploded now. They weren't willing to wait any longer, and a bloody civil war was certain to result from tonight's raid. The threat of martial law hung over Powder Valley, the promise that troops would be brought in if the local sheriff was unable to enforce the law.

In short, there was going to be hell to pay.

This was what Pat had been desperately striving to avoid—and this was what he and Sally had brought on the peaceful Valley by her impulsive action in Dutch Springs.

Pat's thoughts were all mixed up as he thundered down the starlit road to meet the advancing group of men. It was the first time in his life he had ever hesitated to take direct action to achieve an end he believed to be right. But always before there had been a clean-cut line between what was right and what was wrong. Now there was no such line.

Certainly the Hartsells were not wrong. They were innocent victims, to be pitied rather than ridden against. And against the arguments of his fellow ranchers, Pat could feel no real anger against the engineer and his men. They were merely doing a job they were hired to do.

The only real enemies of the valley were the men who stood behind the scenes and pulled the strings: the officials of the land company who had tricked the ranchers out of their holdings and who were now tricking poor devils like Joe Hartsell out of their lives' savings.

And they couldn't be touched. They were sitting secure behind mahogany desks in Denver, protected by the law while they exploited rancher and farmer alike. It made no difference to them how much blood flowed in Powder Valley—how many families like the Hartsells were burned out in the night. Their profits continued to flow in, no matter what happened in Powder Valley.

Hot anger against those higher-ups of the land company seethed through Pat Stevens as he spurred on through the night to meet his friends and neighbors who had turned against him. He had hated many men in the past, but never as he now hated Jud Biloff. He had met other men with flaming guns and shot them down with cold ruthlessness, but they had been
men
. They had taken their chances and received pay-men for their folly in hot lead. The president of the land company was in a different category. Jud Biloff was taking no chances with his own precious hide. A thousand men might die because of his scheming; mothers and children might starve or perish miserably from the cold—but none of that could touch Jud Biloff.

A special hell should be created for men like Biloff, Pat told himself as he pounded on, and his seething thoughts planned how he might personally arrange such a hell for the financier.

Abruptly, he saw a dark mass of mounted men riding down the road ahead of him. He was meeting them almost opposite the padlocked gate leading in to the Hartsell property. He reined up in front of the advancing raiders, a single figure facing twenty armed and determined night-riders.

The young cowboy galloped up happily from behind him. “Got here just in time,” he exulted. “I shore wouldn't of missed this for nothin'. An' I knew you'd wanta be in on it, too, Pat. I told 'em they was crazy as coots when they talked around town about you throwin' in with the plow-hands.”

Pat said, “Get away from me, kid, if you want to stay clear of trouble.” The advancing riders were close, less than a hundred yards distant. They were riding at a slow trot that was more ominous in its grim purposefulness than a wild gallop would have been.

“What yuh mean?” the puncher demanded, gaping at his boss. “I got a right to be in on the fun.”

“Fun, hell!” retorted Pat. “I'm warning you … don't stay too close.” He rose in his stirrups and challenged the mass of riders, “Who's that … headed where?”

Above the jangle of spurs and thud of hoofs, he heard voices growling, “That's Pat. Yeh … Stevens. Lookin' fer trouble, mebbe …” They slowed in front of him and John Boyd's voice came clearly above the muttering:

“I reckon you know who we are and where we're headed, Pat. You throwin' in with us?”

“To burn out a woman and her kids?” There was hot scorn in Pat's reply.

“To run them damn homesteaders out,” a rough voice bawled above Boyd's. “Them that you an' yore wife coddled in town.”

“I know you, Jim Farrelly.” Pat dropped a hand to his gun. “You're full of rot-gut whisky or you wouldn't be talkin' thataway.”

“He's settin' hisself ag'in us,” Farrelly shouted. “We've listened to Pat Stevens long enough, fellers. What are we waitin' fer? Who's got them wire cutters?”

“First man cuts a strand of that fence gets dropped.” Pat's voice cut through the night incisively. He drew a gun, hunched forward in the saddle. “You boys know me,” he pleaded.

“Shore, we know you. Too dang well.” Half a dozen voices were lifted angrily. John Boyd spurred his horse forward between them and Pat.

“Don't do it, Pat.” The older rancher's face was resolute in the illusive light. “We got our minds made up. We listened to you before, but now we're
doing
something.”

“You must be proud of yourselves,” Pat jeered. “Twenty of you to burn out one nester. Don't be
fools
. Those are innocent people. They're asleep down yonder.” He waved his arm toward the creek where the dying embers of a campfire glowed in the night. “It's murder, John. You know it is.”

“Murder or not, that's the way it's got to be.” John Boyd spoke with the fervor of deep conviction. “You can't stop us, Pat. No use you gettin' killed tryin'.”

“I'd rather be killed tryin' than keep on living knowin' I
didn't
try. They'll send troops in here, John …”

An ominous murmur from behind Boyd greeted Pat's words. “Let 'em try it!
We'll
take keer of the troops. This is Powder Valley, b'God.
We'll
run things here.”

“Don't you see how it'll be, John? Some of those men behind you are shootin' drunk. It won't end with burning the 'steaders out. There'll be killin'. And there's women and children down there.”

“
We
got women an' childern too,” Jim Farrelly shouted. He spurred forward beside John Boyd drunkenly waving a gun. “We cain't trust you no longer, Pat. If you wanta hunk of lead …”

Pat drove his rowels into his horse's side. The animal lunged forward against Farrelly's mount and Pat slammed the barrel of his .45 against the drunken rancher's chin. Farrelly slid sideways out of the saddle to the ground.

Pat rasped out of the side of his mouth to Boyd, “You got to stand by me, John. You've
got
to.”

The loud thunder of hoofs down the road from town interrupted his friend's reply. Pat rode forward into the closepacked bunch of men, his eyes blazing. “If that's the sheriff or some of his deputies, let me handle 'em.
Don't do any shooting
. You can settle with me afterward.”

He holstered his gun and pushed his horse on through the ranks of grumbling men who were upset and uncertain in the face of this new development.

There were only two riders coming from town, driving their mounts to the limit of their speed. Pat rode twenty paces to meet them, then reined up suddenly. Even in the faint moonlight he recognized the huge man with his small companion. He turned his horse across the road and shouted. “Ezra! Sam! Pull up.”

The riders pulled up in front of him and Ezra's voice boomed out happily, “By Gawd, if 'tain't Pat Stevens! We knowed that talk in town was crazy an' thet you'd be Johnny-on-the-spot fer a job like this.”

Between his teeth, Pat bit out, “Shut up your big mouth, Ezra. You an' Sam are just in time to back me up an' send these fellows high-tailing it.”

“What's that?” Sam barked out. “What kinda talk is that, Pat?”

“It's the only sensible talk going on around here,” Pat raged. “C'mon and get in front of these rannies. They'll think twice before trying to jump our three guns.”

He whirled his horse off the road to get between the raiding party and the land-company fence. From long habit of accepting orders from Pat Stevens, Sam and Ezra rode with him.

As the trio lined up facing the mob, Pat warned, “There's three of us now. Three of the fastest guns in Powder Valley. Anybody hankerin' to do suicide to themselves?”

“Is that right, Sam?” an incredulous rancher cried. “You an' Ezra throwin' in with Pat ag'in us?”

“I reckon so,” Sam mumbled defensively. “Reckon he's right when you think it over. He mos' gen'ally is.”

Taking advantage of the indecision of the group, Pat spoke crisply, “You'll all hang on a murder charge if you don't cool down an' call this raiding party off. Don't you see that's just what the land company wants? They're waiting for an excuse to put Powder Valley under martial law. You all know that. We lose the fight right now if we give them that excuse.”

“He's right, boys.” John Boyd rode forward and aligned himself with Pat, Sam and Ezra. “We jumped into this without thinkin'. Too much whisky an' too much loose talk.”

“What do you aim tuh do? Leave them damn nesters camped there?”

“For the time being, yes,” Pat snapped. “They're innocent victims just like we are. A man named Biloff is to blame … not these poor people from Kansas.”

“By golly, Pat's right … Yeh, but that ain't no answer … what are we gonna
do?
”

Pat stilled the loud tumult by shouting, “I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going after the one man that brought this whole mess on our heads. Jud Biloff. He's the one we've got to deal with.”