Guns Of the Timberlands (1955) (14 page)

"Is your father at the hotel?"

"Yes, but be careful. The saloon is filled with lumberjacks."

He watched her go into the house, then turned abruptly and went back down the street. As he walked, his eyes and ears alert for trouble, he thought of what he planned. It looked good, it looked very good.

Judge Riley sat over coffee and cigars with Sam Tinker in the hotel dining room. Clay stepped into the door and looked quickly around. There was no one else in sight. Loud voices came from the saloon beyond the swinging doors that divided it from the lobby. Clay crossed the lobby, entered the dining room and joined the two men at the table.

"Judge, you've issued an injunction that will allow Devitt to use the old stage road, is that right? Until this case is settled?" Riley nodded, waiting.

"All right, that's fair enough. Now I want an injunction forbidding any cutting of timber until the case is settled. This injunction should also deny any camping along the road."

"You believe he would begin cutting before the government has made a ruling?"

"Don't you?"

Tinker hitched himself around in his chair and spoke. "He could have his timber cut before any ruling was passed down. Fact is, he has a man, name of Chase, acting for him in Washington. He could block any settlement of the case, then he could pay a modest sum in damages if the ruling went against him."

"And I'd have lost my grazing when I need it most." Riley tasted his coffee. It was too hot. He put the cup down carefully and considered the question. Knowing Jud Devitt, he realized the man had no intentions of waiting for any final decision. He could not afford to wait. Yet if he gave Bell the injunction he wanted, Devitt would be furious. He would do all he could to break the judge. And he was an old man with a daughter to consider.

Then he smiled thoughtfully. It was too easy to judge a case by self-interest. Too easy, and wrong. What Clay Bell asked was reasonable and right. It would prevent Devitt from cutting timber he had no right to cut, anyway.

It was Sam Tinker who decided him. "Might prevent bloodshed," Sam said, stoking his pipe. "Schwabe would attempt to enforce that injunction for Devitt. This new move would stop them cold. Schwabe would kill Clay if he could do it under cover of the law--but he would not go against the law itself. I'll gamble on it."

Judge Riley tried his coffee again. It was black, hot, and strong. He drank, then put down his cup. "I'll grant your injunction. I'll issue it tonight."

"Good!" Clay came to his feet. Then he hesitated for a moment. "Judge, when this is over, I'd like your permission to speak to your daughter."

Judge Riley looked up sharply. He measured the man before him, the strong, clean-cut features, the bronzed face and the quiet eyes. Yes--yes, of course.

He nodded, "Young man, you've my permission, for what it's worth. Colleen has been taught to make her own decisions."

"Thank you, sir."

Clay Bell turned and went out. Riley stared after him. "These young people! I--Sam, you make your coffee too blasted hot!"

Stag Harvey was loafing on the steps when Bell came out. Clay paused, studying him.

"Still around, Stag?"

The man's slow smile was noncommittal. "Yeah, still here."

"You might as well drift. This trouble's over."

"Don't make any bets."

Jack Kilburn came out of the saloon. "Stag--we got business."

Harvey turned away. " 'By, Clay. Be seein' you!"

Bell watched them go, then turned toward his horse. All he wanted now was to get out of town. Riley would issue his injunction, and Schwabe, bully though he was, would be up against a stacked deck. They would allow free passage, and to avoid trouble, he, Clay Bell, would remain carefully out of sight. Then Schwabe would have to protect the trees himself. He wouldn't like it, but he would do it. Schwabe might be many things, but he had a wholesome respect for the law.

Boot heels sounded on the walk, and Bell drew back into a doorway. A fast-walking man was coming toward him. And the man was angry. He could tell by the sound of those heels.

He stood very still and watched the man pass. It was Jud Devitt. Had he reached out a hand he could have touched him.

Unknown to Bell, Jud Devitt had just had the final blow administered to his ego. He had been told, not too gently, where he could go. Told by a blonde named Randy Ashton, a blonde whom Devitt had invited to Tinkersville and who he believed would prove sufficiently pliable and willing. Faced with an abrupt ultimatum she had proved anything but easy, and had, with considerable dignity, ordered him to leave. As he turned away a rider had dismounted at the door.

Angry words flooded to Devitt's lips and he turned abruptly, jerking open the door. Before he could get out a word, a soft voice, yet one edged with a chill quality he did not mistake, said, "You was just leavin', wasn't you?"

The tall young man was a blond cowhand, the one who had grinned so impudently the day in the street when Bell laid down his quiet challenge. Beside himself with fury, Devitt was about to speak, and then he saw there was no impudence in the cowpuncher's eyes, and that the man's hand rested on the butt of his gun.

Without a word, Devitt turned and went down the steps. He did not glance back, but he knew the man was waiting there, making sure that he left. Filled with fury and humiliation, Jud Devitt was in no condition to notice anyone. He walked past Clay Bell and headed for the Tinker House.

Almost at the hotel a man stepped from the shadows. He stepped directly into Devitt's path.

"Mr. Devitt? Maybe we could talk business now."

Clay Bell saw the man, and he heard the words. But he did not recognize the man, who stood in partial darkness, nor did he recognize the voice.

Devitt's voice came, after momentary hesitation. "Yes, come along."

Bell walked to his horse and stepped into the leather. It was time he returned to the ranch, but he sat there, the thoughts churning in his head. He had measured the anger and fury in Devitt just now, and he knew the man in this frame of mind was capable of any sort of violence. He couldn't stop Devitt from getting on his land, for the injunction had already been processed. But his move to stop Devitt from logging until the courts decided the issue was an effective legal counteraction. The only thing, Clay knew, was that when Devitt found out about it anything might happen.

It struck him that it would be better to be right here on the spot when Devitt found out about it. Maybe the whole thing could be settled one way or another, right then. The thought of spending the night in the hotel didn't appeal to him, but Hank was out at the ranch, and that was good enough for Clay.

He turned his horse and headed for the livery, feeling a lift of spirit. His mood would have been less agreeable if he had recognized the man who had stopped Devitt.

It was Jack Kilburn.

Chapter
14

The events leading up to that night had been not un usual, and there was about them nothing not to have been expected in the normal course of human relations. Their importance was due to the time of their happening, only indirectly to the events themselves. They were, in many respects, a culmination. Of all those concerned, the one most aware of what was happening was the man only indirectly concerned, Sam Tinker.

Jud Devitt was a man with an eye for a well upholstered blonde, and he had seen Randy Ashton singing in a dance hall. Randy, he had been advised, was hard to get. Jud had permitted himself a smile, and nothing that happened immediately thereafter had caused him reason to doubt the thought behind the smile. He was not the first man to misunderstand the workings of the feminine mind. He had his motives. Randy Ashton had hers.

Jud Devitt was a handsome man with plenty of money. Randy was entertaining in Julesberg. They had talked one evening and Randy had been tempting but evasive. Randy was a girl who knew what she had and knew where it was wanted, yet underneath the glittering appearance and the apparently compliant manner was a girl who had grown up on a cow ranch. The daughter of a rancher and the sister of cowhands, a girl who could cook a meal as good as any man might wish to eat, a girl who could, when necessary, handle a six-horse team or rope a steer, and who had, at twelve, loaded guns for her father and brothers during an Indian attack on their homestead.

Unsuccessful on that attempt the Indians had caught her father halfway to town and left him without his hair. Her brother Ben had been going over the trail to Wyoming when the herd took off in a stampede, and his friends buried what was left of him on the banks of the Platte. Pete, a husky lad and the sole support of his sister, lost a running argument with Apaches and left Randy with no relatives, no money, and no prospects.

One thing she knew how to do. She could sing. All her family had been singers and she had grown up singing the Scotch and Irish folk songs that were the heritage of her people. The songs of the East came west with its people and she had learned those, and so when Pete was killed, Randy began singing. Later she learned to dance. She had always known how to handle men.

Julesberg's boom slowed to a walk, and Jud, not yet aware that his fiancee was to accompany her father to Tinkersville, had written her suggesting she come on and join him. The letter had been sufficiently ambiguous to imply a lot of things, and his intentions seemed serious.

Not long after her arrival she discovered his intentions were serious enough, but not exactly what she had expected. She had to admit they had not been entirely unsuspected, either.

Yet a climax had been postponed, due to the sudden turn of events for Jud Devitt. Colleen had arrived with her father and the Deep Creek timber had not fallen easily into his hands.

In the meantime, Randy had seen Bill Coffin, just as he had seen her.

Randy made discreet inquiries of Kesterson as to who Bill Coffin was, and Kesterson, dryly but not without understanding, had told her. And the storekeeper, of whom no one suspected a sense of humor, was fully aware of Bill's weakness for jokes, and appreciated them. So the report on Bill Coffin had not been lacking in color.

Later, when Bill met Randy, he proceeded to give even more glowing and picturesque accounts of himself, and, coupled with wavy hair and an engaging grin, they had their effect.

Randy Ashton was a girl who looked as if bom to a dance hall, but she was a girl whose heart only beat in tune to cotton print and kitchens. She had grown up with cowhands, and Bill Coffin was a cowhand.

Jilted by his fiancee, at least temporarily, Jud Devitt remembered the blonde. He beat a path to her door and was received politely, but his suggestions fell upon ears apparently deaf. A more direct suggestion met with a quiet refusal and the pointed implication that he would find the air agreeable.

This unexpected stubbornness where he had expected compliance had been the final straw. He burst out into the night only to see Bill Coffin dismounting. Their brief encounter had sent him away a poor second, and he could imagine them laughing at him. As a matter of fact, neither had given him another thought.

It was late when Bill Coffin left Randy. He stepped into the saddle and rode slowly down the street. Shorty was around town. They had best get together and start back for the ranch.

Drawing up before the Homestake, Coffin leaned forward and peered into the window. There was no sign of Shorty. The place was crowded with lumberjacks. Nor was there a B-Bar horse tied at Doc McClean's.

Coffin swung down and checked with the doctor. Garry was restless and had a bad fever. It was better not to disturb him. Shorty Jones had come and gone hours ago. So had Clay.

Stepping back into the saddle, Bill Coffin soft-footed his horse down the street, keeping to the shadows. Clay Bell was in town, and that meant that Rooney was alone at Emigrant Gap! Unless Shorty had started back, and Bill doubted that Shorty would go back without him.

A lumberjack came from the stable leading several teams. He walked with them to the watering trough. Bill Coffin, suddenly alert, waited in the shadows. More lumberjacks came from the stable, all carrying rifles. Other men were already gathering around three wagons.

Bill turned his horse. No time to look for Shorty now. He walked his horse down an alleyway, eased around the livery stable corral, and rode between two haystacks and into the cottonwoods along the creek. The night was cool and there was a faint smell of woodsmoke. He reached the desert and started his horse on a lope for the Gap. Then, changing his mind suddenly, he turned his horse and started across the desert toward Piety Mountain. The cool wind fanned his cheeks and he rode swiftly, holding his horse to a steady pace, weaving among clumps of grease-wood and racing by the looming shadows of mesquite. The trail up Piety was heavy going.

Stacked high on Piety was the dry wood of the signal fire that would bring in the guards and the men riding with the cattle. With Rooney, Rush Jackson, and Montana Brown--He chuckled. They could come! They could come and stand ten deep all across the Pass!

A half-hour later, even as the rumbling wagons rolled out of town, he was dropping to his knees beside the stack of wood. He brushed dried leaves together, a bit more dry grass, then placed a lighted match. Flame caught and curled, smoke lifted, then the tongues of the flame lapped at the dry branches, twisting hungrily about the cedar and the pine. They leaped, caught, crackled. . .