Guns Of the Timberlands (1955) (17 page)

And all because of one man.

He looked up from his desk. "All right," Devitt said, "I'll make it five thousand dollars if he is dead before sundown tomorrow."

"No."

Jack Kilbum shifted his feet and Stag looked at him. Kilburn spread his hands, and Harvey knew what he meant. They were broke.

"Five thousand." Devitt repeated the sum. "I have it here."

Stag Harvey looked down at his hands. He had never deliberately gone in for killing. Fighting, yes. Yet he had always known, he realized now, that it would end this way. That if he continued to use a gun he would end by doing this. And Clay Bell was a good man.

A little chill struck him, remembering Bell. There was something about gunfighters, one always knew another.

"Half of it now," he said. "On the line."

"All right. The other half when the job is done."

Devitt opened his safe and took out a sheaf of bills. He counted them out on the desk-top.

"Don't worry about the rest. I'll pay it."

Jack Kilbum looked up at Devitt and something inside Jud turned over slowly, sickeningly.

"We ain't worried, Devitt. We'll collect."

Stag Harvey got to his feet and Kilburn followed suit. "Have the rest of it on you, Devitt. We'll want it fast."

Outside, they walked away from the house before they paused.

"Wonder if he knows what'll happen to him when Bell is killed?"

"No," Kilburn said thoughtfully, "I don't think he's thought about that."

"Simmons is dead."

"But Devitt don't read the sign."

They walked down to the main street, then stopped again. "We'd better get some sleep, Jack. I don't like this. Not a bit."

Jud Devitt sat alone behind his desk. For a moment he stared down at his hands with a feeling of something like revulsion. All the details of the last few minutes seemed dreamlike and unreal. He had actually bought a man's death. Legally, he was a murderer.

But this was war . . . it was a war in which all the rules were changed. It was not in Jud Devitt to go in for self-analysis, nor to realize that this was a war of his own making, a war which he had declared and in which he had opened hostilities. He was a man who meant to win. The admired man was the go-getter, the man who did things. Devitt was not one to stop to consider the rights and wrongs of what he did, nor to realize there is a fine line one may not cross.

The feeling of doubt and revulsion passed. Bell had his grazing permit, but tomorrow that permit would be revoked by his death. He had no heirs. Within a brief time the hands who worked for Bell would drift away, the land would lie idle, and he could walk in and take over.

What had become of Tripp? Suddenly irritable, he wanted his labor foreman, but the man was not around. Angrily, he looked at his watch, and for the first time realized that he had sat up most of the night. It would be morning soon.

He heard voices, someone passing in the street. He paused by the window, his light out, listening.

When he turned away he walked to his cot and pulled off his boots. Then for a long time he sat there. Shorty Jones had killed Pete Simmons--two shots centered in his shirt pocket at a distance of thirty feet.

Chapter
17

Daylight was streaming in the window when Clay Bell awakened. For a long time he lay still, assembling his thoughts and putting the pieces of the picture in their places.

Simmons was dead. Shorty Jones had hunted down the man who had crippled Bert Garry and caused the young cowboy's death.

Simmons had mistaken the heavy post near which Jones stood for the puncher himself. A few of the buckshot had clipped Shorty, but a scratched cheek and arm were his only injuries.

This morning there were few lumberjacks around, and most of them were silent and kept in tight groups. The boisterous talk and rough horse-play of the past days was missing.

Those who had been started from the trail to Emigrant Gap in their sock feet had not returned to Tinkersville. Several others had left by the early train, Bob Tripp and Williams among them.

Yet there was a noticeable tension in the town. Looking from the second-story hotel window, Bell could sense it in the way people moved, in the very quiet of the town. Men had been killed, and there might be more killing yet to come. Tinkersville was unsure and was taking no chances.

Clay splashed water on his chest and shoulders, and combed his hair. When he was dressed, he brushed his boots carefully, then checked his guns. He swung the belts around his hips, and settled the guns in their places.

He felt a curious reluctance to leave his room, and was puzzled by it. Finally, he opened the door and stepped out into the hall. A careful man always, he stopped there and looked up and down the corridor. The doors were closed. There was no sign of movement. At the head of the stairs he hesitated and turned and looked back down the hall again. Then he descended, casually, but with eyes alert. Jud Devitt was still in town, and Jud could be dangerous.

He had seen no sign of Morton Schwabe. Tibbott's arrival and his broadcasting of the news that Bell had won his grazing permit would probably stop any move that Schwabe might make. But remembering Kesterson's story of Schwabe buying shells, it was not a good idea to gamble. Ed Miller looked up from his inevitable ledger. "You're late," he said grinning. "She's already gone in."

Clay walked past the desk and into the dining room. Judge Riley was there, talking with Sam Tinker. Kesterson sat near by, and alone. There was no sign of either Devitt or Noble Wheeler. Colleen sat at a table alone and, after hanging up his hat, Clay sat down across from her.

She was pale this morning and her eyes seemed unnaturally large.

"You're up early," he said. "I couldn't sleep--and then those shots."

"It was Shorty."

"I know. Father went down."

They were silent, waiting until the waitress had cleared away dishes left by Judge Riley and brought coffee to Clay.

"Is it over now?"

He shook his head. "You know it isn't. It won't be until Jud leaves town."

"Maybe if I went to see him?"

"Don't go. Nothing will make him leave until he makes up his own mind. But most of his crowd are gone." He tried his coffee. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Please do." She looked up suddenly. "Clay, why don't you go back to the ranch? He won't be here long, and if you stay, there'll be trouble."

"I can't run away from a fight."

Her father had told her this. Masculine pride . . . but something more. A man must be respected by those of his community, and in this country, where fighting courage and skill were respected social virtues, he could not leave. Too long had these people lived by the gun. These men and women had crossed the plains, they had fought Indians and outlaws, and they had built homes where it took strength to build and courage to fight--and the willingness to fight was still a social virtue of the first order. The town was not yet tame.

All those in the dining room were talking about the events of the night. Colleen sat quietly, watching Clay eat. A month ago she would have been horrified at things she now accepted.

This man had killed men. He was fighting a war just as deadly as any war with flags and uniforms, and a war that must be won. Remembering the hours she had sat with Bert Garry, she knew they had been good hours for her. Bert had been conscious and aware much of the time. He had talked and she had listened; she had heard his slow stories of the work on the B-Bar, how good Clay was to work for, how patiently he built his herds, how solidly he planned.

Now Bert Garry was dead, and the man who had actually killed him was dead. But the man responsible was still alive and still in town.

She felt curiously drawn to this tall, quiet young man across the table. Time and again she had tried to understand it, but her feelings defied analysis. When she was with him she felt right. When she was away from him she thought of their brief minutes together and wondered when she would see him again. From the first there had been an unspoken understanding.

Shorty Jones came in. She heard the door close and looked around, following Clay's quick glance. Shorty wore a sun-faded checked shirt and jeans. He had his gun tied down. His broad face was red from the sun, and his corn-silk brows shadowed his eyes. He walked quickly to the table and stopped, hat in hand.

"Clay, I got to talk to you."

"Is there trouble at the Gap?"

"Not now--that bunch that jumped the ranch are gone. Buck Chalmers came in few minutes back. Told me they got themselves a ride toward Tucson with some freighters."

"Had breakfast?"

"Sure." Shorty hesitated, not certain how to say what he had in mind.

"Boss," he said suddenly, "after that Simmons shootin' I scouted around some, huntin' for Duval. He must've gone to the Gap with that crowd because I didn't find him. But I saw somethin' else."

"What?"

"I saw Stag Harvey and Jack Kilbum comin' out of Jud Devitt's office at two in the mornin'. They had a lot of money they were splittin'."

So there it was.

All along Clay had feared this would happen. Devitt was a man who did not know how to lose, he could not bear to lose. Now, driven into a corner, he was buying a killing. Yet how far a step was that from the beating Simmons and Duval had given Bert Garry?

"Shorty, how about you sitting down over there with a cup of coffee? Sort of keep your eyes open?"

Shorty nodded assent and moved to the seat from which the approach to the hotel could be watched.

Colleen put her hand over Clay's. "Clay . . . what is it? What does it mean?"

Harvey and Kilbum might be sure-thing operators but not dry-gulchers. They would meet him in the street or out on the plains, but it would be a man-to-man operation with an even break all around--as much as one man could get from two. At least, he would see who was shooting and he would have his chance to shoot back. But these men were past-masters of guncraft. They would choose the time, and they would arrange the situation to put him in a tactically bad position.

"I've been told about those men, Clay. What does it mean? You can tell me."

He looked up from his plate and directly at her. "Yes, Colleen, I think I can tell you. I think I can tell you anything. I think you're a woman who would walk beside a man. I think you've got nerve."

He took a swallow of coffee, then put down his cup. "Harvey and Kilbum hire their guns. They are tough, dangerous men. Harvey and me have always sort of walked circles around each other. Kilburn, he don't like me much. But they fight as a team."

"You think Jud hired them--to kill you?"

"Would he?"

She sat very still, measuring what she knew of the man. His quick, hard decisions, his ruthlessness, his arrogant resentment of failure. He had a love of doing big jobs quickly, a love of winning. Victory to him was a compelling necessity.

It must have seemed a very simple thing to a man of his ability and his confidence to come into a town like Tinkersville and log off the Deep Creek range. It was a much smaller job than many he had undertaken, and one that must have seemed to offer no obstacles. He had been brusque and confident and sure . . . and then he had met defeat at every point.

Clay Bell had not been frightened by his usual aggressive tactics. He had not been bluffed, and he had met Jud Devitt's attempts at every point and had beaten him. Devitt's effort to frighten the B-Bar by having two of their men beaten had backfired. It had not left them short-handed enough, and it had not stopped them.

She remembered Jud Devitt from back east. Well-dressed, confident, very sure of himself and disdainful of others. He had seemed a big man there, a man who got things done, the sort of a man whom everyone admired. Girls had envied her, for beside him their men seemed insipid and tame.

In the days that followed her arrival in Tinkersville she had seen his brusque confidence take a rude shock. She had seen hard lines at the comers of his mouth, had seen him irritable and even brutal. She had seen the true nature of the man emerge. He was a man thoughtless of others, despising all but himself, riding roughshod over personalities and feelings.

She looked up at Clay.

"Yes, Clay, I believe he would. He can't take defeat. He isn't big enough. He can't even admit it." She hesitated, suddenly aware of the sensitiveness of the man she faced, of his thoughtfulness, of. . .

"Clay, what will you do?"

"Why," he made up his mind even as he replied, "I'll go see Stag and ask him about it."

She started to protest and he grinned at her suddenly. "Now don't start acting like a wife!"

Something inside her seemed to catch and hold itself very still. She seemed suddenly short of breath, and she looked up at him and for a long moment their eyes held across the table.

"Save it," he said quietly, "for other times, later. I've been thinking about that, you know."

"So have I."

Had she? Suddenly she knew it had been there, between them, every second of the time. Even when they were not together.