Guns Of the Timberlands (1955) (3 page)

"Don't worry," Devitt replied confidently. "Frank Chase is in Washington now. He'll handle that end. Our job is cutting timber." He smiled. "We may have the place logged off before he gets it fixed, but who's to stop us? This is an age, Bob, when the strong man gets what he goes after. This country likes enterprise! It was made for it! A man never gets rich standing still. Plan carefully, then go ahead and let nothing stand in your way."

Bob Tripp did not reply. Jud Devitt got things done, and they were things somebody had to do. Bob Tripp was the man who could get them done for him, and he liked the doing. Nevertheless, being a small man himself, he sometimes had his moments of doubt. To make one man big, many good men had to fall . . . How would he feel about it if he was one of those under the axe?

"Paid off so far, hasn't it?" Devitt asked, as if reading his thoughts. "No man has the right to stand in the way of progress."

"This here Bell," Tripp said tentatively, "I've heard some about him. Can't you buy him out?"

"Buy him out?" Devitt gave an incredulous laugh. "You must be getting old, Bob. When did we ever buy a man off government range? He'll get off peaceably or we'll run him off!"

He turned on his heel and started back to the hotel, leaving the buckboard for Tripp. That stand of fir was the finest in the state, and if all went well he would have it off the mountain before the government acted. There was no need to worry about that. Chase was his legal and political fixer, Chase understood how he operated, and Chase knew the right people and how to reach them. He would have the deal fixed up, but there was no use wasting time sitting around when there could be but one answer.

Of course, there had been a time, the Charleston Mountain affair, when Chase had failed. By the time Devitt knew of his failure the mountain was logged off and his men had moved on to another job. A little skillful placing of money had covered that up. They were too busy in Washington to investigate the claims every rancher made, but if a man had money and a little influence almost anything could be done.

The country was bursting with natural resources and the thing to do was get rich while they lasted. It was patriotic, in one sense. He was helping to build the country, and if he got rich in the process, wasn't that the American way? Or was it merely his own way?

A vague thought filtered into his mind that perhaps the natural resources of a nation were for the benefit of all, but he put the thought aside and went on down the street, planning as he walked.

This Bell, now. The man would fight, probably, not realizing how hopeless it was. He had twelve hands, and that would not be nearly enough. The Deep Creek range was wide and deep, and there must be a score of ways he could get into it and start cutting without trouble. In any event, he had fifty tough lumberjacks spoiling for trouble, and if need be he could get as many more.

He had taken time to check on Bell. The man had no cash resources. In fact, he owed money. If he made trouble, there would be more than one way to force him off his ranch.

Riley was here, and that was another asset. It always paid to have one's own judge. It was the first thing he had done--to have Judge Riley appointed Federal Judge in the district. If it came to a court fight, that gate was already closed.

He had talked to the R&R, too. The railroad was eager for the lumbering to start, for it would result in good business for them during a slack time. That was another thing he and Chase had handled. They had not talked to local people, but had gone to the head office, right to the top, in New York. The local people would have their orders to cooperate. If Bell gave him trouble he would see that he got no cars to ship his cattle.

Chewing his cigar, he went over the details again. He could find no loophole left open for Bell. The rancher had his tail in a crack. No getting around that.

He chuckled. Imagine the nerve of the fellow! Offering to fight him! At the time he had been angry, but now it amused him. Might be fun, at that. But it could wait.

Too tall--couldn't weigh over one-seventy. If Bell wanted it, he could have it.

He walked quickly along the street, scarcely noticing the people along the walk. There was a lot to do, but things were moving.

Wat Williams was still loafing on the street, and Jud saw his black eye. He stopped abruptly, and Williams explained, reluctantly.

Devitt was suddenly irritated. He did not care how much his men fought, but he wanted them to win. "Don't worry! You'll get another chance at him!"

"If you don't mind," Williams said mildly, "I've had mine. You can have him, or anybody else. Me, I'm satisfied!"

Jud Devitt brushed by him and went into the hotel dining room.

Clay Bell's B-Bar ranch lay in the open mouth of a lovely green valley that yawned widely into the flat that sloped up from the bottom where Tinker's Creek ambled placidly over the sand.

The ranch lay around a shoulder of the mountain from the town, and some miles away. It could not be seen from the town, but the green of the grass where the valley opened was plainly visible. The ranch buildings lay a good mile farther up the canyon on a long bench under the brow of the hills.

From the wide and deep veranda of the ranch house the view stretched away for miles, past the bed of Tinker's Creek and past the land that lay below the town. In late fall, winter, and spring, cattle could be grazed on those flatlands, but the number of acres per cow was too few, and without the excellent graze, water, and hay meadows of the upland valleys, no rancher could hope to succeed.

The timber of the Deep Creek country was excellent; it was virgin timber and there was little undergrowth. Not until it had been cut over would brush invade those woodland parks to crowd out the grass.

Clay Bell was grazing six thousand head of cattle, and of that number the greater part fed on the plateau behind the ridge. By carefully culling his herds and beefing the culls, he had built a fine mixed herd of white-face and shorthorn cattle, but his planning had exceeded his income and he had borrowed heavily, mortgaging his herds.

Another year would see him free of his indebtedness and ready to increase his herds and to drill some wells on the flatlands where the prospects of water were good. But as he rode homeward he was considering the situation that now existed due to the arrival of Jud Devitt.

The man had strength and force of character, he had the confidence born of victory, and Clay had seen the eagerness for battle manifest in the readiness with which Williams had attacked him. Devitt would have more money with which to fight, and more men.

Once he had scouted the Deep Creek range and knew what lay before him, Bell had gone into his ranching with care. Times were changing. New men were coming west and the land would not alwavs be free.

Two other men had preceded him, briefly, on Deep Creek. Chuck Bullwinkle had filed in a claim high up on the slopes of Piety Mountain above the creek. The creek itself flowed from a small cave on Bullwinkle's place, and Clay's first step had been to buy that claim. Chuck Bullwinkle was tired of the loneliness and sold his own claim and another he had bought from a former partner.

Later, Bell bought another claim that straddled an old wagon route through the ridge that spread out in two directions from Black Butte. This range of mountains formed the far wall of the Deep Creek valley, opposite Piety Mountain. The result of these purchases left him in sole possession of the only two passes giving access to the inner plateau. They also left him in possession of the principal source of water.

Yet he was worried now. Logging off of the mountain and plateau would ruin him. Even the process of logging would force him to move his cattle off the Deep Creek range and back to the parched flatlands. Once the trees were gone, the washing away of the topsoil would ruin the plateau and the valley for grazing. Encroaching brush would finish it for good.

If forced to sell now, he could sell nothing but his cattle. When his debts were paid and his hands paid off, he would have nothing left for six years of hard work and planning.

He had no intentions of selling, but it was like him to consider all the facets of his problem. That he was in for a knockdown and drag-out fight, he knew. A shrewd judge of men, he did not take Devitt lightly. Jud was a man accustomed to victory and a man who would stop at nothing to win.

Hank Rooney, Bell's foreman, was waiting for him.

"Got the boys out shoving them cows up from Stone Cup," Hank said. "What's happened?"

Briefly, and without hedging, Bell explained the situation. "It's war, Hank. Unless I miss my guess, it's a war to the death. He struck me as a tough, smart man."

"Well," Rooney spat, "things been sort of quiet, anyway. Will it be a shootin' war?"

"Later, maybe. First it will be a war of strategy. Maybe he's got it on me there. This won't be my kind of fight, to start."

Rooney considered that. He was a man pushing fifty, and no stranger to trouble. "You suppose he knows you've blocked the only two ways into this country?"

"Doubt it. We'll play a waiting game. He's got men that he's got to feed and house. First, we'll get some fat on our cows. We might have to sell some for fighting money."

Hank looked dourly down the valley. "Bill Coffin said he seen Stag Harvey and Jack Kilburn in town. You want to hire them boys?"

"Too much blood behind 'em, Hank. I don't want shooting if it can be avoided."

Hank prodded at a rock with his toe. He was a lean, tall man, looking older than his years. He had come west with a herd from Ogallala, and before that had punched cows in Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. He was a veteran of three sheep and cattle wars, and although by no means a gunman, he was a tough old puncher who knew how to fight.

"I say if they want fight, give it to 'em." He looked up. "What's next, then?"

"Fell some logs and build a barricade across The Notch. That's their best route to the plateau."

Hank Rooney spat. "Reckon he knows about The Notch? Makes a man figure some. How come he knowed about this place, anyway? Nobody's been around, no strangers, anyway."

"Somebody told him about this timber," Bell said. "It had to be a local man. But even the local men don't know I filed on this land. At least, I don't think they know. I rode all the way to the capital to file, and I doubt if there are four cattlemen in the state who have actually filed on or bought land. They merely squatted and started to run cows, claiming the land by living on it."

Bell stripped the saddle from his mount. "I'd like to know who tipped him off. Have we got enemies, Hank?"

"Schwabe don't cotton to us much. And it's a cinch Devitt didn't fall into this by accident. It looks like he came all primed to strip the logs off this range. Wonder if he's made a deal with the government?"

Clay Bell walked to the veranda and sat down. He built a smoke while mentally reviewing the approaches to Deep Creek. The only two routes belonged to him. For a time he could deny access to the inner valley. But if Devitt acquired a right from the government he could not legally refuse right of way across his ranch.

He must think of everything first, to be ready, then sit tight and let Devitt make the first move. When he started there would be time enough to stop him. If he wanted to play rough--well, there was no man among the dozen employed by B-Bar who had not played rough before. His crew was small, but they were fighting men.

His ranch buildings lay athwart the entrance to Deep Creek by way of Emigrant Gap. The long abandoned road had passed through the Gap and across to leave by The Notch. Devitt might know of the road, for the existence of the timber had been made known to him somehow. This was not timber country; therefore Devitt had to have a local informant.

Sitting on the veranda, Bell examined the situation. The house was built of native rock and had walls three feet thick. There were five rooms--living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and an office. The house was surrounded on all sides by the veranda, low-roofed and cool, and shaded by several huge old trees. When Bell ate at home, which was not often, he preferred to sit on the veranda where he could look down the valley. Nobody could approach from the valley side without being long under observation from the house. The house stood at one corner of a rectangle of ranch buildings and corrals. East and north of the house lifted sheer walls of rock. No more than thirty yards from the house was the stone chuckhouse known as the "wagon." Beyond it, separated by about thirty feet, was the long, low, stone bunkhouse, and at the far end of the rectangle was another stone building divided into separate rooms. These were respectively the saddle and harness room, the tool house, the storeroom, and the blacksmith shop. The other side of the rectangle was a long stone barn with a loft filled with hay, and three corrals, two on one side of the barn, one on the other.

The stone buildings of the ranch effectually blocked all access to Deep Creek through Emigrant Gap unless two gates were opened by ranch personnel. One of these gates was between two of the stone ranch buildings.

Deep Creek plateau and the valley lay seven hundred feet higher than the ranch itself. That seven-hundred-foot rise was covered in two miles of trail, the last half-mile through a canyon that was a veritable bottleneck.

Bell paced the veranda restlessly. Despite the suggestion that Morton Schwabe might have been Devitt's informant, he did not believe it. Schwabe was essentially a small-calibered man. Owning a small ranch, Schwabe would willingly do almost anything to injure Bell, but he would scarcely think of a thing like this.