How the West Was Won (1963) (30 page)

Ma'am? Ma'am, are you our Great-aunt Lilith? Prescott asked, still not quite believing it.

If you're Zeb's children, I am. She put her hands on their shoulders and looked into their eyes with a mock seriousness that immediately won them both. But don't you dare call me your great-aunt in front of any young men!

Lilith!

She looked at Zeb, and put out her hand. You'll be Zeb Rawlings. I declare, you favor Linus! I'd have known you anywhere, I think. She looked at this tall, strongly built man, with warmth and a glint of humor in his eyes. Lilith, in her time, had looked upon many men in the hard world of the frontier and, looking now at Zeb, she felt tears coming to her eyes. How proud Eve would have been to see her son now! And how pleased with her strong sense of family, she would have been to have them all together again. Zeb ... Zeb Rawlings! She felt the tears coming and fought to hold them back.

Doggone it, Zeb! I swore up and down that I wasn't going to cry! You're even prettier than ma said you were. I'd like you to meet my wife Julie.

Pleased to meet you, Julie said.

And I'm pleased to meet you, Julie. I just can't tell you how pleased. You met the boys, Prescott ... Linus. And this is Eve. Prescott caught her hand. Come on and meet Sam!

Sam? Lilith was startled.

He's our horse. He could pull two wagons if he wanted. You haven't come home until you know Sam.

Lilith took their hands. Sorry, she said to Zeb. I've got to meet Sam. I want to be sure I'm at home.

I think this means a lot to her, Zeb said to Julie. More than I'd have thought.

Then he glanced toward the three men, who had walked out to the cars. All three shook hands with a man who had just stepped from the train. Zeb Rawlings felt the skin tighten around his ears. Charlie Gant... At the same instant Gant, evidently warned by one of the three men, turned to look at him. Almost at once he started toward them. A tall man with a swagger and a challenging way, Charlie Gant was a flamboyant figure even on the frontier, where flamboyance was not uncommon. Gant had always favored good clothes, and he wore them now. That he was armed went without question.

Marshal! Don't tell me you came all the way over here just to meet me? I hardly expected it. He tipped his hat. And the beautiful Mrs. Rawlings. What a pleasure this is!

Let's go, Zeb, Julie said.

I envy you, Marshal. A well-favored, bright-eyed wife ... as dazzling as that sun up there.

Zeb ...

Zeb Rawlings smiled. Why, Charlie! This is a surprise! I had no idea you were still in the Territory. The last time I saw you-well, I got the impression you were leaving the country.

Charlie Gant's smile remained, but his eyes turned ugly. Having a fine family like this, Rawlings, it must make a man want to live. Zeb Rawlings' eyes were cold. You wanted to live, didn't you, Charlie?

Abruptly, Gant turned and walked away; and Julie, frightened, looked after him. She caught Zeb's arm. That was Charlie Gant, wasn't it? I thought you said he was in Montana?

Now stop your worrying. I'll get the luggage. When he returned with the hand luggage, Gant and his friends were no longer there. Zeb looked around carefully before he decided they were indeed gone. With a man like Gant, you could never afford to gamble. The one certainty was that he never would-not consciously, at least.

To be a criminal, as Gant was, required certain peculiar attitudes of mind, attitudes that invariably led to failure and capture. One was contempt for people and for law; another was optimism. The criminal was invariably optimistic. He had to believe that everything was going to turn out right for him; and in addition to this he had to be enormously conceited, believing in his ability to outwit the law.

Many a time Zeb had heard a criminal sneer, I'm smarter than any sheriff.

Nobody but a fool would work for the money they get. What they did not realize was that they were not smarter than a dozen sheriffs, or a hundred. Law was organized now. Descriptions were mailed around from office to office, and there was cooperation between sheriffs and marshals. The very attributes that led them to become criminals were the attributes that betrayed them. Contempt, optimism, and conceit led to carelessness, and carelessness led to imprisonment or death.

Zeb shouldered the trunk and started back to the buckboard. Right now, he thought, youngsters around the country were playing they were Jesse James and his gang; and men who ought to have known better were telling about the treasure Jesse had buried.

In their sixteen years as outlaws, few of the James gang even made a decent living, and most of that time they were on the dodge, hiding out in caves, barns, and shacks, poorly fed, poorly clothed, suspicious of each other and everyone else.

Folks made a lot of the fact that Jesse had been killed by one of his own men. What most of them didn't know was that he had already murdered two of his own gang and was planning to kill others.

As for how tough they were-that bunch of farmers and businessmen up at Northfield had shot them to doll rags, killing two of them in the gun battle. The only men the James gang killed in Northfield were an unarmed man crossing the street, unaware a holdup was in progress, and the banker, beaten unconscious inside the bank, whom Jesse shot as he fled from the building. Several of the Jesse James outfit had been wounded, and later, when the Youngers-Cole, Bob, and Jim-were captured. Jim had five wounds, Bob two, and Cole Younger had been shot eleven times. Charlie Pitts was dead. Zeb turned his back to the buckboard and lowered the trunk into place, then pushed it deeper along the bed and lashed it in place with rope. With Julie and Lilith crowded into the seat beside him, he drove into town and up the crowded street to the old clapboarded hotel.

Zeb got down and tied the team. See to the rooms, will you, Julie? He turned and started up the street. Lilith caught Julie's expression as she gazed after him. Is anything wrong, Julie?

No ... nothing.

The hotel lobby was high-ceilinged and spacious, with two elk heads looking down from the walls, and an antelope head over the mirror. Back of the counter, high on the wall, was a buffalo head, huge and black. Ma? Prescott caught her arm. Can Linus and me sleep outside? Can we, ma? In the buckboard?

All right, she said, but you mustn't go running around. You go right to sleep.

Zeb Rawlings walked up the street and into the office of the town marshal. Got a minute, Lou?

Zeb! Of course, I got a minute.

Lou Ramsey put aside a stack of papers and pushed a cigar box toward Zeb. Help yourself.

No, thanks.

Ramsey bit off the tip of his cigar and spat it toward the spittoon. What can I do for you, Zeb? Go ahead. Name it.

Zeb pushed his hat back on his head. Charlie Gant's in town.

What?

I saw Gant get off the train today. There were three men waiting for him.

Lou Ramsey's face tightened a little, and he felt irritation mount within him. Why did this have to happen now? Just when he had everything going right and could relax?

That why you came to me?

That's it.

Zeb, there ain't anything we can do about Charlie Gant. He's a free citizen, and he can come and go as he likes. Furthermore, Ramsey added, we don't want any trouble here.

Zeb made no reply, and Ramsey went on, I know what he was, Zeb, but that's over now. It was over the day his brother got himself killed. You should have killed them both, Zeb, but you didn't, and there's nothing anybody can do about it now. All that's past-over and done with.

Why'd he come here, Lou? Aren't you even curious? Ramsey stared morosely out the window. Zeb Rawlings was an old friend, and a good officer. There might be a time when he would have to ask Rawlings for help, which made it worse. His town was only sixty miles north, and Zeb handled it very well, and was known as a man who was never anxious to shoot, which was rare in old-time marshals who had grown into their jobs at a time when it was often safer to shoot first and ask the questions afterward. Zeb was of the tradition of Bill Tilghman, Jim Gillette, and Jeff Milton-all experts with the gun, but each one prepared to give the other fellow a chance to surrender. They were good men, the best men.

Basically, there had been three types of frontier marshals. There were those like Tilghman, Gillette, Milton, and a few others, who gave a man every chance. Then there was the type like Hickok, who gave you no second chance. If yours was the reputation as a troublemaker, or if you came to town loaded for trouble, the first wrong move might get you shot.

And there was another sort, like Mysterious Dave Mather. If you came into their town hunting trouble they didn't wait for you; they went looking for you and shot you where they found you, and wasted no time in the process. Wherever Zeb Rawlings carried the badge, there was law. He enforced it quietly, surely, and without favoritism. He had even lost a few jobs because he would throw a trouble-making rancher with thousands of head of cattle into jail just as quickly as he would jail a thirty-dollar-per-month cowhand. But this Gant affair ... it had the look of a personal feud. Lou Ramsey did not know if that was the case, but he was afraid of it. When a man got to enforcing the law, he could not allow personalities to enter into it. What do you want me to do? Ramsey said. Run him out of town? You know I can't do that. We don't carry the law in a holster, Zeb. Not any more. Besides, what would I have to back it up? That he keeps bad company? There's no wanted posters out on him, not from anywhere.

Charlie was always smart enough for that, Zeb replied. He never let himself get in a bind. Charlie did the planning. It was Floyd who carried it out, Floyd who ramrodded the action.

And Floyd's dead.

Ramsey chewed on his cigar. Times have changed, Zeb. These aren't the old gun-fighting days. He tilted back in his chair. The James-Younger gang was the last of them.

Zeb glanced sardonically at Ramsey. You aren't keeping posted, Lou. Charlie Gant's still around.

You get me a warrant, and I'll get you Charlie Gant. The door opened and Stover, the deputy, stepped in. Lou, they want three guards on the wagon with the gold shipment tomorrow.

Three?

It's a heavy load. Over a hundred thousand dollars' worth. I'd better take Clay and Sims with me.

When Stover had gone out, Lou looked at Zeb, who was staring at the ceiling, grinning.

What's the matter with you? Ramsey growled. We ship gold out of here all the time. Some of the shipments are big. So we've put on three men to guard it. What happens after it gets on the train?

Lou Ramsey got to his feet. Zeb, you've no call to make something out of this. Sure, Charlie Gant's in town ... just about every outlaw in the country has been through here at one time or another, and we've never lost a gold shipment yet. Rawlings got up and went to the door, but as he pushed the door open, Ramsey spoke. Zeb?

Rawlings turned to look back. I don't want any trouble here, Ramsey said.

We've been friends a long time, and as a friend I'd like you to leave town. Zeb Rawlings offered no reply, but stepped out and closed the door quietly behind him. Outside he paused on the street, thinking it through. He had Aunt Lilith to consider now as well as his own family, but to go off to the ranch with this thing hanging fire ... he wouldn't be able to sleep nights knowing Gant was in the country. And he knew the man too well to believe he had forgotten.

Charlie Gant would never feel safe until the man who had killed his brother was dead ... and much more important to Charlie, the man who knew that Charlie had run out on his brother when the going got rough, that he had ducked out of the fight and saved his own skin. If that ever got around, Charlie Gant would find no outlaw, let alone an honest man, who would ride with him. Deeply concerned, Zeb Rawlings went back to the hotel, replying to an occasional greeting, but with his mind far away. He missed nothing along the street, however, but that was long practice. When a man had been a marshal for a few years he saw everything without really seeming to pay attention. He had planned to stay inside, talking to Lilith about old times-after all, he had heard little of the family in a good many years-but the boys wanted to go up to the mine, and they had never seen a mine. Concealing his irritation, for he understood the interest the boys had, he agreed to go up to the collar of the shaft with them.

He knew he should stay inside, for one thing he had learned long since was to keep out of trouble by staying away from where it was ... and somewhere in town would be Gant and his friends. Yet, if he was correct in his belief that they planned a train robbery, then the last thing they would want would be trouble now, in this place.

The town had one street that could be called a street. It was half a mile long, and for almost a quarter of a mile on either side it was built solid. After that it sort of tapered off, with scattered buildings and open spaces between them. Poston Street, named for an Arizona pioneer, cut off near the end of the solidly built part and went up the slope to the mine buildings and the collar of the shaft. It ended at the mine.

On one side were the mine offices, behind them the assay office, and beyond that the hoisting-engine room, which faced the collar of the shaft. There were other buildings too-a warehouse, a blacksmith shop, and a long shed for storing timber to be used in the mine.