Return of the Outlaw (44 page)

“It won
’t do any good to take it to the sheriff: he’s in with ‘em. Lost his spine.”

“That
’s not what I had in mind anyway.  Do you know a printer?”

A knowing smile slowly grew on Ollie
’s features as he realized what Jeff was planning. “Joe Kline at the newspaper office does printing.”

“But how well do you know him?”

“Well enough to play poker with him two nights a week.”

“
How’s he feel about Stewart?”

“Wouldn
’t spit on him if he was on fire. Joe printed a couple of editorials about Stewart runnin’ Mexicans off their land. It didn’t do anything to help the Mexicans, but it lost Stewart some popularity.”

“Alright,” said Jeff, “sounds like he
’ll do. I need fifty copies of this.”

“How soo
n do you need ‘em?”

“Last year
.”

“Alright,
I’ll see they get done tomorrow. I’ll have ‘em here for you tomorrow night. You be careful riding in and out though.”

Jeff reassured him with a nod
and mounted his horse.

Ollie checked the street again and waved Jeff
down the runway and out into the night where he and his horse were soon swallowed up in the inky darkness.

Elsewhere in that same darkness, Juana sat waiting for Lloyd. They had only recently begun seeing each other again, and it was because Lloyd had seen her in town one day and had surreptitiously asked her to meet him that night. They had met several times since
then, and Juana felt certain things would one day be as they had been before. The memory of whatever had happened to Lloyd seemed to be fading, and while he was not the man she remembered, there was enough to cause the old feelings to stir within her. 

Throughout the long winter she had missed him and wanted to see him, but stubbornly had resisted making contact with him, feeling strongly that if he loved he
r he would show it, and if he didn’t, she wanted nothing more to do with him. Lloyd still refused to talk to her about his personal problems or feelings, but when he kissed her it was with great passion—seemingly the only manifestation of emotion the man permitted himself. This, more than anything else, told her he loved her and would someday make her his wife. Now as she sat in the darkness, she thought of that day and longed for it and hoped he would soon ask her.

The soft sounds of horse
’s hoofs in the sand came to her ears, and she stood up and moved toward them, not running as in former days, but still with eagerness. Jennings dismounted and waited for her to come to him. They embraced, and he kissed her.

They sat down in their spot and remained for a while, holding each other, l
ocked in a physical embrace their souls could not match, though each strove to do so. Presently, Lloyd pulled away, and Juana laid her head on his chest.

“
I love you, Lloyd.”

“I love you
, too.”

Again they sat in silence for a time, Lloyd with his thoughts and J
uana wondering what they were. Finally with a boldness inspired by the tenderness he was displaying toward her, Juana settled an old debate in her mind and decided to ask Lloyd a particular question. “You know that piece of land of Tomas Garcia’s, over by the old well?”

“Uh huh,” responded Jennings without great interest.

“Tomas wants to sell it and he’s hardly asking anything for it. I thought maybe we
could . . .”

Jennings inte
rrupted, “I’m not surprised he wants to sell it cheap: anybody who bought it would be a fool and Garcia knows it. That land as good as belongs to Tom Stewart already; he just hasn’t moved on to it yet.”

“What?” said Juana, outrage in her
voice. “That land was given to Tomas by his father. Stewart has no right to it.”

“
Joanne, this world is hard; it’s the strong man who survives and it’s the strong man who gets what he wants. When Stewart wants land he gets it because he’s strong. Tomas is weak. He’ll lose the land. It’s not for me or you to decide, and it’s not for us to worry about; it’s just the way things are. This is a mean world and it’s tough enough to survive without getting all shook up about other people’s problems.”

But Juana was not listeni
ng. Though she did not live in San Vicente, she still considered those people to be her people, and was deeply troubled by their recent travails. “What about the law?” she demanded pointedly.

“The law is like a gun or a k
nife,” responded Jennings, beginning to lose patience, “it works for whoever has the power to wield it.”

Juana drew back from him, seeing him m
ore clearly than she ever had. This last statement was symbolic of everything about him that was different from the Lloyd she remembered. He stood before her now, his character denuded of all pretense or shabby covering. She knew he was not the man she had believed him to be, yet still within her something struggled for words to say to convert him, to transform him back into what he had once been—or what she had believed him to be.

“I thought the law was to protect the w
eak,” she said, “and to make sure there was justice. I thought you believed that too,” she spoke the words almost pleadingly. “How can you stand by and see what is being done to those people and not do anything? Isn’t that your job?”

A gust of anger blew through
Jennings. “Don’t tell me what my job is. You don’t know anything about it. Anyway why are you making such a big fuss over a bunch of mex . . .” He stopped himself too late. He saw the hurt appear in Juana’s eyes. She stood up and began to turn away. He reached for her and said, “Wait Joanne, please, I’m sorry.”

She turned back to face him, and when she spoke her voice was low and controlled, “My name is not Joanne, it ne
ver will be Joanne; it’s Juana—a Mexican name.”

After she left, he sat silently in the dark, immersed in thought. Absently he fished out his tobacco and fashioned a cigarette.
Lighting it, he inhaled deeply and the taste of the smoke was not satisfying to him. He wished he could change what had happened. He realized he should not have said what he said to her. He wished she had stayed and given him a chance to apologize.

Maybe she would come back, he thought hopefully. She was like that; she lost her temper quickly, but she got over it quickly. He realized more than he ever had, how much he loved her. He would wait a while, and if she c
ame back, he would kiss her and . . . and why not? They had waited long enough; maybe it was time to tell her he was ready to get married. He smiled in the darkness at the thought. Why hadn’t he asked her sooner? It was because he had doubted, but now, for some reason, his doubts were gone. He wanted her to be his wife.

The hour grew late
, and Juana did not return. Jennings accepted the fact that she would not come back tonight. She probably just needed to cool off. He would come back tomorrow night. She’d be here; he was sure of it.

The following night he returned and waited, but Juana did not come. Jennings wasn
’t worried, he knew she loved him. It may take a day or two, but she would forgive him. He would wait a few days and then, if she didn’t come, he would find a way to get a message to her secretly.

At no time did it occur to him to ride up to her house and knock
on her door and ask to see her. So, he waited in the darkness.

When Jeff arrived at Shepard
’s Livery and Ollie handed him the stack of papers, new and straight and smelling of printers ink, Jeff could sense his old friend’s excitement.

“This
’ll do the trick, son; I’m sure of it. But you’d best be careful; the less a man has to lose, the more dangerous he becomes. Just do what you have to and then hide out and let these do the rest. Stay clear of town for a while and don’t get anxious.”

“Don
’t worry,” said Jeff.

He turned and started to step into the saddle, but Ollie stopped him. “You
’re forgetting something.”

“That
’s right, I am,” said Jeff as Ollie handed him a hammer and a small cloth sack full of tacks.

Stewart awoke early but lay in bed for some time, mentally planning. He felt better about things this morn
ing, partly due to the fact he had obtained the money from Willard Deering. He had never trusted banks, but now that his own safe had been robbed, he had some regret about that. If his money had been in a bank, he would still have it. He would recoup his losses—of this he was certain. Cattle were money; they merely had to be rounded up and driven to a buyer. There were still plenty of cattle on the T.S., and plenty more to be rustled from the ranchers up north.

Another reason Stewart was feeling cheerful this morning was that he had arrived at a plan to eliminate Jeff Havens
, and he was certain it would work. Today he would send a rider north with instructions to bring back half of the crew that was up there. When these men returned, they would not come back to the ranch, but would be stationed at different entrances to the mountains where supplies would already be cached for them. During this time no effort would be made to track or to apprehend Havens, hopefully inducing him to grow less cautious. In a few days he, Stewart, would ride into town and make it known that he was offering five thousand dollars for the apprehension of Jeff Havens, dead or alive.

Before the bounty hunters began their hunt, Stewart would station men to cover all the major trails that led out of the area and as many of the minor ones as was possible. There was no way to completely seal off the area, but if t
hey took care not to let Havens know what was afoot it was probable that he, in his haste to escape the hordes of bounty hunters, would either try to head into the mountains or leave the area. Either way, he would be ambushed.

Stewart was betting
Jeff would head into the mountains as he had done before, and those trails would be heavily guarded by men who had a vested interest in Havens’ capture. Five thousand dollars was a lot of money.

With these immediate plans worked out in his mind, Stewart began mentally sorting through his plans for the more distant future. He was determined now to leave this place where his popularity had waned, and to go north. He was equally determined to take his daughter with him when he went.

He arose and dressed, feeling so unconcerned that he experienced a momentary anticipation of one of Maria’s hot, savory breakfasts. Then he remembered he no longer had a cook or a housekeeper and was having to eat his meals in the cookshack with the men. This was one item of business he had been neglecting, and he resolved to take care of it today. He would go to town this afternoon and see if he could find someone to replace Maria and her daughter.

Stewart was crossing the front room when he saw something lying on
the floor in front of the door. He walked over to it and realized it was a paper and that it must have been shoved under the door during the night. It was lying face down. He picked it up, turned it over and froze in his stooped position. There he remained, unmoving for a long moment, his eyes glued to the sheet of paper in his hand. It was obviously freshly printed; it was clean and unwrinkled and smelled faintly of printer’s ink. It was a copy of a wanted poster which boasted Stewart’s real name “Ross Stockwell” in bold print. Several aliases, including the one he was currently using, were listed along with a list of serious crimes for which Stockwell was wanted, among them: murder, extortion, robbery, and fraud.

As Stewart stared at the poster
he realized what Jeff Havens had done and he realized too that Havens had beaten him. Presently, he straightened up, dropping the paper on the floor. He went outside and headed for the barn. As he crossed the yard, he spotted another wanted poster which had been impaled on a rusty nail that had long protruded from the weathered wood of the barn door. He looked around the yard to see if anyone else was in sight. No one was. He heard the low tones of the men’s voices in the bunkhouse and knew they would soon be coming out. For his own purposes he did not want them to know about the wanted poster. He retrieved the poster from the barn door and then checked around the premises to see if there were any others. Finding none, he saddled up and rode out of the yard toward town. 

By the time he was two miles down the trail he had collected eight more posters; some tacked on trees, others hanging from bushes. The weathered planks of the bridge had been decorated with Tom Stewart
’s criminal history in three different spots. Stewart rightly guessed that Jeff Havens had spent the entire night at his work and had attached the posters to every strategically located bush, tree, fence post, or building. He turned around and headed back to the ranch. There was no time to waste.

Fogarty had just finished breakfast and was coming out of the co
okshack when Stewart rode in. Stewart motioned him toward the house, and Fogarty observed something on Stewart’s face and demeanor that made him quicken his step. Inside the house, Stewart peeled one of the posters off the stack he had collected and mutely handed it to Fogarty. A savage darkness commandeered the gunman’s features as he came to the same realization Stewart had made earlier: Havens had beaten them.

“How did he get this?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Stewart said. It was a lie. He had already deduced that Jeff Havens had gone through his papers on the day the safe was dynamited.

“Well, we
’re finished here,” said Fogarty angrily.

Stewart swore viciously and kicked a chair, flinging it acros
s the room onto its side. He tramped to his office and poured himself a drink. When he set the bottle down, Fogarty, without being offered, took it and poured a drink for himself. Stewart finished his drink, slammed the glass down on the desk and, swept the desktop clean with his arm, as a stream of obscenity poured out of his mouth.

“This is your fault Fogarty; I hired you for your gun. That meant you were supposed to take care of troublemakers like Havens and Lopez.
But all you did was kill Dick Wright, who was one of my best men.”

Fogarty glared at Stewart, a look of warning in his eyes.  But Stewart
’s anger was beyond control.

“You couldn
’t do your job, could you Rand, you let them beat us. They’ve whipped us and they’ve as good as run us out of the country.” Stewart looked around for something to throw. Finding the whiskey glass, he hurled it against the wall. “We can’t even go north to the valley, because Havens has friends up there. He’ll send them one of the posters. And all because you couldn’t do what you were being paid to do!

Fogarty had watched silently as Stewart raged, noting how Stewart
’s voice increased in pitch with each successive sentence. Now the gunman stood up slowly, and Stewart saw the danger. Fogarty said through clenched teeth, “You whip a man hard, Stewart. You lay on me any harder and you’ll have to back it up.”

They stood gla
ring at each other for a moment and just for a brief instant Fogarty saw something in Stewart’s eye that made him think the man was going to go for his gun. Then the look was gone and Stewart sat down in his chair. But Fogarty still stood, and Stewart saw the hard knots of his jaw muscles stand out beneath the flesh of his cheeks.

“Forget it, Rand; a man has a right to be angry when he has just lost everything.” It was a weak apology, but a few moments la
ter Fogarty moved his hand away from his pistol butt and sat down. He pulled in a deep breath and sighed it out, releasing tension. “What now?” he asked.

“We leave,” replied Stewart in manifest resignation.

“Where to?”

“Does it matter?”

“What about the men?”

“Don
’t tell them; they haven’t acted too happy lately; I don’t want them making any trouble for us.” Stewart began rummaging through his desk, finding personal items and setting them on the top. As he worked he continued speaking, “Divide the men into two groups and send the groups off in two different directions—ranch work. Get them as far away from here as possible and make sure they’ll be coming back late.”

“How about Stratton?
He’s too shot up to ride.”

“His problem,” mumbled Stewart.

Fogarty didn
’t move.

Stewart watched him for a moment
then said in a more urgent tone, “Rand, we can’t waste any time. Before we know it there’ll be bounty hunters hiding behind every tree and rock on this range. Get the men out of here, load up a couple of pack mules; let’s get gone.”

After Fogarty left the room, Stewart contemplated the small pile of items on the desk and looked around the room, thinking about all the things that would have to remain behind in this and other rooms of the house;
then of the house itself, the land, and the cattle and he knew it was too much—too much to walk away from. He thought of the money Deering had loaned him from the bank. It wasn’t enough. A perverse smile came over his features as he realized that Deering must be aware by now of the wanted poster and would know the money would never be paid back. He must be squirming, thought Stewart with pleasure. But compared to all he was leaving behind, and all the plans he was being forced to forsake, what he had stolen from Deering was simply not enough. And a plan to change that was conceived in his mind.

Luke S
tratton, still weak and sick, had arisen a little later than the other men and was on his way to the cookshack when he saw Stewart ride out of the yard. Stewart’s haste suggested an urgency that made Luke mildly curious. Luke’s appetite had not yet fully returned and he was not very hungry, but he did want coffee. He got some and went back to the bunkhouse to drink it. He had just finished when he heard hoofbeats again. Through the window of the bunkhouse he saw Stewart ride back in and watched him summon Fogarty into the house. A short time later the men straggled back from the cookshack, and Fogarty came to the bunkhouse and divided them into two groups, ordering them to distant parts of the range.

When everyone was gone, Luke stripped down to his flannel underwear, climbed into his bunk and rolled to f
ace the wall. Soon he heard footsteps as someone crossed the yard to the bunkhouse and mounted the two steps to the door. Fogarty stood observing him as he lay unmoving, affecting the deep, slow breathing of a sleeping man. Presently, apparently satisfied, Fogarty left. After a while Luke rolled over to face the door, and still pretending to be asleep, kept watch on the narrow rectangle of the world outside that was visible to him through the opening. Not more than twenty minutes later Fogarty came to check on him again, and again seemed satisfied that Luke was asleep.

T
hrough the door, Luke watched as Stewart and Fogarty, mounted and leading two pack mules, rode out of the yard. He quickly arose and went to the window to watch. The two men did not follow any established trail, but took their course across country, out into the desert, angling southwest. “Mighty queer goin’s on,” muttered Luke.

Dressing quickly he walked to the house. No effort had been made to repair the broken windows
, though the doors had been re-hung and the shards and bits of glass swept off the porch. Luke had never been inside this house and entering it now made him somewhat uneasy. There was no reason for this, he told himself: the bosses were gone. Still, he could not help being affected by the eerie silence. Floor boards creaked lightly as he walked on them, and flies, unimpeded by window glass, hummed around, the sound of their wings adding to the sense of solitariness.

He was unfamiliar with the layout of the house and had no idea what he was looking for, but he knew something of great significa
nce had occurred this morning—something of sufficient magnitude to induce Stewart and Fogarty to leave this place, apparently for good. Luke wanted to know what that was and how it might affect him personally. He made his way into the ruined wing of the house where the explosion had taken place and briefly viewed the violated safe. Part of the roof of the house had been blown off and daylight streamed into the room in slanting yellow beams, shot-through occasionally by the slashing course of a fly. Duly impressed by the destructive power of dynamite, Luke made his way back to the main part of the house and ascended the stairs to Stewart’s office, arriving at the top, weak and breathless, his arm throbbing.

The office looked as though it had been ransacked again; and in a way, it had. Stewart had dug through his possessions, hurling aside those he chose to leave behind as he pulled out the few he would take with him. Luke salvaged a handful of cigars and a bottle of whiskey from the closet and sat down at the desk.

Beginning to enjoy himself, he bit the end off one of the cigars and began casting about for a match with which to light it. His roving glance passed over a piece of paper lying on the floor by the desk—one of the wanted posters—and then abruptly shuttled back. He leaned down and picked it up and instantly recognized it for what it was. Now he was convinced beyond all doubt that Stewart and Fogarty had left for good.

“Owed me a month’s
wages,” he grumbled as he hoisted his feet onto the desk. “Ought to’ve got fightin’ wages for a shot-up arm too.” He drew deeply on the cigar and uncorked the bottle of whiskey and by the time he heard the riders coming, Luke was drunk.

The three men had studied the house for a good twenty minutes befor
e deciding to ride in, already suspecting their quarry had escaped. They were drifters who were passing through and had seen the wanted posters and heard the talk that was buzzing all over town. Knowing nothing about Stewart’s crew of hard cases, it had seemed like easy money.