The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill (2 page)

The whole of it — the anticipated pleasure, the arrogant sureness of himself — these were plain on Arker’s heavy features. And as Cameron watched the man, he thought he might finally have found the weakness he sought — that all-consuming arrogance. Arker was not the kind to imagine that anyone would try to run a bluff against the gun he held or against his massive strength. And, Cameron guessed, feeling this way Arker might let down his guard a little.

In a moment he would know, Cameron thought. He listened to Farley’s horse move alongside the roan. From the edge of his eye, he saw Farley reach across the gap between them, maneuvering with his left hand for Cameron’s forty-four.

Now Cameron touched the roan with his toes, nudging it softly at the elbows. Obediently the horse stepped backward, dancing in a graceful motion. Farley grunted in surprise as his fingers closed over air. Then he swore sharply as Cameron, behind him now, brought the tips of his reins down across the rump of Farley’s gray horse. The startled animal leaped forward, nearly unseating Farley before he could pull upright from his leaning position.

Cameron laughed as he caught a glimpse of Arker’s face. It was dull red with anger now because the only way he could shoot at Cameron was to risk hitting Farley. The gray was going through the cut in wild leaps, urged on by Cameron’s second scouring of its rump with his reins. And now Arker began to curse as he sought to swing the palomino out of its sidewise position.

His yowl of anguish battered the air as the gray rammed a shoulder into the side of the dun. Farley, still not fully seated, clawed for support and caught Arker around the neck. For a moment they clung together as if in some grotesque dance. Finally Arker swung his carbine in blind, wild anger. The sight raked down over the gray’s nose, and with a frightened whinny it leaped backwards. The saddle was snatched from under Farley and he was left, legs flapping, with his arms tight around Arker’s neck.

With a heave that brought muscles pushing hard against his shirt, Arker threw Farley to one side. The smaller man struck the ground, rolled, and lay still. Arker lifted himself in the stirrups, controlling the palomino with one hand and bringing the carbine around with the other.

Cameron continued to dance the roan backwards until a twist in the cut hid him from Arker’s view. A bullet whined harmlessly through the space where he had been a moment before. Now it was Cameron’s turn to laugh and he let the sound float mockingly back into the cut.

Arker cried, “I warned you, lawman. You be out of town by the time I get there tonight. You got a choice — ride out alive, or get carried out dead!”

C
AMERON’S LAUGHTER
kept him company a good part of the way to town. But finally the pleasure at remembering what had happened back in the cut faded away and he let himself think of the real Rafe Arker and not the buffoon the man had appeared for a few moments.

Cameron did not doubt that Arker meant his threat. His pride had been trampled; he had been made to look a fool in front of Joe Farley. And he would doubtless be afraid of Cameron’s telling the story all over Cougar Hill.

Cameron frowned at the thought of having to watch for Arker in town. These past fourteen months had been the easiest of his working life. The most excitement Cougar Hill managed to generate was the annual visit by the army purchasing agent and a crew of cavalry to pick up the horses and mules the government contracted for. Then Cameron had an occasional fight on his hands now and then on a Saturday night. But no one ever really got out of line in town, not even the Dondee brothers.

His reactions had been slow back there, Cameron realized. Otherwise he would never have let himself get boxed so easily. As for his getting away, he recognized that was due half to surprise. Rafe Arker had not expected him to make a play. He wondered just how much fat the months of easy living had coated his nerves with. Just how slow had he become?

He would find the answer when Rafe Arker came to town and made his challenge.

Dusk was settling down as Cameron reached the south limits of town. Up ahead he saw the weekly stage stopped in front of the hotel and he disappointed the roan by riding on past McTigue’s livery barn. It was Cameron’s chore to meet the stage every Thursday and he hurried his horse now. But when he was just short of Hill Avenue, the cross street running alongside the hotel, he saw Marshal Balder come out of the jail office and start down the board sidewalk and he reined up.

He started to turn the roan around when the last passenger stepping out of the stage halted him. Light spilling from the hotel lobby was barely enough to dent the dusk and Cameron found it hard to make out the man’s features. But there was something in the way he held his lean body and in the way he walked that stirred a memory deep in Cameron’s mind. He sought for a name to put with the memory but it eluded him. When the man disappeared into the lobby, Cameron could only turn the roan and ride slowly back down Main Street to the livery.

He was as concerned with his own failure to recall the man as he was with the man himself. It was part of a law officer’s work to keep a file of names and faces in his mind. More than once over the years Cameron’s recognition of a wanted criminal, or even of just a troublemaker, had saved problems from developing. But now, search as he would, he could bring nothing more than a feeling of uneasiness from his mind.

Tod Purcell, Jenny’s eighteen-year-old nephew, was on duty at the livery and he came hurrying from the cubbyhole office to take the reins of Cameron’s horse. His freckled face was flushed with excitement. “The stage driver says Rafe Arker got let out of prison three days ago; Roy. I thought I better warn you because …”

“Arker’s already home,” Cameron said. He dropped to the ground and patted the roan. “Give him a good dollop of oats tonight.”

“You saw Rafe?” Todd demanded.

“That’s right,” Cameron nodded. He started up the board sidewalk, leaving the boy staring after him in obvious admiration for his casual attitude.

“You’re faking it a little,” Cameron gibed at himself. He was too old a hand at the law business to feel casual about someone like Rafe Arker. But at the same time he was realist enough to know the value of a public attitude such as this. And Tod Purcell would spread the word that he had had his first meeting with Arker and had come through without a scratch.

And he needed the kind of admiration a story like this would bring, Cameron admitted honestly to himself. Since his first months in Cougar Hill, he knew this was the country he had been looking for. Eleven years of drifting — cattle work along the border, mining in the mountains, and finally law work in Colorado and Wyoming and Montana — with the need to sink his roots growing greater with each passing season. And now he was prodding thirty and soon the settling down would grow harder as the drifting habit bit deeper.

As he had explained to Jenny Purcell that night they realized that they felt the same way about each other, “There comes a time when every man likes to have something to put his back against. That’s why I put what money I had into the ranch and why most of my salary goes to it for quite a time yet. That means we won’t be able to get married as quick as I’d like.”

She had kissed him in her quick way and answered, laughing, “You’ll be marshal soon, Roy, and then you can afford the ranch and me both.”

Cameron had taken the deputy job here with the understanding that he would be first in line for the marshal’s job when Balder retired. For a time, when that would happen made little difference, nor did it seem of great importance. But that all changed when Jenny agreed to become his wife; and now Cameron was encouraged when the town fathers showed open approval of his work. Because it would be men like McTigue, who owned the livery and the hay and feed store just to the north of it, and Marcus Stedman, the banker, and John Colby, his cashier — these and two or three others would decide if Cameron was the man they wanted to replace Balder. And as Balder grew more openly eager to retire, the attitudes of these men grew more important.

And yet Cameron was was no man to curry favor, and more than once he had ruffled feelings, stepped on toes. He had openly told the townsmen and the valley ranchers that their refusal to extend the jurisdiction of the local law beyond the town limits was foolish penny pinching, and he made it clear that as marshal one of his first moves would be to fight for spreading the law through the entire Cougar valley country.

But they were fair-minded men for the most part, Cameron admitted. They knew that as the valley settled, the law would have to become stronger. And their concern at getting the right man stemmed from this realization.

He passed the Hay and Feed, the barber shop and bath house, the smaller of the two mercantile stores, and stopped on the corner of Hill Avenue. His handling of Rafe Arker just might be the final test, he thought.

Crossing Hill, he passed in front of the hotel, and momentarily he forgot Rafe Arker as memory of the stranger returned to him. He sought again to place the man, and again he failed. Frowning, he walked on toward the jail building.

It was quiet, but no more so than usual on a Thursday night. Darkness had shouldered aside the last of the evening light and there was a hint of fall in the cool air that drifted down from the hills. As Cameron passed the weedy vacant lot that separated the hotel from the jail, the lamps came alight in the Widow Crotty’s boarding house to the north. Across the street, light already came from Jenny Purcell’s Café and from the bank just south of it. The end of the month, Cameron thought. Stedman and Colby would be working late for a night or two.

The jail office door was open and he turned in, finding Balder bent over a pile of paperwork on his desk. Balder looked up with a frown. “You’re late tonight.” His voice held a meaningless gruffness. He was a small man, dried with age like a California raisin grape, and uncompromising in his beliefs. But he seldom interfered with Cameron’s handling of the law, even when it went against his ways.

Cameron said quietly, “I was talking to Rafe Arker.”

Balder showed little surprise. “The stage driver was noising it around that Rafe got let out of the penitentiary. I was wondering when he’d get back here.” The interest in his voice was obvious. “He give you any trouble?”

Cameron told him briefly what had happened. Balder grunted. “Rafe’s a fool in some ways. He don’t know when to quit when he’s ahead. He’ll do everything he can to run you out of this country. He’ll try to make you look bad so you’ll have to pack up and ride. My advice is — make the first move. Every time he comes to town, roust him hard.”

Cameron shook his head. “What happened today is valley business, and separate from my job here. If Arker starts trouble in town, then I’ll use my authority. But I don’t intend to roust him until he gives me a reason.”

“He threatened you, ain’t that reason enough? And he’s been in prison,” Balder snapped.

This was the major disagreement between the two men. Balder believed firmly that a leopard could never change its spots. That once a man had been in prison, the mark would be on him forever. And that a man who consorted with criminals or criminal types was infected and would always have to be watched. Tod Purcell and some other growing boys had ridden with Rafe Arker when his greatest crime was bullying; and though they had all straightened out quickly enough and left when his true nature became plain, Balder refused to trust any of them.

“You keep Rafe reminded where he’s been and he won’t be’ so eager to do something that’ll get him put back there,” Balder went on in a sharp tone. “The same thing goes for his friends. Make them know what being a jailbird is like.”

Cameron had no desire to rake through the ashes of an old argument and so he said nothing. Balder glared challengingly at him. “Unless you don’t figure you can stand up to Rafe,” he snapped. “He ran my last two deputies out.”

“So I heard — a dozen times,” Cameron answered dryly. “I’ve faced up to men as big. I think I can handle him.”

Balder made a snorting sound. “If you aim to prove who’s boss by outdrawing him, you’re wasting your time. Everybody knows you got the fastest draw around here. The town won’t think you a hero for running Rafe away on the end of a six-shooter. Especially when the law says that nobody but you and me can carry a gun inside the city limits.

“If you want to put Rafe down and keep him down, you’ll have to whip him with your hands,” Balder went on. “And that’s a chore many a man has tried but none ever finished. Just remember that, because Rafe’ll try to make you fight him — no holds barred. If he gets you in that position and you use your gun instead, the whole town’ll think you’re afraid.”

He paused and added heavily, “If that happens, I won’t have any choice but to find me another deputy.”

“I’ll worry about it when the time comes,” Cameron said. “Right now I want some supper.”

Balder pushed the paperwork aside. “So do I,” he said. In a characteristic sudden change of mood, he grinned at Cameron. “I’d like to have seen Farley draped all over Rafe there in the cut!”

“It’s not something Arker will forget quickly,” Cameron said. With a nod, he went out. He stopped on the edge of the board sidewalk and automatically glanced both ways along the dusty street. Things were still quiet, with no lights south of Hill except for the two saloons on the west side and, far down, the livery on the east.

He was about to start on again when a tall, slender figure came out of the hotel and crossed diagonally to the southwest corner. He walked just beyond the range of lamplight spilling from the bank, so Cameron could make out little detail. But the memory brought back by the way the man carried himself, the way he moved, was even stronger than before.

The sound of singing same softly from the north. The Widow Crotty was playing the organ and her determined contralto almost drowned out the music. Cameron smiled. The Widow was holding her Thursday night singfest, as she called it, and all of her boarders except Cameron would be grouped around the organ, not to mention other town and valley people she had managed to corral, he thought.