the High Graders (1965) (10 page)

The years bring about many changes in the characters o f men. Gib Gentry had always been a careless , rough-and-ready cowhand, never too honest in an y dealings, yet a man who was, generally speaking , without malice. He had never stolen anything bu t cattle, and the West looked with tolerance upon brandin g loose stock. If a man happened to be s o unlucky as to be caught in the act, he woul d probably be hung or shot, but it was generall y understood that any maverick was taking its own chance s as long as there was a running iron, a cinch ring , or a twist of barbed wire lying about handy.

Gib Gentry, who appreciated a goo d joke, had once made the rounds of a roundu p camp and surreptitiously checked all th e saddles. Of the forty men present--ranchers , cowhands, and stock inspectors--thirty-one of the m had cinch rings on their saddles that showed signs o f fire. At the time it caused considerabl e embarrassment, followed by a run on the neares t harness shops for extra cinch rings, but afterward i t became a standing joke on the range.

In Gentry's book, high-grading gold was no t too far afield from cattle rustling. The gol d was in the earth, the fact of discovery was a n accident; why shouldn't he profit as well as th e next man? Neither kind of theft disturbed whateve r moral code Gib possessed ... either kind wa s taken for granted, and nothing more thought of it.

But the murder of Jack Moorman was somethin g else, and Gib had never really gotten over that.

No ghosts haunted him in the night, and h e carried no aura of guilt, visible to himself o r others. He simply drank a little more, ate a little more, softened up physically a little faster, an d avoided the subject even in his own mind. Wheneve r the memory of old Jack's brutal killin g came to him he quickly averted his thoughts and trie d to think of something else. As there was a very busty youn g Irish waitress down at the restauran t called The Sump, he found this a relatively easy thing to do.

Ben Stowe was another kind of man entirely.

He, too, was without malice in whatever he ha d done. He would have laughed at the idea tha t society owed him a living, or owed him anything.

Gentry was reckless, immature, and took wha t he wanted; Stowe was cold, calculating , intelligent, and thought the law was for damne d fools.

As Gentry had deteriorated, Stowe ha d grown in evil. As he was cold, so he ha d become colder; as he was a thinking man, he ha d become an executive in crime, which h e conducted as any business operation should be conducted.

He was utterly ruthless.

He would never murder a man just for the sake o f killing. He would never indulge in rape or i n casual theft. He would have fallen into few of th e categories that fit criminal types. He wa s simply a totally selfish man with a complet e disregard for the rights of others to either life o r property, if in some way these rights interfered with hi s own plans.

Once his mind was made up, he wasted n o time. And his mind was made up now about Mik e Shevlin.

He had planned that Shevlin should die, but h e had planned to arrange it to happen in such a wa y as no blame could attach itself to the town o r to anybody in it. There were ways to do such things, an d he had used them before. Now there was no time for that.

Turning on his heel, he walked back to th e Nevada House and into the saloon. Red was there , as Stowe had known he would be. Red was never far fro m people, for he was too much involved in a romance with th e sound of his own voice.

Stowe caught his eyes, and Red came over.

Stowe bought drinks for both of them.

"There's a man out at Boulder Spring," h e said. "You ride out there. Say nothing of thi s to anybody ... not to anybody at all. You jus t ride out there and tell him to scratch the first name."

When Red was gone, Ben Stowe took hi s bottle and walked to a corner table. Now he mus t think. Every move must be planned.

The ledgers in his office told him just what eac h mine was taking out, and each was permitted to show a small profit occasionally. There was another boo k he kept hidden that told of each deposit o f gold in the cache.

Now, like it or not, they were going to have to ship som e of the gold to an eastern market. Stowe had mad e plans for this over a year ago. Gentry woul d handle the shipment, and it would arrive at the easter n market as though shipped from another mine than this.

Money was necessary to continue the operation of the plan , and they must have sufficient capital to make a payment on the purchase price of the mine if a deal could be arrived at. It was unfortunate tha t Mike Shevlin had appeared at this time with hi s talk of blowing the lid off, but he would be out of th e picture within a matter of hours.

Stowe sat quietly, smoking his cigar an d thinking, considering every aspect of the loading of th e gold, the route the shipment must take, and it s protection on route, without it seeming to b e protected.

The next few days would settle the affair.

The shipment, if the timing was to be right, must leav e within the next forty-eight hours.

Only yesterday he had given that list to the ma n at Boulder Spring, a list of five men to b e shot on order, and they were five men carefull y selected. He considered that again, wondering if ther e were others, but he could think of none. All but one o f those whose names were on that list would have been shocke d to realize that such a thing could be; and not one, Stow e told himself, would suspect it of him. Of the m all, Mike Shevlin might guess his own name wa s there, but none of the others could imagine themselves on suc h a list.

Gib Gentry was finishing his third drink at th e bar of the Blue Horn Saloon when Red pushe d through the doors and came up to the bar beside him.

Gib had been staring at his image in th e mirror without pleasure. All the fun had gon e out of things lately, and he might as well fac e up to the fact that he was no longer a youngster.

He was nearing forty ... oh, there were a coupl e of years to go, but a man had to face the fact tha t he was closing in on it. He owned a stage lin e with two vehicles and a steady business, and a freight line operating sixteen big wagons, wit h barns and corrals at each end. He was makin g money.

Ben Stowe was his silent partner, but he too k no pleasure in that. More and more he had realized i n these past few days that after ten years of associatio n with Ben he did not like him, and did not really kno w him. But to pull out and leave all h e owned, and start over at his age--well, that mad e no sense, either.

Like many another man in his position, he allowe d himself to remain tied to a situation that worried him , and only because of the little property it represented.

He brooded while he sat there drinking, and h e had just refilled his glass when Red entered th e door.

Irritated, for he wished to be alone , Gentry said, "You'd better watch your step. Yo u took in too much territory the other day."

The taunt had a bite, but Red chuckled , though without humor. "Maybe, but he won't b e pullin' that on me again ... not him."

"He could murder you in any kind of a fight.

I know him."

Resentment fought with caution, and resentment wo n for the moment. "He ain't goin' to bother me, no r anybody else for that matter. Not any more, h e ain't. He's had it."

Gentry's glass described a slow circl e on the bar. Through his brain, dulled by whiskey, th e idea filtered slowly. He started to ask a question , then restrained himself. If he questioned Red, the mine r would simply clam up and he would get nothing fro m him, nothing at all. Yet he had a feelin g Red wanted to talk--he wanted to brag about ho w much he knew.

"Don't you go counting on that. Shevlin will b e around for a good long spell."

Red had some remnants of caution, but he di d want to talk and he knew that no one was close r to Ben Stowe than Gentry; so it certainly could d o no harm to tell him.

He downed his drink. "Not after I come back fro m Boulder Spring, he won't be. Not for long.

He'll have a day, maybe two or three."

Red was guessing, but he had a feeling h e wasn't missing the mark very far. He had see n Shevlin exchange some angry words with Stowe, an d after that had come the message. And he knew tha t Shevlin was causing trouble ... by now everyone i n town knew that.

Suddenly another thought came to Red. Stowe ha d said, "Scratch the first name."

The first name? That implied there was a list, i t implied there were more names. If Shevlin's was the firs t name on the list, whose were the other names?

"That Ben," Red confided, "he's a cage y one. Always knows what he's about."

Gentry was silent, thinking of Red's information.

So the word was out--Shevlin was to be killed.

Anger filled him. Ben was a damned fool.

Didn't he know a man like Mike Shevlin woul d take a lot of killing?

There were some who might low-rate Mik e Shevlin, but Gentry was not one of them. He ha d always known there was a tiger in Shevlin, and he ha d seen it loosed a time or two. And this Shevli n who had come back to Rafter was a far cry from th e tough but unseasoned boy who had left.

Red was a stupid man, and a talkative , boastful man. As he finished his second drin k he realized that he held an enormous piece o f information, and it was too much for him. Deep within hi m he understood that he should repeat nothing of what h e knew--but wasn't Gentry one of the outfit?

"Gib," he said, leaning closer, "you don'
t figure me for knowing anything, but I bet I kno w something you don't. Ben has him a little list, a death list. And Shevlin is number one on tha t list."

Red put down his glass, waiting for some kin d of reply, but Gentry waited, seeming to ignor e him.

"You'll see, when Shevlin turns u p missing."

Red walked outside, the batwing doors swingin g behind him. Within a few minutes he would be on hi s way, and he would have forgotten his loose-tongue d talk. But Gentry would not forget it, for Gentr y knew who was at Boulder Spring.

He had stumbled on the knowledge by accident, and ha d kept it to himself. He had used his head in no t mentioning it to Stowe, but now he realized that he wa s starting a bit late to use his head.

He was, he reflected bitterly, jus t beginning to grow up, and he was coming to realize that h e had spent most of his life being something of a damne d fool. When the country was overrun with cattle , many of doubtful ownership, it had been fun to bran d a few head, drive them to some out-of-the-wa y market, and then spend the money on a big wing-din g -comriding horses into saloons and shooting out a few street lamps or windows had been part of th e fun. And when the high-grading started it had seeme d no different from the rustling.

Befuddled with drink as he was, his mind bega n to gnaw slowly at the problem, puzzling over it i n a way he never would have done if col d sober. Red had said that Shevlin was first on tha t list, but who else was listed?

Ray Hollister?

He sorted around in his mind for other names.

Shevlin and Hollister, both logical enough. Bu t a list implied more than two. Who, then, were th e others?

Gentry himself was to come in for a large share of tha t high-graded gold when it was finally disposed of ...
b ut suppose, just suppose, that his name was also on tha t list?

He tossed off the rest of his drink and turne d from the bar. His shoulder collided with the doorjamb a s he went out, lurching across the walk to the edge, wher e he stared up the darkening street.

That man out at Boulder Spring was Lo n Court. Gentry, who fancied himself good with a gun, was simply a hell-for-leather , draw-and-blast-'em type of fighter. Lo n Court was a killer for pay. He was a meat-hunter, a man who worked with a long-rang e rifle and careful planning, who killed the wa y some men branded stock or stacked wheat. He wa s cold, deadly, and efficient.

Standing alone on the empty street, Gentr y suddenly knew he was no longer in a quandry.

For the first time, his life held definit e purpose.

In that stark moment on the street his min d cleared. When most men had gone to their suppers h e stood there alone, and was aware of his aloneness; an d he realized that in all his careless, heedless youn g manhood the closest thing to a friend he had ever ha d was Mike Shevlin.

The rest of the old crowd were gone. They ha d drifted away, become family men, or ha d been killed at work or died at the end of a rop e or by the gun. He and Shevlin were the only one s left.

There was Ben Stowe, of course, but where the other s had been wild and reckless, Ben had always bee n cold and ruthless, working for every last buck, and th e hell with anybody who got in the way.

Of just one thing Gentry was sure now. Mik e Shevlin was too good a man to be shot from ambus h by a man like Lon Court. He strode down th e street to the livery stable and claimed his horse.

"You seen Shevlin?" he asked Brazos. Hi s speech was thick, but to himself his purpose was clear.

"I got to see him. Right away."

Brazos threw him a sharp glance. Gentry wa s drunk, yes, but he wasn't fighting drunk.

What showed in his eyes was anxiety, no t animosity.