the High Graders (1965) (13 page)

It was past two o'clock in the morning; mayb e almost three. A good two hours remained befor e daylight, ample time for whatever mischief was to b e done under cover of darkness.

Now in the spaces between the buildings riders coul d be made out, three abreast in the first opening, tw o in the next. Others, judging by the sound, were walkin g their horses slowly up the street.

"Babcock," Shevlin said, "you're sitting i n on a wake. Out there in that dusty street you'l l see the end of the cattle business in Rafter.

You're a stubborn man, and you've been loya l for a long time to a shadow; but stop and think, man.

"You were at Rock Springs the night I w hipped Ray. You know Ray never saw the time whe n he could stand with the big cattlemen in the old days , but he's got Eve Bancroft convinced now that h e was a big man. Babcock, be honest ... di d you ever know anybody who was afraid of Ra y Hollister?"

"That don't cut no ice."

"You two worked together for a long time," Mik e went on, looking hard at Babcock, "but i f you'd admit it to yourself, you were the one who built tha t outfit of his while Ray played the big man.

You did the work, managed the place, hired an d fired most of the time."

Babcock made no reply. Shevlin looke d along the street again. It was not over two hundre d yards from here to the mine buildings, but from the moment th e men passed the livery stable they would be in at leas t partial light for the rest of the distance. Anyone wh o passed this point in full view was a dead man.

"Bab, is Joe Holiday out there?"

"What if he is?"

"I recall a time when Joe pulled a crazy steer off you ... saved your bacon. Yo u going to let Joe get killed?"

Babcock shifted his feet.

"Bab, you're a good Injun when it come s to scouting. There was a time you'd never have walked into t h with your eyes shut. You'd have scouted the lay-out befor e you made a move."

Shevlin was sure he had Babcock worried , and he pressed the advantage. "Bab, you ca n make fifty dollars mighty easy. I'v e got it here, and I'll lay it two to one you'l l find fifty, maybe a hundred armed men up a t the head of that street."

"You're bluffin'."

"Call me."

Brazos spoke for the first time. "You call him , Babcock, and I'll lay you another fifty yo u made you a bad bet. They're up there al l right."

"Hell," Babcock said, "I couldn't sto p them! Ray's got 'em itching for it. The way the y feel they'd charge hell with a bucket of water."

The riders were coming on now, a solid rank o f them, wall to wall on the street, walking thei r horses. And as they drew nearer, the ride r waiting between the buildings started to move out to joi n them.

"Look!" exclaimed Brazos.

The silent cavalcade had stoppe d abruptly, almost opposite the livery stable.

A blocky, powerful figure had stepped from th e restaurant, a toothpick between his teeth. H
e stood now in the center of the street--dark, silent , but somehow indomitable.

It was Wilson Hoyt.

Chapter
10

Hoyt wore two six-shooters, and a third wa s thrust into his waistband. In his hands was a Col t revolving shotgun.

He said not a word. He just stood there, lettin g them see him, letting them count the odds for themselves.

Every man there knew they could ride him down: the questio n was, who was to die in the process? How man y shots could he get off before he went down?

The range was point-blank, and just enough to get a fair spread on his shot; they would be slugs , heavy enough to kill a man. If he could get of f two shots he could empty three to six saddle s at that range; and he might get out of the way an d keep shooting.

Mike Shevlin, watching from the darkness, kne w how they felt. Of the forty or so men out there, onl y two or three might die, but which ones?

Wilson Hoyt spoke suddenly, quietly , and he showed his shrewdness in not even glancing towar d Ray Hollister. Hollister was the sort that woul d feel he had to prove himself, no matter who go t killed; so Hoyt deliberately threw th e responsibility to another.

"Walt Kelly," he said, "you turn thi s outfit around and ride back where you came from."

"Get out of the way, Hoyt!"

"Don't be a damn' fool, Walt,"

Hoyt replied in a reasonable tone. "You know thi s is my job. Did you ever hear of me quittin g on the job?"

Mike Shevlin stepped out from the stable. "Bac k up, boys. That crowd up the street are waitin g there in the dark, just praying for you to ride up."

Eyes had turned toward him. Some of them wer e hard, hating eyes, some questioning, some even hopeful.

In any such crowd there are always a few who do no t want the thing to happen, who are wishing for something , anything, to stop it before it goes too far. Thes e found their hope in Hoyt, and now in Shevlin'
s backing of Hoyt.

But Ray Hollister had been ignored to o long. "He's a damn' liar!" he yelled.

"There's nobody up there! Come on, let's go!"

There was a noticeable surge in the crowd, an d Hoyt's shotgun lifted. "If any of yo u boys are friendly to Walt Kelly," he said , "you'd better tell him goodbye ... an d there's a couple more had better say it for themselves."

Hoyt had made his mistake. As a crowd , they could hold back and acquire no blame, bu t now he had named an individual, and one of the bes t among them. Walt Kelly could not hold bac k now.

"Damn you, Hoyt!" he said. "Get out of th e way. I'm riding!"

"What about Arch, Walt?" Shevlin's voic e carried easily.

All his life Walt Kelly had been father a s well as big brother to Archer Kelly. And it wa s Arch's name that made him hesitate now.

At that instant a rider thrust forward from th e crowd. It was Eve Bancroft, and her face wa s white with fury. "You yellow-livered coyotes!"

Her voice was hoarse with anger. "Come on , Ray! We'll show 'em!"

She slapped the spurs to her horse and h e leaped forward. Hoyt sprang to grab he r bridle, but she was past him and charging up th e street.

Ray Hollister made one lunge to follow , then pulled up.

Eve Bancroft, her gun blazing, went u p the street, and the waiting miners could not see she was a woman. She rode full-tilt into a rippin g wall of lead that struck her from the saddle, tearin g with hot metal claws at her flesh. Sh e half-turned before she fell clear, and the scream tha t tore from her throat, a scream of agony an d despair, echoed in the street.

From the darkness where the miners lay, a voic e called out in horror. "It's a woman! M
y God, we've killed a woman!"

The eyes of the cattlemen looked at the stil l figure lying in the street a hundred yard s away. And then as one man they looked at Ra y Hollister.

Every man of them knew that Eve Bancroft ha d ridden up the street because she believed i n Hollister, and she had invited him to ride with her.

He sat his horse, staring at her body as i f he couldn't believe it, scarcely aware as th e riders one by one turned and rode away. He ha d brought her to this, and in the moment of need, he ha d failed her. He had let her ride alone.

Hoyt moved suddenly. "Hollister, get ou t of here. If I ever see you again I'll shoot yo u like a mad dog. I'll kill you where yo u stand."

People, mysteriously absent until now, bega n to appear on the street. Two of the women wen t to Eve's body. Nobody needed to ask if sh e was dead, for no one could have ridden into t burst o f fire and survived.

Shevlin moved up beside Hoyt. "I trie d to stop her!" Hoyt said. "Damn it, I t ried!"

"Nobody could have stopped her then," Shevli n said. "Nobody but Ray."

People were gathering in clusters on the street , talking. Ben Stowe was nowhere in sight.

"He didn't do a damn' thing," Hoyt said.

"He just sat there and watched her go."

"He started," somebody said. "He started, an d then he quit ... he quit cold."

Mike Shevlin turned away, but Hoy t stopped him. "Do you think this will end it?"

"Has anything changed?" Shevlin asked. "A g irl's dead that should be alive, but the situation'
s the same. Hoyt, you take it from me. Throw Be n Stowe in jail. Then call a meeting of half a dozen of your best citizens and get this thing cleane d up."

Hoyt hesitated, staring gloomily before him.

"Arrest Ben Stowe? He hired me."

"Hired you to do a job."

Shevlin walked off. He was going back to th e claim. Tomorrow was another day, and he had a jo b to do; and what better place to do some thinking tha n there with a shovel in his hands?

Suddenly he thought of Burt Parry. Where wa s he? He had left the claim for town, bu t Shevlin had seen nothing of him ... and the town was no t that big, not unless he had a girl and was staying wit h her.

But Shevlin realized that he himself wanted no mor e of the town, or its people. He had not liked Ev e Bancroft, but she had been young and alive, and sh e had believed in her chosen man. To waste such a faith ... that was the sad thing, and he had n o stomach for what had happened.

All he wanted now was to ride away to where th e mountains reached for the sky, where the pines brushed a t the clouds. He paused by the stable, and his thoughts wer e gloomy. He was an old lobo who ran th e hills alone, and he had best get used to th e idea. There was no use looking into the eyes o f any girl. He was the sort who woul d wind up in the dead end of a canyon, snarling an d snapping at his own wounds because of the weakness the y brought.

There was nothing here he wanted, nothing but for tha t old man up on the hillside to rest easy, no t buried as a man who died in a gunfight, but a s one shot down with empty, innocent hands. For ol d Eli had never been a man of violence, just a s Mike himself was his opposite, a man who walke d hard-shouldered at the world.

He got the black horse from the stable and rod e him out of town. He avoided the trails, scoutin g wide upon the grassy hills, and riding th e slopes away from the tracks left by horses an d men.

When he came to the canyon he had to take th e trail, and it was then his horse shied. He dre w up, trusting his horse. He sat the saddl e silently, listening to the night. At first he hear d no sound, and then only a brushing whisper, as of a horse walking past brush that touched his saddle a s he went by.

Mike Shevlin stayed still and waited. He wa s anxious to be back at the claim, and he wa s irritated at this interruption. There was a fain t gray in the far sky, hinting at the dawn that woul d come soon.

Then he saw the horse, a horse with a n empty saddle, head up, looking toward him. Th e horse whinnied, and his own replied. Coldly , he still waited, his Winchester up and ready for a quic k shot.

Nothing happened. ...

He walked his horse nearer, and saw the whit e line of the trail, and something dark that lay sprawle d there. Shevlin had seen many such dark sprawlings i n the night, and he knew what lay there. H
e stepped down from the saddle, for his horse warned hi m of no other danger.

He knelt and turned the man over on hi s back. Then he struck a match, and looked into th e wide-open dead eyes of Gib Gentry.

Shevlin struck another match. The front o f Gib's shirt, where the bullet had emerged, wa s dark with blood, almost dry now. In the flare of th e match he saw something else.

Gib had crawled after he had fallen. H
e had crawled four or five feet, and one hand wa s outstretched toward a patch of brush.

Striking yet another match, Shevli n looked at that outstretched hand and saw, draw n shakily in the sand under the edge of the brush: She v look out. Lon C--The last word trailed off into a meaningles s scrawl.

Shevlin straightened up and looked around. Eve n in the few minutes since he had first seen th e horse, it had grown faintly light, and the countr y around was slowly defining itself. The half-hour befor e daybreak brought out a pale gray world with dar k patches of brush. Only one or two lat e stars showed in the sky.

Leaving his own horse, he walked to Gentry'
s mount. There was blood on the saddle, blood dow n one side of the skirt. Walking still further back , Shevlin saw where the horse had shied at th e bullet, and there he found a spot or two o f blood. Gentry had come no more than a doze n yards before toppling from the saddle.

Mike Shevlin pushed his hat back and lifte d his face to the fresh coolness of the morning breeze.

He looked about him.

There were no other tracks. The hidden marksma n had been sure of his shot, or else he had no t dared to risk a closer approach to make certai n of a kill.

Gib Gentry was dead--but how did that fi t into the larger picture? Gentry had been Stowe'
s strong right hand. Why should he be killed? Gentr y had owned the express and freight line, and was necessar y to any movement of gold. Looked at coldly , his death was inopportune. The time for it was not now.