the High Graders (1965) (2 page)

Gib Gentry and Shevlin had been friends ...
o r what passed as such. They had worked together , ridden into town together, been in trouble together.

Despite that, there had been no real affection betwee n them; they had simply been thrown together as two peopl e are, held together by work and mutual associations, an d considered by everyone to be friends. And both had don e foolish things.

"You should have had your ears slapped down,"

Shevlin told himself.

The trouble was that nobody around Rafter ha d wanted to tackle that job, not even then.

Now he was thirty years old and the veteran of mor e gun trouble than he cared to remember.

In the old days Gentry and Shevlin ha d seemed to be two of a kind, reckless and wild , full of ginger, and homeless as a pair o f tumbleweeds. Ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and to drop the hat themselves if need be. An d Gentry had been good with a gun.

He had been better with a gun than Shevlin i n those days. He was eight years older, and had owne d a gun that much longer and had had that much mor e practice. But a lot of water had flowed under th e bridge since then, and a lot had happene d to Mike Shevlin that could never happen to Gi b Gentry in Rafter Crossing. In the words of th e cow country, Mike Shevlin had been up th e creek and over the mountain since then.

The rain lashed his face, driven by the risin g wind. This was the story of his life, he though t bitterly--hunting a place to hole up for a while. Thirty years old, and nothing to show for i t but a horse, a saddle, and a couple of guns.

He was riding past the last of the town'
s buildings when he remembered the old mill i n Brush Canyon. It might have been torn dow n for the lumber, or burned in some brush fire, bu t if it was still there it would be shelter from the storm and fro m observation. The mill had been old, even in hi s time, mute evidence of a dream that dried up when th e water did. It was unlikely that newcomers woul d know of its existence.

With no better place to go, he turned into th e trail around the livery barn and started up th e slant of the hill in the driving rain. Brus h whipped at his slicker and at his face, but h e bowed his head and kept on.

From the crest of the ridge he looked back upo n the town's lights. If he had been a smar t man, he thought, he would now own a ranch or a business of some kind, but he had never known an y way of doing what had to be done than to bull in an d start swinging.

At the bottom of Brush Canyon h e detected a subtle alteration in the manner of hi s horse, and like any western rider in wild countr y he had learned to depend on the instincts as wel l as on the sight and hearing of his horse, to know it s moods, to be aware of every change of muscle o r movement. Stepping down now from the saddle , Shevlin explored the muddy trail wit h careful fingers.

What he found was the indentation of a hoof trac k so recent as to be easily discernible in spite of th e rain. That track had probably been made withi n the last few minutes.

Wiping the mud from his hand on the horse'
s mane, he walked the horse past the dark bul k of the old mill and dismounted at the stable. Here h e led the horse inside, closed the door behind him , and struck a match.

On each side of the barn there were a doze n stalls, for it was here they had kept the bi g Clydesdales used to haul logs to the mill, an d to haul away the planks. There were four horse s in the stable now, and they rolled their eyes aroun d to look at him.

He led his mount to a vacant stall, touchin g each horse as he passed. Two were dry, one wa s slightly damp, and the fourth was as wet as his own.

Two riders, then, had been here most of the day, th e others arriving since the rain began, and one of the m only minutes before.

Stripping the rig from his black, he wiped th e horse down with a dry sack he found hanging ove r the side of the stall. Come what might, he was throug h traveling for tonight. Then he checked the othe r horses.

The first was a cowhorse, the sort to be found i n any remuda, and it wore a Turkeytrac k brand, the old Moorman outfit. The fin e dapple-gray mare was a Three Sevens.

Obviously this was a woman's horse, for fe w cattlemen would ride anything but a gelding. Th e two geldings in the stable were both branded Ope n AV, a brand unfamiliar to Shevlin.

He struck a match and checked the dropping s on the floor. The cowhorse and one of the gelding s had been sta4 here since the previous day, but ther e was no evidence that prior to that a horse had bee n here in months. So this was a meeting place, and no t a permanent setup.

He stepped outside, moving quietly as was hi s usual way, and closed the door softly behind him.

His attention was immediately riveted on a strang e glisten of reflected light outside the mill'
s boarded window. With one hand resting on the corne r of the barn, he carefully unfastened his slicker with th e other.

What he saw was the shine of light on a rain-wet slicker like his own. Somebody wa s standing in the darkness near the mill door, waiting.

Drawing his gun, Shevlin waited for a flash o f lightning. Poised as he was, the sligh t advantage was his when the shadows were suddenl y broken by the lightning's glare. The other man sho t too quickly, the bullet tearing the wood at th e barn's corner within inches of Shevlin's hand.

Instantly, at the flash of the other man'
s gun, Shevlin fired in return.

The man fell hard against the side of th e building, and his pistol splashed in the water; the n he straightened with a grunt and ran, staggering, into th e woods. A moment later Shevlin heard the poun d of hoofs, and after that all was darkness and silence, wit h only the sound of the falling rain.

Shevlin walked to where the gun had fallen, an d after a minute or two of groping he found it.

The tiny slit of light that had warned him of th e watcher's presence was gone, but the door was open a crack and a rifle muzzle covered him.

"Hold it right there, mister," a voice said , "and holster that gun."

Shevlin tucked the .45 behind his belt, tryin g to place the voice, which seemed familiar. H
e walked toward the door, saying conversationally, "W
e had better talk this over in the light, amigo.

There was a time when I knew, Turkeytrac k mighty well."

"Hold up there!"

No stranger to the tone of a voice behind a gun , Mike Shevlin stopped.

"Who'd you ever know at Turkeytrack?"
c ame the question from the darkness.

"Rawhide Jenkins was foreman then, and they ha d a sourdough cook named Lemmon." Then th e remembrance of the voice came to him suddenly , by association. "And they had a cantankerous ol d devil of a wolfer named Winkler."

The door opened wider. "Come on careful, wit h your hands empty."

"That wolf-hunter," Shevlin continued, "too k over as cook one time when Lemmon was laid up.

He made the best coffee and the lousies t biscuits a man ever ate."

He walked up the ramp and into the darkness of a room that had once been the main part of th e sawmill. A fire glowed redly on a heart h across the room, and the firelight gleamed from th e blade of the saw.

Shevlin paused just inside the door, hi s senses alert and waiting, his hands grippin g lightly the edges of his slicker.

"Light it, Eve."

A match flared, revealing the face of a girl , strangely lovely in the soft light. She touche d the flame to the wick of a coal-oil lantern, the n lowered the globe and hung the lantern so the ligh t fell upon Shevlin's face.

He knew what they saw: a big man wit h wide shoulders and a lean body that bulked eve n larger now with the wet slicker and the black leathe r chaps. A man over six feet tall who di d not look the two hundred pounds he weighed, a man with a wedge-shaped face turned to leather by win d and sun.

Using his left hand, Shevlin tilted his ha t back so they could see his face, wondering if th e years had left enough for Winkler to recognize.

"Shevlin!" the man exclaimed. "Mik e Shevlin! Well, I'll be dogged! Heard you wa s killed down on the Nueces."

"It was a close thing."

Winkler did not lower the rifle, and Shevli n held his peace, knowing why it covered him.

"What happened out there just now?"

"You had an eavesdropper. He tried a shot at me."

The huge room was almost empty. Here where th e great saw blade had screamed through logs, cuttin g out planks to build the town, all was silent bu t for the subdued crackle of the fire and the rain on th e walls and windows. The firelight and the lanter n shed their glow even to the corners; he saw only th e girl and the old wolfer, yet there had been fou r horses out there.

There were no chairs and no table, but there was a sixteen-foot pine log from which the top had bee n cut for planks, leaving a flat surface that wa s at once a bench and a table. Near the fireplac e there was a stack of wood, and at the fire's edg e an ancient, smoke-blackened coffeepot.

The girl was young, not much over twenty, but he r manner was cool and carried authority. Sh e regarded him with direct attention. "Do you alway s shoot that quick?"

"I take notions."

Winkler was still suspicious. "What did you com e back for? Who sent for you?"

Removing his slicker, Shevlin walked to th e fire and stretched his hands toward th e coals. What was going on here? He ha d returned, it seemed, to a town crawling wit h suspicion and fear. How could mining do that to a town? Or was it the mining?

"What did you come back for?" Winkle r repeated.

"Eli's dead."

"Eli?"

"Eli Patterson."

"That's been a while. Anyway, what's tha t to do with you, I never heard of you going out of your wa y for anybody. What did you have to do with that ol d coot?"

"I liked him." Shevlin rubbed his hands abov e the coals. "I've been down Sonora way.

Only heard a few weeks ago that he wa s dead."

"So you came runnin', hey? Take m y advice and light a shuck out of here. Everything'
s changed, and we've trouble enough without you."

"I want to know what happened to Eli."

Winkler snorted. "As I recall, h e wasn't the man to do business with a cow thief."

Mike Shevlin had expected that, sooner o r later. "Maybe he didn't think of me tha t way," he said mildly.

The girl spoke up. "Who sent you to thi s mill?" she asked.

"It seemed like a good place to sleep. Neve r dreamed anybody would be holed up here."

She must be Three Sevens. What did h e know of the Three Sevens outfit?

"You had friends here," Winkler said. "Why not g o to them? Or stop in the hotel?"

"I never had any friends in this country. Onl y Eli Patterson."

"You trailed with Gentry and them. What abou t him? What about Ben Stowe?"

Rain drummed on the roof, but Shevlin wa s sure he heard a faint stirring in the loft above.

So that was where they were, then.

"I think," Eve said, "that this man is a spy."

"You think whatever you're of a mind to. I'
m going to get me some sleep here." Then he added , "Eli gave me a job when I was a youngster."

"He never owned no cattle," Winkler said.

"He hired me to unload a wagon for him , then he spoke to Moorman about me. That's ho w come I hired on at Turkeytrack."

"You ran with Gentry and that crowd," Eve said.

"I know all about you."

"Who ever knows all about anybody? As to th e Gentry crowd, I'll own to having been my shar e of a fool."

Come to think of it, he had never been much o f anything else. He was a drifter, a man wh o fought for wages, mainly because he knew how to do i t better than most, even in this country. Yet wha t did that mean? It meant when he was through they paid hi m off, and were glad to be rid of him. And in the end?

In the end he would die up a canyon some plac e when his ammunition gave out. Or at the end of a rope.

Weariness swept over him, and he fel t empty, exhausted both mentally and physically.

He was tired of being wary, tired of running , tired of being alert for trouble. But he could not hav e picked a worse time to feel that way, for he ha d come back to a country that was obviously on th e brink of a shooting war.

Yet he had no idea what was going on. H
e only knew that the town was cold, wet, an d unfrly, just as it had been seventeen years ago.

Chapter
2

He had come to Rafter a gaunt youngster o f thirteen astride a buckskin that showed every rib , thin as a bed slat himself, and wearing all he owned.

He carried a single-shot Sharps .50
b uffalo gun, one ragged blanket, and a Nav y Colt. The saddle he bestrode was a cast-of f McClellan, left behind by the Army.

Eli Patterson had been alone in the stor e when the boy entered, wet to the skin, but carrying al l the fine, stiff pride of a boy alone and seekin g a man's job. A boy who was ragged and wet, an d who knew he was nothing much to begin with.