The Passionate and the Proud (23 page)

She acted, grabbing the weapon before he had a chance to pull it and fire at Randy. The gun was cold and hard in her hand. She pointed it at the ceiling and fired.

Everything stopped, the screaming and the shouting and the punching. Emmalee climbed up on Vestor Tell’s stool, holding the smoking revolver. All eyes were on her.

“Why did you stop fighting?” she demanded of them, the anger in her Voice tinged with a mixture of bitterness and disgust. “Did you think the gunshot killed someone? Was that what made everybody quit kicking and gouging? Would a death have satisfied you?”

There was too much rage in the room to be dispersed by an admonishment, however sarcastic, but a few of the men looked faintly ashamed. “That’s exactly what they’re lookin’ for,” growled one of the ranch women. “Somebody dead. Ain’t gonna be satisfied until they have that.”

Otis and Randy got to their feet and stood in front of Emmalee. She handed Otis his gun.

“Take it.”

He did. Randy watched him warily.

“Take it,” Emmalee said again, “but put it away.” Everyone continued to listen to her. Vestor Tell got up and set his desk aright. “There’s no need to kill each other over what happened to my land claim,” Emmalee said. “Randy and I are more than disappointed by what Mr. Tell has decided. But our problem—and all of the problems that I’m afraid we’re going to face—can’t be decided by violence. Because don’t you see? If we begin fighting with one another over every trespass, real or imagined, there will be nothing left for any of us except bloodshed and mourning.”

“You tell ’em!” cried Myrtle Higgins.

“That little gal’s right,” Emmalee heard a ranch wife telling her glowering husband.

Horace Torquist and Burt Pennington were on their feet now, standing side by side. Emmalee realized all too clearly that her words were not reaching them, but she continued to try anyway.

“Randy and I are going to appeal Mr. Tell’s ruling,” she said. “Legally. To whoever and wherever we have to make that appeal.”

“My judgment’s final, I told you that,” muttered Tell. “Waste your time if you want.”

“I don’t believe you,” Randy informed him. “I think something’s crooked between you and the ranchers.”

“Yeah?” bellowed Burt Pennington. “You better not talk so quick. I’m a’goin’ to find out some stuff on my own.”

The situation seemed on the verge of breaking down again.

“Everybody out!” yelled Hester Brine. “You’ve done enough damage.” She had managed to set the beer barrel aright, although a swarm of insects and somebody’s hound were savoring the spilled brew.

“Nobody is going to take my land away from me!” Emmalee said. “But I’m not going to get it in a way that will destroy everybody’s peace.”

“How noble.” Vestor Tell sneered. “Washington will back my decisions all the way, don’t you know? But go on and find out if you like. It’ll be a good education for you as to how the country works.”

“Don’t you talk to Emmalee like that,” snapped Randy, stepping forward.

“I’ve had enough of this.” Tell snarled. With a quick, deft movement, he reached inside his waistcoat and pulled out a small, mean-looking, short-snouted pistol. Emmalee saw Randy’s eyes open wide in surprise and fear; she saw Tell’s arm go rigid as he aimed and braced to fire.

The blast came suddenly, hurting Emmalee’s ears, sounding and resounding within the store, a head-splitting explosion of immense force from so small a pistol. Emmalee could not believe that a miniature gun could produce such a report, nor that Randy was not hit at such close range. She was also surprised to see the tiny gun go flying from Tell’s hand, to see Tell drop to his knees clutching his suddenly shattered, bloody fingers. The gun must have malfunctioned, exploded
in
his hand.

“Well, Ebenezer, it looks like I haven’t lost my touch completely,” observed Garn Landar.

He and the old man were standing in the store’s doorway. Garn’s big, long-barreled revolver smoked in his hand. He swept the store casually but thoroughly with his eyes, determined that no one there had the inclination to fire on him, and shoved the weapon into his belt.

Emmalee and the others realized, with some awe, that Garn had shot Tell’s pistol out of his hand. The claims agent knelt on the floor, moaning. Emmalee and Randy realized, simultaneously, that Garn had probably just saved Randy’s life and certainly prevented serious injury from a bullet fired at close range.

“Yep, Garn”—Ebenezer cackled—“you sure do have the touch.”

“You all right, Tell?” Garn demanded of the claims agent.

Tell, realizing that he was in a legal situation far worse than temporary physical disability—he had pulled a weapon on an unarmed man, after all—chose discretion.

“I’m all right.”

“Then get your map on the desk. I want to draw in the boundaries of my claim.”

“Yep. The boundaries of his claim,” seconded Ebenezer. “I want to draw in mine too.”

The transition from violence to routine, almost as if it had been produced by Garn’s easy attitude, calmed the people in the store. They pressed forward to see what Garn had claimed. Grimacing in pain, Tell picked up the map with his good hand and spread it on the top of the desk. Emmalee watched Garn as he stepped forward. He noticed her and smiled, but that was all. He offered Randy a casual nod. His behavior left her with a feeling that was quite like hurt. It was very odd. In the past, when he had teased and taunted her, when he had pursued her, even when he had attempted to seduce her, Emmalee had thought that she wanted him to go away and leave her alone. It would be far better, she had believed, if he paid no attention to her at all. It was true that the incident behind the boulders in Denver had been painful and embarrassing for both of them, but it had apparently resulted, on Garn’s part, in a decision to treat Emmalee with detachment. That was what hurt. He had caused her all that trouble and…and this was the manner in which he’d chosen to deal with her. Actually, she oughtn’t to have felt badly about it. She didn’t care for him anyhow, so what was the point of regret, however faint? Wait a minute, she told herself, as a new insight struck her. I think he caused me a lot of trouble. Maybe he thinks I did the same to him.

But, even so, he didn’t have to act so remote, did he? As if they’d never known each other at all?

“Better get that hand bandaged first chance you get,” advised Garn, as he leaned over the desk and sought a pencil. “Don’t want to let it get infected. What was going on, anyway?”

“Minor altercation,” muttered Tell.

Garn glanced around, his gaze inquiring. His eyes rested on Randy.

“Thanks for what you did, Landar, but it’s really none of your affair. It’s all settled now.”

“Like hell it is!” roared Torquist. “It’s only the beginning.” He addressed Garn directly. “Tell and the ranchers are in league with each other—”

“I wouldn’t talk if I were you,” threatened Pennington.

“—and Alf Kaiserhalt just swindled Clay and Emmalee out of their claims.”

“Kaiserhalt?” asked Garn, astounded. “Last time I saw him, he was being tied to a tree by Emmalee. He tried to knock off her head with a wooden mallet but she grabbed his arm and snapped it as if it were a twig.”

Garn saw Alf Kaiserhalt, who was trying to duck back into the crowd.

“You—you
saw
the incident?” faltered Randy, whose glance went from Garn to Emmalee and back again. “Em, why didn’t you?”

“Tell,” pronounced Torquist peremptorily. “There
was
a witness. I think you better reconsider your decision.”

“There was
two
witnesses,” put in Ebenezer Creel. “I seen everything myself. Kaiserhalt attacked Em, but she beat him. Seen it all clear as day. She was tyin’ him to a pine tree, last I saw.”

Emmalee felt Randy’s eyes on her. He was wondering why she hadn’t mentioned the presence of Garn and Creel. Throughout the store, people were demanding that Vestor Tell change his decision and set the record straight.

“Kaiserhalt!” ordered Garn. “Quit hiding there. Come out here in the open. What’s this about taking other people’s claims?”

Virgil Waters got a hand on little Alf Kaiserhalt and shoved him toward Garn. “Well, she done took my horse,” he whined, fully conscious of being defenseless and on the spot.

“You’re lucky she didn’t take your head off.”

“Is it true?” Myrtle Higgins demanded of Kaiserhalt. “Is it true what you said earlier, about Randy breaking your arm? Were you lying?”

“Randy!” scoffed Ebenezer. “Randy Clay wasn’t anywhere around.”

“Change your decision, Tell,” said Torquist, in a triumphant tone. “You’ve got that incontrovertible evidence you were looking for. From two witnesses who aren’t even involved.”

“Well, Leander Rupp wasn’t directly involved either,” Tell protested. “Why would he lie?”

“Rupp? Who’s he?” asked Garn.

The feckless farmer lifted his hand slightly and looked sheepishly at Garn. “Here I am.”

“Did you claim any land today, Rupp?”

“Ah…no, sir.”

“What are you going to do in Olympia?”

“Well, uh…I suppose…something will come up.”

“I expect it has already. Did one of the ranchers offer you a job, perhaps?”

Rupp flushed a dark red. “Ah, not in so many words…” he managed.

“I expected as much,” said Garn coldly. “Tell, I’d suggest you take these things into consideration.”

“Yeah, change your decision. Give Randy and Emmalee their land,” Torquist called out. He was supported by a rising tide of voices from his people. In contrast, the ranchers stood mute and scowling, having been made to look bad and angrily aware of their public humiliation.

“This ain’t over by a long shot,” Otis vowed, taking up a position next to his boss, Burt Pennington.

Tell, wrapping his hand in a handkerchief, said nothing at first. He seemed to be searching for a way out of the dilemma, a strategy that would not require him to back down.

“I expect I could find someone to listen to me now,” Emmalee told him. “In Washington, D.C., or wherever.”

“The truth is bound to come out,” Randy added.

“Well, now,” drawled Tell, after another moment of hesitant consideration, “I guess I was misled, wasn’t I? Through no fault of my own, of course. It could have happened to anyone. Well, you know what we have to do in this territory? We have to give one another the benefit of the doubt. Poor Alf, in his pain, probably got confused, thought Mr. Clay might have attacked him. Things like that can happen. Oh, sure, they can happen. But…” He allowed himself a long pause. “But I got to bow to these latest facts that Landar and Creel came in with. So, yes, the claims up by the three pines will be entered on the map in the names of Miss Alden and Mr. Clay.”

“Yaaaayyyyyyy!” cried the fanners.

“Thank you,” Emmalee said to Garn. But he ignored her, bent over the map, and began to mark it with a boundary line. Emmalee could not make out, at first, exactly what area he had claimed, but she did see Vestor Tell’s changing expression as the claims agent watched Garn delineate his territory. Tell’s face first showed a kind of bewildered astonishment that changed to amusement and then, as Garn put down the pencil, to contempt.

Emmalee edged forward. She saw that Garn had chosen a site in the high country up along the Big Two-Hearted River, a remote and rugged area way up among boulders, stony ground, and trees. Land like that was good for nothing. Before she could register her disappointment that he could have made such a terrible claim—had she been right, after all, in assuming that he would never be a proper success?—Ebenezer Creel moved to the map. Gritting hard, the tip of his tongue between his teeth, old Ebenezer painstakingly outlined his claim: up in the high country, too, right across the river from Garn.

Vestor Tell was scratching his head with his good hand.

“I reckon you fellows know what you’re doing,” he said doubtfully.

“Yup, sure do,” said Ebenezer.

“Looks like sheer folly to me.” Tell shrugged. “Nothing up there but a deep gorge, and hills, and rocks. Didn’t make a mistake here, did you?”

“No mistake,” Garn said.

People were crowding around the map now, noting what Garn and Ebenezer had claimed.

“Hey, that’s up by Roaring Gorge,” somebody said. “There’s
nothing
up there.”

“Rocks,” snorted someone.

“In their heads,” another added. “If that don’t beat all.”

“Threw away a chance to make a decent claim.”

“Too bad, but if they’re that stupid…”

“It is folly.”

“Yeah, Landar’s Folly.”

Not a few people laughed.

But Garn didn’t seem to mind at all. He turned away from Tell, his business concluded, and made his way to the beer barrel in the back of the store, trailed by Ebenezer. As Randy made sure his and Emmalee’s claims were properly outlined on the map, she watched Garn. He took a long swallow of the cold beer that Hester gave him, then he embraced her lightly, affectionately. Myrtle came up to him, too, and Emmalee could have sworn, from the attitudes of Garn, Ebenezer, and the two women, that they were congratulating one another on some fine, mysterious coup that Emmalee herself didn’t know anything about.

She felt left out, the more so because of the remote detachment with which Garn was treating her lately. Why, if she even tried to thank him for the testimony he’d just given, which had refuted Kaiserhalt and saved her claim, he’d probably just brush her off.

Jasper Heaton and Lambert Strep were laughing it up. “Sheee-it, ain’t that Landar something!” Strep chortled.

“Yeah,” came Jasper’s reply, “he’s the one was gonna get us to Denver ahead of old Burt. We all know how
that
turned out. An’ now lookit that stupid claim he made.”

“He ain’t got the brains he was born with,” Strep concluded, shaking his head. “Jeeee-zuzzzzz.”

“Honey,” said Randy, letting his hand linger briefly on her arm, “I’m going to try and see Hester right now about borrowing some money. I don’t want to wait and be left out. I don’t think it would be wise even to approach Vestor Tell about a loan, considering what’s happened.”

“Good idea, Randy.”

“But there’s one thing I have to know.”