with These Hands (Ss) (2002) (10 page)

Somewhere outside, there was a crash and then a sound of shots. I didn't know what it meant, but I was heading toward that scream I'd heard.

Candy Chuck Marvin had caught Eleanor in the kitchen.

She was fighting, but there wasn't much fight left in her. I grabbed Candy Chuck by the scruff of the neck and jerked him back. His gun was lying on the table and I caught it up and heaved it out the window, right through the glass.

Then I tossed my empty gun on the floor under the range. There was a wicked gleam in Candy Chuck's eyes.

He was panting and staring at me. He was bigger than me by twenty pounds and he'd been raised in a rough school.

He lunged, throwing a wallop that would have ripped my jaw off. But I slipped it and smashed one into his wind that jerked his mouth open. I hooked my left into his wind and he backed off. I followed him, stabbing a left into his mouth. He didn't have blubber lips but they bled.

I hooked a short, sharp left to the eye, and smashed him back against the sink. He grabbed a pitcher and lunged for me, but I went under it and knocked it out of his hand.

Eleanor Harley was standing there, her dress torn, her eyes wide, staring at us. Then the door opened and Mooney stepped in, two cops right behind him, and Tarrant Houston following them.

Mooney took in the scene with one swift look. Then he leaned nonchalantly against the drain board.

"Don't mind me," he said. "Go right ahead."

Candy Chuck Marvin caught me with a right that knocked me into the range. I weaved under a left and hooked both hands short and hard to the body, then I shoved him away and jabbed a left to his face. Again, and then again. Three more times I hit him with the left, keeping his head bobbing like a cork in a millstream and then I pulled the trigger on my Sunday punch. It went right down the groove for home plate and exploded on his chin.

His knees turned to rubber, then melted under him and he went down.

Me, I staggered back against the drain board and stood there, panting like a dowager at a Gregory Peck movie.

Mooney looked Candy Chuck Marvin over with professional interest, then glanced at me approvingly.

"Nice job," he said. "I couldn't do as good with a set of knucks and a razor. Is he who I think he is?"

"Yeah," I said, "Candy Chuck Marvin, and this time you've got enough on him to hang him."

Ford Hiesel shoved into the room. "Got them, did you?" he said. "Good work!"

Then he saw me, and his face turned sick. He started to back away and you could see the rat in him hunting a way out.

"This guy," I said, "advised Candy Chuck to get rid of me, and told him it would be a good idea to get rid of the girls and Houston-to make a clean sweep!"

Eleanor lifted her head. "I heard him say it!" she put in.

"We hid in the closet behind the mirror in the hall."

Ford Hiesel started to protest, but there had been enough talk. I shoved him against the drain board, and when I was between him and the rest of the room, I whipped my right up into his solar plexus. The wind went out of him like a pricked balloon and he began gasping for breath. I turned back to the others, gestured at him.

"Asthma," I said. "Bad, too."

"What about the diamonds?" Mooney asked suddenly.

"Why didn't they fence them?"

Eleanor turned toward the detective.

"They talked about it," she said. "But the only man who would have handled the diamonds here was picked up by the police, and Marvin was hoping he could arrange things, meanwhile, to keep them for himself."

Then I told her about the pin, and she came over to me as Mooney commented, "I know about that. A clerk named Davis, at the jewelry store, got in touch with me when they checked and found out the pin belonged to Eleanor Harley. That and the smoke tipped us off to this place."She was looking up at me with those eyes, almost too beautiful to believe.

"I can't thank you enough for what you've done," she said.

"Sure you can," I said, grinning. "Let's go down to the Casino and talk to a couple of bartenders while we have some drinks. Then, I can tell you all about it."

Ain't I the cad, though?

*

It's no use, Tom," Ginnie Rollins said. "Dad just won't listen. He says you're no good. That you've no sense of responsibility. He says you haven't anything and you never will have."

"Do you think that, Ginnie?" Tom Brandon asked. "Do you?"

"You know I don't, Tom. You shouldn't even ask. But you can't blame Dad. He only wants what is best for me, and every time I mention you, he brings up the fact that you are always racing horses and fighting. He says he'll have no saloon brawler for a son-in-law."

"It isn't only that," Tom said, discouragement heavy in his voice, "it's that herd I lost. Every time I try to get a job, they bring that up. I reckon half of 'em think I was plumb careless an' the other half think I'm a thief." They both sat silent. Despite the cold wind neither felt like moving. It was not often anymore that they had a chance to talk, and this meeting had been an accident-but an accident each of them had been hoping would happen.

Whether they would see each other again was doubtful.

Jim Rollins was a hard-bitten old cattleman with one of the biggest ranches in the country, and he had refused Tom Brandon the right to come on his spread. Not only refused him the premises, but had ordered his hands to enforce it. Though several of them were old friends of Tom's, the foreman was Lon Huffman, with whom Tom had two disastrous fistfights, both of which Huffman had won.

Lon was a good deal the bigger man, and skilled in rough-and-tumble fighting, but each time he had a bad time in beating Brandon, who was tough, willing, and wiry. His dislike for Tom was no secret, and it extended to his particular cronies, Eason and Bensch.

"I'll always think somebody deliberately stampeded that herd on me," Brandon said. "The whole thing was too pat. There it was, the herd close to the border an' well bedded down. All of a sudden, they busted loose an' started to run-right over into Mexico. An' when I started after 'em, there was the Rurales lined up on the border sayin' no. It looked like a rigged deal."

"But who would do such a thing, Tom?" Ginnie protested.

"I know you've said that, but Dad claims it's just an excuse. Who would do anything of the sort? There's no rustling here, and there haven't been any bandits for years."

"Just the same," Tom insisted, "if a man made a deal with old Juan Morales over at Los Molinos, he could get a good price for those cattle. Those Rurales were too much Johnny-on-the-spot."

Finally, they said a hopeless good-bye and Tom Brandon turned his grulla and started for Animas. He was broke, out of a job, and had nothing in sight. The wind was blowing cold from the north, but it seemed to be falling off a little.

If the weather got warmer it would help some. It began to look like he would be camping out all winter, he reflected grimly, or riding the chuck line.

Animas was a quiet town. There had been but one killing all year, and that because of a misguided attempt by a half-breed to draw a gun on Lon Huffman. What had started the altercation was not known aside from what Huffman himself had said and Eason had verified. The half-breed, a man with a reputation as a hard character in Sonora, had come into town hunting Huffman. He had found him, there had been angry words, and Huffman had killed the breed. "Just a trouble hunter," Huffman said gruffly. "Came into town aimin' to kill somebody, an' picked me."

There were four general stores in Animas and but three saloons.

The only gambling done was a few games of draw or stud between friends or casual acquaintances.

Tom Brandon swung down from his grulla and led the horse into the stable. Old Man Hubbell looked up at him.

"Sorry to bother you, Tom, but you better have some money soon. The boss is gettin' riled."

"Sure, Hub. An' thanks." He turned and walked toward the Animas Saloon, reflecting grimly that if he had any friends left, they would be there. It was remarkable how a man's friends fell away when he was out of a job and broke. Luckily, he had always been considerate to old Hub, which was more than most of the riders were. Hub remembered, and his brother, Neil Hubbell, who owned the Animas, was also friendly.

It was warm inside and the potbellied stove was glowing with heat. Neil nodded from a table as he came in, and indicated a bottle that stood on the bar. "Help yourself, Tom. I'm about to take some money away from Jim."

Jim Rollins glanced up briefly, his hard old eyes showing his disapproval, but he said nothing. Lon Huffman, who was sitting by the stove, tipped back in his chair and grinned maliciously. "You goin' to be that good to me if I become a pauper, Neil?"

The room was suddenly dead still and Tom Brandon jerked his hand away from the bottle as if stung. He turned slowly, his face white. Why he said it, he would never know, but somehow the words just came of their own free will. "I'd rather be an honest pauper," he said, "than a rich thief."

Lon Huffman's face turned dark and his chair legs slammed down. "I reckon," he said, getting to his feet, "I'm goin' to have to beat some more sense into that thick skull o' your'n."

"That's good because I'm not wearin' a gun, Lon,"

Brandon said coolly, "so you've no excuse to murder me."

Rollins turned sharply. "Brandon, that's uncalled for!" he declared angrily. "You got no cause to call Lon a murderer because some breed hunted him for trouble!"

Tom Brandon was raging inside. He had nothing on which to base his accusation but suspicion, and that, he admitted to himself, might stem from his own dislike of Huffman, but he spoke again regardless. "Nobody knows he came huntin' for trouble. Lon says so. Eason says so.

But when didn't Eason say what Lon wanted him to?"

Lon Huffman's mouth was an ugly line. He was a big, hard man but he moved fast. Also, this talk was not doing him any good. The sooner it was stopped, the better. "You said enough," he said. "You done called me a liar! You called Eason a liar." He grabbed at Tom, and Brandon stepped back and hit him.

The punch caught Lon on the chin but lacked force, as Tom was stepping back. Huffman ducked his head a little and struck swiftly. The first punch caught Tom on the jaw and smashed his head back. The second hit him on the temple and he started to fall. Huffman lunged close, trying with his knee, but Tom grabbed both hands around the underside of the knee and jerked up. Lon Huffman lost balance and fell hard. Tom stepped back, wiping blood from his lips. He was still stunned by those first blows.

Huffman got up, then rushed. Tom struck out wickedly and the two fought savagely while the men in the room sat silent, watching.

Most of them had seen the other two fights and there was no doubt about what would happen now. And inevitably, it did happen. They had been fighting several minutes when Huffman's superior weight and strength began to tell. Tom fought back gamely but he was beaten to the floor. He struggled up, was knocked down again, and fell over against the bar. Huffman was only stopped from putting the boots to him by the other men in the room.

Bloody and battered, Tom Brandon staggered from the room. Outside the wind was cold and his face was left numb. Grimly he looked at his battered hands, and then he turned and half walked and half staggered to the livery stable, where he crawled into the hay and wrapped himself in his blanket.

Before daybreak he was in the saddle and heading out of town. He was through here, of that there could be no question now. He was being kicked around by everybody, and just a few months before he had been liked and respected.

It had started with his first fight with Huffman, then the loss of the herd and the talk about it. After that, things had unraveled rapidly. There was nothing to do but drift.

By noon he was miles to the east and riding huddled in the saddle, cold and hungry. Suddenly, he saw several cattle drifting sullenly along the trail toward him. As he came up to them, he saw they wore a Rafter H brand. The Rafter H, he recalled, was a small spread some seven or eight miles further east. These cattle were rapidly drifting away and might never get home in this cold. Turning them, he started them back toward their home ranch, and through the next hour and a half, he kept them moving. When he sighted the cabin and the gate, he hallooed loudly.

The door opened and a stocky, powerful man stepped to the door and at Brandon's hail, opened the gate. Brandon herded the cattle inside and drew up.

"Thanks." The cattleman strode toward him. "Where'd you find 'em?"

Brandon explained, and the man looked at his face, then said, "My name's Jeff Hardin. Get down and come in, you look about beat. Anyway, I'm just fixin' supper."

Hours later they sat together in front of the fireplace.

Hardin had proved an interested listener, and Brandon had been warmed by coffee and companionship into telling his troubles. Hardin chuckled softly. "Friend," he said, "you've had it rough. What you doin' now? Lightin' a shuck?"

"What else can I do? Nobody would give me a job there, an' I can't lick Huffman. He's whipped me three times runnin' an' a man ought to know when he's whipped."