Coroner Creek (12 page)

Melaven said, “I hear O'Hea's finally took leave, poor fella.”

Younger nodded and took his drink, and Melaven, seeing Younger was not in a conversational mood, moved off to other customers.

Younger was pouring his second drink when he heard the sharp footfalls on the tile floor of a man walking in a hurry. He looked over his shoulder and saw Tip Henry approaching, and he signaled to Melaven for another glass.

Tip said, “Howdy, Younger,” and Younger smiled, saying, “It'll keep, Tip. Take a drink first.”

Tip Henry grinned worriedly, poured his drink and downed it with a reflective smack of his lips. He looked around him then and Younger picked up the bottle and said, “Bring your glass,” and sauntered over to the end card table where they could have privacy.

They sat down in the barrel chairs and Younger tipped his hat back on his forehead and relaxed comfortably. “What's the hurry, Tip?”

Tip told him about Danning's visit that morning. He told it all, sparing none of the details, and as he talked he watched the hard glint of anger move into Younger's eyes. Finished, he waited, and Younger slowly turned his whisky glass on the table top, his eyes speculative, secret, angry. “Where's Ernie?” he asked, without looking up.

“We got him down to the house. He's there now. I'm supposed to get Doc Evans out there.”

“Then go get him,” Younger said, still looking at his whisky glass.

Tip didn't move. He took a deep breath, watching Younger, and when Younger looked up at him, Tip said, “Another thing, Younger. You won't like this either.”

“What?”

“I'm quittin'.”

A raw rage was in Younger's face then. It came swiftly and Tip knew a real alarm as he watched it come and then go. “Scared of him?” Younger asked.

“You are damn right,” Tip said flatly. “That's the word for it. I'm scared.”

Younger didn't say anything, only looked at him, and Tip said, again flatly, “He's an Injun. He's crazy!”

Younger moved the bottle of whisky out of his way and leaned his arm on the table. “I took you over to Moorehouse and helped you file on that place, Tip. I paid your fee, I'm payin' you good wages, I'm feedin' you and I'm payin' you a thousand dollars for a quarter section when you've proved up on it. All right, if that's not enough, I'll meet your figure. Any figure.”

“You don't get it,” Tip said patiently. “There ain't enough money in the world to keep me there. I'm quittin', I tell you. I ain't ever goin' back there. He'll kill me.”

“I'll put four men with you every night.”

“He'll kill them, too. I tell you, he's crazy.”

Miles said bitterly, “You haven't got title to it until you've proved up on it, so you can't transfer it. Where does that leave me?”

“I dunno. It leaves me alive, though.”

“No!” Younger shook his head in violent contradiction. “The first time he shoots at you, he'll be hunted down by a U. S. Marshal. Hell, we can hunt him down ourselves!”

“What good does that do with me dead?” Tip demanded. “He wasn't talking to you, Younger; he wasn't talkin' to Ernie or none of them. He was talking to me.” Tip tapped his chest with his index finger again and again, his eyes dead serious.

Younger leaned back in his chair and said softly, “Well. I'm damned.”

But Tip was through arguing. He said respectfully, “Can I get my time now?”

Younger looked at him a long moment and then said, “See MacElvey.”

Tip stood up and awkwardly thrust out his hand. “It's been a good job, Younger.”

Younger said in a low, wicked voice, “Get out of here, Tip, before I hurt you.”

Tip flushed and turned away and walked out of the saloon. Younger sat motionless, staring morosely at the bottle, his eyes still hot. The blame for it lay on Ernie Coombs, of course, and he was glad Ernie had got what was coming to him. But the result affected him, and he could write Thessaly Canyon off now. At the end of a year, when Tip failed to prove up on his homestead, it would be open to filing again, but a year was a long time to wait, too long. Henhouse had won the first move, thanks to Danning. Younger wondered with a savage scorn how any man could be so terrified of another that he would do what Tip had done. He rose now, remembering Tip's errand, and he hoped Doc Evans wouldn't have any mercy on Ernie.

Paying his score he went out, heading for the hotel where Doc Evans customarily took his supper. He was in the hotel and halfway across the lighted lobby when he saw Dr. Evans, small and spry and cheerful, come out of the dining room.

He stopped him and said, “Doc, we got a man hurt out at Rainbow. Can you run on out?”

Dr. Evans said matter-of-factly, “What's the matter with your man, Younger?”

Younger made a vague circling gesture with his hand. “Broken hand, busted nose. I don't rightly know.”

“Broken hand,” Dr. Evans said. He paused and said, “Two broken hands the same day. How'd that happen?”

“I can tell you how it didn't happen,” Younger said grimly. “They weren't shaking hands.”

Doc raised his eyebrows, shrugged and went out, and Younger drifted out after him and strolled to the edge of the boardwalk. The street lay in the full brightness of the low sun, so that he could even see the nails in the false front of Canning's saddle shop across the street. There was no traffic now and the street was so quiet that he could hear the sound of someone sawing wood on the edge of town. A morose restlessness was on him; he wanted to get off by himself and think this out. The legal way, the respectable way was not going to work, he knew now, and the next move must be a careful one.

He walked down to the corner and stood there aimlessly for a moment, wanting to get moving and wondering whether he should wait for Dr. Evans. He decided against waiting and went down to the livery and got his horse, leaving word there for Dr. Evans that he had gone on ahead.

Younger rode a big vicious black that, now Younger mounted him, danced sideways down the livery center way and bolted out into the quiet street. Younger let him run to the edge of town and hauled him up roughly. He was not in a mood to enjoy the sharp edge of his horse's temper at the moment, and he kept him at a walk past the last straggling houses of the town.

At the edge of town he met a dirty, unshaven puncher astride a good bay horse and, as they drew even, the puncher said respectfully, “Howdy, Younger.”

“Hello, Briggs,” Younger answered indifferently, and made no move to stop and pass the time of day. The sun was far down now and the flats clear to the Blackbows were touched with a pale bright light. Younger glanced over at his shadow which extended far off the road, dark and elongated, and he felt an odd depression. It galled him to think that he had the money, the law behind him, and the plan, and it all counted for nothing in the face of one man's stubbornness. He'd found his country and his people, and he was going to be one of them—big and powerful, feared a little, but above all, respected, so that when he died they'd feel a hole in their lives. Danning wasn't going to stop him, but how to get rid of Danning without risking the whole business was another matter.

Certainly, he reflected, there was a way, a legal way, to shove a tottering, two-bit outfit like Henhouse over the brink into ruin. Either the men who worked for them could be bought, or—and then he remembered Yordy.

As he thought of Yordy, he remembered Abbie saying he would be at Briggs'. When he thought of it, he half turned in his saddle, as if to speak to Briggs who was gone these ten minutes past. Then he looked ahead of him and saw Briggs' small shack off across the flats. He hadn't passed Briggs' road yet, and as he rode on he wondered if Yordy would be there now. He didn't like the man, didn't trust him, but what if Yordy, for once in his life, talked sense?

When he came to the wagon road into Briggs' place, he reined up, hesitant, and then, almost reluctantly, he turned in. Briggs' place was a sty, and approaching it, Younger's nose quivered in distaste. It was a one-room shack surrounded by a tangle of corrals whose poles were so high they almost hid the sagging shack roof. Joe Briggs was a horse trader and horse breaker and sometimes horse hunter. If he was also a horse stealer, nobody had proven it yet. But his corrals were always full of horses of all ages and colors, and bearing strange brands, and they were all cleaner than he was. Among the more shiftless lot of punchers and small ranchers Briggs enjoyed a reputation as a wit, an astute judge of horses and a drinking companion.

As Younger rode up into the bare dusty yard between the corrals, he thought the place was deserted. He pulled his horse around; the big black kicked a can, of which there were dozens scattered about the yard, and a moment later Yordy came to the door.

He saw Younger riding out and called, “Younger, you lookin' for anybody?”

Younger pulled his horse around and came back. Reining up in front of the door, he made no effort to dismount but only stared curiously at Yordy.

Yordy, obviously, had been on a drunk, and was still drinking. His eyes were red-rimmed and pouchy, and his loose soft face held the high flush of alcohol.

“Mrs. Miles said you were looking for me,” Younger said coldly.

Yordy grinned knowingly. “I figured you'd come. Light and step in and have a drink.”

Younger said rudely, “What did you want to see me about? I'm in a hurry.”

“Didn't she tell you?”

“No.”

Again Yordy grinned. “All right, I'll be a sucker. All the same, she did.”

Younger was tempted to ride off without another word, and it must have showed in his face, for Yordy put a hand on the door jamb and leaned on it and said in a low voice, “What's it worth to you to have Henhouse so flat broke them women'll quit?”

“Not much.”

Yordy snorted. “Like hell.”

They regarded each other in silence, and Younger shook a foot free from the stirrup and leaned his folded arms on the saddle horn, first shoving his hat to the back of his head in the timeless gesture of the bargainer on horseback.

“You're bluffing, Yordy. I know everything about Henhouse you do. There's nothing you can tell me.”

“I can tell you how to break 'em,” Yordy reiterated. “It's safe, too.”

“How?”

Yordy snorted. “Let's talk money first.”

“What kind of money?”

“Say, five hundred dollars,” Yordy said bluntly.

Younger could tell that Yordy would be satisfied with a third of that, but he said calmly, “It's a deal. Five hundred—
if
I like the idea, and
if
it's safe. But who's judge of that?”

Yordy was so surprised and so pleased his sum had been accepted that he said promptly, “You are. I'll trust you. Besides, I'll know whether or not you used it.”

“Then let's have it.”

Yordy stepped out of the doorway and looked around him in the unconscious gesture of a man about to impart a secret. Then he squinted up at Younger and said, “You know that box canyon below the falls there on Elder Creek?”

Younger, frowning, nodded.

“Well, Della's kept that fenced off all summer to keep the feed. The grass there's shoulder high to a man in some places, and all of it's sun-cured. Well, we turned that bunch of two-year-olds in there the other day, the whole lot of 'em. You know about 'em?”

Again Younger nodded, his eyes attentive.

“She's borrowed on them cattle for feed. A lot of money, too. You know that?”

“Everyone does.”

Yordy's grin came back. “Suppose some night one of your boys was to touch a match to that brush fence. It'd set off the grass, and that grass will burn like pitch. Them cattle will move ahead of it right up to the dead end of the box canyon and when the fire gets up there—” He spread his hands, watching Younger.

Miles didn't answer for a full minute, turning this over in his mind. It was, he saw immediately, a pretty thing. He'd seen grass fires in Texas, and they were death to anything in their way. If Della lost that bunch, moreover, she couldn't begin to meet Truscott's note. Either she'd have to sell a chunk of Henhouse, or it would go to Truscott. In either event, it would be his eventually. As for the risk involved, it was negligible. And even though this was a dry summer in the mountains, the fire would be confined to Falls Canyon. Even if it jumped the rim, it was so close to timber line the fire could burn itself out and not do much damage. Altogether, it was pretty.

He said quietly, “Who've you told this to? Briggs?”

“And let him sell it to you? Hell, I'm more'n five years old,” Yordy said indignantly.

Younger believed him, but, after the fire what would Yordy have to gain by keeping silent, once his money was gone? More money, of course. He would be a source of constant blackmail, and sooner or later on one of his drunks he would tattle. Yordy would have to be got out of the country, or out of the way. And when Younger had that thought a faint pounding excitement crept into his blood. He sat there, eyes inward looking, rapt in thought for so long that Yordy shifted his feet and cleared his throat.

Presently, Younger looked at him again. “I'll buy it,” he said softly. “You leave the country, of course.”

“I've got a fiddle-foot, and all I need is the money,” Yordy agreed.

Younger came erect. “You'll leave the country two nights from now,” he said. “I'll meet you at Station with the money and I'll see you over the pass.”

“Fair enough,” Yordy agreed, smiling. “Let's have a drink on it.”

“I don't need a drink on it,” Younger said flatly. “Neither do you. I'll tell you why you don't, Yordy. Because I'd hate to have you get drunk and tell this to Briggs, so Briggs could collect after you've gone. I'd hate to have Joe Briggs hanged for a horse thief and you hanged for his partner. Remember who's sheriff here? And deputy sheriff?”