Kiowa Trail (1964) (3 page)

"That doesn't make sense."

Blake tossed off his drink. "Conn, if you'd spent your life dealing with trail-town people the way I've done, you'd find a lot of things don't make sense.

"You talk to that boy. You tell him about her, and keep him south of the street."

"And if I can't?"

"Then I'll have to stop him myself."

There it was ... laid right on the line.

"This isn't a challenge, John. You can look the other way for once. Just don't see him. Let the boy get over there and find out for himself, and let him get back. Then we'll ride out of town and there'll be an end to it."

He looked at me. "You think it is that easy? Break that rule once - justonce - and there's no more rule. I'd be in a shooting every night in the week all during the season. If one man can go over, why can't they all?"

We sat there knowing our talk was over and we'd gotten nowhere, yet we were reluctant to get up and walk away, because we both knew that when we did the bars were down and trouble was smoking.

"John, I'm asking you. Look the other way."

"I can't. And if I could, McDonald wouldn't. Believe me, Conn, there's no give to the man. He's like iron."

My mouth was dry and my hands felt awkward and empty on the table before me. The whiskey was there, but I'd no wish for it. Liquor never solved any problem, nor did it make a problem more simple.

"John, if the kid goes north of the street -"

He looked at me. Those cold eyes colder still. "If he goes north of the street ... what?"

"I'll back him, John."

For a long minute we looked across the table at each other, and each knew what the moment meant. John Blake was a trail-town marshal whose reputation depended on fearlessness. He was a good man with a gun, but a man who used one sparingly. He never threatened, never swaggered, never laid a hand on a gun unless to draw it, and never drew unless to shoot. And he never shot unless to kill.

And in the course of fifteen years as a shotgun guard on Wells-Fargo stages and marshal of cow towns, John Blake had killed eleven men. None of them had been drunks or reputation-seeking youngsters. There were other ways of handlingthem .

As for myself, John Blake knew enough about me to understand what the decision might mean. There had been a time - although I had never asked for such a reputation - when it was said that I was a faster man than Wes Hardin, and the most dangerous man alive.

"I shall regret that," he said simply, and I knew the man well enough to know he meant it.

"Tom Lundy is the son I'd like to have had," I said, "although I'm scarcely old enough to be his father."

He nodded, acknowledging that it was high praise. After a minute he said, "Can you keep your boys out of it, Conn? I've heard talk of men treeing a western town, but you know and I know that it never happened. It never could happen in a town where seventy per cent of the town's citizens are war veterans, and ninety per cent have fought Indians.

"Aaron McDonald now - don't underrate the man. He's a cold fish, but he's got nerve, and if he thought I'd need it he would back me with fifty rifles, every man-jack of them a dead shot."

He looked at me. "You've fifteen men, I think."

He was right, of course. If the boys insisted upon backing Tom there would be a slaughter. The town would suffer, but our boys would be shot to doll rags.

"I'll see what I can do."

The bartender watched me leave, and I could see the worry on the man's face. He had a family here, and when shooting started there was no telling who might get hurt.

Out on the street, I stood for a minute in the sunlight. There was only one thing to it, of course. I'd have to pull the crew out of town. We'd have to move the herd.

Kate was at the hotel when I walked in, and I knew she had heard something. We went to a quiet corner of the big, almost empty lobby and sat down.

"What did he say?"

"No give to him, Kate, but I see his point. He doesn't dare open the door even a crack." And then I told her what John Blake had said about Linda McDonald. "It doesn't make sense to me, Kate. Why would a girl do a thing like that?"

Kate was silent, and I waited; for Kate, despite all her surface hardness, was an understanding woman with a lot of savvy where people were concerned.

"She may hate men ... and she may love her father."

"I don't get you."

"Sometimes, often without knowing it, a girl measures all men by her father. She may enjoy seeing him run them off, and to her it may be a way of continually proving her father's superiority."

"Kate, how do we stand with Hardeman?"

"He's offered twenty-two dollars a head, but I think he'll go to twenty-five."

"Take it, Kate. Let's get out of here." She looked at me quickly. "Is it that bad?"

"I've told him I'd back Tom. That means that if Tom goes the other side of the street, I'll be going with him."

"And you'd fight Blake?"

"It may come to that."

She got to her feet. "I'll see Hardeman." She turned to go, then stopped. "Tom will listen to you, Conn. See him. Tell him how foolish this all is."

"All right."

As I walked along the street I realized how serious it had become. It was much more than a boy going uptown to see a girl, for there was bad blood remaining from the War Between the States. Nine of my boys had fought in the Confederate Army, and most of the others had relatives who had. All of them but one were from Texas. One man ... and myself.

In a sense, it seemed that I was from Texas, too, for my parents were buried there, and it had been my home longer than anywhere else.

Along the street, in the saloons, the gambling houses, and the stores, and at the livery stable, were men who had fought with the Union, or had been, as I knew McDonald had been, rabid abolitionists. John Blake himself had been a scout for the Union Army.

The Texas trail drivers were, for the most part, uninterested in what lay north of the street. In each trail town there was such a division, and it received unspoken acceptance. The cowhands came to town to have a wild time, and a wild time belonged in the saloons and the houses of the Line. Each man understood that, and regarded it as no slight to be kept south of the street.

John Blake's rule was a reasonable one, and nobody but an occasional belligerent drunk felt called upon to question it. The case of Tom Lundy was something quite different.

Tom was the younger brother of the boss, but he was also the younger brother of every man on the outfit, even those close to his own age. He was a gentleman, and had always conducted himself as one. He rode the wildest of bucking horses, he was a top hand with a rope, he worked right along with the hands and drew the same wages, and while filled with a reckless, devil-take-the-hindmost attitude when in the saddle, he was always a gentleman. He didn't drink, and no man in the outfit would have offered him a drink.

To deny Tom Lundy the right to go north of the street to call on a girl was a direct insult to every man on the Tumbling B. The bitter feelings left over from the war rankled.

Even in Texas the Davis police force had treated the Texans like second-class citizens, and the resentment burned deep.

John Blake knew what that meant, and he also knew the men of our crew. Every man of them was a veteran of dozens of minor or major gun battles with Indians or outlaws, or of trail-town squabbles. The town might defeat them, might even wipe them out, but other men would die before that happened.

Getting up into the saddle, I rode out toward the herd.

Tom saw me, and came riding my way. He was over six feet - as tall as I was, in fact, and he weighed only a bit less. Seeing him come toward me, I felt a sharp pang of regret for the son I'd never have. Sure, I was only thirty-five, but there was only one woman I wanted, and she was the one I could not have.

"Hi, Conn!" He swung his horse alongside mine. "Can't somebody else take over? I want to go to town."

"I can't let you go, Tom."

His face hardened a little. "What's the matter? Are you afraid of John Blake?"

The minute he said it, he was sorry. I could see it in his eyes, but I felt that old tightness inside of me at the word. It was something you did not say to a gun-carrying man in those days, but I was old enough to carry it off ... or was I?

"I'm not afraid of him, Tom, and you know damned well I'm not. But if you go north of the street tonight somebody's going to get killed."

"I'm not afraid!"

"I didn't say you were. Nor did I say it would be you who would get killed." Words were never my way, and I wasn't handy with them. Somehow I could never dab a loop on the right phrase, though it wasn't as if I hadn't mingled with folks, and hadn't known how to talk.

"Kid, if you go north of the street tonight," I said, "all hell's going to break loose. Believe me, McDonald won't stand for it."

"Aw, Conn! I can slip in there, see that girl, and get away before anybody knows it!"

"She doesn't really want to see you, Tom."

He didn't believe it, of course, and I should have known he wouldn't. She was the girl he wanted, and the idea that she might not want to seehim was unthinkable. It was simply not to be believed.

So I laid it on the line to him, talking as reasonably as I could, and told him what John Blake had said.

"I don't believe it."

"Don't say that where John Blake can hear you."

"The hell with him! Everybody's always talking about John Blake! What's he got, four hands or something?"

"He doesn't need four hands, Tom. Take it from me."

He seemed to be seeing me for the first time, and I knew, suddenly, that whatever place I'd had in the respect of Tom Lundy, I had just lost it.

Death is only a word when you are his age; and much as Tom had seen, he had never seen good men die in a dusty street over a trifle. He had fought in Indian battles, but he had never actually seen a gun battle involving someone he knew and liked.

John Blake was a good man doing a necessary job, and I did not want to kill John Blake. Neither did I want to risk being killed over something like this.

"All right," he said impatiently, "you've told me."

"Don't go, Tom. Don't even think of going."

"You think I'm scared?"

There it was again. At his age it meant so much to prove one wasn't scared. I knew how he felt, because it had not been too long since I had known the same thoughts. And to some extent, I still did. "It isn't only you, Tom. It's the outfit."

"Hell, Conn, we could take this town apart. The Tumbling B could rope and hog-tie this town."

"Tom, you see that man with the beard, the one sweeping off the walk? That's George Darrough. In two years of buffalo hunting he killed over two thousand buffalo. During that time he had seven Indian fights, and before that he fought through the war. The man who is just now walking up to him is one of the finest rifle shots in the West. It's men like them you'd have to fight."

Tom Lundy had nothing to say to that, but his jaw set stubbornly, and I knew what he was thinking. He was proud of our outfit, and we had just brought a herd through rough country, fighting Indians all the way, and shorthanded the last part of it. He did not like to admit that anything was impossible for the Tumbling B.

Also, he feared Linda McDonald would believe him a loud-mouth if he failed to call. He had no way of judging the buried animosities that lay hidden between the trail crew and the people of the town.

"I don't want to start a fight, Conn," he said. "When have I ever? All I want to do is go see a girl. What's so wrong about that?"

"Nothing ... nothing at all, except that nobody wants a cattleman north of the street. It's John Blake's job to see that none of them do - no exceptions." The disgust on his face was obvious, and I didn't much blame him. But neither did I see any reason to get a few men killed over such a thing.

Finally he said, "Is it all right if I ride with you when you go back? I'd better see her and tell her I'm not coming."

Well, what could I say? I agreed, figuring he would use good judgment, but I was worried as much about some of the others as I was about him. Delgado was in town and he was not hot-headed, but Rule Carson was, and a wrong word could precipitate a gun battle. The whole outfit felt insulted in the person of Tom Lundy, and, in a way, I didn't blame them. But it was up to me, as well as John Blake, to keep the peace.

Kate was waiting for me at the hotel when I got in town. She had closed the deal with Hardeman, and all that remained was to go to the bank and pick up the money.

Hardeman looked at me. "Conn, one thing I must warn you about. I've heard the talk around town - everybody has - and the man who will pay over the money will be Aaron McDonald."

"So?"

"He's a narrow, disagreeable man, but don't think he does not speak for the town. He does."

"We'll be talking business, that's all."

Hardeman glanced over at Tom. "Sorry, boy. If it was my daughter you'd be welcome, but I have no say here. I am a Kansas City man, just doing business here."