Raw Land (11 page)

He stepped into the saddle and headed back for the main street. Once there, he wondered why he hadn't ridden around the town to pick up the north road. He had no business here; he disliked the place, he wanted to get out.

Passing Dunn's big store, idly watching the street, he saw the legend:
Post Office
printed under the sign:
General Merchandise
. He remembered then that he hadn't called for his mail since he'd been here.

He swung down and tramped inside the big store. One front corner was walled off by racks of pigeonholes, and he stepped up to the wicket and asked for his mail.

One letter was waiting for him. He pocketed it absently in his jumper, turned to go, and found Mary Norman confronting him.

Mary said, “I'd like to talk to you, Mr. Danning.”

“We've got nothin' to talk about,” Will said coldly.

“Please,” Mary said, and she smiled. She was wearing a pale-yellow dress with a flower design spangled through it, and the men gathered around the cold stove in the center of the store were watching her. She was handsome, and the smile she turned on Will was melting. Will was uncomfortably aware that people were watching him, and he wanted to get away.

“Over here,” Mary Norman said. They went over to the counter opposite the post-office wicket, and Mary came close to him.

“Do you still think I tried to trap you by our talk the other day?”

“I do,” Will said coldly.

Mary Norman looked distressed. “But please, you've got to believe me, Mr. Danning. I wasn't. I only wanted to learn about Murray.”

“Why ask me?” Will said wearily. “I told you what I knew.”

Mary Norman's eyes were filling with tears.

“If I could only make you believe me!” she cried passionately. “I don't want to live without him! I can't!”

And then she began to cry.

Will was not prepared for this. He was aware that the men were watching him, and he was embarrassed. Mary's sobbing, quiet as it was, could be heard halfway through the store.

Will made a clumsy, embarrassed, angry gesture, and said in a low, alarmed voice, “Quit it, now! Quit it!”

And then Mary Norman came into his arms and put her hands on his chest and wept bitterly. Will tried to back away, but she clung to him obstinately. A sudden anger made him put all pretense aside. He pushed her away, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her.

“Damn it, stop it!” Will said angrily. “I've told you what I know! I can't tell you any more!”

Mary was still sobbing. She looked beaten and helpless, and Will knew that it was an act. She was trying by every scheme known to woman to pry information out of him.

Will heard somebody approach and he turned to find big Joe Dunn, the storekeeper, looking at him angrily.

“What are you doing to the lady?” he demanded.

Will said sardonically, “I just kicked her in the shins. What are you goin' to do about it?”

“I'll call the sheriff, mister, that's what I'll do,” Joe Dunn said.

Will shrugged and turned away from Mary.

“All right, call the sheriff. Call the governor. To hell with it!”

He tramped out of the store under the hard and threatening gaze of a dozen onlookers, his face a flaming red. He swung on his horse and headed out of town, swearing under his breath. Once outside of town he lifted the horse into a long lope. After five minutes running, the horse cooled off and slacked into a walk. Will's anger was gone now.

It was only then he remembered the letter in his jumper pocket. He felt for it, but it wasn't there. He pulled up and looked back down the road. He'd forgotten about the letter entirely, and in that long gallop it had slipped out of his pocket. He debated going back for it, and then decided against it. It was probably a saddle-company dodger, or something similar. He didn't know anybody who'd bother to write to him, anyway. He rode on.

Back in Dunn's store, Mary Norman stopped her crying as soon as it was decently possible. Joe Dunn, sad and clucking his sympathy, tried to comfort her. Mary wiped her eyes, straightened her back, and said sadly, “You're so kind. Thank you so much.”

She went out under the sympathetic gaze of every man in the place. Once on the street, she hurried back to the hotel and went up to her room, locking the door behind her.

Only then did she look at the letter she had taken from Will's jumper pocket when she leaned against him to cry. She was trembling so that she could scarcely open the letter. She was certain that it was from Murray. Hadn't Charlie Sommers told her that he was sure Will either knew where Murray was or was in touch with him?

Mary ripped the letter open, and a paper fell out. She stooped to pick it up, and then her heart sank. It was a signed legal form, a deed made out to Will Danning. The other paper was a brief note. It said:

Friend Will:

I think you'd better have this now. Something queer is up, Will, but that's your problem
.

—
Chap
.

Mary sank down on the bed, bitter disappointment welling up within her. She threw the papers on the dresser and looked bleakly out the window. And then she began to cry; it was real this time—a bitter, heartbroken weeping.

Will rode into the spread after dark, tired and hungry. He offsaddled, turned his horse into the corral, and tramped up to the house and let himself in the cookshack.

Milt heard him and came out just as Will was pouring cold coffee into a cup. In his other hand was a cold biscuit.

Milt closed the door behind him and grinned affectionately at Will. He came over and sat on the table and said softly, “Old jailbird. Did you get fined?”

“It was suspended.” Will looked at him, trying to plumb behind the grinning, careless front of Milt's good nature. “Did Becky Case get to you?”

Milt's grin died, and his face was suddenly serious.

“I couldn't figure it out and then I saw Sommers. Did he ask about me?”

Will nodded.

“Does he suspect I'm hidin' here?”

“Said he was just passin' through,” Will said. “You can have it for what it's worth.”

Will drank his coffee and munched on the biscuit, and Milt regarded him somberly. “Still think it's a good idea to stick, Will?”

Will didn't look at him. “If we run away now, Sommers will think it's on account of him.”

Milt didn't say anything right away. He rolled a cigarette, and Will went on eating. He wondered if Milt was going to tell him of his call on Chap last night, and he soon saw that he wasn't.

Will finished his coffee, rolled a smoke, and then touched a match to it. He said then, “Milt, you and me have got somethin' to settle. Right now.”

Milt frowned.

“What's that?” he asked.

“Just who's boss around here?”

Milt studied him carefully, and then said, “That's settled already, Will. You are.”

“Then you better keep your nose out of my business,” Will said bluntly.

The two friends looked at each other, and Milt's eyes lighted up with a slow anger. His voice was calm, though, when he said, “You mean about keepin' the place?”

“That, and other things.”

A long pause. “Like what?” Milt drawled.

“Goin' to Chap behind my back.”

Milt's eyes were steady on him, but Will could see the flush creep up under his tanned skin. He could see the anger in Milt's eyes, too.

“So you know that, eh?”

Will nodded.

“I didn't want to tell you,” Milt said slowly. “I didn't figure it was any of your business.”

Will said levelly, “You could have gone to Chap for only one thing I reckon. About buyin' the place.”

“That was it,” Milt said curtly. “I told him not to sell it to you.”

“What did he say?”

“He said it was your business,” Milt said. “But I wanted to try.”

Will took a long drag on his cigarette and studied the coal, then looked up at Milt's wild dark face. “You're scared,” he said.

“Sure I'm scared!” Milt said swiftly, angrily. “I've told you that!”

“You can't run away from fear,” Will drawled gently. “It follows you.”

“Careful, fella,” Milt murmured.

“I'm not sayin' you're yellow,” Will explained grimly. “I'm just tellin' you this because it's the last time I aim to. You'll have to fight this wherever you go, Milt. I haven't got the money to move every time you get spooked. I won't do it. I won't let you do it. I offered to hide you, and I spent every dime I ever earned or could beg or borrow doin' it. And I'm goin' to keep hidin' you, you understand? You let me do it. Keep out of my way.”

Milt's face was wicked-looking with anger and humiliation, and Will's hard gaze didn't give him any mercy. They regarded each other a long time in that dim lamplight, and then Milt said softly, “You're a hard man, Will—even to your friends.”

“Just so you remember it,” Will said. He lounged away from the wall and went into the house, and Milt watched him go, in bitter and angry silence.

Chapter Eight

T
HE
M
ISSING
D
EED

Pres said good-by to the poker game at nine o'clock. Yellow Jacket's main street was deserted except for a handful of ponies at the tie rails. Pres mounted his horse, wishing there were someone to watch him ride out, and then headed out the north road. On the outskirts of town he turned and came back down the alleys. Behind Chap's office he tied his horse, picked up the small bundle and the burlap sack he had cached in a trash can there, then knifed his big hulk between the two buildings and reached the sidewalk. The street was still deserted.

He climbed the stairs where Chap had fallen only last night, and paused on the landing from which he had shot the old man. There was a door at the landing. Pres tried it; it was locked. He backed off and kicked it. The lock snapped, and Pres waited, watching the street. Nobody came. He went into a small corridor, turned right, and came to the locked door of Chap's office. Again he kicked the door open, but this time he didn't bother to wait and see if he'd been heard. He knew he hadn't.

Once in the office, he went directly to the windows, pulled the shades, then went into the closet and struck a match. He lighted the stump of candle, set it on a low closet shelf, and came out into the office. Systematically, then, he carried all the drawers in Chap's desk to the closet and dumped their contents on the floor.

Afterward he sat on the closet floor and patiently went through the papers he had found. He was looking for one thing only—the deed to the Pitchfork from the Gold Seal Land and Development Company to Chap Hale. Milt said Chap hadn't given it to Will, so it must be here.

It took him a long time to run through the papers; it was not here. The candle burned down, and he lighted another. It was hot in here, and this was dull work, but it was important. Case was the executor of Chap Hale's estate. If Case got the deed to the Pitchfork, he, as executor, could do anything he wanted with it. And two things he certainly would not do with it—he would not sell the place to Will Danning, and he would not sell it to his foreman, Pres Milo. The only thing to do, then, was get the deed before Case got it.

Pres didn't find the deed, after an hour's search. He rolled a smoke and lighted it and considered what to do next. He knew, without looking, that Chap Hale's small safe over there behind the desk held the rest of the papers. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to open it, but now it was necessary.

Finished with his smoke, he went over to look at the safe. It was small, of iron, and if he didn't care how much noise he made he could open it with a sledge. But the pounding would bring somebody, that was certain.

Next best thing, of course, was to blow it. He felt around the edges of the door and saw they weren't tight. Then he took a drill from his sack and began work.

In half an hour he had a hole big enough for the powder to sift through. He poured in a quantity of black powder, put a length of fuse in, and then stood up. He did not light the fuse right away.

He went out into the corridor and walked the length of it to another door, which led into another office. Again Pres kicked the door, and the flimsy lock broke. He went straight through to the rear window, opened it, and peered out. Below the window, perhaps five feet, was the sloping roof of a shed. Twenty feet from it his horse was tied in the alley.

Pres went back to Chap's office, collected his tools and candle and even his cigarette butts, and put them in the sack in the hall. Then he came back to the safe, saw that everything was ready, and lighted the short fuse.

He dodged out into the hall, flattened himself against the wall and waited.

There came a muffled explosion, soft and thunderous, dragging a rush of air past him. At the same time there was a jarring thud against the wall, and Pres picked up his sack and went in. The safe door lay against the foot of the opposite wall. A half-dozen books had tumbled down from their places, and Pres tripped over them in his haste.

He knew Chap Hale's safe. Anybody did who had seen it standing open behind Chap for the last thirty years. There was a double rack of drawers in the safe. Pres ripped them out and dumped their contents into the sack.

He was on the last drawer when he heard someone hit the stairs below. Swiftly, Pres dropped the drawer into the sack and headed down the corridor. Whoever was coming up took the stairs three at a time.

Pres hurried on through the back office, slammed into a chair, overturned it, cursing softly, and put a leg out the window. The footsteps were in the corridor now, and turning toward him. The overturned chair had given him away.

He slipped out the window, dropped, hit the roof, rolled, and then fell off, landing on his feet in the alley. The sack was still in his hand. He raced for his horse, swung onto him, and then a shot slapped out into the night.