Raw Land (2 page)

Rubbing his knuckles gently, Will looked again at Case. “If I'm goin' to get shot in the back,” he drawled, “I'd better stop this, hadn't I?”

Case came out of his chair and said sharply, “Pres! Drop it, now!”

Will looked over just in time to see a chair leave Pres's hands. Will dodged it, and then Pres came at him. Will shot a fleeting glance at Case, saw that his gun wasn't drawn, and then turned his attention to Pres. He didn't wait for him; he went toward him, a low growl in his throat, knowing this would have to be short and final. The two of them met with such force that the tables danced. Will brought up a knee in Pres's groin as they grappled, and when Pres knifed over in pain, he lifted an upper-cut into Pres's face that straightened the man up. Then he sent two savage hooks, a left and right, into Pres's face, following them with an elbow into his jaw. Will caught him, then, as Pres sagged unconscious into his arms. Without pausing, Will started lugging him to the door. He shifted his grip to the seat of Pres's trousers and to his collar and then, almost running, literally threw him through the door just as two of the Nine X men swung in. Pres bowled them over, and the three of them fell into a moiling tangle on the boardwalk.

Will turned his back and walked over to the table where Case, goggle-eyed and mouth agape, stood and stared at him.

“I think I'd better hide behind you,” Will drawled. “They'll likely come up shootin'.”

Case started for the door, and a second later two of his crew, guns in hand, rushed through the door.

Case bawled, “Put those guns away, you fools!”

They stopped and looked at Will. Sheepishly they obeyed Case's orders.

As they were going Case said to them, “Put Pres on a horse and take him home with you. Now get out!”

At that moment the bartender, who had been absent, came through the doors. Case snarled at him, “Send me a bill for this stuff, Hal,” and to Will he said, “Come on!”

Will fell in beside him. They swung under the tie rail, passed the silent trio of Nine X men loading Pres on his horse, and crossed to the hotel directly opposite.

There was a dim light in the lobby, and Case stepped just inside the door. He turned and surveyed Will and said, “We'll finish this right here, Danning. I admit I tried to bluff you and scare you tonight. It kicked back on me. But I can say everything I was going to say.” He paused, isolating what came next. “I've looked you up. You rodded Murray Broome's spread until he got in this shootin' scrape and disappeared. Nobody I talked to connected you with Broome at all. Everybody had a good word for you, even Chap Hale.” His voice lowered to a half snarl. “All right. I'll take a man at face value! I'm a neighbor of yours until I miss cattle! Then, by God, I'll run you out of the country or kill you!”

He turned and bumped into a girl that neither of them had noticed approaching.

“Becky!” he said sharply. “What are you doing down here?”

Will couldn't see very well in that half-light. He heard a cool voice say, “Waiting for you, until I got run into, Dad. Now I'm trying to keep from yelling over a mashed foot.”

Will could make out only a girl of medium height whose light hair was golden even in that half-light. He couldn't even see the color of her dress.

Case said impatiently, “Becky, meet Will Danning. He's our neighbor over on Harkins's old Pitchfork. Now come to bed. Good night, sir.”

Becky Case didn't even have time to speak. Angus Case took a firm grip on his daughter's hand and headed resolutely for the stairs.

Will said sharply, “Wait a minute, Case!”

Case and his daughter paused, and Will tramped over to them. He still couldn't make out the girl's face, but he wouldn't be talking to her anyway. He said flatly to the older man, “You spoke your piece, and I'll speak mine. I don't aim to rustle your beef. All I want out there is to be let alone. If I'm not, you'll have more trouble on your hands than seven swarms of hornets. That's a promise. And this time, you won't be fightin' an old man that can't fight back, like Harkins.”

Case watched him in the half-darkness for five full seconds, then he swung around and tramped upstairs, propelling his daughter beside him.

Will, legs spraddled, hat on the back of his head, watched them go, and his anger died. He turned his head, and through the lobby window he saw four men, one leaning far over in his saddle, line out down the street, heading north.

This, he thought bleakly, was his welcome. Anyway, he'd called Angus Case's bluff, and he would keep the Pitchfork, and that was enough. A man couldn't ask for a whole lot in this world.

A tired voice said, from the depths of one of the lobby chairs. “Still the same fire-eater, aren't you, Will?”

Will's head swiveled, and he walked toward the sound of the voice. Out of the gloom an old man rose. While he couldn't see Chap Hale's face, Will remembered it—old, shrunken, paper-white, and delicately veined. He shook Chap's hand and was saddened to feel its frail bones and leathery skin.

“What are you up to, old-timer?” Will asked.

“Waiting for you.”

“Let's go where I can see you,” Will said. “Let's get a drink.”

“If you don't mind, let's not,” Chap said wearily. “I'm an old man, Will, and liquor's lost its kick. I'm tired and I'm sleepy and I'm going home. I just wanted to see you didn't come to any harm, son.”

“But I want to talk to you.”

“And I want to talk to you, Will, but not now. You're not in any shape to talk.”

Will scowled in the dark, and Chap went on. “You're mad now, son. You'll keep me up till daylight asking me about Case and Preston Milo and how to beat them. I don't know, Will. Case is a good man, a friend of mine, one of my oldest friends. But he's scared of you. I bought your place for you. From now on, it's your fight.” He paused, and then said mildly, “I'd like to ask a question, Will.”

“Go ahead.”

“I'm not going to be so foolish as Case and consider that you might want the Pitchfork for a cattle-stealing gang. I'm only wondering why you want it at all.”

Will said gently, “You, too, Chap?”

“Yes, me, too. It's an ugly place, Will. It's set in the deep jaws of a canyon where the sun never rightly reaches it. Those bare hills crowd it. It's worn out, dead, evil. You're a young man and you've earned your stake. You want a place in the sun, Will, not a rathole. Why did you buy it?”

“I'm going to ranch, Chap.”

Chap sighed. “I didn't think you'd tell me. Come see me in a couple of days, Will, when all this fighting is out of your blood. Good night.”

Will watched him go. He was an old man now, crowding eighty, and his steps were uncertain and feeble as he pushed his way out the lobby door. Will watched him turn upstreet and lost him in the dark.

Chap. too, wanted to know why he'd bought it. And he could no more tell Chap than he could tell Case, or anyone else.

He suddenly felt lonely, and knew the burden of keeping a secret. It was only fleeting, and then he soberly took a key off the board behind the desk and went upstairs.

Hal Mohr was sweeping up the last of the chair splinters in his saloon when a man came in.

“Too late for a drink?” the man asked pleasantly.

“Be with you in a minute,” Hal said.

He dumped the splinters in the cold stove in the corner, rearranged the chairs, shoved the broken table against the wall, and came behind the bar. He was breathing hard when he finished, for his body was sheathed in a thick layer of fat that made every movement an exertion. He had a heavy, cunning face, and his tight lips and opaque eyes told the stranger that here was a man who kept his own counsel.

The stranger said, “Whisky. Pour one for yourself.”

“Thanks,” Hal said. He regarded the stranger briefly, cataloging him in the custom of his profession. He saw only a man of medium size and middle age, stocky, dressed in Levis and jumper. He had ruddy cheeks burned a deep red. Probably a top hand or foreman from one of the spreads over north in the Sevier here on business.

The stranger scrubbed his face with a thick and calloused hand and looked at the wreckage of the table while Hal poured two drinks. They nodded to each other and drank, and Hal poured out two more drinks.

“Ruckus, tonight?” the stranger asked idly.

Hal leaned against the back bar and nodded. “A good one, looks like. I didn't see it.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Nine X foreman lost a tooth and got beat up.”

“Pres Milo?” The stranger's eyebrows lifted. “That'd take a pretty good man.”

“He looked like one. Will Danning. New here.”

The stranger scowled. “Will Danning,” he murmured. “Seems like I've read that name in the newspapers.”

Hal nodded. “You have. You remember that shootin' a couple months ago over in the capital? Newspaper editor name of Murray Broome gunned Senator Mason, and then jumped the country.”

“I remember.”

“This here Will Danning was at the inquest to testify, what I read. They was tryin' to find out where Broome had gone to, and this Danning, he ups and tells them they're persecutin' a good man. There was a fight there at the inquest. Danning hit the sheriff after he'd called Broome a murderer and announced a reward on his head.”

“That's it,” the stranger said. “I remember. And this was Will Danning that hit Milo?”

“Same fella. He's a hardcase, all right.” He paused, and when the stranger seemed incurious, Hal went on. “He's bought a place out here by the Sevier Brakes, the Pitchfork. That's what the row was over.”

The stranger said, “How's that?”

“It's an old rustlers' hangout. Case, he's the Big Augur around here, figured Danning was goin' to set himself up as a rustler. He didn't know whether to leave him take the place or not.”

The stranger asked idly, “What did he decide?”

Hal laughed noiselessly. “I reckon Danning will stay there. He beat up Case's foreman, but him and Case went out of here friends. I seen it myself.”

The stranger said nothing. He finished his drink, bade Hal good night, and went out. Afterward Hal reflected that the stranger seemed to wait just long enough to learn that Will Danning was going to be allowed to keep his new place, and then he went out. Hal didn't think anything more about it.

Chapter Two

A B
LUFF
T
HAT
F
AILED

Next morning Will was up early, breakfasted, and was riding out of Yellow Jacket on a livery-stable horse before the breakfast fires were lifting their smoke above the town.

The country he slowly rode through during those early hours jogged something in his memory. He had forgotten what good graze it was, thick, sun-cured grama grass with the new green thrusting up to crowd out the old. It was a rolling country, well watered, the hills sloping down to copses of cottonwood and willows in the valleys, and piñon and cedar capping the crests. It was better than the country he was used to farther south, and a piece of it could have been his if he hadn't chosen Harkins's Pitchfork instead.

In midmorning, he judged he was onto Nine X range. Scattered groups of whiteface cattle watched him pass, and long-legged calves hightailed it away from the rutted wagon road.

He topped a rise sometime in early morning and saw ahead of him, where the road forded a stream, a buckboard and team. Only—one horse of the team was grazing off the road; the other, still hitched to the buckboard, was haltered to a tree.

As Will rode up to it, a girl came off the grass from under some willows and regarded him quizzically. Will touched his Stetson and looked at her in silence. She was a tall slim girl, leggy in tight Levis and blue shirt. Her wide friendly mouth was faintly smiling, and when she spoke her voice was low, a little mocking.

“It was too dark to see in that lobby last night, but you must be Will Danning.”

Will grinned.

“Your hair looks familiar. That's all I saw.”

She appraised him silently for a moment as he swung down, and then said, “I've lamed one of my horses, and that other one is too salty for me to tackle bareback.” She laughed a little. “I thought I wanted to get home in a hurry, but I guess it doesn't matter.”

Will said, “If you're in a hurry, we could swap.”

Becky Case flushed a little. “No, I'm not really in a hurry. I—just don't like town.” She looked almost shyly at Will and continued. “I woke up before daylight and decided to hit out for home. I've been in town two days, and that's too long for me.”

Will said mockingly, “I thought all women wanted to stay in town.”

“Here's one that doesn't,” Becky said, and she laughed.

Will considered her a long moment, wondering if her father had told her of last night's quarrel. If he had, she didn't seem concerned about it. And this was his chance to prove to Angus Case that he would be a good neighbor.

He said, “If you really aren't in a hurry, Miss Case—”

“Becky, please. We're neighbors, aren't we?”

Will nodded and went on. “If you aren't in a hurry, I'll hitch up my horse, and we'll drive on to my place. There used to be a short cut through the brakes that came out close to the Nine X.”

“You're anxious to see your place, aren't you?” Becky asked.

Will nodded.

“I'm in no hurry,” she went on. “I'd like to see the old place myself.”

Will offsaddled and hitched his livery horse to the buckboard. The lame horse was turned loose; Becky climbed up on the buckboard seat beside Will, and they were off.

The girl was silent a long while, and Will was aware that she was covertly studying him. When he had given her a good look at him, he said, “I reckon you heard about the ruckus I had with your foreman last night, Miss Becky.”