the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) (10 page)

"What's the object of that?" he asked.

"Water was starting to make a wash right there," Barry explained, "so I put in that little spreader dam. Causes the water to divide and spread over the hillside and so reaches the roots of more grass.

"Down below where there was a natural hollow, I dug it out a little more with a scraper. Now I've got a pool although it is drying up now."

"More water in that pool right now than I've got on my whole place!" Hill said.

Barry led them from place to place, showing them the lakes he had dammed in the draws, and the various pools. The first of the wells, where he had a windmill pumping, showed a good flow of water. The second, some distance away, was artesian.

The basin looked green and lovely, and he gestured with a wave of the hand. "That's mostly black grama and curly mesquite grass. I let the cattle run there a few weeks, then move them to another pasture and let this grow back. I only run about a third of the stock you have on the same number of acres, that way my stock is always fat."

"My place is all growed up to cholla cactus now," Drake said.

"Burn that field," Barry advised, "the ashes will help the field and the fire will burn the dry needles off the cholla leaving the green pulp behind. That green pulp is fairly good feed. The Navajos taught me that"

"Then I've got enough cholla on my place to feed all the stock in Christendom," Hill said.

"Son," Drake said, "you've done a job! We should have listened to you a long time back."

The days passed swiftly and Barry worked hard, but he was lonely, and even the work failed to help. Each time he returned to the house he kept looking for Candy as he remembered her, making coffee in his kitchen during the fight. At night, alone by the fire, he seemed to see her there. Then one day he rode his horse up the draw and stopped, astonished.

The Fence was gone! Rooted out, wire and posts gone, and the post holes filled in. There might never have been a fence there at all. He pushed his hat back on his head, and shook his head. "Mom," he said aloud, "you'd have liked to see this!"

Candy Drake, riding her pinto, decided to head for the basin. She knew all about The Fence being down. The burning of the cholla had worked and would be the means of saving at least some of the cattle. Now, if the rains came in time or the drillers struck water, they had a fighting chance.

Yet trouble was mounting. Lou Barrow, filled with fury at Rock Dulin's killing of Price Taylor, had gone to town. Barrow had made a remark about killers, and Dulin had gone for his gun. Barrow was a tough cowhand but no gunman, and Dulin put three bullets into him. Miraculously, Barrow lived.

Rock Dulin swaggered about town, his ranch forgotten, his stock dying. Joe Stangle and Curt McKesson were usually with him.

Candy decided it was time the women took a hand. Alice Benson agreed, and so did the three Lake girls. They organized a big dance and celebration for the purpose of getting everybody together again and wiping out old scores. Candy had taken it upon herself to ride to the basin and invite Barry Merrano.

In other parts of the valley, events were moving In their own way. McKesson had ridden over to Stangle's, and the two sat in the untidy living room over a bottle of whiskey. With nothing on which to feed, Joe Stangle's hatred had turned inward. For days he had been brooding over the thought of Barry Merrano, now the talk of the valley. Joe Stangle's hatred was of long standing, for he had wanted Molly O'Brien and then she had married Miguel Merrano. The fact that Molly had never even noticed his existence made no difference. Deliberately, he provoked trouble with Miguel, confident the Mexican would back down.

The trouble was, he did no such thing. The darkly handsome young Mexican had simply stepped back and told him to go for his gun whenever he was ready.

Suddenly Joe discovered he was not at all ready. It was one thing to tackle what you thought was a puppy dog, quite another when you found yourself facing a wolf with fangs bared. Stangle looked across eight feet of floor and discovered that courage knows no race or creed.

He had backed down, and although it was not mentioned, he knew he was despised for it. His hatred for Miguel Merrano flowered with the coming of his son.

Now, both men were drunk or nearly so. Hulking Curt McKesson reached for the bottle and so did Stangle. Joe got his hand on it as did Curt. In a sudden burst of fury, Stangle jerked the bottle from McKesson's hand.

McKesson's sullen anger, never far from the surface, exploded into rage and he struck with the back of his hand, the blow knocking Stangle sprawling. McKesson was not wearing a gun, having put it aside in the other room.

Joe Stangle, blind with fury, saw nothing but the great hulking figure. All his bottled-up rage found sudden release in this, and his gun slidinto his hand, thumbing the trigger again and again.

The thunderous roar of the six-gun filled the room, and with it the acrid smell of gunsmoke. Then the sound died* the smoke slowly cleared, ^ and Joe Stangle lurched to his feet.

One glance at Curt McKesson was enough. The big man was literally riddled with bullets. Averting his eyes, Joe Stangle picked up the bottle and drained off the last of the whiskey. Without a backward glance, he walked out the door.

Drunk as he was his natural cunning warned him he had no chance of getting away with what had been the killing of an unarmed man. Steps were being taken to elect a sheriff and once that was done neither he nor Rock Dulin would long remain at large. Mounting his horse he started down the valley, filled with a sullen feeling that somehow it was all Barry Merrano's fault.

The trail he was riding, drunk, and filled with sullen rage, intersected that of Candy Drake.

Unknown to either of them, Barry Merrano had ridden out of a draw and glimpsed the pinto at a distance. A deep canyon lay between them although they were less than a mile apart, but with luck he could overtake her at Willow Springs.

As he rode he sang a song he had himself composed, a song made up during his loneliness and when he desperately needed something cheerful of which to think.

"Oh, gather 'round closer and fill up your glasses,

And I'll tell you the story of Johnny Go-Day.

He was a young cowhand who rode all the mustangs,

And no bronco they bred could Johnny dismay!"

In the cancer of envy that festered in the mind of Joe Stangle was a hatred for all better off ormore attractive than himself. Most of all, after Barry Merrano, he hated Candy Drake.

She was a girl who spoke to everyone, but Stangle had noticed that she did not particularly enjoy speaking to him. He failed to realize this was due to his own surly manner, and the fact that he had been known to make unpleasant remarks about girls and women. He simply believed she thought herself too good for him.

Riding at a canter Candy approached Willow Springs recalling, as she drew near, that her father had told her they had struck water at this, the first well attempted in the valley. Riding up to where the drill rig still stood, she swung down, looking at the pool of muddy water and considering what this could mean to the valley.

It was Barry Merrano's drill rig that had brought in this well, and it was on his advice they had fed the cholla to their stock that saved so much of it. The prejudice against him had virtually disappeared. It could mean a new life for him, and might mean--

She did not hear the horse stop at the edge of the brush. Joe Stangle had seen her arrive, knew she was in there alone, in the gathering dusk. He dug into his saddlebag for the pint he carried there and took a pull at the bottle. He was leaving the country, anyway, and he'd show her what was what Before anybody knew what had happened he'd be long gone.

He pushed his way through the willows, and Candy turned sharply at the unexpected crackling of the dry brush and saw Joe Stangle.

He was not a big man but he was hairy-chested and broad. His face was swollen and the flesh sodden from much drinking, and he was obviously in an ugly mood.

He had always wanted this girl, and now here she was, with her pride and her stuck-up ways, right in his hands. He started toward her.

Candy realized her danger, but she was not given to screaming. She backed away warily, wishing her horse were closer. If she turned her back to run he would catch her before she had taken three steps.

He did not speak, just walked toward her.

"What's the matter, Joe? Have you lost something?"

He made no reply, continuing to advance. She stepped back and her boot slipped in the mud and she fell, rolling quickly away and scrambling to her feet.

Drunk he might be, but he could move quickly. "Damn you! You stuck-up--!" She dodged away, but he grabbed at her and caught her wrist "I'll show you what--!"

In that instant they heard a voice they both knew.

"Oh, there was a young cowhand who used to go riding,

There was a young cowhand named Johnny Go-Day!

He rode a black pony and he never was lonely,

For the girls never said to him 'Johnny, go 'way!'

When they heard his bright laughter their hearts followed after,

And they called to him 'Johnny!

Oh, Johnny, come stay!'"

Stangle's hand clamped over the girl's mouth before she could cry out a warning. The pinto stood in plain sight, but Joe Stangle's horse was hidden beyond the brush.

Holding her with one powerful arm and hand, a leg pressed before hers and jamming her back against the drill rig, with his free hand he drew his six-shooter.

The song ended and they heard the saddle creak as he dismounted and then as he started through the willows the song continued.

"He rode to town daily and always rode gaily,

And lifted his hat as he cantered along !"

Joe Stangle lifted his six-shooter, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger.

The firing pin clicked on an empty cartridge. He had emptied his gun into Curt McKesson!

At the click of the cocking hammer Barry stopped dead, and with an oath, Joe Stangle threw the girl from him and grabbed feverishly at his cartridge belt for more shells. In his haste he dropped the first two shells but thrust the others into place.

Wild with fear, Candy dropped to the ground and began to scramble away, crying out, "Look out, Barry! It's Joe Stangle!"

Barry grabbed for his gun, still tied down with the rawhide thong he wore when riding. He slid the thong and drew swiftly.

Dropping to one knee, the other leg thrust out before him, he waited. He could hear the breathing of Candy Drake, but in the darkness of the willow grove he could see nothing. Picking up a stick he threw it to one side. Nothing happened.

He moved slightly, gathering himself to leap aside, and at the sound a stab of flame seemed to leap right at his eyes and a bullet struck a tree behind him with an ugly thud. He fired in reply, and his bullet ricocheted off the drill rig.

He fired again, holding a little lower and the shot drew a startled movement. He leaped aside, gun poised for another shot. There was an instant of silence, and then a shot. The bullet missed by a fraction of an inch.

Candy lay hugging the ground, and Barry could see her now. Carefully, he shifted position to get further away from her so as not to draw fire in her direction.

Hatred and fear were driving Joe Stangle, but even the courage of a cornered coyote had a breaking point. The liquor fumes had cleared from hismind, and he realized Barry was over there; he had a gun, and he was playing for keeps.

Suddenly what courage he had went out of him like a gust of breath, and like a shadow, he faded back toward the brush and his horse. He wanted desperately to kill, but he did not wish to be killed. He wanted nothing so much as to get a saddle under him and be off. He almost made it.

Merrano, hearing him at last, lunged through the brush after him. Stangle reached his horse and Merrano slid to a stop, and Joe Stangle saw him and tried one last shot. It was there, and he had to try.

Barry fired at the same instant, then he fired again. Joe Stangle's horse leaped away, and Joe Stangle, shot through the belly, all the hatred oozing away with his life's blood, swayed on his feet, the gun slipping from his fingers. Then he fell.

Barry Merrano turned and started back through the willows and then of a sudden he seemed to step into a hole and he fell.

The clean white bed and the doctor who was putting things away in a black bag were a surprise. Candy was there, and Cab Casady.

"Stangle?" He started to rise.

"He's gone, Barry. He had already killed Curt McKesson in some kind of drunken fight, and was leaving the country."

"Dulin?"

Cab shifted his feet. "I come by and helped Candy get you home. Then I went down to town and run into Rock Dulin. He picked a fight and I had to shoot him."

Cab started for the door. "You two might have something to talk about," he said. "I want to go watch the rain. Seems like it's years since I've seen any."

*

Tom Galway rode the sorrel out of the juniper and down the hillside toward the rock house on the creek. He was still two hundred yards off and cutting across a field bright with larkspur, paintbrush, and sego lily when he saw Piute Bill come to the door, a Winchester in his hands.