Conagher (1969) (3 page)

Laban ran to open the gate and th e horses streamed in, and Johnny McGiver n swung down to put up the bars after them.

He was a smiling boy, and he grinned a t Laban .
I hear you're the hostler here.

Well, there's a stage comin' through nig h on to noon, so you be set an' ready. An y chance to get some grub ?

I'll ask ma
, Laban replied wit h dignity, not sure how he should react t o this free-talking stranger.

One of the older men was long and sli m and redheaded, with red hair on the back s of his hands .
I'm Kris Mahler, son. Thi s galoot sportin' the remains of a shiner i s Conn Conagher. Shy clear of him, boy , he's got a burr under his saddle .

Conagher was a lean dark man o f about thirty-five, with black hair an d mustache, and a stubble of beard. He wor e a battered black hat, a shabby suit-coa t and leather chaps. His boots were down a t the heel, his gun scabbard worn, and th e walnut grips looked as if they had see n much use.

Conagher looked at Laban quite seriously.

Don't you set much store by wha t Kris tells you, boy. I'm a right peacelovin g man .

Who gave you the black eye ?
Laba n asked.

Nobody gave it to me, son , Conaghe r said .
I fought for it .

That's the second black eye we'v e seen , Ruthie said .
Kiowa Staples ha d one, too .

When nobody replied to that, Ruthi e added , He says he's going to kill the ma n who gave it to him .

Conn Conagher said nothing, but Kri s Mahler threw him a quick glance and said , Little girl, I reckon your ma wants to se e you .

Ain't her fault , Johnny McGiver n said .
If Kiowa said it, he said it, that'
s all !

Evie Teale came out of the door, dryin g her hands on her apron .
Won't yo u gentlemen come in for a bite? There'
s been no stage, and the food is ready .

I'd take that kindly , Mahler said.

Come on, Conn. Let's eat and ride .

Conn lingered. He studied the crud e shelter and Laban watched him, fearful o f his comment. After a while, Conn nodded.

That's a pretty good job, son. Did you d o that all by yourself ?

Yes, sir
.

Conn glanced at him .
Sir. Now that'
s nice, right nice .

Conagher strolled over and took a close r look at the shelter .
It helps , he said , i f when you start laying on cover you put th e bottom ones on first, then put the next ro w a mite higher with part of it overlapping.

Helps the water to run off .

Thanks
, Laban said. He foun d himself liking the grim, dark-faced man , and the boy and man walked toward th e cabin together. Outside the cabin Con n removed his coat and rolled up his sleeve s to wash his hands and face, and the n combed his black hair.

He turned, looking across the valley int o the distance .
I like that , he said , gesturing toward the view .
Nothing like a wide-open country .

>>
j ^
i t'

We saw Indian tracks , Laban said.

Conagher stopped and looked at him , then tilted his hat brim down and studie d the hills back of the cabin .
You got a rifl e in there ?

We've got a shotgun .

That's good, but you'd better have a rifle too. When your pa gets here he'l l most likely have one .

They went inside. During the mea l Mahler did most of the talking, aided b y Johnny McGivern. Evie was bright an d gay, excited by the company and glad to b e hearing some news, even though much o f it concerned events and people of who m she knew nothing.

When the others had gone outside , Mahler lingered .
Your girl said somethin g about Kiowa Staples threatening t o kill the man he fought. Is that true ?

Well, he did say it. He was jus t talking .

Not Kiowa. His kind don't 'just talk.

He meant it
.

What happened
?

Only careless talk. Kiowa'd had a couple of drinks and he bumped into Con n a time or two. I won't say it was a-purpose , but he was sure not tryin' to avoid it. The y had words and I figure Kiowa wa s expectin' gun-play, only Conn belted hi m . . . knocked him down.

They went around and around ther e for a while, but this here saddle tram p Conagher, I meanhe's a mean one t o tangle with, and he gave Kiowa a trimming .

Will there be more trouble ?

No tellin'. Conagher's a drifter. Neve r lights any place for long, I figure, and h e may drift clean out of the country befor e the two of them meet . . . but he's jus t stubborn enough to stick around .

Who is he
?

Mahler shrugged .
Wildy hired him fo r this job. He don't talk none about himsel f . . . does his share and a mite more, I'd say , and minds his own affairs. He goes his ow n way, and the way I'd see it he just don'
t give a damnbeggin' your pardon , ma'am .

From the window, as she washed dishes , Evie watched Conagher tightening hi s cinch. He seemed a strange, lonely ma n and her heart went out to him, although h e seemed not to have noticed her. She wa s used to that. Men never had noticed he r very much, and now that she was n o longer a young girl they noticed her eve n less. She was not even sure that Jacob ha d noticed her, or that he gave much though t to what she cared about or what she dreamed.

He had been looking for a steady woma n who would care for his children and hel p him build a home in the western lands.

There was no romance about Jacob Teale.

Yet what right had she to object to th e way he was? She had been frightene d before they met; her money was almos t gone and she had no relatives. There wa s no place for her to go. Jacob was seekin g help and she was seeking shelter, and bot h found what they wanted.

Now she had the two children and sh e did not shrink from the task of raisin g them; she had grown to love them both.

But she was a woman, with a woman's lov e to give, and she needed someone reachin g out for it. There was an emptiness withi n her, a yearning that must be fulfilled, a love that needed to be given.

She went to the door when the rider s rode away, driving their small herd to th e other stations to the westward. They stoo d there, she and Ruthie, watching them unti l even the dust was gone.

Laban had already gone back to hi s work. He was removing the pine and ceda r boughs from the lean-to and re-layin g them.

It will be more waterproof if I lay th e bottom rows first and let the next ro w overlap , he explained .
I don't kno w what I was thinking when I started it .

They were alone again, and the silenc e had come.

CONN CONAGHER tied his baridan a over his mouth to keep out th e dust of the drag. Once he turned t o glance back toward the cabin, but it wa s already obscured by the dust behind th e horses.

Hell of a thing) he said to himself, leavin'
a woman and two kids out there alone. Bu t even as he said it he knew that many a ma n had no choice. You took your chances i n this country; some of them paid off an d some did not.

He gave no thought to Kiowa Staples.

The man had the name of a gunfighter , and he had killed a couple of menone o f them up at Tin-Cup, in Colorado, th e other at Mobeete, in Texas. Con n Conagher had seen a good many wh o fancied themselves with guns, and ha d helped to bury at least one. They came an d they went.

He rubbed the itchy stubble on his jaw s and squinted through the dust. He ha d been figuring on drifting to Tucson, o r maybe out to California. He had ridden fo r a couple of California outfits, and it bea t fighting northers in Texas or Ne w Mexico.

He wasn't getting any younger, and i t was time he found himself a place to light.

Twenty-two years now he'd spent on th e hurricane deck of a bronc, and it was tim e he found himself a chair on the porc h somewhere, or spent a winter at one o f those fancy Colorado hotels.

Then he snorted with disgust. What wa s he thinking of? He couldn't even afford a new pair of boots. He was a thirty-dolla r cowhand, and that was all he was likely t o be.

They pushed the horses at a good pace , and although the sun was close to settin g they kept on. The next station was no t many miles off, and if they rode on in i t would be to a warm fire and ready-mad e grub.

Kris Mahler dropped back to talk t o Conagher .
What do you think? Shall w e go on in ?

Gettin' paid for the job, ain't we? Wh y waste time? We can make it short o f midnight, and these mustangs won't suffe r none. Drive 'em on in an' tomorro w they'll be fit as fiddles .

There were two men at Red Rock, bu t there was no evidence of it when the her d rounded into the station. McGivern rod e over to the corral and opened the gate fo r the horses, who smelled the water in th e trough and pushed in, eager to reach it.

Only when Mahler got down at the doo r did it open cautiously.

Who's there
?
came the question.

Conn Conagher yelled his answer .
It'
s an apostle with an epistle for you! Ope n up, you sod-busters and let a man in !

The door creaked on its hinges and the y saw the white undershirt of a man in hi s pants, holding a rifle .
Put your horses up , an' come on in. I'll set the coffee on th e fire .

After turning his horse into the corra l Conn followed the others in. He was tire d and cold.

He nursed the cup of coffee in his stif f fingers. If he stayed in this countr y he'd have to rustle himself a sheepski n or buffalo coat, and he did no t want to leave with Kiowa making wa r talk ... he would like to see him first.

Likely it was all talk, but you never knew.

Between cups, while waiting for th e beans and cornpone, he pulled off hi s boots. There was another hole in his socks.

Reminded him of the cowpuncher wh o went to wash his feet one spring and foun d two pairs of socks he didn't know he had.

Conn picked up his cup again, an d sipped the coffee while staring into th e fire. There was a world of comfort in a fire , and he'd looked into a sight of them , round and about.

The station agent was a man of fifty o r more, the hostler older, yet they'd found a place to light. The older you got th e tougher it got. You felt the cold more, an d you didn't take to sleeping out on th e ground so much. A man that old shoul d have himself a home, a place to hang hi s hat while he waited for the sunset.

The waiting would not be bad if it wa s on a man's own place, where he coul d watch his own cattle graze and could liv e in some kind of peace. Conn turned hi s foot sideways. The heels of his boots wer e run down and the soles were growing thin.

Lucky he was a rider and not a walker o r I they'd last no time at all.

He'd never had a home that you coul d call a home. His ma had died when he wa s four, and his pa had gone off to help buil d railroads and had never come back. Hi s aunt and uncle had taken him in, but he'
d worked for it. Lord above, how he ha d worked! His aunt always threw it up t o him how his pa had never come back . . .
w ell, a lot of men went west who neve r came back, and it wasn't their fault either.

And it didn't have to be Injuns. Choler a had done for a lot of them, and starvatio n and thirst for a good many more, and som e had been killed by men like Kiow a Staples, who were hunting a reputation. I f you got thrown from your horse out on th e prairie alone, or got caught in a stampede , gored by a longhorn, or drowned swimmin g a river . . . there were a hundre d ways a man could die in this wester n country, and nobody the wiser. It wa s likely the way he himself would end.

Somebody poured coffee into his cu p and he muttered a thanks without lookin g up. His fingers were beginning to ge t warm. It beat all how this country coul d be hot in the daytime and could freeze u p at night.

It was time he started hunting himself a place to last out the winter. He didn't hav e to feel in his jeans to know there was jus t two dollars there. Two lone silver dollars , and whatever he'd get out of this jo b he'd have to rustle a job on one of thes e new cow outfits.

Twenty-two years ... it was too lon g and nothing ahead of him but a stiffening of muscles, growing tired a littl e sooner, finding it harder to keep warm.

He'd driven spikes on the railroad , handled a cross-cut saw in a tie camp , helped to sink a shaft on a contract job , ' and helped to build a couple of mountai n roads in Colorado. Then he'd driven a team over the Santa Fe, put in four year s in the army in the War Between the State s and got to be a sergeant. He had bee n wounded twice, escaped from Andersonville, and had fought Indians in Dakot a and Wyoming. He'd gone up the trail fro m Texas three times, and had punched cow s in Texas, the Arizona Territory, Nebraska , and Wyoming. It was a hard life, a bitter, lonely life after a fellow got beyon d the kid stage.