Fiddlefoot (4 page)

Frank said gently, “More than that, Judge,” and put his horse in motion and moved on down the quiet street.
I've gone a long way down the road if he thinks that
, he reflected bitterly. And this judgment, too, like Carrie's, would have to wait on time, until the old label had worn off, he knew.

He turned at the corner now, heading for the main four-corners. The cool mountain evening was all around him, smelling of resin and the river, full of the low rush of the distant river, too. He paused at the four-comers, looking across at the Pleasant Hour Saloon in the middle of the block. Chances were that Hannan, if he were still in town, would be there, and Frank understood now that his business with the sheriff was urgent. He angled across the street to the Pleasant Hour's tie-rail, and before dismounting he looked over the line of ponies racked there. Several of them bore Rhino Hulst's J-1 brand, and one of them was Hugh Nunnally's. The crew was back, and with them, he knew, lay the power to still Hannan's curiosity.

Shouldering his way through the swing doors, he tramped over to the long bar on his right, looking over the big, brightly lit room. Several rear tables were occupied by poker players. A monte game just beyond the bar had drawn a small crowd, and in that crowd Frank saw the big stoop-shouldered frame of Buck Hannan. Beyond, at one of the poker tables, he saw Rhino's bunch—Pete Faraday, Albie Beecham, Morg Lister, and Bill Talley, with Hugh Nunnally, whose broad back was to the door.

The two McGarrity brothers were at the bar, and Frank halted beside Jonas, the younger brother. Jonas was a tall, workworn man in the rough clothes of a ranch hand; John, the older brother, wore a neat black suit, and his mild, cheerful face made him look years younger than his brother. Together, they operated a growing freighting company, and themselves worked at jobs which ranged from teamstering to bookkeeping, with a stubborn skill.

Jonas had seen Frank in the mirror of the back bar, and his morose face broke in the start of a smile. “I been needin' you, Frank,” he said, turning now. “We can use some new teams.”

“See Rhino,” Frank said. He asked the bartender for whiskey.

John McGarrity leaned back and said around Jonas, “Hell with Rhino. The last horse we bought from him died of sand colic in a week.”

Frank shook his head and smiled to take the edge off his refusal. “I've quit, gents. You're on your own.” He took his whiskey and moved back through the room, hearing Jonas swear in mild frustration. As he had anticipated, Buck Hannan broke away from the monte game watchers and intercepted him. “In a hurry, Frank?”

Frank halted. Buck Hannan was a big, soft, smooth-faced man of fifty, pleasant with the meaningless affability of an elected public servant, but his sharp gray eyes were alert and searching. He was coatless, his black trousers tucked into burnished half-boots, and he wore no badge of office on his checked shirt.

He shook hands and looked about him and spotted an empty gaming table. Still holding Frank's hand, he said, “Let's sit down. Thought you might want to know about Rob.”

Frank said he did, and they took chairs. Frank saw Rhino's bunch watching him; Pete Faraday, Rhino's half-breed Ute wagon-master, leaned across his cards and murmured something to Hugh Nunnally, whose square and blocky face turned toward Frank.

Hannan offered Frank a cigar, which he refused, lighted one himself, and then said in a respectful voice, “I know how you feel about this, Frank. I know—”

“How do I?” Frank cut in.

Buck Hannan's gaze altered into hardness. “All right, how do you?”

“I'm glad he's dead, Buck,” Frank said bluntly. “You can make anything out of that you want.”

“Now, what would I make out of it?” Buck asked mildly.

“Lots of things. That I murdered him, so I hear.”

“People talk too much,” Hannan said, still mildly. He had never ceased watching Frank, noting each change of expression, weighing what he noted.

“How did he die?” Frank asked.

“Why, his back was broken, and somebody stuck a knife between his ribs a couple of times.”

Frank made no comment; his face was contained, non-committal, and Buck Hannan shook his head. “So you're glad?” he observed.

Frank said thinly: “What do you want to know, Buck? That we fought all the time? That I was broke? That Saber is a big outfit?”

Hannan shook his head slowly. “No, I know all that. What I want to know is where you've been the last month.”

Frank noticed his drink now. He drank it, said, “Come along,” rose, and led the way over to the table where Hulst's crew was seated.

Hugh Nunnally looked up as Frank halted beside him. He was a short, blocky man, under thirty, with a sleepy indolence about his every movement. He was Rhino's first man, a born horse-trader with an astute knowledge of horses, a nerveless gall, and a devious mind, all smothered skillfully by a slow smile and the steady guileless eyes of a simple and satisfied man. Of the thirty men Rhino worked on and off his horse lot, Nunnally was absolute boss. He shared in all of Rhino's countless deals, and he was the key figure in them all, from the sly sucker's game from which he and Frank had just returned to the hiring and paying of the secret and furtive men who passed into Rhino's office, talked behind closed doors, and disappeared. He wore a stained calico shirt, and his last shave had been days ago, so that his beard stubble, the same pale color as his thick hair under its tattered hat, gave him the air of an amiable and unwashed line rider.

He nodded and grinned at Hannan, and Frank said, “Hugh, Hannan wants to know where I've been the last month.”

Hugh frowned, regarding Frank lazily, and then he shifted his glance to Hannan. “Every place, Buck. Hell, when you buy horses, you cover a lot of ground.”

“Not you,” Hannan said. “Chess here. He been traveling with someone all the time?”

Hugh glanced again at Frank, and there was an odd and mild malice in his pale eyes. “Were you, Frank?”

Frank felt a cold premonition stirring within him now. Rhino and Hugh, just as much as himself, had to hide the facts of the Army-officer swindle. The only way that could be done was for Nunnally to give immediate proof that Frank was never alone in the three months they'd been gone, so Hannan wouldn't pry. Yet Nunnally was hesitating.

A kind of wary panic was in Frank then. If he was on his own, he must be cautious, and he answered slowly, “Not always with someone, Hugh.”

Nunnally looked up at Hannan now. “We were all over that country, Buck—singly and in pairs and the whole bunch. We'd hear of a Mormon with a good bunch of horses. One of us would go to his place to look 'em over. If it was a big bunch and they looked good, we'd buy and send for help to drive them back to the herd.” He frowned. “What's all this about, anyhow?”

“Was Chess alone long enough for him to ride back here without the rest of you knowing it?” Hannan persisted.

Here it is
, Frank thought. Nunnally's glance, faintly mocking, lifted to Frank's face, and Frank tried to still his excitement.

Hugh scratched his head and said in a thoughtful voice, “Why, I don't know, Buck. He might have been. I never kept track of him much. He knows a good horse, and what Rhino'd pay for one. He'd get money from me and bring in the horses. I knew about where he was going, and that's all.” He repeated then, more demandingly, “What's this all about, anyway, We just got in town.”

Frank saw the chagrin mount in Hannan's eyes. “In other words,” Hannan said grimly, “you didn't pay any attention. You didn't know where he was.”

“Why should I?” Nunnally demanded innocently.

Hannan didn't answer him; he looked speculatively at Frank and said grimly, “Ask Frank,” and turned on his heel and walked off.

Now the anger came, and there was a wicked rage in Frank's eyes as he looked at Hugh.

“Tell us, Frank,” Nunnally said slyly.

Frank said thinly, “Let's go where we can talk, Hugh.”

Nunnally laughed soundlessly. “I've got something to say to you, but let's wait till you cool off.”

“You'll come or I'll drag you out,” Frank said with an ominous quietness.

Nunnally's eyes changed faintly, hardening, narrowing. “You couldn't drag me out of a deep sleep,” he said flatly. He looked searchingly at Frank for a moment. “Maybe I will, at that.”

Pete Faraday, the Ute half-breed, started to rise. Frank put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down in his chair. “You stay out of this,” he said. He looked at the others now, and said, “You, too,” and turned and tramped toward the rear of the room. Passing the two small cubbyholes which were private card rooms, he stepped out the back door onto the loading platform that ran across the rear of the building and which was stacked with empty beer barrels at its far end.

He moved away from the door and halted, and Nunnally came up and halted too. His hands were on his hips, and every line of his blocky form was arrogant and pugnacious.

A hard recklessness was in Frank now that he didn't try to check. “You could have pulled Hannan off my neck in there, Hugh. Why didn't you?”

“We want you back in your soldier suit,” Nunnally said slowly. “We'll lose money without you.”

“I told Rhino I'd quit.”

“Maybe you'll change your mind, now.” Nunnally laughed quietly. “You're licked, Chess. Hannan hasn't dropped this because I left it open—purposely. He'll be at me and the boys again and again. You come back to Rhino and I'll account to Hannan for every day you were gone. Get stubborn about it, and we can start remembering the days nobody saw you.” He paused. “Or you can tell him what you were really doing.”

“Who was I working for?”

“And who wore the uniform?” Hugh asked dryly.

A gray hopelessness touched Frank then. In breaking with Rhino and his whole shabby crew, he had counted on Rhino's silence about the uniform, because if it became known they would both be in trouble. But Rhino had sidestepped that problem, working his blackmail in a more subtle way. Rob's death and Hannan's suspicion had given him the opening, and Hugh had summed up the result. The alternative was to tell Hannan the truth, and when that became known he would lose Carrie as surely as if he had died.
If I lost her, I wouldn't want to live
, he thought. But a black and savage stubbornness would not let him return to Rhino. He had turned that corner, never to go back.

He was silent so long Nunnally said dryly, “Figured it out?”

“I've figured it,” Frank said grimly. “I told Rhino I've quit. I have.”

“I hate a fool,” Nunnally said contemptuously. “Listen to me. Do you want to be tried by Tavister and hung in front of Carrie?”

“For killing you,” Frank said softly.

It took Nunnally several seconds to read into those three words what Frank had intended should be read. Then Hugh slapped him with his open palm, and said, “You aren't tough, friend. You never were.”

On the heels of his last word, Frank lashed out at him. The blow caught Nunnally in the face, and it surprised him. He stood motionless a moment, and then he lunged.

The impact of their meeting shook the platform, and one of the beer barrels toppled over. Hugh wrapped his huge arms around Frank, and Frank, slugging viciously at Hugh's midriff, stamped on Hugh's feet.

The punishment forced Nunnally to break away, and Frank took a step backward. Suddenly, his arms were grabbed from behind and pinned in an iron grip. He wrestled savagely, smelling the rank Indian smell of Pete Faraday against him, and he cursed himself for not having remembered Pete's blind loyalty to Nunnally.

After a moment, he saw struggle was useless; Pete's knee was in his back, keeping him off balance, putting him on the tips of his toes that could not hold his weight.

He subsided finally, shaking with rage, and he saw Nunnally approach and plant his feet apart, getting his stance to hit him.

Nunnally hesitated then, and finally said, “Let him go, Pete.”

Pete let go his arms. Frank, wheeling now, half-turned and looped a smashing right that caught the half-breed flush in the throat.

Faraday had been standing close to the edge of the platform. He fell backwards now, clawing at the air, and landed solidly on his back in the cinders four feet below.

A wild rage was in Frank now. He leaped off the platform, landing astride the half-breed, and he pumped blow after blow into Faraday's face.

Nunnally acted quickly; he vaulted to the cinders, pulling his gun with his right hand. Raising it level with his right shoulder, he brought the barrel down smartly against Frank's head.

Frank pitched forward across Faraday's face, and Nunnally, leaning down, dragged him free of the half-breed. Faraday came unsteadily to his feet then, his hand to his nose which was streaming blood.

Nunnally pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and extended it, saying, “Here, you damn fool.”

Pete accepted it and then turned slowly to look at Frank, who was sprawled motionless on his face in the cinders.

“He drunk?” Faraday asked wonderingly.

“Stone-sober,” Nunnally said slowly. He too was looking at Frank, his mild eyes speculative and indrawn. “He's feeling serious now. That'll last about a week.”

Chapter 4

Beyond the upper end of town, Frank took the wagon road branching left where the long lift to the Battle Meadows and Saber began. His head ached throbbingly, and the drink he had bought at the Pleasant Hour before leaving town sat cold and unwanted within him.

Around midnight, he forded lower Elk Creek and let his horse drink, afterward following the creek for another half-hour through vaulting pine timber until he came to the first small meadow of Saber's range. It had rained here today; he could smell the black moist earth under the standing wild hay, and the breeze was almost chill. Crossing the meadows that drained the shouldering pine-clad Battle Peaks to the east, he heard cattle moving away from him in the night.