Maverick Marshall (12 page)

Frank stood like a man in the clutch of paralysis. Each contraction of his heart held the impact of a fist. He had a giddy sense of motion, of being alone on some high point with the wind rushing round him and nothing to catch hold of.

He drew a ragged breath and his stare found Bernie. The man’s face hung in mottled folds against the bones which upheld it. His eyes bulged like the eyes of a frog. Now his lips writhed away from the rotten stumps of teeth locked together.

It was the clerk’s hysterical grip on Frank’s shoulder which finally got through to him, bringing him out of it. He let go of Bernie’s throat, saw the clerk’s scared face and shoved the man stumbling out of his path. He went through the door blindly and onto the porch. All he could see was Honey’s face tight with scorn. Breath began to come into him. He saw this town as the place really was. The fault was his for imagining he could pull himself up by his bootstraps.

He jammed fists in pockets and felt the crackle of paper.
Kelly’s note
. He glanced at his shadow, checked the guess by his watch. Too late. His eyes raked the dusty glare of the street, noting its emptiness while a resolve solidified behind the tough planes of his cheeks.

Chavez came along heading west toward the office. “I’ll take over,” Frank said.

Chavez nodded. “Somethin’ I don’t savvy back there.” He flung a dissatisfied look over his shoulder. “Could of swore I heard a woman yell.”

Chavez was a bundle of contradictions. His mother, dead in childbirth, had been with a road show which had gone to pieces in Dalhart. She had put herself beyond forgiveness by marrying his father, a Mexican horse breaker who’d been working for Sam Church at the time. Frank had heard several versions of the story but all agreed Church had hounded the man out of the country. Frank could imagine what Chavez’s boyhood had been with a father tossed from pillar to post and the blood of two races forever clashing inside him.

“Where was this?” Frank asked, scowling.

“Passing the bake shop. Could of been wrong. Might of been that hasher at the New York Cafe. Could of been a horse.”

“My worry,” Frank said, and crossed over to Gurden’s. The gambler, back of the bar, had both arms anchored to a spread-open newspaper. He looked up, face tightening, as Frank stepped in. At this slack time, in addition to Gurden and one of his dealers laying out a hand of sol, there were only three other men, local customers, in the place. Frank didn’t miss the way these quit talking.

“Where’s Mousetrap, Gurden?”

The saloon owner shrugged. “When he ain’t on duty his time’s his own.” He plopped the butt of his stogie into a spittoon. “Shall I say you been lookin’ for him?”

“I’ve got a cell looking for him if I happen to lay hands on him, and I wouldn’t be surprised but what I can find room for you. Why are these gents toting guns in your place?”

“Now look — ”

“You know the law. You helped make it.”

Frank continued to stare until the saloonman’s face showed his hate and fury. When the stillness threatened to become too oppressive Frank waved a hand at the three bellying the bar. “Uncinch that hardware.”

There were black looks and grumbling but the men complied.

“Now pick up your belts and head for the jail.”

“You ain’t serious — ”

“By the time you get out you’ll be a better judge of that.” Frank waited till the men reluctantly started for the batwings, then he said, “You’re through in South Fork, Gurden. You cut your string too short with Willie. The next stage leaves at seven o’clock. Be on it, and take your hired thugs with you.”

• • •

After he’d locked the men up, Frank, recalling what Chavez had told him, got his mare from the hotel hitchrack, got aboard and pointed her east. At the stage depot he crossed the road’s sun-scorched dust and stepped down in front of the New York Cafe. The place had no business.

The hasher was fanning herself back of the counter. She gave him a withering look. “You’ve shot your bolt, takin’ up for them Benchers. I guess this heat must’ve scrambled your brains.”

Frank managed a grin. “You can’t scramble something you don’t have to start with. Let’s have another cup of that varnish you call java.”

“And then tellin’ Gurden to get out of town! You got a hankerin’ for a coffin?”

“How the hell did you hear about that?”

“I heard it,” she said. “The whole town’s buzzin’.”

Frank sagged onto a stool and tiredly leaned on his elbows. “Chip was after me anyhow.”

She poured the coffee and put it in front of him. “Bernie ain’t about to make no sheep’s eyes at you — what’d you want to rough him up for? And Kimberland, too.” She put her hands on her hips. “What you need is darn good talkin’ to.”

Frank saucered some of his coffee and held it up to blow at. “Seen Kelly around?”

“Kelly! Man, you better get your sights set on steerin’ clear of Gurden.”

“You been here all morning, ain’t you?”

She shook her head like she was giving Frank up. “You know darn well I have. You think that Greek would let me outa this joint?”

“You hear anything a while ago? Like maybe some woman was yelling or something?”

She wiped her cheeks with her apron and regarded him queerly.

“Reason I asked, Chavez thought he heard something last time he was by here. You know if Abbie Burks is home?”

She started to sniff then shook her head, looking paler. She leaned forward abruptly. “Danny Settles was over behind her place a while ago…. I know because I saw him. Jake’ll tell you the same. He seen him, too.”

Frank got down off the stool and stepped into the kitchen.

“That’s right,” the Greek said. He pushed a pan of dough back and wiped floured hands on his shirt front. “Skulkin’, he was. I said so then and I’ll say so now. Squintin’ back over his shoulder an’ all scrounch down like he was scairt someone would see him. Hell of a guy you should pick for a jailer. Right back of that brush,” he pointed, “that’s where I seen him.”

Frank stepped out the back door. He went over to the brush and started looking around. In an alkaline spot that wasn’t haired over with grass he saw fresh sign, the print of a boot heel. He found where this party had worked through the brush on a line with Abbie’s back door.

He went over there and knocked without getting any answer. He tried the latch but the door was barred. “Abbie?” He jiggled the thing but no one moved inside the house.

“An’ I’ll tell you somethin’ else,” the Greek said grimly when Frank returned. “It won’t be the first time that feller’s been over there.”

Frank went out to the mare and then went back to ask, looking troubled, “How long ago was this?”

“Well — ” the hasher said, “it’s been a couple of hours, I guess. About the time of that shootin’, give or take a few minutes.”

Of course, Frank thought. Knowing Abbie, he knew she’d take Danny in when he was probably scared half out of what wits he had left by those shots Frank had swapped with that damned Tularosa. Danny had gone to Abbie with the trust of a frightened dog. But why had she yelled — or had she? “You reckon she’s out?”

The hasher couldn’t give him any help there. “I never
seen
her go, if that’s what you mean.”

Frank went back to the street. He didn’t want to break in. He’d look a pretty fool if Abbie was home.

He walked over to the mare. Abbie might have plenty of reasons for not coming to the door. She might have been working. He hadn’t tried the front. He was starting to walk over there when he saw John Arnold turning in at the path. Arnold, glumly preoccupied with things in his mind, went through the picket fence without noticing Frank.

It came over Frank rather oddly that Arnold’s look was generally perturbed whenever he seemed to be heading for Abbie’s. Perhaps the rancher only visited his niece when the cares of this world got to weighing too heavy. It was a weird thing to think and yet in no way more strange than well-off John Arnold with a prosperous ranch permitting his kin — his only kin, far as Frank knew — to spend her time making bonnets for other people’s women.

He had never happened to catch this angle on it before, and now was baffled to realize that never had he heard of Abbie visiting the ranch. Frank recalled the hasher’s sniff and the unexplained color with which Abbie had told him this morning that she supposed her uncle was still around. It then occurred to Frank the strain he’d always sensed in her might spring from something other than a New England parentage.

A little startled, Frank suddenly saw Abbie Burks as the women of this town had, those good housewives and mothers he’d thought resented her good looks and the fact that she was in business.

The discontinuance of Arnold’s knocking fetched Frank out of this thinking and he heaved into the saddle as Arnold’s steps approached around the side of the house, and suddenly stopped. Frank might have gone to see what Arnold was swearing about except that, just then, he caught sight of Kelly beckoning from the doorway of the stage barn.

Frank put the mare across the street. Kelly abruptly faded away from the door. At that moment, Frank saw the surveyor’s scout he had met in the hills coming in from the west. The scout was half falling out of his saddle. Sandrey Larren, riding alongside, was doing her best to hold him on.

Forgetting Kelly, Frank swung toward them, touching the mare with the points of his spurs. A moment before, the town had seemed asleep on its feet; now men appeared from a dozen doorways — even Old Judge with a beer in his hand running out of the Flag to find out what was happening.

Frank reached the surveyor’s scout and eased him down. Blood and dust were all over the front of him and his face looked like a mask of waxed paper. Sandrey’s cheeks were drawn. Both horses showed lather. Ignoring the excited jabber around him, Frank hoisted the scout and carried him into the Blue Flag where he eased him onto a faro table. It was to be seen at a glance he was no case for a sawbones; the man had lost too much blood and there was froth on his mouth.

“Back up!” Frank growled as men crowded around them. His glance flashed to Sandrey.

She said, “Will he make it?”

Frank, studying the man, shook his head. “What happened?”

Sandrey drew a long breath. “He stopped by my place — it was just before noon. He gave this pitch about a railroad, said he wanted an easement. He came right out and offered cash money for it. I put him off, told him I’d have to talk first with my neighbors. He upped his price five hundred dollars — ”

“Get to the shooting.” Frank ignored the rest of them. He could tell by their looks of startled excitement this was the first they’d heard about any railroad.

Sandrey’s eyes were smoky sage and she was still breathing hard. Frank understood this was emotion. She was fiercely angry. It was in all her looks, in the hand she put up to push back her hair. Her cheeks were pale but fright had nothing to do with this.

“It was the cattle,” she said, “we didn’t see the men right off, only the cows. They were everywhere, like a sea of horns, bawling and staring wherever we turned. They must have shoved that whole six thousand — ”

“Kimberland’s got more than that,” Frank said.

She looked at him straightly. “You don’t get it. I’m talking about — Church. Will Church.”

“You must be mistaken. The cows you saw were Bar Forty — ”

“Tell him!” Sandrey said; and Frank followed her glance to the pain-racked eyes staring up at him.

“That’s right,” the scout whispered. “Circle C the brand was.”

An angry muttering broke out back of Frank. Heels fell loud across the planks of the porch, and Sandrey said, “Young Church himself — the one who threatened you last night and then lifted his hat to me — came loping up with a couple of hardcases. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but you can’t stay here.’ Then Mr. Fles — ” her hand moved toward the scout on the faro table — “told Will Church he was barking up the wrong tree, that I was owner of Terrapin. He — ” she looked at Frank fiercely — “never had a chance to say anything more. Church grabbed up a pistol and shot him. It all happened so quick I couldn’t keep up with it. Both of Church’s men had their guns out by this time. Church said
‘Git!’
and we done it. I’m pretty sure if we hadn’t he’d have shot me too.”

Frank could hardly believe Church had been such a fool. Yet, it was exactly what Will would do, given nerve enough. Somewhere he had found the nerve. Frank saw but two possible answers to this. Either Will had got backing for this defiance of Kimberland or, stung frantic by the loss of face he had suffered at Frank’s hands, the man had gone hog wild.

There was a commotion back up front by the doors and Chavez, thin-lipped, intolerant of delay, came through the crowd blackly shoving men off his elbows. “That Burks woman has been raped and they’re hangin’ Danny Settles!”

They’re at the stage company’s barn!” Chavez piled in the saddle. “I tried to talk some sense into them. Arnold tried, too. You know what a mob is! They’re fixin’ to use that hay hoist….”

Frank’s thoughts, and the wind, isolated him from the rest of what the deputy was saying. Frank was raking the mare with the gut hooks. Every fiber of his being rebelled against this and he cursed the loose jaws which had incited it. Settles had been no more capable of attacking Abbie Burks than a cow was of singing, yet these fools in their need to fight back at their fears …

Snarling, Frank crouched lower with the wind in his ears as they flashed past the storefronts, making the run in twenty-seven seconds. He cursed the white faces that twisted around at him. He slammed the roan into them, scattering them. He had a blade in his hand. He knew before she had slid to a stop — by the grotesque way Danny spilled to the ground — he had got here too late.

Frank appeared about ready to start killing the handiest. The stock knife in his fist gleamed sharp as a saber and the mob fell away, shamefaced, some yelling, stumbling over each other in their fright and their guilt.

Frank dropped off the mare, bent over Danny, unashamed of the glistening blur in his lashes. It wasn’t that the man had ever been close — no two could have been farther apart than the gentle dead and this roughneck marshal. Frank’s emotions were aroused by the utter uselessness of this, the sheer stupidity that would allow men to act so.