Nevada (1995) (25 page)

Jim strode out as if he were just leaving the store, and he passe
d
Elam Hatt so close he might have touched him. Hatt was walkin
g
with a man as rough in garb and hard of face as he was himself.

Neither appeared to notice him. After a few steps Jim glance
d
back. The girl had disappeared and the men were passing on.

"Good!" said Jim, to himself. "That lass is game, but she's only
a
kid, an' I reckon it's better her dad didn't see her with me. Wal
,
wal! The old luck of Jim Lacy! Half an hour in Winthrop an' I'
m
on a hot trail."

Marvie Blaine! Marvie--the boy who had worshipped him and Ben Id
e
in those wonderful Forlorn River days! Jim had found the boy wa
y
over here in Arizona. Marvie would be eighteen now--quite a man a
s
cowboys were rated on the ranges. But then Ben and his family ha
d
only arrived at Cedar Springs in July.

"Tall, freckled-faced, tow-haided kid, Marvie was," went on Jim.

"Shore he's straddlin' mean hosses an' packin' a gun. . . . Recko
n
it's not the best country for a boy like him. But Ben could hol
d
him in. . . . By golly! I'm forgettin' Rose Hatt. Shore a
s
shootin' Marvie has fallen in love with her. No wonder. Reckon I
w
ould, too, if my heart hadn't been eaten up long ago. Wal, wal!

A girl an' a boy I hadn't reckoned on. . . . How queer thing
s
come! Rose said it was Cedar's fault that Clan Dillon . . . Poo
r
kid! She shore called Dillon. Handsome, smilin'-faced liar! An'
s
he knows, if I ever saw truth. Wal now, I wonder, just WHAT kin
d
of a hombre is Ben Ide's foreman. Tom Day liked him. So doe
s
everybody I've ever heard speak of him, except this Hatt girl. . . .

It's a hunch. I'll be damned if I don't back her against all o
f
them."

Jim strolled the length of the main street, and crossing, sauntere
d
back again, talking to himself in an undertone, and with hi
s
apparent casual observance taking cognizance of all visibl
e
persons. He had the pleasure of meeting Judge Franklidge face t
o
face in front of the hotel. The rancher saw Jim only as a passer-
b
y. It would have been the opposite of pleasure, however, for Ji
m
to have encountered Ben Ide face to face; and that was one reaso
n
Jim's keen eyes sighted every man first. But accidents coul
d
happen. It would be well for Jim, while in Winthrop, to keep unde
r
cover of the saloons or places not likely to be frequented by Be
n
Ide. At most, Jim's hours in town would be few and far between.

He went to a side-street restaurant to get his supper and engag
e
lodgings for the night. As darkness came on he ventured into
a
store, where he made a few purchases, and then he returned to th
e
corral for his pack. This he carried to his room.

"Reckon that'll be aboot all," he soliloquized, as he stood gazin
g
around the dingy bare room.

He was thinking that he had walked the streets of Winthrop abou
t
the last time as an unknown man whom few people had noticed. Thos
e
swift moments--an hour or so at most--had seemed singularly swee
t
to Jim.

"Wal, I'm shore ready to pay all it'll take."

The small mirror showed his eyes piercing and light, like points o
f
daggers gleaming out of shadow. He stood an instant longer
,
motionless in the chill lonely silence of the room. He knew tha
t
when he went forth again it must be into raw evil life of outlaws
,
gamblers, murderers--all that riffraff of the Southwest, which lik
e
a murky tide, had rolled into Arizona. He calculated coldly tha
t
he must be all he had ever been, all that his name had ever meant.

He must add to these the intelligence which had sharpened in th
e
years of peace. He seemed fitted for this task, and his motive ha
d
the strength of love and passion and the sanction of right.

"Reckon I ought to thank God," he said, to his pale image in th
e
mirror. "Shore I never had no chance to do somethin' worth while.

An' now I can use my evil gifts to a good end. For Ben--an' tha
t
means for HER--an' then Franklidge an' all the honest people who'r
e
tryin' to civilize this wild country. Reckon, after all, they nee
d
such men as Jim Lacy. . . . I see clear now. Even if I'm killed
,
Ben an' Hettie will know the truth some day. It's got to come out
,
an' I reckon I'm glad."

Then before the mirror, with a grim smile on his face, he came a
t
last to the practical business of the matter. Though the succes
s
of this enterprise depended upon his cunning and his knowledge o
f
the outlawed men with whom he must throw his lot--and the more o
f
such qualities he exercised the surer his chances--the cold har
d
fact was that all hung upon the deadliness of his skill with a gun.

This job had to do with death. Such was the wildness of the tim
e
and the evil code of outlaws, that he could kill this one and tha
t
one, any number of them, and only add to his fame, only giv
e
himself greater standing among them. True, by so doing he mus
t
make bitter and relentless enemies; he must face the strang
e
paradox that many an incipient gunman, or notoriety-seekin
g
desperado, or drunken cowboy would seek to kill him just because h
e
was Jim Lacy.

Whereupon, with deliberation he treated himself to a tens
e
exhibition of his swiftness of eye and hand. In secret he ha
d
practiced all through these peaceful months while engaged in hones
t
labor. An impelling force had exacted this of him. He understoo
d
it now. And with a dark satisfaction he realized that he ha
d
gained in speed, in sureness of hand. Beyond these he had in larg
e
measure the gift peculiar to all gunmen who survived long in th
e
Southwest--and that gift was to read his opponent's mind.

"Reckon I might have bit off more'n I can chew," soliloquized Jim
,
as he sheathed his gun. "But from the minute I step out this hea
h
door I shore won't be makin' many mistakes."

The Lincoln County war in New Mexico had ended recently. It ha
d
been the blackest and bloodiest fight between rustlers an
d
cattlemen and many others who had been drawn into the vortex, tha
t
had ever been recorded in the frontier history of the Southwest.

As such it had possessed an absorbing, even a morbid, interest fo
r
Jim Lacy. He had never lost an opportunity to hear or rea
d
something about this war. And once he had ridden into New Mexic
o
on a cattle mission for Franklidge, during which trip he had see
n
at first hand some of the places and men who were later to becom
e
notorious. That war had in its beginning something analogous t
o
the present situation here in Arizona. Jim did not believe ther
e
could ever again be such a fight as the Lincoln County war. Bu
t
there was no telling. Arizona had vaster ranges and more cattle.

Some of the characters prominent in the Lincoln County war had no
t
been killed. They had disappeared. It was not unreasonable t
o
suppose that one or more of them had drifted into Arizona. "No two-
b
it of a rustler is headin' that Pine Tree outfit!" ejaculated Jim
,
voicing aloud one of his thoughts. To be sure, Billy the Kid, th
e
deadliest of all the real desperadoes of the Southwest, had falle
n
in the Lincoln fight, along with the worst of his gang. But the
y
had not all bitten the bloody dust of New Mexico.

"Shore I'll run into some one from over there," muttered Jim.

"When I do I'll shoot first an' ask questions after."

With that he opened the door, to step out into the dark, oppressiv
e
August night.

Chapter
twelve.

Winthrop, the same as many other Western towns of the period
,
supported more saloons than all other kinds of business house
s
combined. It had a vast area of range land to draw from; and i
f
there were a thousand cowboys and cattlemen in this section, ther
e
were probably an equal number of parasites who lived off them, fro
m
the diamond-shirted saloon-keeper and frock-coated gambler with al
l
their motley associates, down to the rustler who hid in the brake
s
and the homesteader who branded as many calves not his own as h
e
raised from his stock.

Once a month, if not oftener, the men of the range could b
e
depended upon to visit town, "to paint it red" and "buck th
e
tiger." These customs were carried out as regularly as the work o
f
punching cows.

During the early evening hours Jim Lacy visited some of the main-
s
treet saloons, steering clear of the Ace High and others o
f
prominence. He lounged about the bars and tables, agreeable an
d
friendly to anyone who wanted to talk, willing to buy cigars an
d
drinks, while he made some excuse or other for not indulging at th
e
time. Cowboys were all friendly folk, except now and then one who
m
drink made mean. Gamblers and hangers-on, Mexicans and Indians
,
attracted by Jim's liberality and presence, added their little t
o
the sum of information he was gathering.

"I'm lookin' for a pard," Jim would say to most everyone he met.

"A cowboy who broke jail over in New Mexico." And then he went o
n
with more of such fabrication, always to conclude with questions.

Cowboys under the influence of a few strong drinks soon acquainte
d
him with range gossip he had not heard. Several habituTs of thes
e
dives accepted Jim's advances without telling him anything. These
,
of course, were the men who knew most and required cultivation.

But they only eyed him covertly. Bartenders were mostly procurer
s
for this or that gambling house, and from them he amassed muc
h
information. At length he left the last resort, intending to hun
t
up the dance hall.

"Shore, that wasn't so bad for a start," mused Jim as he summed u
p
and sifted the bits of talk in which he found significance. "Cas
h
Burridge, sold out an' gamblin' his fortune away, spends half hi
s
time heah in town. Thick with some Spanish girl. Same ol
d
Cash! . . . Clan Dillon one grand hombre, eh? Wal, wal! The Ide
s
rich Californians who're bein' rustled an' sheeped off their range.

Tom Day just as liable to be boss of the Pine Tree outfit as any one.

That'll shore tickle Tom. The Hatt outfit, except Cedar, just no-
g
ood homesteaders, low-down enough for anythin' not really big an'
d
angerous. Cedar Hatt, though, is a plumb bad man. Not the even-
b
reak kind, but crafty as a redskin, treacherous as a Greaser. Th
e
Stillwells hardest nuts down in the brakes. Never come to town!