The Lawless West (20 page)

I must have blinked, for instead of getting the shot glass full, I got only part of it, but enough to blind me. And then he stepped close. As I fought for sight, I caught a glimpse of his boot toes, wide spread, and I was amazed that such a big man had such small feet. Then he hit me. It felt like a blow from an axe, and it knocked me into the bar. He faced around, taking his time, and he smashed one into my body, and I went down, gasping for breath. He kicked at me with the toe of one of those deadly boots that could have put an eye out, but the kick glanced off the side of my head.

It was my turn to be down and out. Then somebody drenched me with a bucket of water, and I looked up. Key Chapin was standing over me, but it was not Key Chapin who had thrown the water. It was Olga.

Right then I was only amazed that she was there at all, and then I got up shakily and somebody said—“There he is!”—and I saw Park, standing there with his hands on his hips, leering at me, and
with the same mutual hatred we went for each other again.

How we did it I don’t know. Both of us had taken beatings that would have killed a horse. All I knew was that time for me had stopped. Only one thing remained. I had to whip that man, whip him or kill him with my bare hands, and I was not stopping until I was sure I had done it.

“Stop it, you crazy fools! Stop it or I’ll throw you both in jail!” Sheriff Will Tharp was standing in the door with a gun on me. His cold blue eyes were blazing.

Behind him were maybe twenty men, staring at us. One of them was Key Chapin. Another was Bodie Miller.

“Take him out of here, then,” I said. “If he wants more of this, he can have it in the morning.”

Park backed toward the door, then turned away. He looked punch-drunk.

After that I sat up for an hour putting hot water on my face.

Then I went to the livery stable and crawled into the loft, taking a blanket with me. I had worn my guns and had my rifle along.

How long I slept I have no idea except that, when I awakened, bright sunlight was streaming through the cracks in the walls of the old stable, and the loft was like an oven with the heat. Sitting up, I touched my face. It was sore all right, but felt better. I worked my fingers to loosen them up, and then heard a movement and looked around. Morgan Park was on the ladder, staring at me. And I knew then that I was not looking at a sane man.

He stood there on the ladder in that hot old barn, staring at me with hatred and a fury that seemed no whit abated from the previous night.

“You back again?” I spoke quietly, yet lay poised for instant movement. I knew now the tremendous vitality that huge body held. “After the way I licked you last night?”

The veins distended in his brow and throat. “Whipped me?” His voice was hoarse with anger. “Why, you…!” He started over the end of the ladder, and I let him come. Right then I could have cooled him, knocked him off that ladder, but something within me wouldn’t allow it. With a lesser man, one I could have whipped easily, I might have done it just to end the fighting, but not with Morgan Park. Right then I knew I had to whip him fairly, or I could never be quite comfortable again.

He straightened from the ladder, and I could see that he was a little stiff. Well, so was I. But my boxing with Mulvaney and the riding I had done had
been keeping me in trim. My condition was better than his, almost enough to equalize his greater size and strength. He straightened and turned toward me. He did not rush, just stood there studying me with cool calculation, and I knew that he, too, had come here to make an end to this fight and to me.

Right then he was studying how best to whip me, and suddenly I perceived his advantage. In the loft, one side open to the barn, the rest of it stacked with hay, I was distinctly at a disadvantage. Here his weight and strength could be decisive. He moved toward me, backing me toward the hay. I feinted, but he did not strike. He merely moved on in, his head hunched behind a big shoulder, his fists before him, moving slightly. Then he lunged. My back came up against the slanting wall of hay and my feet slipped. Off balance, lying against the hay, I had no power in my blows. With cold brutality he began to swing, his eyes were exultant and wicked with sadistic delight. Lights exploded in my brain, and then another punch hit me, and another.

My head spinning, my mouth tasting of smoke, I let myself slide to a sitting position, then threw my weight sidewise against his knees. He staggered and, fearing the fall off the edge of the loft, fought for balance. Instantly I smashed him in the mouth. He went to his haunches, and I sprang past him, grabbed a rope that hung from the rafters and dropped to the hard-packed earth of the barn’s floor.

He turned and glared at me, and I waited. A man appeared in the door, and I heard him yell: “They’re at it again!” And then Morgan Park clambered down the ladder and turned to me.

Now it had to be ended. Moving in quickly, I
jabbed a stiff left to his face. The punch landed on his lacerated mouth and started the blood. Circling carefully, I slipped a right, and countered with a right to the ribs. Then I hit him, fast and rolling my shoulders, with a left and right to the face. He came in, but I slipped another punch and uppercut hard to the wind. That slowed him down. He hit me with a glancing left and took two punches in return.

He looked sick now, and I moved in, smashing him on the chin with both hands. He backed up, bewildered, and I knocked his left aside and hit him on the chin. He went to his knees, and I stepped back and let him get up.

Behind me there was a crowd and I knew it. Waiting, I let him get up. He wiped off his hands, then lunged at me, head down and swinging. Sidestepping swiftly, I evaded the rush, and, when he tried it again, I dropped my palm to the top of his head and spun him. At the same instant I uppercut with a wicked right that straightened him up. He turned toward me, and then I pulled the trigger on a high hard one. It struck his chin with the solid thud of the butt end of an axe striking a log.

He fell—not over backwards, but face down. He lay there, still and quiet, unmoving. Out cold.

Sodden with weariness and fed up with fighting for once, I turned away from him and picked up my hat and rifle. Nobody said anything, staring at my battered face and torn clothing. Then they walked to him.

At the door I met Sheriff Tharp. He glared at me. “Didn’t I tell you to stop fighting in this town, Sabre?”

“What am I going to do? Let him beat my head off? I came here to sleep without interruption and he
followed me, found me this morning.” Jerking my head toward the barn’s interior, I told him: “You’ll find him in there, Tharp.”

He hesitated. “Better have some rest, Sabre. Then ride out of town for a few days. After all, I have to have peace. I’m arresting Park.”

“Not for fighting?”

“For murder. This morning I received an official communication confirming your message.”

Actually I was sorry for him. No man ever hates a man he has whipped in a hand-to-hand fight. All I wanted now was sleep, food, and gallons of cold spring water. Right then I felt as if it had been weeks since I’d had a decent drink.

Yet all the way to O’Hara’s I kept remembering that bucket of water doused over me the night before. Had it really been Olga Maclaren there? Or had I been out of my head from the punches I’d taken?

When my face was washed off, I came into the restaurant, and the first person I saw was Key Chapin. He looked at my face and shook his head. “I’d never believe anything human could fight the way you two did!” he exclaimed. “And again this morning! I hear you whipped him good this time.”

“Yeah.” I was tired of it all. Somberly I ate breakfast, listening to the drone of voices in my ears.

“Booker’s still in town.” Chapin was speaking. “What’s he after, I wonder?”

Right then I did not care, but, as I ate and drank coffee, my mind began to function once more. After all, this was my country. I belonged here. For the first time I really felt that I belonged some place.

“Am I crazy, or was Olga here last night?”

“She was here, all right. She saw part of your fight.”

“Did she leave?”

“I think not. I believe she’s staying over at Doc and Missus West’s place. They’re old friends of hers.” Chapin knocked out his pipe. “As a matter of fact, you’d better go over there and have him look at those cuts. One of them at least needs some stitches.”

“Tharp arrested Park.”

“Yes, I know. Park is Cantwell, all right.”

Out in the air I felt better. With food and some strong black coffee inside of me I felt like a new man, and the mountain air was fresh and good to the taste. Turning, I started up the street, walking slowly. This was Hattan’s Point. This was my town. Here, in this place, I would remain, I would ranch here, graze my cattle, rear my sons to manhood. Here I would take my place in the world and be something more than the careless, cheerful, trouble-hunting rider. Here, in this place, I belonged.

Doc West lived in a small white cottage surrounded by rose bushes and shrouded in vines. Several tall poplars reached toward the sky and there was a small patch of lawn inside the white picket fence.

He answered the door at my rap, a tall, austere-looking man with gray hair and keen blue eyes. He smiled at me. “You’re Matt Sabre? I was expecting you.”

That made me grin. “With a face like this, you should expect me. I took a licking for a while.”

“And gave one to Morgan Park. I have just come from the jail where I looked him over. He has three broken ribs and his jaw is broken.”

“No!” I stared at him.

He nodded. “The ribs were broken last night sometime, I’d guess.”

“There was no quit in him.”

West nodded seriously. “There still isn’t. He’s a dangerous man, Sabre. A very dangerous man.”

That I knew. Looking around, I saw nothing of Olga Maclaren. Hesitating to ask, I waited and let him work on me. When he was finished, I got to my feet and buckled on my guns.

“And now?” he asked.

“Back to the Two Bar. There’s work to do there.”

He nodded, but seemed to be hesitating about something. Then he asked: “What about the murder of Rud Maclaren? What’s your view on that?”

Something occurred to me then that I had forgotten. “It was Morgan Park,” I said. “Canaval found the footprint of a man nearby. The boots were very small. Morgan Park…and I noticed it for the first time during our fight…has very small feet despite his size.”

“You may be right,” he agreed hesitantly. “I’ve wondered.”

“Who else could it have been? I know I didn’t do it.”

“I don’t believe you did, but…” he hesitated, then dropped the subject.

Slowly I walked out to the porch and stopped there, fitting my hat on my head. It had to be done gently for I had two good-size lumps just at my hairline. A movement made me turn, and Olga was standing in the doorway.

Her dark hair was piled on her head, the first time I had seen it that way, and she was wearing something green and summery that made her eyes an even deeper green. For a long moment neither of us
spoke, and then she said: “Your face…does it hurt very much?”

“Not much. It mostly just looks bad, and I’ll probably not be able to shave for a while. How’s Canaval?”

“He’s much better. I’ve put Fox to running the ranch.”

“He’s a good man.” I twisted my hat in my hands. “When are you going back?”

“Tomorrow, I believe.”

How lovely she was! At this moment I knew that I had never in all my life seen anything so lovely, or anyone so desirable, or anyone who meant so much to me. It was strange, all of it. But how did she feel toward me?

“You’re staying on the Two Bar?”

“Yes, my house is coming along now, and the cattle are doing well. I’ve started something there, and I think I’ll stay. This,” I said quietly, “is my home, this is my country. This is where I belong.”

She looked up, and, as our eyes met, I thought she was going to speak, but she said nothing. Then I stepped quickly to her and took her hands. “Olga. You can’t really believe that I killed your father? You can’t believe I ever would do such a thing?”

“No. I never really believed you’d killed him.”

“Then…
?”

She said nothing, not meeting my eyes.

“I want you, Olga. You, more than anything. I want you on the Two Bar. You are the reason I have stayed here, and you are the reason I am going to remain.”

“Don’t. Don’t talk like that. We can never be anything to each other.”

“What are you saying? You can’t mean that.”

“I do mean it. You…you’re violent. You’re a killer. You’ve killed men here, and I think you live for fighting. I watched you in that fight with Morgan. You…you actually enjoyed it.”

Thinking that over, I had to agree. “In a way, yes. After all, fighting has been a necessity too long in the life of men upon earth. It is not an easy thing to be rid of. Mentally I know that violence is always a bad means to an end. I know that all disputes should be settled without it. Nevertheless, deep inside me there is something that does like it. It is too old a feeling to die out quickly, and as long as there are men in the world like Morgan Park, the Pinders, and Bodie Miller, there must be men willing and able to fight them.”

“But why does it have to be you?” She looked up at me quickly. “Don’t fight any more, Matt. Stay on the Two Bar for a while. Don’t come to town. I don’t want you to meet Bodie Miller. You mustn’t. You mustn’t!”

Shrugging, I drew back a little. “Honey, there are some things a man must do, some things he has to do. If meeting Bodie Miller is one of them, I’ll do it. Meeting a man who challenges you may seem very foolish to a woman’s world, but a man cannot live only among women. He must live with men, and that means he must be judged by their standards, and, if I back down for Miller, then I’m through here.”

“You can go away. You could go to California. You could go and straighten out some business for me there. Matt, you could…”

“No. I’m staying here.”

There were more words and hard words, but when I left her, I had not changed. Not that I underestimated
Miller in any way. I had seen such men before. Billy the Kid had been like him. Bodie Miller was full of salt now. He was riding his luck with spurs. Remembering that sallow face with its hard, cruel eyes, I knew I could not live in the country around Hattan’s Point without facing Miller.

Yet I saw nothing of Bodie Miller in Hattan’s Point, and took the trail for the Two Bar, riding with caution. The chances were he was confident enough now to face me, especially after the smashing I’d taken. Moreover, the Slades were in the country and would be smarting over the beating I had given them.

The Two Bar looked better than anything I had seen in a long time. It was shadowed now with late evening, but the slow smoke lifted straight above the chimney, and I could see the horses in the corral. As I rode into the yard, a man materialized from the shadows. It was Jonathan Benaras, with his long rifle.

When I swung down from the saddle, he stared at my face, but said nothing. Knowing he would be curious, I explained simply. “Morgan Park and I had it out. It was quite a fight. He took a licking.”

“If he looks worse’n you, he must be a sight.”

“He does, believe me. Anybody been around?”

“Nary a soul. Jolly was down the wash this afternoon. Them cows are sure fattenin’ up fast. You got you a mighty fine ranch here. Paw was over. He said, if you needed another hand, you could have Zeb for the askin’.”

“Thanks. Your father’s all man.”

Jonathan nodded. “I reckon. We aim to be neighbors to folks who’ll neighbor with us. We won’t have no truck with them as walks it high an’ mighty. Paw took to you right off. Said you come an’ faced him like a man an’ laid your cards on the table.”

Mulvaney grinned when I walked through the door, and then indicated the food on the table. “Set up. You’re just in time.”

It was good, sitting there in my own home, seeing the light reflecting from the dishes and feeling the warmth and pleasantness of it. But the girl I wanted to share these things with was not here to make it something more than just a house.

“You are silent tonight,” Mulvaney said shrewdly. “Is it the girl, or is it the fight?”

I grinned and my face hurt with the grinning. “I was thinking of the girl, but not of Park.”

“I was wondering about the fight,” Mulvaney said. “I wish I’d been there to see it.”

I told them about it, and, as I talked, I began to wonder what Park would do now, for he would not rest easy in jail, and there was no telling what trick Jake Booker might be up to. And what was it they wanted? Until I knew that, I knew nothing.