War on the Cimarron (3 page)

Frank drawled softly, “I reckon it's about time he changed his ways.”

The girl smiled suddenly, and there was pity in the smile. “You're not the first man who thought that.”

“Where are the others?” Frank asked.

“They don't run cattle here any more.”

Frank grinned suddenly. “They didn't make big enough tracks, is that it?”

The girl's smile faded. “I wouldn't say that. They were just—well, bullheaded.”

“Like I'm goin' to be?” Frank asked.

The girl nodded. “And I wouldn't be, if I were you.”

The clerk came in then and announced that Jake Humphries would take care of the freight, and the girl went out without a backward glance. She climbed into the buggy and drove out of the compound, and Frank watched her thoughtfully, a new anger stirring within him. Apparently leasing on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation was a question of politics besides a question of murder.

He rode out past the hotel and, catching sight of the sutler's bar in the corner of the building, was reminded of his headache, which was throbbing with every beat of his heart. A glass of whisky might knock it, he reflected, and he dismounted and went inside. There was a scattering of civilians and army officers inside, and he bellied up to an empty space in the bar and called for a whisky.

As the bartender laid the bottle on the counter Frank heard someone say, “Christian?”

He turned to regard a man who had come up beside him yet had kept a small distance between them, leaning both elbows on the bar. He was a colorless-looking man, thin, of average height and dressed in a careless black suit whose trouser legs were thrust into scuffed half boots. His face was sallow, strong muscled, and his mouth was half hidden by a thin and ragged mustache of an indeterminate roan color. It was his eyes, however, that made the man jell and pushed his character into the open, for they were black and shiny as obsidian, their alertness veiled by sleepy lids.

“Yes,” Frank said.

“I'm Scott Corb.” He made no effort to shake hands, as if he knew it would be a pleasure to neither of them.

“Yes,” Frank said again, interest in his voice now.

“Morgan Wheelon was your partner, wasn't he?” When Frank nodded Corb went on.

“He overlooked somethin' before he died. You might like to straighten it out.”

“What's that?”

“He never paid for your lease,” Corb said.

Frank smiled faintly. “Paid you, you mean.”

“That's right. I'm the lease agent for about three quarters of these Cheyenne and Arapaho. Wheelon gave some money to a small chief, and it's the opinion of the council that you'll be squattin' on their land if you take over.”

Frank looked beyond him to the two riders back of Corb who were listening, studying the back bar mirror with a show of boredom. His glance shuttled to the mirror, and he saw at a table behind him a man who had not been there when he entered. He knew the signs well enough, knew that Corb had arranged this to take care of any trouble.

He scrubbed his jawline with the flat of his palm and said mildly, “I been tryin' to get corn today, Corb. You throw that in too?”

“If you pay for your lease,” Corb said.

The men in the room were quiet, listening, knowing what was happening and waiting for Frank to make his decision.

Slowly he reached out for the bottle of whisky, seemed to fumble it and contrived to spill it on the bar top, neck toward Corb. The whisky gurgled out, and Corb leaped away from the bar, lifting his arms up. But it had been too quick for him, and when he lowered his arms a thin stream of whisky streamed from his coat sleeves. He raised his rash and wicked glance to Frank's face, and small spots of color appeared on his sallow cheeks.

“Why damn me for a fumble-fingered fool!'” Frank said mildly. “Why'd I do that?” His cold gaze rose to Corb's and held it.

For a split second Corb hesitated and then, willing to give Frank a chance, said, “Accident.”

Frank smiled crookedly. “It wasn't any accident, Corb. If you want to be paid for that lease, wring out your coat sleeve in a glass and I'll pay the barkeep for it. That's the only money of mine you'll ever see.”

He laid a coin on the counter, wheeled and walked indolently out the door, and behind him the room was utterly silent.

Mounted again, he rode out of the garrison toward the agency across the river, his anger still hot. Corb's oblique threat was still in his mind, and he didn't care now. It looked as if his lease was going to be a three-cornered battleground, with Morg's killing the first move on somebody's part. To his suspicion of Milabel he quietly added the name of Corb, remembering what the girl in the feed office had said.

Down the slope past the issue corrals he put his horse into the wide river bed of the Canadian and heard a team behind him. He pulled out of the rutted tracks, not even looking around, and then he saw the red-wheeled buggy pull up abreast him and heard a man say “Whoa,” and he stopped.

There was the girl, all right, on the other side of the buggy, and holding the reins was a man of huge girth and a pleasant red face which was perspiring. The big man put out his hand and said, “I was in the sutler's bar when you done it, Christian. I'd like to shake your hand.”

Frank, puzzled, shook hands with him, and the big man said his name was Hopewell Barnes. “And this is my daughter, Luvie.”

“We've met,” Luvie said. There was a disapproving look in her face, but Barnes went on. “That's somethin' I see all too seldom—a man stand up to Corb.”

“So I heard,” Frank drawled, looking at Luvie, and her cheeks colored.

Barnes wiped his face with a big bandanna and then said, “Luvie told me about meetin' you. She said you needed corn.”

Frank nodded. “I came in off the trail yesterday with my remuda gaunted up. Looks like I'm goin' to have to feed 'em up on grass, though.”

“No, you ain't. Just suppose a load of corn I ordered got misdirected to your place, and you started usin' it before I found out?”

Frank studied him briefly, then grinned. “I'd sure hate that. I'd have to pay for it and let it go at that.”

“Dad, be careful!” Luvie said swiftly. “Corb will see through that.”

Barnes turned to her, frowning. “No, he won't. It's legal.”

“But this man has quarreled with him already! He's sure to!”

Frank leaned both hands on the saddle horn, and impatience touched his voice. “You never finished tellin' me about Corb, Miss Barnes. Go ahead, now that there's nobody can hear.”

Luvie's eyes flashed, but before she could retort Barnes said, “It's somethin' you'll find out, Christian. I can tell you this. The Circle R is the only outfit on the reservation that can fight him. The rest can't, me included. His business, you see, is to hire a bunch of Texas hard cases. They buy whisky in Kansas, freight it down to their caches here in the Nations and use it for money. Outfits come in, like you, and want to lease range. If they lease from Corb, he takes their money and pays the Indians off in whisky. If they don't lease from him, he makes life purely hell for them.”

“And he will for you!” Luvie said.

Frank's glance shifted from her to Barnes. “Maybe you'd better not get mixed up with it then, Barnes. I'll make out without the corn.”

“No!” Barnes roared. “I don't have a crew, and I can't fight Corb. But I'm willin' to help any man that will fight him!” He shook out his reins and glared at Frank. “The offer still holds. You want the corn?”

“Obliged,” Frank said. “I do.” He touched his hat and Barnes drove away, but not before Frank saw Luvie lean across toward her father and begin to talk to him in a low, animated voice.

Thoughtfully Frank rode into Darlington in the early evening light. It was a small town, a hotel and a scattering of stores facing a wide street. Indians loafed on the sidewalks and in the street and stared impassively at Frank as he dismounted in front of a restaurant. He ate a lone meal and afterward found out from the waiter that Edith Fairing, the daughter of an agency employee who had died last year, lived in a small house down the next street east.

Afterward, following directions, Frank dismounted in front of the place. It was full dusk now, and he could not see a light in the house but he went up the walk.

Somebody rose out of the swing, and, coming closer, Frank saw it was a girl. She was a dark-haired pretty girl with grief still in her eyes, and when Frank introduced himself she smiled a little and invited him to sit beside her in the swing.

“I—just heard about Morg last night,” Frank began.

“I'd have written you, Frank, but I didn't know where you were. It happened three weeks ago.”

“It won't bring Morg back, but somebody is goin' to pay for that,” Frank said softly, vehemently.

“Nobody will pay for it,” Edith said bitterly. “That's what's so awful.”

Frank looked at her sad face in the fading light. “I come to you for help. I'm not goin' to take this lyin' down. I want to know what you can tell me.”

“Nothing.”

“Somebody killed him,” Frank insisted.

Edith turned her head toward him then, and there was a wry bitterness in her voice as she spoke. “I've thought of that. Any number of people could have killed him, for any number of reasons!”

“Name some.”

“The Reservation Cattle Company. Your lease lies between two of theirs. If they're to fence and protect their lease, they must have yours.”

Frank nodded slowly. “That's one. What's another?”

“Scott Corb has a way of making people regret it if they don't lease from him.”

“All right,” Frank said in a low voice.

“There's a hundred young Cheyenne bucks on this reservation who hate the white men. They're inciting the others to war. Only the old chiefs keep them from an open war.”

“A hundred Indians,” Frank said grimly. “Who else?”

“Half the wanted men in the West are hiding out in the Nations, Frank. They'll kill a man for a handful of matches!”

Frank was silent, baffled. It was true. He felt Edith stir beside him, and he looked over to find her crying quietly in her handkerchief. It was the sick, sobbing grief of a woman in despair, and Frank felt a pity for her and was helpless to comfort her.

Edith rose suddenly, and Frank came to his feet. “I—can't talk about it, Frank. You—better go.”

“I'll come back tomorrow then,” Frank said.

Edith laid a hand on his arm and her fingers were tense. “I didn't mean that, Frank. I meant you had better leave the country! Get out! Give it up! They'll get you too!”

And before Frank could answer she brushed past him and disappeared in the house. Frank stood there a moment, feeling anger flood him anew and tighten every muscle in his body.

Afterward he went out to his horse and mounted and took the road to the garrison again. Everywhere he had turned this day there was fear and dread and hopelessness. He had seen it everywhere, from the time he entered the feed office to this moment. And still he knew nothing about Morg's death. Crossing the river, he knew there was only one source of information left to him, and that was the army. He would stay the night at the garrison hotel, and early in the morning he would closet himself with the major in command and learn everything that was known about Morg's death.

At the garrison he rode past the porch of the sutler's post and into the wagon yard. By the light of the lantern hung beside the feed-office door he saw that the yard was cleared of freight wagons and the black depths of the open-faced wagon sheds on two sides of the compound were dark and deserted. He rode on through to the stable archway ahead and it was dark. Through its long driveway and out by the corral he saw that a lantern had been left for the late riders. He turned his horse into the corral and then came back through the stable to the compound.

As he stepped out of the stable into the wagon yard he was aware of something changed. For a moment in the dark he was puzzled, and then he knew. Someone had doused the lantern hanging beside the feed-office doorway since he rode through a moment ago.

Frank came to a halt, feeling his nerves screw tight. The deep wagon shelters lay ranked on each side of him, darker than the night. To reach the faintly lighted street beyond the compound gate he would have to walk past these wagon sheds. A cold uneasiness coiled inside him and he fought it down. The stable hostler probably hadn't heard him and had doused the lantern.

Just then a man afoot swung through the compound gate ahead. He was whistling a thin cheery tune faintly off key.

Frank walked on and had taken a dozen steps when he heard a voice call from one of the wagon sheds, “Christian?”

He stopped dead, and before he turned his head to look in that direction he noticed that the man who had come through the gate also stopped.

He didn't answer. Another voice from the other side of the compound called, “All right.”

Then a shot broke the night. It came from the direction of the first voice, and the slug rapped into the claboard of the stable.

Palming his gun up, the salt taste of anger in his mouth, Frank ran in the direction of the second voice, the closest, and the angry purple-orange flare of a gun blossomed high under the wagon shed.

Frank whipped up his gun and, running, shot at it and he heard a man curse under the uneasy stomping of a nervous horse. He shot again, and the hidden man across the compound shot too, and then the man up by the gate yelled: “Get under that wagon shed, Christian!”

The man across the compound threw a shot in the direction of the gate, and then Frank pounded into the dark shadows of the shed and flattened himself against the back wall. He listened to the man up ahead fight his horse, and he shot once and his fire was not returned.