Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

In the moments of waiting he had watched the porch of the Gusher. Instinct had drawn his attention there. Yet the profound shadows had told him nothing. Now, in motion, he saw a figure coming away from the porch, walking with so slow and swinging a gait that he turned and came to a halt. The other likewise halted, sending on a challenge.

"I want to see you, Chaffee."

He knew then who it was. "Here I am, Sleepy. Ain't you kind of slow on the trigger?"

The crisscross of words floated softly outward. Chairs slammed on another porch. The underground telegraph woke and warned Roaring Horse.

"I could of knocked yuh over by them stairs," admitted Sleepy Slade. "It was orders. But it ain't my style. I figger to be as good on the jump as you are. Any old time. Nobody's ever goin' to say Sleepy Slade had to take the long end o' the teeter to win an argument. Not with you, leastwise."

"Charitable sentiments," drawled Chaffee. He felt the gathering of men along the shadowed building sides. "But maybe you also figured sixty feet was too much distance to take a chance. Better come closer, Sleepy. You know I sort of specialize on long distance."

"I ain't arguin'," droned Slade. His body swayed slightly; he advanced half across the dusty thoroughfare and stood again. "Yuh drilled Ben Gluger. Yuh did same to Jap Ruggles. If yuh ain't cut them notches yet it's too late now."

"Ain't afraid I'll get away and try it again, Sleepy?"

"Yore corralled."

"Thanks for the information. Why don't Theodorik do his own chores?"

"I ain't arguin'," repeated Slade, the words grating more noticeably.

"Take a try," murmured Chaffee. "You're beginnin' to shake a little."

That touched off the powder. Slade yelled: "Like—" and the rest was lost in the roar that shot upward and outward and seemed to suck the echoes into small whirlpools around Chaffee's head. Slade weaved. In the velvet grayness Chaffee saw the man's feet spread wide and his arms stretched ahead as if he groped for his target. Roar ran into roar. Chaffee turned half around. A woman screamed, lights flashed on, a lantern made a series of hurdles against the night's background. "Try again," murmured Chaffee. But there were no more shots. Slade was sprawled grotesquely in the street, his gaunt and saturnine features marked by death. Luis Locklear held the lantern.

At once the street was alive with spectators. Jim Chaffee stuck fast to his place, watching the sheriff, watching the crowd. Theodorik Perrine kept clear of all this, nor did the rest of the giant's gang come into the light. They were still waiting out beyond the furor and babble, waiting for a second chance with a patience that somehow took away all the reassurance of the fight he had won. Luis Locklear turned. "Chaffee, I'll have yore guns."

"What for?"

Locklear's stubborn, bigoted countenance could not hold back the triumph that was his. "Stirrup S don't run the town no more. Pass the guns."

"Your manners are poor," drawled Chaffee. "Likewise your memory. Don't you know what happens when another fellow draws first?"

"How could he draw first and be dead?" scoffed Locklear. "You ain't no Annie Oakley. Yuh was pleased to shoot yore face the other night in the stable. Mebbe Stirrup S had a mortgage on the county one time. Not now. I'm goin' to learn yuh some manners down at my padlocked schoolhouse. Pass the guns."

"I believe I'll keep my guns," decided Chaffee. "Now whose bluff is the best?"

He felt solid metal press into his ribs from behind. "Yores ain't," said some unknown gentleman, briefly. Locklear grinned, sour satisfaction shining out of his red-rimmed eyes. He advanced and jerked Chaffee's revolvers clear. "Now, damn yore soul, I'll do the talkin' for a spell. Promiscuous shootin' ain't stylish here no more. Neither is Stirrup S. Yore goin to stand trial for the killin'. I lay ten dollars yuh get roped for it. Ain't very scared of losin' that money, either. Mush toward the jail."

More lanterns danced along the walks. The lights of the Red Mill burst through the windows again, and Jim Chaffee, walking silently ahead of the sheriff, wondered if that temporary darkness had been arranged for. Here and there he saw faces that not so long ago had been friendly and now were noncommittal or openly hostile. It still was puzzling to him to understand how men could change opinions so quickly when Locklear pushed him down into the basement cell of the county jail, locked the door, and walked away with a sullen oath trailing behind. What power could shift public opinion, or a good part of public opinion at least, so effectively and with so little outward display?

Men were gathering in the sheriff's office overhead. He heard the shuffle of their boots and the mutter of their conversation and the booming of a voice he knew very well. Theodorik Perrine had at last come out of the darkness.

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Not until he rolled into the jail bunk did Jim Chaffee feel the effects of the long day's strain. Building himself a cigarette in the darkness, it came over him suddenly—a cold and cramping reaction that set his muscles to aching. The vitality and buoyancy of man sinks low during those hours around midnight; it is then that uncertainty and doubt and discouragement come like black ravens to perch on weary shoulders. There was no solace in the cigarette; nothing in the dismal, chilly cell to relieve the depressing tedium of his thoughts. He had made a fight, he had won. What of it? Jail held him in spite of that, and the fortunes of the Stirrup S seemed to be settling into obscurity. With the death of Dad Satterlee the tide had gone out. The more Chaffee thought about it, the more certain it was to him that the old man's death had been planned to accomplish just that end. Living, Satterlee was a power not to be challenged. He represented the older settlers; he represented that stiff and rugged frame of mind natural to the land owner and cattle owner, large or small. He stood for rough and swift justice; he stood for a code in which a man's oral promise was as good as a written mortgage. They had killed him, and Roaring Horse began to change from the moment of his death. Who was behind it?

The cigarette fell from Chaffee's fingers. He slept long and soundly. And while he was thus lost to all things the outer world moved forward, the news of his capture was relayed to certain corners of the range, and certain men came quietly into Roaring Horse. The light in Luis Locklear's office never went out; the back door of the sheriff's office opened and closed many times. When, at ten o'clock of the following morning, Jim Chaffee woke, he became the central actor in a series of events over which he had no control. Unknown to him, his fate had been decided upon during those conferences; and this was the beginning of a day long memorable in the country, the beginning of a day marked by a bitterness and an uncertainty and a tension that men never thereafter forgot.

Chaffee pulled himself from the bunk, stiff in every muscle. And as his eyes roamed the barren walls, the sunlight coming through the window was shut off by a crouching figure. Looking up, he found Mark Eagle's round and solemn cheeks just beyond the grating.

"You must've been pretty tired," said Mark. "I been here an hour, waiting."

"Why didn't you give me a shout?"

"When a man sleeps that solid," replied Mark, "he needs it. I'm in no hurry."

"Come around down the stairs and let's hold a little talk session."

The Indian bank cashier shook his head. "I tried that. Luis Locklear ain't letting anybody in."

Chaffee digested the information meditatively. "Pretty careful, ain't he? Too careful. I'll be out sunnin' my heels in three-four hours. Luis Locklear ain't learned a lot about public opinion concernin' self-defense in this county."