Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

Woolfridge seemed to withdraw, to pull his senses inward and take stock. The freckled face lost color, yet other than that no change came to his features. Only, when he raised his eyes again to Perrine a fire burned brilliantly in them.

"I have never found a man who could do a thing just as I wanted it done," said he evenly. "A man ought never to depart from his beliefs. I'll do this myself. How many guns have you? Two—well, give me one of them."

Perrine took his left gun and passed it, barrel foremost, to Woolfridge. Then he drew away, keeping a close watch. "Grandstand," he jeered. "Yuh'll scuttle the minute I'm out o' yore sight. Lord help yuh. Yore a dead dawg. Me, I'm gone." He stepped beyond the swinging doors and hesitated a moment, bold eyes studying Woolfridge with something that might have been respect or puzzlement, or perhaps a little of both. Then he was gone from the lobby along with all the others, leaving Woolfridge quite alone.

The rush and clamor of the mob swirled through the street Voices rose higher, a gun exploded, and the foremost of the homesteaders leaped up to the porch. Woolfridge, with his freckled cheeks set tightly and his gun raised to command the door, backed slowly toward the stairway.

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When Jim Chaffee stepped out of the stairway of Tilton's dry-goods store and rallied the Stirrup S men across the dim and weaving shadows of the street, the full voice of the mob struck him like a furnace blast and he realized then for the first time how inexorable and terrifying the power of massed unreason was. An individual could be persuaded or overawed; an individual had a conscience to rally him back to a sense of order and justice. But a mob had no conscience; it was a caldron of passion without anything to check the fire burning higher and higher. Chaffee had experienced a mob once before—at the time the gambler was killed—yet that was a different affair and far less sinister.

They came onward, these homesteaders, moving with a certainty and an intensity Chaffee never before had seen in men. There were thirty or forty of them; men who had labored throughout the years with their hands to accumulate that small amount of savings now in the hands of Woolfridge. Their fortunes were involved in the land that never would see water; they were impoverished. Whatever bright hopes they had nourished for the future were gone down, and they saw, each one of them, nothing but ruin. No emotion is so powerful in a human being as that which touches his home and his family; no rage is so latent with destruction as that which comes from the knowledge of a home wrecked and a family broken. It was on their faces as they marched toward Chaffee and the ex- Stirrup S crew; somber faces darkly drawn, gaunt eyes flashing as they crossed the patterns of outflung lamplight. Standing there, Chaffee thought he saw men who were a little frightened or sobered by the destructive machinery of which they were a part. But nowhere did he see the smallest spark of mercy. He felt sorry for them. Their rounding shoulders and blackened cheeks spoke of hard work; their rawboned fists and their worn clothes told of it. And yet, as they closed about him and he saw the guns in their fists and the rifles cradled on their arms, he had a moment of pity for Woolfridge and all who were connected with the man.

They surged against the line of horses; they engulfed Chaffee. Out of the group stepped the individual who earlier had exhorted them from the soap box. He was barehead; he threw up a sorrel mane, and a zealot's light poured from his hazel eyes. When he spoke it was the voice of the mob.

"Well, come on. What yuh standin' here for? Let's go get 'em."

Chaffee mustered all the lazy casualness he could find.

"What's your name, friend?"

"Alki Stryker, boy. And I'll carve it on that damn monster's hide! Come on, we're just wastin' time. We're leavin' the gate open."

"They can't get away," said Chaffee. "They're hooked. We've got 'em where we want 'em. Now why be hasty about it? There's a jail big enough to hold the crew and plenty of good men for jury duty in due course of law. You want your money back, don't you? You want all this straightened out legally—"

Alki Stryker shook his head, surly and intolerant. "Yore Chaffee, ain't you? How come yore so gentle hearted all of a sudden? Ain't they hazed you from hell to breakfast? Yeah. How much due course o' law did you get? None. Nor will we get any by waitin' around. They's just one thing to do and we aim to do it."

The rising undertone of response was like the mutter of some deep, remote disturbance of the earth.

"You've been duped," agreed Chaffee, still amiable. "We can straighten that. It's a big country and there's plenty of time. Take it to court first and see what you can save from the shuffle. Then if it don't suit you—that will be time enough to consider direct action."

"Who paid you to say that?" cried Alki Stryker. "No man that's been hurt like you been can say such a thing less he's in on the profits! Get out of our way! If you ain't got the bowels to knock in some heads we shore have!"

The pressure of the crowd grew against him. The horses moved uneasily and gave ground. Turning an instant he saw Locklear standing in the hotel doorway, a doubtful and stubborn creature who could not forget his measure of authority. And behind him were all those who held to the Woolfridge fortunes. Yet even as he watched they began to retreat from the door and disappear from his sight. He faced the mob once more. "Roaring Horse don't care for massacres, friend. We boys ran this country once. In our own way. We can do it again. But not by lynchings, or by blood."

"You ain't had no luck runnin' it recent," retorted the mob leader. "I'm tellin' yuh for the final time—throw in potluck or get out of the way. We know who yuh are and we're sorry for yore bad luck. But it ain't in the cards to stop us. You can't do it, nor anybody else. Clear the street! We're wipin' them buzzards off the map!"

"We're takin' Woolfridge and we're keepin' him for a jury," was Chaffee's blunt reply. "This is our country. Now stand back and behave while we do it."

He thought for a moment that this change of tone would check them. He saw its effect on the crowd. But, on the verge of following up with a still plainer show of strength, Luis Locklear elected to swing sentiment back to its full fury. The sheriff, now in an alley adjacent to the hotel, played true to his nature to the very last. He was afraid; he would not fight for Woolfridge; he had almost no support behind him. But he could not give; he could not find it in this thick head to compromise or forgive. So he raised a shout.

"Who's askin' you to carry authority in this town, Chaffee? I'm sheriff of this county! You fellows are breakin' the peace! Get off the street or take the consequences! I can send somebody to the grave for this night's work! Clear out!"

The reaction of the mob was instant, and the sudden onward surge almost threw Chaffee off his feet. A gun exploded in his very ear, and the horses began to pitch, pulling away. Chaffee was struck in the neck and hurled from side to side. But he tore free from the clawing arms and beat a path toward the hotel porch, crying up to his partners. "Ride 'em down—block that porch! Block it!" And presently, ripped and battered, he stood in the doorway with half of the old crew ranged around him afoot while the others charged backward and forward with their horses. The mob broke, re-formed, and fought for the door. Then it was split in fragments by the constantly circling horses and the foremost section left high and dry on the porch, threatening the defenders.

"Step back!" warned Chaffee. "We're takin' Woolfridge to the jug."