Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"Buck is on your side, don't forget that," Sherry reminded him.

"Sure, sure. But he's trying to spread too much oil, spraddle too many fences. He thinks we can talk a way out of this trouble. If he was thirty years older, he'd know different. Right now Shander and Curly ain't touching his ranch. They want him to feel like everything's all right and that I'm too excitable. But once they get me, Buck Manners won't last half an hour. He don't realize he's playing into their hands that way. Charterhouse, where'd you learn to play Indian, anyhow? You took care of yourself pretty well in the last forty-eight hours."

"Matter of horse sense, I reckon," mused Clint.

"We need more horse sense in this country," growled Nickum. "You took the initiative and did something on your own account, which is more than any of my men would do. They'll follow well but they can't lead worth a damn. I can't be everywhere at once and I can't smell down tracks like I used to. Can't ride as long and as hard, either. You willing to be a lieutenant around here?"

"How about Haggerty?"

Sherry frowned. "I wish he was some place else," she broke in.

"He's a good prod for the men," countered Nickum. "I'd like him better if he controlled his temper. Never mind Haggerty. He will do what I tell him and if he doesn't like taking orders from you—which it will amount to—then he must go. I am offering you plenty of room and responsibility."

"You don't know much about me," reflected Clint.

"I'll stand on my judgment," declared Nickum.

Clint found the girl watching him with a trace of anxiety. Her white hands rested quite still on the table and her rounding lips were pursed together. He thought he saw sudden warmth in the gray eyes; and whatever cautions and qualifications might have been in his head, they dissolved then and there.

"Take it," he decided laconically.

Father and daughter looked at each other. Nickum cleared his throat two or three times irritably. "Don't mind saying that lifts a load off my shoulders, Charter-house. You will consider that room your own, this table your proper place, and the house open to you at all times."

The girl smiled brilliantly. They rose and went back to the living room; night chill already had come through the house, and Sherry touched a match to the fireplace. Clint ranged beside it with a sense of comfort sweeping over him like some powerful drug. After all the long years of drifting about, anchorless and alone, he felt as if he were at last home. The room, its lights and shadows and its high beams, took on a strange familiarity. Sherry Nickum smiled up at him, murmuring, "You are a very solemn man sometimes, Clint Charterhouse. You were looking far off, far ahead then. What did you see?"

He shook his head, the fine feeling partly fading away. This was the girl who had sworn herself to another man; all that beauty and vigor and gay spirits were for Buck Manners.

"I wish I could say I saw something," he said, still sober, "but I guess I was just looking at blank space."

"Depends," was Sherry's very soft answer.

Nickum roused himself and lowered his pipe. "I'll collect the boys in the morning and explain your place among—"

A horse clattered across the yard's packed earth and a rowdy hail shot through the door. "Put another log on the fire—here comes a fella!"

Buck Manners appeared in the doorway, hat off, yellow hair tousled and a broad smile on the magnetic face. Charterhouse thought a part of the smile sank away when Manners saw him there; and certainly there was a swift and broadening flare of interest in the man's eyes. But he spoke casually around the circle.

"Nickum—hello again. Sherry, you look like something just this minute out of a picture. How, Charterhouse. Glad to see you again. John put the Box M brand on you?"

"Yeah," agreed Clint. "So short a time ago you can smell scorched skin."

"Thought you'd been rope-burned and scary," remarked Manners, adjusting himself indolently in a fat easy chair. He rolled a cigarette, eyes passing between Charterhouse and the girl with quick, decisive flashes.

"I guess I've been gentled," drawled Clint. He met the rollicking ranchman's blue eyes and found himself wondering at the hard, observant brightness that appeared and disappeared within the surface humor. He had already matched strength with Manners; the man was a fighter, for all his easy-going ways. It was difficult to tell at what point he would switch from careless indifference to tremendous strength.

"Well, you'll never wear a better brand," decided Manners. And added a lazy afterthought. "No matter how many others you may have worn before."

Clint asked himself a silent question. "What's the snapper to that, I wonder. Might be just an observation, Might be a dig."

Sherry broke in. "You've just missed supper, Buck. I'll sit at the table with you, though."

"Thanks no. Ate early. Only figure to stay for a spell. These days I don't like to pull away from the ranch for too long. Never know what's going to happen next. By the way, John, I wanted to pass on a piece of information you might use. Curly's shifted his territory. He's grazing over in Dead Man lately. I've seen campfires there the last few nights; also have heard a few stray noises passing my place when honest folk sleep."

"Moving closer to me," was Nickum's grim remark. "The wolves slink in and wait for a chance. I wonder how many tough nuts he's got, Buck?"

"Ten-fifteen, I suppose," judged Manners, watching his cigarette smoke curl to the ceiling. "Maybe more. Charter-house, you may have a better guess."

"As how?" Clint demanded.

"Well, you were at Shander's last night and got some dope, didn't you?"

"Mostly I was worrying about getting away. Curly was there with some of his men, though. How many, I couldn't say, for part of the bunch might have been Shander's own riders."

"Shander don't carry a big outfit. Only about twelve-fourteen hands."

"This Curly," went on Charterhouse, "is a fool for being proud of himself. If I was a brush jumper, I'd keep my face hid. He took the pains to introduce himself to me, saying he wanted me to know him next time we met."

"That's Curly's weakness, all right," grinned Manners. "He likes to grandstand. But don't figure him any the less wild for that trick. He's a white savage. Shoot you back or front, makes no difference to him."

"I judged that," mused Clint, whereat Manners studied him again through the smoke.

Sherry, standing so quietly by the fire, had observed all these silent interchanges with soberly pursed lips. Being thoroughly feminine, she had compared them from the moment they faced each other; a tall, laughing man with yellow hair and a reckless exuberance of spirit placed beside an equally tall man whose smile was slow and seldom and whose features were bronzed, almost gaunt. One found life a great game and pursued it with zest; the other had traveled a lonely trail. The sun and the rain, the burning heat and the knife slash of the blizzard had whipped him down to flat sinews and fashioned him so that even here in the room he could not drop the trick of appearing to look far across the horizons.

"Just wanted to tell you that for your own information, John," pursued Manners. "Any plans?"

"I will sleep on it," said Nickum. "If I feel in the morning as I feel now, the war is on. They have tried twice for me. I reckon that's excuse enough to tame Casabella. Ten years ago I wouldn't have needed the sleep. I'd be in the saddle now. When a man gets older, he seems to take longer stock."

"You've got my outfit to draw on any time you see fit," Manners told him.

"Thanks. My outfit is big enough. All I have been needing is one man able to plunge ahead and use his own head while he fights. I've got him now, I think. This boy here—" pointing to Charterhouse. "Consider him as a member of the family, Buck."