Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

Manners lifted his head, plainly surprised. "Member of the family?"

Sherry flushed visibly. Nickum filled his pipe. "I mean that from now on you're to consider him second man around here. If he asks you for help or advice, I want you should consider it the same as if I personally asked it."

"Gladly," agreed Manners, the word sounding rather dry. "I'll say, however, that I have been offering myself for that sort of work a great many months before Charter-house came along. As a prospective member of the family—" grinning at Sherry, "what's wrong with my good right arm?"

Nickum chose his words very carefully, tamping down his tobacco. "I've known you since you were a kid, Buck. Life never was very hard on you. Everything come easy, go easy. You like to keep on even terms with folks, you like to play peacemaker. You never had to fight crooks on their own terms. I'm welcoming you as a son-in-law gladly. Don't doubt it. But you ain't a bloodhound. Take Charterhouse here. He fell into trouble the minute he hit Angels. I bit him in the ear. So did Haggerty. Had his horse stolen. Shander grabbed him and tried to keep him.

"He shoots his way out of that, puts two and two together and trails all over hell's half acre, climbs a tree, smells out that Mexican ambushed to get me and pots him cold. Then comes to Angels and accepts a ribbed fight and downs Graney. No uncomplimentary comparisons. Buck, but Charterhouse was born with a nose for trouble and seems to have been raised to all the bitter tricks. That's the man I need. He's had my sort of a life—the only kind of a life that will pay dividends in fighting Shander."

Manners rose, laughing shortly. "I know I was born with a gold spoon, John, but it hurts to have it put so plainly. I'm not grousing. I know the fellow's good. He muscled me down, and by Judas, that means he's blamed good. I'll cooperate with him any time. That goes, Charterhouse. But I still may be useful. When you get ready to crush 'em, let me join in."

"You're not going so soon," protested the girl.

"Really must get back," said Manners. He put out his hand to Charterhouse. "Good luck, old horse."

"Thanks," drawled Charterhouse. "Don't consider me as high as Nickum does."

"He seldom ever makes a mistake," replied Manners. "I hope he isn't making one now. Sherry, my love, good night and I wish you didn't look so blessed pretty with a handsome young fellow like Charterhouse around. I may lose all my advantage with you."

The color of her face deepened but she flashed a mischievous glance between them. "I doubt if you need worry Buck. It is my impression that Clint Charterhouse has never looked at a woman twice."

"I wish I could depend on it," retorted Manners, "but there's something wrong with his eyes if he doesn't look at you twice."

The two of them went to the porch. Charterhouse heard a low chuckle and a tinkling laugh and then the beat of hoofs traveling swiftly out. He stared into the fire somberly. There was nothing wrong with his eyes, he reflected, but it would save him heartbreak if he kept them away from Sherry Nickum.

She came back, sober and thoughtful. "Dad, I don't believe he relished your comparisons."

"Man's got to swallow the truth, sweet or bitter," granted Nickum.

Charterhouse spoke. "You have made an enemy for me."

"Buck?" grunted Nickum, astonished.

Charterhouse nodded. "Just so."

"Hell, that's a foolish idea," retorted Nickum. But Sherry caught Clint's eye and though he was no hand at reading unspoken thoughts, he knew she agreed with him. She put an arm to his elbow.

"Walk with me."

There was a shawl on a table by the door that she took up and whipped around her shoulders. They crossed the porch and strolled along the yard with the lights of the bunkhouses making yellow pathways across the earth. Water trickled near by, the trees were sighing with the wind and horses stamped patiently in the barn. The moon hung rakishly in a corner of the sky, pale against all the surrounding darkness; and memories kept returning to Clint.

"Like coming into shelter after a hard day outside," he mused aloud. "I never knew anything could be so peaceful or quiet. Reckon I have missed a great deal so far."

"I'm glad to know you've found that missing element here," said she quietly.

"Found it, and will lose it again."

"Why so? You sound so wistful, as if there never was any real happiness possible for you."

"Don't make me out a man with a sorrowful past," he warned her. "I've just wandered along, nothing much behind and nothing much ahead."

"Then I was right when I told Buck you never cared to look at a woman twice?"

"Up till now," said Clint and fell silent.

"Somewhere," she murmured, "you learned how to speak gallantly."

They turned, swinging along another row of trees, crossed a ditch with her body swaying lightly against him and lightly away. He saw the pale silhouette of her face, dim and beautiful against the velvet curtin of this prairie night and was troubled with the faint fragrance of her hair.

"I brought you out," she continued after a long while, "to say that I am truly sorry for my temper this morning. I was uncertain, and I can never find any kindness in my heart for those men who killed my brother. But—we'll not quarrel like that again, Clint Charterhouse. As long as you stay here I want you to regard this as home. I'll feel happy if you do."

"Let's scratch my remarks off the record, too," he drawled. "I'd rather have your good wishes—"

There was no need of finishing the sentence. He let it trail into the shadows. Part of his attention, so long trained to watchfulness that it never wholly slept, kept striking back to a blurred poplar trunk near the house. He thought he had seen a slight shifting there. After they went over the ditch and circled the barn he lost sight of the tree; when he picked up a view of it again, the outline of the trunk was distinctly slimmer.

"I wanted to say something else as well," said the girl, finding more difficulty with her words. "You spoke of having made an enemy. I hate to say it, but I think you have. Buck is a fine, straight man. I know him better than anybody else, I think, and I've never known a more thorough gentleman. Yet Dad hurt him, even if he didn't show it through his smile. Buck is proud of his strength and proud of everything he owns. You don't know that side of him. I do. Now and then I catch flashes of it that are startling."

"I understand," said Clint. "When he wants a thing he wants it pretty bad and is willing to scrap for it. I take him to be a pretty able scrapper."

"Then you do see what I mean. He has never revealed himself, but I have often thought he would like to rule Casabella for the sense of power it would give him. To be able to justify all that energy and ability that he can't find an outlet for now. What I wanted to say was that you must, whatever else you do, be straight, frank and shoulder to shoulder with him. Promise me you'll never permit yourself to get into an argument with him. Promise me that."

"A large order," mused Clint, surprised. "Who knows what will happen next? Why are you asking it?"

"Because," murmured Sherry just above a whisper, "because—I should hate to think of you two quarreling. You're both rather proud and strong-willed."

"I won't take a step out of my way to antagonize him," he promised. "And I will accept his advice and experience wherever possible."

She sighed. "I couldn't ask any more of you. It seems silly to think you'd ever have reason to cross swords. It won't happen, mustn't happen. But—"

They were at the porch. Nickum stood in the doorway, calling down to them. "Well, I don't need to sleep on it, after all. We'll battle this business out. No matter who gets hurt, we're going to clean up the dirty stables from corner to corner. In the morning, Charterhouse, I want you to go to the Bowlus place with me. We start our campaign in that stretch of country and it's wise to show you around."