Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"A fact?" murmured Gillette, plainly surprised. "What jarred him loose?"

"I don't know for sure. But Senator Billy Costaine stormed into town some ten days back and took enough depositions to fill a wagon. Right after that the land-office fellow skipped. Next, Grist filled in his ticket. You can guess for yourself."

He leaned forward, a stubby finger tapping the table. "Speakin' privately, that Eastern bunch was ridin' awful high, and they stood to make a million out of this land-grabbin' deal. They'd of made it, too. Nobody around here could shout loud enough to make Washington hear anything. Most of us didn't know enough to register a kick, and some of us knew but weren't in any position to make any very big noise. How Costaine came into the wind I don't know. But he did, and when that fellow gets on the trail something drops. I'm bettin' you solid silver against a hackamore there won't be any P.R.N. Land Company in these parts when the year rolls around."

"That's why I didn't see any cattle south of the river, then?"

"Grist told me he was ordered to draw everything back from that side and quit bothering with it."

Gillette got up and tilted his hat. He was smiling. "Any time you want to evict me, Hannery, just go ahead. I'm going to move anyhow. To-morrow morning I'll be squatting where Wyatt used to be. I'd like to see anybody take that from me."

"I was going to drop that bug down your collar myself," replied Hannery. "P.R.N. can't hold it—they won't dare to go through with the schedule. And nobody else's got wind of the situation. You bet it's going to be a white man's country yet. Say, you look kind of peaked. Deadwood trouble you some?"

"I went after a party and he saw me first," was Gillette's sombre answer.

Hannery's eyes swept down Gillette's loose frame. "You don't carry that gun low enough by two inches."

"I'm no killer, Hannery. I've had enough to last me. All I want is to be let alone. Well, thanks."

He walked out and joined Quagmire who crouched in a patch of shade. The sun went westering, and at the moment Nelson was aflame under its slanting beams. The tide of life ran along the street in a sluggish trickle; down at the station a train stood ready to pull eastward, smoke pouring out of the engine's funnel stack. A bell clanged resonantly and Quagmire stirred, rubbing his knee joints with a slow, uneasy motion.

"Come on, Quagmire, let's get something to eat. It's a long ride home."

"Ain't hungry," murmured the puncher. "I don't feel right. I don't fer a fact. They's somethin' wrong. You go ahead."

Gillette went on and into the hotel dining room. Only a matter of habit put him there—habit and the need for something to occupy his mind. He was tired, supremely tired, and his muscles served him none too well. The long trip from Deadwood had been a pretty hard strain, even though he rode the wagon seat. It seemed to him that he was growing old; here a month was gone since the night San Saba and Hazel's gang had ambushed him, and still he was weak. Where was his vitality? There was no snap to him, no resiliency, and he observed with a detached and critical disapproval that even for so simple an operation as reaching for the salt shaker it took a distinct order from his brain and a conscious pull of will to extend and withdraw his arm. He was dull, dead on his feet.

"Wherever she goes," he told himself, "I'll follow. Clear to the jump-off."

It seemed mighty queer to him he didn't feel elated at the sudden change in his affairs. As far as his range and his water right were concerned there wasn't even a struggle to be made. Lorena was to be thanked for that. Lorena! Her name echoed like a pleasant melody in his head. He remembered when he saw her spurring over the swelling land, a pert and boyish figure mounted on a horse she called Mister Jefferson Davis. And she had swept around him like an Indian to reach out of her saddle for a prairie blossom. He had never forgotten the picture she made with that crimson flower stuck in her black hair and her white teeth set into her lower lip.

Well, water had flowed under the bridge since. That sturdy slip of a girl on the vague border of girlhood had risen to be a woman.

"By Godfrey this man's world has bruised her! And after all that does she think I'll let her go? It's got to be the other way!"

Nothing mattered with a man. He was supposed to stand up and be licked and stand up again. Else he wasn't a man. No crying for the breaks of luck. But it did matter with a woman—and Lorena, at the very worst of it, still had smiled at him out of her dark eyes while she kept telling him nothing could hurt her. He never observed that his fists were clenched about his plate, nor that the food on it grew cold. Somebody was beside him, muttering. He looked up to find Quagmire.

"Say—well, Judas, what's happened to you, Tom?"

"Nothing."

"Say, I haven't ever horned in on yore business now, have I?" demanded Quagmire. "No, you bet not. Only yo' got a chore to do yet, an' I figgered mebbe you'd ease yo'se'f an' lemme take care of it while yo' et. That all right?"

"What chore?"

"Jus' a fragment of unfinished business," said Quagmire evasively. "That's all right, ain't it? Yeh. See yo' later, then."

"No, come back here. Come back here, you confounded fool! I'm not delegating anything I don't know about. Spread it."

Quagmire swung around, his pale eyes squinting. There was a hot personal anger in them—Quagmire was roused against his own boss. "Listen, Gillette, if yo' don't know enough to come in outen the rain I'll take my spurs and go!"

"You've got that privilege any day," snapped Gillette, and thereupon cursed himself for the tag-end collection of nerves he had become. "Oh, swallow it. What's on your mind?"

Quagmire moved his arm sheepishly. "If yo' got to know—San Saba's in town. He's down by the stable, standin' in the middle o' the street."

"Then I reckon he wants to see me." Tom got up from the table, laid down his half dollar, and walked through the lobby. At the door he stopped and turned again to Quagmire. "Old-timer, let that last remark wash down the creek."

"It goes twice," muttered Quagmire. "I'm a galoot for tryin' to butt my mug in another gent's personal affairs."

"Well, here's the end of the train ride," said Tom. There was something the matter with his ears, for he heard himself as from a distance; and his arms were heavy.

"I know the gent's habits." Quagmire broke in. "In a pinch he don't use that belt gun. It's another under his arm yo' got to watch."

Gillette nodded, not hearing the words. The street was half shade and half sunlight. Over in the shade he observed men standing near to the walls and moving not at all. A spotted dog padded across his vision leaving a trail of dust behind. "I wish I knew her answer now," murmured Gillette and walked out into the sunlight. San Saba's lank frame was in the shade, fifty yards along. There were a great many men against the building walls; Gillette saw the blur of their faces, and he heard some faint voice calling his name. And then all this died out of his attention; he swung and walked to meet the renegade ex- foreman.

He thought at first the man meant to wait for him; but a moment later San Saba stepped sidewise into the sun and came forward. Gillette marked how the man's long legs buckled at each step and how the dragging spurs fluffed the dust San Saba's arms swung with his tread, in a short arc, and the palm of his gun hand seemed to brush holster leather at each passing. He was marked by hard travel, his clothes were an alkali gray, his butternut shirt was open at the neck, and Gillette saw the two front cords of his neck taut against the sunburned skin.

Nothing was said between them; that time had come when there were no words to carry any meaning either would understand. They were, the both of them, thrown back on instinct, back to the stark and ancient promptings. So they closed the interval, and for all the emotion they displayed they were as men coming up to shake hands. San Saba's body swayed a little forward of his feet, and his little nut-round head nodded. Gillette advanced erect, watching bow the ex-foreman's eyes grew narrower at each pace. Time dissolved into space and, save for the sound of his own boots striking, he would never have known himself to be moving. Somewhere a spectator coughed, the sunlight grew dim, the spotted dog ran between them. And then all his range of vision was cut off and he saw only San Saba. San Saba had stopped. His arm rose slowly away from his belt; a bull whip snapped twice, sounding to Gillette strangely like guns exploding. The spotted dog raced back, barking, and men ran out into the street and made a circle around a San Saba who had disappeared. Gillette stood alone, wondering. His arm felt unusually heavy, and he looked down to find a gun swinging from his fist; the taste of powder smoke was in his throat.