Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"You boys saw it. You saw he went for his gun. I'd 'a' been plugged cold if I'd waited. Plain self-defense, understand? Such actions is about all you can expect from a nester." And he swept the crowd with a hard, cold glance. For one instant his attention was fixed on Tom Lilly; then he walked from the place. Lilly rubbed his hands along his coat edge and tried to clear the unreasoning, white-hot rage from his head. A kind of whistling sigh passed ever the onlookers and the bartender's carefully indifferent words reached him.

"Some o' you gents lug him into the side room. I don't want my floors all bloodied up."

Lilly turned away from the sight and built himself a cigarette with unusually awkward fingers. One of the men at the near table shuffled a deck and spoke philosophically. "Well, that's another chalked up to Theed Trono in behalf o' the JIB. God-darnit, why didn't the fool stay clear o' Trono?"

Lilly bent forward, speaking with a sharp rise o| voice. "Does this Trono hombre run this JIB rancho?"

The group at the table turned toward him and spent some time in a carefull inspection. He was rewarded finally by a brief word. "Not exactly, stranger. Though I'd say he had a-plenty to say about it. Fact is, he's old Jim Breck's foreman. Who is Jim Breck? You shorely must be from distant parts. Jim Breck is chief factotum o' Pilgrim Valley."

"And where might that be?"

"South thirty miles or so. It's behind the string o' Buttes you might see from here of a day. Though if yore lookin' fer a job you won't have to ride that far."

"I'm han'somely obliged, but I mistrust my ability to work under that Trono gent," said Lilly. "I take it this here nester occupied unhealthy soil."

"Well, you can read the picture an' title fer yourself," answered his informant somewhat briefly, and turned away. Lilly understood the meaning of this perfectly. Trono, he decided, in a wave of disgust, had Powder buffaloed. He said as much in an audible phrase that was addressed at nobody in particular. It was meant to provoke attention and it succeeded admirably. The group turned on him with sharpened interest and the spokesman put a direct question. "Who the hell are you, amigo, to tell us what the trouble is? You a candidate for the unpopularity contest?"

"I'm just a simple creature," murmured Lilly, "that never learned the a-b-c's from any book. But I was always taught murder was a crime."

"Mebbe you'd like to try yore luck with Theed Trono."

Lilly ground the cigarette beneath his boot heel and stared at a group with a cold directness. Ice edged his words. "You can bet your last chip, fellow, that if I ever do, there'll be more'n one bullet fired. That's information for general publication." He swung and left the saloon, knowing that every soul within the room had heard his last statement. Knowing, too, that in time the challenge would reach Theed Trono. He had meant it as a deliberate challenge; etiquette had kept him out of a poor nester's trouble, but there was nothing in the books that forbade a man starting an entirely new quarrel if he was so minded. As he walked somberly down the dark street he had a clear picture of Trono's savage, bullying face. Why, the man had committed the coldest kind of murder and these fellows stayed glued to their seats! It was enough to rouse the spirit of an Eskimo, for a fact. What sort of a fool was this Trono and what kind of an outfit was the JIB to allow such free-handed killing?

He paused in front of the livery stable, sympathies more and more engaged in the affairs of the dead nester. There was a volcanic upheaval inside him and he stared narrowly through the dark, recalling the sage words of Joe Breedlove. "I nev yit did know a redheaded gent that wa'n't burnin' to right the wrongs of this yere unjust world." Well, that wasn't exactly so. He, Tom Lilly, wasn't going around with a chip on his shoulder, but there certainly was such a thing as fair play in the world.

The stable roustabout ambled out of the doorway and murmured. "Ain't the flesh pots lured yuh yet?"

Tom Lilly built another cigarette and began delving for information. "Once upon a time there was a nester—"

"Yeah. I heard that shot in the saloon. The ways o' man are plumb mortal."

"Where might that nester have had his claim, anyhow?"

"Jes' inside Pilgrim Valley, offen the road to the JIB about four miles. They's a nice cold spring on the place, which shore has been poison bait fer many a foolish feller."

"In other words," said Lilly, "the JIB has sort of illegally swallowed a lot of gov'ment entry land along with its rightful range an' objects to a man peaceably settlin' thereon."

"If yore askin' fer an opinion I ain't got any. If it's a question o' facts, then I guess you don't need no correction on the foregoin' statement."

"Well, it's an old game," murmured Lilly. "But mos' usually a cattle outfit will draw the line at cold murder. Pilgrim Valley, I reckon, is exclusively JIB territory?"

The roustabout happily fell upon a remembered phrase. "The memory o' man runneth not to the contrary."

"Sho'," approved Lilly, glowering at the shadows. A vague excitement gripped him and he felt a sense of personal injury. Theed Trono was taking in too much territory and so was a ranch that tried to keep settlers off government land. Boiled down, it amounted to nothing more than a curtailment of his own liberty, for if the nester was shooed off, then they'd shoo him off too. No, that was a situation hardly bearable. He threw away the cigarette with a hunch on his shoulders. "Ain't there a land office here?"

"Over the gen'ral store. See the yaller light? He sleeps there, too. An old dodo bird that come out here to die an' ain't been lucky at it yit." As Lilly drifted away the roustabout sent a warning whisper after him. "Don't you be a fool, amigo."

"It's a man's born privilege," replied Lilly, crossing the street. "A privilege I shore do exercise a lot, too," he said to himself, climbing the stairway. He steered for a door emitting a single beam of light through the keyhole and knocked once. A grumbling invitation was evoked and he entered a room that was both an office and a kind of living quarters. On an army cot behind the counter—a counter heaped with record books and plat maps—was stretched an ancient fellow with tobacco stained whiskers and a parchment skin. Amber eyes moved fretfully toward Lilly. "What you want?"

"Aim to file on some land."

The old fellow stroked his faded whiskers and grinned a toothless grin. "Wal, my conscience is clear, friend. Takes a lot o' people to make the world. Don't never say I encouraged you."

"Cheerfulness," opined Lilly, "is a priceless thing. Don't get up if it hurts you, though I'd like to have you show me one particular spot on yore maps."

The old man groaned and hoisted himself an inch at a time. "Ain't there nothin' I can do to restore sanity. Le's see; have you got a thousand dollars, a copper lined stomach, the strength o' a horse? Have you—?"

"Yore makin' that up," interrupted Lilly. "Just state gov'ment requirements."

"Upon which portion of this earth's crust do you aim to take root?"

"Why, there was a claim relinquished half an hour ago by a gentleman in Jake Miner's place. It's over in Pilgrim Valley an' it's got a spring on it. I don't doubt but what you recall the spot."

The answer came quickly enough. The old man's face drooped a little and he made aimless figures on the counter with his pencil. "If the advice of a friend is worth anything, my boy, you don't want land there."

"JIB got you buffaloed, too?"

The other shook his head. "I'm too far along to mind bein' shot. It'd be a blessin' to die that sudden. But they wouldn't tackle a government official. You watch your step."

"Show me this place," insisted Lilly. And the old man displaying visible reluctance, turned the book to a certain page and with traveling pencil point indicated the homestead. "Hamby was a nice feller, too," he opined. "I thought it was jes' an ordinary shot when I heard it. Well, you understand, there's formalities to go through with before you can file. If you want to squat until then it'll be all right. Better take lots of cattridges."