Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"How do you know? You rode into this country yesterday and now you say you are quite honest and that the crew is not. That's taking in a lot of ground."

"You heard what yore daddy said. I'm no prosecutin' attorney. I've been given a job to do and I got to have yore help to do it. If yore goin' to buck me I might as well roll my blankets."

"You know the way out," she reminded him. "You can quit now if you want."

"I can," he admitted grimly, "but I won't. I give my word and I'll keep it. Yore old enough to know better. Don't be so foolish. I don't love this ranch, ma'am, and I don't hone to assume any responsibility for its past misdemeanors. But we're in a hole right now and we've got to pull together." He saw that he had spoken more sharply than he meant so he tried to soften his words. "There ain't any reason why you should jump on me."

"Oh, I know it! But can't you see—my father told me things—! Everything is crooked, everything is opposite what I've always believed it to be. Now you come and ask me to trust you. How can I know that the men here are not loyal, or that you are any better than they are—if they are not loyal?"

"You better believe me on that subject," said he. "And come to a decision."

Again a long silence. There was a rumbling of voices outside, a short distance from the house and the girl seemed to see the tightening of Lilly's face muscles. "Well," she admitted, "I'll do what my father asked. You are the foreman. But remember I have the final say. I won't have you discharging men who have worked here for years."

"We'll strive to please," said he, though he disliked her assumption that she was doing him a favor. "But there'll have to be a show-down between Trono and me. Unless I'm plumb wrong, one of us has got to go. We'll know in a minute, for I think I hear a committee."

When he reached the porch they were grouped around the steps—every man who had been at the funeral. It was not a committee, it was the whole crew and they were led by Trono who was standing with his shoulders squared and a light of trouble in his eyes. The man was reaching out now to new heights of recklessness. The only power that had ever been able to check him was gone and he had come to the point where he might work his own will, whatever it was. Lilly understood instantly that Trono regarded him as only a straw to be blown away, and at the thought he scanned the crew with a careful, hopeful glance. But if he hoped for supporters he was to be mistaken. The character of the JIB cowpunchers was written quite plainly on their faces. With the exception of one or two, they were the sort of men to be found along the border, one jump from Mexico; restless, unscrupulous men who hired out their services to the highest bidder. They were not the type that ran a peaceful cattle ranch. Lilly did not fail to note their white hands and the way their gunbutts swung forward; the new foreman guessed that they were better with the gun than with the rope.

Well, it was none of his business if this was the kind of a puncher old Jim Breck had needed in his business. Many and many a ranch had to have its professional fighters if it were to survive the encroachment of other ranches. Still, this kind of warfare was dying out; cattlemen used more peaceful methods and it was something of a surprise to Lilly that the JIB still carried its full complement of feudists. It would make his job the more difficult. He stood immobile, trying to gauge the extent of their hostility toward him; and while he was thus groping for the right word to say Trono took the bit in his mouth and issued his challenge.

"Don't yuh believe in signs, amigo?"

"Depends on the sign," replied Lilly amiably.

"Well, yuh heard my statement the other night. Yore twenty- four hours is about up. I ain't a man to go back on my word. What yuh doin' around here?"

Nothing could come of the delay or soft speech. Trono was not the kind to understand it. So Lilly spoke his piece.

"I'm foreman here now, Trono. Yore out of a job. My orders are to give you a job as top hand if you want it. If you don't want it, roll your blanket and walk."

Trono had not looked for such an attack. It took the belligerent words from his mouth and he stood with his head craned forward while the ruddy blood rushed into his face. The green eyes were unblinking. "Who told yuh that?"

"The old man."

Trono's reply was short and unmentionable. He took half a step forward, his arms swinging wide. "Yuh lie! Bring Jill out here a minute and I'll talk to her! Don't fool me, Red."

From somewhere came Jill's voice. "That is the truth, Theed. You have your choice."

Trono looked from window to window; but Jill had vanished again and in the silence Lilly tried again to find a friendly face in the crowd. "Well, we might as well get this straight. Are you working for me or are you pullin' out?"

"Work fer yuh? Hell, I wouldn't take yore orders if I starved. Yuh ain't gettin' away with that, Red. As to pullin' out, I dunno about that, either. Misdoubt if you got any right to hire or fire."

Lilly looked to the others. "You boys have yore choice. It's me or Trono."

There was no answer. None was needed. Lilly understood his situation thoroughly. These were Trono's creatures, they would fight at Trono's nod. The new foreman, watching Trono with a steady, cautious glance, wondered why that nod didn't come. If the man was brash enough to force the issue now was the proper time. Trono's face was settled in reflection and there was a slow evaporation of his belligerence. Again, as in the saloon, he hesitated, seeming to weigh Lilly. In the end he turned and spoke briefly to the men. "We're pullin' out We ain't workin' on no ranch run by this jasper. If the old man wanted him so bad that ain't no skin off our nose."

The whole group turned and walked toward the bunkhouse. A quarter hour later they were galloping over the ridge and out of sight. Lilly watched them go, both relieved and puzzled; it was hard to understand Trono's mildness, hard to fathom why the man hadn't made a stronger bid for control.

"It shore looks like he's backed down from his bluff about me leavin' the country in twenty-four hours. Yet, somehow, it don't seem Trono would give in that easy. Must be a nigger in the woodpile."

Rolling a cigarette, he settled in a chair and watched the sun dip westward. Life on the ranch had come to a full stop. Nothing moved in the yard, no sound came from the corrals. It was as if Breck's passing had withdrawn the JIB's driving force; as if Pilgrim Valley had shrunk and shriveled and like many another deserted cattle ranch would forthwith be a place of memories. Well, perhaps the old man in his sickness had been too suspicious, too willing to believe in trouble and disaster. Anyhow, it was a serious matter to usurp authority without sufficient reason. Perhaps Trono had realized it and ridden away to other fields.

Here was a job for a man to do. Somehow or other, he had to get a decent, faithful crew and start the ball rolling again; prepare for the fall roundup and patch up any number of things. It took but a brief glance to see that Breck had let things sort of slide. Some of the top rails of the corral were down, the barn doors sagging on their runners. The Indian quarters were strewn with trash piles and the sod roofs of all houses were badly shaken. When the fall rains set in there wouldn't be a dry spot in any of these old structures.

"If it's this way on the home stretch," he mused, "what will it be like out on the range? How many cows am I goin' to find?"

Considering the night party that had passed by the homesteader's shack, it looked as if he wasn't going to have much rest. Well, he could put a stop to rustling and he could make a sweet-running place of it, providing he could find men. There was the rub. Being a stranger in the land, knowing nothing of ranch politics or of men's sympathies, he was going to have difficulty in collecting six or seven good top hands.