Nelson Nye: Rafe

"Don't you think," his father said a bit testily, "I'm old enough to be told what you're up to? Seems like I ought to have some say—"

"You'll have plenty of say when we get to it. Right now we've got to have a talk with that banker. We've got to get to him 'fore Spangler shows up." Rafe turned to his sister. "Luce, you get on Bill's horse and go after Chilton. He's prob'ly still in bed—you know where he lives?"

Big-eyed, she nodded.

"Get goin', then." He shoved her toward Bill's horse.

"But what will I tell him?"

"Tell him anythin'. Tell him the Old Man's waitin' with the money to pay off that mortgage. I don't care what you tell him, long as you fetch 'im. An' don't lallygag around pickin' no posies!"

Brownwater said, eying Rafe uneasily, "I'm not sure I like this. Somebody could get bad hurt—"

"You got a better idea?"

"What's the matter with me goin' after him?" Bill said, reaching a hand out to Luce.

"If Spangler shows, I'm going to need your gun."

They stared at each other. "You're leanin' on a mighty weak reed," the fat man said, but he dropped the hand. Luce climbed into the saddle. She put her horse through the trees.

Rafe stepped out and Pike pulled up, Bunny and Rafe helping Bender aboard, Pike wanting to know what this was all about. "Drive 'em back to the bank and stay in the buggy—all of you—till Chilton shows up," Rafe told him shortly. "An', if lead gets to flyin', keep your heads down, but get into that bank no matter what."

He slapped the horse on the rump and, as Pike wheeled for the turn, moved back into the brush. Gathering the skewbald's reins he lifted a foot to the stirrup. "Let's go," he growled, and swung into the saddle.

Brownwater, still looking kind of huffy, stood with his fat holding him anchored in his tracks. "I'm beginnin' to feel like your ol' man—"

"Beginnin' to look like him, too. C'mon, let's get outa here," Rafe said impatiently. "We ain't got all day."

Bill reluctantly forked the horse Rafe's father had been sharing with Bunny, grunting and grumbling as he pulled himself up, scowling like a Piegan squaw as he turned the horse in a walk after Rafe's. "You figger t' wait out back'n the bank?"

When he got no answer to that, he said, "Why can't we do this someplace else? There's lots of better—"

Rafe, twisting around, growled, "I can think of some places I'd rather be, too, but we got to get into that golram safe."

Bill's jaw dropped. "Now look here," he wheezed, all choked up with emotion. "I didn't hire out t' stick up no bank!" He hauled his horse to a stop, sat glaring.

"You want to marry my sister?" Rafe said, real soft.

The fat man stared as though confronted with a snake. When he began to swell up Rafe said, eyes hard, "I'll be waitin'. Fetch Chilton's tin-badge an' be there in ten minutes."

Swinging around in the saddle, Rafe rode off.

XV

Waiting, Rafe decided, was the hardest thing a man had to do. Long as a feller could keep himself busy he went along pretty well, but give him time to think and all that kept him up began flying apart. Doubts crowded in, his nerves got to jangling, every joint in his carcass seemed about to give way. If he could only get down and stretch out.

He didn't dare. It was all he could do to stay awake as it was. His eyes felt like they'd been rolled in sand. His face was numb, his feet were twin screaming lumps of misery. Every muscle in his body was a separate ache, jerking and twisting like a skillet full of eels; and any moment, he knew, this early morning quiet might explode into gunplay.

He damn near screamed just thinking about it.

Where was Spangler, and his brother, and their gun-hung crew? They'd come storming in sure as God made little apples! No matter how many risks he put in their way, Spangler, he was certain, wasn't going to be stopped this side of a bullet.

Duke was the weak one, always spinning like a weathercock, wanting things he had no right to, squirming, twisting, hating, scheming. Yet in this very weakness there was a desperate kind of conscienceless strength that could be harder than iron. It took a pretty cold fish to plot his own father's death; and that was what it amounted to, tying his kite to a guy like Spangler, helping the man put the ranch on the skids, determined no matter what to wrest it away from the owner of record. Probably, in the beginning, Duke—with Rafe out of the way—had figured to heir it. Must have been a considerable shock to have the true heir walk in on him that way, just when the place was pretty near in his pocket.

The Bender range boss was a different breed. Rafe would have bet good dollars against doughnuts he'd no intention of sharing anything. His kind never shared. Once Duke's use was exhausted Spangler, without the slightest compunction, would be rid of him. A bullet in the back was the best Duke could look for. But a man couldn't tell him that.

Rafe, discovering the trend of this thinking, snorted in disgust. He'd done his share of worrying over Duke; just the same it was a habit he found hard to get shed of. Hauling up a leg, still scowling, he got down. He had things more important to sweat about than Duke. It was time he got at them!

Keeping hold of the reins he limped over to the corner and had a look at the street. It was still too early for anyone to be about, though he did see smoke coming out of a number of stovepipes. He was about to step back when hoof sound hit him with its tap-tap of warning, not loud but plain, certainly moving this way. At about the same time he heard the skreak of greaseless buggy wheels.

That last would be Pike with Bunny and Bender. But who were the horsebackers? Helpers or enemies? Didn't hardly seem time enough for Luce to be coming along with that banker. What if this were a couple of Gourd and Vine gunhawks!

Rafe figured he'd better find out.

He slipped the spur off his heel, left Bathsheba on grounded reins. Hard to tell, the way sound slapped around, which was hoofs and which was echoes, but it looked a poor bet to wait till they got here.

Scurrying along the bank's back wall, he reached the alley formed by the flank of the Big Bun Bakery, the smells coming out of this near overwhelming him. His stomach went into a spasm of protest as Rafe, hard-faced, plunged into the passage, catfooting streetward through a clutter of tumbleweeds, cans, broken glass and wind-whipped, twisted tore-apart papers. He stopped, gun in hand, when he was close to the street, all his faculties screwed wiretight, edgily listening a spell before popping his head out.

He needn't have got such a sweat up. It was Luce and Alph Chilton making the hoof sound. They were just coming past the front of the Cow Palace, the banker scowling and wagging his lip like a sore-backed bull with a mouthful of larkspur. Rafe, making ready to fade back through the rubbish, went suddenly stiff as his glance crossed a face in the harness shop doorway.

The light wasn't good, the range a full eighty strides across hoof-pocked dust with the guy pulling back into deeper shadow, but Rafe would of swore it was the feller he'd left tied up in the woods the last time he'd gone to the bank to see Chilton—one of the pair Spangler'd staked out at Pike's! If the guy hadn't ducked Rafe might never have seen him.

He went cold all over. Were the rest of them here, stashed around between buildings, or was this ranny on his own, left in town to keep cases? Either way he spelled trouble.

Rafe softly cursed. He was sure enough wedged between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't leave the guy loose to go running to Spangler.

Keeping narrowed stare bitterly pinned to the doorway, Rafe scanned his chances. Last thing he wanted was to rouse the town, and any sudden commotion, or gunplay, could do it. It wasn't likely whoever ran the shop had opened yet; so if he started across the road, both of them knowing he had the guy cornered, the feller was pretty near bound to shoot.