Nelson Nye - Rafe

The wheel skreaks had quit. Though he couldn't see it without poking his neck out again, Pike must have the buggy in front of the bank. And the horsebackers had apparently arrived there, too. "Couldn't this have waited till the bank opened for business?" he heard Chilton say in a voice gruff with outrage. Saddle leather popped and boots thumped ground, and Bunny was tartly saying through the protest of buggy springs, "Stand around in plain sight with his arms full of money?"

"I haven't seen any money yet!"

"You'll see it," Pike said, "when you get that door open—"

"What're you doing here?"

"Somebody has to be a witness to this."

Muttering something about "highly irregular" Chilton was unlocking the bank's front door when Rafe staring hard, suddenly made up his mind. A man could swing just as high for a sheep as a goat in this country and, since he dared not leave that feller loose, he yelled with his gun up, "Come outa that doorhole. Andale! Pronto!

Brick chips stung the side of his face. Muzzleflame bloomed in the harness shop shadows. Firing at the flash Rafe saw Spangler's man stumble out of the doorway clutching his side, lurch two crazy steps in a kind of half circle and crumple into the dust.

Shouts and the slapping of thrown up windows came through the stomping clatter of echoes as Rafe, diving into the street, gun lifting, ran toward the huddle of statuelike shapes before the bank's open door, the gallop of horses hammering hard at his heels.

Only thing that surprised him was that nobody fired. In all that confusion of cries and called questions it was hard to hold firm to any kind of a course. He saw Chilton in the entry, white-faced, eyes about to roll off his cheekbones. He shoved his free hand against Pike's shoulder. "Inside! Inside!" He tried to will them to move.

Some excited fool yelled, " They're stickin' up the bank! " and Rafe, twisting around, saw Brownwater Bill and a flustered looking badge-packer piling off their ears-back, eye-rolling horses in a fog of lemon dust. He saw more dust, far out, a long balloon-edged boiling line of it.

He stood with sinking heart, all his hopes and defenses toppling. Then he grabbed a fresh breath. "Get 'em inside, Sheriff, an' hurry it up!" He ran to Bill's rearing horse and snatched free the rifle, levering a cartridge into the chamber. Some of the men hurrying out of near houses sprinted for cover as Rafe put a blue whistler over their heads. He loosed a couple of more to make sure they kept going, and ducked into the bank in the wake of the others, slamming the door.

The rest of this tune he was going to have to play by ear, but he could still take some of the heat off his Pa; and he was glad, looking around, to see that someone had thought to stuff a tow sack for him which the old man was clutching against his chest like it was heavy. And he noticed how Chilton's piggish eyes, though darting around, kept sneaking back to it.

Now, pushing forward, Rafe said, "Let's get this over with." His stare speared the banker. Sheriff Ed said, getting his wind up. "What're we here for? What's goin' on?"

"We're here," Rafe said, "to get shed of that mortgage Chilton holds against Gourd and Vine. Anything in them papers, banker, says we can't clear the whole debt off right now?"

Chilton hemmed and hawed, plainly dissatisfied. He looked uneasy, almost frightened, Rafe thought, but the glances he kept stabbing about didn't seem to pick up much in the way of encouragement. He finally said, "No-o," in a tone so reluctant it made Brownwater snort. Rafe said, "All right. Dig 'em up. And, while you're at it, fetch out your receipt book. Meanwhile," he sniffed, "let's have some paper an' one of them steel pens. Bender's goin' to scratch his John Henry to a piece of writin' Pike's here to put in the right lingo an' notarize."

Pike's brows shot up, but he didn't say anything. He pulled up the swivel, seating himself at Chilton's fine desk and squaring the paper the banker got for him. He picked up the pen, examining it critically. Then he uncorked the ink and looked up at Rafe. "What's it to be?"

"A will," Rafe grinned. "The last will and testament of Jeremiah Bender. You can put that down with the appropriate flourishes? He handed the rifle to Ed Sparks, Chilton's tinbadge. "Sheriff, you better stand over by the door where the riffraff can get a look at you. Interruptions at a time like this could be downright painful to some of those concerned." Tapping his six-shooter he looked significantly at Chilton; and the banker, noticeably blanching, made haste to reveal a kind of parched approval.

"Now," Rafe said, waving Chilton away, "are you ready, Mr. Notary, to record the bequeaths an' stipulations?"

"Quite ready," Pike nodded, peering ferociously at his pen.

Rafe, glancing around as though to make sure all were listening, said, "Everything belonging to J. Bender when he dies, including all lands, chattels, equipment, cash, and all notes payable of whatsoever nature, shall be divided equally, between his daughter Luce and his son Duke."

In the startled quiet Pike, looking up, seemed about to say something when, for the first time since they'd reached town, the old man spoke. "This is truly Rafe—my first born," he said in a trembling, anguish-roughened voice, stretching out a groping hand which Luce, pushing nearer, hastily prisoned in her own. The old man hardly noticed, his pale, blind stare shiningly fixed on things that were not in this place. "He was always that way, always thinking of others. But I can't let this stand—it's not right. Luce and Duke, they've been with me, had my love, sharing for all these years my days and substance—"

"Nevertheless," Rafe growled, red-faced, "they'll have this too. All of you, hear me! I'll have no part of it!"

"My son. My son—"

"We'll get to me," Rafe said, breaking in again. "You got that, notary? Got it all down?"

"All down," Pike said, "hard and fast. Everything to Luce and Duke."

"Now write this," Rafe said, meeting Brownwater's stare. "Includin' all stones and minerals that may be found on the land, providing that one Rafe Bender, acknowledged first son of Jeremiah Bender, and so described in the hearing of these witnesses, be installed and maintained as administrator of this estate and subsequently employed as manager of all above-named lands, chattels, equipment, cash, minerals and so forth for a period of five years and beginning on this date. You got all that?"

"Got it," Pike said, looking up with a smile. "But what if they don't agree?"

"If they don't agree, or attempt to have this will set aside, the whole estate, and every last part of it, reverts to the Territory of Arizona."

"Mr. Bender," Pike said, "is this your wish?"

The old man's sightless eyes were fixed unblinkingly on Rafe. "Yes," he said. "I'll put my name to it."

Pike, with the pen, made a few more scratches.

"Before you fix a place for the names," Rafe said, leaning over the surgeon's shoulder, "there's one more line you better git in. Case of Pa's death by violence, or any reason other than natural causes, the whole shebang goes back to the Territory."

From the door Sparks said, where he stood with Brownwater's rifle, "Bunch of hairpins boilin' into—"

"The Bender crew!" Luce cried, white as egg shells.

Rafe, seeming hardly to notice her words, jerked the kind of a nod you might look to get from one who had just busted loose of his picket pin. "Ready for the signin'?" he grunted at Pike.

"Just about," Bunny's dad said. "Mr. Bender, you're first."

Luce helped him over. "I'm afraid," Bender sighed, "I never learnt how," and Rafe, watching the banker, saw the shock in Chilton's stare.

"Just make your mark," Pike said. "Everyone in this room will be witness. Here, let Bunny hold that sack for you."