BEN MAJORS SAID to Paul Hilliard, “I want you to ride up to Vivian’s. Tell him you’re the law and tell him to take out that dam on Olive Creek or so help me, I’ll wipe him out to the last man!”
Hilliard shook his head. “You tell him, Ben. I don’t cotton to the idea of committin’ suicide.”
“I can get another man to wear that star, Paul.”
“Go ahead,” Hilliard said laconically. “Find yourself another errand boy.” He dropped off the porch and mounted his waiting horse. “When you cool off, I’ll see what I can do about gettin’ Vivian to take out that dam. But I ain’t ridin’ into his territory. I don’t have that kind of guts.” He reined around. “See you later.”
Paul Hilliard looked at the power of men like Ben Majors and shrugged at it without envy. Certain men achieved greatness while others did not. It was as simple as that, and since he himself was unable to change anything, he therefore rode along with the strange turnings of life, choosing the easiest paths. Men died and he saw their dreams die with them; he thought: There comes a day for every man when he repeats his old truths and they ring false—and on that day he’s no longer a man. My day came some time ago.
“Ride with Chavis,” his grandfather told him, “and you’ll come back a man or not at all. Is that the way you want it?” Gary Niles nodded. “That’s the way I want it.”
His grandfather said, “If I tell you not to go?”
“I’ll still go,” said the boy. “I’m old enough to make up my mind.”
“Yes, I guess you are.” Bill Niles went into his room and returned carrying a scuffed cartridge belt with a Remington in the holster. “Better take this.”
Gary looked at him. “Thanks,” he said, took the gun and turned awkwardly to the door.
“Son ...”
He turned and looked back at the old man.
“I’ve had it kind of hard, raisin’ you without your folks, with no womenfolk around. But you know that.”
“Yes.”
“I hope I’m doin’ right.”
The boy smiled and turned through the door. “I’ll be back,” he said, and mounted his waiting horse.
“Yes,” his grandfather decided, “you’ll be back.” He stood in the doorway, an old man alone, watching the boy ride away.
When he reached the farthest visible point on the skyline Gary turned and lifted his hat; and suddenly drove his horse to a gallop, running straight through the world.
When he rode into the Chainlink yard hammering sounds issued from the barn. Entering, he saw Chavis, naked to the waist, shaping a horseshoe on the anvil while the bantam McCaig kept the bellows going. He stood unnoticed for a moment, then scuffed his boots to announce himself.
Chavis turned, recognized him, and nodded. And went back to work. He had seen in one glance the set to the kid’s face; he could read what was on Gary’s mind, so he said nothing.
“I came over to hire on,” Gary Niles blurted, and then waited anxiously.
Chavis continued beating the shoe into shape. He spoke without looking at the kid. “Pitch your roll in the bunkhouse, then.”
Gary was surprised; he stood undecided in the doorway. McCaig told him gruffly: “You’ll find some planks in the shed around back. Pick the best ones and bring ’em around. Board up that wall by the door.”
“Yeah,” the kid said, and wheeled out.
Chavis glanced at McCaig. “What do you think?”
“You hired him. If you want to take the chance, I ain’t arguin’.”
“What chance?”
“What you goin’ to say to the old man if the kid gets himself killed?”
“If the old man hadn’t agreed, the kid wouldn’t have come.”
“Your conscience,” McCaig drawled. “Not mine.”
Chavis dunked the shoe in a bucket of water. Sizzling steam rose and clouded the room for a moment and the shoe turned from red to black. “If any shooting starts I’ll get him out of here. But right now we need him for the work he can do.”
He looked around the yard, at the weathered clapboard on the outbuildings, the sagging corral bars and the incongruous fresh paint on the barn siding.
Sam McCaig lifted his head and listened to the sound of approaching hoofbeats. “One man,” he said. “Not comin’ too fast.”
The rider appeared at the trees’ edge and loped into the yard. Chavis walked out to meet him. It was Hal Carter. He swung stiffly off the saddle and bent to drink from the trough pipe.
“Been thinkin’ over what you said last night. Made sense—you’ll have my help when you need it, though I ain’t much of a hand with a gun.”
Dusk, then dark. A breeze ruffled up the dying earth-warmth, and hay and dust odors gathered to tickle the nostrils. The sound of riders echoed off in the stillness, riders approaching fast. “Careful, now,” Chavis said softly, and saw Sam McCaig’s shadow drift into the deeper shadows by the barn wall. Not far off the rhythm of the riders broke; they stopped, they milled and called out, they went running back the way they had come.
Sand crunched in the barn’s shadow and Sam McCaig said, “Funny—what’s that?”
Something was at the edge of the yard, stirring and stopping. Chavis murmured again: “Careful.” There was a horse drifting in, carrying some low shape.
The horse stopped by the barn, crossing the bunkhouse lights. Chavis identified the burden at once, a man was tied across the saddle. “Sam, bring a light!”
McCaig stepped into the barn and a moment later trotted •back with a lantern, holding the light up to catch the body of Hal Carter, thrown across the saddle and lashed down. He was dead.
“What the hell ...?” McCaig held the lantern higher and took a closer look. “Wait,” he said, and reached out to grasp a piece of paper hanging to a saddle thong. Chavis took it and held it near the light. He read: “You didn’t fool anybody, Chavis. Here’s your recruit.”
“That means get out or get the same,” McCaig said.
“They should know it won’t work,” Chavis said, anger boiling up in him. They had killed Carter the same way they had killed Connie’s father—out on the desert with no witnesses. Carter had not been a formidable man; he was just a two-bit homestead rancher trying to get along. But someone – Majors or Vivian – had decided that Chavis’ little force was growing too large, and here was a warning to anyone else with plans of trying to aid Chainlink, or even be friendly with it.
Chavis turned toward the bunkhouse. “I’ll get the kid out of here. They’re starting to play rough—I don’t want him to die for us.”
The kid was cleaning his Remington when Chavis entered. “You can pack up.”
“You firin’ me?”
“That’s right.”
“What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. Only it’s come to a fight and you’ve got no reason to stick your neck out for us.”
“I’ll stay,” said Gary Niles.
“Pack up,” Chavis told him. “That’s an order.”
Niles put the gun together and let it lie on the table. “You’ll have to kick me out.” He sat stubbornly still.
“You’ll have one chance in ten of staying alive.”
“No,” said the boy. “I’ve got a better chance with you than not. As long as you last, I’m all right. The faster you go down, the faster I’ll go down, whether I’m with you then or not. They’d never let me out now; they’d never forget.”
“Nobody’d hurt a kid,” Chavis said bluntly.
“I pack a gun. That’s all the excuse they need.”
Exasperated, Chavis gave up. “All right. In the morning, get a shovel and dig a grave on the hill.”
“A grave?”
“For Hal Carter. That’s his body on the horse outside.” He left the room quickly.
In town, Hilliard wasn’t in his office. Chavis crossed the street to the hotel and asked the clerk where the sheriff lived. He turned again to the street. No one was out tonight. The news had gone around that the Crews boys were in town and that the killing had commenced.
He was a block north of the hotel when a quick motion caught his eye from the shadows across the street. He stepped off the walk and ran across the street, startling the man waiting there.
Corey Wate stood fast in the darkness, pretending unconcern, ignoring Chavis, who stopped a foot away and laid an angry glare on him.
“You’ve been on my tail for days. Why?”
“Have I?”
He gripped the fat man’s shirt in a tight-knuckled fist. “You’ve been scouting Chainlink for days. You set fire to the barn. Who’s paying you, Wate?”
“You’re crazy. I ain’t been near your place since you moved in.”
Chavis gave him two fast palm-and-backhand slaps against the face, pulled his gun and planted it in Wate’s belly.
Wate shrank against the wall. “You got no call to rawhide me, Chavis. I ain’t hurt you none!”
“You—” Chavis stopped, aware of movement in the shadows at the far end of the hotel porch. His gun still covering Wate, he tried to make out the purpose of yonder shifting man. From his present location he could watch three comers of the hotel. The shape on the porch dropped off and made its stoop-shouldered way around until it disappeared behind the building. That was Ran Crews and by the way he moved Chavis knew the man was trying to draw him into following.
There was no life at all on the street. The whisper had gone around and now the people waited. Everyone knew what was happening here and everyone cared, but not enough to do anything. He expected that. He realized that Hal Carter’s murder had been a thing carefully calculated to draw him into town, which tonight was a trap for him. He accused Wate: “You set this up.”
“You’re crazy! What did I set up?”
Chavis slid Wate’s gun out of the holster and into his own waistband. “Where’s Les?”
“Les who?”
“I guess I’ll kill you now. I don’t want to worry about you behind my back.” He cocked his gun.
“Wait a minute,” Wate said quickly. “I had nothin’ to do with this, Chavis. I don’t know where Les Crews is and I don’t give a damn. That’s Ran across the street and he’s been talkin’ about how he was goin’ to drop you. I don’t know nothin’ else.”
“You’re a liar, Wate.” Chavis cuffed Wate’s hat off and placed his own on the man’s head. He slid out of his vest. “Put this on.”
“What for?”
“Put it on.” The gun prodded Wate’s belly again and he put Chavis’ vest on.
“That’s my horse by the courthouse. Run for it.”
“No, hold on a minute …”
Across the street Ran Crews appeared at the hotel’s far comer, paused, and dropped back out of sight.
“Get going,” Chavis said, and thrust Wate into the street.
Wate went at a slovenly run toward Chavis’ horse; halfway across he flung a glance behind him and veered to the side, diving into the blacksmith shop. Chavis let him alone; the man was unarmed and too scared to be dangerous. But Ran Crews was still behind the hotel and Chavis’ trick had failed to expose his brother’s hiding place. Les Crews must be out there somewhere, waiting for a target.
With this in mind, Chavis impatiently crossed the street, walked lightly through the stable and out the rear door. He stood against the outside wall, pulled out his gun, and waited in the blackness. He heard the crunching of Ran Crew’s boots; Crews came around the hotel’s back corner and followed the wall toward the street, a vague shadow drifting forward.
“Crews.”
Ran stopped and Chavis could hear his breathing. He could imagine Ran’s head swiveling around, sniffing the night, trying to find him.
“All right, Crews. Let’s get it done.”
He was carrying this fight to Crews now; if he could carry it off successfully it might show the valley that Chainlink wasn’t dead. He heard no sound for a moment; and then Crews started running into the compound, breaking the quiet with the pounding of his shots, which went wide to Chavis’ right. He sidled to the left, and saw Crews turn from his rushing course and break for the jutting wall of a saddle shed. Then he lost Crews’ shape in the night.
Crews fired around the shed and rushed into the wide door of the stable runway. Metal clanked somewhere – Crews stumbling over a bridle bit – and his gun sounded again, stabbing its long flash of orange from deep within the stable. Crews wasn’t closing in on him; Crews was making a lot of noise to attract his brother. Chavis knew he had to finish this before Les Crews appeared. He walked forward, lining himself up with the runway.
Then Ran appeared in the runway, outlined in the front door. Chavis sighted his gun and let go.
Crews turned as if to walk away. His high shape jerked once and fell. Chavis walked cautiously through the runway and up to Crews, balancing his cocked gun.
But Ran wasn’t playing possum.
As he walked out of the stable into the empty street, the dust-muffled thud of a horse’s walk came to him. Chavis lit the cigarette he had just rolled and turned to see a rider stopped at the mouth of the stable, looking down at the twisted shape in the doorway. That was Les Crews. At least now he knew where the brother was.
Les sat still on the horse and slowly turned his head to look at Chavis. He shook his head and got off the horse and moved forward, flat-footed. Chavis watched him come in the light from the outside lamps before the hotel and the saloon.
The cigarette sagged from Chavis’ lip and his eyelids closed together, smoke curling around his eyes. He carefully lifted his left hand and took the cigarette from his mouth. It dropped to the ground.
He knew what was coming now. He knew Les Crews’ skill, always held in haughty silent reserve to back up Ran. But Ran was dead and Les had not been there to protect him, and it was this that was eating at his guts far more than the job he’d been paid to do.
Les did not speak now. His shoulder lifted slightly and Chavis drew. He saw Crews’ hand sweeping up with the black barreled Colt and he fired.
The bullet shook Crews and his gun dropped unused from his hand into the dust. Then Crews’ hands rose halfway to his chest and his knees went from under him and he fell forward. He didn’t use his hands to break his fall.
Chavis let his gun roll over on the trigger guard and dropped it into the holster.