Logan came to with his head throbbing. He was stretched out on a mattress. Overhead he could see a peaked ceiling of hand-split boards overhanging thick rafters. A bright wash of daylight spilled in through the window above his bed. He looked around; the movement of his head sent new pains shooting through him.
Standing in the doorway was a slim, tall figure of a dark-haired girl encased in Levi’s and a man’s flannel shirt. She had a half-anxious, half-smiling expression on her face. Her skin was weather-tanned but smooth; her eyes were wide-set and dark with a steady brightness behind them.
When she spoke her voice was low and strong: “I was afraid you weren’t going to come out of it.”
He tried to sit up, but thought better of it when his head sent new warning pains to him. He said, “Who did this to me?” He was surprised by the weak huskiness of his voice.
“I did,” she said frankly. “I’m afraid I made a bad mistake. I took you for one of Meteer’s sheepherders. Saw you talking to him up the trail.”
Logan put a hand to his head gingerly and found a bandage there. He said, “What changed your mind?”
“This.” She stepped forward and dropped an object in his hand. When he looked down at it he saw the badge, the ball-pointed tin star of Marshal Janssen.
“It fell out of your pocket,” she said.
“I see,” he said, and added dryly, “I take it you don’t cotton much to sheep men.”
“That’s right,” she agreed. “Do you think you could sit up and eat something?”
“I can try,” he said.
“Here, let me help you.”
He felt the firm, gentle strength of her hands as she lifted him slowly and propped pillows behind him. “Does it hurt badly?”
“Bad enough.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s kind of a weak thing to say, I guess, but I mean it.”
“People must be spooked pretty badly around here. Do you jump every suspected sheepherder you see?”
“No. But you looked more like a gunman than a sheepherder. Lie still, now. I’ll bring you some soup.”
He leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. It struck him that his first illusion about this valley—its evident peacefulness—had been damn well shattered in the last few hours. And that made him think of something else, so *that when the girl came back into the room he said immediately, “My saddlebags—”
“You mean all that money? It’s safe,” she said. She drew up a chair to the side of the bed, handed him a bowl of soup and watched him balance it on his lap. “Can you handle that by yourself?”
“Yes.”
She sat down beside him, facing him. It gave him a good chance to study her at close range while he ate. She was striking rather than beautiful; her face was long and wide-lipped, her nose tilted, her eyes deep and large. Her upper body filled the flannel shirt fully but her waist was slim and her legs long; her arms below the rolled-up sleeves were round and firm. There was a steady strength in her eyes that gave her a look of independence and competence. There was nothing frail about her, and yet she was strikingly feminine.
She said, “I’m Kate Rice.”
“Logan,” he said, and remembered the name he had given Harry Meteer: “Ben Logan.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m glad to meet you, Marshal, even under the circumstances.”
He looked down at his sock feet. “Did you take off my boots?”
“Yes.”
“That’s quite a chore.”
“I used my brother’s bootjack.”
“You and your brother run this place?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Then tell me something.”
“Go ahead.”
“What makes you so afraid of Meteer and his sheep?”
“That’s a long story,” she said.
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
Her smile was quick and open. Logan finished the soup and set the bowl aside, nodding with satisfaction. He built a cigarette. He had almost forgotten the steady dull throbbing of his head. Kate Rice began:
“This is all open range, this valley. No fences, no deeds. My father and half a dozen others settled the valley a dozen years ago. They had to fight off Apaches and bad weather to do it. Both of my folks are buried up the hill behind the house here —that’s what this land has cost us. Naturally it’s pretty important to us. You can imagine how we might feel when a stranger comes in and announces he’s going to fill the valley up with woollies.”
“Meteer told me he’d bought land to graze his sheep on.”
She waved a hand, dismissing it. “He bought out old Leavitt’s ranch and re-named it the Ram’s Horn. But there are no fences here and who’s going to be able to keep those sheep from spreading across the whole valley?”
“Can’t you build fences?”
“Not on land we don’t own.”
“You mean none of you own your own ranches?”
“Just about,” she said. “Leavitt was the only one who bothered to patent his land. The rest of us proved up our headquarters—usually one section • of grass where the principal water supply is. The rest of it we just use. We can’t afford to buy it all.”
Logan said, “Then you haven’t got any legal way to stop Meteer. Is that it?”
She nodded. “And you can guess what will happen when he floods this valley with woollies. They’ll crop the grass right down to the roots. They’ll ruin the valley for cattle grazing. They’ll make a dust pile out of this district.”
“Well,” he observed, “maybe you should have thought of that before you decided not to bother patenting your own land.”
She looked down. “I know. It’s a little like listening to a song you’ve heard a thousand times and suddenly realizing you never paid any attention to the words before. When I saw your badge, 51
I thought maybe things were going to change—I thought you might be able to help us.”
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s out of my bailiwick. I’m just running an errand up here.”
Disappointment was clear in her expression. She picked up his soup bowl and spoon and took them out of the room. Logan sat up slowly, testing himself. His vision swam slightly but presently the room came back into focus. He saw his boots beside the bed and he reached down for them. Once again a wave of dizziness swept through his head. He began to tug his boots on.
He was standing up, swaying, when the girl came back into the room. Standing up now, he saw that she was not as tall as he had thought; her tallness was mainly an illusion created by her long-legged grace. The top of her head would just about reach his chin.
She said, “You recover fast, don’t you?”
“You have to, in my business,” he said, and immediately realized the ironic double-meaning he had unintentionally put into his words. Of course, there was no way for the girl to notice it, since she was unaware of his real identity. He said, “I’m obliged for the soup and the bed.”
“It was the least I could do. After all, I was the one who put that knot in your head in the first place.”
“Fortunes of war,” he said with a slight smile.
“I won’t hold it against anyone as pretty as you. No hard feelings.”
“Thanks,” she said, matching his smile. There was none of the calculated wiliness about her that he had almost come to expect of women in his long and disillusioning experience with them. He found a refreshing directness about her and realized he was reluctant to go. But his earlier resolve was still with him, and he was still intent on getting out of this powder-keg valley with his skin intact.
“Are you sure you can make it all right?” she asked; and it seemed to him that the concern she showed was more genuine than anything he had seen in a long time.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m all right now. A little lightheaded, that’s all. I’ll need my hat and my horse.”
“And your money,” she said. She bent to reach under the bed and dragged out his saddlebags.
He took them and did not open them, and by the look in her dark eyes he knew she appreciated his trust. He said, “It’s not my money anyway. Belongs to the sheriff in Arroyo Seco.”
“Sheriff Miksa?”
“If that’s his name.”
She nodded. She went out to the door with him, through a wide parlor furnished with heavy, handmade wooden chairs and a long table and stone fireplace. On a peg by the door were his hat and gun belt. He put them on, adjusting the hat gingerly.
She said, “Your horse is in the barn. Do you want me to saddle up for you?”
“No,” he said, “but thanks again.”
He turned when he reached the foot of the porch steps. She was standing in the doorway, a lean and supple shape. He said, “Good luck. Next time make sure before you start dusting sheepherders.”
She smiled and lifted a hand to him. “Take care, Logan.”
There was something in the level depth of her tone that made him search her eyes closely. Something surged in him, a warm feeling that he had seldom felt; the thought flashed across his mind that there had been damned few friendships in his pillar-to-post life. The thought passed quickly. He tossed a salute at the girl and strode off across the yard toward the barn.
Saddling the roan took a surprising amount of exertion; the blow to his head had weakened him more than he thought. But finally he had the job done. He mounted up and rode out into the late afternoon sunlight.
The girl was still on the porch. She lifted her head and her eyes followed him steadily as he rode across the yard. At the gate he turned in the saddle and waved to her, and then he put the horse down the trail to the mailbox at the intersection with the main road. The horse’s gait jarred his aching head, so he pulled it down to a walk.
All the way down out of the hills he rode with the image of Kate Rice in his mind. Something about her, the way she carried herself, the quiet combination of pride and gentleness he had seen in her, had made a profound impression on his consciousness.
Full darkness had fallen before he reached the town of Arroyo Seco. It was a one-street town, bounded at one end by the trough of a dry stream bed. In all directions stretched the leagues of golden grass, gently shining in the moonlight. Around the buildings of the town grew cottonwoods and sycamores, probably planted there for shade. The night air was cool and bracing. Lamplight spilled out of windows and open doorways, making patchwork of the street. A group of horses were tied up in front of a false-fronted building that he took to be the saloon because of its evident size and the batwing doors hung chest-high.
The town was small and quiet. He rode past a dry goods store, a hardware store, a gunsmith shop and a cafe, a general mercantile, Refujio Gutierrez’ Tonsorial Parlor, a smithy and a brick bank building before he came to a small wooden building with a crescent-shape legend painted over the doorway in weather-faded letters: Roy Miksa, County Sheriff.
Logan dismounted in front of the office and stepped to the door. A light burned in the window and inside he saw, seated behind a desk reading a book, a gaunt raw-boned man with a badge glittering dully on his vest. Logan rapped on the door with his knuckles and pushed it open.
The sheriff looked up. Saddlebags across his arm, Logan closed the door and said, “Sheriff Miksa?”
“That’s right.”
“My name’s Logan.”
“What can I do for you?”
On the way into town, Logan had decided what he would say to the sheriff. Now he put the saddlebags on the desk, opened them and took out the wrapped money. “I ran into Marshal Janssen on the trail. He told me to bring you this.”
“Why didn’t he bring it himself?”
Logan reached into his pocket and brought out Janssen’s badge. He put it on the desk beside the money. “Apaches,” was all he said.
Miksa considered the badge with a hooded glance. “I see,” he said. “Tom Janssen was a hell of a good man.”
“I know.”
“Friend of yours?”
“You might say,” Logan said. “I buried him over on the far slope.”
“That’s a hell of a place for a man to rest, out in that dry wilderness.”
“He wanted it that way,” Logan said.
Miksa nodded. He unwrapped the money and put it away in a desk drawer without bothering to count it. “I’m obliged to you,” he said. “There’s coffee on the stove.”
Logan looked around and saw the stove back in a corner of the room by the barred cell door. He went to it, took down a metal cup and filled it from the blackened coffeepot on the stove. Miksa said, “Just passing through?”
“That’s right.”
“Seems to me I’ve seen you before.”
“That’s possible,” Logan said. “I’ve been here and there.”
“Ever been a lawman?”
“Can’t say I have,” Logan said. He took his coffee to a bench by the front wall and sat, removing his hat.
“What happened to your head?”
“Just a mistake,” he said. “A little lady up in the hills took me for a sheep man’s hired gun.”
Miksa grinned. “That’d be Kate Rice. She can be as tough as a man when she wants to. If her good-for-nothing brother had half her guts, he might be a good man.”
“What’s your position on this business with Meteer?”
“I’ve got no position,” Miksa said. “Meteer’s within the law. I can’t do anything to stop him from bringing his sheep over the mountains if he wants to. But I guess I’ll have to pick up the pieces afterwards. The cattlemen here don’t aim to stand still for it.”
“Sounds like you’re in for a little bloodletting around here,” Logan said.
“I wish I knew a way to stop it,” Miksa agreed.
Logan stood up. “Thanks for the coffee.” He put on his hat and went to the door.
“Just a minute.”
He turned, wary. The sheriff pointed to Janssen’s badge on the desk. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Send it back to the chief marshal, I guess. Tell him what happened to Janssen.”
Miksa shrugged. “All right. Good luck to you, Logan.”
Logan nodded and went out. Pulling the door closed behind him, he reflected on the scene just past. He had met men like sheriff Miksa before— indolent, easygoing, laconic, but tough and loyal to the limit, enforcing the law with strict impartiality. The lines of worry around Miksa’s mouth and eyes had been put there, no doubt, by the impending clash between the cattle interests and the arrogant interloper, Meteer. Logan felt sympathy for Miksa, who was likely to find himself caught in the midst of the mess and blamed by both sides.
But it wasn’t Logan’s problem. He unwrapped the reins from the rail and showed a horseman’s disdain for walking by getting up into the saddle and riding the short distance down the street to the cafe. His head was still pulsing with dull pain, but it was steadily subsiding and he felt assured that no real damage had been done by the girl’s blow. He went into the cafe, which was almost empty at this late hour, and sat down at a table covered with a red-and-white checked oilcloth. He ate a big meal and afterward sat back to enjoy the well-filled laziness that followed such a repast.
In a little while, after he had smoked down a cigarette, he went across the street into the saloon. A poker game was going at a table near the long plank bar. Five men sat at the game; two or three others were ranged along the bar. All of them seemed to be cattlemen and cowhands. There was the smell of stale tobacco smoke and whisky. Logan stopped at the near end of the bar, feeling the inspection on the part of the men in the saloon; all of them looked him over, as was the custom when a stranger came into their midst. Presently they had their fill and disregarded him.
He waited for the bartender to come up, and ordered a beer. When it came he said, “Anyplace in town where I might be able to get a bed for the night?”
“Mrs. O’Hanion takes in boarders. Last house on the left, south end of town.”
“Obliged,” Logan said, and put a nickel on the bar to pay for his beer. He took the mug along the bar closer to the poker game and stood idly watching the play while he sipped foam off the top of the beer.
They were playing for small stakes, he noticed. One of the men was middle-aged, fattening up around the shoulders and going bald on top. This man looked up at Logan and said, “Like to sit in, stranger?”
“Just for a few hands, maybe,” Logan said, and moved toward the proffered chair. The bald man said, “I’m Aaron McLaughlin.”
“Ben Logan.”
McLaughlin nodded his head in assent and made introductions. Of the other four men, two drew Logan’s interest. One was a stocky man with yellow hair and a hooked nose and belligerent challenge in his eyes. This one was called Drake Sims. He was a little drunk and it was evident he was the kind of man who would fight at the drop of a hat. The second man who commanded Logan’s attention was young and half-drunk, dark-haired and long-chinned, and had a reckless flush on his cheeks. Logan’s glance centered on him when McLaughlin introduced him as Lou Rice. This, then, must be Kate’s brother, and Logan remembered the sheriff’s remarks about Lou’s character. The sheriff didn’t seem to have much respect for Lou Rice. Logan thought he could see why. There was an unsteady restlessness about the youth that no one could miss. He was probably several years younger than his sister;
Kate had looked about twenty-five to Logan, and Lou didn’t look over twenty.
The other two card players, Hackett and Hildebrand, were both ranchers from up-valley, cattlemen like the others. It became quickly apparent to Logan, as the card game and accompanying talk progressed, that the bald-headed one, Aaron McLaughlin, was the biggest of the valley’s ranchers, at least in terms of the size of his cattle herd and his crew. Drake Sims, the blond, thick-set one across the table, was McLaughlin’s foreman. Seated around this table, then, were the men who represented most of the valley’s cattle interests.
Logan opened his hand and considered it. He noticed McLaughlin looking at him and so he said, “I’ll pass it.”
“Can’t open either,” McLaughlin said.
“Half a buck,” said Drake Sims, tossing a coin out to the center of the table. It rocked itself flat. The other two ranchers tossed in matching coins and then Lou Rice pushed in two dollars. “Bump you.”
The play went on like that, through several hands, with young Rice pushing his luck and losing fair sums regularly. Logan played conservatively and held even; the steady winner seemed to be Sims. And it soon became clear to Logan that every time Sims won a large pot, most of the loss was sustained by Rice, who plunged heavily and bluffed often on worthless hands. Drake Sims all the while kept up a desultory run of talk, most of it directed indirectly against Lou Rice: “Who’s mindin’ your cows tonight, Lou?” And a little while later, “And who’s mindin’ your sister?” Sims laughed heartily and Logan caught the upsweep of Rice’s angry eyes.
Logan’s head was still throbbing slightly and he guessed it was about time to excuse himself and hunt up a bed. A couple more hands, he decided, and he would go.
The hand was dealt by Sims. Lou Rice’s expression changed so drastically that no one could possibly miss the elation in his eyes. He poked a hand into his pocket and brought out a handful of gold coins—half eagles, most of them, worth ten dollars apiece. When his turn at betting came around, he immediately pushed twenty dollars onto the table, which made Logan and McLaughlin drop out immediately. Sims met the bet, Hackett folded, and Hildebrand stayed in for the draw.
After the draw Lou Rice bet another twenty, and Sims, grinning without humor, raised him a like amount. Hildebrand dropped out, leaving Sims and Rice alone in the play, and Logan felt a charged atmosphere descend over the table while Sims and Rice continued a series of raises and counter-raises until the sum of money in the pot must have added up to several hundred dollars. Logan wondered where either one of the men could have got that kind of money.
Finally Sims said, “I’ll call you, Lou.”
“Sevens,” Rice said softly, and laid down his hand. “Four of them.”
He reached for the pot. Sims’ burly hand darted out and grabbed his wrist. “Easy, youngster,” Sims murmured in his throaty drawl. Then he spread his own hand—four jacks.
Rice sat upright in the chair. His eyes narrowed and flicked from face to face. Whisky was thick on his tongue when he said, “You dealt that hand, Drake.”
“What of it?” Sims demanded.
“I thought there was something funny, the way you were handlin’ that deck.”
McLaughlin said, “Hold it, Lou. That’s a raw thing to say to a man.”
Lou Rice kept his hot, red eyes against Sims. “I meant what I said,” he said loudly. “You cold decked that fourth jack on the draw, Drake. I saw you do it.”
“Hold on,” McLaughlin said harshly. “If you saw him cheat, why didn’t you say so at the time?”
Rice shook his head. “It don’t matter. That’s my pot, Drake.”
All the while, Sims had been staring in mute surprise. Hildebrand and Hackett had pushed their chairs back away from the table. Logan was sitting with his arms folded, watching with detached interest while McLaughlin tried to make peace between the two men, but obviously it wasn’t going to do any good. Lou Rice was too drunk and too angry to be cooled off by talk.
Drake Sims glared narrowly at him and said through gritted teeth, “Don’t do anything rash, boy.” But it was too late by then; Lou Rice was already standing up, thrusting his chair away with the backs of his knees. The chair skittered back across the floor. With high surprise, Logan saw Lou Rice clawing for his holstered gun.
Instinct made Logan dive flat out of his chair toward Rice, trying to knock him off balance before the gun came up. But just as Logan launched himself out of the chair, a shot crashed hollow and loud in the air. The lamps flickered around the room and when Logan hit Lou Rice’s body it was already falling.
Momentum carried Logan down with Rice and it took him a moment to get untangled. When he did, he looked down at Lou Rice and saw a dark red stain spreading across Rice’s shirt front. Rice’s eyes were open and he was working his lips but no sound came out; hot livid rage flamed in his glance. Logan looked up and saw Drake Sims still in his chair, with his short-barreled gun smoking in his hand.
“My God,” McLaughlin whispered in awe.