The Cottonwood ranch was not big, considering the range it controlled. Altogether, Sim Cotton had only fifteen men on his payroll, and this number included a cook and a horse-wrangler, neither of whom was to be considered in any way a fighting man. The cook was a grizzled oldster of perhaps sixty summers who had been badly stove-up in a stampede many years previously at Doan’s Crossing on the Red River, and the wrangler was a half-Indian boy who spoke about three intelligible words in English. Sim Cotton was a calculating man. He had always believed that power was a tool, like a branding iron or a gun, to be used as necessary, in the circumstances best suited to it. Power was impersonal, and so was fear, and Sim Cotton knew how to use both. Thus had his little empire in this valley remained in his grasp long after the time when such empires had crumbled in other parts of the West. Now he stood with his back to the fireplace in the big living room of his ranch and considered the battered face of his brother Art, the fawning figure of the sheriff, and the ugly expression in the eyes of Chris Helm.
‘So yu let that two- bit kid an’ his sidekick run yu out o’ my town?’ he asked his brother mildly. There was no indication in his voice of the deep-wounded anger, the searing hurt pride inside him.
‘He buffaloed me afore I seen him properly, Sim Helm told him. ‘I was out cold the whole time him an’ Art was scrapping Sim Cotton’s measured gaze swung towards his brother.
‘An’ yu…?’
Art Cotton did not answer. He could not bear the truth, that he had been thoroughly beaten. He could not invent a plausible enough excuse to offer his brother to explain his condition, so he simply sat, smoldering with hatred for the man who had so marked him before the entire town burning through him.
‘An’ our brave sheriff was sleepin’.’ Sim Cotton’s reptilian eyes rested now on the apprehensive Parris, who threw up his hands in front of him as though to defend himself against a blow, though Sim Cotton had not moved a finger.
‘I … I figgered the same as yu, Sim … Mr Cotton…’ he stuttered. ‘That this Green feller was taken care of, an’ the kid was snug in the jail … I just plain didn’t know … couldn’t have known…’
‘Mebbe yo’re givin’ me the straightest story at that, Harry,’ Sim Cotton rumbled. ‘Helm here was buffaloed while he was goin’ for his guns —-I thought yu was supposed to be fast, Helm? An’ Art got his ears beat off, an’ him reckoned to be the toughest fist-fighter north o’ the Rio.’ He smiled, without warmth. ‘I don’t see how I could expect Harry to do any better than yu two misfits.’ He glanced around the room.
It was a spacious room, stone floored, solid. The huge fireplace was dominated by a mounted elk’s head, and scattered catamount and wolf pelts made warm splashes of tawny color on the floor. The walls were of adobe, plastered and painted white; and the furniture, although simple, was solid and shone with the use of years. On one wall hung an oil painting of a white-bearded old man in range clothes. The artist’s knowledge of the range had been limited and the background was one which would have made a real cattleman laugh, but the face of the subject had been well caught: it was a ruthless, devilish face, and the eyes were twins for those of Sim Cotton, who gazed at the picture as he spoke.
‘My father built this range,’ he told the men in the room: his two brothers, Helm, the Sheriff, and his assembled riders. ‘He made Cottonwood. He made it, an’ by God, I can unmake it. If I have to. I’m hopin’ I won’t have to. I’m goin’ to try talkin’ to this man Green. I’ll make no threats. But I will have my way!’ He smashed his fist downwards upon the heavy table. ‘I’ve waited too long to lose know. I will have my way.’ His youngest brother’s expression caught his eye and he turned to face him.
‘Buck,’ he snapped. ‘What’s so damned funny?’
Buck Cotton stood up and stretched lazily.
‘Yu,’ he said, coldly. ‘Yu could ride in to Cottontown an’ burn it down if yu wanted to, an’ nobody’d lift a finger to stop yu. Yu could ride in an’ take those two out an’ hang ’em in the street, an’ nobody’d interfere. But no, not yu: yu let two four-flushers try to kill me, beat the hell out of Art, gun whip yore foreman, an’ run yore Sheriff out o’ town, an’ then yu jaw about goin’ in an’ talkin’ to them.’
Something very sudden and violent happened deep inside Sim Cotton at that moment. His affection for his kid brother was real and sincere. It had persisted out of habit long after he had learned that Buck was as unworthy of it as the meanest drunk in Cottontown. And in this moment, Sim Cotton knew that it was gone. Up to this point, he had not thought about Buck personally. The involvement of Buck in a town fracas was nothing new, but this time the events had changed the nature of things. Where normally an insult to Buck —-to any of them —-was an insult to all the Cottons, now he realized that this handsome youth, whose eyes were as shallow as rain, had jeopardized the future of everyone by his stupid, senseless, unnecessary attack on the girl.
Sim Cotton had worked hard to build what his father had left him into something bigger, stronger, more flexible. He had spent thousands of dollars on drinks for Congressmen and Senators in the plush clubs of Santa Fe, listening, waiting, hoping for the stray item of information which he could use, bend, turn to his own advantage. He had heard about the plans to irrigate the Bonito valley long before they had been drafted. Now, with the draft Bill to go soon before the Territorial Legislature, those years of hard work were going to pay off. But Buck—Buck had never worked in his life. His hands were as soft as those of a girl. Sim Cotton saw the danger of losing everything because his stupid kid brother couldn’t be bothered to keep his hands off some nester girl. Now the work of the ranch had to be suspended; already three men were lost —-maybe four if you counted Art, who looked broken —-and here was Buck taunting him, daring him to ride into Cottontown and burn it to the ground, as if he were Charley Quantrill.
His calloused hand moved almost of its own accord, and his full weight was behind it. The slap caught Buck Cotton on the side of his head and lifted him physically off his feet, hurling him into the corner of the room. He slammed into the wall and slid down, huddled, tears of outrage and shock springing to his eyes, his hand scrambling for the gun which had swung around behind him with the force of his fall. In one mighty bound, Sim Cotton was towering over him, his hands clenching and unclenching, his face taut with an almost uncontrollable rage.
‘Touch that gun an’ I’ll kill yu with my bare hands!’ he hissed. Buck pulled his fingers away from the gun butt as if it had become red hot. Sim Cotton turned his back contemptuously on his brother and stalked back into the centre of the silent room as though nothing had occurred. His rage was under control again, and his mind was already foraging ahead, planning, examining, discarding.
‘I’m goin’ in to town,’ he announced. ‘Yu, Helm. Ride with me. Yu too, Harry. The rest o’ yu stay here. Get on with yore chores.’
One of the riders, a man called Hitchin, put in a word.
‘Yu ain’t aimin’ to take nobody with yu, boss?’
‘No,’ said Cotton, his mouth closing like a trap. ‘I’m goin’ to call that stinkin’ town’s bluff. An’ Mr Green’s along with it!’