ONE OF THE crew, a hardcase called Bill, rode into Jack Holliday’s camp with a mule deer tied across his saddle. Bill dismounted and said, “Give me a hand here, Menendez,” and began to undo the lashings.
Menendez came out and said, “Fresh meat, all right,” and helped Bill cart the animal inside the log cabin.
They set the carcass down; young Tom came in from the trees and said, “I’ll skin that,” and fell to work with his knife. Tall Jack Holliday’s shape blocked out the doorway. He turned, looked at die clouded sky, and spoke:
“Maybe we ought to move camp. I don’t like stayin’ in one place too long.”
No one answered. Bill hunkered by the fire with his hands toward it, palms out. “I could use a bottle of whisky.”
Menendez said, “Tell Thorpe, next time he comes up.”
Young Tom stopped skinning for a moment, long enough to pull his coat tighter about him. “Build up that damned fire. I cut you plenty of Goddamn wood, didn’t I?”
“Hell,” Menendez said, “it’s already hot in here.”
“I’m a cornpone and chitlin’ boy,” young Tom drawled. “This cold don’t agree with me none at all. I know how that spook Leroy feels.”
“Shut up, Tom.” Menendez was harsh with his voice; he was a haunted man made irritable by days of inaction.
Holliday advised, “Ease up, boys. Sit tight. By the time we pull out of here we’ll all be rich.”
Young Tom grunted caustically. “By time we get it split up there won’t be enough to buy a ticket to the Yuma pen. I’m thinking on headin’ east.” He stripped the hide expertly from the mule deer, went outside and flung the skin atop the cabin roof. When he came inside again, Menendez spoke sharply:
“You ain’t runnin’ out on us now. You’re as much up to your neck as any of us.”
“Hell, Menendez, I’s just griping.”
“Do it someplace else,” Menendez advised. “Hurry up with that carving, I’m hungry.” And went off into the trees to look after his horse.
Jack Holliday went again to the door and looked up, jutting his square beard out. “Weather’s going to hit us soon. I guess we’ll have to stick right here. No shelter anyplace else.”
Young Tom cut a haunch from the mule deer and speared it on a rifle-cleaning ramrod, and held it over the fire, turning it slowly. He sat on his heels, his hat pulled low over his young face, which was not as toughened as it should have been. His eyes rested at the bottom of deep pools; young Tom had turned bad early in life, and now disliked what he was in. He said, “You know what I mind, Bill? Those sons of bitches down Mule Canyon, sittin’ warm and comfortable on their fat butts while we do their work for them. By God, if I don’t get a fair split out of this take, somebody is going to get hurt. I ain’t taking these risks for nothing.”
Bill spat on the ground, not looking at young Tom.
Jack Holliday said, “Stop cryin’, kid.”
Not long afterward, the band’s three newcomers entered the clearing and dismounted. A trio of Nebraska toughs, they looked much alike: they carried a common haunted, suspicious expression. The biggest of the three, Kearns by name, said, “Goddamn cold up there. Let’s have a bite, kid.” Young Tom cut a slice from the haunch. It was almost raw. He skewered it on his knife and held it out to Kearns.
Jack Holliday said with deceptive casualness, “Where in hell have you boys been?”
Kearns swiveled on his bootheels, gnawing on the strip of meat: “And just what the hell business is that of yours?”
“I run this outfit,” Holliday said, toughening up. “If you don’t like that, maybe you got a better way?”
“Maybe,” Kearns breathed. “Maybe I do.” He let the slice of venison fall to his side; his right hand touched his gun butt. He said again, “Maybe I do, Jack.”
Holliday’s eyes narrowed to slits. “There’s only one top dog here, bucko. If you don’t see it that way, drift on. I can get some other hairpins to take your places, easy.”
Kearns didn’t lift his hand from the gun. His head shifted around; he weighed the scene: young Tom sat quietly by the fire, his hand near his pistol and his eyes mild. Tom was young but he had the wisdom of his kind, and couldn’t be discounted. Menendez was over there in the trees, watching brightly, and Bill was at the far end of the cabin, a dark shadow watching alertly. Holliday said, “Counting up the odds, Kearns?”
“All right,” Kearns said. “You ain’t my top dog, Jack. We’re pulling out.”
“Go ahead,” Holliday told him.
The three Nebraskans walked stiffly to their horses and swung up. Kearns gave Holliday a long, sober regard, and then the three wheeled their horses and drummed into the timber.
Holliday stood flat-footed near the door and said, “Those three could make trouble for us. Ten to one they decide to muscle in on our jobs.” He swung around and went into the cabin for his rifle. “Be back,” he said definitely, and went to get his horse.
Menendez said, “Want company, Jack?”
“Naw.” Holliday grinned. He rode away, finding Kearns’ trail easily enough and keeping to it until he was reasonably certain the three toughs were heading for Mule Canyon. Thereupon Holliday cut away from the tracks and put his horse into a run, traveling swiftly through the timber. Scrub oak and gnarled conifers covered the hills when he dropped to lower altitudes, and here and there a desert mesquite spread itself thickly in the rain. A brisk forewarning of winter was in the air; it put energy into his horse and he didn’t take much time in crossing a small series of wind-swept hogbacks and finally dropping into a wide canyon.
Holliday climbed off his horse, concealed it well, and took up a position behind a round-domed rock. From here he commanded a good view of the wide waterhole not far ahead on the canyon floor.
Short of ten minutes later, the three Nebraskans dismounted by the waterhole to let their horses drink. Holliday waited until they were all three kneeling by the water. Then, with cool deliberation, he aimed his rifle and fired.
Somehow he missed. Shaping a curse in his mouth, he saw the three men, startled, jump apart.
The small man behind Kearns dived for the cover of his horse, his hand clawing at his revolver. Holliday’s first shot took him in the shin and the second, better placed, in the heart.
The third man panicked and ran. Kearns shouted something at him; Kearns had spun behind his horse. Holliday drove a slug into the third hardcase—it spun the man facedown into the waterhole. The body lay still while ripples, begun in violence, slowly disappeared on the surface of the pool.
But while Holliday had been occupied with that man, Kearns had made his dash, and now the Nebraskan was sprinting into the rocks. Holliday swung his rifle around. Kearns snapped a shot at him, driving Holliday back behind his shelter. Holliday called, “Come out in the open.”
“This is all right,” Kearns answered. “You Goddamned son of a bitch.”
Holliday flipped cartridges into his rifle; he peered over his rocky cover. A shot placed Kearns for him. He crawled swiftly through the boulders toward that position. After a while he stopped; Kearns would be shifting around, always moving and watching for a break, and it wouldn’t do to give him one.
Holliday snapped a quick shot, but it drew no response. “Kearns?”
“Waiting for you.”
“All right,” Holliday said mildly. He put his head up, and when he drew no fire he ran toward the sound of Kearns’ voice, legs pumping fast against the uneven ground. The barrel of Kearns’ gun came up over the peak of a rock, and Holliday sprawled flat, skidding to cover with a bullet screaming away, leaving a white strip of ground near his boot. There was only a few yards between them now and he knew it would end quickly, one way or the other; that was the way he wanted it.
He snapped a quick shot, changed position, and became quite still; he could hear Kearns’ coarse breathing. Coolly Holliday came around the rock, running into the open. Kearns fired: Holliday felt the bullet slam his right arm like a sledge, half-turning him around.
He came on running, shifting the rifle to his left hand; he could see the glint in Kearns’ eyes, the rise of Kearns’ gun. Holliday fired then. The buck of the big rifle almost opened his hands. He saw the bullet strike below Kearns’ nose. The Nebraskan went over backward and fell from sight.
Holliday wheezed and holstered his pistol, and sat down upon a rock. He wrapped a bandanna around his bleeding right arm and went around to have a look at Kearns; he put his boot under Kearns’ ribs and rolled the body over, and spat into Kearns’ dead face. He turned and walked back toward his horse, picking up his rifle on the way.
Winter came suddenly—white and glistening on the slopes. It split hollowed rocks and burst the staves of full barrels. The creek in Mule Canyon froze over and had to be hacked open, and prices climbed, as the difficulty of freighting supplies became greater.
With first snow forming a crackling layer on the earth, a group of disillusioned bankrupt men formed a large party in town and elected to travel overland to Tombstone and then Benson, to pick up the railroad there. They walked, most of them, because they had sold their animals. There was little money among them, but they feared the toughs nonetheless. They left in a large crowd, subdued, accompanied by a few who had made their little fortunes and wanted the protection of the group’s numbers.
Phil Mercy stood on the porch of Matthew Ruarke’s saloon and watched them begin their trek. Ruarke came out and spoke to him with a curled lip: “I’ve never pitied failures. It’ll serve them right to die in a blizzard.”
“You’re a bastard,” Mercy told him, and went away.
One November morning a shifty man paused behind Calhoun’s Hilltop saloon. He had a handful of rags that smelled of kerosene; he was lighting a match when Phil Mercy came along, drew his tiny gun and said, “Hold it.”
Mercy took the man into Calhoun’s office and said, “What do you want to do with him?”
“I’d like to hang him,” Calhoun said, “but I guess I won’t.” He considered the shifty man. “Who put you up to this?” The man gave him a stolid look and kept silent. Calhoun said, “You’re more afraid of Ruarke than you are of me, is that it? Or maybe it’s Leroy that’s got you spooked. Well, you’ll talk.”
“No,” said the man. “No, I won’t talk.”
“What’s your name?”
“Armandero.”
“You’ll talk,” Calhoun said. His face was utterly blank.
Phil Mercy fidgeted uncomfortably and finally put away his gun. “I guess I’ll go on,” he said.
“Thanks, Phil. Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Mercy said. “Well, you got Leroy off my back once. I guess I owed you one.” He left the room, looking sorrowful.
Calhoun sat back, not bothering to draw his gun; Armandero was unarmed. Calhoun said conversationally, “Make a break for that door and I’ll cut you in half.”
“I ain’t that stupid.”
“All right,” Calhoun said. “I intend to tie you up outside when it gets dark. It’ll snow tonight. Your toes and hands will freeze on you and within a few days they’ll turn green and rot off. Frostbite. Eventually it will kill you by gangrene blood poisoning, but it’ll take time and it’ll be painful.”
“You’re tryin’ to scare the wrong man,” Armandero said.
“No,” Calhoun said, “I think it will soften you up, friend. I want you to tell me in front of witnesses who hired you to set my place afire.”
“It was my own idea.”
“Sure it was,” Calhoun said.
Jacob Boone waddled up the street, beaming jovially at those he passed, and turned into the Palace, advancing directly to the back of the room, where Stacy Donovan sat nursing a glass of whiskey. The place was almost empty. Jacob Boone said, “Howdy,” and sat down uninvited.
“Your Goddamn dumb good nature irritates hell out of me, if you want to know, Jake.”
Boone grinned and then chuckled; his corpulent chins wobbled. He disregarded Donovan’s testiness and only said, “Storm brewing up.”
Donovan said shortly, “What do you want, Jake?”
The fat saloonkeeper smiled blandly. “I just chopped around to find out how things are going.”
“My business is all right,” Donovan said.
“Not what I mean. How much are we getting out of our little side interest?”
Donovan looked around quickly, but no one was in earshot. He moved his shoulders. “You could find that out by asking anyone at the shipping office.”
“No,” said Jacob Boone. “Those boys have a habit of stretching the size of the take. I wanted an accounting of just how much I’ve got coming as my share. There’s a surprising number of people got their thumbs into this pie.”
“There are,” said Donovan drily, laying his eyes upon the fat man.
Boone became uncomfortable under the gray-haired man’s eyes; he said awkwardly, “Well, I gotta be going,” and left the saloon hurrying on his stubby legs.
Donovan sat smoking for a few minutes, then finished his drink and got up and went out, and walked directly to Matthew Ruarke’s saloon. Ruarke was working behind the bar, examining his liquor stock. Donovan said, “See you a minute, Matt?” and went on into the back room.
Ruarke followed him into the room. “What’s up?”
Donovan was looking at the new picture over the desk: the Battle of Gettysburg in gray and blue. He said, “I liked Lily better.”
“So did I. What brings you over?”
“Jake Boone. The fat moron’s itching for his cut. What the hell, Matt, we don’t need him—we never did. He makes another split, that’s all. Besides, he’d open his mouth and let a river spill out the first time some joker roughed him up a bit.”
“Don’t worry about Jake,” Ruarke said, very quietly. “Anything else on your mind?”
“Yeah. What’s happened to that Mex—what’s his name, Armandero?”
“I wish I knew,” Ruarke admitted.
“Probably decided to back out,” Donovan observed. “It’s a good thing we only paid him half in advance. I haven’t seen any fires around the Hilltop. Say, listen, Matt, what do you know about this Phil Mercy?”
“Not much. Leroy doesn’t like him. He’s a friend of Calhoun’s.”
“Exactly,” said Donovan. “And everybody knows Calhoun’s an honest man.”
“He’s a fool.”
Donovan said, “Folks probably figure Mercy’s honest too, with that kind of friend. But I think Mercy’s pretty close to the wall—I think we could use him.”
“Possible,” Ruarke said. “I’ll talk to him.”
At noon the storm was still holding off. The stage rattled in from Ten Springs under a bleak sky; its only passenger was a young man, obviously eastern and obviously uncomfortable. He went immediately into the depot, where he stood warming his hands over the stove until the hostler brought his carpetbag in; the young man gave the hostler a coin and inquired, “Is there a hotel in town?”
“No. Town’s jammed to the limit now.”
“Where can I get a room?”
“Mister,” the hostler said, “you’re lucky to find a tent you can buy.” And went away, leaving the young man alone.
The young man took his carpetbag up into town and stopped a man on the street. “Do you know a girl named Catherine Goodfellow? Tall girl, ash-colored hair—”
“Sure,” the man said, and flung an arm upward. “All the way up by the top of the hill, there. Fair-sized house, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.” The young man struggled through the cold mud and went up the hill lugging his carpetbag. He had a little trouble finding the right path; he had to ask directions again. Finally he found the house and knocked.
Catherine answered his knock. When she saw him she brought a hand to her mouth. “Jimmy!”
He smiled lopsidedly. He was slim and young, blond and quite pale, with lake-blue eyes tired from long travel. He said, “May I come in?”
“Of course.” She stepped back and allowed him to pass. He dropped his carpetbag inside the door and stood rolling this hat around in his hands, a round hard derby hat of the same conservative gray color as his suit.
Catherine said, “This is quite a surprise.”
“Yes, isn’t it.” He seemed at a loss for words, now that he was here.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“No.” He looked up, down, and finally at the girl. “I’ve graduated. I have a good job.” He blurted it out and his flesh turned red.
“That’s very nice, Jimmy.”
His eyes widened; he licked his lips. “Is that all you can say to me?”
She turned away from him and walked across the room to the big fireplace. “You must be tired. Sit down.”
He moved obediently to a chair and sat on the edge of it, looking curiously about the place. He said, “I came all this way for just one reason.”
She shook her head; she looked tired. The young man said earnestly, “I love you very much, Catherine.”
She was silent. In a while she sat down and let her shoulders slump. She said, “I’m sorry, Jimmy.”
The young man’s face fell. “I’ve traveled so far with your image in my head. You can’t just throw me away.”
“I never intended to encourage you. You knew that.”
“But I always thought I could—” Someone knocked at the door, cutting him off. Showing her relief, Catherine got up quickly and went to open the door.
Phil Mercy began to speak to her, and then saw the young man in the parlor. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were busy.” He started to turn away.
“No,” she said. “It’s all right, Phil. Come in.”
Mercy came into the room; the girl shut the door. Mercy looked at the young man and for a moment the three of them formed a silent triangle. Catherine moved toward Mercy and stood near him. The young man drew his conclusions from that, and stood up slowly, picking up his derby hat. He said, “I see.”
Catherine said nothing, letting the young man think what he wanted to think. He said softly to Mercy, “I was just leaving.” Torture and pain crossed his face. He crossed the intervening space, and standing no more than two feet away he laid his level glance on Phil Mercy, who regarded him with bemused surprise, understanding none of this. The young man nodded once, and walked through the door and down toward town with his carpetbag dangling from his fist.
Phil Mercy said, “What the devil was that all about?”
“A mistake,” Catherine said. She seemed to shake herself. “I haven’t seen you, Phil. How have you been?”
“All right,” he said. “Do you have any whiskey in the house?”
“Of course.”
She went across the room; Mercy said apologetically, “I just about can’t afford to buy my own.”
“Why don’t you go to work for Sam? You’re a good faro dealer.”
“I was. My hands are calloused now. Besides I can’t stand the thought of that kind of work anymore.”
“Nothing’s got any better, eh Phil?”
“That’s about it,” he agreed, and took the glass from her. He didn’t drink right away, but turned away from her and sat down, holding the glass between both palms. He said, “I thought there wasn’t much left inside me, but I guess there’s always room in a meek man for compassion. I know what pain is.”
“What do you mean?”
He raised his head. “I caught a Mexican trying to set Sam’s place on fire this morning. I turned the man over to Sam. I get the impression Sam doesn’t much care what he does to the Mexican as long as he forces the man to admit that he’s working for Matt Ruarke. If I know Mexicans, the fellow will keep his mouth shut until he’s been hurt pretty bad.”
Catherine was biting her lip. Phil Mercy said, “I thought maybe you could go to Sam and try to talk him out of it. He might listen to you.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “Sam’s set in his ways, Phil. Nothing I can say will change his mind. I’ve learned that.”
Mercy shrugged. “It was worth a mention,” he said, in a tone that suggested he didn’t really care very much. He lifted the glass and drank.
The young easterner, Jimmy, walked through town without seeing it, and went into the stage depot. “When does the stage leave?”
“Eastbound or westbound?”
“East.”
“About twenty minutes,” the hostler said.
The young man sat down on the carpetbag, elbows on his knees and eyes on the floor.