Crystal’s “place,” turned out, was the biggest saloon in town, and that was exactly the name it bore: Crystal’s Place. They rode together up to it along the town’s main street, walking their horses. Rae Marsh’s head swung from side to side. He was wary as a wolf, now; he’d had two lessons in letting his emotions dull his senses—one yesterday at the Circle M, the other today when Crystal had ridden up on him so easily. His eyes missed no detail along the sidewalks, including the way people whispered together at the sight of Crystal and him riding stirrup to stirrup.
“I saw you ride in,” Crystal explained. “Saw you go into Sam Murney’s, saw you ride out again. I knew you had to be the one Cleve spouted off about. I was afraid you’d get away before I could talk to you. Or that even if I did catch you, you’d turn out to be some spineless jellyfish.”
“We’ll see,” Rae said. They halted before a hitch rack; he swung down and gave Crystal a hand. Then he took her arm as they climbed the boardwalk and went into the saloon.
It was nearly empty—a couple of solitary drinkers at tables, a half-dozing bartender. “Come on,” said Crystal. She led Rae toward stairs at the rear of the long, wide room.
His spurs jingled as he climbed the stairs behind her, his saddle gun in one hand. At the top, there was a short corridor, a single door.
“This is where I live,” Crystal said. She opened the door. Rae followed her into what seemed to be the living room of a two-room apartment. It was furnished well, with a horsehair sofa, good chairs, a desk, a carpet on the floor, and a crocheted cloth on the big table in the center of the room.
Crystal shut the door and turned the key in the lock. “Before we go any further,” she said, and she went across the room to the secretary. She unlocked a lower drawer, fished inside, and turned.
“Here,” she said, coming back to where Rae stood. “No matter whether we strike a deal or not, you’ll be needing this.” What she was holding out in her hand was a long-barreled Colt .45 with an ivory grip and silver chasing on the cylinder and backstrap. He saw at once that it was a fine and expensive weapon.
“It’s a loan,” she said. “If you pull out, I expect you to return it first.”
Rae took it a little hesitantly. “No better than you know me, you oughtn’t to trust me with something like this.”
Her red mouth quirked. “Let’s say it’s a token of my good faith. I said I’d buy the bullets; I might as well provide the gun, too.”
Checking it, Rae saw that it was fully loaded. “All right,” he said, thrusting it in his waistband. “I’ll take it on loan. Until I get my own gun back, or another to take its place. Because I can’t afford to buy one; that’s a fact.”
“Take good care of it,” Crystal said. “It belonged to my husband.”
“Oh?”
She looked at him oddly. “Yes,” she said. “Cleve Anders killed him six months ago.”
Before Rae could find anything to say to that, Crystal turned. “If you’re broke,” she said, “I guess you’re hungry, too.” She raised her voice. “Hallie? Oh, Hallie . ..”
The girl who came into the room from another door in response to her summons looked astonishingly like Crystal, but she could not have been over eighteen or nineteen. She had the same black hair, the same great, dark eyes, the same flawless skin. But there was a difference, too. Crystal had a hardness that seemed to suit her name; there was nothing hard about this girl. She was dressed in white, which suited her coloring well, and when she saw Rae, there was a shyness, even a little fright, in her eyes.
“This is my sister, Hallie Blaine,” Crystal said. “Hallie, this is Rae Marsh.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Rae said. Alone, he thought, the girl would certainly be pretty enough, but next to Crystal she seemed to fade, seemed almost plain. She murmured something inaudible in acknowledgment of the introduction.
“Hallie, maybe you wouldn’t mind running downstairs,” Crystal said, “and asking Hank to send out for steak and potatoes for Mr. Marsh. And to send up a pot of coffee, too.”
“All right,” Hallie said softly. She did not look at Rae as she crossed the room and went out.
When the door had closed behind her, Crystal sighed. “Hallie’s still a little upset,” she said. “She disapproves of me. She was living with an aunt in Independence, but Aunt Mattie died and she had to come here a couple of months ago. She didn’t know I had this place until then.” She gave a short, barking laugh. “She’s another good reason why I’d buy the bullet to rub out Cleve Anders.”
“I don’t understand,” Rae said.
“You will,” she said. “Drink?”
“I could use one.”
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
Rae seated himself on the horsehair sofa. Crystal entered from the other room in a moment with a bottle and two glasses. She poured straight whiskey into both glasses and sat down in a chair across from Rae after handing him one.
“Here’s how,” she said, and drank hers like a man.
Rae drank his, too. It bit home immediately, for his stomach was empty, and he relaxed a little. “Now,” he said, “maybe you’ll talk a little.”
“All right,” Crystal said. “Ward Crystal and I came here five years ago and opened this place. We served honest drinks, ran honest games. My husband was a gambler, Rae, but he was a straight one. You ask anybody in town. They all liked him.”
Rae nodded. “Go on.”
“When big John Marsh was in his prime, nobody could stand up to him, least of all Cleve Anders. I don’t know what Virginia Marsh’s first husband was like, but he must have been real scum to leave her with something like Cleve. Just the same, John could handle him. But then John got sick with this tumor or whatever it was he had. Then Cleve started to run wild.”
Rae nodded. “He wouldn’t have dared come near a married woman,” Crystal went on, “while old John was up and about. John would have heard of it and given him a horsewhipping. But after John was down, Cleve decided that . . . that . . .” For the first time her voice shook.
“All right,” she said, when she had regained control. “He wanted me. But it so happened that I loved my husband, Mr. Marsh, and I wouldn’t give Cleve Anders the time of day—I wouldn’t wipe my feet on him. I tried to make that plain to him, but he couldn’t get it through his thick head that he wasn’t God’s gift to women. He thought it was Ward, my husband, standing in his way. And . . . and one night Ward was crossing the entrance to an alley and somebody . . .” She hesitated, gulped for breath, but there were no tears in her eyes. “Somebody,” she said harshly, “shot him through the head from out of the dark.”
“And you’re sure it was Anders.”
She stood up, went to the bottle, and refilled their glasses. Her hand, he noticed, was shaking a little. “I’m sure,” she said. “Nobody else is. There wasn’t any proof, of course, not a clue as to who’d done it. But I know.”
“Is Anders still hanging around you?”
“I think he realizes that I know. And I think he’s finally got it through his head that I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. But . . .” She gestured toward the door. “There’s Hallie. It’s only a matter of time before he starts after her. The minute he does,” she finished harshly, “he’s a dead man. If I have to kill him myself.”
She turned towards Rae. “Anyway,” she said, “that’s why I rode out to find you. If you’re here to make war on Cleve Anders, you’ve got a partner.”
“I’m here,” Rae said, “to get the third of my father’s ranch he willed me. I owe Anders a good stomping for the stomping he gave me. But I don’t owe him a killing.” He stood up, rubbing his hands along his legs as if they were sweaty. “I had enough of killing down in Lincoln County.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Crystal said sharply. “Do you think Anders is going to give up a square foot of Circle M to you without you having to kill him?”
“There’s the courts,” Rae said. “I’ve got a longhand letter from my father … ” He touched his shirt pocket; the envelope was still there. Will Marsh had handed it back to him just before the gun hand had got the drop on him.
“The courts,” Crystal snorted. “It takes money to fight a case through the courts.” She paused. “I’ve got money for the man who makes war on Anders, who hurts him bad. But I’ve got no money for court fights that he’d probably win anyhow.”
“I didn’t ask you for money,” Rae said. “I can get money.”
“How?” Her face registered disbelief.
Rae had been thinking about it. His mouth quirked. “It’s simple. All I got to do is sell as much of my share of the Circle M stock as it takes to finance the lawing.”
Crystal stared at him. “What?”
Rae shrugged. “One third of Circle M beef and horses belongs to me. Only way I can raise money is take ’em and sell ’em.”
Crystal was silent for a moment. Then she said, in an odd tone, “You mean rustle ’em.”
“I don’t consider it rustlin’ to take what rightfully belongs to me.”
Crystal was silent a moment more; he could almost see her mind working. Then she gave that short, barking laugh.
“If they catch you at it, they’ll hang you.”
“That’s a chance I got to take,” Rae said simply.
Crystal sat down. She rubbed her hands together. “It all comes to the same thing,” she said at last. “You do that and sooner or later you’ll have to kill Cleve Anders or he’ll kill you.” She looked suddenly very happy. “You can’t do it alone,” she said. “You’ll need some men. You’ll need a place to hide the stock while the brands are being changed. You’ll need contact with a buyer.”
“I’ll find all that somehow,” Rae said.
“Maybe I can save you some trouble,” Crystal said.
“You know somebody?”
“There’s a man owes me a favor,” Crystal said. “A couple of favors. If I write him a letter—” She broke off. “You’ll have to take it to him in person. He won’t work with you unless he likes the way you size up.”
“I’ll take it to him,” Rae said.
“It’s quite a ride,” she said. “He’s got a place down in the brakes along the Colorado River, almost at the Wyoming line. That’s a good hundred miles from here.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tom Ford,” she said. “And he runs with a tough crew. He knows people in Wyoming and Utah who’ll buy your stock.”
“Sounds like a man I can use,” Rae said.
“I’ll give you the letter. And a stake for grub and cartridges. You’ll have to strike your own terms on the money from the beeves with him.”
“I appreciate it,” Rae said. “One more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“This kid out there at Circle M. Will Marsh. He’s my half brother. What about him?”
“He’s not dry behind the ears,” Crystal said. “He’s only seventeen. If you’re looking to him for help, forget it. Since he’s a minor, Cleve’s his legal guardian. And the way Will’s going, he’s not going to live to be twenty-one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you see the way he wore his gun?”
“Yeah. I saw it.” Rae recalled the low slung Colt on the kid’s hip, the tied thigh-strap.
“He’s gun-crazy. You know the kind. Maybe he’s a good enough kid, probably is, but he can’t think about anything but that gun he wears. Old John held him down, just like he held Cleve, but now Will’s loose to tote that gun anywhere he wants to. He’s out to build himself a reputation. You can just see him itching for trouble every time he comes to town. Nobody’s given it to him yet, but someday he’s going to meet up with the wrong man and that’s going to be the end of Will Marsh.”
“The damned little fool,” Rae said, feeling oddly saddened.
“I think Cleve encourages him in it,” Crystal said. “After all, if anything happened to Will— why, then, Cleve would own all of Circle M.”
“But he hasn’t killed his man yet,” Rae said.
“No.”
“Somebody ought to knock some sense into his head.”
“Who’s going to try to, when he’s itching to use that gun?” She shrugged. “He’s misguided, full up on stories of people like Billy Bonney and John Hardin and the like. In time, he’d grow out of it. But he’ll get himself killed before that happens.”
“I can’t let that happen,” Rae heard himself say. “He’s my half brother.”
Crystal’s voice was harsh. “You’ll be lucky if you’re not the one he picks to go up against. Cleve Anders may be a skunk, but he’s no fool. You go to war against Circle M and Cleve will work on Will. He’ll talk Will into going up against you if he possibly can. Either way it comes out, Cleve’ll be the winner.”
There was a knock on the door. Then the girl, Hallie, entered, bearing a tray with coffee and cups. “The food will be along in a little while,” she said, her voice soft, shy. She tried hard not to look at Rae as she set down the tray.
“Thanks, Hallie,” Crystal said.
“You’re welcome.” The girl crossed the room and disappeared through the other door.
Crystal’s sharp voice brought Rae around. He realized suddenly that he had been staring at the door Hallie closed behind her.
“All right,” Crystal said. “If you want my help, you get that look off your face.”
Rae felt blood burning under the skin on his cheeks. “I didn’t have any look on my face.”
“She’s not going to get mixed up with anybody like you,” Crystal went on coldly. “No more than I would let her get mixed up with Cleve Anders. Get that through your head now.”
“I told you—” Rae burst out. Then he bit it off. “Let’s have some coffee,” he said.
“All right,” she said. “You have your coffee and your grub, when it comes. I’ll have a bath fixed for you—God knows you could use one. Then you get some sleep.” She indicated the sofa. “After that, if you mean what you say, you’d better be riding for Tom Ford’s place.”
“I mean what I say,” Rae told her.
“Meantime,” she said, “stay off the streets of Bent’s Crossing. I don’t want you to get what Cleve Anders gave Ward.”
“Thanks,” Rae said dryly.
“Not until you’ve served your purpose, anyhow,” Crystal said, with a tight smile, and then she poured the coffee.