Sid Wray stood behind the plank bar of the lonely way station. He wore a frayed apron and the board he wiped with a cloth was faded. Lamplight failed to reach into the cobwebbed corners of the room. Dust was a sluggishly stirring mat on the hard clay floor. The black stove’s isinglass window glowed like a ruby against the chill of the high-country night—it was only September but Sid Wray was wearing his long underwear, the red sleeves poking out past his rolled-up cuffs.
Two grimy cavalry troopers drank warm beer at the end of the bar and a third soldier idled along the back shelves of the station, inspecting the stock of canned goods. Several camp-dogs lifted their voices in yaps and howls outside and a tied horse whickered.
One of the troopers said irritably, “Why are those damned dogs raising such a fuss?”
“Somebody coming, I guess,” Sid said.
He waddled without hurry to the front door and cupped both hands around his eyes to block out the lamplight.
Hoofbeats clattered to a halt. Sid moved his bulk back from the doorway.
He spoke for the troopers’ benefit.
“Three of them. Strangers to me.”
They came in. The leader was a sawed-off little man who strutted into the place like a gamecock. His eyes were oddly triangular as a rattlesnake’s. His hair was Indian black.
He swept back his coat to give himself access to a matched pair of ivory-handled revolvers at his hips, cross-belted in Mexican cartridge loops.
His quick, shrewd glance snapped from face to face.
“I’m Jules Meecham,” he said, implying that he needed no more introduction than that. “Where are we?”
Sid Wray gave Jules Meecham and his two companions an insolent scrutiny. Sid was a man whose wisdom had been puckered by the iniquities of life the way lemon puckers the lips.
Meecham’s two riders were easy to mark down as border toughs. Nobody had issued orders but it was clear they took theirs from Meecham. One of them was a tawny-bearded Anglo, the other a Mexican with a slick mustache and a knife hilt in his boot. But both were cut from the same bolt.
Sid Wray went to stand behind his bar.
He told them, “You’re at Verde Crossing Station.”
Jules Meecham asked, “How far to the Rio Chama?”
“Half a day southwest.”
Meecham gave no sign of displeasure or satisfaction. He had a hard, high-pitched nasal voice.
“What do you go by?”
“Sid Wray. I run this place.”
Sid lifted two open bottles and set them out—whiskey and tequila. He saw the Mexican’s lip curl. The three toughs walked forward, spurs dragging the floor. The Mexican contemptuously pushed the tequila aside and reached for the whiskey. His partner gazed at the bottle as if he wanted to marry it.
Jules Meecham said, “Obliged if you could put us up.”
Sid asked flatly, “You boys on the run?”
The question made Meecham’s narrow eyes go cold.
The yellow-bearded one asked, “What’s it to you?”
A hard challenge was in his voice.
Jules Meecham said, “Never mind, Pete.” He spoke to Sid Wray, whom his eyes had never left: “No, we ain’t on the run.”
At the far end of the bar one of the troopers raised his face.
“They’re clean, Sid. Meecham and Voss, anyway. I don’t know the Mex.”
“Hired guns,” the second trooper said with open contempt. “Bounty hunters.”
Sid Wray put dusty tumblers on the bar.
“Looking for anybody in particular?”
“Mind your manners,” Meecham said.
Pete Voss, the one with the beard, filled his glass and drank it down without waiting for the others. Meecham cuffed back his hat and his hands and body went stiff.
He seemed to have heard something. The dogs were still making a racket but Sid guessed they had not alerted Meecham. He seemed to have unusually keen senses.
Without making an act of it he turned so that his right hand rested on a gun and his eyes covered the door. On some unspoken signal from him the Mexican picked up his glass and drifted across the room to the farther shadows. Pete Voss slid back, pace by pace, along the bar.
The front door was rigged for an effective crossfire.
Sid Wray said, “I want no trouble in here.”
“No trouble,” Jules Meecham murmured in answer.
His quick eyes, a thief’s eyes, were missing nothing.
A tall shape filled the doorway—a big horseman in stovepipe chaps and a heavy coat with a wolf skin collar. The worn-down handle of a revolver was revealed by a split in the skirt of the coat. The big man was rumpled and alert, bulky and rock hard.
Jules Meecham’s face assumed a careful, noncommittal look. He inclined his head.
“Nat.”
“Evening, Jules.”
There was no friendliness in the stranger’s greeting. He glanced at Pete Voss and at the Mexican across the room. His eyes gave the station’s interior an unhurried study before he pulled the door shut behind him and walked to the bar.
Meecham said, “How’ve you been, Nat?”
There was no answer.
Meecham said softly, “I heard you was in the calabozo.”
The stranger’s eyes flashed up to catch Meecham’s expression.
“Did you?”
Meecham nodded almost imperceptibly to the Mexican and turned around to put his belly against the bar. The stranger loomed more than a head taller than the little gunman.
Pete Voss asked, “What do you call yourself, mister?”
Meecham said, “That’s Nat Stryker, Pete.”
The name clearly registered on Pete Voss. His tongue scraped across his lips.
He said, “All right, Jules. All right.”
A brief smile touched Nat Stryker’s lips. He turned, deliberately putting his back to Pete Voss, shrugged out of his coat and draped it across the bar. He wore a gray shirt and a calfskin vest but it was evident he was no cowhand. Ordinary riders did not carry their guns in open-topped, ^ tied-down leather.
He said across the bar, “You’d be Sid Wray.”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’m on the right trail.”
“You want a drink?”
“I want something to eat,” Stryker answered.
He was looking at the Mexican, who stood his post against the far wall and did not blink.
Wray said, “I got some bar sandwiches out back. Might be a little stale.”
When Stryker said nothing Wray went toward the back door.
The three cavalry troopers formed together and walked out gingerly, not talking. The dogs caterwauled. The soldiers’ horses drummed away.
Jules Meecham asked, “You headed for Espanola, too, Nat?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re about as free with information as a half-breed in a card game, ain’t you?”
Nat Stryker made no answer. He kept his half-shuttered glance against the silent Mexican in the shadows. The Mexican stirred. His eyes locked on Meecham’s but neither of them said anything.
In a moment Sid Wray came back into the room with a dented metal tray of sandwiches with curled edges.
“Best I can do this late at night,” Wray said. “The woman cooks for me goes home at seven. Got to feed her Injun.”
Sid Wray regarded the silent customers blankly, not giving away any of his feelings. His broad face was no more, no less sour than at other times. He put the tray beside Stryker’s elbow and backtracked along the bar, using the tequila bottle as an excuse. He picked it up, corked it and took it back to the far end of the bar.
Sid Wray had lived all his life on the edge of violence and half his years in lonely frontier outposts—he had learned to balance on the tight wire of close-mouthed disinvolvement. The combination of gunmen at his bar was explosive. Sid Wray wished they would move on. Whether any of them lived or died did not matter to him. But he did not want his place messed up.
Not a long time elapsed before the dogs started up again.
Jules Meecham murmured, “Busy night, ain’t it?”
The Mexican kept his post in the shadows. Pete Voss approached the door. Wray noted that it did not escape Jules Meecham’s notice that Stryker shifted his gun to easier reach and pinned his full attention on the door.
Wray glanced a second time at the set of Stryker’s sixgun.
He knows how to use that thing ...
It was with a great deal of surprise that Sid Wray saw young Vern Cotten show up in the door. Vern stood there tugging off his gloves a finger at a time, looking at Stryker and the three bounty hunters one at a time.
A dismal, icy rigidity lay on the young features.
“More hired guns for Buck Madrid’s payroll?”
Vern’s voice was too steady, too calm. It made Sid Wray shift his feet in readiness to duck.
Meecham spoke over his shoulder to Sid Wray.
“Who’s this?”
“Why don’t you ask me?” Vern’s lips seemed pasted to his teeth. “Take a good look. Because it’s me and my family you’ve been hired to fight.”
Meecham’s eyebrows lifted inquiringly.
“That so?” He began to chuckle. “Fight, did you say? Looks to me like all a fellow’d have to do would be to pucker up and blow.”
Vern said, “Maybe we’ll get lucky and kill a few of you pigs before you wipe us out.”
Meecham was still chuckling.
“Don’t get on anybody’s nerves, kid.” His face was lazily amused. “Who are you?”
“One of the Cottens.”
Meecham shrugged and glanced at Nat Stryker.
“You know him?”
“No,” Stryker said.
He had taken his measure of the kid and had put the edge of his attention once more on the shadows where the Mexican stood. Sid Wray began to scrub his hands nervously.
Young Vern Cotten tramped over to the bar and slapped down his gloves.
“Sid, I want to buy a carton of forty-four ammunition.”
Sid Wray asked, “How come you didn’t buy in Espanola?”
“My business,” Vern snapped. “Or don’t you need the trade?”
“Take it easy,” Sid Wray murmured.
The kid was spooky, that was plain enough. Nat Stryker reached out a big arm and picked up one of the dry sandwiches. He began to chew on it. His right thumb was hooked casually over the hammer of his revolver. He watched it all, a big sad-faced man with scars on his cheeks and knuckles. Sid Wray had the feeling that, whatever happened, Stryker would be on his feet at the end.
Wray had never seen or heard of him and Stryker had scarcely uttered two dozen words since his arrival. But Wray took stock of the way Stryker towered over the others and of his noncommittal readiness.
He seemed to be minding his own business. Meecham was egging Vern Cotton on and Vern himself was making most of the noise.
Vern asked, “How about it, Sid?”
“I’ll get your cartridges if you got money to pay for them.”
Young Vern dragged a deerskin pouch out of his pocket, loosened the drawstring and spilled coins on the bar. He poked through the pennies and isolated a gold coin.
“Satisfied?”
Sid Wray observed, “You’d do better spending your money on a good Studebaker wagon, you know. Not that it’s any of my lookout.”
“That’s right. It ain’t,” the kid said.
His too-bright eyes whipped around, carrying a challenge to Jules Meecham.
The bounty hunter said in a hard tone, “You got a reason to look at me that way, you just spit it out, sonny.”
The kid was wearing a revolver belted awkwardly at his waist, too high and too far back to be handy. He was towheaded, all arms and legs, with a wind-burned, bony face and work calluses on his hands. His eyes looked like holes burned in a blanket.
He said, “You can take a message to Buck Madrid from me. Tell him us Cottens don’t figure to budge an inch. Tell him if he wants one inch of Circle C grass he’s gonna have to bleed for it. Tell him—”
“Tell him yourself,” Meecham said harshly. “I ain’t your messenger boy.”
“You look like one to me,” the kid said with a sneer. His head snapped around. “Damn it, Sid, quit standing on your feet and roust out them bullets.” And back to Meecham: “And you can tell your boss we’ve got a brand new case of shells while you’re at it.”
Meecham’s glance edged away to touch the Mexican for an instant before he laid it hard on the kid. Sid Wray, backpedaling toward the back door, paused with his breath hung up in his throat
Meecham said, “Your big mouth’s full of feet. Up to the knees, sonny. What did you say your name was?”
“Cotten. Vern Cotten. You think you can remember it?”
“Long enough to carve it on your tombstone,” said Meecham. “Nobody talks to me the way you talk, sonny. Now you just apologize and back out of here before I take a strip off your skinny hide.”
“I don’t take orders from your kind,” Vern Cotten said.
“So?” Meecham’s tight grin grew dangerous. He glanced at Nat Stryker. “You hear that, Nat? Listen, I want you to meet the late Vern Cotten.”
Sid Wray caught it from a vantage point beside the back door. Too fascinated to duck for cover, he saw Meecham’s left hand drop to the bar with an explosive slap, saw the wicked flash of nickel-plate back in the shadows where the Mexican stood and heard the roar of a gun—Nat Stryker’s gun, he suddenly realized with amazement He had not even seen the movement of Stryker’s big arm.
Fast, Wray said to himself.
Meecham’s mouth was open and the Mex stood in the shadows, his unfired gun pointing impotently toward young Vern. The Mex caromed from the wall, fell outward into light. Blood welled out of his eye sockets. He was dead before he fell.
“Sweet, sweet Mary,” Sid Wray said in awe.
Dazed, young Vern stared at Stryker. Stryker’s gun held vaguely on Meecham. Pete Voss, farther back down the bar, slowly placed both hands palms down on the bar. Meecham took his hand from the grip of his revolver, left the weapon in its holster and touched thumb and forefinger to the corners of his mouth, pinching away imaginary moisture.
He said mildly, “You should’ve told me you was going to buy a ticket, Nat.”
Stryker said, “Next time you brace a man—maybe you ought to let him see the gun that’s shooting at him.”
“Wouldn’t have made any difference. The kid would be just as dead.”
Young Vern was swallowing in spasms. Meecham looked over his shoulder at Pete Voss.
“Pete, you picked up the Mex. He have a price on him?”
“Don’t know,” said Pete Voss.
“Well, tie him down on his horse. We’ll find out when we get to Espanola. Maybe there’s a few dollars we can collect.” His head came back to the front. “Split it with you, Nat, whatever it amounts to.”
“Never mind,” Stryker said.
“Hell, ain’t no profit in you killing him otherwise.”
Wray backed out of the saloon and went back to the storeroom to get a case of ammunition. When he came back Voss was gone and so was the body of the Mex.
Wray heaved the case up onto the bar and said, “Count your blessings, kid. You were dead when this fellow drew his gun.”
Vern’s hands trembled. He reached for the carton.
He said to Stryker, “I’d kind of like to know why.”
“I’ve been shot in the back myself,” said Stryker.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Stryker.”
“Nat Stryker?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t get it.” The kid was puzzled and scared and shaken up all at once. Obviously he had heard of Stryker. Obviously the name impressed him. But there was more than that. He said, “I just don’t get it.”
“Why?”
“Ain’t you hired on to kill us Cottens?”
“I haven’t hired on to kill anybody,” said Stryker. “If you’re smart you’ll pick up your goods and move on.”
“Yeah,” said the kid. “Yeah, sure. Look, I don’t know how I’m supposed to thank you but I—”
“Forget it,” said Stryker.
Voss came in, rubbing his hands up and down his trouser thighs. Meecham put down his drink.
“All set?”
“All set,” said Voss. “What about him?”
He looked pointedly at Stryker.
Meecham displayed his dry amusement. He leaned back, both elbows on the bar.
“Well, Pete, you got anything in mind?”
“He killed one of us, didn’t he? You going to take that?”
“The Mex ain’t no skin off my nose,” said Meecham. “You brought him along, not me. You want to argue with the man?”
Pete Voss glanced angrily at Stryker, who was not even looking at him.
Voss said finally, “I guess not.”
“Then let’s go,” said Meecham. He walked toward the door and stopped there to look back. “Nat.”
“What?”
“Don’t make no mistakes about me. If somebody made it worth my while I’d come after you. Don’t think you got me spooked.”
“All right,” Stryker said without much display of interest.
Meecham leveled his index finger at young Vern Cotten.
“And you, sonny, maybe you ought to remember what the barkeep said. Be smart. Buy yourself a good Wagon and tote yourself out of this country. Because next time you see me you ain’t likely to be as lucky.”
The kid was still too shaky to make any reply. Meecham swung out of the place. Voss followed him and in a moment their horses struck back crisp echoes across the plain.
Vern Cotten hooked his elbow on the bar and sagged against it, shaking his head.
“I think I want a drink, Sid.”
“Reckon I’ll have one with you.” Sid Wray poured a pair of shots and pushed one across the bar. “On the house,” he muttered. He threw back his head and downed the whiskey at a single gulp. He held his eyes shut tightly while the whiskey cut a burning path down through him. When he opened his eyes he said in a hoarse voice, “Stryker, I seen some cool gents in my time—you got it over them all. But tell me this. You knew that Mex from someplace, didn’t you?”
“I knew him,” said Stryker.
He was eating a sandwich. The muscles rippled at the corners of his big jaw.
“Then maybe you was just looking for an excuse to shoot him?”
“Maybe,” said Stryker. “Maybe not. That was Juan Chacon, you know.”
Sid Wray poured himself another drink and tossed it back.
“No,” he said softly, “I didn’t know. You reckon Meecham and Voss knew who he was?”
“I doubt it,” said Stryker. He reached for another sandwich.
Vern Cotten was slumped over his drink, staring down into the amber swirl of it. He lifted his face.
“Who was he?”
Wray said, “Chacon? They say he’s the one killed his two partners in that jailbreak down to Lincoln County. Shot them both in the back so they couldn’t tell the law which way he headed.” He turned to Nat Stryker. “How come you knew him?”
Stryker glanced at him and said nothing. His mouth was full. He put the last corner of the sandwich into it, dusted crumbs off his hands and drew his gun to reload the spent cylinder.
Vern Cotten watched with awed fascination.
When Stryker put the gun away Vern said, “Look, maybe you need work, huh?”
“What kind?”
Vern pointed nervously at the gun.
Stryker said, “I come high.”
“How high?”
“I doubt you could afford it.” Stryker pulled his coat off the bar and shouldered into it. “But where can I find you?”
“Circle C ranch. My pa owns the place. Anybody’ll tell you how to find it. It’s on the road from here to Espanola.”
Stryker nodded absently. He tossed coins on the bar, buckled up his coat and went out. The dogs started to bark and after a while Vern Cotten let a long breath out of his chest. He finished his drink and shook his head violently, as if to clear it.
“My God, Sid.”