Finch’s headquarters lay near the bottom of a long slope, with a big shallow natural lake just below it, lying lazy in the late-winter sun. Spotted cattle of every color watered at its edge, which already was beginning to shrink away from the rank growth of weeds and grass that had sprung up after last summer’s rains and now lay dead and brown from the winter frost.
Doug Monahan skirted the lake, Stub Bailey riding beside him. He had sent the rest of the men directly to town to wait for him. In a quick splash of water, cattle scattered as the two horsemen approached. After running a short way, they would turn and look back, ready to run again if it appeared the riders were coming after them.
“Natural location for a ranch headquarters,” Stub observed. “Old man named Jenks settled it first. They say Finch cheated him out of it someway or other.”
Sitting high on the slope was a big rock house that would be Gordon Finch’s. Riding in, Monahan saw corrals that had loose or broken planks and needed repair. A gate sagged and was half patched with wire. An old broken-down wagon stood right where the axle had snapped. No one had bothered to fix it or move it out of the way. Weeds had grown up through the rotting wagonbed.
Monahan rode up to the house, dismounted and strode up the steps. This had been built out of rock hauled in from a breaky stretch of hills a mile or so off yonder up the creek, and Doug was reasonably sure it had been built by Finch’s predecessor. It was too good for Finch.
He walked across the lumber-built gallery and knocked on the door. A dog trotted around the corner and began barking at him, but there was no answer from within. Monahan knocked again, trying to see through the unclean oval glass. There was a good chance Finch was inside, avoiding him, but pushing in might give Finch an excuse to put the sheriff on him. Monahan turned and walked back down to the horses. The dog followed him partway, still barking.
Down across the yard was a long frame building with smoke curling out of a tin chimney.
“We’ll try the cookshack,” Monahan told Bailey. “One thing we know for sure, he likes to eat.”
A man stood in the cookshack door, blocking Monahan’s way. Monahan sensed that he had come to the right place.
“Mr. Finch ain’t here,” growled the ranchhand. He was one of those who had been supposed to help guard the fencing camp.
Monahan eyed him closely. “You sure?”
“I said he ain’t.”
“I heard you,” Monahan replied, and made a move toward the door.
The cowboy reached behind him and brought up a shotgun. “Stay where you’re at, Monahan.”
Monahan heard footsteps behind him. He turned quickly, not wanting to be caught between two of Finch’s men. He saw the cowboy named Dundee, who had been with Finch at the fencing camp.
“Don’t pay him no mind, Monahan,” Dundee said, humor flickering in his brown eyes. “He won’t use that shotgun. And Finch is in there, all right, a-hiding from you. Been lookin’ back over his shoulder ever since we rode away from your camp.”
Monahan stared curiously at Dundee, then back to the cowboy at the door. “Well,” he asked flatly, “what about it?”
The cowboy slowly lowered the shotgun and stood back. Monahan stepped through the door and blinked in the dim light. There behind the bare dinner table sat Finch, a cup of coffee and a whisky bottle in front of him. He scowled, but in his eyes Monahan could see the sick touch of fear.
“What you want, Monahan?”
“I want my pay.”
“You didn’t finish that fence. I don’t owe you nothing.”
Monahan stiffened. “Paco Sanchez was worth more to me than all the land and cattle you’ll ever own, and you got him killed. But I’ll settle for payment for two miles of fence, completed. Twenty-one spools of barbed wire, burned. All the posts I can’t salvage. And two wagons. I got that figured down to twenty-four hundred dollars, even money. I’ll take a check, right now.”
Finch shoved his chair back. “I ain’t paying you nothing, Monahan. You took that job, and you didn’t finish it.”
“Finch, you used me to try to run a bluff you didn’t have the guts for yourself. You ran off like a scalded dog and left me and my men to take the whipping for you. You’re going to pay me for that.”
Finch turned to the man at the door. “Put him out of here, Haskell. If he won’t go, use that shotgun.”
The man raised the gun but hesitated to move further. Dundee stepped through the door and placed a firm hand on Haskell’s arm. “If he wants Monahan run off, let him do it hisself.”
Finch reddened. “Dundee, you’re fired.”
Dundee shrugged. “I was fixin’ to leave anyhow. This outfit’s washed up.”
Bailey appeared in the doorway, prepared to help Monahan if Dundee threw in with Finch. But that wasn’t going to happen. Monahan looked at the cowboy, thanking him with his eyes. Then he turned back to Finch. “If you haven’t got a blank check, I have.”
He pulled one out of his shirt pocket and dropped it on the table. “I got it filled out. All you got to do is sign it.”
Finch blustered. “You can’t get away with this. It’s robbery.”
Monahan shook his head. “It’s payment for a job. Legal. And I got a witness.” He glanced at Dundee, and was caught off guard when Finch lunged, fist catching Monahan on the nose and flinging him backward against a cabinet. Tin plates and cups clattered to the floor. A bottle rolled down and smashed.
Then anger gushed through Monahan. He surged back at Finch. His fist caught Finch’s jaw a hard blow that jerked the man’s head back. Finch staggered a step or two. Fear flickered in his eyes as he stared wildly at Monahan. He had triggered this fight out of desperation, and now suddenly he was afraid, not knowing how to stop it.
Hatred burned in Monahan, but he checked himself. Finch would not fight back now. Do what he might, Monahan later would be ashamed of himself. He gripped Finch’s collar and jerked him up close. He heaved him backward into a chair.
“Sign that check, Finch.”
Finch signed it while Monahan tried to stop his nosebleed.
Dundee moved a step inside the door. “Just as well write me one too. I got a month’s pay comin’.”
Never looking up, Finch dug a blank check from his wallet and wrote it out. He turned away then, staring out the greasy cookshack window, sagging in defeat.
Bailey still stood at the door, hand on his gun, ready in case the trouble got bigger than Monahan was.
“Let’s go to town, Stub.”
Dundee followed them out. “Be all right with you if I tag along? Looks like my business around here is all wound up.”
Monahan shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“I got a warbag and a roll over at the bunkhouse and a horse in the corral,” Dundee said. “I got no good-byes to say.”
Directly he rode back, thin bedroll secured behind the saddle, a warbag of clothing and personal belongings hanging from the saddlehorn atop his rope. He rode a long-legged bay horse that had a strong showing of Thoroughbred. Monahan looked questioningly at the bay.
“Don’t worry, he’s mine,” Dundee said. “Owned him when I came here, and I’ve had to pay Finch for all the feed he’s et.”
They edged around the lake, scattering cattle again. Monahan showed some uncertainty about the trail to town, and Dundee pointed it out.
“What’ll you do now, Dundee?” Monahan asked after a while.
Dundee shrugged and rolled himself a cigarette. “Never gone hungry yet. What about you?”
“Buy me a new outfit and start over again, more than likely.”
Dundee’s eyebrows went up. “You mean build more fence?”
“It’s a living.”
“You’re on Rinehart’s list now. You build another fence around here and the captain’s liable to wrap that bobwire around your neck.”
Monahan’s voice was grim. “He won’t find it easy to do.”
* * *
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON when they reached town. Stub Bailey was looking toward the saloon and licking his lips. But Monahan had his eyes on the bank.
“First thing I got to do is deposit this check before Finch sends in here to stop payment.”
Dundee said, “I reckon I can use my money, too.”
Bailey pulled his horse aside. “Go ahead, then. You-all know where I’ll be at,” and he turned in and dismounted at the nearest saloon.
The teller was a small, middle-aged man, bald and friendly looking. He glanced at Monahan’s check, and his forehead wrinkled in surprise.
“What’s the matter?” Monahan asked, suddenly worried.
The teller shook his head. “Nothing wrong, Mr. Monahan. Just endorse it, will you?”
While Doug scrawled his name across the check with a scratchy bank pen, another man stepped out of a back office. He was a huge old gentleman, weighing perhaps three hundred pounds. Grinning, the teller said, “Albert, come over here, will you? Mr. Monahan, I want you to meet Albert Brown, president of the bank. Albert, you’ve lost a bet.”
Pulling his glasses down from his forehead to his nose, the portly banker read Finch’s check and the endorsement. “Well, well,” he mused with humor, “I wouldn’t have believed it.”
The teller explained. “You see, Mr. Monahan, when you first came here, Albert bet me ten dollars Gordon Finch would weasel out of paying you for any fence you might build. After I heard what happened yesterday, I was ready to forfeit to him.”
The old banker was smiling. “It was worth losing the bet. I just wish we could collect what Finch owes us.” He glanced at Monahan’s right hand. Doug was suddenly conscious of the skinned knuckles. Brown chuckled. “Perhaps we could, if we were a little younger and had your method.”
The teller grinned. “You could always sit on him, Albert.”
“One of these days I’m going to sit on you,” Brown grunted.
Monahan took out enough cash to pay off his men. Then he waited on the boardwalk outside while Dundee cashed his check.
Twin Wells was pretty much an average for a West Texas cowtown, he thought. It had the essentials. From the bank’s front walk he could count two mercantile stores, five saloons, a church and a school. Scattered around haphazardly were one good hotel, one cheap one, a big livery barn at the head of the street, and a smaller one at the far end to keep the big one honest. There was a blacksmith shop and a little chili joint.
Dominating the town was the courthouse, an imposing two-story rock building squarely in the center of a large block of fenced-in ground that probably was as big as the rest of the business section put together. In the summertime, cowboys would ride into town and tie their horses along this stake fence in the shade of the big live oaks instead of in the sun at the hitchracks that stood in front of most of the business houses. Behind the courthouse stood a smaller structure, built of the same stone, looking very much like the courthouse except that its windows were barred.
When Dundee came out, Monahan told him, “I’m going over and talk to the sheriff.”
“I’ll string along with you, if it’s all the same. I’m curious what Luke McKelvie’s goin’ to say.”
“It’s up to you.”
They strode across the hoof-scarred street, pausing to let a cowboy ride past them and a loaded wagon roll by. The live oaks had held their leaves all winter, and now they were a muddy green, almost ready to fall and give way to the fresh leaves that spring would bring. A thick mulch of old leaves and acorns crunched beneath the men’s feet as they passed under the big trees and through the open gate toward the jail.
The sheriff sat at his desk, frowning over a fresh batch of reward dodgers. Luke McKelvie was fifty or so. He had a lawman look about him but somewhere back yonder he’d been a cowboy before he strayed off into the devious trails of politics, Doug Monahan judged. He still retained a little of the cowboy, but years in town, with easy work and not much heavy riding, had left him a shade soft around the middle, a little broad across the hips.
“I’m Doug Monahan.”
The sheriff looked up with tired gray eyes. He stood and extended his hand. “Evening. Figured you’d be in, sooner or later. Sit down. You too, Dundee.”
The two men dragged cane-bottomed chairs away from the bare wall.
“You’ve heard about yesterday?” Monahan asked.
McKelvie nodded. “The captain was in with Spann. They told me.”
“You could’ve come out and investigated.”
The sheriff’s eyes were steady. “I did. Rode all the way out there, and all I could find was a grave.”
Monahan felt a touch of guilt for the way he had spoken. He had taken it for granted that the sheriff had done nothing.
McKelvie said, “You should’ve waited for me. Not just buried the old man and rid off like that.”
“Didn’t seem to be much else we could do. We had no food left, or bedding or anything.”
The sheriff shrugged. “I don’t reckon it matters now anyway.”
“One thing matters to me. What’re you going to do?”
McKelvie frowned. “What should I do?”
“A man was killed out there. We all know who killed him. You do anything about murder around here?”
The sheriff pointed his finger at Monahan. “About murder, yes, but was it murder? Look at it the way I have to. In the first place, you were trespassing. You had no business out there.”
“I took the job in good faith. I didn’t know I was trespassing.”
“Whether you knew it or not, you were. Take it to court and they’d find the captain was only protecting his property. In the second place, your man had a pothook in his hand, and he could’ve brained Archer Spann with it. I’ll grant you Spann maybe didn’t have to kill him. But he did it, and I expect any jury would acquit him on the grounds of self-defense.
“We got to look at it for what it is, Monahan. Whatever he was to you, to folks around here he was just an old Mexican that nobody knew, in a place where he shouldn’t have been.”
“Is that the way you feel, McKelvie?”
McKelvie’s eyes sharpened as Monahan’s pent-up anger reached across to him. “No, it isn’t. I hate to see any man die. But I’ve got to be practical. There’s no use putting the county to the expense of arrest and trial of a man the jury’s bound to turn loose anyhow. There’s nothing you or me can do. You’d just best forget it.”
Monahan’s hands were tight on the edge of the chair. “Just like that! They kill the old man who brought me up and I’m supposed to forget it.”
McKelvie leaned forward, his eyes level and serious. “That and a little more. I’m advising you to gather up whatever loose ends you got around here and leave, Monahan. It’s my job to keep the peace, and I got an uneasy feeling it won’t be peaceful as long as you stay.”
“Is that an order, McKelvie?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Just good advice.”
Monahan stood up stiffly. “I’m not ready to go yet. Maybe, like you say, there’s nothing I can do about the men who killed Paco. But I’ll guarantee you this, I’m not leaving till I try.” He turned to go.
“Wait a minute, Monahan,” the sheriff said. Monahan looked back at him and saw a coldness in McKelvie’s face. “I don’t blame you for the way you feel. But I’m not going to let you stir up a lot of trouble. First time you step over the line, I’ll bring you in.”
“We’ll see,” Monahan replied thinly.