Novel 1969 - The Empty Land (v5.0) Read online

  Within the hour Buckwalter had emptied his first barrel and sold it for thirty dollars to a gambler with a three-card monte game. Another man bought a lot, set up a tent, hung out his sign, and began selling miner’s supplies.

  “That’s Jim Gage,” Cohan said. “He never misses a boom town, he does a land-office business, then moves on. He’s a good judge of booms, and when he sells out you know you’re through. He will be a law-and-order man, too.”

  “How duss he know?” Zeller asked.

  “Instinct, I guess. Anyway, when the roof falls in, he’s always gone.”

  By nightfall three hundred men were camping or building along the slope. Of the twenty lots Zeller had staked out, twelve had been sold and two of them resold for bigger money.

  It was just short of dark when four horsemen turned into the street and rode up to where Zeller and Felton sat. The man riding the lead horse was a huge bearded, burly man with small hard eyes.

  Cohan stepped out, his Winchester in his hand, the muzzle holding on the big man’s belt buckle. “You lookin’ for somebody, Thompson?”

  The big man stared hard, but the Irishman’s eyes were steady. Thompson shifted his attention to Felton, who was also holding a rifle. Zeller, a little to one side, had removed a blanket from his shotgun.

  “Just a place to camp.” Thompson smiled affably. “I figured this was away from the noise and bustle.”

  “It’s staked and filed land, Thompson.”

  “All we want is a place to camp.”

  “There was a Swede in Placerville who let you camp on his claim, an’ when morning came he was gone. You said he’d sold you the claim and pulled out. I was there, Thompson. I helped dig up the body.”

  “Tell that story, and I’ll kill you.”

  “I’ve told it. Now you start ridin’—right now!”

  He eared back the hammer and Thompson stared at him, then spat. He turned slowly, taking his time, and went away down the slope, followed by the three other riders.

  “He vill kill you if he can,” Zeller said.

  “We must have a town marshal,” Felton said. “We can’t have that sort of thing.”

  “You’ll get no marshal. Not when they hear that Big Thompson and Peggoty Gorman are in town. They eat marshals for breakfast,” Cohan said.

  “They should be ordered out of town.”

  “Don’t try it, Dick. I know you’re game, but you’re not that good and you’re not that fast.”

  “And Coburn is?”

  “If any man is.”

  “He’d be another Thompson, then.”

  “Not Matt Coburn,” Buckwalter said. “I’d stake my life on him. In fact,” he said wryly, “I already have. Several times.”

  *

  DICK FELTON WATCHED the slope spring into life as lamps and lanterns were lighted, with here and there a campfire. One huge tent had just gone up, one of the tents such as housed the gambling hells that were to be found at the end of track when the Union Pacific was building. Men were still driving stakes, and already there was the sound of a music box from the tent, and the clink of glasses.

  “Well,” Cohan said, “you’ve got your town.”

  “We’ll need a council. What do you say to Buckwalter?”

  “All right. And Gage, if he will come in.”

  “I want you too, Dan.”

  “Take Zeller. He’s a more cautious man.”

  “No.” Zeller’s refusal was definite. “I know not dees mans. Undt I must vork.”

  “Who else?”

  “Fife, if you can get him. He may prefer to stay out, but even if he does you may get a name or two from him.”

  “The town should have a name.”

  Cohan chuckled. “By the look of it now, I can think of only one name—Confusion. Anyway, that’s what they call these mountains.”

  “Confusion it is. But you’ll see. It will be a different town in a few days.”

  Cohan glanced at Felton, but said nothing. There was no use trying to explain to a man from the East, even one as knowing and generally capable as Dick Felton. Even after you had seen a boom town you could not believe it. You had to live through a few of them, as he had.

  Dawn broke to the sound of picks on the slope, and of hammers and saws in the town. Several wagons had brought dismantled buildings, which were now being raised into position, nailed together, and opened for business. The saloons, gambling houses, supply stores, and assayers were among the first.

  With the money from the sale of lots, Felton hired three men to work with Zeller on their claims. Cohan and Felton took turns standing guard.

  When Felton finished his shift as guard he went down the slope to talk to Sturdevant Fife. Pausing in the doorway to watch the street, he heard a sudden burst of gunfire.

  A man, reeling and bloody, fell backwards from the door of the big gambling tent. He toppled into the dust, gun in hand, and struggled to rise. From the tent stepped a man in his shirt sleeves, a slender, handsome man with a cold, cruel face. Before the wounded man could rise, the gambler took careful aim and shot him through the head.

  Felton started forward, but a hand from the tent caught his arm. It was Fife. “I know what you’re thinkin’, boy, but don’t say it. He’ll kill you.”

  “That was murder!”

  “Keep your voice down, son. The dead man was armed, so they would never call it murder. You’ve got to remember when you pack a gun, you’re fair game. That’s Nathan Bly.”

  “Nathan Bly? Here?”

  “Why not? He smells gold, boy. He’s a gambler, and a good one. That dead feller probably thought he caught him cheatin’. Well, he never caught him. I ain’t sayin’ Bly wouldn’t deal a few off the bottom if it suited him, but he’s too good to get caught at it.”

  Felton followed Fife into the tent. He glanced at the type set up on the table:

  …MEN KILLED ON THE FIRST DAY

  “I’m leavin’ the number open. The day ain’t over yet.”

  “Fife, I want a city council of responsible men,” Felton said. “Will you join us?”

  “It ain’t fitten, son. I want to stand clear to call names and tell you when you’re wrong. But if you’re right, I will say that too.”

  He studied the type through his steel-rimmed glasses, then looked at Felton over them. “There’s a mighty lot about grammar that I don’t know, and a lot of book learnin’ I’ll never have, but I know what I figure to be honest, and I’ll say it.

  “I found this here press in a cabin with the owner dyin’ of a gunshot. He give it to me for buryin’ him decent, with the promise that I tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothin’ but the truth. That’s what I’ve done.”

  “I like that,” Felton replied. “And any time you think I am wrong, you say it.”

  For a few minutes there was silence. Somebody in the street was dragging the body of the dead man out of the way.

  “We must have law here,” Felton said. “Can you recommend anybody?”

  “Can’t help you, boy. I might want to call him names, or tell him he’s done a wrong thing.”

  “I’ve heard about a man named Coburn.”

  “No.”

  Felton was surprised. “No?”

  “Matt Coburn is a fine man, and maybe the best hand with a gun I ever did see, and I’ve seen a-plenty. He has nerve, but most of all he has judgment.”

  “Why not, then?”

  “Matt’s been like a son to me, and I don’t like what this can do to him. You can’t run a town like this without killin’, an’ I don’t wish for Matt Coburn to kill anybody else.”

  On the fourth day Felton took a team and a borrowed plow and ripped up the street. Then with a drag borrowed from the same source, he graded the street as best he could, considering the rocks and the steepness of the hill.

  “You’ll get no thanks for that,” Cohan said to him. “All they want is to get rich and get out.”

  Sturdevant Fife wrote an editorial about the grading, and d
emanded that all citizens try to keep the street free of bottles.

  By the night of the fifth day there had been seven shootings, two of them fatal, and one man killed by a knife. Wilson, who had sold half of his claim to Big Thompson, disappeared.

  “Got tired of it,” Thompson said solemnly. “He’s gone back to Washoe.”

  Every night there were fist fights, and shooting at all hours, and one tent set afire by a poor loser in a poker game.

  Outside of town there was a hold up, and the stage—the first one that came into Confusion—was also held up and robbed.

  And then Matt Coburn rode into town.

  Chapter 3

  *

  HE RODE UP the street in the freshness of morning before the sun was up, and he did not stop in the lower street, but rode on to the crest of the ridge, where he turned in his saddle to study the layout of the town and the country around.

  Dick Felton was taking samples from that part of the Discovery claim that lay beyond the ridge, which was actually a second claim, known as Discovery II. He heard the horse, and looked around to see the rider outlined against the morning sky.

  He was a tall young man, as tall as Felton himself, but heavier in the chest and shoulders. He wore a battered black hat, and a black coat over a faded red shirt. Felton could see the holster on his hip and what looked like the bulk of another six-shooter tucked behind his waistband.

  “Any luck?” the rider asked.

  “This is the Discovery claim, or part of it,” Felton replied shortly. “It’s a good one.”

  “You’re Felton, then?”

  “Yes.” For some reason Felton was irritated. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m just passing by.” He indicated the town. “I like to look at new towns, to wonder how long they will last.”

  “This one will.”

  “Maybe. Silver and gold are unreliable—they come and they go. It takes more than a mine to make a town.”

  “What it takes,” Felton replied, “we’ve got.”

  The stranger laughed, and Felton started to speak angrily, then swallowed his irritation and picked up his samples and pick.

  The rider had started to move off, but he drew up and indicated the mountain with the glacier. “I like that. I think that’s where I’ll go.”

  Felton looked toward the mountain. He had often looked upon it during the past few days. “That’s where the trapper was going who first found gold here,” he commented. “He wasn’t even sure it was gold.”

  “What he found over there would be better. Is there anyone there?”

  “I doubt it. I heard there was some woman had a cattle outfit at the foot of the hills, but that’s unlikely. This is Ute country.”

  “You never can tell about a woman. Some of them have more built-in nerve than a body would expect.”

  Without a backward glance, he rode away, and Felton went back to camp. Cohan was frying meat. He indicated the rider with a bob of his head. “What did he have to say?”

  “He’s riding on.”

  “Well, you met him, anyway.”

  “Met who? He didn’t offer his name.”

  “That was Matt Coburn.”

  Felton sat down abruptly. Matt Coburn!

  “I’m sorry to see him go,” Cohan said. “He’s a good man, and before this is over we’ll need him the worst way.”

  “We don’t want him. Not his kind.”

  Cohan merely shrugged and went to the pot for coffee. Felton still felt irritated. Suppose this was his first boom town? There was violence, but he had expected that. He had worked in timber-cutting crews as a boy, and he knew about a rough crowd. He said as much.

  “The trouble is,” Cohan replied, “those boys you knew didn’t pack six-shooters. You’ll find some of that lot here too, but they’re pretty small potatoes.”

  *

  MATT COBURN HELD to no trail, preferring to make his own way into the Snake Valley. He was not in any hurry, and he had no destination, which was just the trouble. There never had been a destination, and a man just had to be heading for something, somewhere, if he figured to amount to anything.

  Yet it was not strictly true. Back there before the war, when he was a youngster he had dreams of becoming a lawyer. He had saved his money and bought a copy of Blackstone…what ever became of it, anyway?

  When the war was over he had to make a living. He worked for a freight outfit on the Santa Fe Trail, then as a shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo.

  For five months he had no trouble, while others were robbed, or robberies were attempted. Then one night, not far from Sand Mountain, they surprised him.

  He dropped to the ground and opened fire, and when the fireworks were over he was packing two slugs, but one bandit was dead, another seriously wounded, and the third he tracked down and brought in on the very stage he had tried to hold up.

  One week later he had walked out on the street for the first time and three of the outlaws’ friends were waiting for him. They had him boxed, and expected him to drop his gunbelt on command. Instead, he drew. It caught them flatfooted, and in a matter of seconds he had chalked up his second and third killings. The third man escaped, carrying a bullet as a memento of the occasion.

  Coburn drew his time and drifted to Colorado, where he hired out as a cowhand. Four months later he went to Texas to drive a herd to Dodge. After one scramble with rustlers and two Kiowas, he brought the cattle in, and went after a second herd, which he bought with his own money. The Kiowas were waiting for him and he lost his head and his shirt.

  For four months he was a deputy marshal in a cow town and never drew a gun on a man. He had a reputation for being fair and the trail hands knew he’d come up from Texas himself, so when he talked, they listened. But he was restless, and he moved on.

  He was still moving on, partly because he liked the look of the mountains ahead of him and partly because he knew what was happening in the town behind him. He knew every move that had been made, and those that would be made. Even some of the names were the same.

  He saw the rider before she saw him. She was a quarter of a mile down the slope, and a hundred yards ahead of him. She was riding a blazed-face sorrel, and she carried a rifle as if she intended to use it.

  Coburn, from higher up, could see the two men she was following. One was Kid Curtis, a small-time gunman and cow thief; the older man was Skin Weber. He had been around Pioche, Virginia City, and Eureka, always running with the rough bunch. Neither man had ever raised a cow in his life.

  Replacing his field glasses in his saddlebag, Coburn angled across the slope, keeping to the cover of the scattered juniper when possible. He had a notion that girl would need help when she caught up with her cattle.

  His approach brought him to the cut through the hills before the cattle could make it. He wasted no time examining his motives. The necessity for action was here and he accepted the responsibility. Had the pursuer been a man he would have left him to his own devices, but no woman was fitted to cope with Weber and Curtis.

  The cattle were a good-looking lot, longhorns crossed with some other breed that gave them more beef. The two riders hazed them into the cut. “Somebody comin’,” Weber said.

  Matt knew it was his own horse that Weber’s horse had sensed, but neither man suspected Matt’s presence.

  Skin walked back to the opening and looked down the trail. “You’re right—somebody comin’. Looks like that Shannon girl.”

  “You can’t shoot a woman,” Curtis replied.

  “Kid, sometimes you’re a damn fool. Who’d shoot a good-lookin’ woman at a time like this?”

  Curtis glanced at him uneasily. “Skin…you watch it. Nobody in his right mind fools around with a woman in this country.”

  Skin’s reply was a dry chuckle. “She’s a long way from home, and she’s got no husband to worry over what becomes of her.”

  “She’s got a couple of cowhands. They could become almighty curious. We left a trail a blind man coul
d foller.”

  “Uh-huh, an’ from here on we leave no trail a-tall.”

  A sudden silence caused Matt to peer around the slab of rock behind which he was hidden. The girl had ridden into the cut, and it was obvious she had not expected anyone to be waiting there. Her rifle started to lift, but she was already under their guns.

  “I have been following my cattle,” she said. She was very cool. “They seem to have drifted off my range.”

  Skin was amused. “Ma’am, they didn’t drift. We pushed ’em. The boys up yonder at the mines need beef.”

  Kid Curtis was worried. Matt could see it in the way he kept licking his lips and looking from the girl to Weber.

  “They are my cattle, gentlemen, and I shall drive them back to my ranch.” She was not only cool, she was hard. She did not seem the least bit frightened. But Matt was alert to her danger.

  “Well, if you ain’t a gonna be reasonable—” Skin put his rifle down. “Kid, if she makes one wrong move, you shoot her, d’you hear? Don’t mess her up, just shoot her in the shoulder or the knee like. We kind of want her the way she is.”

  Matt Coburn stepped from behind the rock. His rifle was in the saddle scabbard, and he had not drawn a pistol. But he had to stop it before the girl tried to shoot, which he knew she would do.

  Skin started toward her, and at that instant she saw Matt Coburn. Her sudden start of surprise made Curtis turn his head. “Skin,” he warned, “we got trouble.”

  “Aw, most of ’em fight a little bit until they find out who’s boss. I’ll just—”

  “Skin!” The sharpness of Curtis’ tone stopped Weber. “We got compn’y.”

  Skin Weber did not like interruptions. He had his own plans, and he was angry. Then his eyes followed the Kid’s.

  He looked at Matt Coburn and did not like what he saw. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Skin…be careful.”

  The warning in Curtis’ tone was obvious, and it rang an alarm in Weber’s brain that burned through his anger. “Whoever you are, get out! Get out whilst you’re able.”

  Matt Coburn let a slow moment go by. “I was going to make you that offer, Skin, but after your attitude toward the young lady here, I don’t much care whether you go or stay. The buzzards will have you boys sooner or later, and it might as well be here.”