Collection 1986 - Dutchman's Flat (v5.0) Read online

  “You perhaps wonder,” he added, “why these men do not resent my reference to them as coyotes. There are three reasons, I expect. The first is that some subconscious sense of truth makes them appreciate the justice of the term. Second, they know I am gifted with considerable dexterity in expounding the gospel of Judge Colt. Third, they know that I am dying of tuberculosis and as a result have no fear of bullets.

  “It is not exactly fear that keeps them from drawing on me. Let us say it is a matter of mathematics, and a problem none of them has succeeded in solving with any degree of comfort in the result. It is: how many of them would die before I did?

  “You can appreciate, my friend, the quandary in which this places them, and also the disagreeable realization that bullets are no respecters of persons, nor am I. The several out there who might draw know that I know who they are. The result is that they know they would be first to die.”

  Childe looked at Tack thoughtfully. “I heard you ask about a riding job as I came in. You look like an honest man, and there is no place here for such.”

  Gentry hunted for the right words. Then he said, “This country looks like it was settled by honest men.”

  Anson Childe studied his glass. “Yes,” he said, “but at the right moment they lacked a leader. One was too opposed to violence, another was too law abiding, and the rest lacked resolution.”

  If there was a friend in the community, this man was it. Tack finished his drink and strode to the door. The bartender met his eyes as he glanced back.

  “Keep on driftin',” the bartender said.

  TACK GENTRY SMILED. “I like it here,” he said, “and I'm stayin'!”

  He swung into the saddle and turned his buckskin toward Sunbonnet Pass. He still had no idea exactly what had happened during the year of his absence, yet Childe's remark coupled with what the others had said told him a little. Apparently, some strong, resolute men had moved in and taken over, and there had been no concerted fight against them, no organization and no leadership.

  Childe had said that one was opposed to violence. That would have been his Uncle John. The one who was too law abiding would be Bill London. London had always been strong for law and order and settling things in a legal way. The others had been honest men, but small ranchers and individually unable to oppose whatever was done to them. Yet whatever had happened, the incoming elements had apparently moved with speed and finesse.

  Had it been one ranch, it would have been different. But the ranches and the town seemed completely subjugated.

  The buckskin took the trail at an easy canter, skirting the long red cliff of Horse Thief Mesa and wading the creek at Gunsight. Sunbonnet Pass opened before him like a gate in the mountains. To the left, in a grove of trees, was a small adobe house and a corral.

  Two horses were standing at the corral as he rode up. His eyes narrowed as he saw them. Button and Blackie! Two of his uncle's favorites and two horses he had raised from colts. He swung down and started toward them, when he saw the three people on the steps.

  He turned to face them, and his heart jumped. Betty London had not changed.

  Her eyes widened, and her face went dead white. “Tack!” she gasped. “Tack Gentry!”

  EVEN AS SHE spoke, Tack saw the sudden shock with which the two men turned to stare. “That's right, Betty,” he said quietly. “I just got home.”

  “But—but—we heard you were dead!”

  “I'm not.” His eyes shifted to the two men—a thick-shouldered, deep-chested man with a square, swarthy face and a lean rawboned man wearing a star. The one with the star would be Dick Olney. The other must be Van Hardin.

  Tack's eyes swung to Olney. “I heard my Uncle John Gentry was killed. Did yuh investigate his death?”

  Olney's eyes were careful. “Yeah,” he said. “He was killed in a fair fight. Gun in his hand.”

  “My uncle,” Tack replied, “was a Quaker. He never lifted a hand in violence in his life!”

  “He was a might slow, I reckon,” Olney said coolly, “but he had the gun in his hand when I found him.”

  “Who shot him?”

  “Hombre name of Soderman. But like I say, it was a fair fight.”

  “Like blazes!” Tack flashed. “Yuh'll never make me believe Uncle John wore a gun! That gun was planted on him!”

  “Yuh're jumpin' to conclusions,” Van Hardin said smoothly. “I saw the gun myself. There were a dozen witnesses.”

  “Who saw the fight?” Gentry demanded.

  “They saw the gun in his hand. In his right hand,” Hardin said.

  Tack laughed suddenly, harshly. “That does it! Uncle John's right hand has been useless ever since Shiloh, when it was shot to pieces tryin' to get to a wounded soldier. He couldn't hold a feather in those fingers, let alone a gun!”

  Hardin's face tightened, and Dick Olney's eyes shifted to Hardin's face.

  “You'd be better off,” Hardin said quietly, “to let sleepin' dogs lie. We ain't goin' to have yuh comin' in here stirrin' up a peaceful community.”

  “My Uncle John was murdered,” Gentry said quietly. “I mean to see his murderer punished. That ranch belongs to me. I intend to get it back!”

  Van Hardin smiled. “Evidently, yuh aren't aware of what happened here,” he said quietly. “Your Uncle John was in a noncombatant outfit durin' the war, was he not? Well, while he was gone, the ranch he had claimed was abandoned. Soderman and I started to run cattle on that range and the land that was claimed by Bill London. No claim to the range was asserted by anyone. We made improvements, and then durin' our temporary absence with a trail herd, John Gentry and Bill London returned and moved in. Naturally, when we returned the case was taken to court. The court ruled the ranches belonged to Soderman and myself.”

  “And the cattle?” Tack asked. “What of the cattle my uncle owned?”

  Hardin shrugged. “The brand had been taken over by the new owners and registered in their name. As I understand it, yuh left with a trail herd immediately after yuh came back to Texas. My claim was originally asserted during yore uncle's absence. I could,” he smiled, “lay claim to the money yuh got from that trail herd. Where is it?”

  “Suppose yuh find out?” Tack replied. “I'm goin' to tell yuh one thing: I'm goin' to find who murdered my uncle, if it was Soderman or not. I'm also goin' to fight yuh in court. Now, if yuh'll excuse me,” he turned his eyes to Betty who had stood wide-eyed and silent, “I'd like to talk to Bill London.”

  “He can't see yuh,” Hardin said. “He's asleep.”

  Gentry's eyes hardened. “You runnin' this place too?”

  “Betty London is going to work for me,” Hardin replied. “We may be married later, so in a sense, I'm speaking for her.”

  “Is that right?” Tack demanded, his eyes meeting Betty's.

  Her face was miserable. “I'm afraid it is. Tack.”

  “You've forgotten your promise, then?” he demanded.

  “Things—things changed, Tack,” she faltered. “I—I can't talk about it.”

  “I reckon, Gentry,” Olney interrupted, “it's time yuh rode on. There's nothin' in this neck of the woods for yuh. You've played out your hand here. Ride on, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble. They're hirin' hands over on the Pecos.”

  “I'm stayin,” Gentry said flatly.

  “Remember,” Olney warned, “I'm the sheriff. At the first sign of trouble, I'll come lookin' for yuh.”

  GENTRY SWUNG INTO the saddle. His eyes shifted to Betty's face, and for an instant, she seemed about to speak. Then he turned and rode away. He did not look back. It was not until after he was gone that he remembered Button and Blackie.

  To think they were in the possession of Hardin and Olney! The twin blacks he had reared and worked with, training them to do tricks, teaching them all the lore of the cow-country horses and much more.

  The picture was clear now. In the year in which he had been gone these men had come in, asserted their claims, taken them to carpetbag courts, and made
them stick. Backing their legal claims with guns, they had taken over the country with speed and finesse. At every turn, he was blocked. Betty had turned against him. Bill London was either a prisoner in his own house or something else was wrong. Olney was sheriff, and probably they had their own judge.

  He could quit. He could pull out and go on to the Pecos. It would be the easiest way. It was even what Uncle John might have wished him to do, for John Gentry was a peace-loving man. Tack Gentry was of another breed. His father had been killed fighting Commanches, and Tack had gone to war when a mere boy. Uncle John had found a place for himself in a noncombatant outfit, but Tack had fought long and well.

  His ride north with the trail herd had been rough and bloody. Twice they had fought off Indians, and once they had mixed it with rustlers. In Ellsworth, a gunman named Paris had made trouble that ended with Paris dead on the floor.

  Tack had left town in a hurry, ridden to the new camp at Dodge, and then joined a trail herd headed for Wyoming. Indian fighting had been the order of the day, and once, rounding up a bunch of steers lost from the herd in a stampede, Tack had run into three rustlers after the same steers.

  Tack downed two of them in the subsequent battle and then shot it out with the other in a daylong rifle battle that covered a cedar- and boulder-strewn hillside. Finally, just before sundown, they met in a hand-to-hand battle with bowie knives.

  Tack remained long enough to see his old friend Major Powell, with whom he had participated in the Wagon Box Fight, and then had wandered back to Kansas. On the Platte he joined a bunch of buffalo hunters, stayed with them a couple of months, and then trailed back to Dodge.

  Sunbonnet's Longhorn Saloon was ablaze with lights when he drifted into town that night. He stopped at the livery stable and put up his horse. He had taken a round-about route, scouting the country, so he decided that Hardin and Olney were probably already in town. By now they would know of his call at the ranch and his meeting with Anson Childe.

  He was laboring under no delusions about his future. Van Hardin would not hesitate to see him put out of the way if he attempted to regain his property. Hardin had brains, and Olney was no fool. There were things Gentry must know before anything could be done, and the one man in town who could and would tell him was Childe.

  Leaving the livery stable, he started up the street. Turning, he glanced back to see the liveryman standing in the stable door. He dropped his hand quickly, but Gentry believed he had signaled someone across the street. Yet there was no one in sight, and the row of buildings seemed blank and empty.

  Only three buildings were lighted. The Longhorn, a smaller, cheaper saloon, and the old general store. There was a light upstairs over the small saloon and several lights in the annex to the Longhorn, which passed as a hotel, the only one in Sunbonnet.

  Tack walked along the street, his bootheels sounding loud in the still night air. Ahead of him was a space between the buildings, and when he drew abreast of it he did a quick sidestep off the street, flattening against the building.

  He heard footsteps, hesitation, and then lightly running steps, and suddenly a man dove around the corner and grated to a stop on the gravel, staring down the alleyway between the buildings. He did not see Tack, who was flattened in the dense shadow against the building and behind a rain barrel.

  The man started forward suddenly, and Tack reached out and grabbed his ankle. Caught in midstride, the fellow plunged over on his head and then lay still. For an instant, Gentry hesitated; then struck and shielded a match with his left hand. It was the brown-hatted man he had talked to on the porch of London's ranch. His head had hit a stone, and he was out cold.

  Swiftly, Tack shucked the fellow's gun and emptied the shells from it and then pushed it back in his holster. A folded paper had fallen from the unconscious man's pocket, and Tack picked it up. Then, moving fast, he went down the alley until he was in back of the small saloon. By the light from a back window, he read the note.

  “This,” he muttered, “may help!”

  Come to town quick. Trouble's brewing. We can't have anything happen now. V. H.

  Van Hardin. They didn't want trouble now. Why, now? Folding the note, he slipped it into his pocket and flattened against the side of the saloon, studying the interior. Only two men sat in the dim interior, two men who played cards at a small table. The bartender leaned on the bar and read a newspaper. When the bartender turned his head, Tack recognized him.

  Red Furness had worked for his father. He had soldiered with him. He might still be friendly. Tack lifted his knuckles and tapped lightly on the window.

  At the second tap, Red looked up. Tack lighted a match and moved it past the window. Neither of the cardplayers seemed to have noticed. Red straightened, folded his paper, and then picking up a cup, walked back toward the window. When he got there, he dipped the cup into the water bucket with one hand and with the other, lifted the window a few inches.

  “This is Tack Gentry. Where does Childe hang out?”

  Red's whisper was low. “Got him an office and sleepin' room upstairs. There's a back stairway. Yuh watch yoreself.”

  Tack stepped away from his window and made his way to the stairway he had already glimpsed. It might be a trap, but he believed Red was loyal. Also, he was not sure the word was out to kill him. They probably merely wanted him out of the way and hoped he could be warned to move on. The position of the Hardin group seemed secure enough.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, he walked along the narrow catwalk to the door. He tapped softly. After an instant, there was a voice. “What do you want?”

  “This is Tack Gentry. Yuh talked to me in the saloon!” The door opened to darkness, and he stepped in. When it closed, he felt a pistol barrel against his spine.

  “Hold still!” Childe warned.

  Behind him a match struck, and then a candle was lighted. The light still glowed in the other room, seen only by the crack under the door. Childe grinned at him. “Got to be careful,” he said. “They have tried twice to dry-gulch me!

  “I put flowers on their graves every Monday!” He smiled. “And keep an extra one dug. Ever since I had that new grave dug, I've been left alone. Somehow it seems to have a very sobering influence on the local roughs.”

  He sat down. “I tire quicker than I once did. So you're Gentry! Betty London told me about you. She thought you were dead. There was a rumor that you'd been killed by the Indians in Wyoming.”

  “No, I came out all right. What I want to know, rememberin' yuh said yuh were a lawyer, is what kind of a claim they have on my ranch?”

  “A good one, unfortunately. While you and your uncle were gone, and most of the other men in the locality, several of these men came in and began to brand cattle. After branding a good many, they left. They returned and began working around, about the time you left, and then they ordered your uncle off.

  “He wouldn't go, and they took the case to court. There were no lawyers here then, and your uncle tried to handle it himself. The judge was their man, and suddenly a half dozen witnesses appeared and were sworn in. They testified that the land had been taken and held by Soderman, Olney, and Hardin.

  “They claimed their brands on the cattle asserted their claim to the land, to the home ranches of both London and Gentry. The free range was something else, but with the two big ranches in their hands and the bulk of the free range lying beyond their holdings, they were in a position to freeze out the smaller ranchers. They established a squatter's right to each of the big ranches.”

  “Can they do that?” Tack demanded. “It doesn't seem fair!”

  “The usual thing is to allow no claim unless they have occupied the land for twenty years without hindrance, but with a carpetbag court, they do about as they please. Judge Weaver is completely in Van Hardin's hands, and your Uncle John was on the losing side in this war.”

  “How did Uncle John get killed?” Tack asked.

  CHILDE SHRUGGED. “THEY said he called Soderman a liar and Soderman we
nt for his gun. Your uncle had a gun on him when they found him. It was probably a cold-blooded killing because Gentry planned on a trip to Austin and was going to appeal the case.”

  “Have yuh seen Bill London lately?”

  “Only once since the accident.”

  “Accident?”

  “Yes, London was headed for home, dozing along in the buckboard as he always did, when his team ran away with him. The buckboard was overturned and London's back was injured. He can't ride anymore and can't sit up very long at a time.”

  “Was it really an accident?” Tack wanted to know.

  Childe shrugged. “I doubt it. We couldn't prove a thing. One of the horses had a bad cut on the hip. It looked as if someone with a steel-tipped bullwhip had hit the animal from beside the road.”

  “Thorough,” Tack said. “They don't miss a bet.”

  Childe nodded. Leaning back in his chair he put his feet on the desk. He studied Tack Gentry thoughtfully. “You know, you'll be next. They won't stand for you messing around. I think you already have them worried.”

  Tack explained about the man following him, and then handed the note to Childe. The lawyer's eyes narrowed. “Hmm, sounds like they had some reason to soft-pedal the whole thing for a while. Maybe it's an idea for us. Maybe somebody is coming down here to look around, or maybe somebody has grown suspicious.”

  Tack looked at Childe thoughtfully. “What's your position in all this?”

  The tall man shrugged, and then laughed lightly. “I've no stake in it, Gentry. I didn't know London or your Uncle John, either. But I heard rumors, and I didn't like the attitude of the local bosses, Hardin and Olney. I'm just a burr under the saddle with which they ride this community, no more. It amuses me to needle them, and they are afraid of me.”

  “Got any clients?”

  “Clients?” Anson Childe chuckled. “Not a one! not likely to have any, either! In a country so throttled by one man as this is, there isn't any litigation. Nobody can win against him, and they are too busy hating Hardin to want to have trouble with each other.”