Novel 1965 - The High Graders (v5.0) Read online

  “You’ve got something on your mind,” he said bluntly. “What is it?”

  “I’m going to blow the lid off, and I want you on my side.”

  Hoyt picked up the stub of his cigar and carefully ground it out before throwing it into the cuspidor. He should have known this job was too good to last.

  Slowly and in detail, Mike Shevlin laid out the situation as he saw it. Ray Hollister was in that part of the country, and he had the cattlemen solidly behind him. The water of the creeks was being polluted, and the cattle needed that water. They would attack, the cattlemen would, and that meant killing and burning.

  Ben Stowe would fight back, but regardless of who won, the town would lose. And, he added, Ben Stowe was robbing the mine owners.

  “They don’t live in Rafter,” Hoyt said cynically, “so it doesn’t matter.” He bit the end from a fresh cigar. “How do you think it can be stopped?”

  “Arrest Stowe. Arrest Mason and Gentry. Slap every man of them in jail, then go into the mines and get enough high-grade for evidence.”

  “What about Hollister?”

  “Forget him. Bring in the five top ranchers and put them under bond to keep the peace. Then let Hollister stew in his own juice.”

  “They’re outside my jurisdiction.”

  “Not if you want to act. Nobody really wants this trouble but Hollister. He’s a sorehead.”

  Hoyt chewed the cigar thoughtfully, then took his feet down from the desk. “Now you listen to me. Nobody asked me to stop high-grading. I was brought in to keep the peace, and I’ve kept it. Now you come in here and try to tell me my business.

  “If Ray Hollister starts anything, I’ll kill him, and that goes for you as well. Ben Stowe won’t start anything, because he needs peace and quiet. If you try to blow the lid off this town you’re likely to get killed. And even if you started something, you couldn’t prove a thing.

  “Let me tell you something,” Hoyt went on. “All the high-grade ore comes out of one area between the two mines. At the first sign of trouble, the drifts leading to the stopes where that high-grade ore has been found will be blown up and sealed off. You couldn’t prove a thing, and you’d just make a fool of yourself.”

  Wilson Hoyt stood up. “Now you quit that two-bit job and get out of town. If you’re still in town forty-eight hours from now, or if you so much as raise your voice, I’ll come for you.”

  Shevlin felt angry with frustration and helplessness. This was the one man he needed, but if Hoyt persisted in his stand nothing could prevent killing. How could he reach him?

  “You’ve heard my ultimatum,” Hoyt said. “Get up in the saddle and start looking for distance.”

  “If you remembered me, Hoyt, you wouldn’t be talking that way.”

  Hoyt brushed the remark off with a gesture. “Oh, I know all about you! You fought in the Nueces cattle war, you were a Texas Ranger for two years and made quite a name for yourself. You had a name around Cimarron and Durango. I know all that, and I’m not impressed.”

  Mike Shevlin tucked his thumbs behind his belt and said quietly, “I was remembering one night in Tascosa.”

  Wilson Hoyt’s hands became very still. The leonine head was bowed slightly, the muscles in the powerful neck were rigid.

  “It was bright moonlight,” Mike said, “and you were under the cottonwoods waiting for a man, so when a rider came in from the Canadian River bottoms you were sure it was your man.”

  Hoyt’s face was bleak.

  “You stepped into the open, called out a name, and reached for your gun. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember it.”

  “You were slow, Wilson. We’ll say it was an off night. Anyway, this rider had the drop before your gun cleared leather, and when he spoke you knew you had braced the wrong man. Right so far?”

  “Yes.”

  “There you stood looking into the muzzle of a gun in the hands of an unknown man, a man with every chance and every right to shoot you where you stood. Then the man walked his horse away and left you standing there, and you never knew who it was who beat you to the draw.”

  “You could have heard the story.”

  “I never told it.”

  “Well, you beat me once. That doesn’t say you can do it again.”

  For years that faceless man had haunted Wilson Hoyt—that man whose features had been hidden by the shadows of his hat as well as by the trees. Now he knew.

  “What’s your stake in this? I’ll not deny I owe you something. You could have shot me, yet you held your fire.”

  “Eli Patterson was my friend … that started it. Since then, something else has happened. I’ve been hired to stop the high-grading and recover the gold.”

  Hoyt swore. “Hired? Why’d they pick an outside man?”

  Shevlin smiled. “You were keeping the peace, remember? You were letting things be, as long as everything was quiet.”

  Hoyt thrust the cigar back between his teeth. “I don’t know about this. I got to think about it. You keep your shirt on, d’ you hear?”

  “Think fast then,” Shevlin said. “I’m not smart, Hoyt. I only know one way—I walk right in swinging. By noon tomorrow I’m cutting my wolf loose, and if you’re not with me you’d better hunt a hole.”

  IN THE NEAT red brick house with the white shutters that was the home of Dr. Rupert Clagg, late of Boston, they were having supper. The house itself, the neat green lawn, and the white picket fence were all indications of Dr. Clagg’s quality of mind. He was himself neat, orderly, efficient.

  Graduating at the top of his class from medical school, he could have stepped into a fine practice in any city in the East, but the War Between the States changed all that. After only a year in practice in Philadelphia, in the office of the city’s most reputable physician, he had gone into the Army. The rough and ready life, the men he met, conspired to remove any latent desire to return to Philadelphia. Instead, he elected to go west.

  Dottie Clagg was one of three daughters in one of Philadelphia’s oldest and wealthiest families, but she possessed an adventurous spirit, and despite all the protests their two families could offer, they went west.

  For a while Dr. Clagg had remained an Army surgeon, attached to various posts in New Mexico and Arizona. When he left the service a distant cousin, Clagg Merriam, who was in business in Rafter, suggested that they come there, and almost two years ago they had done so, prepared to settle down.

  At thirty-four Dr. Rupert Clagg was erect, tall, and handsome, bronzed as any cowhand, and bearing an arrow scar on his cheekbone. His office was filled with frontier atmosphere, but his home remained a corner of the New England where he had been born.

  He liked having people around, and had been pleased when Laine Tennison arrived to be their house guest. Laine and Dottie had attended school together in Philadelphia, and Dottie had been thrilled when Laine had written, mentioning coming west for her health.

  “Although I don’t know why,” Dottie had confided to her husband. “She was always the picture of health.”

  “Maybe she just wants to get away.”

  “A love affair!” Dottie was at once delighted and positive. “She’s had an unhappy love affair!”

  “Laine?” Clagg was skeptical.

  “Even a girl as beatiful as she is can be disappointed,” Dottie protested.

  Recognizing the fact that his wife could be as excited over an unhappy love affair as a happy one, he did not argue the point.

  “I’m going to invite her for a visit,” Dottie had said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Mind? Laine? By all means invite her.”

  She had arrived a few weeks later and had proved an attentive listener to Dottie’s endless chatter about people and happenings around Rafter. Laine, it seemed, was interested in all the trivia of life in a western mining town, and not the least bit bored.

  Dr. Clagg offered few comments until Laine suggested that riding in the open air might be good for her health. Then he
said, “By all means,” and added, a shade wryly, “Just don’t overdo it.”

  On this evening, when Clagg Merriam was also there for supper, Dr. Rupert glanced at Laine across the table. “Your color is better,” he said. “You were riding today?”

  “Driving. I rented a buckboard from that nice old man at the livery stable and drove out past the Glory Hole.”

  “That nice old man,” the doctor said ironically, “is a disreputable old outlaw.”

  “Really? He seems so sweet.”

  “I saw a new man in town today,” Dottie said, “and a handsome devil, too. One of the big, rugged outdoor types. He was coming from the sheriff’s office.”

  “Speaking of men,” Dr. Clagg commented casually, “Ben Stowe was asking about you. He noticed you driving around alone and wondered who you were. He was most interested.”

  “You can’t blame Ben,” Clagg Merriam said. “After all, Miss Tennison is a very beautiful girl.”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Merriam.” Laine flashed him a quick smile. “But I am sure that wasn’t the reason.”

  “He asked if you were from San Francisco,” Dr. Rupert said, “but when I told him you were from Philadelphia he lost interest.”

  “Oh? So he doesn’t like Philadelphia girls!” Dottie exclaimed. “You should have told him that Laine has an uncle in San Francisco … and a rich uncle, at that!”

  Clagg Merriam glanced thoughtfully at Laine, but made no comment. Dr. Rupert, always an observant man, caught the expression on Laine’s face. It had stiffened at Dottie’s comment, and in the instant that Merriam looked at her, Laine shot Dottie a quick, protesting look.

  Later, when the two men sat alone over brandy and cigars, Merriam commented, “Miss Tennison seems the picture of health. I think,” he added judiciously, “that they caught hers in time.

  “I wouldn’t think it too safe for a girl to go riding around alone in a place like this. After all, the mines brought in all sorts of riffraff.”

  “She can look after herself, Clagg. And I believe the people here are quite stable. Remarkably stable, in fact. I also think most of them know she is my guest.”

  Walking away from the house an hour or so later, Clagg Merriam wondered whether Dr. Rupert’s last comment had been a warning of some kind.

  After he had left, Dr. Rupert sat in his big chair and lighted his pipe. Laine had asked for no medical advice, but he was as sure as one could be without a physical examination that there was nothing in the world wrong with Laine Tennison.

  Which left the question: What was she doing in Rafter, of all places? A broken heart? Absurd. Laine was often thoughtful, but she never moped.

  Ben Stowe had been curious, even prying. And Dottie’s remark about an uncle in San Francisco had stirred immediate interest in Merriam. Only a fool would need to ask why. Rafter was motivated by only one idea, the gold from the mines. And who owned the mines? Some interests in San Francisco.

  Every day Laine rode out, or drove, and as often as not she traveled the back trails. Was it just out of curiosity, or for some other, more definite reason?

  Ben Stowe seemed suspicious, and if, as Dr. Rupert thought, she was connected with the ownership of the mines, then she could be in real trouble.

  Old Brazos at the livery stable was known to Dr. Rupert. It was the doctor who had treated a badly infected leg wound when the old outlaw first rode into Rafter, and he had mentioned it to no one. He liked the hard-bitten old man, and was liked in return.

  Now, as he packed tobacco into his pipe, he thought that he must have a talk with Brazos, for little went on around town that the old hostler did not know. And Laine Tennison was his guest, and must be protected.

  The doctor had never accepted more than a fair price for his medical attentions, and he had always refused to be paid in gold. His attitude in this was known, and he had never been bothered. Was that because he was respected? Because they needed a good doctor in town? Or because he was Clagg Merriam’s cousin? For Clagg Merriam was a man of some authority in Rafter.

  Of course, there was a simpler reason. Dr. Rupert was notoriously close-mouthed—everybody in town knew it. But how much would that help if it was discovered that Laine Tennison had some connection with the Sun Strike?

  He considered that while he smoked his pipe out, carefully examining all aspects of the problem. At the end of the evening one thing was clear: From now on, Laine Tennison was in danger.

  How many of the corrupted citizens of Rafter had been corrupted enough to stand by if it came to doing harm to a young girl? If it came to murder, even? Would they look the other way? How many would actually condone murder to protect what they had?

  He knocked out his pipe and walked across the room to the rifle rack. Carefully, he checked every weapon. And then he took his Army Colt, checked the loads, and tucked it behind his waistband.

  From this moment, Dr. Rupert Clagg would go armed.

  CHAPTER 6

  WHEN MIKE SHEVLIN had walked out of Wilson Hoyt’s office several hours earlier, he was jumpy as a cat that smells snake.

  His every instinct warned him that time was running out both for himself and for Laine Tennison. The fact that she was Eli Patterson’s niece had bought his loyalty as no offer of a share in the gold could have done; although, being a practical man, he was not unaware of what ten per cent of perhaps half a million dollars could mean in cattle.

  He paused on a corner of the street, staring about like a bull entering a bullring, searching for something at which to charge.

  He needed to find the gold cache, and to be able to prevent them removing it when panic set in. His instinct told him the proper thing was to bust right into the middle of things and start things happening. It was a good way to get hurt, but from experience he knew that when a nest of crooks is disturbed they are apt to move without planning, and so make mistakes they might not otherwise make.

  It was for this reason that he had deliberately prodded Wilson Hoyt. Any move the marshal might make at this time would help. Even if he only started asking questions it might be enough.

  While Shevlin stood there, Ben Stowe suddenly appeared in the door of the Nevada House, and Mike Shevlin started toward him, walking swiftly. Stowe turned at the sound of his heels, and Shevlin caught the hard, measuring look. And suddenly Mike felt like old times. He knew that now the waiting was over and he was going into battle. He felt a wild surge of eagerness within him that he had to fight down.

  Stowe was poised and ready for him. Mike saw it even as Stowe spoke. “Hello, Mike. How about a drink for old times’ sake?”

  “No time for drinking, Ben.” Mike grinned at him, daringly, challengingly. “I’m going to tear down your playhouse, Ben.”

  Ben Stowe’s expression did not change; he simply said, “Mike, everybody would be happier if you’d just ride on out of here.” Ben reached in his pocket and took out a fat roll of bills. “Now, if you’re short of cash—?”

  “Remember me? There were always a lot of things more important than money.”

  “Eli Patterson is dead, Mike. If you start opening that up, a lot of people will get hurt.”

  “That’s what I had in mind.”

  “You won’t leave?”

  Ben Stowe was thinking about his plans for Shevlin. The trouble was, they might not work fast enough, so he’d have to make other, faster plans.

  “Ben?” Mike spoke quietly, almost gently, so that suddenly every sense in Stowe’s body was alert. “Ben, why don’t you leave?”

  Stowe was startled at the words. He stared sharply, unbelievingly at Shevlin. “Me? Why should I leave?”

  “Think about it, Ben. You and me, we’re not exactly tenderfeet. We’ve both been through the mill. I say, grab it and run. You’ve had everything your way, and you’ve got a lot stashed away, so why not take it and get out? Believe me, Ben, it’s all over.”

  Ben Stowe started to make an angry reply, then hesitated. Shevlin was keyed up, he could see that, and the last
thing Stowe wanted was a gun battle. And then he had a shocking sense that Shevlin was right.

  He struck a match and took his time lighting his cigar. He was shocked at the sudden wave of panic that had swept through him.

  Ben Stowe was realist enough to know that the doubt had been lingering there all the time, and Shevlin’s words had just exploded his feeling into desperation. In any such deal as this there was always that feeling that it was too good to last; and that feeling had been building larger and larger in all of them. Only a damned fool could fail to be apprehensive. But Ben Stowe was a hard man; he fought down his panic.

  “You seem to be riding a rough saddle, Mike. What’s your stake in all this?”

  “Give me the man who killed Eli.”

  Stowe shot him a swift glance. “Eli? Mike, men have died before, and others have yet to die, so why get worked up over him?”

  He made one last attempt, not to buy Shevlin, but to stall him. “Why not come into the party, Mike? This cake is big enough for all of us.”

  “Give me the man who killed Eli.”

  Stowe drew on his cigar. “Now, I might just do that, Mike,” he said, knowing he could do nothing of the kind. “Give me a couple of days.”

  “Make it twenty-four hours.” Shevlin moved to be off. “But take it from me, Ben, you’d better take what you’ve got and run. Your game’s played out.”

  Abruptly, he walked away. Ben Stowe would be no bargain in a fight. He had always been tough, but he was tougher, colder, and smarter now.

  Somehow he must crack the tight ring that Stowe had built around the enterprise. Once that ring was cracked, once somebody was hit with panic, then the whole thing would fall apart as everybody scrambled for safety with everything they could lay their hands on.

  Mason … Mason had to be the weak link. Not Gib Gentry, for Gib would dig in his heels and make a fight of it. Nor did Mike wish to tangle with Gib—they had eaten too much dust and alkali together. Crack Mason, and Gentry would get out fast; and after Mason, Stowe would have to make his fight.

  Mike Shevlin was no fool. Pausing briefly on the corner, he knew he was looking at an uncertain future. He was forcing things into the open now, but it was the only way he knew how to act. Let the others play it cozy; he had neither the time nor the patience.