“You riding into town?” he asked presently.
“Uh-huh.”
“Look,” he said, “the one thing I wanted in Cheyenne was some canned peaches or pears, or something like that. I get fed up with this grub. How about picking up a few cans for me?”
“For us,” I said. “I like ’em, too.”
And that’s just the way hell builds a trap for a man; for between that ornery, no-account steer and a few cans of peaches, I was riding right into trouble—more trouble than I’d ever had in my life.
Mainly I was riding in to see how Tarlton was coming on. It was time to be heading back up to the Hole-in-the-Wall country, and I felt we couldn’t wait. The last thing I wanted was more trouble than I had, but the past has a way of catching up with a man, and right there in Cheyenne it was about to catch up to me.
Chapter 11
Puffed-up clouds like woolly sheep grazed on the pasture of the sky when I rode into Cheyenne. The wind skittered a few dry leaves ahead of me, and occasionally a gust whipped my horse’s tail against the heels of my boots or the saddle leather. I was riding proud, for it was that kind of a morning, and the air was fresh and cool off the mountains.
Up on a balcony a man was washing a window of the hotel when I came up the street, riding abreast of my own dust. He glanced down at me, and I went on toward the Doc’s office and dismounted at the door.
Doc was at his roll-top desk with a heavy white cup and saucer at his hand. The cup was filled with steaming coffee, and it smelled good to me after my ride. Open before him on the desk was an old ledger in which he was entering accounts, peering at them unhappily through gold-rimmed glasses. Glancing around, he recognized me and jerked a thumb toward the inner room. “He’s awake. Go on in.”
It seemed to me that as he started to turn back to his ledger he did a sudden look-back at me, but, eager to see Tarlton, I went on inside.
Bob was sitting up in bed, and he had been reading. Putting the book aside, he held out his hand. “I never was so glad to see anybody in my life, Chancy! You’re looking great.”
“Can’t say the same of you, but you’re shaping up a sight better then when I last saw you.”
“Have you seen Corbin? He brought me in.”
“No, I haven’t seen him,” I said, “and we could surely use him. I’ve hired another hand—seems like a good man.”
“We never had a chance, Otis. Those boys came on us right out of nowhere in what looked like open country. They stampeded our cattle, and killed two of my boys before we ever knew what hit us. We were scattered out, and there was no place to get down and make a stand. Their first fire wounded me, and when my horse went down I lost my sixshooter. I made a stand with my rifle—”
“We found the place.”
“They circled, too far out. I couldn’t get a good shot at them, so they just drove off the cattle and left me there. They knew I was wounded, had no horse, and was without water, and they probably decided I was as good as dead.”
“We picked up your sign. You trailed them.”
“They had our cattle. I trailed them as far as I could, and after I’d passed out, Handy Corbin found me and brought me in here.”
We heard the outer door slam, and Tarlton made a sudden move to rise.
“Damn it,” he said, “Doc was going to mail a letter on the noon stage for me. I wonder what got him started off like that?” He glanced at me. “I wanted to let my family know where I am. Have you got any family, Otis?”
“No, I surely haven’t. Not close-up kin, leastways. I’m related to the Sacketts. There’s a passel of them out in this western country, but they don’t know me, nor I them.”
We sat there talking, and it was pleasant. Outside a chilly wind was picking up, but in here it was cozy, and I liked Bob Tarlton. To a man who’d never had a real friend before, he seemed like one. He talked of his folks and his home in the East, it was a life I’d never known, nor was I likely to. It was all a far-off thing, remote from these dusty plains, and it seemed farther still from the mountain villages I’d known in Tennessee. It was a genteel life, lived among folks who wore white shirts and black suits, who rode in shining carriages and talked business over coffee and cigars. I’d seen a few pictures of folks like that in magazines, time to time, but I could never figure what they did for a living, if anything.
Bob Tarlton knew that world, and he talked of college, and business, and shooting ducks for sport, of walking with girls in a park of a Sunday, listening to band concerts and the like. Me, I just sat there turning my hat in my hand, thinking that those stories were like some kind of magic, making me realize there was a world I wanted to understand, and someday to know, myself.
Back in the hills in Tennessee we had no really rich folks, except for Martin Brimstead, and very few that could be called well-off, except maybe the Dunvegans before I’d wrecked their world. All I knew were horses, cattle, and guns, and I had some memories of knocking around here and there as a boy after I’d left the mountains. I’d seen some eastern towns, but only from the waterfront side, which is no way to judge any place.
While I sat there with these thoughts in my mind, Tarlton finally got sleepy, so I excused myself and went down the street to get those cans of fruit Corky wanted. Despite the fact that it was chilly, a good many folks were out on the street, and most of them seemed to be just standing talking. When I came along they turned their heads to watch me, and I got a jumpy feeling, as if something was wrong—I wondered if maybe Caxton Kelsey was in town with his outfit.
At the store, folks kind of stood aside for me. I went to the counter and ordered cans of peaches, plums, and pears. The store had the good smell of drygoods, leather, dried fruit, and such things. There was never any smell so good as the smell of a general store, unless maybe that of a blacksmith shop with the forge working.
“Just put those cans in a gunny sack,” I said. “I’ve a couple of cowboys a-hungering for them.”
“They’ll have to wait, then.” It was the marshal’s voice, and when I turned around he had a gun on me. “Lift your hands, Chancy,” he said. “I’m taking your gun.”
A dozen men had crowded into the door, all of them staring, mean as could be.
“What’s the trouble, Marshal?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to excite anybody.
“Just unbuckle your belt, Chancy. I’d not like to kill a man in cold blood, no matter what kind of a coyote he is.”
The storekeeper was behind me to my left. There was no room to try anything, even if I’d been of a mind to start a gun battle in a room crowded with innocent folk. Besides, this just had to be a mistake.
“That’s strong talk, Marshal, and you holding a gun on me. What do you want me for? I’ve done nothing.”
“How about back in the Nation?” The speaker was a big burly man with prominent blue eyes and a red face. “What kind of a chance did you give Burgess?”
There was something I couldn’t figure out, something missing. “I don’t know any Burgess,” I said.
“Then where did you get that gun? You’re wearing Burgess’ gun, and ever’body around here knows it.”
It didn’t take any fortune-teller to tell me I was in trouble. Those folks were mad, and most of them had the look of being good men, too. Even the marshal, to whom I’d talked friendly, had no friendly look for me now. And here I stood, a lone man with nobody to stand beside me or to speak a word for me.
“I took this gun off a man who tried to cut our herd back yonder. He was a no-account, posing as a sheriff.”
The red-faced man pushed forward. “Burgess was a sheriff, and he was a damned good man! Marshal, how long you going to stand there talking? I say we take him out and hang him.”
“Take it easy, Weber. Just keep your shirt on.” The marshal measured me coldly. “Where did all of this happen, Chancy? Where were you?”