None of this showed in his face. He had learned to live without showing what he felt. Seconds had passed. He looked past his cigarette at Jud Devitt and he smiled. “Sorry, friend. I like that land. My cattle like it. They stay.”
As he spoke he let amusement show in his eyes, for he had read Jud Devitt, and read him right. Here was a strong, dangerous man, but a man who had won too often, who took himself too seriously. He had no sense of humor that applied to himself, and amusement had the power to irritate him.
Devitt’s anger had been mounting. The grins of the spectators annoyed him, and the faint twinkle in Bell’s eyes stirred his fury. “One of these days,” he said, anger overcoming his good sense, “somebody will pull you off your horse and slap some sense into you!”
Clay smiled and put his palms on the saddle horn. “Want to try it now, mister?”
Jud Devitt had turned and started away. Now he halted in mid-stride. He turned slowly and looked back at Bell, his momentary anger gone, his eyes icy.
“When the time comes, cowboy, I’ll do it. And when I do it, the job will be well done, I promise you!” Then he strode back to his buckboard.
Clay Bell watched him go. Not many men would walk away from such a direct challenge, and even fewer could do it and leave the impression Jud Devitt was leaving. Not one person who saw him walk away had any idea that he was dodging a fight. He was simply not ready.
The man was big, too. At least thirty pounds heavier than Clay’s one-ninety.
Clay studied the situation, reviewing it in his mind as he watched the buckboard drive away. “Bill”—he turned suddenly in his saddle—”you drift back to the ranch and tell Hank Rooney to take that bunch of cows off Stone Cup and push ’em up to Deep Creek.”
“Sure, Boss,” Coffin was reluctant, “only I surely wanted to see that blonde again. Man, was she somethin’!”
“You get back to the ranch. I’ll handle the blondes!”
The move from Stone Cup to Deep Creek was not due for two weeks, but it would have a dual effect. It would indicate definitely where he meant to make his stand; and also, if something went wrong, his cattle would have the benefit of that extra two weeks on good grass, where there was plenty of water.
He walked his horse along the street to Tinker House, studying the situation. There were not many ranches in this part of the country, and his was the best range within miles, yet without Deep Creek he could never make a go of it with what remained.
Until he had come to Tinkersville and located on the Deep Creek range, he had been a drifting man. It had been Sam Tinker himself, sitting in his polished chair, one elbow leaning on the arm, a shock of iron-gray hair rumpled and awry on his head, who told him of Deep Creek.
Clay Bell remembered the day he had come down that main street the first time, his horse weary of long trails, his clothes dusty. He drew up and looked down the street and it was no different from any other western town . . . yet he felt different about it.
He had stabled his horse and cared for it; he had a drink and a meal. He had walked along the street, looking at the town, and his eyes had kept straying toward the hills, not too far off.
“Passin’ through?”
It was then he had seen Sam Tinker for the first time. A big, fat old man with shrewd eyes who rarely moved from his chair.
“Maybe . . . What’s in those hills?”
Tinker studied him. “Cattleman?”
“Figure to be. I’ve taken herds over the trail.”
“Ride like a soldier.”
“I was—cavalry.”
Sam Tinker had watched men come and go for more years than he liked to remember. Tinkersville was his town. He had planted the seed and been midwife at the birth. He wanted it to grow, but to grow right.
“Range up there,” he indicated the hills, “finest cow country in the world. Thick green grass all summer, no end of water. A man could hold his stock down on the flat until hot weather, then move ’em to the Deep Creek range to top ’em off.”
“Who’s up there?”
“Nobody. Country’s like God left it. Not even a trapper.” Tinker shifted his huge bulk in his chair. “Only timber in miles, and too far away from any big forest to make lumbering pay. So there she stands.”
When the morning sun broke over the hills he was already high among them, and he found it as Tinker had said, and more. He started his first cabin that morning, finished it and a corral before he returned to town. He had sent for Hank Rooney, and things had moved along.
Until now there had been no break in the steady forward progress of the B-Bar, and there was market for considerable beef right in the country, which had few ranches. There were mines scattered around, and miners ate beef. He could pay running expenses with local sales, so he built his herds.
Jud Devitt seemed sure of himself and he must already have laid plans to log off the Deep Creek country. And he must have moved very swiftly and silently for Bell not to have heard of the venture.
Swinging down at the Tinker House, Bell pushed through the bat-wing doors into the saloon. Other swinging doors divided the saloon from the hotel lobby. He walked to the bar, noting two wool-shirted men with the bottoms of their overalls turned up to a few inches below the knee. The nearest lumberjack turned and glanced toward him. He was a burly man with a wide, not unpleasant face, tough and rough, but good-humored. “You sure come close to gettin’ your meat n’ house torn down, cowboy! That was Bully Jud Devitt you were talkin’ to!”
“Was it?”
He was occupied with his thoughts of the Deep River range. Nothing must go wrong at this stage. He needed that graze to fatten his stock for market, and if trouble forced him to pull them off that rich grass to the parched and arid flats where the grass was even now going dry and stale, he would lose pounds off every head of stock, and could easily lose some of the stock itself. Weight meant dollars, and he needed money. And there would be no rain on the lowlands for another three months, at least.
The lumberjack was not letting it pass. “Jud, he chaws up men like you! I seen him whup three, four in one stack! When it comes to lumber, land, or woman, Jud gets what he wants, and you can bet your bottom dollar if he says he’ll log off Deep Creek, he’ll do her!”
“He can be stopped.”
“Not him!” The big jack moved closer. “My name’s Wat Williams, cowboy, an’ I’ve worked for Bully Jud before. He says he’s goin’ in after that fir, an’ he’ll do it! And,” the big lumberjack grinned insolently, “he’ll have fifty of the toughest lumberjacks in the country back of him!”
Bell downed his drink and turned from the bar. Wat Williams grinned at him. There was tough good humor in him and a love for fighting. He had wide shoulders and big hands, and he had just put two stiff drinks behind his belt.
“Bell”—he moved out into the room—”I’d like to take up that offer you made the Boss—right now.”
He spoke and he swung. Clay had seen the intent before the blow started, he had seen it in the way the man moved out into the room, and the way his feet were set. As Williams swung, Clay stepped inside and smashed a left and right to the face. The left caught Williams on the eye as he stepped in, but the right landed too far back. Wat was shaken, but he tried to grapple. Bell stepped away, and as Williams moved in, he feinted, then smashed a cracking right to the jaw. It nailed Williams on the button as he was stepping in and he dropped on his face in the sawdust as if hit with an axe.
Bell looked across the fallen man at his companion, but the lumberjack at the bar stared without speaking, as if unwilling to believe his eyes. Turning, Bell went through the swinging doors into the hotel lobby.
Ed Miller looked up from his ledger, observing the skinned knuckles and drawing his own conclusions. He was a taciturn man with no past that anyone knew about. He possessed a faculty for knowing almost everything that happened in Tinkersville without showing any evidence of interest.
He had seen the brief meeting of Devitt and Bell in the street. There were lumberjacks in the bar. Something had fallen hard. Clay Bell had a split knuckle and no evidence of other damage. The conclusion was obvious.