“Or men who will take orders.”
Jud Devitt’s face flushed, but he turned on Colleen, smiling. “If one wishes to get something done he has to use the tools at hand. Now let’s forget business. Let’s talk about us.”
“Us?”
Jud Devitt had never been a tactful man. Impatient to get on with things, he usually put down any idea that Colleen expressed as a mere whim. He was sure she was displeased because of his neglect.
“Colleen,” he put his hand over hers, “we’ve delayed too long now. Why don’t we get married right away?”
“Jud,” her voice was quiet, and she looked straight into his eyes, “I’m not going to marry you. Not now or at any time.”
Jud Devitt was shocked. He started to speak, then stopped. His face, which had paled, suddenly flushed.
“What sort of a joke is this?”
“You’re a handsome man, Jud, and a strong man. You have done big things, and I admired you for it. But I never understood until now how you did them.”
Anger stirred him. Judge Riley sat very quiet, and continued to eat. Devitt looked from the judge to his daughter, trying to stifle his anger and to control his voice.
“You know, Jud,” she continued, “some big things are done by men who are really very small.”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“Given time,” she responded coolly, “I think you’ll find out for yourself, but today I learned that the attack on those poor boys was made by your direct order.”
“And so?” He was really angry now. His dark eyes narrowed and his face held its flush.
“If Bert Garry dies you’ll be his killer.”
“Don’t be a fool!” His anger flared. The idea that this girl should call him to account enraged him. “Bell attacked Williams! They began it.”
“Not according to Wat.”
Devitt pushed back his chair. “Judge,” he kept his voice even, “you’d better take this daughter of yours and talk some sense into her.” He got up, then looked down at Colleen. “We’ll be married this week or not at all.”
“Not at all,” she said, and she watched him, startled at the cruel lights in his eyes. This was a man she had never known. “And if you make any more trouble for Clay Bell I’ll hate you as long as I live.”
“So that’s it? You’ve fallen in love with that cowhand!” He turned abruptly, knocking over his chair, and strode from the room.
Only Sam Tinker sat near enough to have distinguished their words. Despite her anger, she had to smile, for Sam was making no effort to conceal his pleasure. He was fairly beaming, and when he smiled his face became so much the picture of good humor that one could only smile in return.
She sat very still, looking down at her plate. She was no longer hungry. Jud was gone—and her only feeling was of relief. She looked up suddenly. “Dad, did I do right?”
“I think so. I think we’ve both been saved from a serious mistake.”
Jud Devitt had walked outside into the night. He took a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end. He was furious, seething inside.
He lighted his cigar and stared down the street. Let up on Clay Bell? He’d be eternally damned if he did! Then he remembered the curious expression on Morton Schwabe’s face when he accepted the appointment. Bell was not out of trouble by a long shot.
Across the street a man loitered, and Devitt glanced sharply at him. It was Stag Harvey. As he looked, the man sauntered off down the street, and Devitt’s eyes followed him.
Suddenly a horseman rounded into the street and came down the avenue at a dead run. Seeing Devitt, he drew up sharply. “Boss! We’re burned out! The whole camp!”
“What’s that?”
The man stammered in his excitement, then calmed down. “Right after dark, Jud. Some feller out on the desert called out, called for help. Called some of the boys by name!”
Jud Devitt’s fury was gone. Now he felt something cold and murderous within him—a feeling he had never known before.
“We rushed out, figurin’ some of the boys was in trouble. We couldn’t find a thing, but then we saw the whole camp was in flames. We rushed back an’ fought fire most of an hour. Lost two wagons, burned right down to the wheel rims, all the grub, and the donkey engine mighty near ruined.”
“Who did you see? Which of those cowhands did it?”
“Never saw anybody, Boss! We had to fight fire an’ whoever done it, if anybody did, they got away.”
Devitt remained where he was when the messenger had gone with his orders. Tomorrow the whole town would be laughing at him. And Colleen behaving like a silly schoolgirl!
His cigar tasted terrible. He took it from his mouth and threw it into the street.
There was a donkey engine in Holbrook. He could send for that if his own could not be repaired immediately. But probably it was only the platform—he would have a look at it first thing in the morning.
And tomorrow Morton Schwabe would serve his papers.
Jud Devitt decided he could wait. That would be triumph enough, to send his wagons through the Gap. He could wait—although every time he thought of Bell he wished he could live over that day in the street when he walked away from Bell’s cool challenge.
His anger cooled into resolution. He would show them. He would show them all what it meant to buck Jud Devitt.
From his seat on the porch Sam Tinker watched Jud walk away down the street. He had seen the rider come, had overheard his excited words. Sam needed no questions—in the burning of the wagons and the manner in which it was consummated he could see the ripe, rich hand of Bill Coffin. He chuckled fatly and rubbed his jaw. It was just as much fun as being young again, to sit here and enjoy it, without all the riding and sweating.
He looked across at the bank, dark and silent now. Nor was there a light upstairs. Noble Wheeler was a restless man these days.
He liked sitting here, smelling the cool evening wind from off the sage levels, and once in a while a faint scent of the pines atop Piety. He could sit here on his porch and smell all the smells. Old Mrs. Weber was working late over her washing. Jim Narrows was cooking over a cedar fire again. And occasionally he imagined he got a whiff of the smoke from off the burned wagons at the Gap, miles away. Too far, actually, but he could imagine it. There was a new tenant in a cottage in the block beyond Doc McClean’s. She had come to town a few days after the lumberjacks, and for some days Sam had believed that explained her arrival, yet she had no visitors. Not at first.
She was blond and lovely, a somewhat overstuffed blonde with a friendly, agreeable face. Her figure was one that turned heads when she walked by. This was the blonde Bill Coffin had seen, the blonde who was keeping him awake too many nights, just thinking about her.
Yet she was not without visitors—or a visitor. Jud Devitt had been to call, but evidently all had not gone well, for he had not stayed long. Sam Tinker did not know that Bill Coffin had seen the blonde—what was more important, the blonde had seen him. He had those lean, rawboned good looks and that whimsical humor that can be vastly appealing.
Sam Tinker was enjoying the smells of the night and his memories of the blonde when he heard the soft footfalls of a walking horse. He heard the horse stop in the darkness alongside the hotel. He heard the creak of saddle leather as a man swung down.
Sam Tinker could wait. Whatever he had that anyone might want would be locked in the safe inside, and folks in the Deep Creek country knew better than to rob Sam Tinker. Sam had too many friends. Sheriffs and outlaws, ranchers and sheepmen, Indians from off the high mesas and prospectors from the rough country beyond The Notch. So he waited, puffing contentedly on his pipe. Whatever happened, it would make his evening more interesting.
The steps creaked and he looked up to see Clay Bell standing beside him. Clay hunkered down on his heels at the side of the chair. A man would have to walk clear past to even see him, squatting like that.
“Howdy, Clay! Cuttin’ a wide swath, these days.”
“Know a man who owns a gray horse with small hoofs?” Clay, without changing position, began to build a smoke. “High-steppin’, nervous sort of horse. This man would be wearin’ store-bought pants.”
Sam Tinker inhaled and held it, then let the smoke drift from his lips. He was vastly pleased by the question. He was a disciple of the belief that evil always gets what it deserves, and he enjoyed seeing his philosophy borne out. Particularly in this case. He had a certain admiration for really hard men who were skilled killers if they walked up to a man’s face and gave him a chance, but not for the gunman who lay in ambush, and who shot in the back.