A little chill struck him, remembering Bell. There was something about gunfighters, one always knew another.
“Half of it now,” he said. “On the line.”
“All right. The other half when the job is done.”
Devitt opened his safe and took out a sheaf of bills. He counted them out on the desk-top.
“Don’t worry about the rest. I’ll pay it.”
Jack Kilbum looked up at Devitt and something inside Jud turned over slowly, sickeningly.
“We ain’t worried, Devitt. We’ll collect.”
Stag Harvey got to his feet and Kilburn followed suit. “Have the rest of it on you, Devitt. We’ll want it fast.”
Outside, they walked away from the house before they paused.
“Wonder if he knows what’ll happen to him when Bell is killed?”
“No,” Kilburn said thoughtfully, “I don’t think he’s thought about that.”
“Simmons is dead.”
“But Devitt don’t read the sign.”
They walked down to the main street, then stopped again. “We’d better get some sleep, Jack. I don’t like this. Not a bit.”
Jud Devitt sat alone behind his desk. For a moment he stared down at his hands with a feeling of something like revulsion. All the details of the last few minutes seemed dreamlike and unreal. He had actually bought a man’s death. Legally, he was a murderer.
But this was war . . . it was a war in which all the rules were changed. It was not in Jud Devitt to go in for self-analysis, nor to realize that this was a war of his own making, a war which he had declared and in which he had opened hostilities. He was a man who meant to win. The admired man was the go-getter, the man who did things. Devitt was not one to stop to consider the rights and wrongs of what he did, nor to realize there is a fine line one may not cross.
The feeling of doubt and revulsion passed. Bell had his grazing permit, but tomorrow that permit would be revoked by his death. He had no heirs. Within a brief time the hands who worked for Bell would drift away, the land would lie idle, and he could walk in and take over.
What had become of Tripp? Suddenly irritable, he wanted his labor foreman, but the man was not around. Angrily, he looked at his watch, and for the first time realized that he had sat up most of the night. It would be morning soon.
He heard voices, someone passing in the street. He paused by the window, his light out, listening.
When he turned away he walked to his cot and pulled off his boots. Then for a long time he sat there. Shorty Jones had killed Pete Simmons—two shots centered in his shirt pocket at a distance of thirty feet.
Chapter 17
Daylight was streaming in the window when Clay Bell awakened. For a long time he lay still, assembling his thoughts and putting the pieces of the picture in their places.
Simmons was dead. Shorty Jones had hunted down the man who had crippled Bert Garry and caused the young cowboy’s death.
Simmons had mistaken the heavy post near which Jones stood for the puncher himself. A few of the buckshot had clipped Shorty, but a scratched cheek and arm were his only injuries.
This morning there were few lumberjacks around, and most of them were silent and kept in tight groups. The boisterous talk and rough horse-play of the past days was missing.
Those who had been started from the trail to Emigrant Gap in their sock feet had not returned to Tinkersville. Several others had left by the early train, Bob Tripp and Williams among them.
Yet there was a noticeable tension in the town. Looking from the second-story hotel window, Bell could sense it in the way people moved, in the very quiet of the town. Men had been killed, and there might be more killing yet to come. Tinkersville was unsure and was taking no chances.
Clay splashed water on his chest and shoulders, and combed his hair. When he was dressed, he brushed his boots carefully, then checked his guns. He swung the belts around his hips, and settled the guns in their places.
He felt a curious reluctance to leave his room, and was puzzled by it. Finally, he opened the door and stepped out into the hall. A careful man always, he stopped there and looked up and down the corridor. The doors were closed. There was no sign of movement. At the head of the stairs he hesitated and turned and looked back down the hall again. Then he descended, casually, but with eyes alert. Jud Devitt was still in town, and Jud could be dangerous.
He had seen no sign of Morton Schwabe. Tibbott’s arrival and his broadcasting of the news that Bell had won his grazing permit would probably stop any move that Schwabe might make. But remembering Kesterson’s story of Schwabe buying shells, it was not a good idea to gamble. Ed Miller looked up from his inevitable ledger. “You’re late,” he said grinning. “She’s already gone in.”
Clay walked past the desk and into the dining room. Judge Riley was there, talking with Sam Tinker. Kesterson sat near by, and alone. There was no sign of either Devitt or Noble Wheeler. Colleen sat at a table alone and, after hanging up his hat, Clay sat down across from her.
She was pale this morning and her eyes seemed unnaturally large.
“You’re up early,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep—and then those shots.”
“It was Shorty.”
“I know. Father went down.”
They were silent, waiting until the waitress had cleared away dishes left by Judge Riley and brought coffee to Clay.
“Is it over now?”
He shook his head. “You know it isn’t. It won’t be until Jud leaves town.”
“Maybe if I went to see him?”
“Don’t go. Nothing will make him leave until he makes up his own mind. But most of his crowd are gone.” He tried his coffee. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Please do.” She looked up suddenly. “Clay, why don’t you go back to the ranch? He won’t be here long, and if you stay, there’ll be trouble.”
“I can’t run away from a fight.”
Her father had told her this. Masculine pride . . . but something more. A man must be respected by those of his community, and in this country, where fighting courage and skill were respected social virtues, he could not leave. Too long had these people lived by the gun. These men and women had crossed the plains, they had fought Indians and outlaws, and they had built homes where it took strength to build and courage to fight—and the willingness to fight was still a social virtue of the first order. The town was not yet tame.
All those in the dining room were talking about the events of the night. Colleen sat quietly, watching Clay eat. A month ago she would have been horrified at things she now accepted.
This man had killed men. He was fighting a war just as deadly as any war with flags and uniforms, and a war that must be won. Remembering the hours she had sat with Bert Garry, she knew they had been good hours for her. Bert had been conscious and aware much of the time. He had talked and she had listened; she had heard his slow stories of the work on the B-Bar, how good Clay was to work for, how patiently he built his herds, how solidly he planned.
Now Bert Garry was dead, and the man who had actually killed him was dead. But the man responsible was still alive and still in town.
She felt curiously drawn to this tall, quiet young man across the table. Time and again she had tried to understand it, but her feelings defied analysis. When she was with him she felt right. When she was away from him she thought of their brief minutes together and wondered when she would see him again. From the first there had been an unspoken understanding.
Shorty Jones came in. She heard the door close and looked around, following Clay’s quick glance. Shorty wore a sun-faded checked shirt and jeans. He had his gun tied down. His broad face was red from the sun, and his corn-silk brows shadowed his eyes. He walked quickly to the table and stopped, hat in hand.
“Clay, I got to talk to you.”
“Is there trouble at the Gap?”
“Not now—that bunch that jumped the ranch are gone. Buck Chalmers came in few minutes back. Told me they got themselves a ride toward Tucson with some freighters.”
“Had breakfast?”
“Sure.” Shorty hesitated, not certain how to say what he had in mind.
“Boss,” he said suddenly, “after that Simmons shootin’ I scouted around some, huntin’ for Duval. He must’ve gone to the Gap with that crowd because I didn’t find him. But I saw somethin’ else.”