Bostwick swore because he wanted breakfast, wanted a drink, because he hadn’t slept the night before, because he needed a shave and his face itched, and he swore on general principles.
His boss on the Slash Five had given him five days off in which to file on his claim, get drunk or whatever he pleased, and it looked like it would rain the whole five days, which Bostwick took as a personal affront.
Bostwick was a cowhand. Not a top hand, just a good, six-days-a-week, fourteen-hours-a-day cowhand who could handle a rope or a branding-iron, dig postholes, mend fences, clean water holes, shoe a horse, and play a fair hand of bunk-house poker.
He was twenty-nine years old, had never married, and he made forty dollars a month. Several times a month he managed to get good and drunk. And every drunk began or ended with a fist-fight. To date he was breaking even on the fights.
He wore a gun but had never drawn it in anger in his life. He had killed only one man he knew of, an Indian who was trying to steal his horse. That was when he was sixteen and coming West in a covered wagon.
At five eleven and weighing one hundred and seventy pounds his method of fighting was simple, to wade in swinging until something hit the dirt, either him or the other fellow. He fought because he enjoyed it and never carried a grudge that lasted longer than the headache.
The rain-blackened lava flow on his left ended and the trail curved around it into a huddle of nondescript buildings, for the most part unpainted and weather-beaten. This was the town of Yellow jacket.
The main street was empty, empty except for a covered wagon whose off wheels were on higher ground, giving a precarious tilt to the wagonbed. A man in a tattered slicker stood before the wagon talking to a girl whose face was barely revealed through the parted canvas.
“He doesn’t plan to give them back, Ruthie,” the old man was saying. “He doesn’t aim to ever give them back. He says we owe him because he fed them.”
The thin, querulous voice carried through the rain to Bostwick who turned his eyes to them. There was something about the large dark eyes and the thin child’s face that disturbed him. As he drew abreast of them the old man looked up at him out of faded blue eyes, then back to the girl.
“You’d better get into the wagon, Granddad. We can’t do anything until the storm breaks.”
Bostwick rode to the livery stable, stripped the gear from the roan and rubbed the horse reasonably dry with handfuls of hay, but the ungrateful beast nipped at his elbow and as he departed the stall, took a playful kick at him that he evaded more from habit than attention. Without looking back he slogged through the mud to the saloon. There was no sound from the wagon as he went by.
The Yellowjacket Saloon was a bar fifteen feet long with a row of bottles behind, mud mixed with sawdust on the plank floor and a potbellied stove glowing ruby red like an expectant boil. Behind the bar there was a big man with a polished face and a handlebar mustache. His hair started midway on the top of his head and was jet-black. He had big, square fists and his hands and arms were white as a woman’s.
A man dozed in a chair against the wall, his hat over his eyes, another slept with his head on a card table. At the other table four men played a lackluster game in a desultory fashion with a dog-eared deck of cards. From time to time one or the other of them would turn his head to spit at a box of sawdust, and from time to time one of them hit it.
Bostwick removed his hat, slapped the rain drops from it with a blow against his leg and said, “Gimme a shot of rye.” The bartender glanced at Jim’s broken nose and poured the drink.
A man in a Mackinaw who sat near the glowing stove took his pipe from his mouth. “Just the same, I think it’s mighty mean of him to take their horses. How are they going to get out of here?”
A man with a streaked blond mustache glanced cynically at the first speaker. “You know Pennock. He doesn’t plan for them to leave, not a-tall!”
“He seen that girl,” the man in the Mackinaw said. “Ain’t many women come to Yellowjacket. Besides, that old man was all set to file on Squaw Springs, and Pennock figures that’s his’n.”
Jim Bostwick downed his drink. Squaw Springs? That was the claim he’d planned to file on.
He let the bartender refill his glass. “He filed on Squaw Springs?”
“Pennock? Why should he? Who’s going to butt in when he says it’s his’n? They say that gun of his packs seven notches, or could if he wished it.”
“It could,” the bartender said. “We all know two notches that could go on it. Sandy Chase tried Pennock’s game and came up a loser.”
“Ought to be a law against killin’ when the ground’s all froze up. Grave diggin’ no pleasure any time, but in frozen ground?”
“Makes for shallow graves,” somebody said, “better when Judgment Day comes.”
“That girl ain’t no more’n sixteen or seventeen. It’s a damn shame.”
“You go tell that to Pennock.”
Nobody replied to that. Well, it was none of his fuss. Besides, they planned to file on his claim, as did Pennock.
“Where’s the grub-pile?” he asked.
“Two doors down.” He glanced again at the broken nose. “You a fighter?”
Bostwick buttoned his slicker. “Only when I’m pushed.”
He started for the door and heard the man in the Mackinaw say, “He killed Chase over a woman. What was the other one about?”
“Feller aimed to file on Squaw Springs. Pennock brought some sort of a charge against him, and the feller got riled. Figured he was a tough case and maybe in his home country he was.”
“He was too far from home, then. I’m not hunting any beef with Cap Pennock!”
Jim pulled his hat low over his eyes. Shoulders hunched against the rain, he slopped through the mud to the light already showing from the boardinghouse window. The covered wagon was directly across the street and, as he glanced over, he saw the girl getting down from the wagon. Averting his eyes he ducked into the door.
A big-bosomed woman with a red, Irish face pointed at the mat. “Wipe your feet, an’ wipe ’em good!”
Meekly, Bostwick did as he was told. Taking off his hat and slicker he hung them from pegs near the door and seated himself at the long table.
“You’re early, stranger,” the Irish woman said, “but you look hungry, so set up. I’ll feed you.”
Bostwick looked up as the door closed. It was the girl from the wagon. She had dark hair and large dark eyes. Her face was oval and quite pretty. She had a coffeepot in her hand. She looked at him, then turned hastily away as if she had seen too many of his kind. Bostwick flushed.
“Ma’am? Can I buy some coffee? Grandad’s having a chill.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, sloppin’ around in the rain like he’s been doin’. You two goin’ to pay Cap Pennock what he asks?”
Her lips, delicate as a rose petal, trembled. “We can’t. We just don’t have it.”
The woman filled the coffeepot and waved payment aside. “You take it along, honey. I wouldn’t know what to charge for that little dab of coffee.”
“But I — ! I do want to pay.”
“You go along now. It’s all right.”
When the girl had gone, she brought food to Bostwick. “It’s a shame!” she said. “A downright shame!”
Jim Bostwick helped himself to a slab of beef and some mashed potatoes. “Who is this Pennock?” he asked, without looking up.
The woman turned to look at him, seeing only the tangled hair, the blunt, wind-carved unshaved features and the broad, powerful shoulders tapering to narrow hips, shoulders clad in a cheap coat and a wool shirt.
“He’s the town marshal. More, he’s the boss around here, and folks know it.”
“Nobody stands against him?”
“Some tried. Things happened to them. Cap Pennock is a hard man.”
He was getting bored by that repeated comment. “When did those folks get here?”
“Yesterday. Pennock took their horses, impounded them for being in the street all night. Back when the mining boom was on, the town council passed that rule because the streets were so crowded at night a body couldn’t get through. After the boom died people forgot about it until Pennock was elected marshal, then he dug into the town laws and dug up a lot of regulations, all of which show profit for him.”