The door opened and the man in the Mackinaw came in followed by his blond-mustached friend. Jim was aware of their attention.
“Howdy, Kate!”
“Howdy, Harbridge! How are you, Grove? How’s Emma doin’?”
“Ailin’,” Grove replied cheerfully.
The bartender came in and behind him, another man. Talk around the table died and Bostwick looked up. The newcomer was a big man, heavy-shouldered with bold black eyes. Instinctively, Bostwick knew this was Pennock. The man sat down near him and instantly Bostwick felt the stirring of an inner rebellion. There was something deep within him that deeply resented such men.
Bostwick was, as many an American has been before and since, a man who resented authority.
He knew its necessity and tried to conform but when that authority became domineering, as this man obviously was, Bostwick’s resentment grew.
More than that, very big men who used their size to overawe others, irritated him. That fact accounted for the fact that he had lost as many fights as he had, for he was always choosing the biggest, toughest ones. Large men put him on edge, and he was on edge now.
“Stranger in town?” Pennock asked abruptly.
“No.” Bostwick could not have told why he chose to deliberately antagonize the man. “I been in town more’n an hour.”
Pennock did not reply, but Bostwick was aware of a subdued stir down the table. He reached over and took the coffeepot almost out of Pennock’s hand and filled his cup. The big man’s eyes hardened, and he studied Bostwick carefully.
“Don’t look at me,” Jim said, “I put my horse in the barn.”
Somebody snickered and Pennock said, “I didn’t ask about your horse. Seems to me, stranger, you’re somewhat on the prod.”
“Me?” Bostwick looked surprised. “I’m not huntin’ trouble. I’m not expectin’ trouble, either. Of course, if I was an old man with a pretty young daughter I might feel different.”
Pennock put his cup down hard. “I don’t like that remark. If you’re huntin’ trouble you’re sure headed right at it.”
“I ain’t huntin’ trouble, but there’s no law against a man thinkin’ out loud. I’m just of the opinion that a town that will make trouble for a sick old man and his daughter is pretty small stuff.”
“Nobody asked you,” Pennock said.
Pennock had an ugly expression in his eyes, but Bostwick was suddenly aware that Pennock was in no hurry to push trouble. That was an interesting point. Because he was a stranger? Because the attack had surprised him? Because Pennock was a sure-thing man who had no desire to tackle tough strangers? It was a point worthy of some thought.
Talk started up again, and Kate came around and laid an enormous slab of apple pie on Bostwicks’ plate. When he looked up, she was smiling.
No man such as Pennock just happens. Each has a past and perhaps somewhere back down the line Pennock was wanted. Or maybe he had taken water for somebody —
“Pennock?” he muttered. “That name does sound familiar.” Bostwick looked him over coolly. “Been around here long?”
Pennock’s lips thinned out, yet he fought back his anger. “I’ll ask the questions here. What do you want in Yellowjacket?”
“Just passin’ through.”
“A drifter?”
“No, I’m with a big outfit south of here, below the Bradshaws. The Slash Five.”
Grove looked up at the mention of the name. “Ain’t that the outfit that treed Weaver?”
It had been a fight with some tinhorn gamblers, but Bostwick lied, “We didn’t like the town marshal. He gave one of our boys a rough time, so we just naturally moved in.”
Kate asked, “What happened to the marshal?”
“Him? Oh, we hung him!” Bostwick said carelessly. “That is, we hung the body. I figure he was already dead because we dropped a loop on him and drug him maybe three hundred yards with some of the boys shootin’ into him as we drug him. He was a big feller, too.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Pennock’s face had lost color but none of the meanness in his eyes.
“Huh? Oh, not much! Only them big fellers don’t hang so good. Bodies are too heavy. This feller’s head pulled off. Would you believe it? Right off !”
Pete and Shorty would get a boot out of that story. Just wait until he told them! They’d never hung anybody or dragged anybody. A couple of the tinhorns tried to shoot it out but Shorty was, for a cowhand, mighty good with a gun. He nailed one, and Pete wounded the other one. Then they had pitched all the rest of the tinhorns’ gear into the street and ran them out of town in their sock feet.
He was aware the others were enjoying his baiting of the town marshal. He was enjoying it himself, and with a good meal inside him he had lost his grouch. But none of this was getting him anywhere closer to Squaw Springs — nor was it getting that girl and her grandad out of trouble.
It was then he remembered they were planning to file on Squaw Springs themselves, so if somehow he got them out of trouble —
He stopped abruptly. Now who said he was getting them out of trouble? What business was it of his? A man could get himself killed, butting into such things.
But saying he did get them out of trouble, then they would be going after the same claim he wanted!
It was a good claim. The spring had a fine flow of excellent water, and the land lay well for farming or grazing. A man could do something with it, fruit trees, maybe. A place like his folks had back East.
Pennock wanted that claim, too, and any way a man looked at it Pennock was in the way.
Cap Pennock finished eating and went outside, ignoring Bostwick. Pennock stopped outside the boardinghouse window picking his teeth with the ivory toothpick that had been hanging from his watch chain. He was looking across the street at the covered wagon. That decided Bostwick. He would get them out of trouble first and then decide about the claim.
“You better lay off Pennock,” Harbridge warned him. “He’s a killer. He’ll be out to get you now, one way or the other.
“He’ll get out that book of city laws and find something he can hang onto you.”
Bostwick had a sudden thought. “Is there just one of them law books? I mean, does anybody else have a copy?”
“I have, I think,” Kate replied dubiously. “My old man was mayor during the boom days. I believe he had one.”
“You have a look. I’ll talk to that girl.”
There was worry in Kate’s eyes. “Now you be careful, young man! Don’t take Pennock lightly!”
“I surely won’t. I ain’t anxious to get hurt. You see,” he said ruefully, “I had my heart set on Squaw Creek myself!”
He splashed across the street to the wagon and rapped on the wagon box. Dusk was falling but he could see her expression change from fear to relief as she saw him.
“Ma’am, how much does that marshal want for your horses?”
“He said fifty dollars.”
“How’s your grandad?”
“Not very good.” She spoke softly. “I’m worried.”
“Maybe we better get him inside Kate’s house. It’s cold and damp out here.”
“Oh, but we can’t! If we leave the wagon the marshal will take it, too.”
“You get him fixed to move,” Bostwick said. “You leave that marshal to me.”
When he explained to Kate she agreed readily but then wondered, “What about the wagon?”
“I’ll find a way,” he said doubtfully.
“I found that book,” Kate said, “for whatever good it will do you.”
It was not really a book, just a few handwritten sheets stapled together. It was headed boldly: City Ordnances.
Bostwick was a slow reader at best, but he seated himself and began to work his way through the half-dozen pages of what a long-ago town council had decreed for Yellowjacket.
Later, when he had grandad safely installed in the room where Kate’s husband had once lived, he had a long talk with Kate.
“I’ll do it! I’ll do it or me name’s not Katie Mulrennan!”
Watching his chance to move unseen, Bostwick ran through the mud and crawled into the wagon, burrowing down amidst the bedding and odds and ends of household furniture. He had been there but a few minutes when he heard a splashing of hoofs and a rattle of trace-chains. Pennock was, as he had expected, hitching grandpa’s team to the wagon.
Crouching back of the seat, he waited. Pennock had learned of his moving grandad into Kate’s but had no idea Bostwick was inside the wagon.
It was dark and wet, and the big man was watching his footing as he started to clamber into the wagon. He missed seeing the hand that shot out of the darkness and grabbed the lines from his hand, nor the foot until it smashed into his chest.