“There’s a difference,” Chantry said, “between a man who doesn’t want to kill anybody and a man who’s afraid. He just wasn’t reading the sign right.”
“You be careful,” McKay said. “He’s been talkin’ that it ain’t over.”
At the nooning Chantry rode in to switch horses, and got his saddle on the little buckskin that was one of the horses allotted for him to ride. He planned to scout wide of the herd that day, as he went to the wagon for his rifle.
As he stepped up to the wagon he heard Koch grumbling about something nearby, then heard his voice suddenly grow quiet. He read nothing into it, but had just drawn his rifle clear of the wagon when Koch said, “All right, you blasted tenderfoot! Now you got a gun, turn an’ start shootin’.”
The rifle barrel was in Tom’s left hand, which gripped it close to the fore-sight. Koch was not more than a dozen feet from him, and Tom wheeled sharply, swinging the rifle. As he came around he let it go, sending it flying toward the big man’s face.
Koch ducked and Tom Chantry lunged at him. The big man staggered, caught his balance and swung the gun around, but it went off of itself before he brought it into line. With the smashing report the cattle suddenly lunged and were running.
Chantry hit Koch with his shoulder, knocked him sprawling, then fell on him, knees in the big man’s belly. Without moving a knee, Chantry swung two hard punches at his face. Then he leaped back and, as Koch started to rise, smashed him in the face with his knee.
Men had leaped to the saddle and were plunging after the stampeding cattle, which were frightened by the sudden shot.
Chantry waited a moment for Koch to get up, but thoroughly angry now, he walked up to him and struck him twice in the face before Koch could lift his hands, hit him in the belly, and then when he started to fall forward, brought a hammer blow down on his kidneys.
“You’re fired, Koch,” he said. “Get your outfit and get out. I don’t ever want to see you around again … anywhere.” Chantry picked up his rifle and walked to his horse.
He rode out, swept wide, and began gathering cattle, pushing them toward the center. He gathered about twenty head, and then came upon a bunch that had slowed to a walk, and started them all back. Hay Gent joined him with a dozen head.
“What happened back there?” Gent asked.
“With Koch? I whipped him again, and then I
fired him.”
“What if he won’t stay fired?”
“He will.”
“But if he don’t?”
“Then I’ll whip him again, and again, until he
stays fired.”
Gent made no comment, and they drove the cattle in, meeting McKay, Helvie, and Rugger also bringing in cattle. It was the work of hours, but slowly the cattle were all gathered.
“We’ll move on,” French said. “Maybe there’s water up ahead.” He looked around. “Where’s Koch?”
They were all listening. “I fired him,” Chantry replied. “That shot started the stampede. This is no place to be settling personal grudges.”
Williams looked at him thoughtfully.
“We’ll be short-handed,” he said. And he added, “He’ll carry a grudge. Likely he’ll lay for you.”
“He’ll have company then,” Chantry said.
“What’s that mean?” Williams asked quickly.
“Men leave tracks, French. I’m not so much
a tenderfoot that I can’t read sign.”
They were all looking at him, but he left it at that, and the cattle started to move.
Riding out from the herd, he found a promontory and rode cautiously up the side to look over the ridge and survey the country. A few miles ahead and off to the right of the trail there was a hollow with a touch of deeper green.
Half an hour later he came up to it, a wide slough boggy along the sides, but with water a-plenty. Skirting it, he found it had a gravelly shore, and turned back to guide the herd.
“Water?” French was skeptical. “I don’t know of any water around here.”
“You do now,” Chantry said. “Hay, turn the herd.”
Hay Gent glanced at Williams, who merely shrugged, so the herd swung. By the time the cattle had watered and a few head had been snaked out of the mud it was coming on to sundown, and over by the chuck wagon there was a fire going.
There was little talk around the fire. The men were dog-tired, and when they had eaten they hunted their bedrolls. French alone loitered at the fire, smoking. From time to time he glanced across at Tom Chantry.
“You are a difficult man, my friend,” he said at last. “Whatever else you may be, you are not a coward.”
“Thanks.”
“I will win, however. It’s a long way
to Dodge.”
“It is that.” Chantry looked up from his coffee. “And when you get there, I’ll be with you.”
French’s gaze hardened, then he laughed. “You might be at that,” he replied cheerfully, “and if you are, I’ll give you credit for it.”
“You’ll need the credit,” Chantry replied.
“I’ll have the cash.”
He got a plate and his food, and sat down
a bit away from the fire. If they didn’t
accept him, the hell with them—he could go his own
way. But there was something in him that was different now;
he had grown harder, tougher. The wide plains
and the long winds of morning were having their effect; but
French Williams, the Talrim boys, and
Koch had contributed … yes, and Sparrow
back there at Las Vegas, and Bone
McCarthy at Clifton’s. These men had
experienced far more living in the West than he had. Perhaps, he thought reluctantly, perhaps his thinking needed a bit of revision.
How much of what he believed about not using guns was left over from that bitter day when they brought his father home on a shutter? Or was it what his mother had taught him? Deep in grief over the death of his father, she had shrunk from the possibility of such an end for her son.
Killing was wrong—on that score he could not change. However, there was no law here except the law enforced by men with guns, and did such men as the Talrims, and even such men as Williams himself, understand any other law?
If a man would not put restrictions upon himself, if he would not conform to the necessary limits that allow people to live together in peace, then he must not be allowed to infringe on the liberties of those who wanted to live in peace. And that might lead to violence, even to killing.
The trouble was that back east men had lived so long in a society that demanded order and conformity that they failed to understand that there were societies where violence was the rule, and where there were men to whom only the fear of retribution placed a bridle on their license.
But Tom Chantry knew there was more than his father behind him, for the fighting tradition of the Chantrys did not begin with him, nor with his grandfather, who had stood with LaFitte and Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. There were generations before that, who had crossed over from Ireland.
The principal thing he had learned was that simply because he himself did not believe in violence was no reason that others would feel the same. In the future he must be more wary. But what if the Talrim boys’ presence was not coincidence? What if French had arranged for them to be near? What if French intended the Talrim boys to eliminate him?
At daybreak he was out riding the drag, and when he broke off he caught up another horse from the remuda. This was a grulla mustang, small but wiry.
“Watch him, amigo,” Dutch Akin whispered. “That one is mean.”
The little mouse-colored horse stood quiet until saddled, but just as Chantry put his foot in the stirrup and rested his weight on it to swing to the saddle, the little horse folded up like a closing knife and then snapped open viciously. Tom Chantry slapped into the saddle as the horse came down, was almost thrown as it sun-fished wickedly, then crow-hopped for half a dozen jumps, and switched ends suddenly. More by luck than anything else, Tom stayed in the saddle. He had ridden spirited horses, but nothing that bucked like this. Just as he was sure he was going to have to grab for the pommel with both hands, the grulla stopped bucking, ran a few steps, and settled down.
Chantry rode over to the chuck wagon and, taking his rifle, shoved it into the saddle scabbard. Then he turned and rode out on the plains.
He had not ridden more than half a mile when he saw a rider emerge from a draw just ahead and stand waiting. It was Bone McCarthy.