They came out then, slowly, holding their hands wide from their guns. They came with reluctance—more than half ready for battle, but not quite. One of them was a big man with black hair and blue-black jowls. The other had the flat, cruel face of an Apache.
“Suppose we’d come shootin’?” The black-haired man was talking.
“Then they would have planted you before sundown.” I smiled at him. “If you don’t believe it, cut loose your wolf.”
They did not know me and I was too ready. They were wise enough to see I’d been trailing with the rough-string but they didn’t know how far I could carry my bluff.
“You move fast.” Finder was talking. “What if I had cut myself in?”
“I was expecting it.” My smile angered him. “You would have gone first, then a quick one for Blackie, and after that”—I indicated the Apache—”him. He would be the hardest to kill.”
Jim Finder did not like it, and he did not like me. Nonetheless, he had a problem.
“I made an offer.”
“And I’m turning it down.”
His lips thinned down and I’ve seldom seen so much hatred in a man’s eyes. I’d made him look small in front of his hired hands.
“Then get out. Join Maclaren and you’ll die.”
When you’re young you can be cocky. I was young then and I was cocky, and I knew I should be wiser and hold my tongue. But I was feeling reckless and ready for trouble, and in no mood for beating around the greasewood.
“Then why wait,” I threw it right in his teeth with a taunt. “So far as I know, I’m not joining Maclaren, but any time you want what I’ve got, come shootin’.”
“You won’t live long.”
“No? Well, I’ve a hunch I’ll stand by when they throw dirt on your face.” With that, I stepped to one side and looked at Finder. “You first, amigo, unless you’d like to make an issue.”
He walked away from me, followed by his two men, and I waited and watched them go. I’ll not deny I was relieved. With three men I’d have come out on the short end—but somebody would have gone with me and Jim Finder was no gambler. Not right then, at least.
Up the street from the door of the stable I could see a welcome sign:
MOTHER O’HARA’S COOKING MEALS
FOUR-BITS
When I pushed open the door there were few at table—it was early for supper—but the young man with the white hair was eating, and beside him was the girl I loved.
It was a long, narrow, and low-ceilinged room of adobe, with white-washed walls, and it had the only plank floor among the town’s three eating houses. The tables were neat, the dishes clean, and the food looked good. The girl looked up, and right away the light of battle came into her eyes. I grinned at her and bowed slightly.
The white-haired man looked at me, surprised, then glanced quickly at the girl, whose cheeks were showing color.
The buxom woman who came in from the kitchen stopped and looked from one to the other of us, then a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. This, I correctly guessed, was Mother O’Hara. The girl returned to her eating without speaking.
The man spoke. “You’ve met Miss Maclaren then?”
Maclaren, was it?
“Not formally,” I said, “but she’s been on my mind for years.” And knowing a valuable friend when I saw one, I added, “And it’s no wonder she’s lovely, if she eats here!”
“I can smell the blarney in that,” Mother O’Hara said dryly, “but if it’s food you want, sit down.”
There was an empty bench opposite them, so I sat there. The girl did not look up, but the man offered his hand across the table. “Tin Key Chapin. And this, to make it formal, is Moira Maclaren.”
“I’m Brennan,” I said, “Matt Brennan.”
A grizzled and dusty man from the far end of the table looked up. “Matt Brennan of Mobeetie, the Mogollon gunfighter?”
They all looked at me then, for it was a name not unknown. The reputation I’d rather not have had, but the name was mine and the reputation one I had earned.
“The gentleman knows me.”
“Yet you refused Maclaren’s offer?”
“And Finder’s, too.”
They studied me, and after a minute Chapin said, “I’d have expected you to accept—one or the other.”
“I play my own cards,” I told him, “and my gun’s not for hire.”
TWO
Mrs. O’Hara came in with my food and I ate and drank coffee and let the others wait and think. Nor could I miss knowing what they were thinking of. In the past it had not mattered. I’d been a drifter, a man riding from town to town.
It was otherwise now … suddenly. And the difference was a girl with green eyes and dark hair. I knew I had been looking for her, for this girl across the table. And what I wanted to give her could not be bought with a gunfighter’s wages.
The food was good and I ate heartily. They finished, but they sat over coffee. Finally I finished too, and began to build a smoke.
Where did I go from here? How did a man turn from the trail and settle down? For this was a girl who had a good home. I could offer her no less.
“What’s the fight about?” I asked presently.
“What are most fights about? Sheep, cattle, or grass. Or water … and that’s what it is in this case.
“East of here there’s a long valley, Cottonwood Wash. Running into it from the east is Two-Bar Canyon. There’s a good year-round stream flowing out of Two-Bar, enough to irrigate hay land or water thousands of cattle. Maclaren needs it, the C.P. wants it.”
“Who’s got it?”
“A man named Ball. He’s no fighter, and he has no money to hire fighters. He hates Maclaren, and he refuses to do business with Finder.”
“And he’s right in the middle.”
Chapin put down his cup and took out his tobacco and pipe. “Gamblers in town are offering odds he won’t last thirty days, even money he’ll be killed within ten.”
So that was the way of it? Two cow outfits wanting the water that another had. Two big outfits wanting to grow, and a little one holding them back.
No fighter was he? But a man with nerve … it took nerve to sit on the hot seat like that.
But that was enough for now. My eyes turned to the daughter of Rud Maclaren. “You can buy your trousseau,” I said. “You’ll not have long for planning.”
She looked at me coolly, but there was impudence in her, too.
“I’ll not worry about it. There’s no weddings on Boot Hill.”
They all laughed at that, yet behind it they were all thinking she was right. When a man starts wearing a gun it is a thing to think about, but there was something inside me that told me no … not yet. Not by gun or horse or rolling river … not just yet.
“You’ve put your tongue to prophecy,” I said, “and maybe it’s in Boot Hill I’ll end. But I’ll tell you this, daughter of Maclaren, before I sleep in Boot Hill there will be sons and daughters of ours on this ground.
“I’ve a feeling on this, and mountain people set store by feelings. That when I go I’ll be carried there by six tall sons of ours, and you’ll be with them, remembering the good years we’ve had.”
When the door slapped shut behind me I knew I’d been talking like a fool, yet the feeling was still with me—and why, after all, must it be foolishness?
Through the thin panels I heard Mother O’Hara telling her, “You’d better be buying that trousseau, Moira Maclaren! There’s a lad knows his mind!”
“It’s all talk,” she said, “just loose talk.”
She did not sound convinced, however, and that was the way we left it, for I knew there were things to be done.
Behind me were a lot of trails and a lot of rough times. Young as I was, I’d been a man before my time, riding with trail herds, fighting Comanches and rustlers, and packing a fast gun before I’d put a man’s depth in my chest.
It was easy to talk, easy to make a boast to a pretty girl’s ears, but I’d no threshold to carry her over, nor any land anywhere. It was a thought that had never bothered me before this, but when a man starts to think of a woman of his own, and of a home, he begins to know what it means to be a man.
Yet standing there in the street with the night air coming down from the hills, and darkness gathering itself under the bam eaves and along the streets, I found an answer.