You couldn’t prove a thing, and you’d just make a fool of yourself.” Wilson Hoyt stood up. “Now you quit that two-bit job and get out of town. If you’re still in town forty-eight hours from now, or if you so much as raise your voice, I’ll come for you.” Shevlin felt angry with frustration and helplessness. This was the one man he needed, but if Hoyt persisted in his stand nothing could prevent killing. How could he reach him?
“You’ve heard my ultimatum,” Hoyt said.
“Get up in the saddle and start looking for distance.” “If you remembered me, Hoyt, you wouldn’t be talking that way.” Hoyt brushed the remark off with a gesture.
“Oh, I know all about you! You fought in the Nueces cattle war, you were a Texas Ranger for two years and made quite a name for yourself. You had a name around Cimarron and Durango. I know all that, and I’m not impressed.” Mike Shevlin tucked his thumbs behind his belt and said quietly, “I was remembering one night in Tascosa.” Wilson Hoyt’s hands became very still. The leonine head was bowed slightly, the muscles in the powerful neck were rigid.
“It was bright moonlight,” Mike said, “and you were under the cottonwoods waiting for a man, so when a rider came in from the Canadian River bottoms you were sure it was your man.” Hoyt’s face was bleak.
“You stepped into the open, called out a name, and reached for your gun. Do you remember that?” “I remember it.” “You were slow, Wilson. We’ll say it was an off night. Anyway, this rider had the drop before your gun cleared leather, and when he spoke you knew you had braced the wrong man. Right so far?” “Yes.” “There you stood looking into the muzzle of a gun in the hands of an unknown man, a man with every chance and every right to shoot you where you stood. Then the man walked his horse away and left you standing there, and you never knew who it was who beat you to the draw.” “You could have heard the story.” “I never told it.” “Well, you beat me once. That doesn’t say you can do it again.” For years that faceless man had haunted Wilson Hoyt–that man whose features had been hidden by the shadows of his hat as well as by the trees. Now he knew.
“What’s your stake in this? I’ll not deny I owe you something. You could have shot me, yet you held your fire.” “Eli Patterson was my friend… that started it. Since then, something else has happened.
I’ve been hired to stop the high-grading and recover the gold.” Hoyt swore. “Hired? Why’d they pick an outside man?” Shevlin smiled. “You were keeping the peace, remember? You were letting things be, as long as everything was quiet.” Hoyt thrust the cigar back between his teeth.
“I don’t know about this. I got to think about it.
You keep your shirt on, d’you hear?” “Think fast then,” Shevlin said. “I’m not smart, Hoyt. I only know one way–I walk right in swinging. By noon tomorrow I’m cutting my wolf loose, and if you’re not with me you’d better hunt a hole.”
In the neat red brick house with the white shutters that was the home of Dr. Rupert Clagg, late of Boston, they were having supper. The house itself, the neat green lawn, and the white picket fence were all indications of Dr.
Clagg’s quality of mind. He was himself neat, orderly, efficient.
Graduating at the top of his class from medical school, he could have stepped into a fine practice in any city in the East, but the War Between the States changed all that. After only a year in practice in Philadelphia, in the office of the city’s most reputable physician, he had gone into the Army. The rough and ready life, the men he met, conspired to remove any latent desire to return to Philadelphia.
Instead, he elected to go west.
Dottie Clagg was one of three daughters in one of Philadelphia’s oldest and wealthiest families, but she possessed an adventurous spirit, and despite all the protests their two families could offer, they went west.
For a while Dr. Clagg had remained an Army surgeon, attached to various posts in New Mexico and Arizona. When he left the service a distant cousin, Clagg Merriam, who was in business in Rafter, suggested that they come there, and almost two years ago they had done so, prepared to settle down.
At thirty-four Dr. Rupert Clagg was erect, tall, and handsome, bronzed as any cowhand, and bearing an arrow scar on his cheekbone.
His office was filled with frontier atmosphere, but his home remained a corner of the New England where he had been born.
He liked having people around, and had been pleased when Laine Tennison arrived to be their house guest. Laine and Dottie had attended school together in Philadelphia, and Dottie had been thrilled when Laine had written, mentioning coming west for her health.
“Although I don’t know why,” Dottie had confided to her husband. “She was always the picture of health.” “Maybe she just wants to get away.” “A love affair!” Dottie was at once delighted and positive. “She’s had an unhappy love affair!” “Laine?” Clagg was skeptical.
“Even a girl as beautiful as she is can be disappointed,” Dottie protested.
Recognizing the fact that his wife could be as excited over an unhappy love affair as a happy one, he did not argue the point.
“I’m going to invite her for a visit,” Dottie had said. “You don’t mind, do you?” “Mind? Laine? By all means invite her.” She had arrived a few weeks later and had proved an attentive listener to Dottie’s endless chatter about people and happenings around Rafter. Laine, it seemed, was interested in all the trivia of life in a western mining town, and not the least bit bored.
Dr. Clagg offered few comments until Laine suggested that riding in the open air might be good for her health. Then he said, “By all means,” and added, a shade wryly, “Just don’t overdo it.” On this evening, when Clagg Merriam was also there for supper, Dr. Rupert glanced at Laine across the table. “Your color is better,” he said. “You were riding today?” “Driving. I rented a buckboard from that nice old man at the livery stable and drove out past the Glory Hole.” “That nice old man,” the doctor said ironically, “is a disreputable old outlaw.” “Really? He seems so sweet.” “I saw a new man in town today,” Dottie said, “and a handsome devil, too. One of the big, rugged outdoor types. He was coming from the sheriff’s office.” “Speaking of men,” Dr. Clagg commented casually, “Ben Stowe was asking about you. He noticed you driving around alone and wondered who you were. He was most interested.” “You can’t blame Ben,” Clagg Merriam said. “After all, Miss Tennison is a very beautiful girl.” “Why, thank you, Mr. Merriam.” Laine flashed him a quick smile. “But I am sure that wasn’t the reason.” “He asked if you were from San Francisco,” Dr. Rupert said. “but when I told him you were from Philadelphia he lost interest.” “Oh? So he doesn’t like Philadelphia girls!” Dottie exclaimed. “You should have told him that Laine has an uncle in San Francisco… and a rich uncle, at that!” Clagg Merriam glanced thoughtfully at Laine, but made no comment. Dr. Rupert, always an observant man, caught the expression on Laine’s face. It had stiffened at Dottie’s comment, and in the instant that Merriam looked at her, Laine shot Dottie a quick, protesting look.
Later, when the two men sat alone over brandy and cigars, Merriam commented, “Miss Tennison seems the picture of health. I think,” he added judiciously, “that they caught hers in time.” “I wouldn’t think it too safe for a girl to go riding around alone in a place like this. After all, the mines brought in all sorts of riffraff.” “She can look after herself, Clagg. And I believe the people here are quite stable. Remarkably stable, in fact. I also think most of them know she is my guest.” Walking away from the house an hour or so later, Clagg Merriam wondered whether Dr.
Rupert’s last comment had been a warning of some kind.
After he had left, Dr. Rupert sat in his big chair and lighted his pipe. Laine had asked for no medical advice, but he was as sure as one could be without a physical examination that there was nothing in the world wrong with Laine Tennison.
Which left the question: What was she doing in Rafter, of all places? A broken heart?
Absurd. Laine was often thoughtful, but she never moped.
Ben Stowe had been curious, even prying. And Dottie’s remark about an uncle in San Francisco had stirred immediate interest in Merriam. Only a fool would need to ask why.