“Rawhide Jenkins was foreman then, and they had a sourdough cook named Lemmon.” Then the remembrance of the voice came to him suddenly, by association. “And they had a cantankerous old devil of a wolfer named Winkler.” The door opened wider. “Come on careful, with your hands empty.” “That wolf-hunter,” Shevlin continued, “took over as cook one time when Lemmon was laid up.
He made the best coffee and the lousiest biscuits a man ever ate.” He walked up the ramp and into the darkness of a room that had once been the main part of the sawmill. A fire glowed redly on a hearth across the room, and the firelight gleamed from the blade of the saw.
Shevlin paused just inside the door, his senses alert and waiting, his hands gripping lightly the edges of his slicker.
“Light it, Eve.” A match flared, revealing the face of a girl, strangely lovely in the soft light. She touched the flame to the wick of a coal-oil lantern, then lowered the globe and hung the lantern so the light fell upon Shevlin’s face.
He knew what they saw: a big man with wide shoulders and a lean body that bulked even larger now with the wet slicker and the black leather chaps. A man over six feet tall who did not look the two hundred pounds he weighed, a man with a wedge-shaped face turned to leather by wind and sun.
Using his left hand, Shevlin tilted his hat back so they could see his face, wondering if the years had left enough for Winkler to recognize.
“Shevlin!” the man exclaimed. “Mike Shevlin! Well, I’ll be dogged! Heard you was killed down on the Nueces.” “It was a close thing.” Winkler did not lower the rifle, and Shevlin held his peace, knowing why it covered him.
“What happened out there just now?” “You had an eavesdropper. He tried a shot at me.” The huge room was almost empty. Here where the great saw blade had screamed through logs, cutting out planks to build the town, all was silent but for the subdued crackle of the fire and the rain on the walls and windows. The firelight and the lantern shed their glow even to the corners; he saw only the girl and the old wolfer, yet there had been four horses out there.
There were no chairs and no table, but there was a sixteen-foot pine log from which the top had been cut for planks, leaving a flat surface that was at once a bench and a table. Near the fireplace there was a stack of wood, and at the fire’s edge an ancient, smoke-blackened coffeepot.
The girl was young, not much over twenty, but her manner was cool and carried authority. She regarded him with direct attention. “Do you always shoot that quick?” “I take notions.” Winkler was still suspicious. “What did you come back for? Who sent for you?” Removing his slicker, Shevlin walked to the fire and stretched his hands toward the coals. What was going on here? He had returned, it seemed, to a town crawling with suspicion and fear. How could mining do that to a town? Or was it the mining?
“What did you come back for?” Winkler repeated.
“Eli’s dead.” “Eli?” “Eli Patterson.” “That’s been a while. Anyway, what’s that to do with you, I never heard of you going out of your way for anybody. What did you have to do with that old coot?” “I liked him.” Shevlin rubbed his hands above the coals. “I’ve been down Sonora way.
Only heard a few weeks ago that he was dead.” “So you came runnin’, hey? Take my advice and light a shuck out of here. Everything’s changed, and we’ve trouble enough without you.” “I want to know what happened to Eli.” Winkler snorted. “As I recall, he wasn’t the man to do business with a cow thief.” Mike Shevlin had expected that, sooner or later. “Maybe he didn’t think of me that way,” he said mildly.
The girl spoke up. “Who sent you to this mill?” she asked.
“It seemed like a good place to sleep. Never dreamed anybody would be holed up here.” She must be Three Sevens. What did he know of the Three Sevens outfit?
“You had friends here,” Winkler said. “Why not go to them? Or stop in the hotel?” “I never had any friends in this country. Only Eli Patterson.” “You trailed with Gentry and them. What about him? What about Ben Stowe?” Rain drummed on the roof, but Shevlin was sure he heard a faint stirring in the loft above.
So that was where they were, then.
“I think,” Eve said, “that this man is a spy.” “You think whatever you’re of a mind to. I’m going to get me some sleep here.” Then he added, “Eli gave me a job when I was a youngster.” “He never owned no cattle,” Winkler said.
“He hired me to unload a wagon for him, then he spoke to Moorman about me. That’s how come I hired on at Turkeytrack.” “You ran with Gentry and that crowd,” Eve said.
“I know all about you.” “Who ever knows all about anybody? As to the Gentry crowd, I’ll own to having been my share of a fool.” Come to think of it, he had never been much of anything else. He was a drifter, a man who fought for wages, mainly because he knew how to do it better than most, even in this country. Yet what did that mean? It meant when he was through they paid him off, and were glad to be rid of him. And in the end?
In the end he would die up a canyon some place when his ammunition gave out. Or at the end of a rope.
Weariness swept over him, and he felt empty, exhausted both mentally and physically.
He was tired of being wary, tired of running, tired of being alert for trouble. But he could not have picked a worse time to feel that way, for he had come back to a country that was obviously on the brink of a shooting war.
Yet he had no idea what was going on. He only knew that the town was cold, wet, and unfrly, just as it had been seventeen years ago.
CHAPTER 2
He had come to Rafter a gaunt youngster of thirteen astride a buckskin that showed every rib, thin as a bed slat himself, and wearing all he owned.
He carried a single-shot Sharps .50 buffalo gun, one ragged blanket, and a Navy Colt. The saddle he bestrode was a cast-off McClellan, left behind by the Army.
Eli Patterson had been alone in the store when the boy entered, wet to the skin, but carrying all the fine, stiff pride of a boy alone and seeking a man’s job. A boy who was ragged and wet, and who knew he was nothing much to begin with.
“Know where a man can find work?” He was shaking with chill, but he fought the tremble from his voice.
“Need help myself,” Patterson had lied.
“Cold makes me stiff. There’s a wagonload of stuff out back that needs unloading.” “I’m hunting a riding job,” the boy said proudly, holding himself tall.
Patterson shrugged. “Take it or leave it.” Pride fought with hunger, and lost. “I’ll take it,” the boy said, “but if anybody asks you, I’m a rider, not no day hand.” Patterson nodded, and taking a silver dollar from his pocket, he said, “Dinnertime. You eat up and come back.” The half-starved youngster had looked at the old man with cold eyes. “I ain’t earned it.
I’ll eat after.” Later in the day Jack Moorman walked into the store, tough, hearty old Jack. Eli nodded to indicate the boy. “Friend of mine, Jack, just rode in. I don’t reckon he’s really rustling work, but if you need a hand, he’s a rider.” Moorman turned his head to look, taking in the story at a glance. He was a bluff, kindly man. “Can you ride bog, boy?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. And I can rope an’ tie, and I’ve got the best cuttin’ horse in this here country.” He gestured toward the sorry-looking buckskin at the hitch rack.
“That crow-bait?” Moorman scoffed. “Why, I wouldn’t have that rack of bones on the place!” “Keep your job then,” Mike Shevlin replied brusquely. “I’ll not work for a man who judges a horse by the meat on him.” Surprised, Jack Moorman glanced around at Eli as if to say, “Hey, what is this?” Then he said, “Sorry, son, no offense intended. You just come on out and bring your horse. I surmise all he needs is a bait or two of oats and some grama.” Following that meeting with Jack Moorman, Mike Shevlin had worked two years for Turkeytrack, filling out and growing taller. And no man in the outfit had shouldered extra work because he was a boy, nor had Mike backed away from trouble. Not even on the day when he rode up to a rustler with a tied-down Turkeytrack calf and a brand half altered.