The last thing he wanted was a drink. What he wanted was food and coffee, gallons of coffee.
“The town’s changed,” Shevlin said tentatively as they emerged on the street. “I don’t see many of the old faces.” “Gone… gone with the cattle business.” Shevlin waited until they had taken a few strides, and then he asked, “What happened to Ray Hollister?” Gentry’s smile vanished. “Ray? Got too big for his boots, Ray did. He left the country… and just in time.” “He always did try to take big steps.” “Say!” There was obvious relief in Gentry’s tone. “I’d forgotten about the time you two tangled out at Rock Springs. You never did get along with him.” The thought seemed to please him. Gentry rested a big hand on Shevlin’s shoulder as they reached the door of the Gold Miner’s Daughter. Mike restrained his distaste. He had never liked to be touched, and had not cared for Gentry’s back-slapping good humor.
To get to the point, he asked, “Are you ranching, Gib?” “Me?” Gentry opened the door, and went on speaking as they entered. “The cattle business is a thing of the past in this country. No, I’m in the freighting business. Hauling for the mines– supplies in, gold out, working twenty to thirty rigs all the time.” Mike saw no familiar faces in the saloon. Gentry lifted a hand and the bartender tossed him a bottle, which Gib caught deftly. Then the bartender tossed two shot glasses, which Gentry caught just as easily with the other hand. He had always been fast with his hands for a big man… and fast with a gun.
Gentry was in a genial, talkative mood, and Shevlin was willing to listen. A cowhand, Gentry told him, had struck gold on the old Rafter H while sinking a post hole. Without saying a word to anyone he had gone off to San Francisco and obtained financial backing, then returned and bought the Rafter H headquarters area.
Polluted water from the mill flowed into the creek, spelling ruin for the Rafter H and the other cattle outfits. They fought, and among the casualties was the cowhand who had discovered the gold.
“Mighty convenient, I figure,” Gentry commented, refilling his glass, “but it didn’t do anybody any good. Turned out he had sold his entire interest to that Frisco outfit. There was trouble a-plenty with Turkeytrack and Rafter, but nothing we couldn’t manage.” “We?” Gentry winked. “Now, Mike, you know ol’ Gib. I never let any grass grow under my feet, you know that, an’ there’s more money in gold than in cattle. The trouble started when I hired on as guard at the Sun Strike.” “Trouble?” “Shooting trouble, Mike. Ben Stowe was boss of the guards, an’ you know Ben. He knew where to pick up a few salty boys down in the Panhandle country, and after we’d buried two or three of the local boys that was the end of it.” Trust Ben Stowe to know who had to be killed.
The backbone of any cow outfit lies in two or three fighting men whom the rest follow. Put them out of the picture, and the rest would be likely to lose heart. Mike Shevlin had seen it managed that way more than once, and had seen it tried at other times.
“Gib, who is the law around here?” “You on the dodge?” “Who is he?” “Aw, you’ve nothing to worry about. You know how it is with the law in these western towns. The law is always local law, so busy skinning its own cats it hasn’t time to worry about anybody who doesn’t make trouble. You could shoot half a dozen men in Denver or Cheyenne, and nobody would bother you anywhere else as long as you stayed out of trouble…. But the law here is Wilson Hoyt.” Wilson Hoyt, of all people! He was a burly bear of a man, broad and thick and muscular, but fast enough to have killed a man who had the drop on him. He was credited with seventeen killings, all on the side of the law. Of all the men who might be in this town, the one most likely to know about Mike Shevlin was Hoyt.
Hollister, Gentry, and Mason only knew the boy who had ridden away, and ten years and more can deepen and widen a man, they can salt him down with toughness and wisdom. And Mike had been gone thirteen years. Of them all, Hoyt would understand him more than the others, and Hoyt had seen him looking at Eli’s grave and would know why he had come back.
Gentry rambled on, taking a third drink while Mike was nursing his first. He talked about the good old days, and it came over Mike that Gentry still thought of him as a friend.
“You got to hand it to Ray,” Gentry said confidentially. “He always wanted to be a big man, and when gold was discovered he grabbed at the chance.
“He never came out in the open with it, and the cattle crowd never knew he’d thrown in with the other side. When trouble started–and I always figured his loud mouth caused it–Ray got in touch with the Frisco people and offered to handle negotiations with the ranchers. He and that shyster Evans called themselves a law firm, but you know Ben. When Hollister brought Ben into x he put a rope on trouble.
“When a few of the miners started high-grading a little here and there, Ben argued Ray into looking the other way. But Ben, he said nothing to Ray about the setup he arranged for buying up the gold to keep it out of circulation.” “Where did Ben get that kind of money?” Gentry gave Mike another wink. “Now, that there is Ben’s own secret, but don’t you low-rate Ben. Buying up the high-grade kept the news from getting out that Sun Strike was big.
They reported low averages from the mine, and nobody knew any different.” By this time Gentry was working on his fourth drink.
“Smart–that was smart thinking,” Mike remarked.
“You’re not just a-woofing,” Gentry said.
Trust Eli not to go along with that, or Jack Moorman for that matter, for Jack had money invested in town business, and he owned Turkeytrack as well. So they had been killed.
Had Ben Stowe realized that Eli Patterson was connected with the San Francisco owners?
Shevlin’s guess was they had not known. Shevlin had known Eli better than any of them had, and he had never heard him make any reference to relatives or friends in San Francisco… or anywhere else, for that matter. Eli had come west from Illinois, and when he talked it was about life back there.
Mike was scarcely listening to Gentry now, and Gib had gone back to talking of the old days, reliving the rough, tough old days of branding, roundups, and cattle drives.
“Remember the time a rattler scared that line-back dun of yours? He went right over the rim an’ I’ll be damned if you didn’t stay with him all the way to the river! If anybody had told me a man could ride a horse down that slope I’d have said he was loco.” Gentry was drunk… it was possible that by morning he would have no memory of what he had told Shevlin, and Mike was sure that only the liquor–he had already had a few when they met– had made him talk as freely as he had. That– and something else Mike suddenly realized: Gib Gentry was lonesome.
There was one other fact to consider. Gentry was in the freighting business, and when gold was moved he would do the moving, and there would be nobody to ask questions.
If Ben Stowe had done the planning for this operation he had planned very shrewdly indeed. All the loose ends were nicely tucked in, and everything was under control–everything but Gib Gentry’s tongue when he’d had a few drinks.
Did they know that?
“What’s Burt Parry like?” Mike asked.
“Aw, he’s all right. He’s got him a two-by-four claim over in the canyon. There’s nothing over there, but he sure ain’t willing to believe it.” Shevlin pushed back his chair and got up.
“I’d better get some sleep.” For a moment he rested a hand on Gentry’s shoulder. “Good to see you, boy. You watch your step now.” “See you.” Gentry seemed about to say something more, but he only added, “So long, kid.”
At six o’clock the next morning the man operating Eli’s old store was out sweeping the boardwalk. Mike Shevlin strolled inside and the man followed. Shevlin bought what digging clothes he would need, some candies, and a caplamp, and then said, “And four boxes of .44’s.” The storekeeper glanced up. “You expecting trouble?” “Man of peace, myself. Figured I’d be off up that canyon workin’ for Burt Parry and I’d have me some target practice. I never could hit the broad side of a barn.” Burt Parry was waiting in front of the Nevada House when Shevlin returned with his packages. “Lady waiting for you,” he said, “in the dining room. I heard her asking for you.” He went inside and passed under the arch into the dining room. It was Eve, and she was alone.