The law was something he understood and respected. It was a trust, a sacred trust. He knew that not many frontier marshals considered it so, but it was his belief, and had always been. In what was to come he must act without malice and only upon evidence, yet he knew well enough that in this case there would be no need for evidence to present before a court. In this situation he would have to be judge and jury, and perhaps executioner.
Coyle’s reaction in the case of Hammer and Sperry might have been the legitimate action of a just and angry man. It might also have been the anger of a man who saw a well planned scheme endangered by a clumsy action.
When they moved out tomorrow, events would move more swiftly. Knowing that, he got up quickly. He must see Jacquine. He must see her and settle this thing that was between them. Then he stopped. For the time at least, he had better wait. For if he spoke his mind, and by some chance she loved him, it would be that much harder when he was faced with his duty and shouldered with the protection of these people of the wagon train.
Swearing softly, he started toward the encampment.
Several soldiers were loafing about, and he saw Herman Reutz talking with Lute Harless. He started toward him, but when they looked up and saw him both men turned swiftly away and walked in the other direction.
Matt stopped so suddenly he almost fell. There could be no mistaking their action. These two … two of his best friends on the wagon tram … had deliberately turned and walked away from him!
Puzzled, he turned and walked on in the direction of the fort. Then he shrugged. Probably they had been discussing some business deal, some little plan of their own that was confidential. There was a wagon drawn up near the crude palade and several soldiers gathered around. Bat Hammer was there, and Logan Deane. So were Johnson, Sperry, two of the Stark boys and Bill Shedd. As he walked up Clive Massey came through the gate beside the wagon and their eyes met.
He was shocked at the sudden blaze of passion in Massey’s eyes, but the man avoided him, and began talking to the soldier who was standing beside the wagon. Soon a civilian approached, apparently the sutler, and there began some low animated talk.
Shedd walked up to him, and he noticed how the eyes of the others followed him. “Howdy, Matt!” Bill said. Then low voiced, he added, “You sure are gettin’ unpopular all of a sudden! Me, too, for that matter. What’s happened? We got the plague, or something?”
“I’m damned if I know. What’s the talk around?”
“I don’t know. When I come around, they just naturally shut up an’ don’t say no more. It must be about you or me, or maybe both of us.”
Matt glanced around swiftly, impatiently. Since the night before he had been seething inside. He knew what had happened. It was easy enough to bottle up a feeling like that, but once it had been given rein, it was no longer enough. He wanted Jacquine Coyle, and he wanted her now, and the wanting was a fierce urgency that put a drive in every movement and a demanding fire in his eyes and hands.
“To hell with them!” he said impatiently. “I don’t know what’s got into them and I don’t care! Has Pearson given orders for moving out?”
“In the morning, at four o’clock.”
“Good! I want to get on with this.” Matt turned abruptly. “Shedd, you implied some time back that you were looking for a man who might be with us. Who is he? Why do you want him?”
Shedd’s eyes turned away. The big man’s face lost its heaviness and suddenly he seemed to harden. “I ain’t tellin’, Matt. Only I got an idea.”
“Shedd,” Matt spoke sharply, “if you’ve anything on your mind, you’d better say it. I want to know just what the score is, all the time.”
“I ain’t sure.” The big man stared toward the sutler’s wagon. “I just ain’t sure.” He stared at his huge, knotted fist. “Matt, I’m a huntin’ a man what killed my brother. He wasn’t much, that brother of mine. If he’d been killed a few times, by a few men, I’d have shrugged it off an’ done no thin’. But he was killed by a skunk, an’ I’m skunk huntin’ now. On’y, that skunk’s got teeth.”
“Who?”
Shedd looked up, his eyes bleak and hard. “Sun Boyne.”
“Boyne?” Matt stared at Shedd. Everywhere he went he heard that name. A few months ago it was merely a tag to a legend, and now it was running through his life like a red thread.
“You think he’s here? With us?”
“I do.”
Matt shrugged. “Hell, you can be wrong. There’s folks here even say I’m him.”
“You ain’t. I know that. When I find him, I’ve got a way of knowin’. But I know you ain’t him.”
Clive Massey turned away from his conference with the sutler and his eyes crossed Matt’s. Suddenly, quick fury flamed in his dark face and he wheeled abruptly and started toward Matt, walking on the balls of his feet. He strode up to him and stopped.
Massey’s eyes were hot with rage, a sullen burning rage that seemed to have been smouldering and now had come swiftly to the blazing point.
“Bardoul, I’ve had about enough of you! You’re leaving this wagon tram, and leaving it here!”
Matt’s eyes widened, and a slow humour grew within him. It was always so, perhaps, he reflected at times, a nervous reaction. Whenever he was faced with such a situation he seemed to grow very quiet and still inside, and words came easily, his mind always found something faintly amusing and preposterous about it all.
“Why, what’s on your mind, Clive? Something in particular, or things in general?” Casually, he lifted his hands, rubbing the left palm with his right thumb, chest high. It would make all the difference sometimes, that matter of having your hands in hitting position. “Or is it that you just can’t stand me?”
“It’s just that I saw what happened last night, and I don’t want Jacquine subjected to such indignities.” His voice was level and cold.
Something burst suddenly within Matt, but he throttled it back. “We won’t mention any names here, Massey!” His voice shook. “And I think the lady has her own ways of handling situations she doesn’t like!”
“No doubt.” Clive’s quick smile flickered suddenly on his lips. “And I have mine!”
Matt saw the movement, and jabbed with his left, but Clive Massey’s head shifted and the punch missed, and then Massey hit him with a crossed right.
Matt never saw the punch coming, nor the left hook that followed it. Something slugged him on the jaw like a mule’s kick and he hit the ground hard and rolled over, lights and thunder bursting in his brain.
Fighting for consciousness, through the smoky roaring in his skull, he knew he had been hit. He had been hit harder than he had ever been before. He started to push himself up, and a boot crashed into his ribs. He heard shouts and yells, and then another boot, and yet another and another.
Pain stabbed his side, and his head reeled. Through some blank, strange darkness he kept fighting the pain, and pushing against the grass, and then somehow he was on his feet, and he saw the dark viciousness of Clive Massey’s face looming toward him, saw those lips curl, and then the stabbing of a punch into his belly and a crashing blow on the jaw. He swung half way around and hit the ground and felt the cool grass against his face, and the dust in his nostrils.
CHAPTER IX
Then he had his hands under him again and he was pushing himself up. How he got to his feet he never knew. Through the roaring in his skull and the taste of blood in his mouth, he knew he had to get up. He seemed to hear Coyle’s voice and Buffalo Murphy’s, and then a sneering laugh and a blow that jarred him to his heels. Vaguely, he saw Clive Massey set himself, he saw the punch start, but although the will was there, he lacked the strength to pull his head away, and the fist struck his jaw and then the ground hit him hard between the shoulders. He rolled over and something crashed against his skull and a rocket seemed to burst in his brain, but he pushed his hands against the grass and fought his way up.
Massey, his eyes bitter with fury, moved in on him, and Matt shook his head. His face felt stiff and queer, but he was on his feet and he knew he had to fight. He had to fight as he had never fought before. The punch came this time, but he fell inside of it, grabbed Massey with both arms, and tripped him with a backheel. They hit the ground, and he slugged Massey once, then they rolled over.