High Desert Page 14

  “All right,” Clancy said finally. “Slim. Rory. Cut out twenty head. Push ’em down the creek.”

  Then, for no understandable reason except that he had held it back so long, fury gripped the little cowman. It painted his face purple, brought his gnarled fist up to threaten Morgan.

  “Curse the woman who gave you birth, Morgan! If I thought you’d killed Rip, I’d gun you down, but I’m lettin’ you live because I want to see your clod-busters put a rope around your neck. Now get out of here!”

  “We don’t need that many cows,” Morgan said.

  “You’ll get ’em whether you need ’em or not!” Clancy screamed. “And you’ll eat your beef in perdition. I said to vamoose! Get, ’fore I plug you!”

  Morgan and Purdy swung their horses down the creek.

  “How do you figure it, Murdo?” Purdy asked.

  “I couldn’t figure out in the first place why he promised to let us have the beef, and I can’t now.” Morgan twisted a smoke, frowning at it. “And I can’t figure out how he’s going to get the settlers to hang us, but he was confident, Abel. Mighty confident.”

  XX

  Hard as Clancy was, he kept his promise. The herd bedded down within a mile of Irish Bend the night after Morgan and Purdy had brought in the twenty head.

  “Kill as many as they’ll eat,” Morgan told Clay Dalton. “I don’t want them to think we’re trying to save money, and you’ll have to send some beef to the hotel and Gardner’s tent restaurant.”

  It worked better than Morgan could have hoped. The old friendliness and optimism did not return, but the sullen suspicion was gone.

  “They figure to wait and see,” Dalton said. “Depends on the drawin’. Some of ’em want a lottery. Take out the fool idea of biddin’ on each tract.”

  “Can’t,” Morgan told him.

  * * * * *

  Morgan rode every day, knowing that if Cole and his bunch were in the valley, trouble was a constant possibility, but he could not find them.

  “They’ve pulled out to wait until the drawing,” Morgan told Jewell the night before the land sale started, “but they’ll be on hand tomorrow. The trouble is I don’t know who’s going to be on my side when the shooting starts.”

  “You have more friends than anybody else in the valley, Murdo,” she said.

  “And more enemies. But it’s the friends a man likes to think about. I wouldn’t have got this far if I hadn’t had some.”

  “Nobody ever did anything worthwhile alone, but you’ve got to keep watching, Murdo. Dad’s a careful man. He has a trick that he’s sure will work or he wouldn’t have let it go this long.” She stood looking at him, her full-lipped mouth sweetly set. “Do what you have to do. This valley is better for people than for cows.”

  Morgan thought about it that night and he was still thinking about it the next morning when he woke. He would do what had to be done, no matter what it did to him and Jewell Clancy.

  He was shaving when he heard a tap on his door. He called: “Come in!”

  Gardner opened the door and motioned a stocky man into the room. “Morgan, meet Post Office Inspector Bartell. He got in on the late stage last night.”

  Morgan shook hands with the man. “Glad to know you, Bartell.” He indicated a chair. “Sit down. I’ll be done in a minute and we’ll go down for breakfast.”

  Gardner paced to the window. “Mean day,” he said sourly. “Sticky. We’re in for a thunder shower. Weather’s as jittery as a nervous woman. Tempers ruffle easy on a day like this.”

  The inspector smiled as he lighted a cigar. “Then they’ll have to ruffle. We can’t change the law.”

  Morgan turned from the mirror. “What law?”

  “The government prohibits land allotments by lottery. That’s why I’m here.”

  “I know that. So do you, Gardner.”

  Gardner shuffled uneasily. “I haven’t told you, you riding and looking for Cole like you’ve been doing, but the contract holders elected trustees Saturday...Dalton, Jale Miller, and Hugh Frawley. Yesterday those trustees got hold of me and demanded that the drawing be made a straight lottery. No bidding. They claimed that by allowing the bidding, we’re opening the way for Clancy to buy his buildings and anything he wants. They don’t have much money. Clancy does, so he can outlast them. In other words, they claim they should get each tract for the contract price of two hundred dollars.”

  “Why, it says right on the contract that there’ll be a chance to bid on each tract before it’s knocked off!” Morgan exploded. “I told you the first time.”

  “I know,” Gardner said gloomily, “but Frawley and Miller were pretty hostile. Been listening to Royce and Blazer again, I guess. Frawley and Miller said they couldn’t guarantee that the men would stay in line if Clancy bid in a few choice tracts.”

  For a moment, there was no sound but the steady scratching of razor on stubble. This was the trick on which Clancy was depending, the reason for his holding back. There had been no violence, although he could have led his buckaroos into town and brought about a reign of terror. He could not be blamed for what would happen today, and there would be no trouble for him even if the governor sent a special investigator to the valley.

  There was no talk until Morgan finished shaving. Gardner fidgeted by the window; Bartell sat motionless, pulling steadily on his cigar. Morgan put on his shirt, buckled his gun belt around him, and slid into his coat.

  “Let’s have breakfast,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?” Gardner asked.

  “Nothing,” Morgan said flatly. “They’ll abide by the contract.”

  After breakfast Morgan waited in the lobby for Jewell and Peg who had ridden into town the night before. They came down together, both smiling when he said: “Good morning.” He could not tell from their composed faces that anything had passed between them.

  “This is your last warning,” he said. “That platform won’t be the safest place in town today.”

  “It’ll be a good place to watch from if there’s trouble,” Peg said.

  Morgan looked helplessly at Jewell who smiled as if this were an ordinary day instead of the most special one that Paradise Valley had ever known.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” she said.

  “All right,” he said. “We’d better get over there.”

  They followed the boardwalk to the Stockmen’s Bank, angled across the intersection to the store, and moved around it to the big tent. Purdy was waiting outside. He motioned to Morgan and stepped back.

  “Broad Clancy ain’t here, but Short John is,” Purdy said when Morgan joined him. “He’s got six cowhands with him. What do you think he’s up to?”

  “I’m guessing he’ll make a bid on a tract of land,” Morgan said. “Then all tarnation will blow up in our faces. I didn’t figure it out until this morning. Gardner just told me the trustees want to make it a lottery.”

  Purdy thought about it a moment, staring across the sage flat, troubled eyes blinking behind thick lenses. “Cole’s in there with the Sneeds, Blazer, and Royce,” he said. “Pretty close to the front and on the other side of the tent. I thought of arresting ’em, but I don’t have any real charge and I was afraid of what the settlers would do.”

  “That’s right,” Morgan agreed. “I’ve got a hunch I can stop them. I had an idea when I was shaving. Come on up to the platform.”

  Purdy nodded, and, turning back to Peg and Jewell, he moved beside Morgan up the middle aisle. Every bench was filled and men were packed around the sides and back of the tent. There were a thousand settlers here, Morgan guessed, perhaps more.

  He spoke to some he knew, and they spoke back civilly enough. There was no evidence of the sullen anger he had felt the week before. He thought they had, as Dalton had said, decided to wait and see. There was hope in that, but the material for an explosion was s
till present.

  Morgan stepped back when he reached the platform, motioning for Peg and Jewell to go ahead. He mentally cursed Gardner for insisting on them being here. It was not going to be the kind of show Gardner had anticipated. Morgan climbed to the platform, while Purdy remained on the ground.

  “Eight o’clock,” Gardner said.

  Morgan nodded, his eyes sweeping the platform. The bulk of Gardner’s office crew had moved over here. There was a jumble of tables and chairs, books, boxes, and record sheets, and Morgan wondered if any kind of order could be kept once the drawing was under way. Gardner had seated Peg and Jewell behind a table at the front of the platform, with two boxes in front of them. The trustees were on the other side of the table. The post office inspector beyond them.

  Stepping to the front of the platform, Morgan felt a sudden chill down his spine. Ed Cole’s handsome face stood out in the packed mass. He was smiling, a contemptuous smile, as if this were the moment he had long enjoyed in anticipation. It was Morgan’s moment, too, but now that it was here, he wished he were a million miles away. His head was a vacuum. No words came to his tongue.

  “Get it started,” Gardner whispered.

  Morgan licked dry lips, eyes turning to Jewell. It seemed to him he could hear her say again: “You’ve got to win, Murdo. Do what you have to do.” He swung back to that ocean of faces. The chill was gone from his spine. He knew what he had to say. This had to go. It was too close to the end to miss now. It had to go!

  “On behalf of the Cascade and Paradise Land Company,” Morgan began, “I welcome you and wish you prosperity and happiness in your new homes. Some of the land that will be drawn is good only for grazing and will go out in thousand-acre tracts. The better land has been cut into smaller tracts, ranging from one hundred and sixty acres down. The ten-acre tracts are all located south of the lake where irrigation is not necessary. You’ll find no better land out of doors, and I know you won’t find another place in the West where you can get a clear title to a good farm for twenty dollars an acre or less.

  “I have no promises to make about a railroad, but history tells us that steel will be laid to any place in the United States where the production is big enough to make it worthwhile. That production depends on you. One thing I can promise. Grant Gardner will see that you have water.” Morgan turned to Gardner. “Want to say something, Grant?”

  Gardner came to his feet and stepped up beside Morgan.

  “When Morgan came to me several months ago,” he said, “I was frankly pessimistic about his project. When I saw this valley, I changed my mind. I promised him I’d build the reservoir and ditch system if the type of settlers who came here looked like men who would work. Well, boys, you do. I’m an old hand at this business. I know I didn’t make a mistake in you, and you didn’t make a mistake in trying this valley. I’ll make a promise now. By next spring work will start on the ditches and as many reservoirs as we find necessary.”

  The clapping was perfunctory. Morgan waited until the scattered applause died. The feeling was wrong. Suspicion rose from this closely packed crowd of men and pressed against him. Dynamite was here, and the fuse was attached.

  Cole’s contemptuous smile was a steady, constant thing. His face was a magnet that drew Morgan’s gaze. Morgan’s lips tightened. Jaw muscles bulged. He was too close to the fulfillment of a dream to let it die.

  “One more thing before we start the drawing,” Morgan went on. “The matter of doing away with the bidding and making this drawing a lottery was brought up by the trustees. We’re willing to grant your request, but Uncle Sam ain’t.” He motioned toward Bartell. “We have a post office inspector with us who will remain for the length of the drawing. The minute we take away the right to bid, he’ll close us down, so I have a request to make. Don’t take advantage of the opportunity to bid. Accept your tract of land as it is drawn. We don’t want more than the price of your contract. If there is bidding and the prices run over two hundred dollars, the balance will be divided and refunded to you.”

  Cole jerked forward, suddenly sober, the scornful smile swept from his lips. A sense of triumph surged through Morgan. He had cut away much of the ground from which Cole had expected to launch his attack.

  “The procedure of the drawing has been explained, so I won’t repeat it,” Morgan hurried on. “We have two ladies on the platform...Miss Peg Royce and Miss Jewell Clancy...who will make the drawing. Grant Gardner will do the auctioning. We promised to pay the traveling expenses and give twenty-five dollars for your living expenses while here to any of you who represent twenty or more contracts. If you’ve got that coming and haven’t collected, visit the cashier in our main office and you’ll be paid.”

  XXI

  Sensing a change sweep over the crowd, Morgan paused. Despite the doubts and suspicions that Royce and Blazer had planted, these men wanted to believe in the inherent fairness of the company, and Morgan had convinced them.

  Cole, Morgan saw, sensed that same intangible tide sweeping the crowd. He was hunched forward, his gaze fixed on Morgan, his eyes bright and wicked and entirely lacking their usual guile.

  Swinging to Gardner who had stepped back, Morgan said: “All right, Grant.”

  Morgan stepped down from the platform and joined Purdy. The lawman laid a hand on Morgan’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t know you were a public speaker, Murdo.”

  “Shucks, I’m not,” Morgan said sheepishly. “For a minute there I couldn’t have told you my name.”

  Purdy laughed softly. “I saw you look at Jewell, and everything came back. I think you licked Cole on that business of bidding.”

  “He looks licked,” Morgan said, and turned his gaze to Gardner.

  “You have your clearance receipt, men,” Gardner was saying in crisp business-like tones. “As soon as your name is called, or if you are acting for an absent contract holder, make your bid for two hundred dollars. If I knock the tract off to you, come around to the back of the platform, pay the balance you owe the company, and you will be given your papers.

  “Yesterday we had a conference with the trustees. They requested that if any errors are found in the titles, they should be corrected at company expense and that the company make the deeds to the contract holders instead of the trustees as stated in the contract. The company has accepted those changes.”

  Gardner moved around Jewell’s chair and stood between her and Peg.

  “In one box, we have slips of paper with the number and acreage of each tract,” he said. “They have been well shaken, but it won’t hurt to give them another mixing.” He handed Peg’s box to Frawley. “Shake yourself a good piece of land, Mister Trustee, and hand the box on to Mister Dalton.”

  “Why now,” Frawley said, “if I shake myself a good piece of land, Dalton there will shake it back down.”

  A man in the front row laughed, a tight, high laugh, the kind of laugh that comes out of a man when his nerves have become so taut they must have release. It became a contagion, sweeping through the crowd like a spring wind. Men roared and slapped each other on the back and wiped the tears out of their eyes.

  “It wasn’t funny,” Purdy observed. “It’s just men getting their feet on the ground after being up in the air. A good study of how crowds act, Murdo.”

  Gardner took Peg’s box and handed Jewell’s to Frawley. Peg said something, and for the first time Frawley seemed aware of her. He shook the box and handed it to Dalton, his eyes on Peg, frankly admiring her.

  Dalton and then Jale Miller shook the box, and Gardner finally placed it in front of Jewell.

  “All right, Miss Clancy.” Gardner paused dramatically. “Make the first draw.”

  Jewell’s hand slid through a small opening in the side of the box. She drew out a slip and read: “Hans Schottle.”

  “Hans Schottle!” Gardner called, motioning for a secretary behind him to write the name
on a long sheet of paper. “Now the tract, Miss Royce.”

  Peg drew a slip and read: “Tract Number three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-six...twenty acres.”

  “Tract Number three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-six...twenty acres!” Gardner called. “Make your bid, Mister Schottle.”

  A paunchy man near the middle aisle rose and called: “Two hundred dollars!”

  “I am bid two hundred dollars,” Gardner intoned. “Two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars for twenty good acres. Are you all done?”

  “No.” Short John Clancy was standing on the left side of the tent, his buckaroos forming a tight knot behind him. “I bid one thousand dollars.”

  Murdo Morgan stepped away from the platform, confidence washing out of him. This was Broad Clancy’s trick, and Cole and his bunch were here to see that it worked.

  Silence gripped the crowd. One thousand dollars! Broad Clancy had that kind of money. None of the settlers did. Fear gripped them. Then bitterness. The things that Royce and Blazer had said were right. Clancy would use his money to secure title to the land he had used for years.

  For that one short moment Morgan didn’t know what to expect and he didn’t know what to do. He took an uncertain step along the platform, hand on gun butt.

  “Mister Clancy,” he heard Gardner say, “isn’t that bid out of line with the value of the tract?”

  “No!” Short John bawled. “It’s got our house on it. I ain’t sittin’ here and lettin’ a clod-buster named Hans Schottle have it!”

  “You’re mistaken, Mister Clancy,” Gardner said. “Tract Number three thousand, nine hundred and fifty-six....”

  Blazer was on his feet, bull voice roaring down Gardner’s: “We told you boys what the company was! A thievin’ bunch of coyotes!”

  Royce jumped onto a bench and was shaking a fist at Gardner.

  “Look at him! Fillin’ his pockets with honest men’s money like he always has. Fixed it with the Clancys so you boys won’t get the good spots the cattlemen want. You’re just farmers. The company and the Clancys are in together.”