Slip Gun (17 page)

Leaning his right shoulder against the wall,
close to the handle-side of the door through which they had
entered, Smith watched Wil take her place at the head of the table.
Going around, the two farmers sat on her left and the ranchers
faced them. For all her experiences at the Happy Bull, Wil seemed
perfectly composed and her usual efficient self as she got down to
business.

‘
Well,
gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I asked you to meet here, on neutral ground,
so that you can clarify the situation regarding the land north of
the Elk Fork. Mr. Woodstole has brought the deeds to his property
for your inspection.’

‘
Here
they are,’ the Englishman drawled, drawing a long, bulky envelope
from inside his shirt. ‘My partner and I’ll be pleased to answer
any points you raise.’

These give you title to twenty
miles of land between the Widow
’s and Owl Creeks of the Elk Fork,’ Cushman said
grudgingly after examining the documents. ‘That’s a lot of land for
two men to own.’

‘
It was
offered for homesteading six years back,’ Hopkirk pointed out.
‘Only there weren’t any takers. So the Land Office at Cheyenne sold
it to Poona and me. And I’ll be—’

‘
If
you’d seen the land when we first came, you’d have known why it
wasn’t homesteaded,’ Woodstole interrupted, silencing his old
partner with a warning glare. ‘I think you can remember it, Mr.
Bilak.’

‘
I
can,’ Bilak confirmed. ‘And I was one of the men who refused the
offer to homestead it. These papers are proof enough for
me—’

‘
How
about the Jones family, Mr. Woodstole?’ Cushman demanded. ‘They
complained to my chapter of the Grange that you ran them off their
land
south
of the Elk Fork.’

‘
Did
we?’ challenged the Englishman. ‘Perhaps Mr. Bilak can explain
things?’

‘
They’d
been taking C Lazy P cattle,’ Bilak stated. ‘That’s why I refused
to back them up.’

‘
Understand this, Mr. Cushman,’ Woodstole went on. ‘Charlie
and I have never stopped farmers hunting deer or elk on our range.
Nor would we begrudge hungry families the odd steer for their own
table. But the Joneses didn’t let it stop there. Marshal Caster
found evidence that they were butchering our cattle and selling the
meat and hides.’

‘
And we
didn’t run ’em off,’ Hopkirk announced. ‘Afore we could do it,
they’d lit a shuck out of this neck of the woods.’

‘
That
was after I refused to give them the Grange’s protection,’ Bilak
elaborated. ‘Mr. Woodstole and Mr. Hopkirk could’ve set the law on
them, but didn’t.’

‘
I knew
nothing of this,’ Cushman declared. ‘Naturally, when we heard their
story and compl— When they told us what had happened, I was sent
here to investigate the affairs.’

‘
They
complained about me?’ Bilak asked.

‘
Yes,’
admitted Cushman. ‘We had to check. You know there’s been
discontent amongst our members.’

An uneasy silence followed the
words and Cushman
’s face showed that he felt he had said too much. Since the
senior officials of the Grange had started to advocate a policy of
live-and-let-live where ranching interests were concerned, some of
the more radical and militant members had grown restless, or even
formed opposition groups of their own. As could only be expected,
the off-shoots had attracted dangerous fanatics and political
opportunists who saw advancement for themselves and their beliefs
by giving verbal support to farmers or would-be homesteaders at
odds with the Grange.

While one of the saner, more realistic
members of the Grange, who had become reconciled with the fact that
ranchers and farmers must co-exist to survive, Cushman did not wish
the affairs of the Patrons of Husbandry discussed before
non-members. So he looked at Wil in search of a change of subject.
It came, but the lady mayor did not supply it.

Following the conversation, Smith became
aware of a disturbance in the hall beyond the room. Feet clattered
and voices lifted in protest or recrimination. Then the door flew
open and the two sallow-featured young men burst in. Some feet
behind them, the remainder of the crowd from the square surged by
the clerks who had tried to prevent the interruption to the
meeting.

‘
Remember the Jon—!’ began the taller of the
pair.

Whatever else he had planned to
say ended
abruptly. At the first hint of trouble, Smith moved from
his place against the wall. Pushing himself forward, he pivoted on
his right foot and drove the toe of his other boot with
considerable force against the speaker’s testicles. Startled
exclamations from the men at the table mingled with the sound of
chairs being thrown over and the stricken intruder’s strangled
screech of agony. Clutching at the injured region, he buckled at
the knees and fell writhing to the floor.

Mouth open to yell, the second young man
made no more than a gurgle of surprise as his companion went down.
Allowing the first one to blunder helplessly by him, Smith dealt
just as swiftly with the second. From snatching off his right
glove, the Texan whipped his left fist around and up. Holding his
fingers tightly clenched, he crashed the protruding second knuckle
in a back-hand blow to the centre of the sallow face.

Back curled
Smith
’s right
hand, drawing the slip gun and presenting it, full cocked, at the
faces of the nearest farmers. He gave no attention to the second
man, who went sprawling face down in the left side
corner.

‘
I’ll
kill the next man to set foot in here,’ Smith stated, with calm and
chillingly menacing assurance. ‘And the same applies to any man I
find holding a gun when I turn “round to the table”.’

‘
Hold
it, all of you!’ roared Ottaway’s voice from the front entrance of
the town hall. ‘We’ve got scatterguns here for them’s
don’t.’

While surprised to find Ottaway showing such
initiative and sense of duty, Smith wasted no time in thinking
about it. Throwing looks at the speaker, the crowd halted their
hostile intentions and stood still.

‘
Mind
what I said, at the table!’ Smith ordered over his shoulder. ‘I’m
turning round now.’

On swinging towards the centre
of the room, Smith saw Hopkirk returning the Army Colt to its
holster. None of the others, not even Woodstole, had drawn a
weapon. For their part, the two officials of the Grange showed such
surprise and annoyance at the interruption that Smith felt sure
they had known nothing about it. Satisfied that he had displayed
his impartiality, Smith stepped out of the room. Ottaway and young
Jeffreys stood at the entrance to the hall, shotguns covering the
farmers. An air of alert eagerness transformed the young
man
’s
face.

‘
Heard
there was going to be trouble, Wax,’ Ottaway announced. ‘So we got
the scatters and came to take cards.’

‘
Good
thinking,’ Smith replied. ‘Mr. Bilak. Come and ask your folks to
leave peaceable.’

‘
Who’s
idea was this?’ Bilak demanded, glaring at the crowd as he stepped
out of the room.

‘
Them
two young fellers said we should come in and stand up for the
Joneses, Zorin,’ answered a blond-haired man of Teutonic
appearance. ‘Said they’d come to see justice done.’

‘
I told
you why the Grange wouldn’t support them!’ Bilak barked. ‘Now get
over the river and wait at the Busted Plough until I’m
through.’

‘
We
thought you’d need help,’ the blond muttered.

‘
If I
do, I’ll ask for it,’ Bilak replied. This whole thing was going
right and peaceful until you let them come busting in.’

Bilak clearly retained control over the
other farmers, for there was no argument against his orders.
Muttering to themselves, the crowd withdrew from the town hall. As
a sign of his good faith, Smith returned the Colt to its holster
and went into the meeting room. Carrying the shotguns on the crooks
of their left arms, Ottaway and young Jeffreys followed him. Wil
stared at her brother, but did not get the opportunity to question
him about his presence.

‘
Who’re
these two?’ Ottaway asked, indicating the prostrate
intruders.

‘
I
didn’t see them outside,’ Cushman growled.

‘
They
were in the crowd,’ Smith pointed out. ‘Do you know
them?’

‘
That I
do. And if I’d seen them, I’d have mentioned it.’

‘
Who
are they?’ Ottaway insisted.

Their names are Landers and
Wymar, or something like that,
’ Cushman supplied. ‘I’ve seen them in Cheyenne
with that damned Free Land bunch.’

That explained the Grange
leader
’s
hostility towards the young men. Most radical of all the groups to
split away from the Patrons of Husbandry, the Free Land Society had
the worst reputation as trouble-makers. Organized by intellectual
young graduates of Eastern colleges, it advocated that all land
must be free and open to everybody; a policy which did not appeal
to wealthy members of the Grange any more than to the
ranchers.

An incident like the Jones
family
’s
flight to avoid justice, carefully distorted, offered an ideal
medium for the Free Land agitators to work on. They knew how to
play off antipathy towards the ranchers against greed and avarice
and weld all the emotions into achieving their ends.

Naturally observant, Smith had
studied the young men outside and concluded that, no matter how
they dressed, they were not farmers. He had heard about the
activities of Free Land agitators and suspected them for what they
had proved to be. Always a man of direct action, he had not
hesitated in his response when they broke in on the meeting. By
doing so, he had averted a dangerous and explosive situation. If a
single
shot
had been fired, either at or by the ranchers, Widow’s Creek would
most likely have become the centre of a bloody range
war.

‘
Can
you tote this pair to the jailhouse and heave them into the cells,
Ottaway?’ Smith asked.

‘
Easy
enough,’ was the reply. ‘Come on, Stan. You wanted to be a deputy,
so you might’s well learn all about it.’

‘
Sure,
Tal,’ Jeffreys answered, then he turned his eyes to Smith. ‘Did you
have to treat them this way?’

‘
I
reckon so,’ the Texan drawled. ‘And, happen you’re fixing to wear a
law badge, don’t you-all ever try soft-talking to fellers who smoke
that pair’s kind of makings.’

‘
How do
you mean?’ Jeffreys inquired, but he was polite, not
arrogant.

‘
They
don’t use tobacco,’ Smith explained. ‘Likely you’ve heard of the
stuff they use. If you haven’t, it’s called
marijuana.’

‘
Marijuana!’
Wil gasped, showing that she for one had heard of
it.

‘
Yes’m,’ Smith said coldly. ‘In case you gents don’t know
what it is, it’s a drug that makes yellow-bellied yacks feel like
real men. How else do you reckon a stinking pair of
soft-shells
^viii
like them got up enough guts to come
rushing in here
ahead
of the others?’

~*~

The time was almost two
o
’clock in
the afternoon. To any chance observer, the two men by the livery
barn’s big corral had met by accident and were strangers to each
other. Leaning against the rails, they displayed attitudes of
making idle gossip. Their conversation reached no other ears but
their own.

‘
The
meeting went off peaceable enough,’ said the taller of pair. ‘Give
Wax Smith his due, he sure handled them two soft-shells fast and
neat.’

‘
That
bastard Smith must have a charmed life,’ complained the smaller
man. ‘First he gets away from Moxley, Hardy and Hayward. Now he’s
downed the Sheppeys.’

‘
Why
the hell did you send
them
after him?’

‘
We
want him out of the way. And I figured that he’d go into the Happy
Bull sometime this morning. Friendly as he is with Lily Shivers, he
shouldn’t’ve been expecting trouble.’

‘
When
he saw the Sheppey boys?’ the taller man scoffed.

‘
Did he
know them?’

‘
Well
enough to reckon they’d start throwing lead as soon as they set
eyes on him. He downed their brother in Arizona and they’ve been
making loud talk about how they’d kill him on sight.’

‘
Damn
them!’ spat the shorter man. ‘They didn’t mention it to me. At
least they both died without talking and Dilkes got away. He says
he’ll have another go at Smith tonight.’