Bounty Guns (5 page)

Buck hesitated a moment, then said gloomily, “This stranger at the fight, yesterday. He knows about me leaving Mayfell's body on the road.”

Lucy wiped her hands on her apron, never taking her glance from Buck. Brother and sister looked at each other in eloquent silence.

“What are you going to do?”

Buck wheeled away to stand before the open door. “I don't know,” he answered in a low, bitter voice.

“Buck.”

Buck turned.

“Get out of here!” Lucy said swiftly. “I've asked you a hundred times before, but now even you can see what will happen. Take Pate and get out of here!”

“And leave you to face the music? No.” Buck's voice was sullenly stubborn.

“I can face any music Haig or Cam can play!” Lucy said passionately. “It'll just be a year or so, Buck! Then they'll be dead, and I'll come to you and Pate. Please!”

Buck shook his head stubbornly, looking out at the rain. “No. The Bollings got Dad and they got Dave and they got Tom. I don't care about the others only I can't go away after that.”

“But they're dead, Buck!” Lucy pleaded. “It wasn't your fight! If Uncle Haig hadn't come, it would only be memory.” She paused, but Buck showed no inclination to reply. “Think of Pate, then, if you won't think of yourself. He's just a kid, Buck, and we're raising him to be a killer. He's out there now with a rifle, hunting men when he ought to be shooting squirrels. Think of it, Buck!”

“Stop it, sis!” Buck said sternly, wrath in his voice. More gently he added, “There's no turning back now.”

“Not for men,” Lucy said bitterly. “Not for fools!”

She went back to her work, and Buck still stood in the doorway. From there, he could watch Hagen Shields, slow and methodical, finishing his job. A sudden hatred for his uncle welled up in Buck. He was always wise, always right, as if his hatred for the Bollings had endowed him with a kind of omniscience. In another time, another place, Hagen Shields would have been a man to admire. Certainly his resourcefulness, his courage, and his implacability had kept them alive these last years. Buck remembered his conduct in the saloon yesterday as an example, and he hated Hagen Shields for saving him. Buck was too young to live with a monomania, as Hagen Shields did, talking hate, eating hate, thinking hate, planning revenge with a cunning and tireless clearheadedness. And now his uncle wanted him to kill this stranger.

Buck turned away, misery on his face, and saw that Lucy had been watching him.

“What is it, Buck?”

“I hate that man,” Buck said in a voice trembling with anger and loathing. Lucy said nothing, and Buck knew that she hated him, too.

Suddenly Buck said, “Hagen says we've got to get that stranger. I wouldn't do it. He'll do it himself, now.”

“Of course.”

“But why? Why?”

The iron voice spoke from the doorway. “Because if you don't get him before he gets to Ball, Buck, then Ball will climb off his fence onto the Bolling side. He'll ask and get help from the marshal's office against us. And we'll go down.”

Buck wheeled and went into the other room.

Hagen Shields smiled faintly at his disappearing back, then turned to Lucy. “Pour some hot water, Lucy. I'd like to wash my hands.”

CHAPTER 4

Tip went back toward Hagen as far as the plank bridge spanning the creek. Across there, so Buck had said, lay the Three B, the Bolling outfit. He wondered if there was a rider pulled back there in the trees, watching him. He wondered, too, about the Bollings. How many of them were there, and what were they like?

He came to a sudden decision and crossed the bridge, angling off toward the timber. Achieving it unmolested, he went on. In early afternoon, having kept off the road, he came onto a high mountain pasture. Set in dead center of it and barren of any surrounding trees, was the Three B. Smoke from its chimney lay in a low blanket above the main house, a huge two-story log affair with a closed gallery running its length. It looked to be a big place, surrounded by two barns and a tangle of corrals and sheds. Two fenced pastures behind the barn held many horses. Tip could hear the faint sound of hammering from one of the sheds.

He was about to pull back into the timber when he heard the sound of horses slogging up the road a couple of hundred yards away. Dismounting, he held his hand over his chestnut's nose and watched the road. Presently two horsemen came into sight. One of them was leading a third horse, and this horse was dragging a travois such as the Indians use. Two poles, tied on either side of the saddle and joined by a crossbar behind the horse, were dragging on the ground. Between the crossbar and the ground end of the poles, a rough sort of stretcher had been shaped from blankets. And on this stretcher lay a man, a yellow slicker lashed over him. They passed the edge of the timber in silence, heading toward the house. Tip guessed that the fight in town yesterday had resulted in this casualty, and wondered if the Shieldses knew it.

He stepped into the saddle and swung back into the timber, heading again for Hagen. In two or three days, if his reward brought no information, he would visit this place again.

It was dark when he rode into Hagen, and the rain had stopped. There were people on the streets tonight, and more of the stores were lighted than had been last night, perhaps because the town had been forewarned then of the fight that was to take place. The same hostler took his horse, and this time he did not speak. But he studied Tip covertly as he went out, and Tip knew that the word had got around.

Passing the Mountain saloon, he saw that the broken windows had been boarded up. There was a murmur of conversation inside, and Tip went in. A dozen men were congregated at the poker tables and the bar, and they eyed him silently as he walked over to the bar. The conversation ceased as if cut off with a knife.

Tip said, “Whisky,” and studied the room in the remaining large shard of the bar mirror. Slowly the talking was resumed, and this time there was low laughter mingled with it. Men couldn't laugh and fight at the same time, and Tip relaxed, reaching for the fresh newspaper that lay on the bar top. It was the Hagen
Inquirer
out that afternoon, and he folded it out flat and turned the page. On page two, in bold type, boxed in a heavy black border, was his reward notice. It was two columns wide and four inches deep and was off by itself, startling in its isolation.

Tip began to read it. Suddenly he paused and stared. The notice read:
The Undersigned Will Pay $1.00 Cash—

Tip looked at it carefully. Yes, there was the period that had changed the one hundred dollars into one dollar. He felt his face flush hotly, and immediately memory went back to the scene in the
Inquirer
office. “I don't think it is wise,” Lynn Mayfell had said. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.” He had no need to look further for the reason for the misprint. Lynn Mayfell had purposely ordered it, and her aim was to accomplish a double purpose. First, and most important, Tip suspected, was to make him ridiculous. Second, nobody in his right mind would sell valuable information for nothing, and a dollar was nothing for the risk involved. Suddenly, he began to understand the low laughter that had greeted his entrance.

A glance in the bar mirror revealed that he was still being watched. He saw three men break away from one of the poker tables and stroll toward the bar. Tip drank his whisky, composing his face, studying these men.

One of them, the leader, was a strapping man, barrel-chested, weather-bronzed, maybe fifty. He had the palest eyes Tip had ever seen, and they seemed to match his mustache, which was shades lighter than his skin and the color of weathered hay. He wore a suit of decent black, the coat of which hid crossed belts and a gun.

The second man was slighter, leaner, dressed in clean Levi's and faded denim jacket. The sharp planes of his face gave him a predatory look, and the rawhide-leanness of him backed up that impression. He was a beautiful machine designed solely for fighting, Tip reflected, and not like the third man, who was a heavy-boned, slow-moving man in need of a shave, a bath, and haircut. He had green eyes, the dirty, muddy kind that reminded Tip of slime on a pool.

It was the big man who stopped nearest to Tip. He had a bearing of power; his deep breathing, his slow movement, the smell of his pipe, the look of his big and capable hands as he placed them on the bar, the hulk of his big body, were quietly impressive, commanding.

He said, mildly enough, “You're Woodring, aren't you?”

Tip came erect. “Yes.”

The man smiled slightly and put out a big hand. “My name's Ben Bolling.” Tip shook hands with him, his face noncommittal. Bolling didn't bother to introduce the others. He gestured toward the paper. “You don't claim to be a spendthrift, do you?” His eyes were faintly amused.

Tip, remembering last night, bridled a little. “That's just about what a dozen fancy lies will be worth, Bolling. I'd only like to hear 'em.”

Bolling's shrewd eyes were sizing him up. Bolling said, “When can a man claim this reward?”

Tip murmured, “Right now.” The whole room, including the sour-faced bartender, was listening.

“Let's see the money.”

Tip took out a silver dollar and slapped it on the counter.

“Hagen Shields killed Blackie Mayfell,” Bolling said. He turned to the lean puncher. “Am I right, Jeff?”

“We saw him,” Jeff Bolling drawled. There was a glint in his eye, but his face was as impassive as an Indian's. Tip looked at him carefully, intently, feeling for what lay behind this.

Jeff Bolling went on. “It happened right here in this saloon. Mayfell was standing here at the bar, his back to the mirror.” He paused dramatically, to see if Tip was listening. He was, and Jeff continued.

“Me and Dad here, we stepped in from the lobby and stopped in the doorway when we seen Hagen Shields at that table over there playing solitaire.”

Ben Bolling added gravely, “We didn't know what would happen if Shields saw us, and we aimed to sneak out.”

Jeff Bolling took up the story, his Texas drawl slow and steady. “But Hagen seen us in the bar mirror. He got rattled, I reckon, because he drew his gun, but instead of turnin' around to cut down on us, he shot at our reflection in the bar mirror. He hit us, too.”

“Don't tell me,” Tip said. “I can guess it. He hit your reflection, and you are so tough that the bullet bounced off your reflection and hit Mayfell in the back and killed him.”

Jeff's face showed disappointment, but it didn't crack. He said, in mock awe, “Son of a gun, you guessed it, mister!” just as the laughter broke out from his listeners.

Neither Ben nor Jeff nor Tip laughed, but just stood there regarding each other. When the laughter subsided, Ben reached out for the silver dollar on the bar top, saying, “I guess that's what you wanted to know.”

Tip's hand was there before his, covering the dollar. “Just a minute. Read the reward notice. The information has got to lead to the arrest of the killer, it says.” He looked lazily at Ben Bolling. “Bring your story up to the sheriff and see if he'll believe it enough to swear out a warrant for Hagen Shields.”

Bolling's face looked puzzled, expectant. Tip picked up the dollar and pocketed it. “If Ball will swear out the warrant leadin' to the arrest, the dollar is yours.”

Ben Bolling's face darkened. He was about to speak when Jeff put a hand on his elbow. “Why not, Dad?” he asked softly. They looked at each other a brief moment, as if something unspoken were passing between them. Then Ben Bolling smiled.

“Why, sure. Come along,” he said to Tip. To the puncher, he said, “You stay here, Murray.”

The three of them, minus the unshaven puncher, went out and headed upstreet. Tip, still smarting under the jeering arrogance of the two Bollings, could not trust himself to speak. He kept telling himself to make no move until Ball showed his colors. If Ball listened to them, seemed to favor them, that was all that was necessary. After that, the Bollings could be taken care of, Tip thought grimly.

There was a light in the sheriff's office, and Tip went in first, Ben Bolling after him. The sheriff had his feet cocked up on the desk, and at sight of Tip and the two Bollings, he didn't move. A wary resentment crept into his face as he said, “Evening, gents.”

He surveyed them all with impartial suspicion until Tip spoke. “I've got some information you might like to hear, Sheriff. These men say they saw Hagen Shields shoot Blackie Mayfell.”

Ball's suspicious gaze shuttled to the Bollings. As before, their expressions were unreadable. Tip felt a wild desire to shake them out of that smug complacency, but he waited, calling on a patience he didn't know he had.

“That so?” Ball commented. He reached for a match on the desk, lighted the stinking four inches of cigar without burning his mustaches and imperturbably sucked it to life. In a way, Tip admired his gall. The sheriff said, “Why wasn't I told about this?”

“You never asked,” Ben Bolling replied, his eyes challenging. “We're telling you now. Hagen Shields shot him in the back. We saw him.”

Tip didn't offer the rest of the saloon story. He was interested in seeing what Ball was going to do. And intuition told him that the Bollings were seizing this opportunity to force Ball's hand, just as he himself was.

“You'd swear to that in court?” the sheriff asked.

“Sure,” Jeff said.

“And you'll swear out a warrant for Hagen Shields's arrest?”

“I will,” Tip put in.

The sheriff eyed him wickedly. “And you'll serve it, too, I suppose?”

“Not my job.”

“Well, I can't serve it,” Ball said flatly, uncomfortably.

Ben Bolling almost allowed himself a smile. “There's a way out of that, Harvey.”

Ball looked at him blankly, saying nothing.