Where the Long Grass Blows (1976) (2 page)

Let him go, she thought ... who does he think he is, anyway?

Yet she turned once more to look back. Who was he, anyway?

Chapter
II

Several men were standing in front of the livery stable when he rode up. They looked first at his horse, and then at him. "That's a runner you've got there, stranger! I reckon Dixie Venable didn't relish gettin' beat! She sets store by that Flame horse, treats him like a baby!"

"It's a damn fine horse," Canavan replied. "He just needs more work."

He led the horse into the stable, rubbed him down and fed him. As he worked he turned the situation over in his mind. The girl had been Dixie.

Venable, one of the owners of the W spread, and she had heard him thinking aloud about his plans.

How seriously she would take either him or his plans was another thing, but it did not matter. He had come to the Valley ready for trouble, and the sooner they understood it the better.

Yet the beauty of the girl stuck in his mind when all else was dismissed, not only her beauty but also her pride and fire. She was something different, something he had never seen in a woman before. Not that his experience had been all that great When a man works on cow ranches and cattle drives, his chances at feminine companionship can be limited. Even when he drove stage or rode shotgun, the girls were all on the inside and he was outside where the action was.

He was conscious of approaching footsteps that stopped beside him. For a moment he continued to work, but the man did not move on. Canavan straightened up and looked around into a broad, handsome face. The man was smiling. He thrust out a large hand.

"My name's Walt Pogue. I own the Box N.

Is that horse for sale?"

"No, he's not"

"Figured he wasn't, but if you change your mind come looking for me. I'll give you five hundred for him."

Five hundred? That was a lot of money for a horse in a country full of ten dollar mustangs, and where a horse was often traded for a quart of whiskey.

"No," he repeated, "he's not for sale."

"Lookin' for work? I could use a hand."

Bill Canavan stood erect again and looked at Pogue across the horse's back. He noticed, and the thought somehow irritated him, that Pogue was even bigger than himself. The rancher was all of three inches taller and forty pounds heavier, and he did not look fat "Gun hand?" he asked cooly. "Or cowhand?"

Walt Pogue's eyes changed a little, hardening ever so slightly. "Why, mostly that would depend on you, but if you hire on as a warrior you'd have to be good."

"I'm good. As good as anybody you've got"

"As good as Bob Streeter or Rep Hanson?"

Bill Canavan's expression did not change, but within him something tightened up ever so slightly. If Pogue had hired Streeter and Hanson this was going to be ugly. Both were killers, and not particular how they lolled.

"As good as Streeter or Hanson?" he shrugged.

"A couple of cheap killers. Blood hunters. They aren't fighting men."

His dark eyes held the searching stare of Walt Pogue again. "Who does Reynolds have?"

Pogue's face seemed to lower a little, like a charging bull He stared back at Canavan. "He's got Emmett Chubb."

Emmett Chubb.

So? And after all these years? "He won't have him long," Canavan said, "because I'm going to kill him."

Triumph shone in Pogue's eyes. Swiftly he moved around the horse. "Mister," he said quietly, "that job could get you an even thousand dollars!"

"I don't take money for killing snakes."

"You do that job within three days and you'll get a thousand dollars." Pogue replied. "My word on it"

Bill Canavan slapped Rio on the hip and walked past the big man without another glance and went to the street. Three men sat on the hitching rail near the stable door. Had they heard what was said inside?

He doubted it, and yet the thought disturbed him. In a hard land where hard men lived, there had been many fights and he'd had his share of them, but he was not a killer for hire and did not want the reputation.

He would take Emmett Chubb in his own good time.

Across the street and three doors down was the Trail Emporium. For a moment his eyes held on the one light gleaming at the back of the store. It was after-hours and the place was closed, but if he went to the back door there might be a chance.

Deliberately he crossed the street and went toward the light Behind him Walt Pogue moved into the big doorway and stared after him, his brow furrowed with thought. His eyes watched the lean, powerful figure of the stranger as he crossed the street with a puzzled expression. Who was the man? Where had he come from? Why was he here?

Pogue had noticed the guns, well-polished handles and tied-down guns, although many a gunfighter did not bother with that, and men wore their guns wherever it suited them, and with no prescribed pattern.

But this fellow had the remote eyes and the careful eyes of a man who had lived much with danger.

He had refused the offer of a job ... or had he merely avoided the question for now? Yet he had been aware of conditions in the Valley, and had immediately wished to know why he was being hired ... if he consented to work.

Had Reynolds sent for him? Or Tom Venable?

He had come into town, racing with Dixie. Had they met on the trail, or had they come from the W? That was something Pogue wanted to know, and at once.

If Tom Venable was hiring gunhands it would mean trouble of another sort, and that he did not want.

One thing at a time.

Where was Canavan going now? Resisting an instinct to follow the stranger, Pogue turned and walked up the street to the Bit and Bridle Saloon.

Yet he paused at the door, thinking. Whatever was done now must be done quickly, for there was too much at stake.

Still, if this newcomer would eliminate Emmett Chubb, even put him out of action for a while, matters would be vastly more simple. The more he thought of that, the more he liked it. Hold off, he told himself, let his offer of a thousand dollars work on this stranger. If he was half as good as he seemed to think he was, he might just take Chubb out of action, and that would leave Reynolds seriously handicapped.

He went on into the saloon and ordered a drink, mulling over possible moves. The thought returned to his mind, the thought that kept recurring. Maybe he and Reynolds were damned fools to get into this fight, yet pride would not let him back off ... pride and the chance to achieve what he wished.

In the alley back of the Emporium, Bill Canavan approached the back door. Twice he paused to look back and to listen, but he heard nothing. It was Pogue who worried him. For a moment he had thought the big man would attempt to follow him, and he'd been ready. He stepped up to the door and tapped lightly.

Footsteps sounded from within, and he heard a faint whisper of sound that could have been a gun being drawn from a scabbard. "Who's there?"

"A rider from the Pecos," Canavan said softly.

The door opened at once and Canavan slipped through the opening. The man who stood facing him with a drawn gun was plump now, and white-haired, yet the eyes were not old eyes; they were shrewd and knowing.

"Coffee?"

"Sure. And something to eat if there's anything around."

"About to eat myself." The man placed the gun on the sideboard and took the coffee pot from the stove, filling two cups as Bill Canavan dropped into a chair. He went to the stove and took the frying pan and broke eggs into it. "Who sent you?"

"An old friend of yours heard I was headed this way. He said if I needed a smart man who could give me some information or advice to look you up. And he told me what to say."

"My days on that trail are over. I've got a nice business and I like it here. I don't know what you want, but it's likely you've come to the wrong place."

"You said your days on that trail were over. Well, mine never started. This is a business trip. I am planning to locate in the Valley."

"Locate here? Well, you came for advice, and you'll get it. Get on your horse and ride out of here as fast as you can. This is a rough country for strangers and there have been too many of them around lately. Things are due to bust wide open and there will be a sight of killing before it's over."

"You're right, of course."

"And when it's over, what's left for a gun hand?

You can go on the owl-hoot ... ride the outlaw trail until somebody shoots you, or they hang you. The very man who hired you and paid you warrior's wages won't have anything to do with you once the shooting's over.

There's a revolution brewing in the Valley, and if you know anything about the history of revolutions you'll recall that as soon as the revolution is over they liquidate the revolutionaries. You take my advice and ride out of here ... now."

The older man was right, of course. To ride out would be the intelligent, sensible and safe course, but he had absolutely no intention of doing it "Scott, I didn't come here to hire on as a gun hand, although I've already had an offer from Pogue. I came in here because I've sized it up and know what it's like. This country is wide open for a good man, a strong man. There's room for me here, and I mean to take it. I want a ranch of my own, Scott, and I plan to get mine the same way Pogue, Reynolds and all the others got theirs."

"You mean with a gun?" Scott tipped the frying pan and pushed eggs onto a plate for him. "You're crazy! Pogue has at least thirty men on his range, most of them paid warriors. Reynolds has just about as many, and maybe more. And you come in here alone ... Or are you alone?"

Scott stared at him, hard-eyed. "You ain't bringin' an army in here, are you, son? There'll be killing enough without that"

"I'm alone, Scott, and I won't need any help. I'll either make it or I'll get killed. All my life, Scott, I've been fighting for existence. I've fought to protect the cattle of other men, fought for the homes of other men. I've ridden shotgun protecting bullion that belonged to other men. I've fought and worked; I've eaten dust and sweat and blood. Now I want something for myself."

Scott helped himself to some eggs and fried potatoes and sat down across the table from Canavan.

He knew just how Bill Canavan felt, for until a few years ago he had felt much that way himself.

He'd even taken the wrong route, rustling and robbing banks until suddenly he realized there was no end to it but a rope. And he had quit, sold a little place he'd owned for years, and started this store in a strange town where nobody knew him. And it had gone well. He had tended to business and stayed out of local fights and politics.

"Maybe I am too late," Canavan said, "but it seems to me a man might find a place on the side Hues and watch for the right moment and then move in.

"You see, I know how Pogue got his ranch. Vin Carter was a friend of mine and Emmett Chubb killed him. He had told me how Pogue forced his old man off his range and took over. Well, I happen to know that none of this range is legally held. It's been preempted, which gives them a claim of sorts.

Well, I've a few ideas of my own. And I'm moving in."

"Son," Scott leaned across the table, "listen to me.

Pogue's the sort of man to hire killers by the hundred if he needs them. He did force Carter off his range.

He took it by force and he has held it by force, and now he wants the whole Valley. So does Reynolds.

The Venables are the joker in the deck.

Reynolds and Pogue want the Venable place because in a way it is the key to the whole set-up ... It has the best water and some of the best pasture, but both of them are taking the Venables too lightly. It seems to me they have something up their sleeve ... or somebody has."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's Star Levitt for one. He's no soft touch, that one! And he has some riders who seem to do more work for him than for the Venable outfit and not all of it honest work."

"Levitt a western man?"

"Could be ... probably is. Whoever he is, he knows his way around. He's a careful man and to my notion, and I've seen a lot of them, he's a dangerous man. He's the one you've got to watch in this deal, not Pogue or Reynolds."

Bill Canavan leaned back in his chair. "Those eggs sure tasted good. First I've had in six, maybe seven months. You know how it is in cattle country, all beef and beans."

"That's why I've got them chickens," Scott said.

"I told myself someday I'd have chickens and all the eggs I wanted, and I surely have them now."

Scott took up the pot and refilled their cups.

"There's something to think on, son. Most folks set their sights too high. They demand too much of life.

How many meals can you eat? How many horses can you ride? How many roofs do you have to sleep under? Let me tell you, son, the happy man is the man who is content with just what he needs ... just so he has it regular.

"Now you take me. I've got this store. I do a fair business. I live in the back of it and I've got a couple of acres of vegetables growing out back. I got me more than a hundred hens, layin' eggs like crazy.