Sunset Trail (7 page)

IV

Matt Dugan wiped his face with a hand as he glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. It was not quite midnight. He was impatient
and he sensed that the others were impatient. They had waited about as long as they could for Uncle Pete Fisher and Jerry
Corrigan; they were all tired and sleepy, and tomorrow was the big day.

Matt’s office, in the rear of the bank, was hot, even though the windows and the back door were open. The evening had cooled
off, but the little room still held the heat of the day. Matt felt the sweat roll down his face again. He couldn’t stand sitting
here any longer, and he started to say that they’d go ahead and get the meeting over with regardless of Fisher and Corrigan,
when the front door opened.

He heard a man’s heavy-footed walk and guessed it would be Uncle Pete Fisher. Am oment later he saw he was right. The old
man stopped in the doorway, his gaze touching Matt’s face first, then turned to Jim Long, and finally to Cole Talbot and his
wife Hannah. He had been drinking, Matt thought, or maybe he was just mad. He was mad most of the time these days, and Matt
had wished more than once he had not appointed him a committee chairman of any kind.

“We almost gave you up,” Matt “I got delayed,” Fisher said.

“Sit down, Pete.” Matt motioned to a chair. “We’ll wind this up fast. We need sleep right now more than we need planning.
I’m tired.”

“So am I.” Fisher sat down, the chair groaning under his weight. “Sometimes I feel as old as my wife says I am.”

They laughed, even Cole Talbot who was a dour and silent man. His wife Hannah’s laugh was a high-pitched giggle that made
Matt think she was always trying to make up for Cole’s lack of laughter. Only Jim Long’s laugh seemed natural. Matt knew his
own was forced. He wished he could relieve his tensions by having a good case of hysterics the way his wife Nora did on occasion.
Or maybe he ought to go out in the back yard and kick the dog.

“We’ll make one quick run-down and go home,” Matt said. “Did you see Jerry?”

Yeah, I saw him,” Fisher said. “He ain’t coming.

He told me to tell you he was taking Jean buggy riding.”

He said it with a kind of controlled fury that made Matt wonder if anything had happened, but he could not read the old man’s
expression, so he said: “It’s all right. Jerry isn’t a chairman of any committee. I just asked him to be here so he’d know
what was going on.” He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk and glanced at it. “Jim, all you have to do is to decorate
the platform.”

Jim Long nodded. He owned the Mercantile, Amity’s biggest store. He was thirty-five, he had a wife and six children, and was
baldheaded except for a fringe of hair around his head that looked like a black band. He had enough worries to lose his hair,
Matt knew.

The panic of the previous year had been harder on Long than anyone else in Amity because he had carried too many people on
his books and had borrowed from the bank more than Matt should have loaned him. If new people who were buying the irrigated
land didn’t have money to pay for what they bought in the Mercantile, Long would be the first to go down the drain.

“I had a talk with Pete,” Long said, “and we decided to keep the band on the ground. That way we won’t have to enlarge the
platform. Putting up the bunting is the only thing left to do. We’ll have it finished by ten o’clock.”

“Good.” Matt glanced at the paper. “Hannah, you have your crew picked and instructed, so I guess there’s nothing more you
can do tonight. I apologize for asking you to come tonight. . . .”

“I wanted to come,” Hannah said, “because I’ve got something to say. I want all of you to hear it. Everything will be fine
if the ladies get to the Methodist church by eight o’clock. What I want you to know is that, if they ain’t there, we won’t
have the sandwiches made by one o’clock.”

“We’ll send the sheriff after them if they don’t show up,” Matt said.

Hannah sniffed. With one exception she was disdainful of everyone in town including her husband. The exception was Nora Dugan,
the only person in Amity she honestly admired. She was thirty-five years old, childless, and difficult to get along with,
a fact her husband knew better than anyone else.

Matt had not wanted to appoint Hannah chairman of the food committee, but he had been pushed into it because Cole, who ran
the hotel, could handle the coffee making and bake the beans and furnish cups, plates, and silverware easier than anyone else. He
was the one businessman in town who stood to make an immediate profit from the celebration. For the first time in years his
hotel was full.

“I doubt that the sheriff will be on hand,” Hannah said. “He’ll be out somewhere sparking your Jean.”

“I’ll speak to him and Jean,” Matt said. “Cole, I’ll send Bud over first thing in the morning to help you set up the tables.
You said you had the beans soaking, didn’t you?”

“They’re soaking,” Talbot said in his sour way. “I’ll get up at four and start the fire. I’ll make enough coffee to take a
bath in. Now I’m going to bed. I’ve wasted too much time already waiting for Pete to get here.”

“One more thing,” Matt said quickly, seeing the flare of anger in Pete Fisher’s eyes. “The band assembles at eleven and they’ll
start playing at half past eleven. Right, Pete?” Fisher nodded, still staring truculently at Talbot. “Dick Miles has been
told to get the governor here right at twelve. The minute you see Dick’s rig, you get up on the platform and start the band
playing that march we were talking about.”

Fisher nodded again, turning his gaze to Matt. “If Fisher nodded again, turning his gaze to Matt. “If any of the band members
ain’t on hand at eleven, I will send the sheriff after ’em. Likewise I’ll send him after Parson Hess if he figures on giving
the invocation.”

“Meeting adjourned,” Matt said. “Thanks for coming. You can go to bed now, Cole.”

Talbot muttered something about the meeting not being necessary in the first place. Hannah sniffed and Pete Fisher grumbled.
The four left Matt’s office, Jim Long the only one to say “Good night.”

Matt remained at his desk for a time, thinking he was too tired to walk home. Besides, he was afraid to face Nora who had
told him to be home by ten, that he was going to have a nervous breakdown if he didn’t get some rest.

Nora was right. In fact, she was nearly always right. But there had been so many little things to settle, like where Jim Long
would place the flag and which preacher would give the invocation and which one the benediction. It seemed to Matt that Hannah
Talbot had been full of argument on every proposition that came up whether it was in her department or not.

Matt wiped his face and told himself that he had never been as tired as he was this minute. It was a strange, tense tiredness,
not at all like the healthy fatigue he used to have when he’d been in the saddle for eighteen or twenty hours every day working
roundup.

No, this was different, a kind of frantic nervousness that made it difficult to get agreement on even the simplest question.
He understood why this was. Amity was trying to get up off the floor after being almost knocked out by the panic. With Matt
leading, the businessmen of town, along with some of the ranchers, had borrowed enough money to finish the project. No one,
not even Matt, could guarantee it would save the town, but he was positive of one thing. It would be complete disaster if
it failed.

He rose and closed the back door and windows, then blew out the lamp, knowing he had to go home and get what rest he could.
He left the office, blew out the bracket lamp near the front door, and, stepping outside, closed and locked the door.

“Matt,” a man said.

He wheeled, startled, then saw Uncle Pete Fisher standing a few feet from him, one of his cheap cigars clamped between his
teeth. The moon was almost full, lighting Main Street with its yellow glow. None of the business places showed any light except
the lobby of the Amity Hotel. The raucous noise that had flowed along Main Street earlier in the evening had died out until
now the town actually seemed deserted.

“
Aw
, Pete,” Matt said wearily. “I thought you’d be in bed by now.”

“I want to talk a minute,” Fisher said. “I’m a tired, bitter old man who had money most of his life and now don’t have a dime.
I live off what my wife inherited and wouldn’t give me when it could have saved the bank, so I’ve got reason to be bitter.
Even those damn’ cigars I smoke would kill a horse. I dunno why they ain’t killed me.”

Matt knew all this except that Fisher was bitter. He had been angry ever since Matt invited Governor Wyatt to speak at the
Dam Day celebration, but aside from that he had managed to hide his bitterness. He never refused to do anything he was asked,
even to entertaining a bunch of kids with his tales about crossing the plains to California in 1849, or fighting in the Civil
War, or battling Indians when he’d first settled out here on the plains and Amity had been nothing more than a store and a
couple of sod houses.

“I never figured you for a bitter man, Pete,” Matt said.

“Well, I am,” Fisher said. “I know what it is to wind up your life a failure and not have it your fault. The man who’s to blame
is your god-damned Benjamin Wyatt. You and Jim and some of the others invited him before I knew anything about it. Now he’s
going to be here if you don’t stop him, and he’ll get himself shot. What will that do to Amity and all of our fine plans for
auctioning off the land tomorrow?”

“Shot?” Matt couldn’t get a breath for a moment, and, when he did, he asked hoarsely: “Pete, what the ding-dong hell ever
gave you an idea like that?”

“It’s all around if you wasn’t deaf, dumb, and blind,” Fisher said. “Your sheriff is in the same boat. I was talking to the
Owl Creek boys in the Palace about Wyatt when Corrigan tried to make me shut up, then he tried to pull me out of the saloon
and Yarnell jumped him. Corrigan clipped him on the chin and knocked him cold. He pulled a gun on Mason and Lupton and threw
all three of ’em into the jug.”

“Maybe if you’d kept your mouth shut . . .,” Matt began.

“Why should I?” Fisher demanded. “Wyatt broke me, him and his Populist friends. But what I’m trying to tell you is that the
Owl Creekers drove a jag of steers to Burlington and sold ’em for a song. They know Wyatt’s responsible. They’re the kind
who’ll rub him out tomorrow. The thing for you to do is to keep him out of town.”

“I can’t do that, Pete,” Matt said. “By this time he’s in Burlington. What’s more, a lot of people who are in town came to
hear the governor. Not because he’s a Populist but because he’s the governor. They’d be sore if he didn’t show up.”

“All right,” Fisher said in a tight voice. “I guess you’re running this show, but don’t forget I warned you.”

“Go home and go to bed,” Matt said, and walked away.

He was so tired that he felt like laughing. Maybe he’d wind up having hysterics the way Nora did. You work and you scheme and
you plan every little detail, you gamble your last dollar on your idea and you have every hope it will work, and then an old
man who went broke trying to run a bank in your town starts talking about the governor’s being murdered.

Ridiculous, he told himself, just plain ridiculous. Still, he wished Pete Fisher had kept his mouth shut.

V

Nora Dugan put her sewing down when she heard the wall clock strike midnight. She was irritated, and she was going to let
Matt know it when he came home. After a couple had been married twenty years, a man should know something about a wife’s feelings,
but it was evident Matt didn’t know much about hers. If he did, he’d have come home an hour or more ago.

The truth was she was scared. Matt would laugh if she told him. He’d say that nothing bad ever happened in Amity, but tonight
was different. A crowd of strangers was in town for the doings tomorrow, the governor coming and all. Earlier in the evening
she had heard a lot of yelling and some shooting from Main Street that was less than two blocks away. You were bound to have
a few toughs among so many strangers. Matt ought to know that.

She rose and walked to the front door and stood there, staring across the street at the park that was hidden from her sight
by the darkness. She could lock both doors, but the heat was stifling even at midnight. The last few days had been inordinately
hot for the Colorado plains, and, worse yet, the nights weren’t cooling off. No, she had to leave both the front and back
doors open to catch whatever breeze there was.

Of course she could latch the screens, but that wouldn’t do any good if a man was determined to get into the house. It was
easy enough to cut a hole in the wire netting and lift the latch. Bud was upstairs asleep, but he was only fourteen. Besides,
he slept too soundly to be of any help if she needed it.

Maybe she was more worried about Jean than she thought. Funny thing, she reflected. You have children and you raise them to
be independent and to look out for themselves. You try to prepare them to leave the family nest and build their own, but,
when the time comes, you aren’t ready for it and you think you can’t give them up, not even your eighteen-year old daughter
who will be marrying the sheriff in a month.

Nora liked Jerry Corrigan. If she’d had her pick of all the eligible young bachelors in Amity or up and down Buffalo Creek,
she would have chosen Jerry, red hair, freckles, and all. One thing was sure. He would take care of Jean. To Nora-and she
guessed to all mothers-this was important.

Jerry wasn’t what she considered handsome, but he was intelligent, strong, healthy; he was all she could ask for in a son-in-law,
but the trouble was Jerry and Jean were so much in love they simply didn’t have very good judgment right now.

Nora sighed and wished the month was up and they were getting married tomorrow. But they had set their date, so the only sensible
wish for her to make at this moment was for Jerry to bring Jean home. He had not come for her until it was late and they hadn’t
been gone very long, but she wished Jean was home in bed. She was still just a girl.

Nora smiled, thinking this was silly. She wouldn’t be like some women who kept on calling their daughters love names like
“Doll” and “Baby” after they were grown and married and had their own children. Jean was eighteen. Nora had been only sixteen
when she was married and Matt had been nineteen. Actually they were still young. She was thirty-five and Matt was thirty-eight.

If this dam project failed and he lost the bank, they could go back to ranching. In some ways she thought they would be better
off ranching than living in town with Matt worrying about hard times and the interest people weren’t paying on their mortgages
and Uncle Pete Fisher who kept trying to tell Matt how to run the bank.

She stiffened. She heard a sound back of the house. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she thought it was the shed door being
closed. Matt had probably come down the alley and was checking the horses. He kept two in town, Big Red, a sorrel saddle horse,
and Dolly, the mare he used for driving.

There were times when Nora thought she had a right to be jealous. Matt was a little insane when it came to horses. She smiled
as she thought about it. You could take a rancher off the ranch and put him in a bank, but you didn’t take the ranch out of
the rancher. Matt Dugan was still a cowman at heart, and she guessed that was the way she wanted it.

She heard the back screen open and turned toward the kitchen. It was all fine and dandy for Matt to get involved in the big
celebration tomorrow. In fact, she was involved, too, because she had promised to help Mrs. Talbot with the sandwiches in
the morning, but Matt had gone too far.

He was the general chairman, the hub of the wheel. This whole thing would never have gotten off the ground if he hadn’t spent
hour after hour attending meetings, if he hadn’t threatened and begged and twisted arms. But to be this late on the last night.
. . .

She stopped, her mouth open, her heart jumping into her throat. Two strange men were coming toward her. She leaned against
the wall, her knees threatening to buckle under her. Now that it was too late, she told herself, she had known something like
this would happen, but she had insisted on ignoring the warning.

“You’re Missus Dugan?” the man in front asked. She tried to speak, to tell them to get out of the house, but her lips could
not form the words. The man who had spoken was about forty, she judged, small and dark with eyes as bright as a chipmunk’s. Apparently
he was a city man, well dressed in a brown broadcloth suit, a white shirt, and a black string tie. He carried a revolver in
a holster on his right hip. It seemed to her that the gun was not in keeping with his manner or his clothes.

The other man was a cowboy. At least he wore range clothes. He carried a rifle in his right hand and had a revolver in a holster
that was exactly in keeping with his manner and clothes. He was big, taller and broader of shoulder even than Matt. He was
rough-featured, with a week-old stubble on his face, and was younger than the small one, probably in his late twenties.

She didn’t know much about things like this, but Matt had served one term as sheriff several years ago, and she remembered
his saying that a professional gunman carried his pistol low on his hip and tied it to his thigh. That was the way the big
man carried his.

The two men were silent, waiting for Nora to answer the question, but all she could do was to nod. The small man said: “Believe
me, Missus Dugan, we have no wish to harm you. All we ask is that you obey orders. Is your husband home?”

Again she tried to speak, but she still could not make a word come out of her mouth. She had always been a strong, self-reliant
woman. Ara nch wife had to be and she had prided herself on being a good one, but now her insides were jelly. She shook her
head and was ashamed that fear had so completely possessed her.

“All right, we’ll talk to him when he gets here,” the man said. “Let’s go into your front room and sit down. Remember that
we will not hurt you or any of your family if you co-operate. You are an attractive woman and I understand that your daughter
is equally attractive, but let me repeat what I said. We will not touch either of you unless you force us to.”

She walked into the front room and sat down in her rocking chair, her legs feeling as if they were stilts. Both of her legs
and arms were cold, even though her face was damp with perspiration. The small man dropped into the black leather couch that
was across the room from Nora, but the big one stood a few feet away, his gaze fixed on her.

“I’m John Smith,” the small man said, smiling slightly. “You’ve never heard of me, but you have heard of my friend.” He nodded
at the big man. “His name is Ross Hart.” He stopped, apparently expecting her to be impressed, or frightened. The name did
sound vaguely familiar, but she could not pin an identity to it.

“You and your husband sleep downstairs,” Smith said. “Upstairs you have two bedrooms and a sewing room which is next to the
street and looks out on the park that surrounds the courthouse. One of these bedrooms is occupied by your daughter Jean, the
other by your son Bud. Am I right?”

She was breathing easier, her heart had dropped back to its normal position, and she had begun to believe he meant it when
he’d said that they did not intend to hurt her or her family. Now her curiosity began to work, and she asked: “How do you
know so much about us?”

She did not recognize her own voice, but at least she was able to speak. She felt a prickle slide down her spine. She glanced
at Hart and saw that his pale blue eyes were pinned on her. She looked away, but still she felt his gaze. She sensed something
unspeakably evil about the man as if he were an animal who was disguised as a man.

“Never mind how we know.” Smith laughed softly. “You will find that we know a great deal about you and your family, Missus
Dugan. Now then, where is Bud?”

“In bed asleep.”

“Jean?”

“She’s out buggy riding with the sheriff.” Nora clenched her fists and leaned forward. “He’ll bring her home any minute. If
you know what’s good for you, you will both get out of here before he does.”

“Now why should we do that?” Smith asked.

“Because if you’re still here when he comes in, I’ll have him arrest you.”

“No, I wouldn’t advise that, Missus Dugan,” Smith said. “That sort of talk will get you hurt. If he does come into the house,
you will introduce us as your cousins from the western slope who unexpectedly dropped in on you. You don’t have room for us,
but you’ll put us up some way because every room in town is taken. Is that right?”

“Yes, but he won’t believe that.”

“It’s up to you to lie so well that he does believe you. I want to be honest with you and Mister Dugan when he gets here.
You have a choice. You can cooperate and you will not be hurt, or you can get your family killed. It’s that simple. Your sheriff
may be hell on high, red wheels, but he can’t handle both of us.”

She wiped her face with her handkerchief. It wasn’t just the heat that was making her perspire. It was fear. Her heart was
in her throat again. She believed this man Smith. He was soft-spoken and courteous, but it was only a veneer. She felt a ruthlessness
about him that was almost as terrifying as the animal-like evil she had sensed in Ross Hart.

“Good,” Smith said when she nodded. “You have made the right choice. I hope you will stay with it. One more thing. When will
your husband be home?”

“I thought he’d be home before this,” she said in a low tone.

“Then he should be along any time,” Smith said. “Ross, take one of the lamps and go upstairs. See how her sewing room looks.”

Hart picked up a lamp that was on the oak center table and climbed the stairs, his rifle still in his right hand. Nora hunched
forward, her small hands tightly clenched. She wondered if she could lunge across the room and reach Smith before he could
draw his gun. She had not really made her choice.

She did not know what they intended to do, but death might be far better than what would happen if these men had their way
with her. When she remembered the expression on Hart’s face, she knew she would prefer death, but then she thought of Matt
and Jean and Bud, and she realized the choice was not hers to make.