the Empty Land (1969) (16 page)

"Five or six who are really dangerous. A dozen more who are almost as bad, given a chance. I'd say sixty or seventy men you'll have to run out if you want a clean town."

"As many as that?"

"There are at least five
hundred
men around who are good, hard-working men who want no trouble with anyone, and most of them will have no trouble unless they strike it rich or show some gold around. There are at least three hundred who are all boots and shoulders. They're not bad men, but they're rough and they will fight at the drop of a hat, mostly with fists. Most of them are pretty good rough-and-tumble fighters, but they won't push a law man unless he pushes them, then they'll push back ... hard. The secret is to know who they are, ask them to lay off, or joke with them. They will only be trouble if you force them into it, but it wouldn't take much forcing ... and be careful not to hurt their pride as men. Respect them, and you won't have trouble from them. "You'll find men like that in every logging or mining camp, along every water front, and most of them are the salt of the earth. But if a green officer throws his weight around, they'll tear him to pieces. Handle them with gloves.

"It's the sixty or seventy bad ones who will give you trouble. Peggoty Gorman will shoot you from the dark, or stick a blade into you. Ike Fletcher won't kill you himself unless he's challenged."

"What about Nathan Bly?"

"Leave him alone strictly alone. He's a killer. If you try to buck him you'll have to kill him, and that will take some doing. On the other hand, Bly won't go looking for trouble . and in time he'll drift to another town."

They were silent for a time, watching the street The dog sat up, scratched, and trotted away. A man came out of the Bon-Ton and started to sweep off the walk. The sound of double-jacks on steel drills came from several quarters as the miners worked. There was the sound of driving nails, of a saw ... a horse whinnied. Madge Healy came out of the one-room shack that was the stage station, shading her eyes as she looked up toward Discovery. Matt wondered about her, as he had many times in the past few days. She was all woman, that one, and strikingly attractive, but she was bucking almost impossible odds in taking on Willard & Kingsbury.

Their machinations had affected the life of more than one mining camp. They moved in, using the law when it served them, using force when necessary, but usually they tried to take over the law and use it with legal force to accomplish their ends. Not many of the miners had the money to fight them in the courts, but Kingsbury rarely let it come to that. He was a man of violence who employed men of violence. Matt Coburn had never had occasion to buck them before.

A man strolled out of a saloon now and stood on the walk. From the distance it was hard to be sure, but that affected walk looked like the style of Freeman Dorset. With him was another man ... probably Kendrick, formerly of the Harry Meadows' outfit.

Felton suddenly looked over at Matt "Why are you giving me all this advice? I've never liked you, and you've had no reason to like me.'

"I don't pay much attention to whether people like me or not. In my business you get over being thin-skinned. I like what you want to do here, and I am against them." He gestured toward the town. "I suppose that basically we want the same things. No lawman ever gets rich. We suffer and we die, and usually we die young, and there's precious little thanks for us when we go. Yet without us this country could never survive and grow, without us you could never have the town you're wanting.

"If you're going to have peace rather than violence, both sides have got to want it. One side alone can't make peace. You cannot go down there and talk the law and the rights of the public to men who can only profit by breaking the law. They just aren't going to listen." "What do you think will happen when I go down there tonight?" Felton asked.

"Tonight, or maybe tomorrow night, they will try to kill you. If you're lucky you might get away with a wound. Dan Cohan and Newt Clyde will by to back you up, and the boys down there will know it. You may get one or both of them killed; too."

"And then?"

*They'll run wild. They'll tear the town apart, they'll burn, and they'll kill, and then there won't be any reason for staying on, so they'll drift. And that will be the end of your town. A few of the mines may still be worked, and some ore shipped to one of the mills, but five years from now the town will be dead, and in time even its name will be forgotten."

"What about the buildings?"

"Some will be carried away in pieces, some used by the miners who stay on, some will be broken up for firewood. After a few years there will only be a few holes in the mountainside and the fallen walls of what stone buildings there are. I have seen it happen before. `The trouble with most folks coming out here is that they've been protected so long they're no longer even conscious of it. Back where they come from there are rules and laws, curbstones and sidewalks, and policemen to handle violence. The result is that violence is no longer real for them; it is something
you get
mad about but that never happens to you."

Matt paused for a moment, and went on. "You're a brave man, Felton, but you're a stubborn one. You will go down there tonight and get somebody killed. The only rule those men understand is force, or the threat of force.. . . Well, there . . . I've talked too much."

Felton was silent. Despite his stubbornness, he had the feeling that what Matt Coburn had said was the truth. He frowned ... he did not want to die, and he did not want anyone else to die because of his actions. But he made up his mind.

He stood up. "I'm going down there and talk to them," he said. "I'm going to tell them what kind of a town we want what kind of a town well have if they will cooperate."

Matt smiled at him. "Felton, that's like asking a tiger to take up grazing with the sheep. It's against their nature. But you can try it."

"I won't wear a gun," Felton said. He unbuckled his belt. go down there and reason with them."

Leaving his gunbelt on the table, he strode to the door and went out. Matt drank the last of his coffee. He sat there for a few minutes more, watching the sunlight as it fell through the door.

He suddenly found himself thinking of Laurie Shannon, and how the sunlight had fallen through the flowered curtains at her windows; he remembered the smell of coffee and the quiet, pleasant room. She had a gift, that one, for realizing comfort, a feeling of security and rest.

He got up, hitched his gunbelt into place, and walked to the door. He stared down at the town, and at the bleak hills, so recently untouched by man but now ripped and torn by the feverish search for gold.

There was no beauty in the town. There was no tree, no flower, no shrub except for the gray-green
drouth resistant
plants of the desert. Only two of the buildings had been painted, most were of new lumber. Only a few had boardwalks in front of them.

He did not want this town for his own. He did not want to know it better, and he did not want to remain here. The amateurs were trying to do a Job that needed a professional. He knew that some of Felton's dislike for him had abated, and he felt that the young man was perhaps half convinced by what he had said, but he had little hope for him or for the town. He knew what he himself could do with a bit of luck but he had no desire to do it He found himself liking Felton. The man was an idealist, but he was a solid young man with a future if he survived Confusion.

He went outside, saddled his horse, and led it across to the stage station.

Dick Felton was walking down the street alone. Madge Healy was standing in the door, watching him go. She looked at Matt "Are you going to help him, Matt "

"No."

"You helped me."

"That was different. You're a woman, and alone. No, Felton wants no help. He's got his own ideas, and he has to go his own way."

"They'll kill him, Matt. Or maybe worse ... they'll break him."

He stood beside her, thinking that she probably had seen even more of such towns than he had. For all the years since she was a small child she had been dancing and singing in the boom towns, in lonely camps ... everywhere.

"What's going to happen, Matt?' she asked.

He shrugged. "We've got two things going here: anarchy in the camp, and an organization working against you. They'll feed on each other. Once the town starts to come apart at the seams, Kingsbury and Fletcher will move against you.*

He considered for a moment. "If I were you, I'd keep Pike at the claim, and whatever power you have. Whatever happens will start tonight."

He saw that Felton had gone into the Main Chance Saloon.

Chapter
14

"Matt, what about your Madge looked searchingly into his eyes. "When this is
over, what are you going to?
"I'm getting a ranch. I'm going to settle down and stay put."

She smiled. "Do you think you can? Do you think they will let you? Or that you will let yourself? We're two of a kind, Matt, and we've both been as homeless as a pair of tumbleweeds. That's why I was so easy to convince when Scollard started talking to me about a home and lace curtains. I was lonely, Matt, lonely as only you could understand. I don't think that way down deep I believed him for a minute, but I believed in what he was telling me because I wanted to so desperately." Their eyes were on the door of the Main Chance. Dick Felton had not come out yet, but a moment later he did emerge and walked on down the street, stopping in stores, saloons, restaurants, and the gambling tents. In each place he stayed only a few minutes. When he had visited every public place, he walked back up the hill to Discovery and went into the stone building.

It was Sturdevant Fife who came up the hill to explain. Wayne Simmons, Clyde, Cohan, and Zeller were there to listen. "He's quite a speaker, that boy. Eve? place he went, he gave them a spiel on what a fine town this was going to be; about the schools, the churches, and all, and the need for teamwork to make it
that away
. rd say he made him a good talk."

"What kind of response did he get?" Simmons asked skeptically.

Fife shrugged. "Well," he said, "it reminded me of some politicians I've
knowed
, time to time. Those who were goin' to vote for them anyway needed no convincing. You might say their response was downright enthusiastic. Then there was the other lot who wouldn't vote for him a-tall, and they just listened. rd say he put hisself on record, and he made a good try."

There was silence in the room, and then Cohan said, "We'd better help him. We'd better go down there armed and ready."

"You'd be wasting your time, Dan," Simmons said, "and you know it. This town has gone too far without the law. They'd see us coming and there'd be an ambush." Simmons sat down behind his desk "Dick wants to play this hand alone, and as far as
I'm
concerned, he can play it.'

Zeller shifted his heavy body, and his chair creaked. "Vat aboudt Coburn? Su'bose ve hire him our ownselfs?" "He won't take it." Fife said flatly. "Only if you give him a free hand. And he'll run it with a gun."

"I
think
dere iss no udder vay," Zeller said calmly.

Tucker Dolan rode into the yard at the Rafter LS and swung down from his horse. He had been punching cows for Laurie Shannon for several days, and he liked it.

Laurie stepped to the door. "Come in, Tucker. Your supper will get cold."

"Ma'am," Dolan hesitated, then went on, "I ain't been with you long, but I'd admire to have a couple of days off."

"What is it?"

"Well, ma'am, it's Matt Coburn. Mates goin' to be wearin' the badge over at Confusion by daylight tomorrow. I've got a feelin' he may need help."

'He's been saying he would never wear a badge again, not for anybody."

"It's Felton, ma'am. That young feller who owns part of Discovery. I run into a traveler today, a man headed for Hamilton, Nevada. He told me that Felton's going to wear the badge tonight. That means he ain't goin' to wear it long, and when he goes down the whole town of Confusion is goin' to go with him. The only man who could stop it is Matt, so he'll step in. No matter what he says, he's a man who rises to trouble. An' ma'am, he's a-goin to need all the help he can get."

Laurie turned and spoke over her shoulder. "Did you hear that, Joss?"

"I heerd, an' I reckon he's right. You mind if I ride along, too?"

"We'll all go.' Laurie spoke quietly. "I can handle a rifle as well as most men, better than some. I will just ride along."

"Now see here, ma'am " Joss started to protest.

"Don't waste our time. I am going, too. Joss, will you saddle some horses while Tucker eats?"

Confusion came slowly to life on this night. There were no random shots, fired in careless exuberance by some drunken miner, and the street was less crowded than on recent nights.

A piano in the Main Chance began to play, followed by a music box in one of the gambling tents. A drifting cowboy, travel-stained and weary, rode in at sundown. He swung down, eased the girth on his saddle, and tied his horse.

Pausing on the street, he rolled and lit a cigarette, looking uneasily around. Another music box, in the Bucket of Blood, began to jangle. The cowboy looked down the street, then he went back to his horse and tightened the cinch, hesitated, and went into a counter lunch just off the street A few men were gathering at the Main Chance, a few more at the Bucket.