The King Hill War (9 page)

“Oh, now, look here, will you?” Johnny said as Hawke walked toward him. “Are you going to fight me, Nancy Boy? Or are you going to play me another tune?”

Although Dexter Manley had gone back to the piano, he hadn’t begun to play yet, and now, like everyone else in the saloon, his attention was riveted to the drama that was unfolding.

“I heard someone call you Johnny,” Hawke said. “Is that your name?”

“Yeah, that’s my name. What’s it to you?” the big man replied.

“I was just wondering, Johnny, if you would like to join us at our table,” Hawke said, gesturing with his hand at the table he was sharing with the others. “We seem to have gotten off on a wrong track here. Let me buy you a drink.”
Hawke’s voice was smooth and patronizing, though Johnny didn’t recognize it as such.

“Ha!” he said. “You expect me to come over there where the smell of sheep shit is the strongest?”

“I thought you might join us, yes,” Hawke said. He looked back toward the table and at the anxious look in the faces of the men there.

“Well, you thought wrong, Nancy Boy,” Johnny said. He stood up. “Now, are you going to get out of here or am I going to have to throw you out? You, and that crippled-up piece of sheep shit that you come in here with?”

“Well, now, just to make sure that I understand what’s going on here, I’m going to ask you right out. Are you challenging me to a fight, Johnny?” Hawke said. The modulation in his voice had not changed from the moment he came over to talk to Johnny. It was still controlled and patronizing.

“You might say that, Nancy Boy,” Johnny said. “Only it ain’t goin’ to be much of a fight.” Smiling at everyone who was looking at him, Johnny made a fist, then drew his arm back.

Suddenly, and without warning, Hawke drew his pistol and brought it crashing down on the belligerent young man’s head. Even before Johnny collapsed on the floor, falling like a sack of potatoes, Hawke had his pistol back in his holster. It all happened so quickly that even though everyone in the saloon was watching, anticipating a fight, more than half of them never even saw what happened. One moment Johnny Carlisle was standing there, loud and belligerent, and the next moment he was lying unconscious on the floor.

Hawk looked at the others who had been sharing Johnny’s table. All three of them had shocked expressions on their faces, as if they were unable to believe what they had just seen with their own eyes.

“Your friend was right,” Hawke said to the other cowboys at the table. “He didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“Mister, you…” one of the cowboys started, pointing at Johnny, who lay crumpled on the floor.

“I what?”

“You didn’t fight fair,” the cowboy said.

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Hawke replied, totally unperturbed by the cowboy’s accusation. “But then, I don’t consider fighting a game,” he added. “So, when you get right down to it, I don’t figure there’s any need to be ‘fair.’”

Hawke walked over to the piano player. “Mr. Manley, I know what it is like when someone interrupts you while you are playing. Please, forgive me, and go back to playing.”

“Yes,” Manley said, as shocked as everyone else by what he had just seen. “Yes, thank you.”

As the music started again, Hawke returned to the table. Ian laughed when Hawke sat down.

“You do get to the root of things fast,” he said.

“THIS IS GOOD FOOD,” IAN AGREED AS THEY SAT
at the table in the City Pig restaurant later that day. “But it isn’t as good as your cooking.”

“Oh, I think it is very good, especially because I
didn’t
cook it,” Cynthia replied.

They were all laughing as Sheriff Tilghman stepped up to their table. Courteously, he removed his hat before he spoke.

“Ma’am, miss,” he said to Cynthia and Hannah. Then he handed a piece of paper to Ian, “Mr. Macgregor, I’ve been asked by Mr. Eckert, of the Bureau of Land Management, to serve you this injunction.”

“Injunction? Injunction about what?”

“It is a court order, sir, saying that neither you, nor any other sheep herder, can allow your sheep to graze on the open range.”

“What?” Ian said, taking the piece of paper. “Sheriff, this isn’t right! This isn’t right at all! Open range means open range!”

“It’s only until a court hearing,” Sheriff Tilghman said. “You’ll be able to make your case then.”

Ian looked at the document and shook his head. “Sheriff, I always figured you for a fair man,” he said. “I never would have thought you would side with the cattlemen.”

“Mr. Macgregor, please understand that I am not siding with anybody,” Tilghman replied resolutely. “As sheriff, I am an officer of the court, bound by that court to carry out all court orders. This here,” he pointed to the document Ian was holding, “is a court order.”

Macgregor ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, you’re right,” he said. “It’s just that the whole thing seems so unfair.”

“If you want my opinion, Mr. Macgregor, I believe it is unfair as well. And I think that a court hearing will overturn this. But until such time, this court order has all the authority of law. While this is in effect, you cannot allow your livestock to graze on the open range.”

“When is the court hearing?”

“Next Wednesday in Mountain Home,” the sheriff said. “I would suggest you be there to give your side. I know the judge who will be hearing the case, and I know him to be a fair man.”

“Oh, we’ll be there, all right,” Ian said. “You can count on that.”

“Mr. Macgregor, I also have court orders for all the other sheep ranchers. Now, I could ride out to each of the ranches and deliver them personally, but they might come easier from you, so I am going to make you a temporary deputy.”

“You’re right, they probably would come easier from
me. All right, give them to me,” Ian said. “I’ll take care of them.”

“Thanks. Raise your right hand.” After Tilghman swore in Macgregor, he reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out the other documents, then handed them to Ian. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Oh, and, enjoy your meal.”

“‘Enjoy your meal,’ he says,” Ian grumbled as the sheriff left the restaurant. “Now how are we supposed to enjoy the meal after he gives us something like this?”

Shortly after the sheriff left, Johnny and Jesse Carlisle came into the restaurant, accompanied by three of their cowboys. They were laughing and talking loudly until they saw Hawke and the Macgregor family sitting at a table near the back of the café.

“Well, now, lookie here, lookie here,” Johnny said. “Jesse, damn me if I don’t think the piano player is trying to beat your time with that little ol’ sheep girl.”

“Let it go, Johnny,” Jesse said, reaching out to take his brother’s arm.

Johnny jerked away from him.

“Is that right, piano man?” Johnny asked. “Are you trying to beat my little brother’s time with the sheep girl?”

“Johnny, let ’em alone. Come on, let’s have our dinner,” Jesse called.

“Now, how can we have our dinner when this whole place smells like sheep shit?” Johnny said. He walked over to the table and looked down at Hawke, who was still sitting.

“Johnny, come back here, please,” Jesse implored.

“Johnny, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do what your brother says,” Hawke said.

“Nah, I don’t want to do why my brother says.” Johnny had a broad, evil smile on his face. “What I want to do is break you up a little for the way you snuck up on me this afternoon.”

“He didn’t sneak up on you,” Ian said. “What are you talking about? He walked right up to you.”

“Yeah, then he drew his gun and hit me on the head,” Johnny said, rubbing the bump on his head. “Well I don’t intend to let him draw his gun this time.”

“It’s too late,” Hawke said.

“What? What do you mean it’s too late?” Johnny demanded.

“I’ve already drawn my gun,” Hawke said. “I’m holding it under the table, and right now it’s pointed at your belly.”

“Ha! You think I believe that? I know—”

Johnny’s sentence was interrupted by the deadly sound of a double click from under the table.

“You were saying?” Hawke said.

Johnny stood there a moment, taking hard, angry breaths. He pointed his finger at Hawke.

“One of these days I’m going to catch you without your gun,” he said. “And when I do, mister, I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget.”

Jesse had by now walked to the table, and he stepped between his brother and Hawke, turning his back to Hawke as he began gently pushing Johnny away.

“Johnny, please,” he said, more urgently than before. “Let’s go somewhere else to have our dinner.”

Reluctantly, Johnny started to leave the café, but just as he reached the front door he turned and pointed back toward Hawke.

“We ain’t finished, piano man,” he shouted back. “Do you hear me? We ain’t finished!”

Jesse pushed Johnny through the front door, then came back to the Macgregor table, holding his hat in his hand.

“Mr. Macgregor, Mrs. Macgregor, and…sir,” he said. “I apologize for my brother. He always has been hotheaded.”

“With an attitude like that, your brother is going to get himself killed someday,” Ian said. “And if you ask me, you’d be the better off for it.”

Jesse shook his head. “No, sir,” he said. “I wouldn’t want my brother killed.” He turned and started toward the door. “No, sir,” he said, continuing to shake his head. He looked back at the table one more time. “I wouldn’t want my brother killed,” he said pointedly.

“Mr. Hawke, would you really have shot Johnny?” Hannah asked after Jesse left.

“It would have been hard to shoot him with this,” Hawke said, putting his hands above the table. He was holding a fork in one hand, and he flipped a couple of tines with his thumb, duplicating the click he had made earlier…the click that sounded exactly like a gun being cocked.

Ian laughed out loud. “Well, now,” he said. “If that’s not the beatenist thing I’ve ever seen.” He resumed eating even as he was chuckling.

“I see that you are eating again,” Cynthia said.

“Yeah, well, watching a cattleman get made a fool is good for your appetite,” he said.

“Papa, they aren’t all like Johnny,” Cynthia said. “Jesse isn’t like Johnny.”

“Honey, Jesse seems like a nice enough boy, but when you come right down to it, they are all alike.”

“No, they aren’t all alike.”

“Jesse’s not going to go against his family, now, you know he isn’t.”

“Well, no, he won’t go against his family, but that doesn’t mean…” She let the sentence hang.

“That doesn’t mean what?” Ian asked. “If it comes right down to his family against your family—and believe me, darlin’, it’s going to come to that—where will Jesse be?”

“I just don’t think he’s like that,” Cynthia said.

As they drove home that evening, Ian and Cynthia made plans to have a potluck dinner. They decided to invite all of the sheep ranchers to tell them about the court order banning them from grazing on the open range, and to make plans to go to Mountain Home next week to defend their rights in court.

“Mama, we could make apple pies,” Hannah suggested.

“We could,” Cynthia said. “Oh, no, wait. We don’t have any cinnamon.”

“I’d be glad to go back to town tomorrow and get some cinnamon for you,” Hawke said.

“Oh, Mason, I can’t ask you to do that,” Cynthia said. “Go all the way into town just for cinnamon?”

“You’re going to make an apple pie, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

Hawke smiled. “Then it’s worth it.”

The next morning, Joshua Creed was waiting outside the door of Gilmore’s office even before the lawyer showed up.

“My,” Gilmore said, smiling broadly as he got out his key to open the door. “You are here early.”

“A lot of good this injunction is doing us,” Creed said, thumping the document with his fingers. “The hearing is going to be next Wednesday. What if the judge rules against us?”

“He’s not going to rule one way or the other,” Gilmore said.

“What do you mean he isn’t going to rule?”

“As your lawyer, I can get an automatic sixty day stay, just by saying that I haven’t had time to prepare the case. Then I can appeal for another sixty day extension for cause, and at the end of that sixty days appeal for another exten
sion.” Gilmore laughed. “I can put this hearing off for a full year.”

“What happens then?”

“Well, if I were you, I would act while I had the law on my side. Surely a year will be enough time for you to…rid yourself of the problem.”

Creed smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think a year will be enough.”

When Creed stepped outside, he saw Lonnie and two of his hands.

“Pa, if you don’t mind, Poke, Jules, and me are goin’ to stay in town for a while today,” Lonnie said.

“Stay if you want to,” Creed said. “But before you come home, stop by the post office and pick up our mail.”

“All right,” Lonnie said. “Come on, boys, the saloon is open.”

“Sounds good to me,” Poke said as he followed the boss’s son.

“Dan!” Lonnie called as he pushed through the bat-wing doors. “Dan, a bottle of whiskey and three glasses.”

“Whiskey?” the bartender replied. “Lonnie, it’s not even noon yet. Wouldn’t you rather have beer?”

“Whiskey,” Lonnie said. “And where are the women? This place looks as dead as a tomb!”

“The girls all work late, Lonnie, you know that,” Dan said. “They don’t even come down until afternoon.”

Lonnie took thirty dollars from his billfold and put it on the bar. “See if this won’t bring them down early,” he said. “If I’m going to sit around drinking, I want something better to look at than these two ugly galoots.”

Jules and Poke laughed.

Dan looked at the money and nodded. “Mr. Creed, I’m sure this will bring them down,” he said.

“Drink up, boys, drink up,” Lonnie said, pouring
whiskey for them while they waited for the girls to come down.

“Lonnie, can I ask you a question?” Jules asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Why are you being so nice to Poke ’n’ me?”

“What do you mean? You’re both my friends, aren’t you?”

Jules shook his head. “We work for you, but we ain’t exactly your friends. We’re on different sides of the corral, if you get my meanin’.”

Lonny nodded. He pulled a piece of rawhide from his pocket and began chewing on it. “Yeah, I get your meaning,” he said. “But is there any law that says that just because you work for me we can’t be friends?”

Jules shook his head. “Ain’t no law like that that I know about,” he said. “How ’bout you, Poke? You know any law like that?”

Poke shook his head as well. “No, I don’t know no law like that,” he said.

“All right, we’re your friends and we work for you,” Jules said. “So now, tell me, why you bein’ so nice to us?”

Lonnie took the rawhide from his mouth, tossed the rest of his drink down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then smiled.

“I’ve got a proposition for you boys,” he said.

“What kind of a proposition?” Jules asked.

“I happen to know that the cattlemen are plannin’ on payin’ a gunman fifteen hundred dollars to kill the piano player.”

“The piano player? You mean they want someone to kill ol’ Dexter?” Jules asked.

“No, not him. It’s that Fancy Dan piano player.”

“Oh, you’re talkin’ about the one that took your knife away from you, aren’t you?” Poke asked.

“He didn’t—” Lonnie started, then, with a sigh, he just acquiesced. “Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about.”

“Well, what I want to know is, why?” Poke asked. “Why would they pay so much money to someone just to kill a piano player?”

“Turns out he’s more than just a piano player,” Lonnie said. “He’s supposed to be a pretty good gunfighter.”

“What does all this have to do with us?” Jules asked.

“Simple. I figure if we kill him, we can claim that money.”

“You want one of us to go up against this gunfighter?” Jules asked.

“Not one of us. All of us,” Lonnie said. “It will be three to one.”

“Maybe so, but if he’s really any good, he could get one of us while we’re gettin’ him,” Poke said.

“Not if we don’t give him a chance to draw,” Lonnie replied.

“Fifteen hundred dollars?” Poke said.

“Yes. That’s five hundred dollars each. You boys have any idea what you could do with five hundred dollars?”

“Five hundred dollars,” Jules repeated. He nodded. “All right, I’m willin’ to go along if you two are. What about you, Poke?”

“Hell yes, I’m game,” Poke said. “For five hundred dollars I’d shoot my own brother.”

By the time Poke and Jules had made up their mind to go along with Lonnie’s plan, the three girls who worked at the saloon were fully dressed and downstairs. They joined Lonnie and the other two at the table.

Half an hour after later, someone stepped in through the swinging bat-wing doors. As soon as he came in, he moved to one side and, with his back to the wall, perused the saloon.

“Well now,” Lonnie said under his breath. “I didn’t think opportunity would come so fast, but look who just come through the door. Looks like payday, boys.”

“Hello, Mr. Hawke,” Dan the bartender said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. What brings you into town this morning?”

“Cinnamon,” Hawke said.

“I beg your pardon?”

Hawke chuckled and walked toward the bar. “Mrs. Macgregor is going to bake an apple pie, but she needed cinnamon, so I just bought four sticks.”

“Is that him?” Jules asked under his breath. “Is that the one you’re talkin’ about?”