the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) (17 page)

"Did you say milking?" McGann was incredulous. "I never heard of a man milkin' a cow west of the Rockies."

"He's doing it." Giddings glanced slyly at Ruth. "He says women folks set store by milk cows. Gives 'em real butter and cream. For a woman who bakes, he says, that's a big help."

Ruth seemed not to hear, continuing with her sewing.

"His cherry trees are growing, and they look mighty nice. Long rows of them. He's put in a kitchen-garden, too. Seems he came prepared with all kinds of seed. He eats mighty good, that feller. Corn on the cob, cabbage, peas, carrots, onions, lots of other stuff. He's found a little gold, too."

It was this last item that reached the attentionof Lay Benton. It was just like that crazy man, he thought, to find gold where nobody else had even looked for it. His grudge against Noble had grown as stories of his improving ranch continued to spread. He took that success as a personal affront

Late on a night after another of Giddings' visits, Lay met with Gene Nevers and Ab Slade. "He's got gold, horses, cattle, and some cash money Giddings paid him. Must run to seven or eight hundred dollars."

"How do you figure to do it?" Slade asked.

"Take no chances. We lay for him and shoot him down. There's nobody there but him and everybody will think injuns done it."

At daylight they rode out of town, and Giddings saw them go. He stopped by the McGann house. "I shouldn't have mentioned that gold," he said. "Benton, Slade, and Nevers rode out of town, then circled and headed west."

"You think they're going after Noble?" McGann asked.

"Where else? Benton never liked him, and we all know what Benton is."

Ruth sat quietly sewing and did not look up. Giddings glanced at her. "You don't look worried," he commented.

She looked up at him. "Why should I be? If a man can't look after himself of what account is he?"

"By the way," Giddings smiled at her. "He said for you to get to work on that trousseau."

Her eyes flashed. "Does he think me a fool?"

Three days went by and there was no change in Ruth, or if there was it went unnoticed by old man Border, who missed nothing. Except, he added, that lately Ruth had been watering her flowers nine or ten times a day, and each time she took a long time shading her eyes down the trail toward the west. The trail was always empty, and the purple hills of evening told her nothing.

Benton might have been loudmouthed and AbSlade a coward, but Gene Nevers was neither. He was an experienced outlaw and stock thief, and he had killed several men.

Benton wanted to slip up on Noble and shoot him down from ambush, but Nevers was practical. "Hell have that gold hid, and we'll never find it."

"Maybe we should catch him and burn him a little. Make him talk."

Nevers was impatient. "Don't be a fool! His kind never talk."

At the last they decided that was the way to do it They slipped down near the house and were waiting when Noble went to the spring for water. As he straightened up his eye caught the glint of light on a rifle barrel, and he was unarmed.

He made a very big target, and he was no fool. These men had come to rob him first and then kill him. Had it been only the latter he would already be dead. He thought swiftly and coolly. The only reason he was alive was because they needed him to locate the gold.

As the three stepped into the open his eyes went from one to the other. Nevers was at once the most dangerous and the most reasonable. Slade hung back, either overly cautious or a coward. That Benton disliked him he knew.

"Howdy, gents I Why all the guns? You been hunting?"

"We were hunting you," Benton said.

"A long way to come and a big risk for what there is in it," he said.

"Where's the gold, Noble?" Nevers asked. "It will save trouble if you tell us."

"Most likely, but I never paid much mind to trouble. Kind of liked it now and again. Keeps the edge on a man." If he could just get within reach--

He moved toward the door and instantly the guns lifted. "Hold it now I" Benton was eager to shoot

"Just aimin' to set my bucket inside. No use totalk out here in the sun. I was just fixin' to have breakfast, so if you boys don't mind, we'll just have breakfast first and then talk. I'm hungry."

"So am I." Slade moved toward the door.

"Ab," Nevers said, "you go inside and pick up his guns. Move them into the farthest corner, behind where we will sit We will let this man fix our breakfast, like he says. I'm hungry, too."

Ab Slade went inside and Noble knew what he was doing, he could follow his every move. He came to the door. "All right, just a Winchester and a couple of forty-fours."

They went inside. Putting down his bucket Noble went to work. He had no plan, no idea. He would fix breakfast as promised. Besides, he was hungry himself.

They stayed across the room from him, but Nevers was very alert. Several times he might have surprised the others but not Nevers.

"I found gold, all right"--he talked as he worked--"but not much of it yet. You boys came too soon. You should have waited another month or two when I'd cleaned up the sluice after some long runs. I'd just finished the sluice and now it's a loss. Too bad."

"Why too bad?" Benton asked.

"The claim will be lost. Nobody could find it but me, and after you boys kill me you'll have to skip the country. You'll never dare show face around Wagonstop again, so the gold won't do you any good."

"We ain't leavin'," Slade said. "We'll say it was injuns."

"That won't work." Noble slapped some beef in the frying pan. "I'm friends with all the Indians. In fact, they're due over here now. I promised them some beef and some tobacco."

Nevers glanced uneasily out the door. Giddings had said that Noble was friendly with the Indians. Suppose they appeared now, and suspected something was wrong?

Noble knew what was in his mind. "You boys may have to kill your horses getting out of here because those injuns will be right after you. I've been helping them through some hard times." He forked beef from the pan. "How you figuring on getting out? Unless you know the country you're in a trap."

"Southwest," Benton said, "to Arizona."

"See? You don't know this country. The Colorado Canyon, looks like it's a mile deep, lies right in the way."

Gene Nevers swore mentally, remembering that canyon only then. He had never been south from here, only east and north. Wagonstop was east and the Indians were north. For the first time he was worried.

"You'd better get outside, Ab, and watch for those Indians."

"They're touchy," Noble said, "shoot one of them, and they'll really come after you."

He dished up the food, placing plates before Nevers and Benton. Both men had drawn their guns and placed them on the table beside their

Elates. Cherry Noble noted the fact and turned back to the fireplace.

Beside the woodpile was the old burlap sack in which he had the guns he had taken from the Piutes. An old blanket was partly thrown over it. In that sack there were weapons ... but were they loaded? Could he, he asked himself, be sure of getting a loaded weapon if he dropped to one knee and grabbed? There was no certainty, and there would be no second chance.

Carefully he placed two cups on the table and picked up the coffeepot. Nevers watched him with hawk eyes as he filled the cups. Then they took their cups in their left hands and as Noble filled his own cup inspiration came. He reached for a spoon and accidentally knocked it to the floor. Stooping to retrieve it, he hurled himself against the legs of the table.

His three hundred and thirty pounds hit the table like an avalanche, smashing it back into the two outlaws. Nevers grabbed wildly at his gun and it exploded, sending a bullet into the wall as the table hit him waist-high. He was smashed backward and with Benton slammed against the wall, the boiling coffee cascading over them.

Leaping up, Noble sent a huge fist that smashed into Benton's face. His head hit the wall with a thud. Nevers pulled free of the table, gasping for breath, and lunged at Noble sending them both crashing to the floor. Nevers swung wildly, and the blow caught Noble on the chin. He might as well have hit a stone wall.

Jerking free, Nevers grabbed for his gun which lay on the floor. Nevers got a hand on the gun and Noble grabbed for Benton's gun. Nevers fired wildly and missed, then fired again and didn't Noble felt the bullet hit him and fired in return.

He saw Nevers fall and heard running feet as Ab Slade rushed the door. He turned, swaying, and fired as Slade framed himself in the door.

Slade fell. Fully conscious, slumped against the door jamb, he said, "You got Gene?"

"Yes."

"And Benton?"

"He's out cold."

Slade stared at him, almost pleading. "I tried, didn't I? They can't say I was yella, can they?"

"You tried, Ab. You really tried. You could have run."

"Tell them that. Tell them I--" He rolled over, out of the doorway to the hard-packed earth outside.

He died like that and Cherry Noble went back inside.

On the sixth day after Benton, Slade, and Nevers rode out of town, Ruth McGann walked up the street to the store. She lingered over her shopping, listening for the news. There was none.

Then somebody in the street let out a yell. The store emptied into the street.

There was no mistaking the rider on the black mule. Behind him there were three horses. Two with empty saddles, the third with a rider tied to his horse. That rider's face was battered and swollen. Cherry Noble drew up before the store.

"They came hunting me. Two are buried back yonder. If anybody wants to collect them, they can. I caught one but not bad. Not enough to worry about This one"--he indicated Benton-- "put them up to it and as he sort of figured himself a fighter I turned him loose and let him have at it. He didn't cut much ice as a fighter."

Ruth stepped off the porch and walked away in the dust. Cherry Noble glanced after her, threw one longing look at the saloon and the beer he had wanted for the last thirty miles, and followed.

He caught her in three long strides. She had shortened hers, just a little. He was at a loss for words but finally he said, "I've come back."

"So you have," she replied coolly.

"We can be married by the preacher, and start for home in the morning. It's a long ride."

"Do you think I'm such a fool?" she burst out. "You told Giddings I should start a trousseau !"

"Was that foolish of me? Ruth, I loved you the moment I saw you and knew that for me there could be no other. Ruth, will you marry me?"

"You told him to tell me to start my trousseau !" she repeated. "Did you think me such a fool?"

"Why, I just thought--"

"You're the fool," she said, "I started it the morning after meeting you in the street."

" 'Women,' " Cherry started to quote, " 'are--'"

"For you," Ruth said sweetly, "the word has now become singular... so do not say 'women'!"

*

At eight o'clock Marshal Fitz Moore left his house and walked one block west to Card's Saloon. It was already open and Fitz glimpsed Card's swamper sweeping debris from the previous night. Crossing the street the marshal paused at the edge of the boardwalk to rub out his cigar on the top of the hitching rail. As he did so he turned his eyes but not his head, glancing swiftly up the narrow street alongside the saloon. The gray horse was gone.

Fitz Moore hesitated, considering this, estimating time and probabilities. Only then did he turn and enter the restaurant just ahead of him.

The Fred Henry gang of outlaws had been operating in this corner of the territory for more than two years, but the town of Sentinel had thus far escaped their attention. Fitz Moore, who had been marshal of Sentinel for more than half that time, had taken care to study the methods ,of Henry and his men. In recent raids the marshal had been slain within minutes before the raid began, or just at the moment the gang arrived.

A persistent pattern of operation had been established and invariably the raids had been timed to coincide with the availability of large sums of money. Such a time had come to Sentinel, as Fitz Moore had reason to know.

So, unless all his reasoning had failed, the town was marked for a raid within the next two hours. And he was marked for death.

Fitz Moore was a tall, spare man with a dark, narrow face and carefully trimmed mustache. Normally his face was still and cold, only his eyes seeming alive and aware.

As he entered the restaurant he removed his black, flat-crowned hat. His frock coat was unbuttoned offering easy access to the Smith & Wesson Russian .44. The gun was belted high and firmly on his left side just in front of his hipbone, butt to the right, holster at a slight angle.

Three men and two women sat at a long community table but only one murmured a greeting. Jack Thomas glanced up and said, "Good morning, Marshal," his tone low and friendly.

Acknowledging the greeting, the marshal seated himself at the far end of the table and accepted the cup of coffee poured by the Chinese cook.