Feud On The Mesa

III

Marshal Holt was a hard-eyed, lean-jawed III man of middle age with a bear trap line for a mouth and an angular, spare body Tomatch. Only his thinning gray hair gave a clue to his age, and that seldom was uncovered from beneath the low-crowned, flat-brimmed hat he wore tilted slightly forward, low over his slate gray eyes. “Yeah, Britt, I heard it was comin’.” The bony shoulders rose and fell. “Well, let’er come. I’ll kill the first gunman who draws a gun in Lodgepole. That’s my job.”

Caleb studied the marshal and didn’t particularly care for what he saw. Marshal Holt was a killer, through and through. Cold, unemotional, and ruthless. Jack Britt frowned heavily. “Oh, I don’t think we gotta take any such quick action as that. Do…. ”

“Look, Britt. This here is my headache, not yours. I get paid to keep the peace, and, by Gawd, I’ll keep’er. Any o’ them Texans come into town huntin’ trouble, I’ll handle’em.”

Without a word, Caleb and Jack left Marshal Holt’s office. On the plank sidewalk outside, Jack’s smoky eyes were narrowed a little. He pulled his coat a little closer about him. The rain was starting again and its tiny fingers were cool on the back of his neck. “I’ll be damned if I like what’s comin’, Caleb. That marshal’s a gun hawk if I ever saw one. Oh, hell”—he turned up the walk toward the Long-horn Saloon—“let’s go get a drink.”

Caleb pulled the flat, stiff brim of his low-crowned hat down over his eyes. The rain didn’t bother him half as much as the brusque town marshal did. They walked among the huddled people on the sidewalk and edged into the saloon. A rancher was loudly praising the rain over a tin cup of lukewarm beer. He raised the cup with one hand, his luxurious mustache with the other, and drank with loud, gurgling sounds. There were about fifteen Lodgepole townsmen and cattlemen in the place. A sprinkling of younger cowboys, flushed and alert, were scattered through the crowd. In a far corner, a poker game was going full tilt, the players impassively smoking and ignoring the rest of the room.

“What’ll it be, gents?”

“Couple o’ beers, Sam.”

The tin cups slid before Caleb and Jack, and the bartender looked at them anxiously. “Trouble’s brewin’, boys.”

Jack drank a little and nodded sourly. “You ain’t tellin’ us nothing, Sam.”

“No? Well, there was three o’ them Texans in here a while back, an’ one of’em was a big hombre with tied-down guns. They didn’t stay long, just looked us over an’ left.”

Caleb was surprised that they were in town so early. He said nothing and drank his beer slowly, eyes on the backbar mirror. Jack Britt shrugged. “Most o’ the cowmen been in, Sam?”

The bartender nodded wryly. “Hell, yes. I reckon every cowman fer a hundred miles been here once or twice this mornin’.” He shook his head. “They’re wanderin’ aroun’ town like lost dogs, lookin’ to be in the right place at the right time, I reckon.”

“You there, at the bar. Squawman!”

The room got suddenly quiet enough to hear men breathing. Caleb had seen them come in while the bartender and Jack had been talking. He had seen the lanky foreman of the Texans single him out to the crowd of cold-eyed, bronzed-faced men behind him. Caleb set the beer cup down easily and answered without turning around. “If you mean me, Tejano, remember what I told you about callin’ folks squawman up in this country.”

The big man’s hands were poised to swoop for his tied-down guns and his even, white teeth were visible through the flat lips. “Turn aroun’, squawman!”

Caleb didn’t move. He calmly studied the hard faces behind the foreman. “How many men you got there, gringo salido?”

The insult was worse than being called a squaw-man, and the Texans all knew it. The foreman ripped out an obscene oath. “Enough to take care of any Lodgepole cowmen who want to buy into this game.”

“Well, Texan, tell’em to get out from behind you,’cause these boys aren’t doin’ my fightin’ for me an’ I don’t want to hit some man I don’t have nothin’ against.”

The Texan crouched a little lower. His voice was soft and deep. “All right, squawman, it’s just between us, then. Turn around an’ take your medi-cine.”

Out of all the witnesses to that fight, none could ever swear that they saw what happened. There was a blur of action, a swish of fringes, and the Long-horn Saloon was rocked by two deafening explosions that were magnified by the four walls and roof. There were no second shots. This was a gun-fight between two thoroughly experienced gunmen. One shot each; that is all it took. For a long moment, there was a deathly silence, then the bartender spoke up in a rasping, small voice: “See if he’s dead, boys.”

None of the local men went forward and two of the Texans, hesitatingly, looking uneasily at the Lodgepole cowmen and the cowboys, walked gingerly over and bent over their foreman’s sprawled, still form. One of the riders looked up at Caleb, still standing against the bar, his voice small with awe. “Plumb through the head.” There was a rash of movement at the batwing doors and Marshal Holt, savage eyes slitted in his hawk-nosed face, hat brim low and menacing, stood just inside the opening. “Who done it?”

Caleb nodded. “I did.”

“Witnesses?”

Holt’s hard, flat voice broke the spell and the room buzzed as some men turned to the marshal while others turned to their neighbors and began talking in strained voices. Holt came over beside Doom. “Must’ve been self- defense, from what ever’body says.” He let his cold eyes travel the full length of the scout and back. “I knew that hombre, once. He was Powder Hudson, one of the killingest gunmen in the Southwest.” Marshal Holt shook his head slightly. “Don’t see how ya done it. There’s goin’ to be trouble here, hombre, an’ I don’t want you in town when it hits. Git your horse an’ slope.”

Caleb’s thoughtful gaze was direct and calm. “You’ve made a mistake, Marshal. That man asked for what he got, an’ I’m not leavin’ Lodgepole be-cause I defended myself.”

Holt’s eyes blazed suddenly with a crazy light. “I say you are, hombre.”

Jack Britt stepped up, red-faced. “Holt, you’re the marshal here, not the governor. You don’t order any respectable citizen outen Lodgepole, now or any other time.”

For a second, Holt’s body tensed and his face went white. Caleb was watching for the little telltale tightening around the edges of the mouth. Several of the other Lodgepole men came forward. Three of them were prominent cowmen.

“Jack’s right, Marshal. This here man’s got as much right here in Lodgepole as you have. He stays.”

Holt looked at the tight knot of angry cowboys and ranchers around him, estimated his chances at nil, and relaxed with a savage smile. “Can’t argue with the whole damned town.” He swung back to Doom. “What I said still goes, hombre. You got till midnight tonight.”

Doom smiled softly. “That’s all the time I’ll need, Marshal.”

Marshal Holt held the door open for two of the Texans who struggled through with the remains of Powder Hudson, ramrod of the Texas trail herd. Several of the Texans tossed hard looks at the Lodgepole cowmen as they went out. Jack Britt tossed off the rest of his beer with a big sigh. “Well, boys, unless I’ve got these Texans sized up all wrong, hell’s goin’ to pop loose any minute now.”

The old white-headed man, who had argued with Holt over Doom’s leaving town, shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet on it, Jack. Them coyotes are pretty much all air, and now, with their foreman shot down, they just might take their damned critters an’ head out around the Lodgepole country an’ go on up north by way of Canon del Muerto.”

Jack was looking thoughtfully at the older man when the bartender spoke up. “Here, you fellers, have a beer on the house. Gawd that was the quickest gunfight I ever seen. Two shots an’ it’s over. Did’ja see where that Texan’s shot went?”

Caleb shook his head dryly. “No. As long as it didn’t go through me, I don’t care.”

“Right here. Look. Man that was awful close.” Caleb and the others looked down at the front of the bar. The dead man’s slug had missed Caleb’s body by a fraction of an inch and had gone through the bar front and out through the back wall. “Close, damned awful close, I’d call it.”

“Where ya goin’, Caleb?” Britt’s grizzled eye-brows were creased with a worried look.

“Down to the livery barn an’ check on my horse. Back in a few minutes.”

As Caleb emerged from the saloon, the people on the plank sidewalk looked at him oddly, and the buzz of