Owen felt the blood draining from his face. In his time many had hated him, but no man had ever suggested that Owen Toller lacked courage. “Ben,” he said softly, his gray eyes glinting, “I've got work to do in the field. If you'll excuse me...”
Ben realized that he had made a bad mistake. Another time, a few years back, a blunder like this might have been fatal. He swallowed uneasily.
“I guess I talked out of turn,” he managed to say.
“We'll forget it,” Owen said flatly. “Now, if you'll excuse me...”
As McKeever backed clumsily toward the front door, he said, “Owen, will you think it over?”
“It's out of the question, Ben.”
“The thousand dollars, Owen. Think of that!”
“If I got myself killed, how long would a thousand dollars take care of Elizabeth and the kids?”
The banker stood fast in the doorway, breathless and sweating. “Owen,” he said, “I am not without influence in this state. If I wanted, I could make it tough on a man.”
“Ben,” Toller asked coldly, “are you threatening me?”
A chill seemed to shake Ben McKeever. “I just want you to think it over,” he said quickly, then lumbered hurriedly out of the house.
The banker was sticky with sweat when he reached his buggy. He wiped his face thoroughly with a red handkerchief before taking the reins and heading back for Reunion. Toller had proved tougher than he had anticipated. But he would come around. And soon. All men came around when Ben McKeever set his mind to it.
Slowly, the lush green smell of the hills soothed him, and McKeever allowed his huge bulk to spread comfortably over the leather-upholstered seat. He speculated with quiet pleasure on the untapped richness of the land. Here the dirt was dark and bursting with growing things. Farther into the hills there were huge fortunes in timber ready for the cutting.
McKeever's land, much of it. McKeever's timber. He was a man who dealt in futures, and he was one of the few who could see the great wealth that would someday come down out of those hills. Someday this land that he had bought for pennies could not be purchased at any price. That was McKeever's vision.
But first, before the vision could be realized, there must be a means of transporting this great wealth to market. The railroad was the answer. Not the Katy, for it was too far away. The spur line was the answer, and the banker had worked hard and long to get it. He cringed when he thought of the money he had spent, of the subtle bribes that he had passed out so lavishly to surveyors and minor officials in order that good reports of this country might reach the powerful financiers in the East. And then the Brunners had come.
The very thought of those brothers, Ike and Cal Brunner, could send McKeever into a rage. They had caused havoc, raiding into Arkansas and Missouri, as well as in Oklahoma, disrupting the fragile line of communication and commerce, robbing banks, wagon trains, peddlers.
Nothing was too large or too small. It seemed that the Brunners and their gang of ignorant hill boys robbed and killed for the sheer pleasure of it.
Beneath his folds of fat, McKeever writhed in rage when he speculated on the possibility that his vision, his empire, might be destroyed because of this small band of stupid cutthroats that hid in the hills, struck like panthers, vanished like smoke.
Often McKeever had cursed himself for supporting Will Cushman for county sheriff. At the time it had seemed the right move. He had been afraid of Toller. The man had a mind of his own, thought as he pleased, and did his job to his own satisfaction only. McKeever would not support a man who refused to take orders.
Besides, how would it look to the Easterners if the county elected a gunsharp for sheriff? They'd think this was still a wilderness, where differences were settled with guns, and they would look around for a more civilized place to invest their capital.
Cushman had seemed the right man for the job. He was easygoing, well liked, a good talker and campaigner. But McKeever had overlooked two things in selecting the man: experience and guts. Cushman had neither.
But Toller would come around, McKeever told himself, to the tune of whirring buggy wheels. If he doesn't, I'll make it so hot for him he'll fold up on that farm inside a year!
Back at the farmhouse, Owen stood at the front door watching the black buggy disappear at the bottom of the slope. He was not a quick man to anger, but the banker had angered him, and it showed now in every line of his angular face.
Elizabeth came into the room. “Is Mr. McKeever gone already?”
“Yes,” Owen said, not turning.
“What did he want?” his wife asked anxiously.
“He wants me to go after the Brunner gang.” Then he turned and saw the fear in Elizabeth's eyes and knew that he had made a mistake. His laugh was forced, but it served to ease the tension, and he stepped quickly to his wife and folded his big arms around her. “I told him no,” he said. “I told him it was a job for the county sheriff.”
“Oh, Owen,” she said weakly, “don't scare me like that!”
He laughed again, and this time it was a free and rolling sound, unbridled by anger. Then suddenly he was quiet and sober. Tilting his wife's chin gently and looking at her, he said, “This was just a crazy notion that Ben had. I told him where I stood.”
“But will Ben take no for an answer? Owen, you know how he can be when he sets his head on something.”
“Ben will have to take what answer I give him.”
