The Man From Laramie Page 7

  The plain, sunny office with potbellied iron stove, wood box and sandbox in a corner, had benches along one wall. Several wooden chairs sat about. A grizzly skin and gunracks were on the back wall. Shelves held brown paperboard file boxes.

  Here men came for orders and favors, came to buy, sell, visit. Men had called this room the Eagle’s Nest—and Robber’s Roost, and names less complimentary. Waggoman’s grave smile came under the white mustaches at the memories. He walked to the roll-top desk at the right of the door and sat down reluctantly. Light flooded the desk from the left and streamed over his right shoulder. But the tally lists he picked up were a blur of figures.

  Some days his sight was a little better. But always now the bad days returned and grew worse. Last Monday he’d groped like a blind man. Waggoman put the tally lists down. His corded hands came up slowly and rubbed his eyes. Blind. Helpless—

  He brought both fists down in a savage helpless strike to the desk that made papers jump. Then he sat staring at the blurred figures.

  Matt Seldon, a better doctor than Coronado deserved, had explained it regretfully. Cataracts. Eye lenses were clouding, thickening. Like gradually boiling the white of an egg, Seldon had explained. Opaque curtains were closing out the world, relentlessly blotting out light and life and all that made the days keen and clean and worth while.

  Eye doctors should be seen, of course—St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston—There was a fine doctor, too, in San Francisco—

  He’d gone to them. By saddle, by stagecoach and railroad palace cars he’d journeyed to those distant waiting-rooms. And always when the blurred fierce demand of his look had pinned the fine doctors down, Seldon’s verdict was confirmed.

  Waggoman drew a long slow breath. At least Matt Seldon could be trusted not to talk. Matt knew what it would mean. Waggoman turned his head as boot heels struck the porch steps outside.

  Dave and Vic Hansbro came in together.

  “Shut the door,” Waggoman ordered briefly. He swung in the creaking swivel chair and regarded them. “We’ve all slept on it. Now what were you men doing at the salt lakes yesterday?”

  Dave said sulkily, “I went after the fellow and caught him stealing salt.”

  “How’d you know he was there?”

  “Frank Darrah mentioned Lockhart had gone to the lakes to load salt.”

  “Darrah, eh?” Alec Waggoman sat for a moment. “I see. Well, Darrah made a fool out of you.”

  Dave’s angry “I don’t see how—” was cut off by a curt “Be quiet! Vic knew better. And if you’ve got the stuff, Dave, to run Barb some day, you should have known. Now Lockhart gets his money at the bank this morning. That ends it.”

  Dave flared, “So you never cracked down on anyone?”

  Alec Waggoman looked at his son in silence. Dave had been a handsome baby, he recalled. Dave was a handsome young man. Strong. Spirited. Much like his mother. And with her temper. They’d been proud of Dave. Looking back now, sadly, Waggoman couldn’t recall exactly when he’d started to worry about Dave’s wild temper and Dave’s head-long insistence on having his own way, regardless.

  Not bad, Waggoman sought reassurance in his knowledge of Dave. Just wild. Never broke to harness. He tried now, reasonably, mildly.

  “Sure, Dave. I cracked down. When a man wanted trouble, he got trouble. When they tried to trick me, I broke ’em. Wasn’t much law. It was the only way Barb could have been built and held.”

  Dave met it with hostility. “Now you’re going soft. Buying peace.”

  Waggoman tried again. “Different times, different ways. Your job will be to run Barb profitably. You’ll need peace and friends.”

  “A cow coddler?” Dave sneered. “Ducking trouble? Afraid to try anything you did?”

  Waggoman sat motionless, the helpless feeling coming at him like a tide. Got to make him see it! Time was running fast now. Dave wasn’t ready.

  Slowly, bluntly, he tried.

  “You’re not the man I was, Dave. Try to copy me and you’ll meet a better man. He’ll turn your head-strong, stubborn ways against you. He’ll break you. You’re smart enough. Stop acting like a spoiled brat at times. Now get out and think about it. I want to talk to Vic.”

  Chapter Ten

  Dave slammed the door as he went out. Vic Hans-bro stared after him. “Rough on him, weren’t you, Alec?”

  “Think so?” A chill restraint in the question brought Hansbro’s puffy face around uncertainly.

  “None of my business,” Hansbro muttered. Then Hansbro’s bruised mouth opened silently as Alec Waggoman suddenly cursed him.

  “You damn’d cold-blooded bully! Long ago you’d have been whittled to size if I hadn’t close-herded you! Even thought for you!”

  “Alec, I ain’t got such talk—”

  “Shut up! You could have stopped that trouble yesterday at the salt lakes! That stranger Lockhart didn’t beat you half enough! I’d have crippled you!”

  Hansbro’s thick protest started again and another “Shut up!” silenced him. “Vic, listen carefully! You won’t hear this from me again!”

  Vic Hansbro blinked uneasily at the tall, rising figure which had given decisive orders as far back as Hansbro cared to remember.

  “Better believe this, Vic! Starting now, I’m not keeping an oversize bully-boy to help Dave get into trouble!”

  Hansbro’s shocked disbelief burst out. “You ain’t gonna fire me after all these years?”

  “I’d fire you now if I thought it’d help Dave! I’m warning you now! If you’re near Dave’s next fool move and don’t stop him, I’ll bust you to a cow-hand! If you help him, I’ll fire you! Pull your pay and ride if you don’t like it!”

  “My God, Alec! I ain’t quittin’! You know that!”

  “I know it. And I know why, Vic. Now get out and think it over.”

  Hansbro’s massive bulk shouldered to the door and stamped out. But he closed the door quietly. Waggoman marked it. Hard-faced, unreconciled, he turned back to the desk and the tally sheets, guessing Hansbro would rowel a horse off to the mountains in black rage. And it might be that Vic would return chastened, subdued.

  Hansbro would have been further enraged at the calm knowledge of his intentions. At the horse corral in black silence Hansbro saddled his top horse, a magnificent roan. Dave came from the house and eyed the saddling with a thin, knowing smile.

  “What’d he say?”

  Hansbro jerked viciously on the webbed cinch strap and tucked the end in before he looked at Dave. “Ordered me to stop any fool moves you tried.”

  “Nursemaid?” Dave sneered.

  “Got to humor him.”

  “Why?”

  “He’ll fire me.”

  Dave’s grin took on a malicious edge. “He’d fire you quicker if he knew some of the tally counts were low.”

  Vic Hansbro glanced quickly around to see if they were overheard. His manner turned placating. “That was for you, Dave. You know it was. Everything’ll be yours, anyway, one of these days. You swore you needed the money.”

  “And you took half,” Dave sneered again. “Half, Vic. Remember that when you try to tell me what to do. Alec won’t like to hear you peddled some of his best beeves while he was away on trips. I don’t even know who bought ’em. You handled it all.” Dave’s grin was amused. “Now sweat it out. And don’t try to tell me what to do.”

  “Sure, Dave.” Hansbro said it softly, thickly. He gathered the reins in one hamlike fist and watched Dave walk away, and Vic Hansbro was suddenly afraid of Dave.

  Hansbro stepped on the roan and caught the braided leather quirt off the saddle horn. His savage slash drove the roan into a wild gallop. Alec Waggoman, in the office, heard the receding pound of hoofs and paused, listening, before bending over his desk work again.

  He had to hold the papers close to his eyes. Six months ago it had been a full foot. The strain was great. Inner rebellion and a frustrating sense of helplessness finally became intolerable. Waggoman
swung away from the desk with a growled oath. He caught his hat off the deer-horn rack beside the door and walked heavily outside to the edge of the yard, and called to the nearest figure. “Saddle my horse!”

  Alec Waggoman rode down out of the hills, solitary and pine-straight in the saddle, somber and silent, his thoughts on the future, on Dave. The mountains were at his back. Before him the world flung out mile upon endless mile of foothills and deep washes, knife ridges and long reaches of grama grass. All the wild rough beauty of Barb.

  He knew it was there; he could see it clean and lovely and enduring in the memories of the long years. A very little of it, tantalizingly, he could see now close beside the ranch road. Then the thickening blur took all the rest.

  He had the memories, the long rich memories. But who had the future? Dave’s future? Barb’s future? And after the black shackles of full blindness fastened on him, who had Alec Waggoman’s future? Waggoman’s faint, ironic smile followed the thought.

  His horse snorted softly. Its ears went forward. Unable to make out who was coming, Waggoman reined to a stop by the roadside and slowly rolled and lighted a cigarette. He heard the approaching strike of horse shoes against the road rocks, and finally the rider materialize into a woman.

  As she neared the solitary horse man waiting forbiddingly at the side of the road, Barbara Kirby had the half-prideful, half-defiant thought that Alec Waggoman looked exactly what he was: a rocklike part of this wild, unyielding country where he’d carved out the great reaches of Barb. That bold-nosed, craggy face and iron-willed energy had always been a harsh contrast to Jubal Kirby’s likeable, casual ways.

  Now Alec Waggoman had a brooding look of challenge as Barbara rode to him. He waited, forcing her to speak first. And Barbara’s own instinctive defiance sounded cooler than she intended.

  “Good morning, Uncle Alec.”

  Surprisingly, a slow, grave smile spread under his impressive white mustaches. “Barbara! Coming to visit an old man?” In his lofty, detached way, Alec Waggoman had always seemed amused by her mildly defiant coolness toward him.

  “I’m going to Half-Moon,” said Barbara coolly. “But that stranger—that Will Lockhart—asked me to tell you he’s satisfied with the money the bank paid him this morning. He wants no more trouble with Barb.”

  Waggoman’s hooded look rested on her. His even voice asked, “Why didn’t Lockhart bring his own message?”

  “Would he have been safe at Barb?”

  “He would.” The veiled stare considered her. Waggoman’s question was idle. “Was Lockhart going to Half-Moon?”

  “He was riding to Roxton Springs, leaving these parts.”

  Waggoman’s demand thrust like a rapier stroke. “If Lockhart’s leaving, why bother to send me word he wants no more trouble? Why send you miles out of your way with an unnecessary message?”

  “I don’t know,” Barbara admitted uncomfortably. “He didn’t really ask me to come.”

  “You just decided to visit your Uncle Alec, eh?” Waggoman’s smile took on edged humor at the thought. “Are you certain Lockhart isn’t hiring out to Half-Moon?”

  “He didn’t speak of it.” Barbara knew she was flushing. Defiantly she countered the tall old man eyeing her closely. “Are you afraid of Lockhart?”

  His smile spread under the white mustaches. “What is fear?” His own dry answer said, “Not caution. I know Kate Canaday. After losing her lease on the Gallegos tract she’d not pass up a chance to hire Lockhart.”

  “Uncle Alec, why did you do that to Kate?”

  Alec Waggoman’s smile faded. The rocklike look dropped on him. Then, surprisingly, he said, “I was looking ahead. Barb will need that winter graze. If I died suddenly, Dave would never get it. I took care of the matter now.”

  He sounded almost, Barbara thought, as if the years ahead weighed on his mind. Knowing Dave all her life, Dave’s small strengths and greater weaknesses, Barbara had an intuitive flash. This tall, somber old man was trying to reach beyond the grave and prop and bolster Dave.

  He can’t, Barbara thought a little sadly. Dave won’t change. She argued, “Half-Moon needs that range.”

  Waggoman’s faint smile returned. “Half-Moon still has Kate Canaday.”

  “Barb still has Alec Waggoman.”

  “And who knows tomorrow?” Waggoman said dryly. Then unexpectedly he said, “Yesterday I leased the salt lakes to Frank Darrah.”

  “Frank didn’t tell me,” said Barbara involuntarily.

  “Should he have told you?”

  “He could have mentioned it.” Barbara was annoyed, without exactly knowing why. “Last night Frank asked me to marry him. We talked of other business matters.”

  Alec Waggoman showed no surprise. “Are you going to marry him?”

  “Haven’t you noticed my ring?” Barbara held up her left hand. Waggoman leaned over, peering. When he straightened and gathered the reins, his smile had an unusual warmth.

  “So you’re happy, Barbara? Now, please an old man, too, by riding with him to the Half-Moon turnoff.”

  He was a pleasant companion as they rode side by side. Barbara caught herself wondering, Why can’t he be this way all the time? Not until later when she reached Half-Moon, did Barbara recall Alec Waggoman’s conviction that Kate Canaday had tried to hire Will Lockhart.

  Kate’s Half-Moon headquarters was a rambling log house, log bunk house, barn, and outbuildings. Kate’s pack of hound dogs streamed out in full clamor as Barbara rode up. Kate’s tall vigorous figure emerged from the log cook-shack and her gusty calls quieted the dogs.

  “Now ain’t this a surprise?” Kate called delightedly. Her lumpy, weathered face beamed as Barbara dismounted. “I thought mebbe ’twas that Lockhart feller I tried to hire yesterday. Might ’a’ knowed the son-of-a-gun wouldn’t change his mind.”

  Laughing, Barbara said, “I met Alec Waggoman and he guessed you’d tried to hire Lockhart.”

  “With a foreman like Lockhart, I’d make Alec sweat balls of fire,” Kate said with grim anticipation. Then her shrug put the thought aside. “I’ll get some coffee from the big pot,” Kate said sociably, “an’ we’ll have a real visit.”

  Elaborately casual, Barbara said, “I came to invite you to my wedding.”

  Kate was incredulous. “Who you marryin’?”

  “Frank Darrah.”

  “Well!” exclaimed Kate weakly. Wordlessly she motioned Barbara into the house.

  The front room they entered mirrored another aspect of Big Kate Canaday. Wine-red carpet lay soft and yielding on the floor. Tall brass andirons gleamed in the stone fireplace. A walnut organ stood against the wall. Rosewood sofa and comfortable chairs were covered with cheerful brocade. Window draperies were stately falls of starched white lace. They sat on the sofa side by side and Kate admired Frank’s ring and volleyed questions about wedding plans and clothes.

  Presently Kate broke off and heaved sheepishly to her feet. “I clean fergot the coffee.”

  Barbara looked up at her thoughtfully. “I don’t think Jubal approves of Frank. Do you?”

  Kate stood there, big and manlike in rough woolen shirt and skirt, her graying pompadour high and careless above the rough, amiable face, now puckering thoughtfully.

  “Jubal,” said Kate slowly, “ain’t marryin’ Darrah. I ain’t, neither. You’re real in love, ain’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t I have to be?”

  “Ain’t a girl in the Territory’ll get a better provider,” Kate said. “Darrah’s made money. He’ll make more. Ain’t bad lookin’. Healthy, too.”

  “And sound teeth,” Barbara reminded, chuckling. Then, reluctantly she guessed, “You don’t exactly approve, either, do you?”

  “Didn’t say so,” Kate denied vigorously. “Can’t help it if I run personal to he-men who’ll keep a woman guessin’ an’ raise holy-how if she tries to tromp an’ boss.” Color was staining Barbara’s face. Kate saw it. “The Lockhart kind stirs you warm, too, huh?”

  “Rid
iculous,” Barbara denied.

  Kate went for the coffee, leaving dryly over her shoulder, “I never heard it had to be reasonable.”

  Hours after Kate said that, Will Lockhart’s tired roan gelding brought him through low hills to a smiling valley. The narrow road homed straight across the valley to tall cottonwoods and dusty streets and sun-baked plaza that were Roxton Springs. On a yellow bluff to the west, Fort Roxton’s adobe structures and highflying flag overlooked the town. And between town and fort, a small sparkling stream fed smaller, wandering acequias which carried rippling water to cultivated fields and lush little town gardens.

  From the Mogollon corrals, west of the plaza, Will walked to the near-by French’s Hotel. A glance at the register was enough. He went on to the Riverside Hotel on the northwest corner of the plaza. Here he had stopped before. When he leaned the carbine against the desk counter and picked up the ink-crusted pen, the clerk remembered him with an admiring question.

  “Ain’t you the one who upset the Barb foreman in Coronado?”

  Will’s glance lifted from a name higher up on the register page: F. L. Darrah—

  “There was a little trouble,” Will said carelessly. He picked up the room key and the carbine and walked upstairs in mild annoyance. He was marked now for public notice it seemed. And, in a way, it confirmed the warning of Freall, the banker. Who touched Barb, touched trouble.

  Will’s room at the back of the upstairs hall was like the weathered clapboards outside, shabby and plain, scantily furnished with an ancient iron bed, a cane-seated rocker, lamp, washbowl, and pitcher. The westing sun glinted through pin-cracks in the stained window shade as Will stripped and washed. He left the carbine in the room when he went out again.

  Darrah’s key had been off the rack downstairs. Will followed the worn brown carpet runner to the front cross hall. Darrah had room eleven, opening on the front second-story gallery and the open plaza. Darrah was probably asleep now, Will guessed, after the long night ride and business of the morning.

  It should be easy to discover why the man had made a hurried, uncomfortable night ride from Coronado.