Jim Gorman's Brand/Chapter 2

mounted the mare and pursued his way. He did not imagine that Bradey’s foreman would attempt to carry out his threat against the nester’s family until this, the tenth day, was well along, but he decided to take no chances and pushed his mount at good speed.

The sheriff’s face was stern. He had entered office on the sudden death of the last incumbent of his office at the urgent request of certain prominent citizens and the force of circumstances crying for a strong hand. The late sheriff had been murdered and Gorman had brought the man in. Though the dead officer had been a personal friend of Gorman, the latter had recognized his weaknesses and he had found a lot of work to do. Six months had caused an exodus of crooked gamblers, horse thieves and cattle rustlers. It had cleaned up Vacada to the pitch desired by its citizens and Gorman had begun to consider his work done. He was already contemplating resignation and the election of another sheriff. One matter only had delayed him, the appearance of a suitable candidate. Those in the field were politically affiliated and Gorman did not believe that a public officer should have his hands tied as these men were shackled.

A new era was coming to the county, a new type of citizens. Between whiles, such men as King Bradey made all the hay they could, but Gorman had not had the time to look much into Bradey’s operations, nor any suggestion that it was especially necessary—until to-day. Now he resolved to investigate before he tried for the retirement and the vacation he had dreamed of, hunting, fishing, prospecting, a visit to his old-time partner, now married and in another State.

Bradey’s herd was always large. He needed plenty of range and water, and it was evident that he considered himself strong enough to take and hold where and when he pleased. He had been doing it unchecked and he was getting bolder.

“We got to stick to the job a while longer, lady,” Gorman said to the mare. “An’ so long as we hold it down, it don’t look as if there was room enough in the county for Bradey an’ me, not the way he’s tryin’ to handle things. Looks to me’s if this new foreman of his who eats in the ranch house an’ is so thick with his boss must be eggin’ King on. Looks to me as if there was somethin’ likely to be stirrin’, lady hawss, somethin’ stirrin’!”

In his clear, bright eyes there appeared a similar but stronger, fiercer light than that which had shone in the gaze of his deputy. The stern aspect of his face changed to a more contented one. Action, the war of his wits against a man of Bradey’s caliber, the prospect of trouble, these were things to which Gorman’s adventurous spirit reacted strongly. He no longer regretted his deferred holiday.

He had a hunch, a tingling hunch that ran along his veins like fire and ice in swift surges of sensation; that the affair of the nester was only the opening of troublous times. The closing of the spring, the advent of Moore and of Dave Lorton, brand-doctor, appeared more than accidental. If, as he began to suspect—secretly to hope, with the instinct of the born hunter—King Bradey was a crook on a big scale, a man without principles, a masterful bully using all weapons, all tactics, to pile up his fortune—his occupation as cattle dealer, also cattle raiser—gave him unbounded opportunities.

“I sure,” said Gorman softly, “will have to look up Bradey. The way he’s actin’ don’t look good to me. Git on, li’l hawss.”

The mare responded. They had reached the mouth of a draw, a wide V narrowing into the foothills, coming out on a plateau at the foot of the first true cliffs of the range, a place of abundant feed, of water and some timber, not a large holding, but a desirable one for a man with small capital. It was here that Sam Jordan had built him a log cabin, fenced his pastures, tilled his soil and started to establish his rights as a homesteader—thereby acquiring Bradey’s wrath by preëmpting ground on which the B-in-a-Box steers had always been turned for fattening before shipment or other sale.

Gorman passed some cattle grazing here and there. They had various brands, but they were probably all Bradey’s. In his purchase of the five ranches that made up his main ranch, King Bradey had acquired the registered brands that came with them. B-in-a-box was his own special totem, but he had the right to use the others. The steers he bought carried their late owners’ marks. The conglomeration provided a fertile field for crookery, if Bradey wanted to acquire cattle otherwise than legally and cover up his operations. The sheer extent of his private range made investigation difficult. Add to that the acquisition of a clever brand-faker, like Lorton—there might be others in King’s employ equally efficient—and the opportunity was patent.

These things Gorman pondered over as he rode. He had had no recent complaints of cattle stealing in his own county, but it was possible that Bradey might have confined such affairs, if he was so implicated, outside of the State. The line was not far away. One of his ranches ran up to it. Mexico also was within a day’s drive—or two night drives, with hiding out by day. It might well be.

It was the arrival of Dave Lorton, together with Bradey’s last aggressive move, that opened the eyes of Gorman to such suspicions that were strong enough to determine him to engage in close observation of Bradey and his methods of dealing in cattle.

A torn-down fence, the wires evidently not old, gave him notice he had reached the line of the Jordan’s claim. This looked as if the nester’s cattle might have been driven off until he inspected the cut ends of the wire and saw that the severance was at least several days old. The act was simply a notice of trespass on the part of Jordan, a usurpation on Bradey’s side, in all probability. Gorman had not had time to examine the patent books, but he felt sure that this land, although used for years by Bradey, had never been proved up by him. It was likely that Bradey figured he could even control the land office commissioner.

One thing he had overlooked, the appointment of a man as sheriff without an election, therefore beyond Bradey’s manipulations, and a man of Gorman’s type, fearless, efficient and naturally resolute in the enforcement of law and order and the upbuilding of the community. The governor, by whom Gorman had been given office, was, the sheriff knew, not to be influenced by men of Bradey’s type. He had not sought his office, any more than Gorman, the office had come to him in a time of stress and the governor had run out of public spirit and won by a small majority.

Gorman’s eyes grew steely again as he marked the wanton destruction of the fence. Since it had not been repaired, he feared that Sam Jordan had lost nerve, or lacked it, and had sought comfort in liquor, though he was not sure of that premise. Anyway, there were the wife and the two children, one sick. Her appeal was going to get action.

Jarrett had helped her, but Jarrett was palpably handicapped by his feelings toward Bradey’s niece, as Mrs. Jordan had hinted in her note. If he interfered Bradey would put a crimp in his aspirations.

Gorman knew Jarrett. He knew him for a capable rancher, though inclined to be reckless, to show a wild streak now and then which might be only the gameness of a spirited colt—Jarrett was about twenty-four or five, the sheriff imagined—rather than a streak of “bad-mania.” Jarrett had bucked the tiger more than once in Vacada’s “Brisket”—cowboy synonym for “Tenderloin.” He had on occasion drunk more than was good for him. He had made roughhouse, he had “shot up” the lower end of town. All these had been holiday outbursts, between whiles he ran his ranch efficiently.

He was the kind of man, Gorman believed, who would settle down with the right sort of woman and growing responsibilities and he wondered what sort of a girl the niece of King Bradey was.

To his knowledge he had never seen her. Undoubtedly she came to town, but, previous to his holding office, Gorman had seldom visited Vacada.

It was quiet on the plateau, save for the incessant whirring of cicadas. There was little air and the heat turned the air above the hot ground to shimmering waves of vapor, making the outlines of the rim rock uncertain.

Then the mare pricked her ears again inquiringly toward where the cabin of the Jordans stood. Gorman knew her hearing far keener than his own. There might be several reasons for her action, but, with his mind centered on the one object, Gorman applied the hint to his own project.

A little stream, bordered with willows, overflow of the disputed spring, worked its diverse way through the plateau and disappeared down the draw up which he had come. The trees gave him cover, but he wanted a lookout and left the mare ground-anchored while he climbed the near-by cliff, selecting a cleft for easier going and to screen him from observation.

From the top he saw the log house, with its chimney at one end, its patch, of flower garden and vegetables about it, small, lacking many things, but a home.

In the doorway was the figure of a woman with a child in her arms, another one holding her apron. Facing her were three horsemen, one in advance of the rest. Gorman’s mouth tightened. Moore had come early.

Suddenly a fourth horseman came into sight, urging his mount to a gallop, charging up and sliding from the saddle while the pony’s hoofs plowed to a standstill. This man gestured at the one Gorman believed to be Moore. The newcomer he placed as Jarrett.

“Good boy,” he said softly. “He’s got guts. But he oughtn’t to have got off his hawss.”

He stayed to note only one thing more, the course of the creek that made out of a gully behind the cabin. His trained sight marked the way by which he might get to the back of the shack unobserved. The element of surprise was always advantageous against odds. That Moore was ready to be nasty Gorman did not doubt.

Suddenly the woman, answering a motion of Jarrett, retreated into the cabin and shut the door. Jarrett stood blocking it.

It was not very far to the shack. Gorman made it on foot, leaving the mare where she was. Bent almost double, he achieved the gully, came up through the vegetable patch between rows of corn to the back door. It was unlatched. The woman, bewildered, frightened, had left her rear defences open.

“Her man ain’t home,” Gorman told himself as he softly opened the door and entered the main room, the full width of the house, combined living room and kitchen. There was a partition to his right with a door in it. Behind this the woman seemed to have taken refuge.

“You’ll put me out of the way before you git in.”

That was Jarrett.

“We can do that. Jake’s got you covered. We’re comin’ in. You quit meddlin’ in other folks’ affairs an’ save yore hide.”

That would be Moore. Hesitating to commit murder with the woman and her children for witnesses. But with the whiphand. One of them could ride round to the back and enter as Gorman had done. Only, it would be too late now. Jarrett’s opportune arrival and his parley had blocked Moore’s plans, unconscious of it as the foreman was.

“I’d mark that feller for a malo hombre by his voice,” Gorman confided to himself. “He’s a wolf.”

Both guns out, he was stealing toward the door when the woman came out of the room, carrying one child as before, the other following. They were dressed for leaving. She had given up.

Gorman wheeled and shook his head at her to stop her outcry.

“I’m the sheriff,” he said in a whisper. “Got yore letter. Here it is. Where you goin’?”

“I’ve got to go,” she said wearily, her voice spent so that it barely carried, her eyes red with watching and weeping. “They’ll kill him if I don’t. They’ll run us off anyway and burn the house.”

“Not this trip, marm. You’re stoppin’ right here. You go back in that room.”

Moore’s voice broke in, harsh and snarling.

“I’m through foolin’, Bud Jarrett. You bin takin’ up too much of my trail lately ennyhow. I’m giving’ you till I count five to clear.”

It was going to be murder after all. Gorman knew the note of killing in a voice. They had had Bud covered from the moment he made the break of alighting. He had wisely not attempted force against the odds, but he played a losing game with a man like Moore, unscrupulous to use any advantage.

The reason for it flashed over Gorman. Moore gave the key as he spoke of a crowded trail. He ate in Bradey’s ranch house, at table with the niece. She was Bud’s sweetheart and Moore desired her.

If he killed Bud he would have to make a clean sweep of the job. He would do away with the witnesses, burn the shack with the bodies inside.

Gorman was not an alarmist. He had seen many foul things done and this one was imminent. If Moore sought excuse to get rid of his rival, here it was. The two riders with him would be bound to silence by implication.

All this came and passed like lightning in his brain. He had not moved two steps toward the door. Moore was just counting “One.”

“Shoot!” said Jarrett. “If you’ve got the nerve! Shoot, you rotten coyote!”

“The guts, he’s got ’em!” murmured Gorman happily.

“I’m goin’ to!” answered Moore, his voice a rasping purr of content. “Two.”

Gorman’s hand was on the latch. He wished he was sure of Jarrett’s position. There was no keyhole. He darted aside to a window, looked through the side of a red curtain and sized up the situation. Jarrett might think him another of the B-in-a-box men, try to grapple with him.

“Three.”

The young rancher was standing up straight, a brave man in front of a cowardly firing squad. He was a little away from the door.

“Got to chance it,” said Gorman to himself. His lean face was stern again, but it held contentment. The door opened inward.

“Four.”

He flung it wide, sprang out.

“It’s Gorman, Bud!” he cried as he side-stepped, and both his guns barked at once.

One cowboy flung up an arm from which a gun dropped like a streak of light in the sunshine as he turned sidewise and rolled from the saddle. His horse stood snuffing at him. This was the one who had covered Jarrett.

Other shots blended in, with spurts of pale flame, with heavy reports, the vapor and stench of exploded gases through which bullets tore their way. Moore’s horse reared high, shielding him and Gorman’s missile struck it in the chest. It pawed the air, toppling backward, Moore sliding from the saddle seeking cover.

Jarrett staggered back to the door, but recovered himself and fired in a duel of shots with the third rider. His second or third shot got his man in the shoulder, close to the neck, the blood spurting. The cowboy wheeled his horse, then lost control and the pony, wild at the shooting, galloped off. Jake’s pony broke away with reins wild, started to cross the creek and got hung up in the willows.

Moore’s horse rolled on its back, legs striking out wildly. Moore fired once over its belly and Gorman’s hat sailed off as the sheriff pulled trigger, shooting with his left hand, the most convenient.

The bullet went through Moore’s uplifted wrist. He let out a yell of rage and then the dying horse fell over on him, clipping him to the ground with its body.

“You’re a bum shot, Moore,” said Gorman coldly, as he stepped round the animal. “Had a chance at me an’ missed. You won’t git a second. You hurt bad, Jarrett?” he called over his shoulder.

“No. Think it hit a rib an’ glanced off. I’m bleedin’ some, but I ain’t hurt to speak of.”

“More bum shootin’, Moore. You was plumb anxious to put him out of the way, warn’t you?”

Moore’s teeth were sunk into his lip to suppress a groan. He glared up at Gorman, speaking with an effort.

“Talk big to a man in my fix,” he said. “That’s easy. You-all started the shootin’.”

“I suppose you were bluffin’ with yore countin’ five? Bud, can you help me git the hawss off him?” He picked up Moore’s gun as he spoke, though the man’s wrist was out of commission.

They heaved the dead brute over and Moore lay there for a moment. His legs had been pinned from the hips down and the feeling was out of them. The cowboy, Jake, called from the ground.

“Goin’ to let a man bleed to death, damn you?”

“Cover him, Bud. Moore, you better tie up yore wrist.”

He went over to Jake. He had been shot through the lungs. Gorman knelt beside him and made swift examination.

“You’ll pull through, with luck. Not the kind you deserve. Now then, look out.”

He gripped the man in the “fireman’s lift,” lifting him easily and carried him into the shack.

“One of yore visitors hurt some, Mrs. Jarrett,” he said. “I’ll fix him up an’ send in for him later. We've got a hospital over to Vacada now, though he ought to be in jail.”

The woman looked pitifully at the man who had been joined against her.

“He’s only a boy,” she said.

It was true. Bradey seemed to have young riders in his outfit, lads who would follow easily, craving excitement, boys started wrong and going swiftly along the wrong trail.

“Put him on my bed,” she said.

“Better strip off the cover. He’ll muss it up.”

But she insisted on leaving the bed as it was and Gorman opened his clothes, baring the small hole through which the air sucked and blood oozed.

He told the woman what to do temporarily until a doctor arrived and left her administering to the wounded man with a tenderness that made Gorman shake his head as he walked outside.

“Ain’t that plumb like a woman?” he said to himself.

Moore was sitting up, his wrist bound with his bandana, his dark face sullen.

“You want to remember you started this, sheriff,” he blustered. “We gave this woman proper warnin’. You killed my hawss an’ likely killed one of my men. Jarrett there, wounds another, hornin’ in on some one else’s bisness. This here is King Bradey’s property an’ those folks is trespassin’ besides stealin’ lumber.”

“Whether this is Bradey’s land or not, you can’t dispossess ’thout due process of law,” said Gorman coldly, “an’ that through my office. King Bradey ain’t high card round here—not even trumps—when he plays agen public rights. I’m tellin’ you to tell him that if this woman’s bothered the least way, her fences touched, her water closed off, there’s goin’ to be hell poppin’.”

Moore sneered and said nothing. Streaks of scarlet stained his gun hand.

“You’re usin’ the wrong methods, Moore, if you’re in the right. If you’re wrong an’ I’m lookin’ up the patents on this land right away, you’d better quit. This is nineteen-twenty-two. The Apache Kid is dead. Bad men don’t git by enny more.

“You’re a bad man. You think you’re a curly wolf, but you’re plain bad—so bad you’re rotten. Don’t forgit I was back of that door a spell. You was aimin’ to kill Jarrett an’ you wudn’t have done that an’ leave witnesses. Now, the Vigilante days is over, but there’s a whole lot of respectable citizens that ’ud Ku Klux Klan you inter a suit of tar an’ feathers an’ leave you squintin’ up a rope, if they thought you was plannin’ what I know you had in yore mind to do. You’d be prayin’ for me to have you in jail an’ keepin’ you safe if ennything like that happened, but there’s times when I’m out of town an’ that might happen to be one of ’em.

“There’s yore man Jake’s hawss, in the willers. You fork it an’ go home to King Bradey. Tell him the minnit he steps outside the law he don’t rank enny higher or lower than enny other hombre in this county. I’ll look out for Jake.”

“We ain’t askin’ you to look out for our hands. You an’ yore law. We’ll send over for him. An’ you’ll find Bradey’s got somethin’ to do with the law.”

“Not the law I’m actin’ on. Jake stays here. I didn’t tell the woman at first becos I didn’t figger she’d be anxious to bother with a cuss who was helpin’ to rob her—mebbe worse—but he ain’t fit to be moved. An’ she’s sorry for him. Somethin’ you couldn’t sabe, but she is. He stays. I don’t know how her husband is goin’ to feel erbout it—if he ever shows up.”

Looking keenly at Moore, Gorman fancied the foreman blanched. Certainly the pupils of his eyes contracted. It might have been the pain of the wounded wrist.

“You got the best of it this trick,” he said. “Gimme my gun.”

Gorman broke it, ejecting the shells. They had all been discharged. He looked at the gun, a six with a bone handle on which four notches had been cut. Moore’s swarthy face turned almost black with suppressed fury as the sheriff meditatively fingered the gun before handing it over. It made his resemblance to a negro startling, though Gorman did not think him colored. Possibly part Indian.

Moore holstered his gun, clumsily took bridle and saddle off the dead horse, and, half carrying, half dragging the saddle by the horn, went to where the pinto stood tangled in the willows, too wise to try and extricate itself. The foreman of the B-in-a-Box made hard work of it mounting and hauling up the spare saddle in front of him. Gorman watched him grimly while Jarrett’s eyes blazed.

“I’d have got him if his hawss hadn’t reared,” he said. “I’d do it right now if you hadn’t busted his wrist. He shot me. Damn him, he was jest itchin’ to kill me! I figgered you’d take him in, sheriff.”

Gorman shook his head slowly.

“Got nothin’ on him that they cudn’t git out of with Bradey’s pull. You see I did start it. They’d claim they were here peaceable an’ were jest bluffin’ you, or kiddin’ you. That’s the reason they’d give for not surroundin’ the cabin. Real reason was Moore was out for you. You spoiled his play. He aimed to run a woman an’ two kids, one of ’em sick—off her property an’ burn the shack. Brought two erlong case of interference that he didn’t expect. He’s a brave hombre, is Moore. I’ll bet his spinal cord is yeller as a sand lily.

“I reckon this gits you in wrong with Bradey, Jarrett. But you sure coppered his play. How’d you happen erlong so handy?”

“I was keepin’ an eye on the cabin from my place with field glasses. When I saw them ride up an’ you not on hand I started out.”

“I see,” said Gorman. “Bud, you got a phone to yore place, ain’t you? Will you git in touch with Doc Marshall an’ tell him you’re talkin’ fo’ me? Ask him to come up soon’s he kin to treat a man shot through the lungs—some internal hemorrhage. One of the kids is sick, too.”

“Sure I will. You figger they’ll leave her alone for a spell?”

“Yep. I’ll be hearin’ from Bradey an’ we’ll have a show-down. How’s that side of yours?”

Jarrett gave a pull at his shirt where it had stuck to his scathed rib and grimaced.

“Fresh water an’ a plaster’ll cure that. Did you see ennything of Sam Jarrett in town, sheriff?”

“No. I made inquiries. Don’t believe he ever got there.”

For a moment the two exchanged mute question with their eyes. Neither spoke. The wife of the missing man had come to the door.

“He’s getting mighty feverish,” she said.

“Jarrett’s going to phone for the doctor. Keep those cold compresses on him. I’m goin’ to open up yore spring an’ repair yore fence, Mrs. Jordan. The doc’ll take a look at yore kid when he comes.”

“It’s just a bad cold, I think. Sheriff, I don’t know how to thank you”

“I’m glad of it, marm, fo’ I’ve done nothin’ out o’ the line of my duty. It’s Jarrett needs the rewards. He’s got in bad with Bradey.”

Jarrett had already mounted and was on his way to his ranch and the telephone.

“I know it,” said the woman. “And I’d have been the last to bring that about. Though I don’t believe Bradey’s been over and above friendly to him at any time, least of all since Moore got to be his foreman.

“You see,” she went on, “his niece—that’s Mary White, who ain’t any blood relation to him, being the child of his wife’s sister—is his ward and she ain't of age. I don’t know just what hold that gives him over her, but he’s always discouraged her marrying, though lately Moore’s been trying to do some courting and Bradey don’t stop him.

“Mary has been mighty good to us—one way and the other. She’s always riding over with something for the children that we couldn’t afford. Sometimes she’s met Bud Jarrett here lately. That’s how he happened in to take you my letter, thinking he might find a note from her. Bradey’s told him to stay away from the B-in-a-box. They make a fine couple. She’s just what Bud Jarrett needs, some one to steady him, and he’s a fine man in the makings.”

Gorman listened silently. He admired Bud for braving Bradey’s additional wrath, but there was no doubt that rivalry spurred the action.

While the woman chatted he selected tools for opening the spring and mending the fence. He expected the woman to say something about her husband any moment, fancied she was holding off because of vague suspicion that she would not allow crystallization, the same suspicion he already held, that Sam Jordan’s children were fatherless and his wife a widow.

“I haven’t had time to round up yore husband,” he said at last, ready to leave for the spring. “But I’ll do that soon’s I get back to town.”

“Thank you, sir.” She tried to keep her eyes brave, but the water crept into them and her chin trembled. “He may have taken one drink to forget his troubles and that led to another. It don’t take much to start him off and he’s been mighty discouraged of late. But it’s hard for me to think he stayed away deliberate. He was awful fond of the children. And the last thing he told Moore was that he’d be waiting for him day and night and if they thought they were going to run him off they were mistaken. He meant it, too. He was nigh desperate.”

“H’m! Well, while we’re turnin’ him up, don’t you worry none. When the doc shows he won’t want to move that man Jake. Movin’ him might kill him. Would. I’m no doctor, but I know erbout gun wounds. If he dies it may complicate matters. If he pulls through an’ stays here while he’s mendin’, it’ll help warrant you peace an’ quiet. He’s a sort of hostage, sabe? You tell yore husband that.”

“If he comes.” She wiped a tear away with the corner of her apron.

“By the way, you got a gun? Or did Sam Jordan tote erlong all yore weapons?”

“All we had was a Colt’s. Sam took that. He aimed to borrow a rifle in town.”

“I’ll leave you one,” said Gorman. “I gathered Moore’s an’ Jake’s. I’ll leave you Jake’s in case you think you’d like it. But you ain’t goin’ to be bothered. I give you my personal word on that.”

“Thank you, sheriff. I—indeed I don’t know how”

Thanks, especially from a woman, embarrassed him.

Gorman escaped. He whistled and the black mare came up the gully. But the sheriff did not proceed directly to the spring. Instead he gave the mare free rein and rode hard to Jarrett’s ranch. Bud was at the phone.

“Got the doc yet?” asked Gorman.

“Not yet. Hardly got here. This is a seven-party line.”

“Let me have it then. Something I forgot.”

The something was a request to Doc Marshall to bring along, not merely his medico’s kit, but all the groceries he could crowd into the little flivver roadster with which the physician performed miracles of automobilism.

“You follow the Dogleg Crick road, doc,” said Gorman, “an’ you’ll find the road leadin’ up past Bud Jarrett’s of the Two-Bar. It’s about three mile past his place. Log cabin on top the plateau. You can’t miss it. An’ have the groceries charged to me.”

He had noticed a larder lamentably bare inside the cabin. There was probably no money in the house, perhaps none available. Sam Jordan would have carried the cash. The place was plainly furnished and scrupulously clean. The Jordans were struggling to make good and, until the little ranch was in full running order with established crops, money was likely to be scarce.