Cartridge Creek, page 12
“Not under any circumstances. I’d be a fool to, when I need you so bad.”
Brand, actually teetering forward with the impulse to draw his guns or throw himself at Leatherman, came down on his heels. “When you what?”
“Need you,” Leatherman answered sharply. “Need you bad. How the hell you think I can run Cartridge Creek without you?”
Brand’s big hands clenched and unclenched; his eyes blinked as he absorbed the words. “Wait a minute, Leatherman—”
“No, you wait.” Leatherman spoke rapidly now, hurling the words at him. “All right, you talk so big about Cartridge Creek, what you’ve done for it, what you’d do for it if it was yours. Well, it is yours now, I’m giving it to you, if you’re man enough to handle it.”
“What?” Brand’s jaw dropped.
“I didn’t know I was gonna buy it until you left for Los Angeles; things happened to make up my mind and I moved fast. I bought something else, too; this ranch, from Gorman. You were right; the minute I saw it, I fell in love with it, but I knew it wasn’t worth a damn without cleaning up the town. But I aim to run this place myself as a cattle layout, I can’t do that and see to Cartridge Creek both. San Antonio Development needs a manager for the town, one that knows it inside and out and will work hard to make it go—and get rich himself if it does. I’m making you that offer, Tom; take over Cartridge Creek for us and run it with a free hand, the way you’ve always dreamed of doing. I’ll give you a deal that’ll make you wealthy in short order if things work out—but, first, you’ll have to help me fight.”
Tom Brand stared at him. “Will”—his voice was different now—“are you saying—”
“I’m saying that the S.P. was gonna sell it anyhow. If we hadn’t bought it, Fate Canady would have; you heard him say it. Well, we got it first, and his days in Cartridge Creek are numbered. I’m gonna run him out and clean up that place and make a town out of it. I can’t do that without your help. The price I’m willing to pay is a three-year contract for you to manage Cartridge Creek, with a base salary of three hundred a month, ten per cent of all profits on the sale or lease of land, and you stay commission agent for the railroad and make your profits, too, on the cattle we ship on the S.P. cars. There’ll be no hard feelings if you say no, and whatever lease you hold you can keep. But if you think as much of Cartridge Creek as you claim to, you’ll say yes. Help me roust Canady, and after that it’ll be your baby, just as long as you make it pay.”
The color left Brand’s face. He stood there speechless for a moment, and then his mouth twisted oddly. “Will. For God’s sake . . .”
“Well? You want it? Take it or leave it.”
“Leave it?” Brand’s voice was suddenly hoarse. “You’re offering me the only thing I ever really wanted, and you say leave it? Christ, Leatherman, what do you think I am?” His hands dropped laxly to his sides, he shook his head. “Will, what the hell can I say? I came out here wanting to put a bullet in you and—”
“Let it ride,” said Leatherman. “The answer’s yes?”
“Of course it’s yes.” Brand swallowed hard. “If you can forget all that guff I just spouted.”
“I never heard it. You’d have been a poor sort of man to take something like this lying down, and I never figured you for that. I’ve got a contract in the house already written. Come on in and have a drink and look it over. Sign it and we’re in business. But I’ll warn you before you put your name to it, it means a fight.”
“Christ, I wouldn’t sign it if it didn’t! Lead me to it!”
Leatherman grinned. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve got in mind first?”
“I don’t care what you’ve got in mind as long as we clean up Cartridge Creek and I can carry out my plans for it. Besides,” he added, and his square face split in that lopsided grin, “it’s been a long hard trip back from California and I need that drink.”
Ralph Gorman always took a nap at this time of day, and they had the house to themselves. At the dining table, Brand scanned the contract quickly. He raised his head, eyes shining. “Well, it’s everything you said it was.”
“I generally try to keep my word.”
“Yeah, I said I sized you up as a man to ride the river with.” Brand took pen from inkwell. In bold letters he wrote his name twice, handed one copy to Leatherman, laid the other aside, let out a long breath. “There. It’s done. No questions asked.” Then he shoved back his chair and grinned. “Only, really, I should add a clause.”
“Like what?” Will asked, eyes narrowing.
“Like obligating you to be best man at the wedding.” Brand tapped his copy with a big hand. “This . . . This is what I’ve been waiting for so long. Now, by God, I can ask Bettina with a clear conscience to marry me!”
Will Leatherman stiffened. Before he could think of anything to say, Brand went on. “We let it drag out so long. She was ready any time, but when you’re as broke as I’ve been and no hope of things getting better . . . But this changes everything. Now I can promise her a future. Will, you don’t know what this means to me.”
Leatherman, suddenly numb, sucked in a long breath. All at once, the triumph he’d felt as Brand scrawled his signature turned to ashes. And yet he should have known; Bettina had told him plainly enough that night in her kitchen. Then, with an effort, he regained control. Well, that was something that would have to wait. A week from now, one or the other or neither of them might not be alive. In the meantime, Cartridge Creek came first. He drained his glass of its shot of bourbon and set it down. “If that time comes,” he said, voice steady, “you can call on me. Now, let’s get down to business. The first thing I want you to do is to call a meeting, absolutely secret, of the best men in Cartridge Creek. Somehow, I’ll get into town and talk to them. We’ve got to get them to fight.”
Brand looked up, smile fading. “Fight? I told you, they won’t … You heard ’em when we went around the other day, Murdock said it—”
“I heard them and I don’t blame them. A man would be a fool to fight for something that wasn’t his. But maybe they’ll feel different if they have a different stake. Whether it’s a ranch or a business, most men will fight for something that belongs to them. Anyhow, if I can meet with them, I’ll make the offer. Anybody who’ll join me against Canady with guns, I’ll give him the property his business is on outright, clear title.”
Brand rubbed his face. “You’ll—that’s the best land in Cartridge Creek, the heart of the whole town.”
“There’s plenty more room on the property. If the town grows, we’ll develop that and make it pay. If we don’t get rid of Canady, the best lot in town ain’t worth a Continental anyhow. You get ’em together, I’ll lay it to ’em. If they think they’ve got a future in Cartridge Creek, they’ll have to fight for it.”
“But even if they did,” said Brand, “there wouldn’t be over thirty of them. That’s no force to go up against Canady and his men alone.”
“They won’t be alone,” said Leatherman. “There’ll be at least forty cowboys to side em. Fifteen from the G-Bar-G, and every man as tough as whitleather. Another twenty-five from the other ranches.”
Brand’s eyes flared. “You finally got ’em off their arses and up on their hind legs?”
“I didn’t. Ralph Gorman did.” The scene came back to Leatherman vividly, the five other ranchers in the main room of the G-Bar-G, faces dubious as Gorman harangued them.
“By damn—” The old man had lashed them with the words. “All right, I don’t blame you for not fightin’ to pull the railroad’s irons out of the fire! But the railroad ain’t got no irons no more! Cartridge Creek’s under new management—cow management! Will Leatherman owns it and he’s bought this ranch and his interests are the same as yours. He swears he wants to clean up that town and stop the rustling. Make it a place where you can trade and ship, and, more than that— You heard what he told you about Fate Canady! How he aims to hammer values down and buy your places out from under you!” He shook his head fiercely. “Well, it’s up to you. You don’t know Leatherman, but you know me, and I’ve seen how he stacks up and I’ll tell you now, he’s pure quill. There was a time when you would have thrown in with me and followed me, but I can’t ride out front no more. Well, here’s a man that can.”
He paused, his voice more reasonable. “There don’t seem to be any other way. Everybody else has abandoned us, and we got to look after ourselves. Cattlemen have always done that, at least they did in my time, when push comes to shove. Unless the breed has gone downhill—” He gestured. “I don’t ask you to follow this man blindly. But I ask you to listen to what he proposes, and if it seems reasonable to you, use your judgment. One thing I do know. Either you follow somebody, or you lose your stock, your range, and everything you’ve worked for. But … It’s up to you.”
There was silence, while he raked the five ranchers with his one good eye. Presently, Gorman’s closest neighbor, a tall graying man of fifty named Phil Lemoyne, spoke. “Well, I’ll admit, the railroad being out of it changes things. With the town under new management, a cowman’s management ... All right, Leatherman. Me, I’ll talk to you. I guess the others will. If Mr. Ralph says you’re worth listening to, I expect you are …”
There was a murmur of assent, and that had been the start of it. The conferences had been long, argumentative, but they were, after all, cowmen, all of them, and spoke the same language. “Now,” Leatherman told Brand, “they’ve fairly well decided to move. With the hands here, I’m promised a total of forty riders.”
Tom stared into his glass. “Forty men. And maybe thirty more from the town if I could get them. That’s the problem, Will. These cowboys are fighters, but … the townspeople aren’t gunmen. One of Canady’s men is worth at least two of them. Even if I could get twenty-five or thirty together, it would be damned close. I wish we had an edge …” Then he raised his head. “What’s that?”
Leatherman had heard it, too: plop of hooves, squeak of axles. The wagons, which had been due today, were back on time, halting even now outside the ranch house. Leatherman’s lean face split in a grin. “Why,” he said, “that’s our edge. Let’s go out and take a look at it.”
They were used to riding the high iron, long freights or the passenger trains railroad men called varnishes, and the trip across the mountains by wagon had told on them, but they still looked tough enough, thought Leatherman, to scare a tribe of Comanches. Sullivan had not failed him, and he felt deep satisfaction as he watched them unload, mostly in town clothes, all armed with sawed-off shotguns, pistols, and billy clubs or blackjacks swinging from their belts.
Brand stared blankly. “Who are they?”
“Yard bulls. Railroad dicks. Mostly retired or in another line of work, now, but when Sully called, they came.”
Brand looked at him. “Sully?”
“The night Canady took Rigsby. Sully made his brag. Give him twenty old-time railroad coppers and he could sweep Cartridge Creek clean. Well, there they are. He kept his word.” Leatherman smiled. “There’s more to Sully than meets the eyes, Tom. He’s boomed around too much, wants to settle down, get back in law enforcement. I made him a deal. Round up these men, lead them, and— If everything goes well, he’s the new marshal of Cartridge Creek at twice the pay he’s making now. He went for it like a wolf. We didn’t bring these men on the S.P. for fear word would leak to Canady; they came in on the Atchison, Topeka, and we hauled ’em over here.”
He broke off as a short, tremendously broad man in a shiny black suit and hard derby strode forward, shotgun cradled in his arm. Well past middle age, the railroad policeman had a face exactly like a bulldog’s, with the stump of a cigar clamped between his teeth. “You’re Leatherman, I guess,” he said, putting out a big, thick-fingered hand. “Where’s ole Sully?”
“He’s in Cartridge Creek, but he’ll be here in due time. You’re O’Connor?”
“Yeah, Fred O’Connor, formerly with the Pacific Railroad. These boys have agreed I’m in charge until Sully comes. What’s the pitch? All we know is that he hollered that he needed us. And we get two hundred a week, whether this thing lasts a week or not.”
“Let’s hope it won’t, but that’s guaranteed. First week’s payment in advance, tonight, by check, if that’s all right.”
“If Sully sent for us, it’s all right. Where do I sleep the men?”
“Some in the bunkhouse, some in the main house. We’ll find room.”
“All right. They’re pretty tired. But give ’em a good night’s rest and they’re ready for anything.”
Leatherman grinned. “They’ll have one good night’s rest. But if everything goes well, tomorrow night they’ll work hard. Right now, Mr. O’Connor, come on in the house and we’ll have a round and I’ll tell you what I expect you to do to earn your pay.”
A half hour later, still chewing the stub of his cigar, Fred O’Connor raised his bulldog face. “That’s all?” he asked, slightly incredulous.
Leatherman, seated by him at the dining table, looked at him with surprise. “Ain’t it enough? There’s somewhere between fifty and seventy of the toughest crowd this side of the Pecos there in Cartridge Creek and we got to take ’em by surprise and roust ’em out or kill em, as the need may be.”
“Well, sure, but that ain’t no problem,” O’Connor said. “Not if we got all that help, them cow-pushers or whatever you call ’em and thirty men inside the town.” He helped himself from the bottle. “Main thing’s the timing. You ask Sully, this ain’t the first wild town he and me have cleaned up together. The trick is to move just after sunrise. A crowd like that saloon bunch hits the hay just before daybreak. Come an hour after sunup, that’s when they knock off their best sleep. Catch ’em then before they get their eyes unglued and—believe me, a man wakes up lookin’ down the barrels of a riot gun, there’s no fight in him.” He tapped the map of Cartridge Creek spread out before him. “So … way I’ve got it, we hit ’em from three sides. You bring your cowboys in from the south end; the wagons take us to the north end and old Sully shows us what to do. Somewhere in between, Brand has his town Johnnies. Everybody wears a white armband for identification. We all three hit at once, complete surprise, and before Canady’s men know which end is up, they’re in the street in their long underwear and without their guns—and that’s the end of it.”
“Maybe,” Leatherman said. “If we can get the town people to fight. And if nobody leaks word to Canady of what we’re planning.”
Brand nodded. “Somebody does, there’ll be hell to pay. Make that fight with Rigsby look like a square dance. Well, I know my people. I’ll pick and choose so there’ll be no leak from my end. But how many of them will actually fight, there’s just no way of telling.”
“Well, damn it,” snapped Leatherman, “some of ’em have got to. Canady might stand a chance of handling two forces at once, but he’ll never make it against three hitting him all at once. You fix it so I can talk to ’em. By God, I’ll see they fight.”
Brand nodded, but his face was still dubious. O’Connor was looking from one of them to the other. “You want me to make a suggestion?”
“Glad to have it,” Brand said.
“These town Johnnies of yours. I know the breed. They’ll swear they’ll side you gun for gun, there’s nothing more they want than law and order. They’ll make big promises, then go home to Mama and the kids and tell them what they’ve done and—that’s when you lose em. Mama gets down on her knees and begs ’em to hide under the bed when the shooting starts, and next thing you know she’s cut the guts out of ’em. Or else you give ’em too much time, they got to talk and talk about it among themselves and the more they talk, the more what it’s all about leaks out. There’s only one way to make a fighting crew out of ’em, and that’s to lay it in their laps too late for them to have a chance to change their minds. If it was me, I wouldn’t call ’em together a minute sooner than I had to. I’d make my pitch just before the action starts, leavin’ only time enough to change my plans if they all bow out. How long a ride is it from here to town?”
“Not quite three hours on a fast horse.”
O’Connor drained his glass, reached for the bottle again. “Okay. You aim to go in at seven in the morning, say, call your meeting for eleven the night before. That gives you an hour to talk, three to get back here, four for us and your cowhands to move, no matter which way the cat jumps. And Mama and the kids will all be in bed and the men’ll stay up and brag and whip up their courage and when the time comes, they’ll be so tight wound up they’ll be like a bunch of wildcats. But don’t ever give people like that time to have second thoughts or think up excuses. Lay it in their laps; the battle for Cartridge Creek starts at seven on the dot; either they’re in or out. See what I’m driving at?”
“I see,” Brand said. “And you’re right, it’s good advice.” He paced thoughtfully for a moment, turned. “All right, Will, eleven tomorrow night. It has to be somewhere that Canady and his men can’t spot ’em gatherin’ and wonder what’s goin’ on. You know Murdock’s house, on the side street?”
“I know it,” Leatherman said.
“He’s got a big shed out back, where he keeps extra gear for his livery and some wagons. No windows and the doors can be closed, and most of the people I’ll be talking to live close to him. They can sift over there after dark and it’s not likely Canady’s crowd will notice. You’ll meet us there?”
“At eleven,” Leatherman said.
“You’ll have to watch your step. You’re fair game in Cartridge Creek.”
“Don’t worry,” said Leatherman. “I’ll make it without being seen.”
“Give you an escort if you want it,” O’Connor said. “I got a few men can ride.”
“No, I’ll go alone. One man can sneak through where two or three wouldn’t have a chance. You’ll have Sully there, Tom?”
“He’ll be there.”
“Have a horse for him. I’ll bring him back with me after the meeting.”
