Chapter Seven – Kill Fever

  “WHAT YOU DOIN’, boy?” Carver Farrar asked his eldest son, when he saw him making up his saddle roll in the far corner of the old shack.

  “What I should have done a long time ago,” Chris returned sourly. He tied the leather thong tightly and heaved the roll onto his shoulder. On the far side of the room, Lom, lying flat on his back with his shoulder heavily bandaged, lifted his head to see what was going on. He saw his father drop his feet to the floor and heard him groan when his weight came down onto his bullet-torn right thigh. Carver then reached for the rickety table and supported himself on it, while he tugged at his scraggy beard and glared at his son.

  “Done what a long time ago, boy?” he grated.

  “Left you to rot. You won’t make it, Pa. I had an idea you wouldn’t, but I hung on hopin’ I was wrong. I wasn’t wrong. You’re a messer and Lom’s worth a spit in noon heat and no more.”

  Lom glared at his brother but said nothing.

  “You loco, boy, talkin’ to your Pa like thet?” Carver growled. “What’s got into you anyway? You want thet flighty piece of skirt, well you can have her and my blessin’. But don’t run out and leave your Pa a cripple, boy. Thet ain’t how you get on in this world.”

  “How I get on is on my own. All the way from here,” Chris said fiercely. He pointed at Lom. “And don’t you follow me, Lom. Your stink’s made me sick just once too often.”

  Lom worked himself onto his unhurt shoulder, his mouth contorted. “If you’re goin’, go. No need for the sermon.”

  Chris studied his brother as if he had said something he approved of for the first time in his life. Then he gave a vague shrug and opened the door of the shack.

  “You go out, boy, don’t you come back,” Carver growled.

  “I won’t be back, Pa, but you’ll hear about me. You’ll hear plenty.”

  Carver limped across the room after him. “What’ll I hear, boy?” he asked.

  Chris ignored him and walked to his horse. While he tied his roll to the back of the saddle, Carver steadied himself against the shack wall. He had his gun in his hand.

  “After all I done for you, boy, you’d run out and leave me poor, ailing, with a sop for company?”

  “You picked it, Pa,” Chris swung into the saddle and turned the horse towards the bottom country. Carver was quick to stagger after him, the gun held at his side now, but his weathered face distorted with curiosity.

  “So where you headin’ right off, boy?” he called out.

  “To see some people we should have dropped in on long ago, Pa. Sheep herders.”

  “Ain’t none in these parts now after what you done to Moriarty,” Carver told him.

  “Blod Lukas for one,” Chris threw back. He patted his shirt pocket. “And some others. When I rid this range of those scum, folks are goin’ to look up to me. Then I’ll handle the town and take Sally Mann. Stick around, Pa, and watch me go.”

  “You fool!” Carver barked. “You think you can pull off somethin’ like thet, one out?”

  “One out is better than havin’ you two along,” Chris told him and kicked his horse into a run. Carver lifted the gun and took steady aim, but as his son went away in the breaking light, he lowered the gun and swore.

  Then he yelled, “Lom, get off your back and saddle the horses. We got things to do.”

  In the old shack Lom pulled the grimy sheet up to his neck and peered over it distraughtly. When he didn’t answer or show after several minutes, Carver limped heavily back inside. Seeing his son had not moved, the old man hurried across to him and tore the sheet down. Fully dressed, smelling of a week’s sweat and stale whisky, Lom shook his head.

  “I’m hurt, Pa, bad hurt.”

  Carver grabbed his shoulder and pulled him from the bunk. Lom let out a howl as his shoulder hit the floor. But Carver had no compassion for him. He booted him hard, yelling:

  “How the hell can you sleep when we got things to do, boy? We got to get us to town. We got to be on hand for the final kill. Get up now and get them horses ready.”

  Lom struggled to his feet and painfully walked to the front door. But as the hot wind struck him, anger boiled inside him. He thought he might as well get it over with now and then move off. Chris had gone and his father was plainly loco.

  He dropped his hand to his gun butt, but Carver’s voice bellowed at him, “Draw on your Pa, boy, and you draw for the last time. Move now and remember I’ll be watchin’ you all the time.” With a savage grunt Lom moved off. Carver hurried to the window to see how he walked the clearing. Seeing Lom walking steadily, not looking back nor attempting to go into the night, he dropped into a chair again. Then he sat and looked around the bare walls of the room.

  It was home to him. He could not remember ever having had another like it. He screwed up his hands and then rubbed his thigh hard.

  “Of all the ungrateful whelps.” He accused his sons and came to his feet to take a bottle of whisky from behind the stove. Checking to see that Lom had not come back, he emptied the bottle then threw it out the back door. Without waiting to lock up, he limped out into the night, his gun still in his hand.

  “Seems to me,” said the barkeep, Lars Kedge, “you’re a hard man, Dahl.”

  Charlie Dahl, the town’s only banker, scowled heavily at him over his thick-lensed glasses.

  “What makes you think that, Kedge?” Dahl asked in his thick, hoarse voice. A hard drinker, his face was permanently flushed. Here was a bulbous-nosed caricature of a man who had long since ceased to care about anything but drink. Or perhaps money too.

  “Thet Mann girl now. I hear you’re foreclosin’ on her.”

  “She owes the bank,” was Dahl’s flat statement.

  “Lots of folks do,” Kedge reminded him. “Me, for one. I don’t see you bringin’ no papers to me and orderin’ me out end of the month.”

  “You’ve got a thrivin’ business, Kedge,” Dahl informed him. “You borrowed to expand, build yourself a store room, get locks on the doors and shutters on the windows. You’ll pay in time.”

  “What’s the girl owe?” Kedge asked. He swished a bar cloth roughly, splashing rye on Dahl’s frockcoat sleeve. The banker turned his mouth down and grunted an oath, scowling at his damp sleeve. He did not like Kedge. He could not think of anybody in town whom he did like. He didn’t even like the town itself and wouldn’t have stayed on if business hadn’t been so good.

  “She owes me enough,” he finally answered.

  “How much in round numbers?” Kedge kept at him. A crowd of men down the bar were beginning to show interest in the conversation and Kedge knew it. And since it was a slow night he didn’t figure needling Dahl would be a waste of much of it.

  “I don’t know off-hand,” Dahl stalled.

  “To hell you don’t,” said somebody down the bar top. “I borrowed two hundred dollars from you, you old skinflint, to be paid back first of January. When’d you drop out to see me?”

  Dahl colored even more than usual and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “First of January, thet’s when,” the plump man said. “And you had a paper with you claimin’ rights to my place if I didn’t come up with every cent I owed. I shoulda shoved thet paper down your gullet and choked you.”

  Dahl pushed his glass away and took paper and pencil from his pocket. He scribbled a name on the paper and then announced:

  “Well, Hollindale, don’t bother to drop by again because I don’t deal with people who talk down to honest businessmen. Remember now and don’t waste your time.”

  Hollindale said nothing as he returned to his drink, getting congratulatory pats on the back from two of his companions. Kedge, now he had Dahl to himself again, pushed the issue of Sally Mann.

  Dahl said, “Well, maybe I do remember, seeing as the Mann account has caused blisters on my mind. One hundred and fifty dollars, due one week from today.”

  “She ain’t got it,” Kedge told him.

  “Too bad.”

  “And she ain’t goin’ to be able to raise it. Nobody’s flush these days. I know because I’m carryin’ half this saloon as it is, and more comin’ in for credit every day. It don’t rain soon everybody’s goin’ to wind up bust.”

  Dahl worked his fat mouth and gulped uneasily. He hated any talk of bad times. It wasn’t that this territory would ruin him if nobody repaid him; already they were borrowing their own money. He’d seen to that with his high interest charges in the beginning. He knew they hated him, but that didn’t worry him either. He’d learned all about hate from a father and mother who’d despised him from the moment he’d been born. As if that was his fault.

  “Places like this survive, Kedge. They always do. It don’t matter how much you folks whine and feel sorry for yourself. And the Mann girl’ll survive too, you’ll see. Old Ord weren’t anythin’ but a drain on her anyway and the lad, Lee, well we all know how little he was worth.”

  “Lee come in here and beat up Chris Farrar,” Kedge said strongly. “That bein’ worth little?”

  Dahl smirked. “You still think Chris Farrar is somebody, don’t you, Kedge? My God, I’ve seen better men swampin’ out holes like this.” He waved his hand, taking in the saloon. Kedge scowled blackly at him.

  “You don’t like my place, Dahl, why you drink here?” he asked hotly.

  “Where else is there?”

  “You can sit in your stinkin’ office and count your money, ’stead of wastin’ your time here. Whyn’t you do that, now?”

  Dahl picked up his glass and drained it slowly. Wiping his mouth on his handkerchief, he looked calmly around.

  “Yes, why don’t I?” he said.

  “And while you’re at it, think of some other things to call Chris Farrar. Could be Chris’ll be back and want to know what folks think of him.”

  Dahl straightened, his mouth tightening. “Ease off, Kedge. What the hell is this anyway? What have I done to you except help you all I can?”

  “What you done is turn my stomach, mister,” Kedge said. “That Mann girl, you best go easy on her.”

  “Best?” Dahl defied him.

  Kedge nodded adamantly. “Yeah, best. She’s liked around here and so was old Ord. Maybe he didn’t bring any laughter into the town, but he didn’t bring no tears either. And no matter what you think of our town, there’s folks in it who are proud of it. We’re havin’ a hard time now but, like you said, we’ll come out of it. When we do, only those we want around can stay around.”

  “You steppin’ into Rooney’s shoes, Kedge?” Dahl asked angrily.

  Kedge shook his head. “They wouldn’t fit me,” he said. “Too small.”

  With that Kedge went down to serve other customers. Dahl stood a moment feeling the enmity in the saloon build up against him. He wondered just how much that enmity would really show itself if these men knew he had lent Carver Farrar more money than Farrar’s assets justified. He pushed his glass away and with a show of casualness dusted down his spotless shirt front. Then he walked out through a silence thick with hostility.

  He didn’t care. Returning to his office, he locked himself in and went over his books. He was a rich man. He wanted to be richer. Carver Farrar had propositioned him about their taking over the town together, and the range to boot. As Carver put it, all Dahl had to do was sit tight and foreclose on people who owed him. Carver would run them off with the help of his sons and in return be taken in as partner.

  Dahl smiled to himself. It was a clear plan and he had no doubts at all that after Carver helped him take care of troublemakers, he could take care of Carver. Lom was a fool. Chris a braggart. Dahl could easily find somebody to take care of them. For the rest he had only the likes of Kedge to contend with. Again, easy prey.

  Finishing his books, Dahl put them in the safe and retired for the night. But he slept fitfully and just before sunup walked his yard. When he saw a lone figure walking towards him from the back fence he became deeply uneasy. The easy stride of the tall man was instantly familiar to him as was the cocky tilt of the head. And then Chris Farrar’s conceited smile sent a chill through him.

  “You start early, Dahl,” Chris said.

  “Yes ... mostly,” Dahl replied. He looked uneasily about him, but there was no sign of the others, Carver or Lom.

  “Well, today you work just a little earlier still, Dahl. Let’s go inside.”

  “No,” Dahl argued. “I don’t open until eight o’clock.”

  “Unlock,” said Chris and then his gun dug into Dahl’s fat belly. Dahl jerked away from the gun, but it followed him and, after several pokes, he submitted and unlocked his office. Chris Farrar followed him inside and pointed to the safe.

  “I want the names of all the people who owe you money, Dahl. You just signed me on, as your collector.”

  Dahl gaped at him. “Nobody owes me anything I can collect yet. The banking business is precise. I allow time, and I’m compelled to stand by that.”

  “The bankin’ business is changin’, Dahl. I’m changin’ it. Get the books and then get pencil and paper. Come today’s sundown you and me are goin’ to be rolling in dollars.”

  Dahl looked at the gun and the thin, arrogant face of the young man. He saw the marks Lee Mann had put there and reminded himself that Chris Farrar was not as invincible as he thought himself to be.

  But then he remembered that Lee Mann was dead. So was Ord Mann. How many others would this braggart do away with before somebody put him in his place? And that place, in Dahl’s opinion, was Boothill.

  He opened the safe and took out his big ledger. He then got pencil and paper and under Chris Farrar’s instruction, wrote down the names of everybody in the town and on the range who had borrowed from the bank. It was a long list. When he looked it over, Chris Farrar whistled shrilly.

  “Mister, you sure had things tied up, didn’t you?”

  “I still have,” Dahl told him.

  Chris grinned at him and shook his head. “Not any more, Dahl. From this moment on, you and me are partners.”

  “To hell we are!” Dahl growled. “I might have made a deal with your father, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “Pa’s out of it, Dahl,” Chris said easily. “So’s Lom. It’s just you and me. As soon as these fools fail to pay you, I move in. We don’t give any extensions of time. We just take over the land and the business.”

  “The people won’t stomach that, Farrar,” Dahl snapped. “They’ll rise up against us.”

  “Then Rooney can stamp on them. Can’t you see it, Dahl? We got it made. We got the law and we got my gun.”

  “Rooney’s dead,” Dahl said quickly.

  For a moment Chris Farrar seemed not to have heard. Then his face darkened. “Rooney?” he rasped.

  Dahl nodded. “Shot in an alley earlier in the night.”

  “By whom?”

  “They say Durant. But I’ve got a feeling Moriarty did it. No matter. He’s gone, so your plans will have to be changed, won’t they?”

  “Durant!” breathed Chris Farrar and swung off the desk. He pulled the back door open and stared thoughtfully into Dahl’s yard. Daylight was breaking across the back of town and all was quiet.

  Then, “Nothing’s changed, Dahl. I’ll get Durant, you can bet. And just to make sure no fools get ideas of buckin’ me, I’m going to show them my mettle.” He pulled a paper from his pocket and waved it under Dahl’s nose. “Here’s the scum who made deals with Moriarty. In a couple of days they won’t be worryin’ about woolies.”

  “What ... what you got in mind, Farrar?” Dahl demanded.

  “Kill ’em. What else?”

  “All of them?”

  “Them and anybody else who gets in my way.” He pointed a finger at Dahl’s chest. “And that includes you, mister. We got an open town. No law. I’m taking over.”

  With that he went into the yard. Dahl followed, his face ashine with sweat. “You can’t do this, Farrar. The people will call in a lawman from someplace else.”

  “To hell with that, mister,” Chris Farrar answered him curtly. “You just sit tight. We’re going places.”

  Dahl watched him swing onto his horse and ride off. He returned to his office and dabbed at his face. But as soon as he dried it, sweat popped out again. His legs shook and his hands and lips trembled. What had he got himself into? And how was he going to get out of it? Ten minutes later he’d made a decision and hurried down the street to the saloon where he knocked up Lars Kedge.

  Kedge eyed him sleepily until he saw the panic in Dahl’s eyes. Dahl wasted no time with ceremony. “Chris Farrar’s gone berserk,” he told Kedge. “He’s on a vengeance trail.”

  Kedge rubbed sleep out of his eyes. If Dahl was frightened to his bones, the matter had to be serious. “Best tell it,” he invited.

  Dahl told him of his morning meeting with Chris Farrar. Shocked to the core, the saloonkeeper swore bitterly and declared: “I don’t care what cattlemen swear about sheepmen, they won’t stand for this kind of thing. They won’t back Farrar.”

  “How can we stop it, Kedge? Hell, like you said, I’m hard. But I’m not a murderer.”

  Kedge threw on a shirt and pulled on boots. Washing himself in a table basin he raked his hair with his hands then led the way down to the saloon. Pouring drinks for himself and Dahl, he stared thoughtfully out into the front street. Nobody else in town had stirred yet.

  “Durant’s the answer,” he said.

  “Durant killed Rooney, or at least people think that,” Dahl reminded him.

  “Then people are wrong and I’ll put them right soon’s I open my doors. Will Roper saw things nobody else did last night. He told me what he saw and his story clears Durant.”

  “Where’s Durant now?” Dahl asked.

  “He ain’t the kind who’d run,” Kedge said.

  “Then where would he go?”

 

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