A BAD MAN
As Jack and Joe and three or four of the older men lounged around the
fire a night or two after that, most of the younger boys having gone to
their blankets, McIntyre turned to Hugh.
"Who do you suppose I saw to-day on the range?" he asked.
Hugh looked up inquiringly.
"Claib Wood."
"What's he doing here?" asked Hugh. "I thought he'd been run out of the
country and had gone to stay."
"Oh, well," said McIntyre, "that's what most of us thought, I guess.
He got a warning from the people around here and from the stock
association that he'd do well to get out of the country; but I met him
to-day, and he said 'Howdy' to me as chirk as you please. I didn't have
any talk with him, and I watched him kind o' close, for I didn't know
what he might be up to. He never turned his head, though, after he
passed; just rode on across country, and I saw him going for a mile or
two before he got behind a hill."
"Well," drawled Hugh, "I reckon that this time he's not after calves.
Maybe he's come down here to go in to the railroad and see if he can't
get some money out of that wife of his. Since he quit home about
a year ago, she's been doing well, and has got quite a nice little
eating-house there in town. Maybe he's heard about that and has come
back to make her give up to him."
"If that's what he's after," said McIntyre, "it's an infernal shame.
I never had any use for these bad men that we used to have in the
country, but I do wish now that somebody a little worse than Claib
would come along and kill him off."
When Hugh and McIntyre had begun talking, Jack Mason was lying on the
ground close to the fire, seemingly asleep, but presently he opened his
eyes and then rose to his elbow and listened intently. After a time he
asked McIntyre if this was the Claib Wood who four or five years ago
used to be around Rawlins.
"Yes," said McIntyre; "he's the man--little, sawed-off fellow with
light brown hair and a brown mustache; good cow hand and mighty quick
with a gun."
"I reckon that's the man," returned Mason.
He said nothing more for a little while. Jack was about to ask some
question about the man, when Mason spoke again.
"I used to know Claib, but I haven't seen him for a good many years.
Which way did you say he was going, Mac?"
"Well," answered McIntyre, "when I saw him he was just riding across
the prairie, but from the way he was headed I judged that he was going
in to the railroad."
"What time was it you passed him?"
"About two or three o'clock this afternoon. If he was going to town
and rode fast, he'll be there by this time."
"Yes," Mason said, "so he will."
For a little while nothing more was said, and then Mason changed the
subject.
"Mac, I guess you'll have to give me my time," he said. "I've got to go
into town. I can't say sure when I'll be back, and I reckon maybe I'd
better quit."
"What's the matter with you?" asked McIntyre, severely. "Ain't you
satisfied? Ain't you bein' well treated? Anything wrong with the pay?"
"No; nothing wrong with the pay, nothing wrong with the treatment. Only
it just struck me that I've got some business to attend to in town, and
I reckon I'd better do it now than wait until the round-up's over."
"I hate to lose you, Jack," McIntyre said. "Can't you go in and attend
to your business and then come back? Take two or three days off. The
town ain't so big but what you can do everything you're likely to have
to do in the course of twenty-four or forty-eight hours."
"Well," Mason replied, "maybe that's better. I'd like it better, if it
suits you; only it don't seem just right for a man to take time off
right in the middle of the round-up, just to go into town after his
own affairs. So I thought, as I've got to go, maybe you'd rather have
me quit for good. Still, if you'll let me take three or four days off,
it'll be lots handier for me. I'll leave my horses here with the bunch,
and then come back when I get through."
"All right," agreed McIntyre. "Do it your own way."
"Good!" said Mason. "I may as well start now, and then I'll get into
town by daylight."
He rose from the fire and presently his cheery whistle was heard coming
over the prairie from the direction of the horse herd, and a little
later the men in the camp who were just dropping off to sleep heard him
throw the saddle on the horse and draw the latigos, and then came the
sound of hoofs, trotting off over the prairie and growing fainter and
fainter in the distance.
All night long Mason rode through the dark, under the clear stars. It
was nearly twenty miles to the wagon road, and after he had reached
that, it was more than twenty miles in to the railroad, but the sun
had not long risen when he trotted his tired horse down the straggling
street of the forlorn little town. As yet there was hardly a sign of
life there. Two or three pigs were rooting in piles of rubbish not far
from the road; and a starved-looking cayuse stood humped up at the end
of a picket-rope on a bit of prairie where once there had been grass
but which now was as bare as the palm of Mason's hand.
As Mason trotted along the street, the door of a house opened, and a
man came out carrying a bucket. Mason drew up his horse.
"Hello! Ross," he called.
"Why, hello! Jack," the man replied. "What are you doing down here? I
haven't seen you for a dog's age. Four or five years, isn't it, since
you were up in Rawlins?"
"Five years," said Mason; "and since then I've been away, up North, and
now I've drifted back again."
The two shook hands, and began to exchange news and experiences, each
telling the other more or less of what had happened to him since they
last parted.
"Well," said Ross, "how long are you going to be in town? I want to see
you before you go."
"I don't just know how long I'm going to be here; maybe for a day or
two. I've got some business I want to attend to here, and as soon as I
get through with that I'm liable to move out again. There ain't much to
hold me in this burgh."
"No," agreed Ross. "If I had any sort of a job in the open I'd tackle
that. By the way," he added, "did you know that Claib Wood was in town?
Seems to me your brother and Claib had some trouble at Rawlins that
winter we were all there."
Mason laughed.
"Sure they had some trouble; and just after it occurred Claib skipped.
I never had a chance to speak to him about it. I heard the other day
that he was in the country, but I didn't know that he was here in town."
"He is," said Ross; "and if I were you I'd look out for him. Claib was
drunk last night, and you know when he's drunk he's awful mean, and he
certainly is quick with a gun."
"So I always heard. He's quick with a gun, and he's mean; meaner, I
expect, when he's drunk, but mean enough at any time. Now when he shot
my brother in Rawlins, they hadn't had any words, or any quarrel. Rufe
told me when he got well that he never did know why Claib shot him, and
I always made up my mind that if I ever saw Claib I'd ask him."
"Well, Jack," cautioned Ross, "if I were you I wouldn't do that. I
wouldn't have any words with Claib Wood. You're too good a man to
quarrel with him, because if you do quarrel with him, you'll be liable
to get killed quick."
"Oh, I don't expect that it's time yet for me to pass in my checks; but
if I stay in town for twenty-four hours, and Claib is here, I can't
help running up against him somewhere, and I reckon he won't forget
whose brother I am."
"No," said Ross; "he won't; that's a sure thing. I'd like to have you
avoid him, if you can. Of course, you can't leave town because he's
here, and you can't hide because he's here; but I do hope you won't
quarrel with him, for he's mighty mean and mighty quick."
"I'll have to do the best I can," replied Mason. "I don't want to get
killed, and I don't want to have to kill anybody. See you later, Ross."
He swung into the saddle, and fifty yards farther on turned into the
livery barn where he unsaddled his horse, watered it, tied it in a
stall and gave it some hay.
At the little eating-place where he went for breakfast he had to wait
a long time before anything was cooked, but about the middle of the
morning he went back to Ross's house, where he had a pleasant and long
talk with him, renewing old times. It was nearly noon when he went up
the street again and entered the saloon. Half a dozen men were there.
One or two were sitting at card-tables poring over old newspapers;
two were playing a game of cards; and one was standing in front of the
counter talking to the bar-tender. A glass of liquor which seemed just
to have been filled rested on the counter directly in front of him. The
man standing there was Claib Wood. Mason walked quietly into the room
without receiving more than a casual glance from any one there, and was
standing close to the counter before Wood saw him.
"Well, I'm darned, if this ain't Jack Mason!" Wood exclaimed. "Where
did you come from?"
"Oh, I've been cutting little circles over the prairie between here
and the British line for five years now, Claib," Mason answered; "ever
since the last time I saw you in Rawlins, just before you shot Rufe. I
always wanted to ask you about that. How did you come to shoot him? You
didn't have any quarrel with him, so far as I heard."
"Say, now, what's the matter with you, Jack?" exclaimed Claib. "Are you
looking for some of the medicine that Rufe got?"
Mason laughed merrily.
"Not a bit, Claib. I'm not looking for anything, without it's a little
information. Of course I've heard of bad men that would shoot a fellow
down just for meanness; but I never saw one, and I was wondering if you
were that kind of man. I was wondering, for example, if I were to turn
around and walk to the door here, whether you would plug me before I
got there? Now, I don't know anybody who can tell me about that as well
as you."
Claib's eyes were bloodshot from his excesses of the night before, and
as Mason talked to him an ugly light seemed to glow in them and the
sneer of his face grew more pronounced. The two men were standing face
to face rather close together. Claib's right hand and Mason's left hand
toward the bar.
"See here, Jack," said Wood, "it looks to me like you're hunting for
trouble and trying to pick a quarrel with me, and I don't want nothing
of the kind. I come in here to attend to my own business, and I reckon
you'd better clear out and attend to yours, if you've got any."
"Sure, I've got some," replied Mason; "but when I saw you in here, I
thought we could have a little friendly talk, and maybe you'd tell me
why it was that you shot Rufe in Rawlins. As I say, I never could hear
that you had any quarrel."
"Well," said Claib--and his hand with a swiftness that the eye could
hardly follow, flew around to his hip; but it never reached the butt of
his pistol; for Mason with lightning speed shot forward his left hand
and caught Claib by the wrist, while with his right hand he seized the
glass of liquor resting on the bar and dashed it into Claib's face.
Then he wrapped both arms around him, and called to Ross who had just
stepped into the door.
"Take this man's gun and mine and keep them! This isn't going to be a
shooting-match."
Ross snatched both pistols from their holsters and stood back.
For a moment the men whirled around over the bare floor in a rapid
dance, and then Mason suddenly lifted Claib off the floor, held him for
an instant in the air above his head, and then threw him an astonishing
distance. The man's head and shoulder coming in contact with the
plastered wall burst a large hole in it and loosened some of the
weather-boarding on the outside of the building.
Several of the men hastened to Wood and picked him up, expecting to
find that his neck was broken. He was senseless and on feeling him they
found that his right arm and right collar-bone were broken and the
shoulder out of place. None seemed to feel much sympathy for him; he
was too well known.
"Now," said Jim Decker, the proprietor of the hotel, "who's going to
pay that man's doctor's bills, and who's going to pay for that plaster
that you've knocked off, Jack Mason?"
"Why," returned Mason, smiling, "there isn't any doctor in town, so
there can't be any doctor's bills; and as for that plaster, if you'll
take one of those old newspapers and tack it over the hole, that'll do
fine until cold weather comes. When cold weather comes, I'd put a board
over it, if I were you."
"Well," snorted Decker, "that's a great note! Coming in and breaking up
a man's furniture this way!"
Mason laughed.
"Charge it up to expenses," he said; "that's just one of the incidental
expenses of running a saloon."
Decker slouched away behind the counter, grumbling to himself.
By this time, applications of cold water had brought Wood to his
senses, but he was more or less dazed and confused. Jack Mason went
over and spoke to him.
"Claib, you've got some broken bones now, and you'll have to lie quiet
for a while. There isn't any doctor in town, but I reckon Ross and me
can fix you up so you'll be all right, if there's a place for you to
stay. Have you got any money?"
"Yes; I've got money enough. But what's the matter with you? Didn't you
just start a quarrel with me? And now I've got knocked out. Do you want
to mend me up again?"
"That's what," said Mason; "mend you up; and then if I ever have
trouble with you again, I won't stop at breaking your arm and
collar-bone. I'll break your neck and make it a sure thing that you
won't trouble this country any more; but don't let's talk about it now."
Three or four of the men carried Wood to the bedroom on the top floor
of the hotel, and Mason and Ross, with the help of the station-agent,
managed to set his arm in very good shape, to put the shoulder in
place and to bind the arm so that they would presumably do well. Then
Jack Mason had a long talk with Ross and the proprietor and made
arrangements for them to look after Wood until the railroad company's
surgeon could be got hold of.
During the afternoon, Claib had a good deal of fever, and at times
was delirious. Ross sat up with him during part of the night and was
relieved by Mason, and in the morning the patient was much better and
quite rational.
About the middle of the morning Mason came into the room, where Claib
was alone.
"Well, Claib," he said, "I see you're better and I reckon now that
you'll get along all right. It won't take long for your bones to knit.
I'm going off now, but I thought I'd come in and have a little talk
with you before I left. You're a pretty mean man, and you're pretty
quick with your gun, and a pretty good cowboy. After you shot Rufe in
Rawlins I always made up my mind that I'd have a talk with you if we
ever met up together, and now I've had it. You're mean, and I expect
that when you get well maybe you'll try to get me; but if I were you I
wouldn't do it. You're quick, but it isn't any ways likely that you're
the quickest man in the world, or even in Wyoming, or even in Medicine
Bow. You tried to draw yesterday, but you weren't quick enough. You may
lay for me and get me in that way sometime, but if we ever meet and you
try any of your tricks with me, I'm more likely to get you than you are
to get me; and I believe it would be a good idea for you to remember
that. I don't want to kill you, but if I have to I will.
"Now I've been to see your wife this morning and I've told her that
you're laid up, and she says she's willing to take care of you until
you're able to get around. You won't be able to move for a week or two
now, and I told her she had better leave you here and just kind o' keep
track of you, and see that you're comfortable, and not try to take you
to her house. She's a good woman, Claib, and if you were smart you'd be
good to her."
Claib made no reply to Mason's rather long speech, but his eyes
glittered with anger. As Mason turned to go out of the room, Claib
glared at him savagely.
"I'll git you yet, Jack Mason!" he cried.
"Better think it over, Claib," Mason called back cheerily.