MCALPIN AT BAY
However others may have felt that night about Laramie's affairs, one
man, McAlpin, was proud of his ride, desperately wounded, all the way
to town. Laramie had made a confidant of no one but Kate. His
experience in being trapped was not so pleasant that he liked to talk
about it and neither McAlpin's shrewd questioning nor Carpy's
restrained curiosity was gratified that night.
In the circumstances, McAlpin's fancy had full play; and distrustful of
his imagination unaided, he repaired early to the Mountain House bar to
stimulate it. Thus it gradually transpired along the bar, either from
the stimulant or its reaction or from McAlpin's excitement, that a big
fight had taken place that morning in the Falling Wall from which only
Laramie had returned alive. It was known that he had come back and
inference as to who the dead men might be could center only on his two
active enemies, Tom Stone and Harry Van Horn. The pawky barn boss, who
possessed perfectly the art of tantalizing innuendo, thus stirred the
bar-room pool to the depths.
McAlpin chose the rustler's end of the bar--as Abe Hawk's old stand was
called--and held the interest of the room against all comers. As the
place filled for the evening, his cap, its vizor more than ordinarily
awry, was a conspicuous object and it became a favor on his part to
accept the courtesies of the bar at any man's hands.
"I knowed how it had to end," he would repeat when he had rambled again
around all aspects of the mysterious encounter. "I knowed if they kept
after Jim how it _had_ to end. Why, hell, gentlemen," he would aver,
planting a hob-nailed barn boot on the foot-rail, while swinging on one
elbow from the polished face of the mahogany, "I've _seen_ the boy stop
a coyote on the go, at 900 yards--what could you expect? No, no, not
again. What? Well, go ahead; just a dash o' bitters in mine, Luke.
Thank you.
"Well, boys, accordin' to my notion, there's two men never would be
missed in this country, anyway, if nobody ever seen 'em again. 'N' if
my count is anywhere near right, nobody ever will see 'em again. They
chased Laramie one foot too far--just one foot--'n' it looks as if they
got what was comin' to 'em. I won't name 'em--they won't bother no
more in this country."
He had become so absorbed in his recital that the entrance into the
bar-room from the barber shop of a booted and spurred man escaped him.
The man, advancing deliberately, heard the last of McAlpin's words. He
got fairly close to the unsuspecting barn boss unobserved. A few in
the listening circle, noting the approach of the new arrival, stepped
back a little--for, of all men that might be expected, after McAlpin's
dark intimations, to appear, then and there, alive and aggressive, was
Tom Stone.
Freshly barbered, head forward, keen eyes peering from under staring,
sandy brows; thumbs stuck in his belt and his face framing a confident
leer. Stone sauntering forward, listened to McAlpin. So intent was
McAlpin on impressing his hearers that the foreman elbowed his way,
before McAlpin saw him, directly to the front.
"So you won't name 'em?" grinned Stone, confronting the startled
speaker. McAlpin caught his breath. The wiry Scotchman was not a
coward, but he knew the merciless cruelty of Stone. Armed, McAlpin
would have been no man to affront his deadly skill; he now faced him
unarmed.
Stone, leaving his right hand hooked by the thumb in his belt, rested
his left elbow on the bar. The bartender, Luke, just back of him,
leaning forward, mopped the bar more slowly and, listening, moved a
little farther down the bar until his fingers rested on an electric
button underneath connecting with Tenison's office in the hotel.
"Name the two men, McAlpin," said Stone, ominously, "while you're able
to talk."
McAlpin exhausted his ingenuity in his efforts to evade his danger, but
Stone drew the noose about him tighter and tighter. He played the
unlucky man with all the malice of an executioner. He baited him and
toyed with him. McAlpin, white, stood his ground. His fighting blood
was all there and he broke at length into a torrent of abuse of the man
that he realized was bent on murdering him.
Made eloquent by desperation, McAlpin never rose to greater heights of
profane candor. It was as if he were making his last will and
testament of hatred and contempt for his murderer, and when he had
showered on his enemy every epithet stored in a retentive memory he
struck his empty glass on the bar and shouted:
"Now, you hellcat, shoot!"
It might have been thought Stone would check such a public castigation.
He did not. Impervious to abuse, because master of the situation, he
seemed to enjoy his victim's fury. "I'm finishing up with your gang
around here, McAlpin," he snarled, never losing his grin. "You've run
a rustler's barn in Sleepy Cat long enough. I've warned you and I've
warned Kitchen. It didn't do no good. Fill up your glass, McAlpin."
"Stone, I'd never fill up a glass with you if I was in hell 'n' you
could pull me out."
Stone's grin deepened: "Fill up your glass, McAlpin."
Onlookers, knowing what a refusal would mean, held their breaths. But
McAlpin, white and stubborn, with another oath, again refused.
"Fill it, McAlpin," urged a quiet voice behind the bar. Looking
quickly, like a hunted animal, around, McAlpin saw Harry Tenison,
white-faced and cold, pushing the bottle in friendly fashion toward
him. Every man, save one, watching, hoped he would humor at least that
much his expectant murderer. But the barn-boss had reached a state of
fear and anger that inflamed every stubborn drop in his blood. He
swore he would not fill his glass.
Tenison spoke grimly: "Will you drink it if I fill it, you mule?" he
demanded, picking up the bottle and pouring into both glasses in front
of him.
In the dead silence McAlpin's brain was in a storm. He collected a few
of his wildly flying thoughts. Perhaps he remembered the wife and
Loretta and the babies; at all events he stared at the liquor, gulped
to see whether he could swallow, and, reaching forward, picked up the
glass. Stone lifted his own. The two men, their glasses poised, eyed
each other.
Stone barbed a taunt for his victim: "Goin' to drink, air you?" he
sneered, wreathing his eyes in leering wrinkles.
"No," said a man, unnoticed until then by any except Tenison and Luke,
and speaking as he pushed forward through the crowd to face both Stone
and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink."
[Illustration: "No," said a man, . . . as he pushed forward to face
both Stone and McAlpin. "He's not going to drink"]
Stone's glass was half-way up to his lips; he looked across it and saw
himself face to face with Jim Laramie. Laramie who, unseen, had heard
enough of the quarrel, stood with his coat slung over his right
shoulder; one arm he carried in a sling, but as far as this concerned
Stone, it was the wrong arm. Daring neither to raise the whisky to his
lips nor to set the glass down, lest Laramie, suspecting he meant to
draw, should shoot, Stone stood rooted. "McAlpin's not going to drink,
Stone," repeated Laramie. "What are you going to do about it?"
The mere sight of Laramie would have been a vastly unpleasant surprise.
But to find himself faced by him in fighting trim after what had taken
place in the morning was an upset.
"What am I going to do about it?" echoed Stone, lifting his eyebrows
and grinning anew. "What are you going to do about it, Jim?" he
demanded. "You and me used to bunk together, didn't we?"
"I bunked with a rattlesnake once. I didn't know it," responded
Laramie dryly. "Next morning the rattlesnake didn't know it."
"Jim, I'll drink you just once for old times."
"I wouldn't drink with you, Stone. No man would drink with you if he
wasn't afraid of you. And after tonight nobody's going to be afraid of
you. You're a thief among thieves, Tom Stone: a bully, a coward, a
skulker. You shoot from cover. When Barb made you foreman, you and
Van Horn stole his cattle, and Dutch Henry sold 'em for you and divvied
with you. Then, for fear Barb would get wise, you and Van Horn got up
the raid and killed Dutch Henry, so he couldn't talk.
"Now you're going to quit this stuff. No more thieving, no more
man-killing, no bullyragging, no nothing. Tenison will clear this
room. Hold your glass right where it is, till the last man gets out.
When he gets out set down your glass; you'll have time enough allowed
you. After that, draw where you stand. You're not entitled to a
chance. God, Stone, I'd _rather_ bunk with a rattlesnake than with
you. I'd rather kill one than kill a thing like you. Your head ought
to be pounded with a rock. You're entitled to nothing. But you can
have your chance. Get the boys out of here, Harry."
Not for one instant did he take his eye off Stone's eye, or raise his
tone above a speaking voice, and Laramie's voice was naturally low. To
catch his syllables, listeners crowded in and craned their necks. Few
men withdrew but everyone courteously and sedulously got out of the
prospective line of fire.
What it cost Laramie even to stand on his feet and talk, Tenison could
most shrewdly estimate. From behind the bar he coldly regarded the
wounded man. He knew that Laramie must have escaped Carpy and escaped
Belle, to look for the men that had tried that morning to kill him.
Having found Stone he meant then and there to fight.
Tenison likewise realized that he was in no condition to do it, and
promptly intervened: "Don't look at me, Jim," he said. "But I'm
talking. There's no man in Sleepy Cat can clear this room now. Most
of this crowd are your friends. They want to see this hell-hound
cleaned up. But you know what it means to some of 'em if two guns cut
loose."
Stone saw the gate open. He welcomed a chance to dodge. Eyeing
Laramie, he swallowed his drink, set his glass on the bar. With a
voice dried and cracked, he cried: "Keep your hands off, Tenison. I'll
give Jim Laramie all the fight he wants, here or anywhere."
Tenison was willing to bridge the crisis with abuse. "Shut up, you
coyote," he remarked, with complete indifference.
"You'll throw a man down no matter how much of your whisky he drinks,
won't you, Tenison?" cried Stone.
Tenison, both hands judicially spread on the bar, seemed to fail to
hear. "McAlpin," he said contemptuously, "walk around behind Laramie
and lift Stone's gun."
Stone started violently. "Look out, Tenison! I lift my gun when
there's men to stand by and see fair play!"
A roar of laughter went up. "I don't lift it for no frame-up," he
shouted, turning angrily toward the unsympathetic crowd. "Get out!"
cried one voice far enough back to be safe. "Send for Barb," shouted a
second. "Page Van Horn," piped a barber, as Stone moved toward the
door.
The baited foreman turned only for a parting shot at Laramie: "I'll see
_you_ later."
"If I was your friend," retorted Laramie, unmoved, "I'd advise you not
to. If you ride my trail don't expect anything more from me. And I
make this town," he hammered home the point with his right forefinger
indicating the floor, "and the Falling Wall range _my_ trail."
"Stone ought to have tried it tonight," observed Tenison at the cash
register. He was speaking to his bartender long after Stone had
disappeared, Laramie had been put to bed again and the billiard hall
had been deserted. "He'll never get a chance again at Laramie half
shot to pieces."