East and west across the flat face of Nebraska runs a river, which
needs no naming, looping, like a great watery rope, the Rocky Mountains
and its ultimate confluence with the Big Muddy. It was once said of
this stream that it resembled the speeches of a well-known politician,
inasmuch as it was a thousand miles long, a mile wide, and about four
inches deep.
In one particular year of our Lord, when herds of longhorn cattle were
spilling out of Texas like milk seeping over a polished table top, from
an overflowing bowl, the curses of many a trail boss and cattle owner
were heaped upon this wide, shallow, sandy-bottomed river. Northbound
herds must cross it. Under its ankle depths of flow lurked miles of
quicksand. The first drives to the North suffered. Later, hard bottom
crossings were located.
In the height of the great bovine exodus, such crossings were like the
junction of two great thoroughfares. They were heavily traffic laden.
From May to September the march of the herds never slackened. Every
herd had its quota of riders. Wherever there are men there is money,
and money is made to be spent. So, at each of these river crossings,
enterprising merchants set up with stocks of goods. Equally
enterprising individuals set up establishments where a cowpuncher could
find something for his throat besides dust and alkali water, where he
could take a fling at faro bank and poker. In other words, the saloon
and gambling hall arose, side by side, with the general store, to the
profit of their owners and the glory of the trail.
Clark’s Ford was such a place. When Ben Clark bogged his first herd in
the quicksands, he lay on the bank, and his riders scouted for hard
bottom, found it, passed over and passed on, leaving his name to the
place and bequeathing future herds on that route the only safe crossing
in a hundred miles.
A year later a cluster of frame buildings on the north bank greeted the
lead of each herd, as it emerged from the stream. Here outfits could
replenish their grub supply, get or send mail by a stage route, before
they vanished into the empty land that spread north to the Canada line,
a land that was empty even unto the arctic circle.
And into Clark’s Ford one July evening Rock Holloway rode alone, on the
same sorrel horse, one of his own private mounts, that had stepped
light-footedly in the dust of a Fort Worth street that spring. For
weeks he had faced the dip and roll and flatness of plains as bare as
the seas Columbus faced when he crossed the Western ocean. Ride, eat,
sleep, and ride again, in the dust of eight thousand hoofs, on that
pilgrimage from the Rio Grande to the forty-ninth parallel, across
silent leagues of grass, from which the bison had but lately vanished,
and where the Indian had not yet forgotten how to take a white man’s
scalp.
* * * * *
So Rock, who had nothing much on his mind but a Stetson hat, rode into
Clark’s Ford. Little sinks of iniquity like this were not new in his
experience. He was too sensible to take a moral attitude. They were
not, with their gaudy activities, much to his taste, but they supplied
a want. He didn’t drink much at any time, preferring poker for pastime,
and he had been known to wander about for hours in the midst of
cow-town hilarity doing nothing but watch his fellows make merry.
Clark’s Ford numbered scarcely a dozen buildings. One general store,
one blacksmith shop, one combined saloon and dance hall. A gaunt
boarding house purveyed food and sleeping quarters to clerks, gamblers,
bartenders, and transients. Clark’s Ford was little more than a camp, a
mushroom growth with neither a past nor a future.
It was not a place that Ben Clark would have been proud to bear his
name. If it catered in some measure to the legitimate necessities of
these Argonauts of the plains, it likewise battened on their
weaknesses. Cattlemen and their riders had few illusions about such
places, except in moments of alcoholic exaltation. They were tolerant
of them, that was all, because they were centers of human contact, in
the midst of an unpeopled wilderness.
It was a dreary place in the glare of day. Sagebrush flowed to the very
doors--gray--monotonously gray. A river, with a dozen channels plowed
by the spring floods in its yellow sands, slunk at the feet of Clark’s
Ford. For a mile about no green thing flourished. Only the tough
sagebrush defied obliteration under the trampling hoofs that passed in
myriads. That valley had yet to become verdant under irrigation canals.
Even the red brother shunned it in bygone days except when the buffalo
herds passed that way. The cattleman would have shunned it if he could.
But the herds focused at this point, but, once across, they radiated
like the spokes of a wheel to pleasanter ranges farther north, where
grass waved like fields of ripe wheat; where clear streams flowed in
gravelly beds, and now and then a man’s eye would be gladdened by a
tree.
But at night Clark’s Ford shook off its daytime somnolence, shrouded
itself in the dusky mantle of night and decked itself with yellow
jewels. Night and lamps! There is magic in those two. A pianist and a
fiddler strummed in the dance hall. The women glowed in silk and satin
and smiled their mechanical smiles. Within, the light softened hard
faces, struck glints from glass, and spread over green-topped tables,
the racked silver and gold behind the games, and the multicolored poker
chips. A man could get action there. Seldom any one paused outside
those doors, behind which the piano tinkled, and the fiddle wailed, and
the voices of men and women were pitched a little above the normal key.
Rock paused now, after he had swung down from his horse. He stared up
at the sky, the inverted bowl of the Persian poet, studded with stars.
He looked absently upward, the fingers of one hand tangled in Sangre’s
mane. Perhaps he studied the stars in their courses. Perhaps he saw
something invisible save to the imaginative eye, off in that calm,
obscuring night. And then he shrugged his shoulders, gave his gun belt
a hitch, and walked into the Odeon. Why the exploiter of Clark’s Ford
bestowed on a tin-pot dance hall a name that derived from ancient Greek
through modern French, Heaven only knows. Perhaps that was what made
Rock smile, as he noted the name painted in white on a door illuminated
by a hung lantern. He had a way of noting such things.
A bar ranged along one side of the Odeon. A low platform lifted against
the opposite wall, where the two musicians played, and now and then a
woman sang the sentimental ballads of the period. A clear space in the
middle was left for dancing. One side was set with pine tables and
chairs. The other wall made a backstop for gambling paraphernalia,
operated by bored men with impassive faces, who dealt for the house and
watched winning or losing with equal indifference.
* * * * *
All this Rock took in rapidly. He had heard about Clark’s Ford and the
Odeon a thousand miles south. He reflected that there were other places
of the same stripe, which he had seen here, and they were more
impressive, if less widely known. Yet it was a fairly big night at the
Odeon. Four herds had made the crossing that day. Three more lay within
ten miles. There were riders from all in Clark’s Ford this night,
seeking diversion. The gabble of voices and laughter filled the big
room. The click of chips greeted Rock’s ears, a faint, penetrating
sound. A woman was singing, “Drink to me only with thine eyes.” It
sounded at once incongruous and highly appropriate in that atmosphere.
She had a fairly good voice, too. He stood within the door until the
last note sounded, then walked across the room to a poker game, where
he recognized a cattleman he knew from Waco.
“Well, well!” Al Kerr reached up to shake hands. “Seems like
everybody’s headed North these days. How’s tricks?”
“So, so,” Rock answered. “Laying up much wealth in this noble pastime?”
“Not so you could notice,” Kerr grinned. “Just amusin’ myself. This
here table sort of attracted me. First green thing I’ve seen for six
weeks. Here, cash these.”
He shoved half a stack of reds to the dealer, got five silver dollars
in exchange, and pushed back his chair.
“Let’s inhale a drink,” he suggested. “Maybe you and me could horn into
an easier game later on.”
“I’m due on guard at one thirty, and it’s eleven now,” Rock said, “so I
won’t play poker to-night. But I will have a glass of beer.”
“Beer’s no good except off ice in hot weather,” Kerr told him. “And ice
is as scarce as square men among the regular population of Clark’s
Ford. Better drink rye.”
As the choice lay between lukewarm beer and the stronger drink, Rock
chose whisky. It didn’t matter what he drank.
He didn’t intend to tarry long in the Odeon.
Nor did he. If he could have foreseen the manner and necessity of his
departure, he might not have entered the place. And again he might have
braved fate, even with certain knowledge, since he was not by nature
inclined to dodge issues either present or potential. A man on the
frontier seldom got anywhere if he were always counting costs. If Rock
had not got anywhere, he was at least on his way.
They walked over to the bar and stood near the farther end from the
main entrance. Rock was not a tall man, perhaps a little over medium
height. Even so he towered over his companion. Kerr barely reached his
shoulder. He was a little wisp of a man, with a gnomelike face. Small
bodied, but big-hearted, full of humorous quips and kindly impulses, Al
Kerr was the type of Texas cowman who never figures in song and story.
He had never killed any one. He had never found it necessary. Probably
he had not exchanged a dozen harsh sentences with another man in his
life. Yet he was a successful man. He had cattle scattered over the
length of three States. He had fifty riders on his pay roll. And for
every rider he had a score of friends. Rock happened to be one of them.
And Rock looked down on the little, middle-aged man, whose hair was
thin, but whose blue eyes were merry, and he wondered what it was that
made some men succeed in whatever they undertook. It wasn’t size, it
wasn’t blatant force, and it wasn’t always the power of possessions.
What was it, Rock wondered?
A dance had just ended. Several lusty, perspiring young trail hands had
led their ladies to the bar to liquidate the Terpsichorean debt, after
the custom of such places. They were lined up twenty in a row. As they
stood there, glass in hand, some in the act of pouring their drink, the
door of the Odeon flew open, and a man swaggered in.
* * * * *
He stood a moment staring with eyes a trifle reddened. He was a
mountain of a man, well over six feet, and thick in proportion. He wore
a rider’s usual costume. Like most of those who trafficked across the
plains, he was armed. He took two quick strides from the door to the
bar end and, picking up the nearest glass of whisky, drank it at a
gulp. Then he stood, towering above the man whose drink he had taken,
grinning, as if at a capital joke.
“Well, well,” Kerr murmured. “The village cut-up is with us again. He
was around here this afternoon raisin’ Cain. He aims to be bad, it
looks like. Wonder where he escaped from?”
Rock smiled. He knew the man. He watched with a detached sort of
interest to see what would happen. For a second nothing happened. A
quick-witted bartender hastily set up another glass, thus stifling the
protest that was evidently on tap by the man whose drink had been
taken. That, to Rock, was an indication of how far Mark Duffy’s size
and disposition had carried him in Clark’s Ford. But he was hardly
prepared for the big man’s next action. Considering the time and place,
it seemed suicidal.
Duffy walked right down the bar, shouldering all and sundry out of his
way. His big red face was wreathed in a sardonic grin, and his
bellowing voice uttered a warning to all in his path:
“Make room for a man. I’m goin’ to drink, an’ when I drink I need lots
of room.”
He seemed in a fair way to get all the room he desired without
opposition. Probably any other man would have been smelling powder
before he got halfway, Rock reflected. But Duffy looked neither to
right nor left nor hesitated in his ponderous stride, nor heeded the
curses that were hurled at him. He was asserting himself, he wanted
room, and he got it--a clear path, until he came to Al Kerr and Rock
Holloway.
Neither moved. Their second drink was before them. Rock had one elbow
on the bar, and he kept it there. Kerr stood between him and Duffy.
The big man loomed over Kerr. He looked down.
“Say, runt!” he bellowed. “Did you hear me say I wanted room?”
“Seems to me you got plenty,” Kerr answered. “Nobody’s crowdin’ you.”
For answer Duffy seized him by both shoulders, picked him off his feet,
as if he had been a child, and set him on the bar. Kerr stood probably
five foot four. He never carried a six-shooter. He was handy with a
rifle, but that was not a weapon he carried in town.
Duffy kept that iron grip on his shoulders. The little man was
helpless. Faint snickers arose in the room. Kerr’s face flushed. He
felt the indignity. But he said nothing, only looked Duffy coldly in
the eye. And Duffy began to shake him until his head snapped back and
forth, yanking him at last roughly off the bar, so that his boot heels
struck the floor with a crack.
“Buy a drink for the crowd, runt,” he commanded.
“You go to hell,” Kerr defied him. “Buy your own drinks. You’re too big
for me to fight with my hands. But you lay off’n me long enough for me
to get a gun, and I’ll shoot with you for the drinks, you side of raw
beef on the hoof!”
Duffy’s face wreathed in a grin. He reached his gorilla-like arms and
took a step forward. Kerr dodged sidewise. And for the first time Duffy
seemed to see and recognize Rock. He stared briefly. Rock looked back
at him, expressionless. Duffy turned on Kerr again. His hand crept
toward the gun in his belt.
“You’ll buy a drink, or you’ll dance,” he said meaningly. “Look spry,
little feller! Buy drinks or dance.”
He punctuated the last sentence with a shot into the floor at Kerr’s
feet. Whereat Rock stepped between the little man and his tormentor.
His Colt was in his hand. Like Duffy’s, it pointed at the floor. There
was a swift surge of men away from the bar.
“You’ve gone far enough with this, Duffy,” Rock said quietly. “Don’t be
a damn fool.”
* * * * *
For five tense seconds Duffy glared at Rock; then his gun jerked. At
the movement, Rock fired. He was pitching himself sidewise, as he
pulled trigger. He knew when he interfered that there would only be one
end to such interference, and he had discounted that. Duffy’s bullet
sped somewhere past his face. And Rock held his second shot, for the
big man was sagging slowly forward, until suddenly he collapsed on the
floor.
Rock slid the fallen six-shooter with his toe toward Kerr, his eyes on
the crowd.
“Take that till we get out of here,” he said. “Maybe he’s got friends.”
But other friends were at hand. Half a dozen of Kerr’s men came
shouldering their way toward him.
“That was neat,” one grinned at Rock. “We couldn’t very well bust our
way through that crowd, but if anybody wants to go farther with it,
we’re here to take ’em on.”
Evidently no one did. They walked, Kerr and Rock and five trail hands,
the length of the room to the entrance door, while the hush that sudden
death always brings held the crowd in the Odeon.
Once in the street beside their mounts, Kerr said:
“Well, I think I better amble off to camp before some other ambitious
drunk picks on me. You fellers comin’ along?”
“I expect we better,” they agreed. “That joint is no great shakes for
amusement, nohow.”
“Where’s your outfit camped?” Rock asked.
“About nine miles north,” Kerr answered. “Where’s your camp, Rock?”
“Same direction. Not quite so far,” Rock answered. “I’ll ride with you
a ways.”
They went jingling away from Clark’s Ford, Kerr’s riders laughing and
joking. Rock and the little cowman silent. The Dipper wheeling on its
ancient circle of the pole star gave them bearings. The night hush
enfolded them, as the lights and sounds were swallowed in the dark
hollow by the river. Three miles out Rock pulled up his horse.
“Here’s where I turn aside,” he said. “So long, boys.”
“Look, Rock,” Kerr said slowly. “You done me a good turn back there. If
you’re ever in a jack pot, you let me know. I’m locatin’ in Montana for
good this season. You’ll find me in the Judith Basin, on Arrow Creek.
Capital K they call my outfit up there. Post office is Lewistown. My
house is yours any time you show up.”
“Maybe, I’ll call your bluff some time, Al,” Rock laughed. “You never
can tell. I’m bound for Montana, myself, so I may see you-all again
this summer. So long. Be good, and if you can’t be good be careful.”
Rock sat his horse, listening to the patter of departing hoofs. So Kerr
was bound for the Judith Basin. Rock had said that the outfit he was
with was also bound for Montana. But he had omitted to mention that he
would not be with it when it arrived.
In fact, Rock was not wholly certain that he would ever arrive. He had
another private horse beside Sangre with the Seventy Seven. His bed was
in the wagon. He had two months’ wages due. Before he could get
anywhere, he had to collect his belongings and his pay.
And that might very well lead to a continuation of the unpleasantness
this night had already spanned. The man whom he had killed in the Odeon
was the brother of the trail boss of the Seventy Seven, and the Duffys
were a clannish lot, with more nerve than good judgment.
He mighn’t be lucky twice in one night. The pitcher that goes often
enough to the well---- Rock shrugged his shoulders and shook his horse
into a lope. In twenty minutes he drew up to where the Seventy Seven
herd lay bedded, a huge dark blot on the bleached grass, with the chuck
tent looming a ghost-white outline, half a mile past the sleeping herd.