He had been given forty-eight hours! When twenty-four of them had
elapsed, Rock lay in his bunk at the TL, staring at roof beams dim
above his head. The small noises of the night, insect voices, and the
river’s eternal whisper drifted through an open window. In an opposite
corner the two hired men snored. Perhaps to-morrow something would
happen. Perhaps not. Yet Rock could not take easy refuge behind the
idea that Buck Walters’ talk had been a bluff. Fire burned under that
smoke. To-morrow would tell the tale.
Sunrise came and breakfast. Rock set the men at work in a meadow. The
whir of the mower blades droned in the quiet valley. There were odds
and ends of work that kept him busy until ten o’clock. While he
attended to these jobs, he debated with himself whether to tell Nona
Parke about his encounter with Buck. He concluded to keep it to
himself. He wished that he had taken advantage of Dave Wells’ presence
to establish his own identity. Yet who the devil, he asked himself
fretfully, would have expected Buck Walters to declare open war?
At the next opportunity, he decided, he would be himself and be done
with a dead man’s troubles. It had been altogether too easy to let
people go on thinking he was Doc Martin. But there was no use worrying
Nona Parke with that just now. She wasn’t concerned. If anything
happened to him, she could get other riders. And she was quite helpless
to prevent anything happening. Rock didn’t intend that anything should
happen to him. He would be wary, watchful, his weapons always handy.
Something took him to the house.
Nona sat on the porch, darning stockings for Betty. She stopped Rock to
mention the need of getting in more work horses, and while they talked,
her eyes, looking past Rock, began to twinkle.
“Well,” she said, “we are about to have a distinguished visitor.
There’s Alice Snell, and she’s certainly burning the earth.”
Rock turned. That range phrase for speed was apt. Alice came across the
flat on a high gallop, her skirt flapping, bareheaded, and the gold of
her hair like a halo in the sun. Her bay horse, when she jerked him to
a stop, was lathered with sweat, his breast spotted with foam flecks.
The girl’s face struck Rock as being stricken with a terrible fear. She
swung down. To Nona Parke she gave no greeting whatever. Her eyes never
left Rock, except for one furtive, backward glance. And she cried with
a hysterical tremble in her voice:
“Buck Walters and Elmer Duffy, with all the boys, are coming to hang
you! For God’s sake, Doc, get away from here before they come! I heard
them talking it over, and I sneaked away from the ranch. They can’t be
far behind me.”
So that was it. Rock’s lip curled. But a vigilance committee from two
big outfits didn’t function without some excuse.
“What are they going to hang me for?” he asked.
Alice Snell put her hands on his arms, her white face turned up to his
in a fever of anxiety.
“They say--they say,” she gulped, “you’re stealing cattle. They mean to
hang you.”
Rock laughed.
“They won’t hang me,” he said lightly. “Thank you, just the same, for
coming to tell me of their kind intentions.”
“Doc, please! There’s a lot of them. Elmer Duffy and his crew as well
as the Maltese Cross riders. You can’t fight that bunch. Get a horse
and ride fast.”
Rock smiled and put Alice Snell’s trembling, clutching hands off his
own. But there was no mirth in that smile, for a squad of horsemen, a
long line of them abreast, had swung around the point of brush, a
quarter of a mile away. Nona Parke stared at the two of them in blank
amazement. Alice didn’t seem to know that she was there. She had no
thought for anything but this man she took for Doc Martin. But out of
one corner of her eye she marked the approaching riders and began to
babble incoherently.
“Take her into the kitchen,” Rock commanded Nona. “Stay in there. If
she’s right, there’ll be a fuss. I can’t run. And neither Buck Walters
nor anybody else is going to hang me.”
* * * * *
He darted into the bunk room. His rifle hung above his bed, and he took
it down. Out of his war bag he snatched two boxes of cartridges and
stuffed them in his trousers pocket. He had on his belt gun. Both
six-shooter and carbine were the same caliber. Then he went back to the
door. The line of riders drew close, bobbing in unison, a long row. The
sun made their silver ornaments gleam--white hats and black, red
horses, blacks, bays, dun, and spotted--on they came, a brave sight.
Thirty riders to confront a single miscreant. Rock wondered if Charlie
Shaw rode with them, and if he would stand by, unprotesting. But he had
brief time to speculate. The two girls were still on the porch. Nona
had her arms about Alice, steadying her, encouraging her, and Alice was
sobbing in a panic of grief and fear.
“For Heaven’s sake get her and yourself inside,” Rock snapped. “This is
not going to be a Sunday-school picnic. Buck Walters warned me in Fort
Benton that he’d get me inside of forty-eight hours. He’s going to make
it good, if he can. This is nothing for you to be mixed up in.”
“This is as good a place as any for her and me,” Nona declared. “This
is my ranch. They won’t dare!”
“Dare!” Rock grinned. “The man leading that bunch will dare anything.
But I aim to fool him, if I get a chance to declare myself.”
“And if you don’t, they won’t stop to listen to anything,” she
declared. Her eyes were full of questions.
“From the bunk room,” Rock said softly. “I will give them a good run
for their money. The walls are thick, and I have plenty of ammunition.”
The eyeballs of horses and men were visible now, faces staring from
under hat brims. Rock could see Seventy Seven riders he had worked with
on trail. Charlie Shaw rode beside Buck Walters and Elmer Duffy. They
slowed to a trot, then to a walk and drew up before the house. Rock
moved back a little in the doorway, his rifle in the crook of his arm.
He stood in plain sight; but if a hand moved toward a weapon he would
be under cover before it could be drawn, or fired, at least.
Walters, Duffy and Charlie Shaw dismounted. Buck Walters looked at
Alice Snell, her face hidden yet against Nona’s shoulder. His own face
remained impassive, but his eyes burned. And Rock got in the first
word.
“Miss Snell, not liking the idea of coldblooded murder to satisfy a
personal grudge, rode up a little ahead of you-all to tell us you aimed
to hang Doc Martin. If----”
“If that is true,” Nona Parke’s voice cut like a knife across his
sentence, “you are a pack of dirty cowards--and you are too late.”
She thrust the weeping girl away from her and faced them, with her head
up, her gray eyes wide with scorn.
“Is it true?” she demanded. “What do you want here, all of you with
rifles, as if you were going to war?”
“We want him,” Buck Walters pointed at Rock. “And we will take him,
dead or alive. He is a thief.”
“That,” said Nona without a moment’s hesitation, “is a lie.”
* * * * *
Duffy, Walters, and Charlie Shaw had stepped up on the porch. They
stood within eight feet of Rock, apparently secure in the belief that
under thirty pairs of watchful eyes he could neither escape nor menace
them.
“You two girls better go inside,” Duffy said. “Leave us men handle this
thing. They ain’t no room for argument, I guess.”
“Guess again, Elmer,” Rock said quietly. “There is lots of room for
argument. In the first place, I am not Doc Martin. I can prove that by
you, Duffy, and by Buck Walters himself.”
“What the hell are you givin’ us?” Walters growled.
“It is quite true,” Nona declared. “Doc Martin is dead. He was shot
from ambush ten days ago. This man, no matter how much he may look like
Doc, is not Doc.”
“I told you that, but you wouldn’t listen, you were so hell-bent to
hang somebody,” declared Charlie Shaw, opening his mouth for the first
time and addressing Buck Walters. “Now it can be proved right here,
unless you got to hang _somebody_ for your own personal satisfaction.”
“Listen, all of you!” Rock put in. “I have told you, and Miss Parke has
told you, I am not Doc Martin. Do you want to listen to proof, or do
you want it proved to you after a bunch of men have gone to hell in a
fog of powder smoke? Because, if you don’t want to listen to reason,
there will be a lot of shooting before there is any hanging. And I will
get you, Mr. Buck Walters, first crack, in spite of all your men. Just
think that over.”
Charlie Shaw winked at Rock, then took two quick steps to the doorway
and slid through. Walters’ right hand moved ever so little,
suggestively and involuntarily, and the muzzle of Rock’s carbine
pointed straight at his breast.
“Just one move,” said Rock, “one more little move like that, Buck, and
the Maltese Cross will be shy your services for good. I will give you
leave to hang me or shoot me, if you can, but this crowd is going to
hear who I am before the ball opens. I am going to keep this gun right
on your middle. If I feel anything or hear anything, I pull trigger. If
one of your men should pot me, I can still kill you, even if I were
dead on my feet. Now, I tell you again I am not Doc Martin. I came to
this ranch the day he was killed--murdered, as a matter of fact. I
helped to bury him. His riding gear and all his stuff is here in the
house.”
The riders edged their horses nearer and craned their necks. At best,
destroying a thief was an unpleasant task even for honest men who
despised stock thieves with the contempt such a thief inspired on the
range. Every word uttered on that porch carried distinctly to their
ears. They were not fools. They knew, and Rock banked on that
knowledge, that, whether the man in the doorway was Doc Martin or not,
he had the drop on Buck Walters, and the chances were a hundred to one
he would kill not only Walters but several of them before they got him.
Perhaps too late they realized the tactical error of letting Charlie
Shaw get inside. He was a TL man. Right or wrong, if there was a fight,
Shaw would fight against them. They would have been confirmed in that
supposition if they could have looked behind Rock. That young man’s
heart warmed at the boy’s quick wit and unhesitating loyalty. A little
behind him Charlie whispered:
“Stand pat. I’ll back any play you make. I got two guns on me.”
Elmer Duffy stared at Rock. He glanced sidewise at Buck Walters, then
back to the man in the door.
“If you ain’t Doc Martin,” he said at last, “there’s only one other man
you _could_ be.”
“Hell and damnation!” Walters burst out. “Who else could he be? Are we
goin’ to be old women and let him bluff us out with a fairy story?”
“We got plenty of time, Buck,” Elmer Duffy reminded him. “He can’t get
away. We don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. Young Shaw did tell
us this before we started.”
“Rats!” Rock laughed. “You sure don’t want to be convinced, do you,
Buck? You surely want to see Doc Martin dance on a rope end. Maybe
you’d just as soon hang me, even if I’m not Doc. You recollect what
Dave Wells named me in Fort Benton, night before last, don’t you? Well,
you have Elmer Duffy say who _he_ thinks I might be if I’m not Doc.”
“If Doc Martin is dead an’ buried,” Duffy said, “there’s only one man
you can be.”
“You are right,” Rock said. “I will bet you a new hat, Walters, that
Elmer Duffy names me what Dave Wells called me in Benton. I can see
half a dozen riders in this crowd I worked on trail with, until we came
to Clark’s Ford in Nebraska. If you want to be dead sure, Elmer, there
is a sorrel horse with two white hind feet and a big star on his
forehead, branded JB, and a black, branded a Bleeding Heart, grazing in
the pasture back of the barn. And I could tell you more that only one
man could know, Elmer. Tell Buck Walters who I am.”
“You’re Rock Holloway,” Duffy muttered.
“Bull’s-eye!” Rock said. “I have been in Montana less than three weeks.
It seems a plumb exciting place. Are you satisfied, Buck? Are you still
eager to hang me under the impression that I’m Doc Martin? Do you want
to see his saddle, with bloodstains on it, where somebody--who also
wanted to see him dead--shot him, while he rode along the river
bottoms? Maybe you’d like to dig up his body, where he’s buried over by
those poplars?”
“What is the use of carrying this on any longer?” Nona demanded. “I
don’t believe Doc did what Alice says you claim he did. I don’t believe
he was a thief. But, whether he was or was not, he is dead. This man is
what he says he is. He came here the day Doc was killed. He told me his
name was Rock Holloway. I hired him. That is all there is to it.”
“Isn’t that what Dave Wells called me?” Rock said to Walters. “Are you
satisfied?”
“You denied it,” Walters said. “When he spoke to you, you used me to
prove you _were_ Doc Martin.”
“A man can have a joke with his friends, if he likes. It isn’t against
any law that I know of. He probably told you I joined his outfit on the
Yellowstone last summer and worked for him all winter.”
“I don’t recollect him mentionin’ it,” Walters replied. “Why have you
passed yourself off for Doc Martin, anyway?”
“Shucks!” Rock said. “Everybody just naturally insisted on taking me
for Doc. Miss Parke knew my name. I explained myself to Charlie Shaw as
soon as I had a chance. I didn’t care much, one way or the other. I
didn’t know anybody in this neck of the woods, barring the Seventy
Seven. I fooled Elmer Duffy purposely, the first time I saw him,
because I was kinda interested in trying to find out who killed Doc
Martin, seeing I looked so much like him and was taking his place as a
TL rider. Are you satisfied, or is there still something you’d like to
know about?”
“Yes, I can see there’s been a mistake,” Walters said in a different
tone. “You can’t blame us. We got it straight that Martin was standing
in with some pretty bald-faced stealing. We’ve cleaned out his
partners. I guess this settles it as far as you’re concerned. I’ll have
to take Elmer’s word for it. He ought to know you, seein’ you killed
his brother.”
It seemed to Rock that Walters raised his voice a trifle, and that he
managed to impart a sneer into those words. Every man could hear. It
seemed to Rock like a deliberate taunt, a barb purposely planted to
rankle in Duffy’s skin. For a second there was silence. Elmer Duffy’s
Adam’s apple slid nervously up and down his lean throat. His face
flushed. Rock read the signs for himself. A few spiteful reminders like
that, and Duffy would feel that he _had_ to go gunning for his
brother’s slayer. Buck Walters broke that strained hush. He lifted his
hat to Nona.
“I’m sorry if this has been disagreeable,” he said politely. “But those
Burris thieves incriminated your man Martin. He has been in with them
on their rustling. We’ve lost a lot of stock. Maybe they didn’t
overlook you. It’s as well Doc Martin has cashed in. We would certainly
have hung him to the nearest cottonwood. We don’t reckon there’ll be
any more trouble. I hope you don’t hold grudges,” he said, turning to
Rock. “In our place you’d do the same. Nobody told us what happened to
Martin. You passed for him. We got to protect our range. There’s only
one way to deal with rustlers.”
He turned to his men with a wave of his hand.
“All right, boys,” he said. “You’ve heard the whole show, and we’re
saved a nasty job. Ride on. We’ll catch up with you.”
Elmer Duffy muttered something, stepped down off the porch, and swung
into his saddle, without a word or a look at Rock. Buck Walters stepped
over beside Alice. She had listened, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Now
she shrank away from Buck.
“Come on home with us, Al,” he said coaxingly.
“Go home with _you_!” Alice Snell shrilled. “I’ll never go on that
ranch again till you’re off it for good, you blackhearted beast! If Doc
Martin was murdered, I know who did it and why. I hate you--I _hate_
you!”
“You’re all worked up,” Walters said diffidently. “You’ll be sorry for
saying such a thing about me when you cool off. I didn’t kill Doc
Martin, although he had it coming. A man who steals can’t flourish on
any range I have charge of.”
“Doc Martin never stole anything in his life,” the girl cried. “He was
a better man than you, any day. You were afraid of him,” she raved. “I
know. You hated him because I loved him, and he loved me. Get away from
me, you--you toad!”
Walters’ face flamed. He shot a quick sidewise look at Nona and Rock
Holloway. But he was cool and patient.
“Hysterics,” he said to Nona. “I guess I’ll have to leave her to you,
Miss Parke. See she gets home, will you? Sorry about all this fuss.
Couldn’t be helped, the way things stood.”
Rock said nothing. He had declared himself. This was a matter between
these others, interesting, dramatic, and with hints of passionate
conflict. Rock knew Nona Parke’s side of it. What she had told him
about Doc Martin was fresh in his mind. And there was Martin’s attitude
and actions toward Elmer Duffy. She, like himself, stood silent, while
Alice leaned against the log wall and lashed at her foreman, her breast
heaving, a fury blazing in her pansy-blue eyes.
Walters stepped off the porch and mounted his horse. The riders were
crossing the flat at a walk. Buck lifted his hat to Nona, flung “So
long, boys!” over his shoulder to Rock and Charlie Shaw, and loped away
after his men.
A very cool hand, Rock reflected. Smooth and dangerous. He had denied
that Dave Wells mentioned anything. Rock felt that to be a lie. It was
simpler now that he had established his real identity. But he wasn’t
done with Buck Walters yet. No! Rock couldn’t quite say why he had that
conviction; but he had it very clear in his mind.