Читать книгу Law of the Gun - Martin H. Greenberg - Страница 7

Out in West Texas the old-timers still speak occasionally of the time my uncle Jeff Barclay scared off the gunfighter Tobe Farrington. It’s a good story, as far as it goes, but the way they tell it doesn’t quite go far enough. And the reason is that my father was the only man who ever knew the whole truth. Papa would have carried the secret to the grave with him if he hadn’t taken a notion to tell me about it a little while before he died. Now that he’s buried beside Mother in the family plot over at Marfa, I reckon it won’t hurt to clear up the whole story, once and for all.

Papa was the oldest of the two brothers. He and Uncle Jeff were what they used to call “four-sectioners” a long time ago.

Lots of people don’t know about Texas homesteads. When Texas joined the union it was a free republic with a whopper of a debt. Texas kept title to its land because the United States didn’t want to take on all that indebtedness. So in later years Texas had a different homestead law than the other states. By the time Papa and Uncle Jeff were grown, the state of Texas was betting four sections of land against a man’s fee, his hope and his sweat that he would starve to death before he proved up his claim. It’s no secret that the state won a lot of those bets.

But it didn’t win against Papa and Uncle Jeff. They proved up their land and got the title.

Trouble was, their claims were on pasture that old Port Hubbard had ranched for a long time, leasing from the state. It didn’t set well with him at all, because he was used to having people ask him things, not tell him. And there was a reckless streak in Uncle Jeff that caused him to glory in telling people how the two of them had thumbed their noses at Port Hubbard and gotten away with it.

It’d be better if I told you a little about Uncle Jeff, so you’ll know how it was with him. I’ve still got an old picture—yellowed now—that he and Papa had taken the day they got title to their four sections apiece. It shows Papa dressed in a plain suit that looks like he had slept in it, and he wears an ordinary sort of wide-brimmed hat set square on his head. But Uncle Jeff has on a pair of those striped California pants they used to wear, and sleeve garters and a candy-striped shirt. He’s wearing one of those huge cowboy hats that went out years ago, the ones you could really call “ten-gallon” without exaggerating much. The hat is cocked over to one side of his head. A six-shooter sits high on his right hip. The clothes made him look like he’s on his way to a dance, but the challenge in his eyes makes him look like he’s waiting for a fight. With Uncle Jeff, it could have been either one or both.

A lot of ranchers like Port Hubbard made good use of the Texas homestead law. They got their cowboys to file on land that lay inside their ranches. The cowboys would prove up the land, then sell it to the man they worked for. Plenty of cowboys in those days weren’t interested in being landowners anyhow, and in a lot of West Texas four sections wasn’t enough for a man to make a living on. It wouldn’t carry enough cattle. And farming that dry country was a chancy business, sure enough.

It bothered Hubbard when Papa and Uncle Jeff took eight sections out of his Rocking H ranch. But he held off, figuring they would starve out and turn it back. Meanwhile, they would be improving it for him. When that didn’t work the way he expected, he tried to buy it from them. They wouldn’t sell.

Hubbard still might have swallowed the loss and gone about his business if Uncle Jeff hadn’t been inclined to brag so much.

“He’s buffaloed people in this part of the country for twenty years,” Uncle Jeff would say, and he didn’t care who heard or repeated it. “But we stopped him. He’s scared to lay a finger on us.”

Papa always felt Port Hubbard wouldn’t have done anything if Uncle Jeff hadn’t kept jabbing the knifepoint at him, so to speak. But Hubbard was a proud man, and proud men don’t sit around and listen to that kind of talk forever, especially old-time cowmen like Port Hubbard. So by and by Tobe Farrington showed up.

Nobody ever did prove that Port Hubbard sent for him, but nobody ever doubted it. Farrington put in for four sections of land that lay right next to Papa’s and Uncle Jeff’s. It was on Rocking H country that had been taken up once by a Hubbard cowboy who later got too much whiskey over in Pecos and took a fatal dose of indigestion on three .45 slugs.

Everybody in West Texas knew of Tobe Farrington those days. He wasn’t famous in the way of John Wesley Hardin or Bill Longley, but in the country from San Saba to the Pecos River he had a hard name. Folks tried to give him plenty of air. It was known that several men had gone to glory with his bullets in them.

A lot of folks expected to see Farrington just ride and shoot Papa and Uncle Jeff down. But he didn’t work that way. He must have figured on letting his reputation do the job without him having to waste any powder. Papa said it seemed like just about every time he Uncle Jeff looked up, they would see Tobe Farrington sitting there on his horse, just watching them. He seldom ever spoke, he just looked at them. Papa didn’t mind admitting that those hard gray eyes always put a chunk of ice in the pit of his stomach. But Uncle Jeff wasn’t bothered. He seemed to thrive on that kind of pressure.

I didn’t tell you that Uncle Jeff had been a deputy once. The Pecos County sheriff had hired him late one spring, mostly to run errands for him. In those days the sheriff was usually a tax assessor, too. The job didn’t last long. That summer the sheriff got beat in the primary election. The next one had needy kinfolks and didn’t keep Uncle Jeff on.

But by that time Uncle Jeff had gotten the feel of the six-shooter on his hip, and he liked it. What’s more, he got to be a good shot. He liked to ride along and pot jackrabbits with his pistol. Two or three times this trick got him thrown off a boogered horse, but Uncle Jeff would still do it when he took the notion. That was his way. Nothing ever scared him much, and nothing ever kept him from doing as he damn well pleased. Nothing but Papa.

If Tobe Farrington figured his being there was going to scare the Barclay brothers out of the country, he was disappointed. So he began to change his tactics. Farrington had a little bunch of Rocking H cattle with a vented brand, which he claimed he had bought from Hubbard but which everybody said Hubbard had just loaned him to make the homestead look legal. He started pushing his cattle over onto the Barclay land. He didn’t do it sneaky. He would open the wire gates, bold as brass, push the cattle through, then ride on in and watch them eat Barclay grass. It wasn’t the rainiest country in the world. There was just enough grass for the Barclay cattle, and sometimes not even that much.

Uncle Jeff was all for a fight. He wanted to shoot Farrington’s cattle. Papa, on the other hand, believed in being firm but not suicidal. He left his gun at home, took his horse and pushed the cattle back through the gate while Farrington sat and watched.

“He couldn’t shoot me,” Papa said, “because I didn’t have a gun. He couldn’t afford a plain case of murder. When Farrington killed somebody, he made it a point to be within the law.”

Farrington gave up that stunt after two or three times because Papa always handled it the same way.

After that it was little things. Steer roping was a popular sport in those days. Farrington always rode across Papa’s land to go to Fort Stockton, and while passing through he would practice on Barclay cattle. It was a rough sport. Throwing down those grown cattle was an easy way to break horns, and often it broke legs as well. Farrington made it a point to break legs.

Uncle Jeff wanted to take a gun and call for a showdown. Papa wouldn’t let him. Instead, Papa wrote up a bill for the broken-legged cattle they had had to kill and got the sheriff to go with him to collect. The sheriff was as nervous as a sheep-herder at a cowboy convention, but Papa collected.

“Guns are his business,” Papa tried to tell Uncle Jeff. “The average man can’t stand up against a fella like Tobe Farrington any more than a big-city bookkeeper could ride one of Port Hubbard’s broncs. You leave your gun at home, or one of these days Farrington’ll sucker you into using it. Second prize in his kind of shootin’ match is a wooden box.”

I reckon before I go any further I ought to tell you about Delia Larrabee. Papa might have been a little prejudiced, but he always said she was the prettiest girl in the country in those days. Uncle Jeff must have agreed with him. Papa met her first and was using all the old-fashioned cowboy salesmanship he had. But Uncle Jeff was a better salesman. It hurt, but when Papa saw how things were, he backed off and gave up the field to Uncle Jeff. Looking at that old picture again, it’s not hard to see why Delia Larrabee or any other girl might have been drawn to my uncle. He was quite the young blade, as they used to put it.

Tobe Farrington had drawn a joker every time he tried to provoke a fight with Papa or Uncle Jeff. Stealing grass or injuring cattle hadn’t done it. But when he found out about Delia Larrabee and Uncle Jeff, he realized he had found the way. The big dance in Fort Stockton gave him his chance.

Papa didn’t go that night, or he might have found a way to stop the thing before it went as far as it did. But it still hurt too much to be around Delia Larrabee, knowing he had lost her. And he hadn’t seen any other girls he felt comfortable with. Besides, he was tired because for two days he had been out with a saddle gun, trying to track down a calf-killing wolf. So he let Uncle Jeff go to town alone, though he made sure my uncle left his gun at home.

Tobe Farrington waited around till the dance had been a good while. That way, when he did show up he would get more attention. And get it he did. Folks said the hall fell almost dead silent when Farrington walked in. Dancers all stopped. Everything stopped but the old fiddler, and his eyes were so bad he couldn’t tell a horse from a pig at forty feet. Farrington just stood there till he spotted Uncle Jeff over by the punch bowl. Then he saw Delia Larrabee sitting at the south wall, waiting for Uncle Jeff to fetch her some punch. Farrington walked over, bowed and said, “You’re the prettiest girl in the crowd. I believe I’ll have this dance.”

Uncle Jeff came hurrying back. He had his fists clenched, but Delia Larrabee shook her head at him to make him stop. She stood up right quick and held up her hands as a sign to Farrington that she would dance with him. She knew what Farrington really wanted. To refuse him would have meant a fight.

But Farrington didn’t mean to be stopped. When that tune ended, he kept hold of her hand and forced her into another dance. Uncle Jeff took a step or two forward, like he was going to interfere, but she waved him off. That dance finally ended, but Farrington didn’t let her go. When the fiddle started, he began dancing with her again. Uncle Jeff had had enough. He hollered at the fiddler to stop the music.

By that time nobody was dancing but Farrington and Delia Larrabee, anyway. Everybody else had pulled back, waiting.

Uncle Jeff walked up to Farrington with his face red. “All right, I’m callin’ your hand. Turn her loose.”

Farrington gripped her fingers a little tighter. “This is too pretty a gal to waste her time with a little greasy-sack rancher like you. I’m takin’ over.”

Uncle Jeff’s picture shows that he had a powerful set of shoulders. When he swung his fist on somebody, it left a mark. Tobe Farrington landed flat on his back. By instinct he dropped his hand to his hip. But he had had to check his pistol at the door, same as everybody else. With a crooked grin that spelled murder, he pushed to his feet.

Delia Larrabee had her arms around Uncle Jeff and was trying to hold him back. “Jeff, he means to kill you!”

Uncle Jeff put her aside and looked Tobe Farrington in the eye. “I left my gun at home.”

Farrington said flatly, “You could go and get it.”

“All right. I will.”

Farrington frowned. “On second thought, Barclay, it’d still be nighttime when you got back. Night’s a poor time for good shootin’. So I tell you what. I’m goin’ home. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll come back to town. Say at five o’clock. If you still feel like you got guts enough, you can meet me on the street. We’ll finish this right.” His eyes narrowed. “But if you decide not to meet me, you better clear out of this country. I’ll be lookin’ around for you.”

They were near the door, where the guns were checked. Farrington took his, strapped the belt around his waist, then drew the pistol. “So there’s no misunderstandin’, Barclay, I want you to see what I can do.”

Thirty feet across the dancehall was a cardboard notice with the words FORT STOCKTON. Farrington brought up the pistol, fired once and put a bullet hole through the first O. Women screamed as the shot thundered and echoed.

Uncle Jeff waited a few seconds, till the thick smoke cleared. “Let me see that thing a minute,” he said. Farrington hesitated, then handed it to him. Uncle Jeff fired twice and put holes through the other two Os.

Folks always said afterward that Farrington looked as if he had swallowed a cud of chewing tobacco. He hadn’t realized Uncle Jeff was that good.

Uncle Jeff said, “I’ll be here. Just be sure you show up.” Right then he would have taken on Wild Bill Hickok.

He didn’t go home that night. He knew Papa would argue and plead with him, and he didn’t want to put up with it. He stayed in town with friends. Next morning he was out on the open prairie beyond Comanche Spring, practicing with a borrowed pistol.

Delia Larrabee had tried a while to reason with him. She told him she would go anywhere with him—California…Mexico—if he would just go, and do it right now. But Uncle Jeff had his mind made up. He would have done this a long time ago if it hadn’t been for Papa. So Delia got her father to take her out in a buckboard in the dark hours of early morning to tell Papa what had happened.

“You’ve got to do something,” she cried. “You’re the only one who can talk to Jeff.”

Papa studied about it a long time. But he knew Uncle Jeff. The only way Papa would be able to stop him now would be to hog-tie him. And he couldn’t keep him tied forever.

“I’ll try to think of something,” Papa promised, “but I doubt that anything will stop it now. You’d best go on home.” There was a sadness about him, almost a giving up. He sat at his table a long time, sipping black coffee and watching the morning sun start to climb. It came to him that Farrington was only doing a job for Port Hubbard, and all that Port Hubbard really wanted was to see the Barclay brothers leave the country. If it came to that, Papa had rather have had Uncle Jeff alive than to own the best eight sections in Pecos County.

He knew Jeff wouldn’t listen to him. But maybe Farrington would.

Papa saddled up and started for the frame shack on Farrington’s four sections. He still had the saddle gun he had used for hunting the wolf. He didn’t really intend to use it. But there was always a chance Farrington might decide to make a clean sweep of the Barclay brothers while he was at it.

Not all the wolves had four legs.

Farrington’s shack had originally been a line camp for Hubbard on land inside Papa’s claim. When Papa took up the land, Hubbard had jacked the little house up and hauled it out on two wagons. The only thing left on the old campsite was a ruined cistern, surrounded by a little fence to keep stock from falling in. Papa had always intended to come over and fill it up, when he had time.

Now, he thought, there won’t be any need to fill it up. It’ll be Hubbard’s again.

He saw smoke curling upwards from the tin chimney, and he knew Farrington was at home. “Farrington,” Papa called, “it’s me, Henry Barclay. I’ve come to talk to you.”

Farrington was slow about showing himself, and he came out wearing his gun. Distrust showed all over him. His hand was close to the gun butt, and it went even closer when Papa’s horse turned so that Farrington saw the saddle gun.

“It’s past talkin’ now, Barclay. There was a time we could’ve worked this out. But not anymore.”

“We still could,” Papa said. “What if we give you what Hubbard wants? What if we sell our land to him and clear out?”

Farrington frowned. “Why should I care what Hubbard wants?”

“We don’t have to play games, Farrington. I know what you came for, and you know I know it. So now you’ve won. Leave my brother alone.”

“You’re speakin’ for yourself. But your brother may not see it your way.”

“He will, even if I have to tie him up and haul him clear to California in a wagon.”

Farrington considered a while. “You make sense, up to a point. Pity you couldn’t have done this a long while back, before I had spent so much time here. Now you might say I got an investment made. What suits Port Hubbard might not be enough to suit me any more.”

“You want money? All right, I’ll split with you. Half of what Hubbard gives for the land. Only, I don’t want Jeff hurt.”

“Half of what Hubbard’ll give now ain’t very much.”

“All of it, then. We didn’t have anything when we came here. I reckon we could start with nothin’ again.”

A dry and awful smile broke across Farrington’s face. “No deal, Barclay. I just wanted to see how far you’d crawl. Now I know.”

“You’re really goin’ to kill him?”

“Like I’d kill a beef! And then I’ll come and put you off, Barclay. It won’t cost Hubbard a cent. You’ll sign those papers and drag out of here with nothin’ but the clothes on your back!”

That was it, then. Papa turned his horse and made like he was going to ride off. But he knew he couldn’t leave it this way. Uncle Jeff was as good as dead. For that matter, so was Papa, for he had no intention of leaving his land if Uncle Jeff died.

Seventy feet from the house, Papa leaned forward as if he was going to put spurs to the horse. Instead, he took hold of the saddle gun and yanked it up out of the scabbard.

Farrington saw what was coming. He drew his pistol and fired just as the saddle gun came clear. But Papa was pulling his horse around. The bullet went shy.

Papa dropped to the ground, flat on his belly. He had lessened the odds by getting distance between him and Farrington. This was a long shot for a pistol. It was just right for Papa’s short rifle. Farrington knew it, too. He came running, firing as he moved, trying to keep Papa’s head down till he could get close enough for a really good shot.

Papa didn’t let him get that close. He sighted quick and squeezed the trigger.

Papa had shot a lot of lobo wolves in his day, and some of them on the run. Farrington rolled like one of those wolves. His body twitched a few times, then he was dead.

Papa had never killed a man before, and he never killed one again. He knew it was something he had had to do to save Uncle Jeff. But still he was sick to his stomach. All that coffee he had drunk came up. Later, when he had settled a little, he began wondering how he was going to tell this. Uncle Jeff probably never would forgive him, for he had wanted Farrington for himself. Papa would never be able to convince him Farrington would have killed him. Hubbard would scream murder, and it might be hard to convince a jury that it hadn’t been just that. Men had been known to murder for much less than a brother’s life.

Then it came to him: why tell anybody at all? Nobody had seen it. For all anyone needed to know, Farrington had just saddled up and ridden away. Gunfighters did that sometimes. Many a noted outlaw had simply disappeared, never to be heard of again. A new country, a new name, a new start…

Farrington’s horse was in the corral. Actually, it was a Rocking H sorrel. Papa put Farrington’s bridle and saddle on him, then hoisted Farrington’s body up over the saddle. The horse danced around, smelling blood, and it was a hard job, but Papa got the body lashed down. He went into the house. He took a skillet, a coffeepot, some food—the things Farrington would logically have carried away with him. He rolled these up in Farrington’s blanket and took them with him.

He worried some over the tracks, and he paused to kick dirt over the patch of blood where Farrington had fallen. But in the north, clouds were building. Maybe it would rain and wash out the tracks. If it didn’t rain, at least it would blow. In this country, wind could reduce tracks about as well as a rain.

Papa led the sorrel horse with its load out across the Farrington claim and prayed he wouldn’t run into any Rocking H cowboys. He stayed clear of the road. When he reached his own land, he cut across to the one-time Hubbard line camp. There he dragged Farrington’s body to the edge of the old cistern and dropped him in. He dropped saddle, blankets and everything else in after him. Then he led the sorrel horse back and turned him loose in Hubbard’s big pasture.

Papa was not normally a drinking man, but that afternoon he took a bottle out of the kitchen cabinet and sat on the porch and got drunk.

Late that night, Uncle Jeff came home. He had been drinking too, but for a different reason. He had a couple of friends with him, helping him celebrate.

“Howdy do, big brother,” he shouted all the way from the front gate. “It’s me, little old Jeff, the livest little old Jeff you ever did see!” He swayed up onto the porch and saw Papa sitting there. “Bet you thought they’d be bringin’ me home in a box. You just been sittin’ here a-drinkin’ by yourself and dreadin’ seein’ them come. But I’m here, and I’m still a-kickin’. I won. Farrington never showed up.”

Papa couldn’t make much of a display. “You don’t say!”

“I do say! The whole town was waitin’. He never came. He was scared of me. Tobe Farrington was scared of me!”

Papa said, “I’m glad, Jeff. I’m real glad.” He pushed himself to his feet and staggered off to bed.

Next day there must have been thirty people by at one time or another to congratulate Jeff Barclay. They didn’t see Papa, though. He had gone off to fill up that old cistern before a cow fell in it.

It was told all over West Texas how Jeff Barclay, a greasy-sack rancher, had scared Tobe Farrington into backing down on a challenge. Folks decided Farrington was reputation and nothing else. They always wondered where he went, because nobody ever heard of him after that. Talk was that he had gone into Mexico and had changed his name, ashamed to face up to people after backing down to Jeff Barclay.

Papa was more than glad to let them believe that. Like I said, he kept the secret till just before he died. But it must have troubled him, and when finally he knew his time was coming, he told me. He kept telling me it was something he had to do to save Uncle Jeff.

The irony was that it didn’t really save Uncle Jeff. If anything, it killed him. Being the way he was, Uncle Jeff let the notoriety go to his head. Got so he was always looking for another Tobe Farrington. He turned cocky and quarrelsome. Gradually he alienated his friends. He even lost Delia Larrabee. The only person he didn’t lose was Papa.

Papa wasn’t there to help the day Uncle Jeff finally met a man who was like Tobe Farrington. Uncle Jeff was still clawing for his pistol when he fell with two bullets in his heart.

Uncle Jeff’s four sections went to Papa, but he sold them along with his own—not to Port Hubbard. He bought a ranch further west, in the Davis Mountains.

And Delia Larabee? She married Papa. I was one of their six sons.