the High Graders (1965) Read online

  There was a time when I knew, Turkeytrac k mighty well."

  "Hold up there!"

  No stranger to the tone of a voice behind a gun , Mike Shevlin stopped.

  "Who'd you ever know at Turkeytrack?" c ame the question from the darkness.

  "Rawhide Jenkins was foreman then, and they ha d a sourdough cook named Lemmon." Then th e remembrance of the voice came to him suddenly , by association. "And they had a cantankerous ol d devil of a wolfer named Winkler."

  The door opened wider. "Come on careful, wit h your hands empty."

  "That wolf-hunter," Shevlin continued, "too k over as cook one time when Lemmon was laid up.

  He made the best coffee and the lousies t biscuits a man ever ate."

  He walked up the ramp and into the darkness of a room that had once been the main part of th e sawmill. A fire glowed redly on a heart h across the room, and the firelight gleamed from th e blade of the saw.

  Shevlin paused just inside the door, hi s senses alert and waiting, his hands grippin g lightly the edges of his slicker.

  "Light it, Eve."

  A match flared, revealing the face of a girl , strangely lovely in the soft light. She touche d the flame to the wick of a coal-oil lantern, the n lowered the globe and hung the lantern so the ligh t fell upon Shevlin's face.

  He knew what they saw: a big man wit h wide shoulders and a lean body that bulked eve n larger now with the wet slicker and the black leathe r chaps. A man over six feet tall who di d not look the two hundred pounds he weighed, a man with a wedge-shaped face turned to leather by win d and sun.

  Using his left hand, Shevlin tilted his ha t back so they could see his face, wondering if th e years had left enough for Winkler to recognize.

  "Shevlin!" the man exclaimed. "Mik e Shevlin! Well, I'll be dogged! Heard you wa s killed down on the Nueces."

  "It was a close thing."

  Winkler did not lower the rifle, and Shevli n held his peace, knowing why it covered him.

  "What happened out there just now?"

  "You had an eavesdropper. He tried a shot at me."

  The huge room was almost empty. Here where th e great saw blade had screamed through logs, cuttin g out planks to build the town, all was silent bu t for the subdued crackle of the fire and the rain on th e walls and windows. The firelight and the lanter n shed their glow even to the corners; he saw only th e girl and the old wolfer, yet there had been fou r horses out there.

  There were no chairs and no table, but there was a sixteen-foot pine log from which the top had bee n cut for planks, leaving a flat surface that wa s at once a bench and a table. Near the fireplac e there was a stack of wood, and at the fire's edg e an ancient, smoke-blackened coffeepot.

  The girl was young, not much over twenty, but he r manner was cool and carried authority. Sh e regarded him with direct attention. "Do you alway s shoot that quick?"

  "I take notions."

  Winkler was still suspicious. "What did you com e back for? Who sent for you?"

  Removing his slicker, Shevlin walked to th e fire and stretched his hands toward th e coals. What was going on here? He ha d returned, it seemed, to a town crawling wit h suspicion and fear. How could mining do that to a town? Or was it the mining?

  "What did you come back for?" Winkle r repeated.

  "Eli's dead."

  "Eli?"

  "Eli Patterson."

  "That's been a while. Anyway, what's tha t to do with you, I never heard of you going out of your wa y for anybody. What did you have to do with that ol d coot?"

  "I liked him." Shevlin rubbed his hands abov e the coals. "I've been down Sonora way.

  Only heard a few weeks ago that he wa s dead."

  "So you came runnin', hey? Take m y advice and light a shuck out of here. Everything's changed, and we've trouble enough without you."

  "I want to know what happened to Eli."

  Winkler snorted. "As I recall, h e wasn't the man to do business with a cow thief."

  Mike Shevlin had expected that, sooner o r later. "Maybe he didn't think of me tha t way," he said mildly.

  The girl spoke up. "Who sent you to thi s mill?" she asked.

  "It seemed like a good place to sleep. Neve r dreamed anybody would be holed up here."

  She must be Three Sevens. What did h e know of the Three Sevens outfit?

  "You had friends here," Winkler said. "Why not g o to them? Or stop in the hotel?"

  "I never had any friends in this country. Onl y Eli Patterson."

  "You trailed with Gentry and them. What abou t him? What about Ben Stowe?"

  Rain drummed on the roof, but Shevlin wa s sure he heard a faint stirring in the loft above.

  So that was where they were, then.

  "I think," Eve said, "that this man is a spy."

  "You think whatever you're of a mind to. I'm going to get me some sleep here." Then he added , "Eli gave me a job when I was a youngster."

  "He never owned no cattle," Winkler said.

  "He hired me to unload a wagon for him , then he spoke to Moorman about me. That's ho w come I hired on at Turkeytrack."

  "You ran with Gentry and that crowd," Eve said.

  "I know all about you."

  "Who ever knows all about anybody? As to th e Gentry crowd, I'll own to having been my shar e of a fool."

  Come to think of it, he had never been much o f anything else. He was a drifter, a man wh o fought for wages, mainly because he knew how to do i t better than most, even in this country. Yet wha t did that mean? It meant when he was through they paid hi m off, and were glad to be rid of him. And in the end?

  In the end he would die up a canyon some plac e when his ammunition gave out. Or at the end of a rope.

  Weariness swept over him, and he fel t empty, exhausted both mentally and physically.

  He was tired of being wary, tired of running , tired of being alert for trouble. But he could not hav e picked a worse time to feel that way, for he ha d come back to a country that was obviously on th e brink of a shooting war.

  Yet he had no idea what was going on. He only knew that the town was cold, wet, an d unfrly, just as it had been seventeen years ago.

  Chapter 2

  He had come to Rafter a gaunt youngster o f thirteen astride a buckskin that showed every rib , thin as a bed slat himself, and wearing all he owned.

  He carried a single-shot Sharps .50 b uffalo gun, one ragged blanket, and a Nav y Colt. The saddle he bestrode was a cast-of f McClellan, left behind by the Army.

  Eli Patterson had been alone in the stor e when the boy entered, wet to the skin, but carrying al l the fine, stiff pride of a boy alone and seekin g a man's job. A boy who was ragged and wet, an d who knew he was nothing much to begin with.

  "Know where a man can find work?" He was shakin g with chill, but he fought the tremble from his voice.

  "Need help myself," Patterson had lied.

  "Cold makes me stiff. There's a wagonload of stuff out back that need s unloading."

  "I'm hunting a riding job," the boy sai d proudly, holding himself tall.

  Patterson shrugged. "Take it or leav e it."

  Pride fought with hunger, and lost. "I'l l take it," the boy said, "but if anybod y asks you, I'm a rider, not no day hand."

  Patterson nodded, and taking a silver dolla r from his pocket, he said, "Dinnertime. You eat u p and come back."

  The half-starved youngster had looked at the ol d man with cold eyes. "I ain't earned it.

  I'll eat after."

  Later in the day Jack Moorman walke d into the store, tough, hearty old Jack. El i nodded to indicate the boy. "Friend of mine , Jack, just rode in. I don't reckon he's really rustling work, but if you need a hand, he's a rider."

  Moorman turned his head to look, taking in th e story at a glance. He was a bluff, kindl y man. "Can you ride bog, boy?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir. And I can rope an' tie, an d I've got the best cuttin' horse in this her e country." He gestured toward the sorry-lookin g b
uckskin at the hitch rack.

  "That crow-bait?" Moorman scoffed. "Why , I wouldn't have that rack of bones on the place!"

  "Keep your job then," Mike Shevli n replied brusquely. "I'll not work for a ma n who judges a horse by the meat on him."

  Surprised, Jack Moorman glanced aroun d at Eli as if to say, "Hey, what is this?"

  Then he said, "Sorry, son, no offens e intended. You just come on out and bring your horse. I s urmise all he needs is a bait or two o f oats and some grama."

  Following that meeting with Jack Moorman , Mike Shevlin had worked two years fo r Turkeytrack, filling out and growing taller. An d no man in the outfit had shouldered extra work becaus e he was a boy, nor had Mike backed away fro m trouble. Not even on the day when he rode up to a rustler with a tied-down Turkeytrack calf and a brand half altered.

  Old Jack came out to the horse camp to hea r Mike's account of the shooting, for the rustler had bee n brought to headquarters draped over a saddle.

  Moorman saw the burn on the boy's arm from a bullet that just missed.

  "He told me to take out runnin' and to kee p my trap shut about things that didn't concern me.

  Said I'd live a lot longer. I told hi m I rode for the brand, and rustlin' Turkeytrac k stock concerned me a-plenty.

  "He grabbed for his gun, only I t aken my time and he didn't. He got off th e first shot, and he missed."

  "Boy"--Moorman shifted his big body i n the saddle--"y wore that gun when I first saw you , and I figured you were young for it, but you've worked tw o years for me and this is the first time you've ever dragge d iron. You're old enough to wear a gun, all right."

  At fifteen Mike Shevlin was as tall a s he ever would be, and was stronger than most men. He had never known a day of anything but hard work, and wa s proud that he could work beside men and hold thei r respect.

  From ten to thirteen he had worked beside his uncl e on a mining claim, taking his regular turn wit h single-jack or double-jack. Swinging the heav y sledges had put power in his shoulders and ha d taught him to hit with his weight behind it.

  As a result, when Turkeytrack rod e over to the dances at Rock Springs schoolhouse , or over to Horse Hollow, Mike Shevli n won six fist fights before losing one. And h e whipped that man the following Saturday night.

  When he rode away from the Moorman outfi t and started running with Gib Gentry and Ben Stowe , Eli Patterson warned him against it. "They'r e a bad crowd, Mike. They're not your kind."

  Now, listening to the rain outside the old mill , he knew again, as he had realized long before, tha t Eli Patterson had been right. Gentry an d Stowe had always run with the wrong crowd; a man i s judged by the company he keeps, and so had Mik e Shevlin been judged.

  "That old man should never have been buried o n Boot Hill," he said. "To him, that would see m the final disgrace. I intend to find out wha t happened."

  "Ask your friend Gentry," Eve said.

  "You take my advice," Winkler said, "an d you'll light out as soon as the rain lets up. Yo u take out while you're able."

  Shevlin turned his eyes to the girl. "I d idn't get your name."

  "Eve Bancroft. I own the Thre e Sevens."

  But Winkler was not to be sidetracked. "Yo u get out," he said. "I remember you, Shevlin , and that crowd you trailed with, and I've heard of yo u since, and none of it any good. You leave out of her e or we'll bury you here."

  Ignoring the old man, Shevlin rinse d a cup and filled it with coffee. His own cup wa s among the gear of his saddle.

  These were cattle people. But the buildings in town wer e all mining--assay offices, miners' supplies , even the saloons now had names reflecting the minin g business. So why were these people from the cattle ranche s meeting here in secret?

  Mike Shevlin's life had been lived in a n atmosphere of range feuds and cattle wars , and this meeting had all the earmarks of a preliminar y to such trouble. Why else would a pretty youn g woman like Eve Bancroft, a ranch owner, b e meeting here with an old hard-case like Winkler, an d whoever it was that was hiding upstairs?

  He gulped the hot, strong coffee. "I'l l bunk in the loft," he said, "and stay out of you r way."

  He finished the coffee and set down the cup; t hen he walked over to the ladder. Putting his han d on the rung to start climbing, he felt th e dampness of wet mud under his fingers. Somebody wa s up there, all right, and waiting for him.

  Eve started to speak, but hesitated; Winkle r just watched him, his hard old eyes revealin g nothing.

  Shevlin climbed the ladder and lifted the tra p with his left hand. Light shone suddenly in hi s eyes, but he spoke casually. "You pull tha t trigger, Ray, and you're a bigger fool than I t hought."

  He pushed the loose trap door aside, the n went up through the hole and kicked the trap shu t without taking his eyes from the two men who waited ther e for him.

  Ray Hollister looked older than he shoul d have, and thinner than Shevlin remembered him. Ther e was bitterness and frustration in the lines around hi s eyes and mouth, lines that Shevlin did no t remember. Ray Hollister had found himself to b e a smaller man than he wished to believe, and h e hated it.

  The other man, Babcock, was a thin, patien t man of few loyalties, but they were loyaltie s grimly held. He believed in Ra y Hollister and he believed in cattle; and of the tw o men, Shevlin was sure Babcock was the mor e dangerous--an impression that would have bot h surprised and infuriated Ray Hollister.

  "Who told you I was here?" Holliste r demanded. "Was it Eve?"

  "They were expecting you in town, so when I sa w four horses in the stable and realized somebody wa s hiding here, I knew it simply had to be you."

  "I'm not hiding! I'll be damned if I a m!"

  "Who'd you shoot at?" Babcock asked.

  "The man who followed him." Shevlin nodde d to indicate Hollister, whose boots were still muddy.

  "Whoever it was thought I'd caught him, and h e took a blast at me."

  "Nobody followed me!" Holliste r exclaimed sharply. "They don't even know I'm in this part of the country!"

  "Gentry knew," Babcock reminded him.

  "Gib's all right. He's cattle."

  "Is he?" Babcock asked skeptically.

  "You'd better be almighty sure."

  Hollister was on edge and belligerent. He had always been a fool, trying to spend with th e spenders, gamble with the sharpers, test his strength with th e strongest. Sooner or later he would get himsel f killed, and others with him. Mike Shevlin wante d nothing between himself and Hollister but distance.

  "I hear Gentry killed El i Patterson?" Mike said it like a question.

  The atmosphere of the loft altered in som e subtle fashion. With years of violence and tensio n behind him, Mike knew when he had touched a nerve, and he had now.

  "Never did figure that out." Babcock wa s honestly puzzled. "It wasn't like Eli to carr y a gun."

  "Whoever says he carried a gun," Shevli n replied shortly, "lies. Eli was a Quaker , and he lived by it."

  "You can't be sure of that," Holliste r protested.

  "I knew him."

  "The hell with that! You never know a man unti l he's pushed. All right, you came here to sleep , so sleep. We don't want any argument."

  Shevlin walked to a pile of straw, pulle d some out and scattered more over it, then lay down with hi s slicker stretched over him.

  As he relaxed he thought of El i Patterson. Patterson had lived by hi s code, and so must Shevlin live by his, differen t though they might be. In the last analysis it wa s all a man had to live by. Patterson, a man of peace, had died by the gun. I t remained to see how Shevlin would die. This was wha t he was thinking as his eyes closed. And this was in hi s mind when he awakened to broad daylight and a n empty loft.

  He climbed down the ladder and stirred the fe w coals into a fire. Someone had been considerat e enough to leave the coffeepot among the coals. Th e coffee was hot as hell itself, and black as sin.

  Well, now that he was here, what was he to do?


  What could he do but what he had always done? He would bull his way in, worry the ones who ha d something to cover up, and force them into some kind of a move. When men moved hastily they often mad e mistakes. ...

  He would start with Mason. He saddled up an d rode into town.

  When he sta4 his horse at the livery stabl e he ignored the hostler who sat tipped back i n a cane-bottomed chair chewing the stem of a n ancient pipe. He was a thin old man with a narrow face and shrewd blue eyes that tol d nothing.

  Shevlin walked to the door of the stable and stoo d there, lighting a Spanish cigar. As his hand s cupped around the match, he spoke without turning hi s head. "You're a long way from home , Brazos."

  "This here's home, an' don't you b e a-spoilin' it for me!"

  "All I want is information."

  "In this town? That's the last thing you'll get.

  This here town is scared. Ever'body rollin' i n money, an' ever'body scared."

  "Have you heard the name of Jack Moorman?"

  Shevlin asked.

  "That's one of the things scares 'em. Seems h e was beat to death in the street one night, but nobod y seen it, an' nobody believes it."

  "Any talk about it?"

  "Not no more. On'y once in a while somebod y gets liquored up. Seems ever'body i n Rafter suddenly set out to get rich, an' th e on'y two honest men in town got stiff-necke d about it. Moorman was one of 'em, so he go t himself killed ... handy-like."

  "And the other was Patterson?"

  "Inquest ruled it a fair shootin',"

  Brazos said, "but nobody paid much mind.

  Nobody went to the inquest, an' you never hear d less talk about anything. Seemed like the y was all too anxious to get their fists into th e honey-pot."

  "They say Gentry did it," Shevlin said.

  "Why, now. He was the one showed up at th e inquest an' took the blame."

  "You don't think he did it?"

  "You take a hostler now--he's like a bartende r or a waiter," was the way Brazos answered.

  "Folks just naturally talk as if they wasn't there at all, or else was born without ears.

  Folks get so used to 'em they even forge t they're around.

  "I heard the shot that killed Patterson,"