How The West Was Won Part 16

He filled his cup and stood there drinking the coffee. Thoughtfully he looked down at Jethro.

"Worth the whole pa.s.sel of them," he said aloud. He put down the cup and went around gathering up the guns. Then very carefully he went through the pockets of each of them, touching nothing but the money. He pocketed this and made a bundle of the weapons and ammunition, and then he went down on the flat and caught the saddled horse.

He led the horse back to the edge of the grove and tied the bundle of weapons, all of which represented money, behind the saddle. He rousted through the supplies and made a couple of packs. Then, riding the horse, he went down by the stream and put a loop over a couple of pack horses. Returning, he loaded them up.

There was one other thing to do. With cinch rings from a saddle, heated red-hot, he burned the names into the side of a tree:

JETHRO STUART 1883.

ZEKE RAILS 1883.

RED HART 1883.

KID 1883.

Dropping the cinch rings, he stepped into the saddle. He had found a dim trail over the rocks near where he had been hiding, and he started out. It was noon when he stopped out on the first ridge, and he looked back. The valley lay quiet under the sun, the stream a strip of silver through the green. "I ain't a-comin' back," he said.

Chapter 20.

The station was two rooms. The railroad agent was in one of them with his telegraph key and his tickets. A window opened into the waiting room itself, which had benches along the walls and a pot-bellied stove. The waiting room was twelve by fourteen feet, and much too large for the business. Several giant cottonwood trees shaded the station and a patch of gra.s.s nearby. Their leaves rustled constantly, chafing their pale green surfaces together. Zeb Rawlings was used to the sound and he liked it. Julie had spread a checkered cloth on the gra.s.s and was laying out their lunch.

Zeb leaned against the trunk of the nearest cottonwood, half asleep. The children kept running out and looking up the railroad track in the direction from which the train would come. Eve, who was five, helped her mother. Linus, who was seven, and Prescott, nine years old, played Indians among the trees. "Have you ever seen the ranch?" Julie asked.

"No," Zeb answered, "but I rode through that country once. Green gra.s.s right up to your stirrups, all over that valley. You'll like it, Julie." "I'd like it if there was no gra.s.s at all."

Prescott yelled from the tree he had climbed. "Hey, pa, look!" Glancing around, they saw Linus hanging by one arm from a limb of the cottonwood, while with his other hand he gripped his throat, his tongue protruding to simulate a hanging man.

"Linus! You get down from there!" Julie ordered.

"He's Billy the Kid and I hung him, pa," Prescott said. "Billy wasn't hung, Press," Zeb corrected. "Pat Garrett shot him. Two years ago come July."

"That's the only hanging tree left in the Territory," Julie said irritably. "I wish they'd cut it down."

"They might need it," Zeb commented.

"Zeb Rawlings, you know darned well that n.o.body ever gets lynched any more. Not even horse thieves."

"It's a beautiful tree, Julie, and it gives a lot of shade. And shade can be a mighty scarce item in this country."

"The shade of killing."

The children ran out to look up the track again, and Julie turned to Zeb. "Do you ever wonder about pa? Whatever became of him, I mean?" "Your pa," Zeb said, "was a man who made mighty few mistakes. Whatever happened to him happened when he was doing the right thing. And whoever left those guns at the post office thought so, too."

"Zeb?"

"What?"

"Do you know anything you haven't told me?"

"Not to speak of. He left a note with those guns." Zeb drew it from his pocket.

"I've been meaning to show it to youa"not that it says much." She opened the folded bit of coa.r.s.e wrapping paper. On it was written: Died game. Lamar Valley, Wyoming.

"And nothing else?"

"Porter Clark was up early that morning, and he saw a man riding through town.

He knew the man and thought I ought to know he was around." Zeb Rawlings stared thoughtfully at the dancing heat waves in the distance. "He was an old outlaw ... one of the wild breed who ran with Dutch Henry down in the Panhandle, fought in the Lincoln County war, the Horrell-Higgins feud, most everything."

"Did you see him? Do you think he was the one who left those guns?"

Zeb shrugged. "Who knows? Might be coincidence." "Pa!" Prescott shouted from the tracks. "It's comin'! I can hear the train comin'!"

Zeb listened, and heard the far-off whistle. He got to his feet, then helped Julie up.

"Oh, dear, I do hope your aunt likes us, Zeb."

He smiled at her. "Julie, how you talk! Was there ever anybody who didn't like you?"

Zeb took her elbow and together they walked to the platform where a few people were waiting for the incoming train. Zeb responded to little Eve's reaching arms and lifted her up.

The boys came running up the track, and Julie called to them. "Boys! You stand back here with us. Now, do what I tell you or you can't come with us again." Zeb looked down the platform and then very quietly put Eve down.

"Pa!" she begged.

"No, you stay there, Eve. Your pa has things to do."

Julie glanced at him quickly, but he seemed interested only in the train. A man was talking to the station agent, another stood nearby. Both men wore belt guns, which was not surprising, since almost half the men present wore them, too.

"Do you know what she looks like, Zeb?" Julie asked.

"What?"

"Your Aunt Lilitha"can you recognize her?"

Julie looked at him, and glanced around her. She saw nothing to alarm her, yet she was uneasy.

"Zeb, what's the matter?"

"Here she comes!" Zeb said, and the train pulled into the station, the big driver-wheels churning. It pulled past them, then backed up until the two pa.s.senger cars were right at the platform.

From the corner of his eye Zeb could see that the men who had been with the station agent had joined a third man not far away. All glanced his way, then looked toward the train.

The first man he had seen was a known outlaw, so there was at least a possibility the others were too. Neither of the others was familiar to him, but their manner was; and as he followed Prescott and Linus toward the cars he thought of the possibilities brought about by their presence. Prescott and Linus brought up short at the sight of Lilith. Lilith van Valen had always been a beautiful woman, and she had not lost that beauty with the years. Moreover, she possessed that certain distinction which comes to one from being someone ... not in the sense of wealth, but of personality and position. Dressed in her finest, and looking still youthful and graceful, she was an elegant figure, unlike anyone either of the boys had seen before. "Gos.h.!.+" Linus said.

"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you our Great-aunt Lilith?" Prescott asked, still not quite believing it.

"If you're Zeb's children, I am." She put her hands on their shoulders and looked into their eyes with a mock seriousness that immediately won them both. "But don't you dare call me your great-aunt in front of any young men!"

"Lilith!"

She looked at Zeb, and put out her hand. "You'll be Zeb Rawlings. I declare, you favor Linus! I'd have known you anywhere, I think." She looked at this tall, strongly built man, with warmth and a glint of humor in his eyes. Lilith, in her time, had looked upon many men in the hard world of the frontier and, looking now at Zeb, she felt tears coming to her eyes. How proud Eve would have been to see her son now! And how pleased with her strong sense of family, she would have been to have them all together again. "Zeb ... Zeb Rawlings!" She felt the tears coming and fought to hold them back.

"Doggone it, Zeb! I swore up and down that I wasn't going to cry!" "You're even prettier than ma said you were. I'd like you to meet my wife Julie."

"Pleased to meet you," Julie said.

"And I'm pleased to meet you, Julie. I just can't tell you how pleased." "You met the boys, Prescott ... Linus. And this is Eve." Prescott caught her hand. "Come on and meet Sam!"

"Sam?" Lilith was startled.

"He's our horse. He could pull two wagons if he wanted. You haven't come home until you know Sam."

Lilith took their hands. "Sorry," she said to Zeb. "I've got to meet Sam. I want to be sure I'm at home."

"I think this means a lot to her," Zeb said to Julie. "More than I'd have thought."

Then he glanced toward the three men, who had walked out to the cars. All three shook hands with a man who had just stepped from the train. Zeb Rawlings felt the skin tighten around his ears. Charlie Gant... At the same instant Gant, evidently warned by one of the three men, turned to look at him. Almost at once he started toward them. A tall man with a swagger and a challenging way, Charlie Gant was a flamboyant figure even on the frontier, where flamboyance was not uncommon. Gant had always favored good clothes, and he wore them now. That he was armed went without question.

"Marshal! Don't tell me you came all the way over here just to meet me? I hardly expected it." He tipped his hat. "And the beautiful Mrs. Rawlings. What a pleasure this is!"

"Let's go, Zeb," Julie said.

"I envy you, Marshal. A well-favored, bright-eyed wife ... as dazzling as that sun up there."

"Zeb ..."

Zeb Rawlings smiled. "Why, Charlie! This is a surprise! I had no idea you were still in the Territory. The last time I saw youa"well, I got the impression you were leaving the country."

Charlie Gant's smile remained, but his eyes turned ugly. "Having a fine family like this, Rawlings, it must make a man want to live." Zeb Rawlings' eyes were cold. "You wanted to live, didn't you, Charlie?"

Abruptly, Gant turned and walked away; and Julie, frightened, looked after him. She caught Zeb's arm. "That was Charlie Gant, wasn't it? I thought you said he was in Montana?"

"Now stop your worrying. I'll get the luggage." When he returned with the hand luggage, Gant and his friends were no longer there. Zeb looked around carefully before he decided they were indeed gone. With a man like Gant, you could never afford to gamble. The one certainty was that he never woulda"not consciously, at least.

To be a criminal, as Gant was, required certain peculiar att.i.tudes of mind, att.i.tudes that invariably led to failure and capture. One was contempt for people and for law; another was optimism. The criminal was invariably optimistic. He had to believe that everything was going to turn out right for him; and in addition to this he had to be enormously conceited, believing in his ability to outwit the law.

Many a time Zeb had heard a criminal sneer, "I'm smarter than any sheriff.

n.o.body but a fool would work for the money they get." What they did not realize was that they were not smarter than a dozen sheriffs, or a hundred. Law was organized now. Descriptions were mailed around from office to office, and there was cooperation between sheriffs and marshals. The very attributes that led them to become criminals were the attributes that betrayed them. Contempt, optimism, and conceit led to carelessness, and carelessness led to imprisonment or death.

Zeb shouldered the trunk and started back to the buckboard. Right now, he thought, youngsters around the country were playing they were Jesse James and his gang; and men who ought to have known better were telling about the treasure Jesse had buried.

In their sixteen years as outlaws, few of the James gang even made a decent living, and most of that time they were on the dodge, hiding out in caves, barns, and shacks, poorly fed, poorly clothed, suspicious of each other and everyone else.

Folks made a lot of the fact that Jesse had been killed by one of his own men. What most of them didn't know was that he had already murdered two of his own gang and was planning to kill others.

As for how tough they werea"that bunch of farmers and businessmen up at Northfield had shot them to doll rags, killing two of them in the gun battle. The only men the James gang killed in Northfield were an unarmed man crossing the street, unaware a holdup was in progress, and the banker, beaten unconscious inside the bank, whom Jesse shot as he fled from the building. Several of the Jesse James outfit had been wounded, and later, when the Youngersa"Cole, Bob, and Jima"were captured. Jim had five wounds, Bob two, and Cole Younger had been shot eleven times. Charlie Pitts was dead. Zeb turned his back to the buckboard and lowered the trunk into place, then pushed it deeper along the bed and lashed it in place with rope. With Julie and Lilith crowded into the seat beside him, he drove into town and up the crowded street to the old clapboarded hotel.

Zeb got down and tied the team. "See to the rooms, will you, Julie?" He turned and started up the street. Lilith caught Julie's expression as she gazed after him. "Is anything wrong, Julie?"

"No ... nothing."

The hotel lobby was high-ceilinged and s.p.a.cious, with two elk heads looking down from the walls, and an antelope head over the mirror. Back of the counter, high on the wall, was a buffalo head, huge and black. "Ma?" Prescott caught her arm. "Can Linus and me sleep outside? Can we, ma? In the buckboard?"

"All right," she said, "but you mustn't go running around. You go right to sleep."

Zeb Rawlings walked up the street and into the office of the town marshal. "Got a minute, Lou?"

"Zeb! Of course, I got a minute."

Lou Ramsey put aside a stack of papers and pushed a cigar box toward Zeb. "Help yourself."

"No, thanks."

Ramsey bit off the tip of his cigar and spat it toward the spittoon. "What can I do for you, Zeb? Go ahead. Name it."

Zeb pushed his hat back on his head. "Charlie Gant's in town."

"What?"

"I saw Gant get off the train today. There were three men waiting for him."

Lou Ramsey's face tightened a little, and he felt irritation mount within him. Why did this have to happen now? Just when he had everything going right and could relax?

"That why you came to me?"

"That's it."

"Zeb, there ain't anything we can do about Charlie Gant. He's a free citizen, and he can come and go as he likes. Furthermore," Ramsey added, "we don't want any trouble here."

Zeb made no reply, and Ramsey went on, "I know what he was, Zeb, but that's over now. It was over the day his brother got himself killed. You should have killed them both, Zeb, but you didn't, and there's nothing anybody can do about it now. All that's pasta"over and done with."