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CHAPTER 1
THEY HAD SHAKEN THE LAST SIGN OF PURSUIT TWO days ago. Now they had to stop riding, for Curly Jack was dying on their hands.
They eased him to the warm ground beneath the thin shade of a mesquite. Because the sun still came through, Dencil Fox unsaddled Curly Jack's horse and draped the wet saddle blanket across the branches to deepen the shade. Dencil poured water from a canteen into a handkerchief and gently touched it to Jack's fevered face.
"You just need to rest a spell, pardner," he said. "You'll be all right directly."
But he knew he was lying. There was the smell of gangrene about Curly Jack — the smell of death.
He wondered how Jack had managed to stay in the saddle as long as he had. It wasn't such a bad wound, they had thought. A bullet high in the shoulder, nothing fatal. But they hadn't dared hunt for a doctor. And the posse hadn't given them much chance to probe for the bullet the first couple of days. When at last they'd had time for Dencil to try, he hadn't been able to extract the slug. If anything, his efforts had made things worse.
Jack weakly motioned toward the canteen, and Dencil touched it to his lips, lifting Jack's head.
The other three men stood around uncomfortably, a deep weariness in their eyes, the droop of their shoulders. They were dusty and bearded. The oldest two were silent, but the youngest began to complain.
"We could have left him off someplace the first day. They'd have found him and took care of him."
Dencil Fox frowned quickly at his younger brother, then looked back at Curly Jack. "They'd have taken care of him, all right. Jack had rather go this way than at the end of a rope."
"If he was goin' to die anyhow, at least we wouldn't have been saddled down with him" Sharply Dencil said, "Shut up, Buster!" He knew Curly Jack could still hear all that was said.
Buster kept talking. "If he'd shot that bank teller, he wouldn't have caught a slug himself."
Dencil said, "We didn't go in there to kill anybody"
"You didn't kill anybody. And you didn't get any money, either."
"We didn't figure on that gutty teller. And we never did know where he got that gun so fast."
Buster Fox said bitterly, "Leavin' me outside to hold the horses ... If I'd been in there, things would've been a right smart different."
"That's why we left you outside."
"Well, you won't leave me outside next time!" Curly Jack died without ever speaking a word. Because there was no shovel, they had to carry him to an arroyo, roll him in his saddle blanket, and cave a steep bank in on top of him. This way, at least, no one was likely to find him for a while. Later, if a rise came down the arroyo and washed the body out into the open, the four riders would be so far gone that the discovery would not put them in danger.
Dencil Fox stood with hat in hand, gravely looking down on the pile of fresh-caved earth at the bottom of the arroyo.
"Mighty poor way to leave you, Jack." His voice was sorrowful. "No marker, no preacher to read over you."
Buster spoke dryly, "Jack wasn't exactly the churchgoin' kind."
Dencil said, "He was a good man, and don't you forget it."
"Too bad he wasn't a good shot."
They rode on then, leading Jack's horse for an extra, putting miles between them and the place where the fifth outlaw had died.
In time Dencil Fox said, "We got to find us a good spot to lay over. These horses will die under us if we don't rest them a few days."
A tall rider named Hackberry said, "We crossed the railroad tracks late yesterday. I figure we're about halfway between Grafton and Swallowfork. There's a big draw runs through a ways this side of Swallowfork. With the wet spring they had here, there ought to be good grass in it, and plenty of water. We could camp there as long as we wanted. Ain't anybody apt to see us except maybe a stray cowpuncher or two."
Dencil said, "You don't reckon they've heard about that bank job?"
"That was a long ways off. Last time I was in Swallowfork, it didn't have no telegraph or nothin'. Who'd be lookin' for us down here?"
"Nobody, I reckon. And I could sure use me a good rest."
The younger Fox pushed his horse up close to Hackberry's. "What kind of a town is this Swallowfork? Chance a man could find himself a little entertainment?"
Hackberry said, "The kind you're lookin' for?" He shook his head. "Last time I was there it was just a dull lookin' little cowtown. You could get yourself somethin' to drink and maybe a quiet game of cards, low limit. Nothin' fancy. And no wheeligo girls."
Buster was plainly disappointed. "Ain't that a shame!" Then, his face brightened again. "I wonder if they got a band ..."
A loud clatter was going on at the shack's old cast-iron cookstove.
"If you don't quit polishin' that tin star and go chop some firewood, there won't be any breakfast!"
Sitting on the edge of his cot, Jim-Bob McClain turned about with a youthfully sheepish grin and waved a hand at the young man who had spoken. "Hold your horses, Dan. I'll get to it directly." He pinned the deputy badge on his left shirt pocket, catching the Bull Durham sack with the pin the first time he tried. He reached down and pulled on his long-eared, high-heeled boots. He already had his hat on. It was the first thing he looked for when he got up of a morning: an old cowboy habit he had developed sleeping on the ground in wintertime, dressing from the head downward as he worked up out of the warm blankets.
Dan Singleton stood at the black stove, poking remnant woodchips in on top of the reluctant flame he coaxed out of dry kindling. Ashes filtered out around the sprung door and fell at his feet. "Thought this was your week to chop the wood," Dan prodded Jim-Bob good-naturedly. "Or do I have to call out the law?"
"I meant to do it last night, but with the dance down at Sothern's barn and all, I flat forgot."
"Then you better get at it, or it's goin' to be a long, hungry day."
Jim-Bob walked out of the little frame shack and paused to enjoy the clean freshness of the early morning. This was the summertime's best hour in the West Texas range country, just at sunup. The cool air of a brand new day braced a man and gave him vigor, made him imagine he could ride horseback a hundred miles without his shoulders ever sagging. It gave him all manner of grand ambition, notions the noonday heat would later bake out of him.
Along the wagon road just hollering distance away lay the beginnings of the town of Swallowfork. A scattering of frame and adobe houses first, thickening up and bunching closer together the nearer they lay to the rock courthouse and jail and the dozen or so business buildings that made up the core, it sprawled out haphazardly like a big remuda of horses loose-herded across half of a valley.
Jim-Bob listened. About all he could hear was a couple of roosters crowing the sun up, and a shut-in milkpen calf bawling for its mammy.
Quiet town, most of the time. Sleepy livestock town, drawing its livelihood from the good rolling rangeland that lay about it; from the tall bunch grasses that made the hillsides wave green in the gentle south breeze; from the valley's short, tough curly-mesquite buffalo grass; from the leggy, longhorned cattle that roamed and grazed there; and from the scattering bands of free-ranging sheep that were edging in on the cowman's domain, winning him over by pressure of economics if not from liking for the animal.
Quiet town it was, but one with ambitions, and one with a future. Jim-Bob's town. Like the town, he had ambitions. He could only hope he had a future, too.
He stood with hands shoved deep in his pockets, jingling the coins he carried there. Pay from his first month as a deputy sheriff of Coldridge County. He had hoped and worked and planned for a long time to pin that badge on his shirt. Now he had it.
"Jim-Bob," Dan Singleton's impatient voice insisted through the open door, "how about that wood?"
"Comin'."
A big red dog, ugly as a mud fence, sidled around the shack and came up wagging his tail. "Mornin', Ranger," Jim-Bob greeted him, patting his broad head. "Where'd you spend the night? Liable to be a scandal around here if you don't take to stayin' home."
Jim-Bob unwedged the ax from the big mesquite limb that served as a chopping block and pulled a smaller limb down from the woodpile. He and Dan Singleton had taken a couple of Sunday afternoons and a borrowed wagon to haul in this supply of dry wood from a brushy draw a ways out of town. His strong back and hard-muscled arms made short work of the wood. In a few minutes he walked into the shack with a good armload.
"Hope you didn't cut it too long this time," Dan said. He had once accused Jim-Bob of trying to do such a poor job of it that Dan would take over in disgust. He wasn't far wrong. JimBob never did go much for wood-chopping and the like. He preferred something he could do ahorse-back. But a man who made up his mind to live in town and be a deputy sheriff also had to make up his mind to do some menial chores he didn't care for.
Outside for another armload of wood, Jim-Bob paused to squint down the south wagon road that led in from Dry Creek and from ranches like the C Bar. There, in the reddish glow of the sun just up, he saw two riders trotting their horses purposefully toward town. Recognizing them, he waved.
"You-all come on over and have breakfast with us," he called.
They only acknowledged his offer with a quick wave of their hands and rode on. By the rigid way they sat their saddles, Jim-Bob could tell they meant business. He frowned and looked down at rusty-hided old Ranger, who had moved out a little way to size up the pair. "Somethin' the matter, Ranger. They've had to ride half the night to get in from the C Bar. And they're both packin' guns."
The way the country had settled up and closed in, folks weren't wearing their guns much anymore. When they did, it was usually because they felt a genuine need for them.
"Now what would Walter Chapman and Tom Singleton be needin' with guns?" he mused.
Walter Chapman owned the C Bar. Tom Singleton was his foreman and Dan Singleton's older brother.
Jim-Bob had worked on Chapman's ranch for several years after his father had died and left the growing boy to shift for himself. Excepting maybe Sheriff Mont Naylor, there wasn't a better man to work for, anywhere, than Walter Chapman. He was a solid old ranchman of the longhorn school. When he said work, now, he meant work, but he'd be right there beside you, or maybe out in front of you. He paid well and never abused man or horse. Always an easy mark for a hard-luck story, he was forever picking up dogies like the orphaned Singleton boys or Jim-Bob McClain, giving them a chance to work out their own way. But if he ever caught you lying to him or cheating him, there would be hell among the yearlings.
Dan Singleton stood in the door, watching the riders move on toward town. "That looked like Tom," he said, puzzled.
Jim-Bob went on picking up wood. "It was him. Never even stopped to say howdy."
"Awfully early for him to be in town. Must be something wrong out there."
"I reckon we'll hear about it soon enough." Heavily loaded, Jim-Bob strained to pick up the one remaining piece of wood and spilled half of his armload. He muttered something under his breath and made two trips of it.
He had the woodbox half full by the time Dan called him. He brushed the dust and chips away from his clothes and poured fresh water into a basin on the soap-slick washstand. Lathering his hands as best he could in the strong soap, he took a long whiff of the bacon-and-black coffee smell. Dan was a heap sight better cook than Jim-Bob ever even wanted to be.
Jim-Bob liked Dan, and he liked this place they shared here on the edge of town: an ancient shack, a small barn, a couple of corrals and a creaky windmill that needed new leathers and a greasing. The shack wasn't much, as houses go. They had painted it inside and out, but the job had been done several years too late to keep the place from weathering beyond redemption. One corner sagged gently where the cedar-post foundation had sunk. The windows didn't fit well anymore, and the west wind whistled in around them. The roof leaked in a couple of places, but this was a dry country where a leaky roof was only an occasional inconvenience. For two happy young bachelors in the springtime of life and the first glow of real independence, the place was more than adequate.
Dan Singleton was getting a good start as a teller in the bank. He'd always been a good-enough kid cowboy, but it had been easy to tell that he held promise of better things. He liked to read, and he had an unusual aptitude with figures. There wasn't an old-time cowman around who could do a better job of tallying cattle. Dan never dropped a count. Walter Chapman had finally fired him off the C Bar for his own good, forcing him to accept the job which old man True Farrell had been offering him at the bank. Dan Singleton was going to amount to something someday, people said. And everybody knew that one of the things West Texas needed most was more bankers who knew something about the cow business.
They weren't all sure about Jim-Bob McClain. He was a pretty fair cowboy, a little on the wild side. He would ride any horse they led out to him, or at least would try to. He would rope anything that would run from him, and he would stand tied to it. But he would never make a banker, or a storekeeper. Most people figured he would just end up another stove-up cowpuncher.
But old John McClain before him had been sheriff of Coldridge County for many years, and a good one. Sheriff Mont Naylor had the idea that young Jim-Bob McClain might have the makings in him, too, if he had a little of the rashness stomped out of him. Jim-Bob had pestered him long enough about it, anyway.
Jim-Bob's chance came when Mont had to fire Chum Lawton for pistol-whipping a harmless old Mexican sheep-herder whose only crime had been taking on a little too much tequila. Mont rode out to the C Bar and swore Jim-Bob in.
If he lived a hundred years, Jim-Bob would never again know the great swell of pride that came when Mont pinned the deputy's badge on him.
Yesterday was a month he'd worn that badge. "Here's for your first month," Mont had spoken simply as he paid him. And that was all he had said. Not a thank you or a howdydo, just that and nothing more. The young deputy had tried to see something more in the sheriff's eyes, for nothing in the world mattered like pleasing Mont Naylor. He listened to those five words a hundred times in his mind, and still he didn't know. He had done his best. Maybe that hadn't been enough.
Good thing about living close to town this way, they could always buy fresh food like vegetables and eggs, something they had often missed on the ranch. Jim-Bob liked his eggs. He was so busy eating that he didn't pay much attention to Dan Singleton. He finally noticed Dan watching him with humor in his eyes.
"You were sure havin' a good time at the dance," Dan said.
"Had to stay around and be sure things stayed peaceful. It's what I'm hired for."
"I think you were goin' far beyond the call of duty. I noticed you takin' mighty good care of Tina Kendrick. You never gave anybody else much chance to dance with her."
Jim-Bob felt his face coloring. It had never occurred to him that anybody would notice. Looking away from Dan, he dropped a strip of bacon into Ranger's eager jaws.
Dan said, "Chum Lawton was plenty burned up. After all, he brought her, and you danced with her all night."
His dancing with Tina Kendrick wasn't all that had Chum Lawton riled, Jim-Bob thought. There never had been much love lost between them, and especially not since Jim-Bob got Chum's old job. Chum was out breaking tough broncs for a living now. It wasn't something a man enjoyed after soft living around town.
Dan commented, "That little girl, Sue-Ellen Thorn, from up the creek, had her eyes on you a lot You could have her, I think, if you wanted her."
Jim-Bob grunted. "I was scared to death she was goin' to come right out and ask me to dance. You know, they tell me there's girls that will do things like that."
Dan shook his head, smiling. "Must be awful tough to have so many girls on the string."
Sheriff Mont Naylor rode up as Jim-Bob carried his dirty dishes to the washpan on the kitchen cabinet. Walter Chapman and Tom Singleton sat beside him on their horses, their faces grim.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Shadow of a Star"
by .
Copyright © 1984 Elmer Kelton.
Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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