'Drag' Harlan by Charles Alden Seltzer (easy to read books for adults list .txt) 📕

“You’ve made yourself solid with the bunch, for sure, by offerin’ ’em a bigger divvy. They’ve been grumblin’ about it for a long time. They’re all sore at Haydon an’ Deveny for bein’ greedy. But you’re sure cookin’ up a heap of trouble with Haydon an’ Deveny!”

Harlan grinned with grim mirthlessness. It had been his first opportunity to stir up dissension and strife in the outlaw camp, and he had taken instant advantage of it. He had created factional feeling, and he was prepared to accept the consequences.

And, later in the day, when he saw Haydon ride in, dismount and cast a surprised glance at the empty corral, he knew that the moment for which he had planned, had come.

Woodward was nowhere in sight; and Harlan, who had been in the blacksmith-shop, made himself visible to Haydon by stepping outside.

Haydon called to him, sharply; and Harlan walked slowly to where the outlaw chief stood, a saturnine grin on his face, his eyes alight with a cold humor that might have been illuminating to Haydon had he taken the trouble to look into them.

Haydon was laboring under some strong passion. He was suppressing it with an effort, but it showed in his tensed muscles and in his flushed face.

“Where are the cattle?” he demanded, his voice a trifle hoarse.

“They’re headed for Willow Wells—where you’ve been sellin’ them.”

“By whose orders?” Haydon’s voice was choked with passion.

“Mine,” drawled Harlan. Harlan might have explained that the stock had been suffering in the crowded enclosure, thus assuaging Haydon’s wrath. But he gave no explanation—that would have been a revelation of eagerness to escape blame and the possible consequences of his act. Instead of explaining he looked steadily into Haydon’s eyes, his own cold and unblinking.

He saw Haydon’s wrath flare up—it was in the heightened color that spread upward above the collar of his shirt; he saw the man’s terrific effort at self-control; and his look grew bitter with insolence.

“What’s botherin’ you?” he said.

“The cattle—damn it!” shouted Haydon. “What in hell do you mean by sending them away without orders?”

“I’m havin’ my say, Haydon. We agreed to split everything three ways. Authority to give orders goes with that. That was the agreement. A man’s got to be either a captain or a private, an’ I’ve never played second to any man. I ain’t beginnin’ now.”

“Why, damn you!” gasped Haydon. His eyes were aglare with a terrible rage and hate; he stepped backward a little, bending his right arm, spreading the fingers.

Harlan had made no move, but the light in his eyes betrayed his complete readiness for the trouble that Haydon plainly meditated.

“Yes,” he said, slowly, drawling his words, a little! “It’s come to that, I reckon. You’ve got to flash your gun now, or take it back. No man cusses me an’ gets away with it. Get goin’!”

Haydon stood, swaying from side to side, in the grip of a mighty indecision. The fingers of his right hand spread wider; the hand descended to a point nearer to his pistol holster.

There it poised, the fingers hooked, like the talons of some giant bird about to clutch a victim.

Had Haydon faced a man with less courage; had Harlan’s iron control lacked that quality which permitted him to give an enemy that small chance for life which he always gave them, death might have reigned at the Star again. Haydon owed his life to that hesitation which had made Harlan famous.

And as the strained, tense seconds passed with both men holding the positions they had assumed, it seemed Haydon was slowly beginning to realize that Harlan was reluctant, was deliberately giving him a chance.

A change came over Haydon. The clawlike fingers began to straighten; imperceptibly at first, and then with a spasmodic motion that flexed the muscles in little jerks. The hand became limp; it dropped slowly to his side—down beyond the pistol holster. Then it came up, and the man swept it over his eyes, as though to brush away a vision that frightened him.

His face grew pale, he shuddered; and at last he stood, swaying a little, his mouth open with wonder for the phenomenal thing that had happened to him.

Harlan’s voice, cold and expressionless, startled him:

“You wasn’t meanin’ to cuss me?”

“No!” The denial was blurted forth. Haydon grinned, faintly, with hideous embarrassment; the knowledge that he had been beaten, and that he owed his life to Harlan, was plain in his eyes.

He laughed, uncertainly, as he made an effort to stiffen his lagging muscles.

“I was a bit flustered, Harlan; I talked rather recklessly, I admit. You see, I’ve been used to giving orders myself. I was riled for a minute.”

“That goes!” said Harlan, shortly. His voice had changed. The slow drawl had gone, and a snapping, authoritative sharpness had replaced it.

Haydon gazed at him with a new wonder. He sensed in Harlan’s manner the consciousness of power, the determination to command. At a stroke, it seemed, Harlan had wrenched from him the right to rule. He felt himself being relegated to a subordinate position; he felt at this minute the ruthless force of the man who stood before him; he felt oddly impotent and helpless, and he listened to Harlan with a queer feeling of wonder for the absence of the rage that should have gripped him.

“I’m runnin’ things from now on,” Harlan said. “I ain’t interferin’ with the Star. But I’m runnin’ things for the boys. I told Rogers to drive the cattle to Willow’s Wells—an’ to sell them. I’ve promised the boys a bigger divvy. They get it. I’ve told them to take a day off, in town, after they turn the cattle over.

“There’s got to be a new deal. The boys are fussed up—claimin’ they ain’t gettin’ their share. I’m seein’ that they do. You can’t run a camp like this an’ not treat the boys right.”

The wonder that had been aroused in Haydon grew as Harlan talked; it increased in intensity until, when Harlan’s voice died away, it developed into suspicion.

That was what Harlan had come to the Star for! He wanted to run the camp, to direct the activities of the outlaws in the valley. Power! Authority! Those were the things Harlan craved for.

Haydon saw it all, now. He saw that Harlan wanted to dominate—everything. He wanted to rule the outlaw camp; he wanted to run the Rancho Seco; he intended to get possession of the gold that Morgan had left, and he wanted Barbara Morgan.

The rage that had held Haydon in its clutch when he had called Harlan to him was reviving. Haydon’s face was still white, but the fury in his eyes—slowly growing—was not to be mistaken.

Harlan saw it, and his lips straightened. He had expected Haydon would rage over what he had determined to tell him; and he was not surprised. He had deliberately goaded the man into his present fury. He had determined to kill him, and he had been disappointed when he had seen Haydon lose his courage when the crisis arrived. And now his deliberate and premeditated plan was to bear fruit.

Harlan was reluctant to kill, but there seemed to be no other way. Haydon was a murderer. He had killed Lane Morgan; he was an outlaw whose rule had oppressed the valley for many months. If Harlan could have devised some plan that would make it possible for him to attain his end without killing anybody, he would have eagerly adopted it.

But in this country force must be fought with force. It was a grim game, and the rules were inflexible—kill or be killed.

His own life would be safe in this section so long as he guarded it. Eternal vigilance and the will to take life when his own was threatened was a principle which custom had established. If he expected to save the girl at the Rancho Seco he could not temper his actions with mercy. And he knew that if he was to succeed in his design to disrupt the outlaw gang he would have to remove the man who stood before him, working himself into a new frenzy. There seemed to be no other way.

But Haydon seemed to have control of himself, now, despite the frenzied glare of his eyes. He was outwardly cool; his movements were deliberate—he had conquered his fear of Harlan, it seemed.

He laughed, harshly.

“Harlan,” he said; “you had me going—talking that way. By Heaven! you almost convinced me that I’d let you run things here. I was beginning to believe I’d lost my nerve. But see here!”

He held out his right hand toward Harlan—it was steady, rigid, not a nerve in it quivered.

“You’re fast with your guns, but you can’t run any whizzer in on me—you can’t intimidate me. You killed Latimer the other day; and you’ve got the boys with you. But you can’t run things here. Have all the boys gone?”

“Woodward’s here.”

Harlan spoke lowly; his eyes were keenly watchful. This flare-up on Haydon’s part was merely a phase of his confused mental condition. He saw that Haydon did not mean to use his gun—that he intended to ignore it, no doubt planning to regain his authority when the men of the outfit returned—when he might enlist the support of some of them.

“Woodward’s here—eh?” laughed Haydon. He raised his voice, shouting for the man. And Harlan saw Woodward come from behind an outbuilding, look toward the ranchhouse, and then walk slowly toward them.

Woodward halted when within several paces of the two, and looked from one to the other curiously, his eyes narrowed with speculation.

“Woodward,” directed Haydon; “hit the breeze after the outfit and tell them to drive those cattle back here!”

Harlan grinned. “Woodward,” he said, gently; “you climb on your cayuse an’ do as Haydon tells you. Haydon is figurin’ on cashin’ in when you do.”

Haydon blustered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that if Woodward goes after the boys I’m goin’ to blow you apart. I’m givin’ the orders around here!”

Watching Haydon, Harlan saw that he was not exhibiting rage, but intense interest. He was not looking at Harlan, but at Woodward. And, turning swiftly, his guns both leaping into his hands with the movement—for he had a swift suspicion that Woodward might be standing with Haydon against him—he saw that Woodward had fallen into a crouch; that the man’s right hand was hovering over his pistol holster, and that his eyes were gleaming with a light that could mean only the one thing—murder.

Backing slowly away from both Haydon and Woodward, Harlan watched them, his guns ready for instant action should he catch any sign that would indicate trickery toward himself.

He saw no such signs. It became plain to him that Woodward had no eyes for anyone but Haydon, and that Haydon’s attention was fixed upon Woodward with an intentness that meant he had divined that Woodward’s peculiar manner had a definite, personal meaning.

Woodward continued to advance on Haydon. He was waving his left hand as though giving Harlan a silent order to get out of his way, while his gaze was centered upon Haydon with an unspoken promise of violence, fascinating to behold.

It seemed to have fascinated Haydon. Harlan saw him shrink back, the bluster gone out of him, his face the color of ashes. He kept stepping back, until he brought up against the rear wall of the ranchhouse; and there he stood, watching Woodward, his eyes bulging with dread wonder.

Harlan saw his lips move; heard his voice, hoarse and throaty:

“It’s a frame-up—a frame-up. Both of you are out to get me!”

“Frame-up!”

This was Woodward. He was a sinister figure, with his black beard seeming to bristle with passion, his eyes flaming with it; all his muscles tensed and quivering,