Sam Harden awoke later, alone in the room. He lay there, thinking about his ranch and the country coming apart, listening to the moan of the wind. He moved restlessly. He couldn't stay in bed and maybe get bed sores. A man owed it to himself to try to build a dam, to hold back the flood. . . . He gave a hollow laugh at his mental gymnastics. Dam, flood, and what he needed, what all of them needed, was water. Water was their salvation. Water could stop a lot of trouble that wasn't merely on the way: it was here.
He sat up in bed and waited, holding his head while the dizziness passed. The pain wasn't sharp as it had been, only a dull thumping that set his teeth on edge. When he felt stable he swung his feet to the floor and stood erect, swaying only slightly. Nauseated, he wanted to get back in bed but he fought it, telling himself,
You're not that bad hurt, stand up and soon it'll go away.
It didn't go away, but fighting against the notion of giving up seemed to strengthen him. He went to the bureau and opened the door. His clothing was more neatly arranged than he ever did it himself. He dressed slowly, not making any sudden movements. He was sitting on the floor, tugging on a boot, when the door opened.
Dick Harden slid into the room. A half inch shorter than Sam, he had that Harden thickness of chest and dark good looks. His face was shadowed with two days growth of whiskers. "How y' feelin', big brother?" he asked. "Molly said you couldn't be disturbed. And here you're fixin' to light out."
Sam watched him, narrow-eyed, then finished pulling on his boot. Dick was more than a handful when fists flew or the music twanged. When he had a snootful of red-eye he was locoed as a bull on the prod.
Likely, Sam had always figured, it was the role Dick took as younger brother, protected, spoiled and given attention that made him a heedless, headstrong man as he had been a heedless, headstrong boy.
One thing was sure, when Dick got started on popskull whiskey, nobody, including God or the governor, could push him an inch. He could hold more whiskey than a fair-sized watering trough and was always trying to prove it.
Well, that had been fine as long as the ranch prospered and the problems were those that could be solved by ordinary effort. But when the whole range was burning, when hopeless struggles with nature and man-borne problems had honed collective tempers to razor sharpness, the fiddle-footed were as misplaced as an English saddle at roundup.
"Like hell," Sam said, and got to his feet, triumphant that he made it without falling on his face. "Where you been and where you going?"
The old antagonism rose in Dick's face and his black eyes flickered for a moment. He put it down with a visible effort. "I been out cutting sign on the hombre that gunned you," he said flatly. "I come back to go to Liz's funeral." He was silent and his throat worked. "I owe her that much." His voice was husky and brought an unfamiliar ache to Sam.
Sam was silent, uncomfortable, in Dick's fresh burst of grief. Dick had played with Liz Porter when they were both kids. They'd attended Mr. Gooch's one-room school in Crossroad Corners and were so inseparable that everyone thought they'd eventually get married. Something had happened somewhere along the line but their friendship had never waned.
"Well, come along home when it's over," Sam said gruffly.
"You not goin, Sam?"
Sam shook his head. "I'd fall on my face, I'm so weak and woozy," he said.
"Why don't you climb back in that bed, Sam?" Dick asked earnestly. "You'll not get anything done out at the ranch."
"I'll go clean out of my mind if I stay in that sack another minute. No, I'm on my way, Dick. And come home quick, you hear?"
"Hate to see you ride out alone," Dick said anxiously. "Maybe I better—"
"No. You stay for the funeral. I don't feel up to it, Dick. But one of us should be there."
Dick was relieved. "That we should. Soon's it's over I'll come right out, Sam." He seemed embarrassed. "I guess I'll find that room you got for me and get cleaned up." He turned and was gone.
Sam got on his other boot and went downstairs. Molly McGee looked blankly at him when he appeared before the counter. "Sam! What're you doing up?"
He leaned against the counter. "Can't stay penned any longer, Molly. I'll go crazy if I lay there another minute."
"But Sam, the doctor—"
"I'll be back in a few days and look in on him. You know I wouldn't be standing here if I wasn't able."
"I don't know! You've always been so darn stubborn. What's so important at the ranch? Clay can take care of things."
"Nothin's important. Can't you
see
how it is?" He hesitated and then asked, "Where's Fill?"
She shook her head. "I don't know, Sam."
"Where does he stand in all this? What does he want, Molly?"
She didn't get a chance to answer because Jesse Kenton stamped into the hotel, alone.
He stood there, looking at Sam, rolling a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. Then he took it out and looked at it and looked at Sam again. "I'll have a few words with you, Sam." He waved the hand holding the cigar at Molly. "Private, girl. Get gone."
"This is my hotel," Molly said. "You get gone, Mr. Kenton."
After one surprised look he ignored her, talking to Sam. "We didn't get finished with our business."
"Far as I'm concerned we did," Sam answered. "I told you last night I didn't want any part of your plans. That still goes."
"You're like your old man was," Kenton said testily. "Full of high and mighty ideas. Well, you're not the man he was, Sam, and you can't bring it off by yourself. You need somebody to prop you up. I'm offering you a way out of trouble."
"Or a way into it," Sam said. He pushed himself away from the counter and almost fell. He heard Molly gasp.
"All right, then," Kenton said with finality. "You hear this, Sam, and remember it good. You're out of it. No matter what happens you stay out of the game. That way you'll not get hurt. By me, that is." He wheeled away and then turned back and added a parting shot, "Too bad that gunner didn't shoot straighter." He went out, trailing cigar smoke.
"What a horrible thing to say," Molly said, then went on, "I'm afraid of him; he's land crazy. It's an incurable disease with Jesse Kenton."
He looked at her. "Yes. He told me."
"He told you!"
Sam nodded. "Said it was like wanting food, drink, and a woman, all rolled in one, that hankering for land."
She flushed and looked down. "What would he know about love? "
There was no answer to that and Sam didn't try.
Clay Bassett turned his attention to his job after passing the grove and not seeing the girl, Hannah Evans. He rode hard, making for the flats where Squaw Creek emptied into Harden Creek. He could hear the dull booming of the two men who were dynamiting the creek bed in the faint hope of raising water that would flow below for Flag cattle.
He fanned the cob ahead faster after emerging from alight stand of dry timber. The two men came up over the cutbank afoot and ran behind a boulder and squatted. A moment later another explosion ripped the air. Dirt and rocks flew upward. The two men stood up and turned, watching his approach.
"Hi-ya, Clay," said Abe Ferman, removing his battered hat and wiping his face with his shirt sleeve. He was a short, squat cowboy with a harelip. "We shoulda had this dynamite on Fourther July, dad burn it." He put his hat back on his head and gave it a settling tug.
"Yeah. Woulda done some good then," Ralph Osgood, a broken-nosed, gap-toothed and nearly bald man in his forties said in a whiny drawl. "We ain't raised a drop o' water."
Bassett dismounted and gave each man a sack of Bull Durham. "Here's smokin' you wanted. You just about shot up all that blastin' powder?"