Rimrock Trail

CHAPTER XIV

A FREE-FOR-ALL

Plimsoll's place was crowded. There were more onlookers than actual players though the tables were fairly well patronized. Many of those who had seats were only cappers for the game. The majority of the men who had rushed to the new strike had not brought any great sums of money with them, or, if they had, reserved its use for speculation in claims rather than the slimmer chances of Plimsoll's enterprises. In a few days, if the camp produced from grass roots, as was expected and hoped, Plimsoll would gather in his harvest. A garnering in which Sandy had sadly interfered.

Plimsoll had set up a working partnership with a man who had brought moonshine and bootlegged whisky to the camp, occupying the next shack to the gambling place. For convenience of service extra doors had been cut and a rough-boarded passageway erected between the two places. The fever of gambling provided thirsty customers for the liquor dealer, and the whisky blunted the wits of the gamblers and gave the dealers more than their customary percentage of odds in the favor of the house. It was a combination that worked both ways. Waiters impressed into service from camp followers, crudely took orders and delivered them. There were no mixed drinks, no scale of prices. And there was no question of license. The will of the majority ruled. The gold-seeking reduced things to primitive methods, men to primitive manners.

Plimsoll himself presided over the stud-poker table, dealing the game. He showed nothing of the nervousness that crawled beneath his skin. He awaited the result of his play with Wyatt and the latter's companions. If he could make Sandy, Mormon and Sam ridiculous, he would achieve his end, but he hoped for bigger results. Wyatt and his fellow rider had been detailed to ride down the tent that had been reported occupied by the Three Star owners. That part of the plan had been suggested by Wyatt out of the sheer deviltry of his invention. Plimsoll had enlisted others of his following, none too fearless, to loiter in the brush and, in the general confusion, fire to cripple and to kill.

Plimsoll had learned of the visit of the men who had come with Bill Brandon to investigate Plimsoll's methods of running the Waterline Horse Ranch. He had learned, through the leakage that always occurs in a cattle community, that Brandon claimed to be an old acquaintance of Sandy and his partners. So he had told his men who had come with him to the camp from the Waterline Ranch that the Three Star outfit was a danger to all of them, undoubtedly acting as spies for Brandon, and that they should be eliminated for the general good. But there was none of them, from Plimsoll down, who had any fancy to stand up against the guns of Sandy, or of Mormon and Sam, when the breaks were anywhere nearly even.

So Plimsoll dealt stud and collected the percentage of the house, watching his planted players profit by their professionalism and by the little signs bestowed upon them by Plimsoll that tipped them off as to the value of the hidden cards. Plimsoll, with his ejection from Hereford, the advent of woman suffrage, the coming of Brandon and other irate horse owners, had begun to realize that his days were getting short in the land. He looked to the camp for a final coup. If he held the Casey claims and sold them, as he expected to do, to an eastern capitalist to whom he had telegraphed some days before, he might reestablish himself. Sandy's prompt arrival and subsequent events had crimped that plan and he fell back upon all the crooked tactics that he possessed in gambling. And now, if Wyatt…

He was dealing the last card around when Wyatt came in and his eyes lit up. Then his face stiffened, the light changed to a gleam of malevolence. Following Wyatt were the three partners, taking open order as they came through the entrance, about which the space was clear, Sandy in the middle, Mormon on the right flank and Sam on the left. The two last smiled and nodded to one or two acquaintances. Sandy's face was set in serious cast. The players at Plimsoll's table turned to see what caused the suspension of the game, others followed their example. The Three Star men were known personally to some of those in the room. The story of what had happened during the day had buzzed in everybody's ears, from Roaring Russell's discomfiture to Plimsoll's failure to hold the claims and the eviction notice served on him by Sandy.

The phrase "you'll see me through smoke," held a grim significance that touched the fancy of these gold gatherers, men of the cruder types for the most part. The issue between Sandy and Plimsoll was the paramount topic, they wanted to see the two men face to face and size them up. There was no especial sympathy with one or the other. There were other gamblers to provide them with excitement. Mormon's challenge of Russell was a sporting event that appealed to them more directly and there were many possessed of a rough chivalry that appreciated the heavyweight cowman's taking up the cudgels on behalf of a woman. But that was sport, this was a business matter, a duel, with Death offering services as referee.

Chairs edged back, the standing moved for a better view-point, the room focussed on Plimsoll, Wyatt and the three cow-chums. Then Wyatt stepped aside. There was a malicious little grin on his face. Mormon's suggestion as to his private grudge against Plimsoll was not without foundation. Wyatt had been glad to find excuse for severing relations with the gambler. He had done his best and failed, but his failure was not bitter.

The partners walked between the tables toward Plimsoll who sat regarding them balefully, his teeth just showing between his parted lips, cards in midair, action in a paralysis that was caused by the concentration forced by Sandy's even gaze, by the same sickening conviction that his manhood shriveled in front of Sandy and that Sandy knew it. Oaths against Wyatt rose automatically in his brain like bubbles in a mineral spring, together with the consciousness that Wyatt, if not allied against him, was no longer for him, that his chosen tools lacked edge. The placing of bets ceased, there was no sound of clicking chips, the roulette dealer held the wheel, expectant, dealer and case-keeper at the faro bank halted their manipulations, the presiding genius of the craps layout picked up the dice. Tragedy hovered, the shadow of its wing was on the dirt floor of the rude Temple of Chance.

"The chaps you sent up to move yore tent an' truck didn't make a good job of it, Plimsoll," drawled Sandy. "I reckon they warn't the right so't of help. Ef you-all are aimin' to take that stuff erlong with you I'd recommend you 'tend to it yorese'f. It's gettin' erlong to'ards sun-up, fast as a clock can tick."

Silence held. Sandy stood non-committal, at ease. His conversation with Plimsoll might have been of the friendliest nature gauged by his attitude. His hands were on his hips. Back of him, slightly turning toward the crowd, were Mormon and Sam, smilingly surveying the room. But not one there but knew that, faster than the ticking of a clock, guns might gleam and spurt fire and lead in case of trouble. It was all being done ethically enough. They did not know exactly what the entrance of Wyatt meant, but Sandy's talk gave them a hint and his poise was correct, without swagger, without intent to start general ruction. It was up to Plimsoll.

"I'll attend to my own business in my own way," said the gambler, knowing the room weighed every word. It was a non-committal statement and a light one, but it passed the situation for the moment. His eyes shifted to Wyatt, shining with hate, the whites blood-flecked by suppressed passion.

Sandy pulled out a gunmetal watch.

"I make it half afteh one. 'Bout three hours to sunrise, Plimsoll. I'll be round later." He turned his back on the gambler and sauntered toward the door. Before the general restraint broke Mormon put up his hand.

"I figger Roarin' Russell ain't in the room," he said. "Ef he happens erlong, some of you might tell him I was lookin' fo' him. An' I'm goin' to keep on lookin'," he added.

There was a laugh that swelled into a roar of approval in the general reaction.

"Good for you!" A dozen phrases of commendation chimed and jangled. A few followed the three out into the street, among them, Wyatt.

"I got a hunch it ain't extry healthy fo' me in there," he said. "A gamblin' parlor where I ain't welcome to stay or play makes no hit with me. I'll help you-all find Russell."

The search was not an easy one. Russell had been seen freely in the makeshift saloons and other places on both sides of the street. It seemed, from what they could glean and put together, that he had stopped drinking when he had arrived at a certain point in his boasting and had announced his intention of sobering up before he "took the bloody, hog-bellied cow-puncher apart, providin' the latter showed." This suited Mormon, who wanted fairly to whip a live opponent, not fight a staggering drunkard. But they could not find him. They had several volunteer assistants who proved useless. Sam began to yawn.

"I ain't sleepy, I'm hungry," he said. "Let's go get us a steak oveh to Simpson's. If he's gone to bed we'll rout him out. Won't be the first time he turned out to cook me a meal. A shot of that Rocky Mountain grapejuice w'udn't go so bad. Mormon, a feed 'ud round you out. Roarin' Russell has crawled in somewheres an' died of heart failure. Come on, hombres."

Simpson was awake and dressed and on the job. His place was almost as well filled as it had been the first time they entered it. In the first seethe of the gold excitement no one seemed to get sleepy, while appetites developed. Word had preceded them that Mormon Peters was looking for Roaring Russell and their entrance caused more than a ripple of interest. Simpson came bustling forward to serve them.

"Good thick rare steak's what you want, ain't it? Fine fightin' food. Me, I'm takin' in a few bets on you, Mormon. 'Member the time you got a hammerlock on that long-horned gent from Texas with the Lazy Z outfit? I cleaned up on you that time an' this'll be a repeater. This same Roarin' Russell has been tellin' the camp what a rip-snortin', limb-loosenin', strong-armed galoot he is, an' some of 'em have swallered it. They ain't seen you in action, Mormon, an' I have. You'll jest natcherly chaw him inter hash. I'm bettin' there won't be enough of him left to stuff a Chili pepper after you git through."

"I ain't as limber as I was, Alf," said Mormon deprecatingly. "Make my steak thick, will you? Have you seen anything of the Roarin' gent?"

"Not personal. He don't eat here. There was a friend of yores in a while ago who seemed to be sort of keepin' tabs on him. That young assayer Russell started to bulldoze when Sandy took a hand. Said he'd be in ag'in later. 'Peared to think you was bound to show before mornin'."

Simpson went to the back of his shack and started the steaks. A waiter brought over drinks of the Rocky Mountain grapejuice with the information that they were "on the house."

"It ain't the hooch we're sellin'," he said. "This is private stock, hundred proof." He eyed Mormon professionally as he hung about the table, setting out the battered cutlery and tin plates that Simpson provided. "They was offerin' two to one on Roarin' Russell a little while ago," he volunteered. "I think I'll take up a piece of their money."

"This ain't a prize-fight, it's a privut quarrel," said Mormon as he smelled the fiery stuff in the glass, sipped it and then swallowed it in one gulp. "That's prime stuff."

"You'll have one hell of a time keepin' it privut, mister," said the waiter. "They tell me there's nigh to six hundred folks in the camp an' there won't be many more'n six missin' when you two meet up. You want to watch out for Russell's pals, though; they ain't the gentlest bunch in the herd. But I reckon you can handle 'em," he said, turning to Sandy. "I saw you handlin' your hardware this mornin' an' you sure can juggle a gun."

A call from another of the makeshift tables claimed his attention. Simpson came hurrying with the meat, biscuits and coffee. He sat down with them, offering more drinks which they refused.

"Slack right now," he said, "but I sure have done a whale of a business to-day. If this keeps up I don't want no claims. They're tellin' me you give Plimsoll till sun-up to git out of camp, Sandy. I don't figger there'll be any argyment. He's yeller as the yolk of a rotten aig. Hell w'udn't take him in, he ain't fit to be fried. Gittin' rid of him an' his crowd'll sure purify the air in this camp. Times ain't like they used to be. This ain't the frontier any more and a few bad men can't run a strike to suit themselves. If the camp's no good it'll peter out like it did afore; if it amounts to anything, we'll have a police station on one end of this street, a fire station at t'other an' streetcars runnin' down the middle, inside of a month. Plimsoll's gettin' a bum name in this county. The wimmin are ag'in' him. An' I tell you, gents, we hombres 'll have to watch our steps or they'll be takin' our vote away from us next thing you know. It's a lucky thing for us that men is in the majority in this section. Here's yore friend now."

Westlake came through the door, looked round, saw them and came over.

"Russell is down at the Chinaman's eating shack by the bridge," he announced. "He's been drinking black coffee to sober up on. He's got some of his own sort with him. I think they're nearly ready to come up-street. He knows you are in camp and looking for him."

"Then we'd better be shackin' erlong," said Mormon, mopping up gravy with half a biscuit. "I w'udn't want to keep him waitin'."

Outside, it was apparent that the whole camp was waiting for the appearance of the two principals in an event that was not to be allowed to be dealt with purely as a personal encounter. The waiter's estimate was a fair one. The moon had risen, sailing round and fair and mild of beam from behind the eastern hills, making pallid by comparison the artificial flares. The one street was packed with men, not all of whom were sober. The crowd thickened every moment from outlets of the gambling shacks and saloons. All other business and pleasure was forgotten with the swift word passing to say that the cowman who had slapped the bully in the face and challenged him that morning to a catch-as-catch-can, free-for-all contest, was now in Alf Simpson's Chuck House while his opponent, in the cold range of enforced, semi-sobriety, was in Su Sing's Hashery, the pair about to emerge.

This was to be better than any gunplay, a gladiatorial combat to delight the hearts of frontiersmen. And they warmed to it. All day there had been rumors busy of the clash, of the matters involved. Garbled versions of the truth ran excitement up to hot-blood heat. The town had stayed up for developments. Bets had been made on Plimsoll's backing down at sunrise; on the cowman, Mormon; on the bully, Russell.

The affair with Plimsoll at sun-up was likely to be short and sharp. Men who knew the three from the Three Star Ranch spread their opinions. The prime event was the scrap. Russell was, or had been, a professional wrestler and held fame as a rough-and-tumble fighter. Mormon had once beaten all comers for the Cow Belt. The spectators swarmed like bees and buzzed as busily. They came in from the claims, warned by their friends. They greeted Mormon with a shout and one bulk of them surged down toward the bridge over Flivver Creek, escorting the three partners and Westlake, Simpson and his help with them. More were milling up-street from Su Sing's place, Russell in their midst. Where the two factions met, the principals kept apart by the crowd, a broad-shouldered giant with the voice of a bull and a beard that crimped low on his chest, harangued the multitude from a wagon-box. They halted to listen, like a crowd at a fair.

"Gents all," bellowed the big man. "There's been some tall talkin' done to-day between two hombres who have agreed to see which is the best man, in man fashion, usin' the strength an' skill that God gave 'em, without recourse to gun, knife or slungshot. Roarin' Russell, champeen wrastler, allows he can lick any man in camp. Mormon Peters, champeen holder of the Cow Belt, 'lows he can't. That's the cause an' reason of the combat. Any other reason that has been mentioned is private between the two principals an' none of our damned business."

The crowd roared in approval of the speaker's style and the force of his breezy delivery. He had touched their chivalry in thus delicately alluding to the episode of the insult and apology to the only woman in camp.

"Therefore," he went on, and the word slipped round that he was Lem Pardee, wealthy rancher and ex-representative of the state, "such an affair appealin' to every red-blooded male among us, it behooves us to see it brought off in due form, fair an' square to both parties, in a bare-fisted settlement – an' may the best man win."

More howls went up, dying as he held up his hand.

"There's level ground below the bridge with free seats an' standin' room for all on both sides. The moon graces the occasion an' provides the proper illumination. I move you that a referee be appointed to discuss fightin' rules with Roarin' Russell an' Mormon Peters, to settle all side bets, with power to app'int a committee to keep the side lines an' take up a suitable purse for the winner. Referee will give the decision, if necessary, an' settle all disputes."

Shouts that drowned all others nominated Pardee as chief official. He accepted the choice with a wave of his hand and, glancing about him, rapidly picked five men as his committee. Two of them he did not know by name but selected from his judgment of men, and his choices met with general approval.

"The principals will choose their own seconds," he said. "Not more than three to each man, to act only in that capacity and in no way to interfere. That's all."

In two factions the crowd moved down the slant of the street, turned aside at the bridge and, as Pardee indicated the level space on the nigh side of the creek that trickled down the gulch like quicksilver in the moonlight, ranged themselves about the natural arena while the committee established the side lines and the referee conferred with Mormon, Russell and their seconds in the open. Sandy and Sam appointed themselves corner men for Mormon, and Sandy asked Westlake to make the third. A roulette dealer from Plimsoll's and a bartender ranged themselves alongside Russell, together with Plimsoll himself. Pardee eyed the group.

"There's bad blood between you two," he said to Plimsoll and Sandy. "I understand you've got your own grudges. You'd better keep clear of this. And I'm tellin' you both this," he added. "This camp is in the rough-and-ready stage, but there's enough of us who've got together to see it's goin' to be run decent an' regular. We're goin' to establish fair play and order, from now on. We don't expect to run no man's affairs so long's they don't interfere with the general welfare of the camp, but, if there's any dirty work pulled off, the man that spills the dirt is goin' to be interviewed pronto. Things are goin' to be run clean. We ain't goin' to give this camp a bad name at the start."

"Suits me," said Sandy. "My blood's runnin' cool enough, Pardee."

"I'm not talkin' personal, 'cept so far as this bout is concerned. You two had better stay out of it."

Sandy stepped back and Plimsoll, after a few whispered words to Russell, followed suit.

"You men want another second apiece?" asked Pardee. "Or are two enough?"

"The Roarin' gent," said Mormon, "made his brags an' I took it up. Me, I don't know nothin' about Queensbury rules an', though the camp seems to have arranged this affair to suit itself, I didn't bargain for no boxin' match, nor no wrastlin' match either. It's either he can lick me, man to man, or I lick him. An' a lickin' don't mean puttin' down shoulders on a mat. If a man goes down, t'other lets him git up, if he can. Bar kickin', bitin', gougin' an' dirty work, an' to hell with yore seconds an' yore rounds. This ain't no exhibition. It's a fight!"

He spoke loudly enough for most of the crowd to hear, and they cheered him till the hills echoed.

"That suit you, Russell?" asked Pardee sharply.

Russell, stripping to the waist, belting himself, stood forward.

"Suits me," he said. "Suit me better to cut out all this talk an' get this over with. It won't take long."

He was a formidable-looking adversary. In the moonlight certain signs of puffiness, of dissipation, did not show, save for rolls of fat about shoulders and paunch. He was powerfully built, his chest matted with black hair, his forearms rough with it. Taller than Mormon, he had all the advantage of reach. He sneered openly at his opponent.

"One thing more," said Mormon. "We ain't fightin' fo' a purse. Roarin' knows what we're fightin' fo'. A private matter. But we'll put up a stake, if he's agreeable. Loser leaves the camp."

"When he's able to walk. You slapped my face this morning. This evens it."

Russell lashed out suddenly, his hand open, striking with the heel of his palm for Mormon's jaw. Mormon sprang back, warding off, but it was Pardee who struck aside Russell's blow and sent him reeling back with a powerful shove.

"Strip down," he said to Mormon. "Both of you keep back of your lines till I give the word. Sabe?" He scored two lines in the dirt with the toe of his shoe and waved them behind the marks.

"No rounds to this affairs," he called to the crowd. "Fair fightin', foul holds and punches barred. Everything else goes. Man down allowed ten seconds. That's my ruling," he added to the two men.

Mormon looked clumsy as a bear as he waited for the word. He was far stouter than Russell. His bald pate, with its reddish fringe of hair, looked grotesque under the moon. The bulge of his stomach seemed a strong handicap in agility and wind. Yet his flesh was hard and, where the tan ended on neck and forearms, it held a glisten that caused the knowing ones to nod approvingly. There was strength in his back, big muscles shifted on his shoulders and his arms were bigger than Russell's, if shorter, corded with pack of sinew and muscle. As he toed his line, swaying from side to side, arms apart, the left a little forward, he moved with a lightness strange to his usual tread. Russell crouched a little, his long arms hanging low, knees bent. The two lines were about six feet apart.

They faced each other in a silence of held breath on all sides. Pardee stood to one side, equally between them. His arm went up.

"Ready?" he asked. "Let her go!"

A great sigh went up as the two fighters leaped forward. Both seemed about to clinch, to test their prowess as wrestlers. Murmurs went up from back of Mormon where his fanciers had ranged themselves. "Russell's got too many tricks for him," men told each other and then gasped.

Mormon had landed, light as a dancing master, despite his bulk, had stooped, turned in a flash with his right hand clamped about the right wrist of Russell, bowing his back, heaving with all his might.

Russell, shifting at the last second from a clutch, seeing Mormon charging, swung a vicious uppercut. He made the mistake of underestimating Mormon, thinking him slow-witted. He found his wrist in a vise, his arm twisted, bent down across the thick ridge of the cowman's shoulder, the powerful heave of Mormon's back. His own impetus served against him. Mormon shifted grips, he cupped Russell's elbow with his right palm and crowded all his energy into one dynamic effort of pull and hoist. Russell went over his head in a Flying Mare as the crowd stood up and yelled.