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Show Mm By Ernest Haycox kl -M mt. T11K STOKY SO FAR: Clay Morsn h.is dfcidfd to play a lone hand nfiainst Hon Hcrcndoen, a rancher bent on run- I ninR the cattle country his own way. The ; two men have been enemies for years, : having tirst fonsht over Clay's wife, j IJla, who died hatins him and believing j she should have married Uerendeen. Morgan is a solitary fisure, devoted to i Ms nine-year-old dauchter, Janet. Although Al-though two women, Catherine Grant and j Ann McGarrah, are in love w i(h him. I they know he cannot forget I.tla. Of his former friends, only Hack Breathitt has not gone over to Herendeen's side. Seen camping with Pete Borders, a rustler, he is a fugitive from Herendeen's men. Gurd Grant, Catherine's brother, hesi- I tated about Joining Herendeen, but became be-came Morgan's sworn enemy when he discovered that Catherine had been to his ranch. When he learns that Herendeen Heren-deen has sent a party out to find Hack Breathitt and kill him. Clay starts out to find him first. He finds him at Free-port. Free-port. Herendeen arrives, and there is a free-for-all fight. Herendeen's men are driven off, but Hack" is forced to hide in the hills. Clay is warned by Fox Willing, Will-ing, a "nester" he once befriended, that someone is stealing his cattle. Meanwhile Mean-while Hack's hiding place is discovered. Charley Hillhouse, Herendeen's foreman, rides into the "Potholes' after him with a party including Gurd Grant. Now continue with the story. H lie fired three times, shoving the gun toward his target. kid. You've got a damned good memory, too and this is something you won't shake loose. It'll go to bed with you and it'll kill your sleep and it'll make your grub taste like sawdust and all the drinkin' in the world won't drown it. Take a good long look at your peace of mind, Charley. It's the last you'll ever see of it." "Get on tlie horse," said Hill-house. Hill-house. Hack smoked his cigarette to the bitter end, tossed it into the dust. "Before the week's out you'll wish to God you were in my place. Never mind the horse, Charley." Hillhouse pulled his feet together and dropped the rope. His chin came up and the gun slowly rose in his hand. He fired three times, shoving the gun toward his target as though he could not get it done quickly enough. Shocked windless, Gurd Grant saw the foreman's lips pull back at each shot, saw his face snap into grotesque and openmouthed expressions expres-sions of craziness such as he had never seen on any man's face before. be-fore. The shot echoes pounded along the corridors of the pine forest. Hack bowed his head and bent his knees as though to kneel. Half-kneeling, Half-kneeling, he fell forward. Hillhouse walked toward him, the gun sagging at full arm's length. He removed his hat and stood this way, staring down at the dead Breathitt. He said: "Well, he had the last word, like always." And then his lips framed , silent words. The vitality left his face. When he looked around to the others he seemed faintly dazed. He said: "We'll take him back to the ranch and ge a wagon and run him into War Pass. His family are all buried bur-ied in the cemetery, which is where he should be. These Potholes ain't fit for any white man." Gurd Grant swung around, physically physi-cally sick, and slid down the ravine. He had to stop here long enough to lose his breakfast and catch his wind. Climbing out of the ravine, he reached his horse and turned it back on the trail. This was pretty much a wilderness to him but he was so absorbed by what he had seen that he let the horse have its own head, and so eventually he came out of the Potholes on Herendeen's Heren-deen's range. Turning right, he threaded through the Haycreek Hills and reached his own place. He left the horse in front of the house. Going Go-ing up the stairs he heard Catherine call from the kitchen. She came to the hall and saw his dead-white face swing around. "Gurd what's the matter?" "Nothing," he said. "Nothing." "You're lying." "Let me alone,", he rasped out and went up the stairs. He locked -the door of his room, slowly pacing back and forth. Lige White, who loved hunting as he loved few things, returned to his ranch that day and turned a fat mule deer over to the cook. He had been gone from the house since two that morning, riding down some of the constant physical restlessness which seldom permitted him to remain re-main long in one spot. He ate a late dinner in the kitchen and afterwards after-wards sat on the tror.t porch to srr.oke a cigar, meanwhile listening ; to the soft step of his wife as she ! moved around the secor.d floor of the ho'jse, er.gaged in those endless little occupations which seemed to U her cay. He pitched the cigar acro;3 the porch ar.d entered the hoe. She was cn the second Poor, rr.cvir.g arour.d from room to ro'.r.o, tut when he wer.t up the stairs he four.d ter seated in her cv.Ti te.-otrn with ! a pile of dsrr.ir.g on her isp. She ; tad heard him corr.e ar.d this was ! her way of i-orov.-L-.g up a g.ari : stood ha-f-soroi2 oe rotr.o -- - --- ci ' ' - - Her vo.oe, cot. -Z'.i 7'-' hive good I. '..': " y.,zt fat one." "The poaches should he picked. 1 think I'll turn Joe loose on them tomorrow. to-morrow. We'll can n lot of them, of course. But it would be nice if you loaded up n wagon of them mid went around to the neighbors." "What neighbors?" he said, shaking shak-ing his head. "It is n poor word to describe what they arc now, to each other. Herendeen and Morgan are ready to light at the drop of n hat. Gurd's got it in for Morgan over something I don't know what. Wo are going to have n tight and I hale to consider it." She said: "You should know the reason for it, Lige." "Why yes," he answered. "Herendeen "Heren-deen wants to clean up the range and Morgan is a little shy on coin-in', coin-in', in." She said: "No, Lige. In tho beginning be-ginning it was over a woman, Lila. And now it is over another woman, Catherine." He looked down at her, closely thinking it over. "Lila maybe yes. But Catherine. I doubt that. He's closer to the McGarrah girl." "There's one thing you don't know, Lige. Catherine was his first girl. Even before Lila. She still is. I don't know if he realizes that. I don't know if he understands why he is so bitter against Herendeen, or why Herendeen hates him so. It is Catherine, Lige." He said: "You're damned pretty, sitting there." She gathered up the darning and rose, turning to a corner of the room. "I ought to go down und tee what Chin's cooking for dinner." He came over the room. Hearing his quick steps she swung around, her face dark-set and stiir. Lige White showed her his quick smile, he showed her the gay, excited and unruly expression she knew so well. There was that insistence in him, that quick need. He put his hand on her shoulder, compelling her to corne toward him. He said, voice giving him away, "Don't freeze me out, Grace." She whirled back from hirn, retreating re-treating until she had reached a wall. She put her shoulders to the wall and it was this picture that hurt Lige White, the sight of his wife shrinking away, actually in fear, with that darkness on her face and that adamant pride in her eyes, as though she hated the things in his mind then. It took all the drive out of him, it swung hirn around. At the door he turned, once more covering up his feelings, speaking as though none of this had happened. hap-pened. "I'm going over to see Herendeen, and maybe Gurd. Probably be gone overnight." She remained by the wall until he had left the room, listening to the crush of his feet on the stairs. Afterwards, After-wards, posted at a corner of the window win-dow so that he wouldn't see her, she watched hirn ride out of the yard and settle the horse into a single-footed dancing across the Fan-olango Fan-olango Desert. As long as he va3 in sight she stood by the window. When the corral3 and barns cut hirn from viev she dropped the darning material from her hands and crossed to the bureau mirror. She placed her hands on the bureau top, watching the vay her face remained re-mained set and dark. She said, "Why is it always like that?" and slowly turned from the room. Chin had left a broom and pan in the hall; she he.ot to pick up the pan and saw the uncollected d:jot a.'o.og the floor. She went down to toe kitchen and filled a pail with wat.-r ar.d got a rag from a closet and lugged the pail up the i..r-i, kneeling kneel-ing on the hail. She had forgofen shoot her ore?.?., or ;he didn't care. She drenched the rag and sioviy ioru.o.oeo' toe floor, not with very m.o.o noetnoo'; she kept po.:.hi.og the rag aro.oo' and a.-oo.od toe ;anoe and her .-. were tight-pia oed and tea.-a ino.ed i ho her eyes. She ?.aid, "Tr..?. sar-v-" ! long ago. VThy do I aiwayj p,.-..i ' hino av.ay? I always d.d. :;, rH oez zonoev.ne.-e eioe. It .1 to', rv- " ened at the edrei. cono.ni' a--' - - She cr.ed. Oet r.aoi v. too a.:.::. en," and 7 .5 - ooe.o .;. o.-; .. g '10 hf. (.' 7 ' Uj, j CHAPTER XIV The Potholes was a section of land perhaps ten miles square, composed of gulches and ridges shapelessly twisted, as though in olden time an upthrust of the earth's lower levels had lifted and dropped this crust. Grant didn't know the region well enough to orient himself, but Charley Char-ley Hillhouse was thoroughly at home, selecting the trails without pause as he came to them. Crossing a creek that rose in the Potholes and died in them, they reached a meadow and carefully skirted its edge. Beyond this meadow the land again broke up. Charley Hillhouse lifted a hand over his head, signaling signal-ing caution; a mile forward, coming to the lip of a deep glen, he waved his arm by way of command. Grant stopped, watching Hillhouse step from his horse and go forward. Grant dismounted and led the other oth-er men down the trail to the bottom of the glen. He climbed the far side slowly, abreast Hillhouse. Hillhouse Hill-house pointed ahead. Yonder, in a cup-shaped depression depres-sion as large as a small corral, stood Hack Breathitt's horse. There was a dead fire in the middle of the depression, and Hack's saddle gear. Hack lay beside a log, sound asleep, with his hat pulled over his head. . Grant dropped at the right of Hillhouse, Hill-house, the two other riders crawled to the foreman's left and thus the four of them watched the loose-sprawled loose-sprawled shape of Hack Breathitt. The Three Pines foreman had let his gun and arm drop along the ground and on his face lay shadows darker than the dull light of the Potholes. Pot-holes. Yet on that face was no particular sadness and no visible eagerness. All Gurd Grant saw was a gray, steadfast certainty. Then Hillhouse lifted the gun, sighted it on Breathitt and spoke quietly: "It is a hell of a time to be pound-in' pound-in' your ear, Hack. Wake up." Soft as the call was, Hack Breathitt's Breath-itt's awakening was instant. All in a motion he flung his blanket aside, sprang upright and wheeled around, reaching for his gun. Hillhouse's flat warning stopped Breathitt's draw. "Cut that out. You're covered four ways." This was a wrong guess on Charley Char-ley Hillhouse's part, for only three of them had drawn on Breathitt Gurd Grant, rising as the others rose, held his arms beside him. Breathitt's horse grunted when Riley Ri-ley heaved up the latigo strap. A crow's strident squawking echoed through the timber. Shade pressed around them and even though the day was half-warm, Gurd Grant felt a growing chill in his stomach, along his nerves. He could not help asking his question. "What are you going to do, Charley?" Char-ley?" Hillhouse ignored the question, whereupon Breathitt's grin showed very w-hite against his steel-black stubble. Breathitt reached into his shirt pocket, producing cigarette material. materi-al. He rolled a smoke, still showing that thin-lipped amusement He lighted the cigarette and dragged in a deep breath of smoke. "You won't get far with a jury. son. You know that." "Yes." said Hillhouse, "I kr.ow it Riley, bring me his rope." Riley released the rcpe from the I thong of Breathitt's saddle. Ee came ; across th depression at a slow, bow- 1 legged straddle and handed toe rope to Eillioue. Hillhouse hocked it ! ever cne arm, keeping his gun tee; j te locked upward at the trees a ' rr.-. lent, then tack to Breathitt. J Better get on your horse. Hack." I ' -To." said Hack. "I guess r.ct." "Listen." said Hlilituse in a .'v. hard-rressed tone, "make it 7"-u surpise I feel:" t ; thej lire-d, could ever answer. |