Death Waits Here

Chapter One

After ten minutes of waiting, there was still no sign of the storekeeper. Pace Jernigan shrugged, cut himself a slice of cheese, reached across the scarred plank counter for a can of sardines, and dipped his hand into the cracker barrel. A solitary bluebottle fly played him a buzzing lullaby for dinner music.

Pace leaned against the counter and ate slowly, a tall young man in faded jeans and trail-dusty checkered shirt. His well-worn, wide-brimmed hat was pushed back on his head, exposing sandy hair, a tanned, creased forehead, and blue eyes with crinkles at their corners that offset the baiting light in their depths. His face was heavy boned, and his hands were large with long, sensitive fingers and callouses on the palms.

As he finished eating, he looked through the open front door of the barn-like general store and studied Fairfax town. It lay, a cluster of buildings, at a wide bend where the road swung with the creek. At this late afternoon hour, the town was indolent; even the dust seemed reluctant to stir where the road widened to accommodate the village, only to narrow again to twin ruts as it wandered to the open country westward.

Pace dusted his hands together, used the back of the left one for a napkin, and decided to locate the storekeeper and pay up.

He stepped through the double doors in front, took a few steps down the plank sidewalk. In back of the store was a long, low, rambling building, emitting the sounds of machinery. A single wagon was drawn up before the building, and a man was dozing on the seat. Pace noted the millrace and the huge, slowly-turning wooden wheel at the far end of the building. A grist mill.

He strolled back, entered the dusky gloom of the mill, where the air was moist and sweet with the smell of corn freshly rendered to meal. A fine coating of powdery meal lay over everything and the floor vibrated with the clash and grind of the great millstones.

He saw a boy draped over a plank bin, an arm reaching up rhythmically to drop ears of corn into an adjoining bin. Pace walked over, pinched the bottom of the stretched blue jeans. “Say, bud, know where I can find...”

The figure straightened. The shoulders and head came out of the bin, and a small, hard hand left stinging fingerprints across Pace’s cheek. All in one motion.

Pace retreated a step, holding his cheek and looking at a small and very angry face. It wasn’t what Pace thought of as a pretty face. The nose was too snub, the mouth a trifle too wide and generous. The whole was framed in dark brown hair, cut short and bleached in spots by the sun to a lighter brown.

“You,” Pace conceded, “have a very good right. With a left jab to match it...”

“The left is adequate enough,” the girl said. “But I’d advise you not to try anymore of that pinching business to find out.”

“Might be worth it,” Pace grinned, a little abashed at his own nerve. Weather, hard work, or physical mayhem had never frightened him, but women had always put him on the defensive. Some women he was downright afraid of, the kind that looked at a man as if measuring him mentally for halter size. Others made him feel awkward, but this girl somehow or other caused him merely to want to put his best foot forward.

He took off his hat and bowed. “Ma’am, I’m afraid we have got off on the wrong foot, and I’d like to start over again. My name is Pace Jernigan. I’m Texas born and twenty-six years of age. When called on, I can do the work of three hands, though I’m not much good at riding night herd, as my voice fails to quieten edgy cattle when I sing to them, but has the opposite effect. I come to Fairfax town a hungry stranger, who has partaken of vittles in the store yonder. Now I am looking for the storekeeper to pay him my just debt.”

The girl was regarding him with her head tilted to one side. She laughed suddenly. “I guess the glibness is natural since you come from Texas.”

“Never spoke as many words at once to a lady in my life,” Pace declared.

The girl sidled a glance at him at that, and put her tongue in cheek. “If you say so, I guess it must be true, Texas. Anyway, I’m the storekeeper, and if you’ll tell me what you had, I’ll accept your money.”

Pace’s brows went up. “You run this store and mill alone, ma’am?”

“I do,” she said in quick, defensive warmth. She glanced toward the hopper, wrestled with a hundred pound sack of shelled corn, picking it up with surprising strength.

Pace sprang to help her.

“It’s quite all right,” she said. “This isn’t the first one I’ve ever handled.”

She dumped the corn in the hopper, dropped lightly to the plank flooring again, and said, “Your supplies, Mr. Jernigan?”

He quit staring at the empty sack and told her what he’d eaten. She priced it, and he paid.

As he put the leather draw-string bag back in his pocket, she said, “About empty, isn’t it?”

“Matter of fact, yes.”

“Corn for your horse?”

“Got him grazing by the creek.”

“A good horse needs grain fuel to travel.”

“I know that, ma’am. He ate grain at midday. It was my turn this evening. He’s a fine horse. He don’t mind sharing and sharing alike.”

She studied him a moment. She looked suddenly tired, with fine lines about her eyes and mouth. She leaned back against a bin, resting her elbows on its lip. The stance was totally unassuming, natural, but it made Pace aware that, despite her small size, she was a powerful lot of woman.

“Would you like to earn a night’s lodging and breakfast tomorrow morning, Mr. Jernigan?”

“The prospect would brighten the immediate future.”

“All right, I’ll tell you what to do in here. I’ve got to finish cleaning the store, a job I was doing when the man outside brought his corn.”

Pace looked about the mill with misgiving. “You’ll have to tell me like a greenhorn, never having done mill work before.”

“I will. It’s nothing complicated. Mostly watching the hopper and loading. Incidentally, I’m Nancy Dinsmore.”

Not incidentally, Pace thought, not by a long shot.

He unbuttoned his cuffs, started rolling up his sleeves. At that moment, a sharp explosion sounded. The building rocked. The girl staggered against him, and he caught her shoulders. A new, screeching note came from the wooden millwheel housing.

With a cry choked off in her throat, the girl leaped up on a low timber, tore at the housing, swung it back. The huge, white, stone wheels were cracked, pieces of them blown away. The rumble shook the entire building as the wheels tore themselves to pieces.

“Grab that lever, Texas!” Nancy shouted.

Pace sprang and grabbed. He pulled until the muscles of his back stood out against his shirt, but the lever seemed to have been frozen by the explosion.

The girl dropped beside him and added her strength. Slowly, the lever moved back. Overhead, the hickory teeth of wooden gears moved apart, disengaging the machinery from the ponderously powerful millwheel outside. The machinery ground to a halt.

Nancy turned to survey the damage. Pace saw tears come to her eyes. Then her mouth set, her chin came up, and the tears magnified the flash of her eyes.

“Only one thing could have done that,” she stated. “A dynamite cap dropped in the shelled corn. When the wheels crushed it—”

“Whose corn?”

“The man’s outside.”

Together they ran to the front of the mill. The wagon was gone.

Pace started forward, but her hand restrained him. “He’ll be burning leather out of town. Anyway, it isn’t your fight.”

“He was sitting here dozing when I came in.”

“Yes, with one hawk eye open to make sure I emptied the right sack in the hopper. As soon as he saw me do that, I’ll bet he moved fast. Too bad I didn’t substitute a sack of my own corn.”

Nancy turned to look back into the mill, and she looked small and dismal to Pace.

“The only pair of millstones west of the river,” she said.

“You know,” Pace said, “that dynamite cap might have blown my head off. I’d like to speak to the gent about that. If you’ll give me his name...”

“Thanks, Texas, but he was a stranger to me.” Nancy moved to swing the wide, wooden door closed. She dropped a bar across it. Pace shortened his stride to match hers as they moved toward the store.

“I don’t get a lot of this,” Pace said. “An outfit this size ought to be able to afford a helper.”

“I had some help,” Nancy said, “but it was scared off.”

Pace glanced at her. She looked straight ahead. She had already shed the dismal look the cracked millstones had given her. Not one to indulge in self pity or stay in a low mood long, Pace thought.

“By the same gent who sent the corn over?” Pace asked.

“Look, Texas, it isn’t your fight. I’m able to take care of myself.”

“Don’t doubt it. But if there’s a job in offing, I ought to know what I’m getting into.”

She met his grin with a deep look in her eyes. He sensed that grim, lonely days were behind her. Then she shook her head. “After I rake together money for new millstones, there won’t be enough left to hire help. Sorry, Texas.”

She turned quickly, and Pace watched her go, pushing his hat forward and scratching the back of his head.

She didn’t go into the store. She marched across the wide, dusty street, and at each step, her back stiffened and her chin tilted higher.

Pace whistled softly to himself. She was carrying trouble to somebody, he decided. He angled across the street, moving with apparent slowness, but narrowing the distance between them.

She turned in an office with the words, “Gar Testerman, Cattle Buyer,” lettered on the door.

Pace ventured a look through the window. He saw an office furnished with leather chairs, filing cabinets, a gleaming, new rolltop desk. At the sound of Nancy’s entry, a man was swinging his swivel chair around at the desk to face her.

He was a big, bluff-looking man with a shock of iron gray hair, a mustache of the same color, and gray eyes beneath beetling brows.

“Gar Testerman,” Nancy announced, “you owe me for a pair of millstones — not that I hope to collect. But I want you to know you haven’t run me out of business with that dynamite cap trick.”

The cattle buyer stood up. He was a good six two, and would tip at least two hundred, Pace guessed. He dwarfed the girl, a fearsome-looking man with those brows and stern face. But he failed to overawe the girl. She had worked up too much of a mad.

Testerman smoothed his expensive doe-colored frock coat, lighted a cigar, and said flatly, “Girl, you’re crazy!”

“Of course you’d deny it.”

“Deny anything I don’t know about.” He took her by the arm, leading her toward the door. “Now don’t come back in here bothering me with a lot of tomfoolery.”

Testerman and girl both drew up as Pace’s shadow fell across them from the doorway.

Pace grabbed Gar’s wrist in a hard grip. The cattle buyer was so surprised he released Nancy’s arm. Pace pushed the girl toward the front of the office, turned to follow her.

Testerman cursed in erupting rage, caught Pace’s shoulder, whirled him, and swung.

Pace blocked the blow. He retreated, keeping himself between Testerman and the girl. The big man moved with surprising speed. His second punch landed high on Pace’s cheek. Pace decided it was high time to hit back, even if he was on another man’s premises. He threw a hard right. Testerman laughed, danced away, and his huge fist seemed to come from nowhere.

Pace felt as if his nose was splattered all over his face. He hit the floor with a crash. This was going to be tougher than he’d thought, decidedly. He rolled to one side, started to get to his feet, and Testerman hit him with a chair.

At least the fight was over, Pace thought as his senses swooped into the black nothingness of unconsciousness.

Pace returned to the land of the living with a groan and the distinct feeling that his throbbing nose was larger than his head. He raised a hand as his senses cleared, touched the nose, and flinched. It didn’t seem to be broken, but Pace guessed he’d be without a sense of smell for a week or two.

He opened his eyes and sat up. He hadn’t been out long. It was not yet fully dark, and in the dusky light he got his vision into focus enough to see that he was in a narrow, hot jail cell.

He tried to collect his thoughts and take stock of his situation. He heard voices, and then footsteps approached the cell. Nancy came first, looking at him with concern.

He managed a faint grin. “Didn’t make such a good showing, did I?”

“You did fine, Texas. But I feel terrible, knowing it was because of me.”

“Gar Testerman have me put in here?”

She nodded, biting her lips. “I think we’re going to get you out. I... I told the sheriff you work for me and took full responsibility.”

“Thanks.”

“Could I do any less?” Her eyes flashed suddenly. “But I wish you’d stayed out of it. Haven’t I got enough trouble already?”

Two men came out of the front office, stopping before the cell. The first was Gar Testerman, smoking a fresh cigar and looking completely unruffled. The second was a portly man dressed in woolen pants stuffed into runover boots, a blue shirt that stretched across his ample paunch, and a leather vest which hung open and was decorated with a tin star. He had a large, dew-lapped, whisky-veined face and merry blue eyes.

Even his present stern demeanor failed to quench completely the lurking humor of the sheriff’s eyes. “Young feller, next time tackle a less experienced man. Why, before he came west, Gar Testerman once went ten rounds with the great John L. Sullivan himself.”

“Somebody should have told me,” Pace said. “Who’s going to look after my horse, and what’s the charge?”

“The charge is trespassing — but Mr. Testerman will drop it, the girl being held legally accountable for any actions of yours in the immediate future. So you can look after your own horse.”

“Thanks.”

The sheriff unlocked the cell. Pace stepped out. Gar Testerman drew his beetling brows together. “Never lead with your right, son.”

“Thanks for nothing. I owe you a punch in the nose.”

“Hear him now, Bigby?” Testerman said.

“I do,” the sheriff said. “You want to go back in that cell?”

“The best thing he can do,” Testerman said, “is get out of town.”

It was a flat warning, and, having made it, Gar turned and walked from the jail.

Pace, Nancy, and the sheriff walked to the front office, where the sheriff returned property he’d taken from Pace’s pockets.

“Now let’s go over and see if we can find any clues as to who did that mill-wrecking.”

Pace watched the sheriff at work. The sheriff’s full name was Bigby Barnes, Pace learned. He also learned and suspected much more from the lackadaisical way Bigby inspected the millwheel housing and tracks outside, grunting now and then. A few sympathetic clucks of the tongue was about the ultimate of Bigby’s proficiency.

He leaned against the wall of the mill finally, rubbing the sweatband of his hat with a bandanna. “Downright sorry it happened, Nancy, but I don’t see a thing here to work on. Your description of the man who brought the corn might fit any of half a dozen people. If anything else turns up, let me know.” He replaced his hat. “Wish there was something I could do, but the law has to have proof. Well, I’ll give it a good think.”

He waddled off, Nancy staring after him bitterly. “Proof! He’s too easy going and lazy to hunt for proof, exactly the kind of law Gar Testerman wants in this town. All he does is sit in Oliver Frady’s saloon and play pinochle.”

She walked toward the rear of the store; then stopped, turned back and said, “Come on, Texas. You look like you need something done for that nose. I owe you that much certainly.”