The Law of the Trigger

Chapter Nine

It was Sunday and close to noon when Owen drove the team through Reunion's deserted Main Street and tied up in front of the courthouse. Judge Lochland would probably be in church, but someone ought to be in the sheriff's office.

Arch Deland was napping at the sheriff's desk when Owen came in. The old deputy opened his eyes and started to grin, but the expression faded when he saw the revolver at Owen's hip.

“Hello, Owen. What's the hardware for?”

“Is the sheriff around?”

“Will? He ought to be comin' out of church any minute now.”

“Would you mind catching him? I'm ready to be sworn in, if he still wants me for a deputy.”

Arch Deland dropped his boots from the desk in surprise. “Owen, that's a mighty poor joke!”

“It's no joke at all. If they still want me to go after the Brunners, I'm ready to give it a try.” He saw what Arch's next question was going to be. “Elizabeth and I have talked it out.”

The deputy said nothing for one long moment. At last he shrugged. “I don't know what's got into you, but there's somebody you better see before you light out for the hills.” He took down a ring of keys from the wall and stood up. “Owen, I want you to have a talk with one of our prize boarders.”

Puzzled, Owen frowned as he followed Deland out of the office and down the ringing basement corridor toward the cells of the county jail. “There he is,” the deputy said, pointing at one of the barred cages, and Owen made a small sound of surprise when he saw the bushy, uncombed hair, the hard young face and angry eyes.

“You recognize him?” Deland asked.

“Yes. His name is Dunc Lester.”

“Is he the one that came to your place with the hurt girl?”

Owen nodded.

“That's what I thought,” Arch said. “We've got the both of them. The girl's locked in the jury room upstairs.”

This was a turn that Owen hadn't expected. He walked forward to the cell door and the boy sat up on his plank bunk, glaring. “Hello, son,” Owen said quietly. “What have they got you in for?”

The boy made no sound, but Deland said, “Will's holdin' him on suspicion of bein' a member of the Brunner gang. On top of that, he tried to fob a crossroads store up by Willow Creek this mornin', but we caught him. Him and the girl was tryin' to get away on one scrawny brush pony.”

Owen gazed steadily at the tough, dirty, ragged young man, who looked as if he hated all the world. “Let me talk to him, Arch. Alone.”

“You're welcome to try. We haven't been able to get a word out of him since they brought him in.” The deputy unlocked the cell door, then locked it again when Owen was in. “You sure you don't want me to stick around?”

“I'm sure.” Owen stood in the center of the tiny cell, his gaze still fixed on Dunc Lester's face. “That was a fool thing for you and Leah to do,” he said mildly.

The boy rose slowly from the bunk, took hold of the iron bars, and gripped them as though he meant to tear them out with his bare hands. “I reckon it ain't the first fool thing I ever did!”

“Are you in trouble, Dunc? I don't mean just this.” He glanced around at the cell. “Have you got the hillpeople down on you for some reason?”

Dunc shot a blazing glance at him but made no sound. “Are you in trouble with the Brunners?” Owen pushed.

“I don't know any Brunners!”

Owen smiled faintly. “Son, you came to me once and I gave you what help I could; it might be that I could help you now if you told me what the trouble was.”

“I can take care of my own trouble!”

“And what about the girl? Can she take care of hers?” Owen saw that he had struck a soft spot in Dunc Lester's armor. “Dunc, why did you try to rob that store at Willow Creek?”

The boy stood rigid, part of his anger diluted with worry. “We ran out of grub,” he said at last.

“You ran out of grub,” Owen repeated quietly. “You have friends in the hills, Dunc, don't you? You have a family up there, somebody you could go to for food?”

Dunc wheeled away from the cell door, his face a cruel, hard mask. “Sure, I've got friends, only right now they're lookin' to kill me on sight!” Then he realized that he had said something that he hadn't meant to say. His trouble with the gang was personal and he had no intention of bringing outsiders into it. He turned away, his jaws locked as tight as a bear trap.

“I think you could help me, son,” Owen pressed quietly. “The people around here want me to break up the gang.

I've decided to try.”

“If you're bound to get yourself killed,” Dunc said harshly, “that's as good a way as any.”

“You won't give me a hand, then?”

“No.”

“You'd rather rot away in jail?”

“Yes.”

“And what about the girl? Don't you care about her?” Dunc Lester said nothing, but turned and glared. Thoughtfully Owen took his pipe from his vest pocket, tore shreds of tobacco from a piece of cut plug, and tamped it carefully into the bowl, “You know what I think, Dunc? I think you're in trouble with the gang, probably because of the girl. Now, you must think a good deal of Leah Stringer to get yourself in the kind of fix you're in. Who shot her, son? One of the Brunner boys?” Dunc held his hard silence.

“Do you think they'll let her alone, just because you managed to get her out of the hills, Dunc? You ought to know that Ike Brunner doesn't give up that easy. It may take some time, a month, or a year, but if the Brunners have something serious against that girl, they'll find her.” He paused, then added, “As long as the Brunners are free, that is. And you can't help her, son, here in jail.”

This was a brutal truth that had Dunc Lester worried, and Owen knew it. For the first time in his violent young life he had come to know complete helplessness.

Now he was trying to convince himself that he didn't care about Leah, but the ring of truth was not there. He fixed his hard gaze on Owen's face, and at last he said, “Could I talk to her?”

Owen nodded. “I think I could fix that with Arch Deland.”

“What will happen to her if I go with you after Ike Brunner?”

“You don't have to go with me; I just want to know where they are. I'll have the girl sent out to my farm and she can stay with my wife until you're able to meet her.”

Dunc thought that over and seemed satisfied. “How many deputies are you takin' with you?”

“None. I figure a bunch of men would only scatter the gang and give the Brunners a chance to get away.”

Dunc Lester grinned faintly. “There's just one Brunner. Cal's dead.” He did not say how the young outlaw died, and, tactfully, Owen did not ask. “Maybe you're right about scatterin' the gang,” Dunc went on, “but just one man would never stand a chance of comin' out of those hills alive.”

“If he knew where Ike's headquarters was, he might.”

“But he won't know,” Dunc said flatly. “They used to be at Ulster's Cave, but they moved after I pulled out with Leah. I'll go with you.”

This was more co-operation than Owen had expected, and his professional caution warned him to be careful. “Would you mind telling me why you suddenly changed your mind about helping?”

The question seemed to catch the boy off guard. “I'm not sure,” he said. “You offered to help Leah. You did it once, so I guess you'll do it again. And you're no dude sheriff lookin' for rewards or runnin' for office.”

Owen smiled. “Those reasons are as good as any, I suppose.” He rattled the bars for the deputy. “Arch, can you let this boy talk to the Stringer girl?”

“It's against Will's orders.”

“I'll stand responsible to the sheriff.”

Arch shrugged. “Well, I never liked this job much, anyway. But one of us will have to stay with them.”

“I'll do it,” Owen said. He waited for Deland to unlock the cell door, then took the key to the jury room and nodded to Dunc. The boy stepped cautiously out of the cell, his eyes darting suspiciously from one face to the other. “It's no trap,” Owen said, “I'm just taking you up to talk to Leah. That's what you wanted, isn't it?”

Yes.” And some of his suspicion seemed to vanish. There was curiosity in his glance, but he was slowly learning that all outsiders were not so completely mean as Ike Brunner had made them out.

Owen could feel that the boy trusted him, and he grinned at Arch Deland's dubious frown. “If Will comes in while we're gone, ask him to wait.”

They went up the basement stairs to the ground floor, and up another flight to the courtroom. “I'll have to stay with you until I arrange for your release with the sheriff,” Owen said.

They walked the length of the courtroom to a door behind the judge's bench. Owen unlocked the door and the two of them stepped inside. Leah was at one end of the jury table, her face buried in her arms, as though she were asleep. She made a startled little sound when the door opened.

“It's all right, Leah,” Dunc Lester said. “The marshal here's goin' to help us.”

Owen had not guessed that this hard young man could be so gentle. The girl came to her feet, her eyes wide, and Dunc went to her and took her hands. “Everything's goin' to come out fine,” he said softly. “The marshal's goin' to send you out to his place to stay with his wife.” He kept talking for a long while, and it wasn't what he said so much as the sound of his voice that seemed to quiet her.

At last the girl looked at him, and it was almost as if she had never seen him before. “I'm glad they let you talk to me,” she said.

“Thank the marshal for that.”

“Is he goin' to take you back to jail?”

“No. I'm goin' with him back to the hills.”

“Ike'll kill you!” There was a new kind of fear in her voice.

“Don't you believe it,” the boy said. “I'll be back before you know it. Leah... will you wait for me?”

The girl looked at him for a long time with a surprised expression, and suddenly she threw her arms around Dunc Lester's neck. Owen didn't hear what else they said; he went outside and waited for the boy on the other side of the door.

When he came out, he said, “I think she'll be all right.”

“I'm sure she will,” Owen said thoughtfully, and they turned to the stairs and went back down to the basement.

Arch Deland had just got the boy back in his cell when Will Cushman came into the office on his way home from church. “Well!” the sheriff said, surprised at seeing Toller in the room. “What brings you to Reunion, Owen?”

“To have you swear me in as a deputy. If you still want me for the job.”

Cushman blinked, frankly pleased. “Good! The people of this county will be forever grateful, Owen.”

“There's one condition,” Owen continued. “That boy you have locked up—I want him sworn in with me.”

The sheriff's face grew suddenly red. “That's impossible, Owen! The boy's an outlaw!”

“And a member of the Brunner gang,” Owen finished, “which is why I want him with me. And the girl you have upstairs—I want her released and sent out to my farm to stay until I get back.”

Will Cushman wanted to protest, but his good sense gained the upper hand. Being county sheriff hadn't been exactly pleasant these past few weeks, with all the county officials demanding action and political enemies demanding his scalp. To break up that gang he was ready to do almost anything—except go after them himself.

Uneasily Cushman took out a clean white handkerchief and wiped his face. “All right, Owen,” he said. “Whatever you say. When do you want to be sworn in?”

“This is as good a time as any, I suppose.”

It was midafternoon when they rode out of Reunion— Owen Toller, whose fame and daring lay behind him, and Dunc Lester, whose anger had brought him to manhood before his time. They had county horses and county rigs; a strong but shaggy roan for Owen and a hammer-headed gray for the boy. A big-footed work horse had been fitted out as a pack animal, loaded with grub packs, cooking utensils, blankets, and ammunition.

Arch Deland saddled with them at the county corral and said, “I'll ride a piece with you, Owen, if you don't mind.”

Owen studied his old friend with grim amusement, noting the booted carbine on the deputy's saddle, the saddlebags bulging with odds and ends of clothing and boxes of rim-fire cartridges. “How far do you figure a piece is?” Owen asked, grinning faintly.

Deland shrugged. “Till I get tired, maybe. I figure Will won't miss my services much.”

The camped that night in a hollow between two hills. They fried bacon and warmed canned beans in the fat and ate together out of the iron skillet.

When darkness came down, Dunc Lester said, “We better put out the fire.” Arch and Owen looked at each other, and the old deputy said, “We're still in the foothills, son, a full day's ride to high ground.”

The boy didn't bother to answer, but scooped up handfuls of dirt and smothered the fire, and for the rest of the night they were a little more alone, and the chill of early spring was in the air.

They did not talk much after the fire had been put out. Before that time Dunc had told them a little of what had happened; about the home place, and old Mort Stringer, but he never mentioned the girl. After the fire was out they did not speak of Ike Brunner and the gang, but each of them would look, from time to time, at those dark hills ahead of them. They knew how news traveled in this country. Before long Ike Brunner would know all about them, these three volunteers who had set out from Reunion to bring in the leader of the gang.

Maybe, Owen Toller thought, the three of us will have a chance. The longer he thought about it, the more certain he was that three was the right number. One more would have been too many, but three men could travel almost as quickly and quietly as one, provided all of them were familiar with the country, as they were.

Resting against his saddle, Owen smiled faintly at the darkness. The bitter humor of the situation occurred to him, and he thought, We are the volunteers. A wild young outlaw, a farmer, an aged deputy. Out of all the people in this county, it finally boiled down to just the three of us.

But soon his mind took another turn and he realized that the word “volunteer” hardly applied to any of them. Be truthful, he warned himself; look at yourself and the others. And now he saw himself and Dunc and Arch in a truer perspective, and he understood that none of them had entered this thing for unselfish reasons. No, he thought quietly, we have our reasons. Our own battles to fight.

Dunc Lester had the girl, he himself had his anger, and Arch Deland had his memories. To the old deputy civilization was a cage with no doors. Statehood had brought the end of an era; it had cut off the purpose in Arch Deland's life, which, in a way, was worse than dying. It had left an old man with nothing to do and, except for his memories, empty.

Now it seemed strange to Owen that he had not detected this lack of purpose and emptiness in his old friend.

Owen himself had felt it at times, but in Elizabeth and the children he had found something else to take the place of the life he had left behind. Something finer and better than anything he had known before.

For the first time in his life, Owen experienced pangs of pity for his friend, for he understood now that Arch had volunteered because he sought to return to the past, where he had been a man of consequence.

And what about myself? Owen asked silently. Certainly I am no hero. The very thought made him uncomfortable. But why did I leave my family to undertake a fool thing like this, anyway?

He was not searching for the past, like Arch Deland, for he held the future in his hands. And he was no wild hill boy bursting with hate and fear and the love of a girl, like Dunc Lester. But he had come.

Owen pondered this slowly. He hated like death to admit that Ben McKeever and all the others had defeated him and brought him to heel, but perhaps that was the answer after all.