Hell And High Water

William MacLeod Raine

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781786254740
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Another barnstorming Western adventure from the prolific pen of William MacLeod Raine.
Bob Lee, Youthful cowboy, on the JAB ranch in the Indian Territory before Oklahoma became a state, arouses the enmity of a territory bootlegger by pouring out his stock at a nations barn dance at Cale Station. He gets deeper into a death-threatening situation by protecting his boss' daughter, Willie May Broderick, from dancing with a bleary-eyed member of the Hickory gang, law-flouting ex-Texans who had recently come into the region. Cleburn Hightower, full-blooded Choctaw Indian and close friend of Bob Lee, further complicates the set-up.

CHAPTER I — The Barn Dance

DUST stirred by the horses’ hoofs sifted into every wrinkle of their clothes. Despite the protecting bandanas fine particles floated into throat and nostrils. The sweat-stained withers of the animals were streaked with it.

The untempered sun beat down on them as they forded the Little Blue. It set in a splash of glory back of the purple hills long before they passed through Durant. Twilight gave way to night, and the kindly darkness softened the details of a land too raw and rough.

The moon rode over the horizon big and red, and the stars came out. They filled a garish world with beauty not to be seen by day. A silvery magic filled the night, a hint of mystery that stirred in Bob Lee long-forgotten memories and dreams he did not expect to come true.

Except when Bob broke into a snatch of song or made a remark that drew a throaty grunt from his companion, they rode in silence. For Cleburn Hightower was a full-blood Choctaw Indian, sparing of words, not given to light and easy talk.

The friends jogged along at a road gait. There was no hurry. Since leaving the J A B they had ridden nearly forty miles, and before that had been in the saddle working stock since the break of day. They expected to dance most of the night and get back to the ranch about noon. There they would saddle fresh mounts and join a hunt for strays in the hills.

As they rode up to the big new Merrill barn at Cale Station they heard the sawing of a fiddle, the shuffling of feet, and the buzz of voices above which lifted the sing-song chant of the caller. In the cottonwood grove they fastened their horses along with twenty others. From the thongs back of the cantle they untied slickers in which were wrapped the clothes they meant to wear at the dance. Their chaps they hung from the horns.

They retired to the corral where the windmill was clicking, stripped, and bathed in the horse trough, after which they hung their soiled clothes on the corral fence.

As the two men moved toward the barn they offered a notable contrast in appearance. The Indian moved with a long flat-footed stride. He was tall, straight, broad-shouldered, with the high cheekbones and the dark coloring of his race. Lee had a quick eye and a mobile face. Small and light, be carried himself with rhythmic ease, almost jauntily, in spite of the high-heeled boots that threw the weight of the body forward and made walking difficult.

The noise from the barn carried into the quiet night. The excited “Hi-yi!” of a dancer broke clear over the stamping of feet in the quadrille.

“Looks like, as the Citizen says, a good time is being had by all,” Lee drawled.

Hightower grunted assent. His taciturn response did not annoy the other. They teamed together, though Lee was white and therefore not of the Nation. In blizzards and stampedes they had seen each other tested, and behind herds of trail cattle had swum rivers in flood.

As was usual at country dances, a dozen men were clustered around the wide door of the barn. A shift in the position of one of them showed for a moment a sharp-featured foxlike face flung against the light.

“Dyke Sims peddling his poison brew again,” Lee commented resentfully. “Merrill ought to make him pull his freight.”

He watched Sims detach himself from the group and head toward the south end of the grove. They had noticed a cart there. The bootlegger was going to get another jug of liquor to sell. A demoniac impulse seized the cowboy. He would spoil the scamp’s game for one night at least.

“‘Lo, Dyke,” he called. “You sure are an oasis in a thirsty land. Lead us to yore Choctaw beer.”

Choctaw beer was a local concoction made of barley, hops, and fishberries, plus a percentage of bad whiskey. It was a raw, vicious compound.

“That’s how I like to hear young fellows talk,” Sims replied. “You got to have yore fun.”

“I’m going to have mine now,” Lee told him with a chuckle.

On the way to the grove Lee picked up a two-by-four about three feet long. He climbed over the wheel of the cart and with two blows of the club crushed the top of a barrel. Tilting this on its side, he let the liquor pour from the bed of the cart to the ground.

Sims stared at him in angry surprise. “What you doing, you blame fool?” he shouted, and reached for the gun on his hip.

The strong fingers of the Indian closed on the wrist of the man, twisted the revolver from his hand, and flung it from the grove into the tall grass fifty feet away. While Lee emptied the second keg, the cursing peddler struggled to escape from the grip of Hightower. On his small-featured evil face was stamped a venomous hatred. He threatened dire revenge.

Bob Lee paid no attention to his ravings. “Light a shuck outa here right now,” he ordered.

“I’ll see what the Hickorys have to say about that,” the peddler blustered.

“You won’t see what anyone has to say,” Lee differed. “You’ll git.”

Though the Five Nations made their own laws and enforced them, the United States made one stipulation. No liquor was to be taken into the Territory and none was to be manufactured there. There were many violations, but Sims knew that the punishment for a conviction of a white man was severe. If he was arrested by one of the native police and turned over to a United States marshal, he would be dragged to Judge Parker’s court at Fort Smith and probably sentenced to a long term in the penitentiary. Sobbing with rage, the bootlegger hitched up his team and drove away into the night.

As the cowboys drew near the barn a redheaded young fellow greeted them with a whoop. “Reps from the J A B!” he shouted. “Come in and get yore feet wet.”

A Choctaw police officer, Timmy Boggs, spoke to the newcomers. “‘Lo, Bob—Cle! Everything fine on the ranch?”

“Fair to middling, Timmy. We need rain.” Bob grinned at Boggs. “We’re not toting any guns, if that’s what is biting you. Quiet peaceable lads like us wouldn’t bring any to a dance.”

“That’s bully good,” the officer approved.

The J A B riders stayed for a few minutes with the stag line at the door exchanging greetings with acquaintances. Some of these were white, but more were citizens of the Nation with at least a percentage of Indian blood in them. Merrill, the host, was a quarter-breed.

The redhead stood back of Lee, who was on tiptoe searching over the shoulder of the man in front of him for the girl in whom he was most interested.

“Distinguished company with us tonight,” the redhead Floyd murmured satirically in Lee’s ear. “The Hickorys are here—pretty nearly the whole caboodle of them—big as Cuffey and ugly as sin.”

This was surprising and a little disturbing. Usually the Hickorys did not attend the neighborhood frolics. They kept to themselves and sneered at the dances and socials. Bob’s roving eye picked out Jake Hickory. From across the room he was watching Willie May Broderick. The man had never met her. He was outside the pale, damned by his bad reputation and the handicap of mixed blood.

The effrontery of that covetous gaze stirred in the cowboy an indignant resentment. Bob worked for J. A. Broderick, and when his daughter had been a little girl he had gone to school with her in Texas. Even then the dainty little miss, in pigtails and with a front tooth missing, had been precious to the rough boy. Her cheerful friendly grin had warmed him.

All the Hickorys were a bad lot. Their father had been a white from Arkansas, a worthless drifter who had crossed the line and married a half-breed Choctaw girl to get the benefit of citizenship in the Nation. The five sons, all big tough ruffians, were suspected of running other men’s cattle through the southern counties into Kansas and New Mexico. None of them worked, but they spent money freely. Where they got it was a mystery, if not by illicit ways.

When the quadrille ended Lee’s eyes followed Willie May to her seat on the benches by the wall. Her partner had been Hiram Sugg, a handsome well-dressed man with a gay and carefree smile. Flat-backed and broad-shouldered, he carried himself with graceful ease. A coming man in the country, people said of him, one who would travel deservedly a long way to success. Miss Broderick had never looked at Bob or any other man with such starry-eyed admiration as she was offering Sugg.

Jake Hickory moved across the floor, his snaky eyes fixed on Willie May. Bob guessed what was in his mind and followed close, with no plan except to be at hand if the girl needed him. He did not like this set-up. Hickory was staring at Miss Broderick from black hungry eyes. He had never danced with this golden-haired girl. He had never spoken to her. But there was drink enough in him now to give a Dutch courage that would attempt to bridge the social gap.

Willie May knew instantly what the man meant to do. Her glance passed him, to find Bob Lee at the man’s heels.

“Come and shake a foot with me, girl,” Hickory said.

She smiled a little, formally, but there was no smile in the deep blue eyes that looked into his steadily. “I am dancing with Mr. Lee, sir.”

Jake swung round and glared at Bob. “I got here first,” he snarled.

Bob was not looking for trouble with any Hickory, but neither was he dodging the obligation he had assumed. It was his job as an employee of her father and as an old acquaintance to look after Willie May. Moreover, it gave him a fierce keen pleasure.

“You heard Miss Broderick,” he said evenly.

“Yeah, I heard her. Do you claim you’re any better than me, you two-bit cow hand?”

“I don’t claim anything, except that I’m dancing with Miss Broderick.” Bob offered her his arm and they walked out on the floor.

Opposite them in the set stood Sam Hickory and Jessie MacPherson. More trouble, Lee thought. For this gentle soft-eyed lass, part Scot and part Indian, was Cleburn High-tower’s girl. If they were not engaged, the two were very close to it. Yet Sam was showing open and offensive familiarity.

“Another of the Hickorys,” Bob said to his partner in a low voice.

“How dare they come here, after they have been drinking, and try to dance with decent girls?” Willie May asked, the color hot in her cheeks.

Lee did not answer that. The first steps of the quadrille interfered with private talk. Obeying the orders of the caller, he left her, to return again presently with a strange happiness in his heart. He had danced with her before, as any casual acquaintance might, a little awed and embarrassed when his arm went ...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• CHAPTER I - The Barn Dance
• CHAPTER II - “You’re Staying at Yore Own Risk, Son”
• CHAPTER III - The Fight at Four Corners
• CHAPTER IV - Bob Lee Takes a Hand
• CHAPTER V - Hightower Says “No”
• CHAPTER VI - “All Men Are the Same Size Behind a Gun”
• CHAPTER VII - Bob Travels
• CHAPTER VIII - A Close Call
• CHAPTER IX - The Hickorys Ride North
• CHAPTER X - Bob Cuts Sign
• CHAPTER XI - The Stickup
• CHAPTER XII - Bob Shows His Pleasant Smile
• CHAPTER XIII - A Campfire in the Night
• CHAPTER XIV - A Man in the Dust
• CHAPTER XV - Bob Talks with Visitors
• CHAPTER XVI - Hiram Sugg Visits the Sick
• CHAPTER XVII - Bob Listens to Bitter Words
• CHAPTER XVIII - Todd Comes Back
• CHAPTER XIX - The Hole-Up at Sunk Bayou
• CHAPTER XX - A Scrap of Charred Paper
• CHAPTER XXI - “Let Him Have It”
• CHAPTER XXII - Willie May Meets a Shock
• CHAPTER XXIII - “One of Us Is a Liar and an Outlaw”
• CHAPTER XXIV - A Dilemma
• CHAPTER XXV - A Headstrong Girl Flings Out a Challenge
• CHAPTER XXVI - A Meeting in the Hills
• CHAPTER XXVII - Bob Finds a Handkerchief
• CHAPTER XXVIII - Willie May Finds a Champion
• CHAPTER XXIX - Sugg to the Rescue
• CHAPTER XXX - Jake Makes a Mistake
• CHAPTER XXXI - “The Way of the Transgressor”
• CHAPTER XXXII - Broderick Faces a Dilemma
• CHAPTER XXXIII - The Jail Break
• CHAPTER XXXIV - Cle Hightower Is Fitted for a Coffin
• CHAPTER XXXV - The Long Trail Ahead