The Flaming Jewel

Episode Four

A PRIVATE WAR

I

WHEN State Trooper Stormont rode up to Clinch's with Eve Strayer lying in his arms, Mike Clinch strode out of the motley crowd around the tavern, laid his rifle against a tree, and stretched forth his powerful hands to receive his stepchild.

He held her, cradled, looking down at her in silence as the men clustered around.

"Eve," he said hoarsely, "be you hurted?"

The girl opened her sky-blue eyes.

"I'm all right, dad, … just tired… I've got your parcel … safe…"

"To hell with the gol-dinged parcel," he almost sobbed; " – did Quintana harm you?"

"No, dad."

As he carried her to the veranda the packet fell from her cramped fingers. Clinch kicked it under a chair and continued on into the house and up the stairs to Eve's bedroom.

Flat on the bed, the girl opened her drowsy eyes again, unsmiling.

"Did that dirty louse misuse you?" demanded Clinch unsteadily. "G'wan tell me, girlie."

"He knocked me down… He went away to get fire to make me talk. I cut up the blanket they gave me and made a rope. Then I went over the cliff into the big pine below. That was all, dad."

Clinch filled a tin basin and washed the girl's torn feet. When he had dried them he kissed them. She felt his unshaven lips trembling, heard him whimper for the first time in his life.

"Why the hell didn't you give Quintana the packet?" he demanded. "What does that count for – what does any damn thing count for against you, girlie?"

She looked up at him out of heavy-lidded eyes: "You told me to take good care of it."

"It's only a little truck I'd laid by for you," he retorted unsteadily, " – a few trifles for to make a grand lady of you when the time's ripe. 'Tain't worth a thorn in your little foot to me… The hull gol-dinged world full o' money ain't worth that there stone-bruise onto them little white feet o' yourn, Eve.

"Look at you now – my God, look at you there, all peaked an' scairt an' bleedin' – plum tuckered out, 'n' all ragged 'n' dirty – "

A blaze of fury flared in his small pale eyes: " – And he hit you, too, did he? – that skunk! Quintana done that to my little girlie, did he?"

"I don't know if it was Quintana. I don't know who he was, dad," she murmured drowsily.

"Masked, wa'n't he?"

"Yes."

Clinch's iron visage twitched and quivered. He gnawed his thin lips into control:

"Girlie, I gotta go out a spell. But I ain't a-leavin' you alone here. I'll git somebody to set up with you. You jest lie snug and don't think about nothin' till I come back."

"Yes, dad," she sighed, closing her eyes.

Clinch stood looking at her for a moment, then he went downstairs heavily, and out to the veranda where State Trooper Stormont still sat his saddle, talking to Hal Smith. On the porch a sullen crowd of backwoods riff-raff lounged in silence, awaiting events.

Clinch called across to Smith: "Hey, Hal, g'wan up and set with Eve a spell while she's nappin'. Take a gun."

Smith said to Stormont in a low voice: "Do me a favour, Jack?"

"You bet."

"That girl of Clinch's is in real danger if left here alone. But I've got another job on my hands. Can you keep a watch on her till I return?"

"Can't you tell me a little more, Jim?"

"I will, later. Do you mind helping me out now?"

"All right."

Trooper Stormont swung out of his saddle and led his horse away toward the stable.

Hal Smith went into the bar where Clinch stood, oiling a rifle.

"G'wan upstairs," he muttered. "I got a private war on. It's me or Quintana, now."

"You're going after Quintana?" inquired Smith, carelessly.

"I be. And I want you should git your gun and set up by Evie. And I want you should kill any living human son of a slut that comes botherin' around this here hotel."

"I'm going after Quintana with you, Mike."

"B'gosh, you ain't. You're a-goin' to keep watch here."

"No. Trooper Stormont has promised to stay with Eve. You'll need every man to-day, Mike. This isn't a deer drive."

Clinch let his rifle sag across the hollow of his left arm.

"Did you beef to that trooper?" he demanded in his pleasant, misleading way.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" retorted Smith.

"Well, what the hell – "

"They all know that some man used your girl roughly. That's all I said to him – 'keep an eye on Eve until we can get back.' And I tell you, Mike, if we drive Star Peak we won't be back till long after sundown."

Clinch growled: "I ain't never asked no favours of no State Trooper – "

"He did you a favour, didn't he? He brought your daughter in."

"Yes, 'n' he'd jail us all if he got anything on us."