BAD END VALLEY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13234, 9 January 1941, Page 3

BAD END VALLEY

BY W. B. BANNER MAN

CHATTER 1H KING GARRICK Kins Garrick heaved himself out of the long wicker chair in which he had been sprawling, and took his Stetson down from the nail behind the door. He was a huge man —not so much in height, though he was a full six feet tall, as in girth and bone-struc-ture. His chest was like a wine-cask, and the muscles of his arms, should-er-blades and buttocks stood out in •ungainly lumps when he moved his 235 pounds. His face was broad and bony, with a jaw that looked as hard and solid as a rock. His eyes were of an unusual yellowish-green colour, which ••shone with a cold, baleful glitter like a cat’s eyes when he showed resentment. His bullet-head was sparsely covered with red hair, and his •chin, /U-shaven. showed a half-inch long bristle of the same colour.

There were two other men in the room. As Garrick sot up. they followed suit. 'One was short and slender, dark as a Mexican and alert as a stoat. The other was taller and of heavier build, with a scarred brown face. Each of them carried two guns. Each of them had that wall-eyed stare that policemen call the “killer’s look.” “Take it easy, boys,” Garrick told them. “The place I’m going visitin’ to-night, I don’t want you fellers nlong.” The short man leered. “Payin’ a call on that there little .girl friend o’ youi’n, boss?” Garrick grinned suggestively. “Yuh got it right, Bat. An’ I don’t need no bodyguard when I go courtin’, so you an’ Joe can jest stick around here till I get back. I might be late, at that.” With his Stetson stuck on the hack of his head, he went to the table on which were standing a couple of whisky-bottles and some soiled glasses. Pie splashed a hefty shot of whisky into one of the glasses, and swallowed it. Before he turned towards the door again, he picked up the two bottles of whisky, one full, the other half-full.

“Better take a shot to Old Man Nelson,” he flung back across his shoulder, as he opened the door. “S’long, boys!”

Slamming the door behind him, he walked across the verandah —not over steadily. Clumping down the steps, he went down the rough slope to where a row of stepping-stones made a ford across the shallow stream.

Garrick was more than’ a little drunk, and very pleased with life in general, and himself in particular. He hummed discordantly as he started across stepping-stones. Halfway Scross. however, his high-heel-ed boots slipped on the -\yet stones, and he blundered ankle-deep into the water. The humming broke off abruptly, and he cursed luridly as he splashed to the further bank. There, he v paused, gazing up the valley, over which a white full moon was rising. His complacence returned. He reminded himself, as he had done many a time before, that the valley was his and everything that was in it. As he was King, this was his domain. All the people- in it were his subjects. They had been-his father’s before him, and, King-like, he had succeeded to his father’s crown. He smiled to himself. He was a better King than his Dad had been. He thought of his youth in this place, when Old Man Miller and his three sons, along with old . Nelson and his wife, had been the only other folks here except for his father and himself. Then Seth Seaton had come, bringing with him his baby grandchild, young Danny—and Seth’s queer reputation had slowly followed him to Bad End Valley—the tale of his miser’s hoard of gold and his strange mad mind. The Kingship had started with his father, working the best land in the Valley, lending money to those living on less productive patches, and he himself, after his father’s death, had consolidated his position by actually acquiring the others’ land through mortgages, making them his vassals twice-over. His own herds increased, while theirs did not, and their debts to him kept growing. He had them in the hollow of his hand. Perhaps it would have paid him bet-

ter to have driven the others out of the valley and worked their land in conjunction with his own; but King did not want to do that. He gloried in the knowledge of his power over them.

King’s love of power had something insane in it, and that abnormality was reflected in the queerness of the other valley folk. Shut away in the barren mountains, with a single trail leading to civilisation on one side, and the empty desolation of the desert stretching away into infinity on the other, they had come to accept King as their lord, and master. The three Miller boys, with their slatternly wives and noisy brood of children, lived only to get drunk and quarrel with each other, and were so much under King’s domination that, having let him think for them for so long, they were no longer able to think for themselves.

It was the same with old Nelson. Since his wife’s death, he, too, had developed into' little more than a drunkard, and fawned on King for the means to satisfy his desire for whisky. King w'ould have kept him fawning in vain more often than he did. were it not for the attractions that his daughter was beginning to display.

With Seth Seaton, though, things were not quite the same. In Seth’s homage to King there was always something of reserve. King frowned at the thought of Seth. Like the rest, he was certain that the legend of the old man’s hidden cache of gold was true. In the years since Seth’s arrival, several strangers from the outer world had come nocing after that hoard. King smiled fiercely at the memory of his success in getting rid of them. He was determined that, if anybody was going to persuade Seth to part with his secret, it would be himself. And it was not for want of trying that the old man had refused to talk. King had striven to open his lips persistently—in a variety of ways. Garrick’s mouth twisted cruelly. The old skunk had beaten him so far, but he would win out in the end. Sooner or later Seth would talk all right. . . . With a final self-satisfied nod at the prospect of the valley that he owned, he started moving again, and came to the Nelson’s place.

Carrick did not knock—why should he knock? —but unceremoniously pushed open the door and marched inside. Sam Nelson must have been waiting on tenderhooks for his arrival, hovering about just behind the door, for, when it was flung open, it nearly knocked him down.

Garrick bellowed with laughter as .Sam rubbed his brow where the door had struck him.

“Kinda took yuh by surprise, huh, Sam?” “Didn’t hurt me none,” Sam answered quickly, his little wizened body squirming with eagerness- to please the great man who had deigned to visit him. “Huya, King! C’mon in an’ set down.”

Contemptuously, King walked past him, dumped his bottles on the table and flung himself into the most comfortable chair that the poorly-furnished room had to offer. “Where’s Ruth?” he shot out brutally. “Guess she’s in the other room right now —Axin’ herself up,” Sam replied nervously. “Maltin’ herself look pretty, as you-all got company, huh?” King suggested. Nelson sniggered. “That’s right. King—maltin’ herself look pretty.” Garrick frowned in sudden' irritation. “Well, tell her to hurry up about it!” Sam hopped across to the far door and shouted something urgently. From behind the door, Ruth’s voice answered indistinctly. Sam came back and stood watching Garrick nervously across the table. King knew what the other was thinking. Thirst was racking him, and he was waiting fervently for King to invite him to take a drink from one of the bottles standing there so alluringly on the table. Deliberately, King refrained from giving that invitation. He enjoyed dangling his largesse in front of his subjects’ noses—it emphasized his power.

The silence that followed was an uneasy one —for Sam, at least. Car-

rick was in his element. But Carrick, too, was thirsty, and presently his thirst overcame his pleasure in keeping the old man waiting, and he ended Sam’s suffering.

“I brought some whisky along,” he said graciously. ‘‘Havee a snort?” Sam’s face lighted up. “Sure, King! Thanks!”

He brought over a couple of glasses from the rough dresser on the far wall.

“Want me to pour ’em, King?” Garrick nodded.

“Sure, you can pour ’em.” Sam filled each tumbler half-full and brought King’s over to him. “Yuh don’t spare my liquor when yuh pour out,” King remarked. “Well, here’s how.” “Here’s how. King!” They drank.

“What’s happened to that gel o’ yourn?” King demanded, suddenly bellicose.

“Ruth!” Sam shouted. “Ain’t yuh never gonna get fixed?” “Cornin’, Dad!” Ruth’s voice answered.

A second or two later and the door of thte second room opened. Hesitantly, Ruth came in. “Kept me waitin’ a darn long time ain’t yuh?” King shot at her.

“Sorry, King. She~ ” Sam began apologising. “Aw, forget it.” Garrick cut him short impatiently. ‘C’mon an’ have a little drink, girlie.” “Yuh know I don’t drink, King,” Ruth answered quietly. {To be continued)