Hell And High Water

By William MacLeod Raine

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Release date: Nov 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781786254740

William MacLeod Raine

William MacLeod Raine (June 22, 1871 – July 25, 1954), was a British-born American novelist who wrote fictional adventure stories about the American Old West. In 1959, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

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Text originally published in 1943 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2015, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

HELL AND HIGH WATER

William MacLeod Raine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

CHAPTER I — The Barn Dance 5

CHAPTER II — You’re Staying at Yore Own Risk, Son 13

CHAPTER III — The Fight at Four Corners 17

CHAPTER IV — Bob Lee Takes a Hand 22

CHAPTER V — Hightower Says No 27

CHAPTER VI — All Men Are the Same Size Behind a Gun 31

CHAPTER VII — Bob Travels 36

CHAPTER VIII — A Close Call 40

CHAPTER IX — The Hickorys Ride North 45

CHAPTER X — Bob Cuts Sign 48

CHAPTER XI — The Stickup 52

CHAPTER XII — Bob Shows His Pleasant Smile 57

CHAPTER XIII — A Campfire in the Night 62

CHAPTER XIV — A Man in the Dust 68

CHAPTER XV — Bob Talks with Visitors 73

CHAPTER XVI — Hiram Sugg Visits the Sick 78

CHAPTER XVII — Bob Listens to Bitter Words 82

CHAPTER XVIII — Todd Comes Back 87

CHAPTER XIX — The Hole-Up at Sunk Bayou 90

CHAPTER XX — A Scrap of Charred Paper 97

CHAPTER XXI — Let Him Have It 102

CHAPTER XXII — Willie May Meets a Shock 105

CHAPTER XXIII — One of Us Is a Liar and an Outlaw 107

CHAPTER XXIV — A Dilemma 112

CHAPTER XXV — A Headstrong Girl Flings Out a Challenge 115

CHAPTER XXVI — A Meeting in the Hills 119

CHAPTER XXVII — Bob Finds a Handkerchief 123

CHAPTER XXVIII — Willie May Finds a Champion 127

CHAPTER XXIX — Sugg to the Rescue 132

CHAPTER XXX — Jake Makes a Mistake 137

CHAPTER XXXI — The Way of the Transgressor 140

CHAPTER XXXII — Broderick Faces a Dilemma 146

CHAPTER XXXIII — The Jail Break 151

CHAPTER XXXIV — Cle Hightower Is Fitted for a Coffin 155

CHAPTER XXXV — The Long Trail Ahead 159

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 161

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 around her. But this was different. She had turned to him to save her from an awkward situation, not because he was her father’s hired man on horseback but because she understood him well enough to be sure of him. He had moved a step nearer her, and he did not mean ever to lose that gain if he could help it.

She said, in a low lovely voice, rich, and a little husky: He’s looking at us, with murder in his eyes. You don’t think. . .

The men circled outside the women, and Bob took occasion to include Jake Hickory in his sweeping glance. The man was standing against the wall glowering at him angrily. Willie May had meant to exaggerate in the word she had used to express that look. But the young man was not sure she had. A young Chickasaw had stood in the way of the Hickorys several years before. He had vanished one day and never been seen again alive. Months later his skeleton had been found in a swamp.

Did you notice? the girl whispered when Bob returned to her. You don’t think he’ll make you trouble?

If he doesn’t like it that needn’t worry you and me, he said lightly.

That was how he felt for the moment. The light supple body of the girl was in his arms, warm and responsive. Her smiling lovely face was turned to his. All the Hickorys in the world could not rob him of that.

Maybe I oughtn’t to have come, Willie May suggested. I’ve never been to one of these before. She was referring to a dance given by a member of the Nation. Father thought I had better not, but he let me come just this once—with Mr. Sugg.

Bob did not express an opinion, though he privately agreed with J. A. Broderick was a Texas cattleman who had leased and fenced a large tract in the Choctaw Nation. But he was an outsider who had nothing to do with the life of the tribe. To allow his daughter to adventure into it even slightly might bring unpleasant complications, since its way of life was not hers. She was out of place here. The girl had been educated at Austin in a young ladies’ academy. She had been born into a family of means. Though the Choctaws were a civilized tribe, living under a legal system adapted from that of Arkansas, their culture was primitive and their methods of existence very simple.

She pushed home her point, eyes flickering obliquely to meet his. You think I shouldn’t be here, she charged.

What he thought was of no importance. He was one of fifty cow-chasers hired by her father. Times had changed since her people and his had been neighbors at Lampasas. But since she had asked for his opinion she got it.

I think many of the Choctaws are fine people. Most of them are a heap more decent than plenty of white folks in this country. It’s a wild place, and criminals have flocked here from all over. At a public dance like this some of the scalawags are sure to be present. Generally they act all right, but sometimes they don’t, especially if they have had too much redeye.

So I should have stayed on the ranch.

"Yes."

But it was all right for you to come, of course.

She became a birdie in a cage, and he joined hands with the other men to circle round her. When he was alone with her again he replied.

 You heard Hickory call me a two-bit cow hand. It’s all right for me to be here, but you are Miss Broderick.

He was right. She knew that when she saw Sam Hickory swing Jessie MacPherson so violently that she was swept from her feet and fell to the ground. The man of course was drunk.

Cleburn Hightower had been watching Jessie and Sam Hickory, the eyes in his impassive face showing’ none of the quick resentment that burned in him. He reached the girl who had been flung down and helped her to her feet. As he started to lead her to a seat Sam Hickory blocked the way.

I’m dancing with this girl, he blustered.

Hightower corrected the statement. You were. She dance no more now.

The drunken man snatched at the wrist of the frightened girl, but Cleburn jammed a muscular forearm under his chin and flung him back. The ruffian gave a roar of rage and charged. The full-blood caught him by the hair of the head. at the same time shifting his foot forward. A strong jerk sideways flung the angry man over the extended leg and sent him sliding along the floor. Two of his brothers ran forward, but Timmy Boggs was on the scene first.

No make trouble, he urged, and stood in front of Cle-burn and Jessie, facing the bad men.

Sam rose from the floor, furious at his humiliation. Jake and Ed Hickory held him back. Powerful though the gang was, it could not defy the police force of the Choctaw Nation.

Hiram Sugg’s broad shoulders pushed through the crowd. We can’t have brawling here, boys, he ordered curtly. There are ladies present. Any little difficulty can be settled later.

It will be settled! Sam cried. You can bet yore boots on that.

But not here. We won’t stand for that.

That’s what you say.

Sugg’s hard steady gaze held fast to the man. That’s what I say.

Their host Jim Merrill had a word to add. This is a friendly dance, Sam. We didn’t come here to have trouble.

And there won’t be any, Sugg added decisively. He smiled at Jake Hickory, but the smile carried back of it a warning. You boys have too much sense for that.

This was not the time or place to make trouble, Jake decided. Nobody is looking for a difficulty, he said sourly. Unless it is that interfering lunkhead Hightower or his fool friend Lee. This thing can wait for a while, but it won’t be forgot.

Bob had turned Willie May over to Mrs. Merrill and was standing beside Cleburn. Just a little misunderstanding, he explained quietly. Thing to do is clear the floor and start another square.

The black beady eyes of Jake Hickory blazed into the