Free Fight for Powder Valley! by Brett Halliday

Valley, as inexplicable to her as it was menacing.
    The ring of men had self-consciously broken apart as the two mothers separated their offspring, and as they stepped back they spied Joe Hartsell emerging from the store with a box of groceries on his shoulder.
    An ominous murmur of anger greeted the sight. Mort Dawson, foreman for the Triangle H, stepped in front of Joe and demanded, “What you got there?”
    Joe said, “Groceries.” He started to push past Mort. Dawson gave him a shove and he staggered against the front wheel of the wagon. His blue eyes blazed and his mouth set in a tight hard line. He boosted the box of groceries up onto the front seat, then turned to face the group of hostile faces with bunched fists. “I don’t know what’s up,” he began, “but …”
    Mr. Winters nervously came to the door of his store. “Don’t be blaming me for selling him that stuff, boys,” he called out placatingly. “I didn’t, just like I promised. Mrs. Stevens ordered it and paid for it … then sold it to the plow-outfit …”
    â€œI certainly did.” Sally pushed her way in front of the men, between them and Joe Hartsell. “You leave these folks alone now. They’re tired and worn-out, and they have children …”
    â€œSally!” Pat Stevens came striding up and took Sally’s arm angrily. “What’s this all about? I was down the street and I heard …”
    The creak of moving wagon wheels interrupted him. During the diversion created by Sally, Molly Hartsell had hustled her husband and children into the wagon, lifted the lines and started the weary team off down the street.
    Sally turned to watch them go. She clung to Pat weakly, her eyes filling with tears. There was something symbolic in the slow, measured pace of the swaying prairie schooner with its cargo of pitiable souls seeking a place to put roots into the ground of this wild and untamed West. The Hartsells were not the type who would be easily dislodged and driven out once they had settled themselves on their own plot of ground.
    In a shaky voice, Sally said defiantly, “I don’t care what you think, Pat. There were little children in that wagon. I couldn’t see them go hungry.”

6
    Ross Culver met the covered wagon a mile north of Dutch Springs. Ross was driving a buckboard back to town, and he pulled aside on the dusty road, watching the swaying approach of the cumbersome wagon with narrowed eyes.
    There was a stubble of beard on the engineer’s cheeks, and his face was thinner than it had been a month previously. His eyes had taken on a look of hard wariness and his face and hands no longer carried the blisters of a tenderfoot. He had left off the black tie that added a touch of professional dignity to his attire, and wore his khaki shirt with sleeves rolled above the elbows and open at the throat. The shirt itself was sweat-stained, and his leather boots had lost all vestige of the polish they had worn into Powder Valley.
    It had been a month of strain and of hard work for the Eastern engineer. He didn’t mind the hard work. There was satisfaction in tackling a tough job with his two hands and his brain, but the bleak animosity of the valley ranchers was difficult for Culver to accept and endure. He and his men were as wholly ostracized as though they were lepers. There had been no more overt trouble since Sheriff Grimes deputized them and the threat of martial law was spread over the valley, but the caldron of hatred simmered ominously beneath the calm, and Culver was painfully conscious that any small incident might set off an explosion that would rock the placid valley from end to end.
    He knew this was the first definite showdown, as he waited for the Hartsells’ wagon to reach him. From Company headquarters in Denver, he had been informed that several parcels of land had been sold and the first eager settlers could be