Tom Bender Unloaded at Rondora the next night an hour after sunset when the drilling rigs were ablaze with lights. The rigs were thrown around the town in an uneven circle, a glow about the floor of each derrick, a lone light gleaming up near the double board, another ninety feet in the air to light the top of the stands and another above that on a gin pole which shone dully down on the crown blocks.
It was an unearthly spectacle and looking at it Tom Bender could believe those who said there was no arrangement of lights that could look like this. His nostrils were filled with the cloying smell of a breeze that has blown over hundreds of pools of oil and his ears vibrated to a slow boom that was like the ringing of a great bell from far off. Somewhere out there they were running surface casing in the holes and beating it with sledges.
He was unconscious of the people around him until he heard a voice say: “Taxi to the hotel,” and felt somebody tug at his glad-stone. He released it and followed a man across the gravel to a flivver that was parked in front of the station. The man hoisted the bag up and slammed it down hard in the space between the hood and the fender and then started back to the train from which people were still emerging.
The way he handled the bag got Tom Bender's dander up because it was a present from the Adjutant-General and he was as careful of it as he was of his watch. He yelled: “Hey!” and the driver stopped. Bender strode over with blood in his eyes and asked him where he was going. The driver replied shortly that he was going to get some more passengers and walked away muttering to himself.
“Hey!” Bender yelled again. When he faced him this time the yellow glare of the station lamps revealed deep lines in his face. Tom Bender was spoiling for a good ruction and he didn't care where it started. “How long you gonna be?” he challenged.
“Aw, I dunno,” the driver responded lazily. “You in a hurry?”
“You're right I'm in a hurry!” Bender snapped. The driver wasn't very big and Bender knew if he slammed him one he'd probably break him in two.
The driver's fingers were spread and working and his face was alight with belligerency but he knew this was too much man for him to take on single-handed. In a minute his fingers grew still, he relaxed a little and tried to take it good-naturedly.
“In that case,” he said; “I guess we better be rolling.”
“Yeah,” said Bender, still a little sore; “in that case we better be rolling.”
They rolled.
Rondora was booming. It was a settlement of drab one- and two-story buildings squatting upon the prairie with only a railroad to keep it alive. It was the sort of town that can be found nowhere but on the west Texas flats, and had the hand of fortune stayed itself Rondora probably would have gone on for generations on end creating not even a flicker of interest from the world outside. People were born, lived and died in the same house—that sort of town. Quick riches had increased the tempo of life and geared it too high for old-time fashions. She was an old chassis with a new and powerful motor and anybody who stopped to think would have known she couldn't stand a pace like this without bursting somewhere.
The single important street teemed with people. Automobiles were parked nose-first at the curbing and crowds were gathered on the corners and in the drug stores. Some of them were in the habiliments of the field and some of them were in plain trousers and shirt sleeves but all of them had money in their pockets and were looking for things to buy. From somewhere came the noisy discord of an electric piano. Conversation was loud, laughter was boisterous and women drove slowly up and down the street in closed cars, sitting alone in the shadows, and stealing surreptitious come-hither looks at the men on the sidewalks.
Bender grinned and remarked that Rondora was sure a hot burg. The driver laughed pleasantly and agreed but added it sure as hell was gonna cool off now.
“I know you,” he said with a touch of pride. “You're Cap'n Tom Bender.”
Bender admitted it, looked at the driver and said he didn't remember him.
“Nope,” the driver explained; “but I was up to Denton seven or eight years ago when Willie Braun barricaded himself in that house and dared the cops to come and get him.”
It was a six-hour gun battle with a train robber and Bender said he remembered it all right.
“I was standing pretty close when Braun shot your legs out from under you,” the driver went on. “You laid flat on your belly in the street and blew his head off.”
Tom Bender didn't have to be reminded of that. He grunted and said nothing but the driver looked at him enviously and under the look Bender expanded and forgot all about the unpleasantness of a few minutes before. The driver asked him if he were in town on business and Bender said he had come up from the Rio Grande just to spend a vacation. He could tell from the way the driver laughed that he didn't believe it.
Bender asked him if he knew where Jeff Peebles lived and the driver said he did. He asked if Bender wanted to go out there.
“Later,” he said. “I got plenty of time. Take me to the hotel first.”
Up towards the end of the street they stopped before the hotel and a Negro bell-boy dashed out and got the bag. Bender told the driver to wait and went inside. The lobby was narrow and small but it was filled. All the seats were taken and there were women sitting around with diamonds on their fingers as big as dimes. Rondora had about ten times more people than it could care for.
Bender signed the register at the desk and the clerk explained that the hotel was pretty crowded and asked him if he was particular about a room. Bender said he wasn't just so it had a bed and a tub and the clerk handed a key to the Negro and said: “505.”
On the way to 505 the bell-boy tried to get solicitous and confided that if the big gentleman wanted anything to pass the time or get anything to drink all he had to do was call number Four. He held up his badge to show the number but Bender flipped back his own coat lapel and said: “I like mine best because it's gold.”
When the Negro saw the little star in the circle his eye popped and he shut up.
The room was plain and severe but it had a bed and a tub so Bender didn't complain. A guy got shoved in a lot of funny places when he was a Ranger, and anyway he consoled himself with the thought that he wouldn't be here long. He didn't like Rondora and when he didn't like a town he got right to work.
He washed his face, combed his hair, stuck a Police Positive .38 in his shoulder-holster, a blue-barreled .45 automatic in his hip pocket holster and came downstairs. The driver asked him if he was ready to go to Jeff Peebles and Bender said yes.
The driver turned off to the east and after a few blocks the town petered out and ran off into the sage. There were scores of rigs nearby and the din was terrific. Tall, gaunt skeletons they were and up close they looked like bad dreams. The smell of crude oil was strong and occasionally some roughneck sang out in profane music.
Jeff Peebles lived in a plain cottage and Bender had to cross a footbridge to reach the gate. He went up and knocked at the front door.
It was partly opened by an angular woman. Her face was sharp and she wore a plain print cotton dress, her hair was pulled tightly down about her ears and parted in the middle. In the light of the lamp in the front room Bender could see it was heavily streaked with gray and that her face was wan and lifeless. Jeff Peebles' millions had come too late.
She stared out apprehensively, as if she were half-afraid and Bender said:
“I'm looking for Mr. Peebles.”
She shook her head slowly and replied: “He ain't here.”
“Well,” Bender asked; “where could I find him?”
She shook her head again.
“He ain't here,” she repeated in that flat tone that was instantly monotonous.
“Yessum, I know he ain't here. But where is he?”
She looked at him with wide, sharp eyes and she started to shake her head when Bender said, “I'm Captain Bender of the Rangers. It's pretty important.”
The woman now evidenced a slight animation. She stepped back and opened the door a little, saying: “Come in, Captain Bender. Come in.”
“No'm,” he said; “I just wanna locate Mr. Peebles.”
“He's off to a meeting,” she said, her voice sounding as if it were struggling from great depths to reach the surface. “You can wait here if you want to or you can go down to the Odd Fellows' Hall. That's where the meeting is. The Odd Fellows' Hall.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “I'll run on down there.”
“That's all right, Captain,” she said. “You come back any time you want to.”
“Thanks,” Bender said. He went out the gate, latched it and recrossed the narrow footbridge to the car. He said to the driver: “Drop me at the Odd Fellows' Hall.”
Going back he asked the driver if he knew anything about the shooting of Jeff Peebles' daughter. The driver said he didn't know any more than anybody else. They killed the girl all right and the sheriff arrested two guys named Botchey Miller and Pack Patton but they were released on bail or something right away.
Bender asked him where it happened.
The driver replied that the girl was killed down the street from the hotel in front of the Happy Hour Club.
“What kind of a dump is that?” Bender asked.
“Well,” the driver explained; “it's supposed to be a pool-hall but they run it wide open. You can find any kind of a game and get any kind of a drink. I mean, strangers and everybody can.”
“Who runs it?”
“Botchey Miller,” the driver said. “Patton runs the Fishtail Club out on the Amarillo road.”
“Roadhouses too?” said Bender.
“Sure. Botchey's got one out beyond Jeff Peebles' place about two miles.”
Bender nodded and said, “I gather from that the boys don't like each other—Miller and Patton.”
“I'll say they don't,” the driver said. “Didn't they try to kill each other?”
Bender laughed and told him that wasn't always a fair test. He explained that gun-fighting was like boxing or golf or anything else; after it was finished it was all over and there was no use having hard feelings.
“Well, Botchey and Pack don't figure that way,” the driver said. “They're at each other's throats and everybody knows it.”
He turned a corner and stopped the flivver before a notion store. He said the Odd Fellows' Hall was upstairs.
“Okey,” Bender said, getting out. “How much I owe you?”
“Just a buck,” the driver said and Bender gave him a dollar bill and said: “Come back to the hotel at ten o'clock. I'll be wanting to ride some more then.”
The driver said he would, and Bender turned around to look for the steps that led to the Odd Fellows' Hall.