Range Rebel (Prologue Western) Page 5

  A masked man pulled away from the herd and fired his rifle twice. Dave let drive a shot. The man jerked, gripped his left shoulder and turned his horse into the pall of dust. Another mask man came up out of a hollow and fired. The slug whipped over Dave’s head. Cooper Jones holstered his Colt and freed his Henry rifle, but a rifle spat flame from a motte of scrub trees and Jones’ horse skidded to a halt and went over, catapulting the Bar M puncher to the ground. He lay still.

  Dave fired rapidly but the steers had a good running start and masked men wove in and out of the dust like Comanches, driving hot lead back at Dave. Dave circled Brazos and dropped to the earth beside Jones, ground-reining Brazos. The steers were a quarter of a mile away now, making fast progress, filling the valley with the thunder of their hoofs and their hoarse bawling.

  A horseman came out of the motte, riding fast, bent low in the saddle and Dave leveled on him and fired. The horseman cut back behind the trees and vanished from sight.

  Dave eased Jones over on his back. Jones opened his eyes. Blood flowed from a gash on his forehead. He slowly drew up his legs and then lowered them again. “All busted … up,” he said softly, “Jesus, I hit hard.” He coughed and bright blood spewed on Dave.

  Dave bent low over the injured man. “Did you recognize any of them?”

  Jones coughed harshly. “Masked … they was.” His eyes were clouded. He grinned feebly. “Fit all the way from … Bull Run to … Appomattox … and never … got … a scratch. Funny … ain’t it?”

  Dave wiped the blood from Jones’ face. “You recognize any of them?”

  “Rile … Rile!” Jones’ head sagged back and he looked up at Dave with glazing eyes that did not see.

  Dave looked south. There was nothing left to denote the passage of the herd but tattered layers of bitter dust and the trampled earth. Dave shoved back his hat and wiped the sweat from his face. There was a cold, hard core in him when he stood up. Up until this had happened he had not been sure why he had stayed at the ranch. Now a bitter hate galled him. Men who would kill wantonly for a few head of cattle must be fought to the death.

  Dave lifted the dead man and placed him across the saddle of his skittish horse. He led Brazos and the other horse into Cup Valley. Not one steer was left. A man lay sprawled in front of the shack. The wind stirred his fine blonde hair. The bullet had killed him instantly. Billy Free gripped a large spoon in his right hand. A few beans were still stuck in the spoon bowl. Dave felt a sour taste in the back of his throat. He went into the shack and got a spade. The place reeked of burned beans. He took the pot from the stove and threw it out the window. He went outside and began to dig a common grave on a pleasant knoll which overlooked the waterhole. There was a sickness in him, coupled with the bitter hate.

  Dave buried the two men and covered the grave with rocks. He took the two horses with him and rode back toward the ranch. Leslie was waiting for him. She saw the blood on his shirt. “What happened?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Rustlers. They hit the valley when two of Muir’s boys were getting some grub. Billy Free was killed instantly. Jones’ horse was slightly wounded and fell, throwing Cooper Jones. Jones lived only a few minutes. The steers are gone.”

  Her hand went to her throat. “Who did it?”

  Dave shrugged. “There must have been four or five of them. They were all masked. They drove the herd south toward the creek. I buried Free and Jones.”

  She bowed her head. “I wonder if it’s worthwhile to stay and fight it out?”

  Dave looked down the valley, pleasant in the bright sunlight. “I’m staying,” he said, “if I have to fight alone.”

  Dave treated the wound on Jones’ horse and turned both Bar M horses loose in the big corral. He went to the house. “I’m trailing those steers,” he said to her.

  “Alone? Wait for Monte and Jesse.”

  He shook his head. “They’ve got a good start now. I can’t stop them, but I might learn something.”

  “Please stay! I’m about ready to quit this hopeless business.”

  He touched her face. “No. You said you’d stick it out. Let me see what I can do.”

  “I don’t want you killed, too.”

  Dave smiled. “I’m hard to kill. I’ll be careful.” He opened the door. “Tell Muir to stay here when he comes back. I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Incidently do you know anyone around here by the name of Rile, or anything that sounds like Rile?”

  She shook her head. “Why?”

  “Jones mentioned the word, or name, before he died.”

  “There is no one around here to my knowledge with a name anything like that.”

  Dave rode south down the valley. It was mid-afternoon when he reached the end of the valley. The herd trail was plain to see. The cows had been driven across the swift-flowing creek. He followed the broad track. The trail led him up a high-walled canyon thickly grown with scrub trees and thorny brush. He rode slowly with his Spencer across his thighs. It was late in the afternoon when the trail finally petered out. The canyon floor was naked rock stretching out of sight with never a mark of the passage of cattle or horses on its barren surface. He followed the canyon to a place where several other canyons branched off. He tethered Brazos and entered one of the off-shoots. It was a box canyon. No room for a herd in it.

  The second canyon was bigger and the floor was composed of sand and decomposed rock, but there was no sign of cattle. The third canyon was big and narrow, trending off to the west. It was choked with thick growths. He plodded on, eyeing the walls for signs of a lurking ambusher. Long shadows were creeping down the slopes when he saw some ruins high on a rocky slope, beneath a huge overhang, stained deep red by the smoke of many fires.

  Dave worked his way up the slope. The dying sun colored the ancient buildings warm yellow and rose. Dave wondered how long they had been squatting there tenantless. He had seen other ruins in his solitary travels, but none as extensive as these. Many of the roofs had collapsed, filling the small interiors with rubble. There was an air of intense, brooding loneliness about the place.

  Dave walked along a sort of terrace in front of the buildings. It was as quiet as the grave. He looked down into the silent canyon. There was no sign of life. Now and then he looked back over his shoulder as though expecting to see someone watching him. He had experienced that eerie sensation before while poking about old ruins. He saw crude letters cut into the adobe of a building. He read them aloud. “Jeb Gregg. Lost in here. 1858. God help me. No water. No food. Apaches around.”

  Dave looked into the nearest dwelling and recoiled in surprise. A skeleton, partially clothed in dusty rags, lay in a corner of the littered room. A rusty rifle leaned in a corner. “Jeb Gregg,” said Dave. He took off his hat. He limped down the slope and looked back at the ruins. Maybe he was the first man to penetrate there since Jeb Gregg had done so twelve years before. If Dave kept on being an outlier he could expect such a lonely fate. He shivered a little as he walked quickly to his horse.

  Dave turned north after he mounted Brazos. Where in God’s name could those cattle been spirited to? It was too dark to explore further. Yet he planned to follow the main canyon to its end some day.

  It was dark with the promise of a faint moon when he reached the Double W. The yellow lights of the house showed through the darkness. The door swung open as Dave turned into the gate, and Mack Muir came to meet him. “What did you learn?” he asked.

  Dave shook his head wearily as he dismounted. “I trailed them south, beyond the creek into a long canyon. The canyon branched into three off-shoots. No trace of the cows after I reached a rocky area. It’s just as though them damned cows sprouted wings and flew over the walls.”

  “You were in Twelve Mile Canyon. It opens into Bitter Creek Canyon. Maybe they were driven down there.”

  “No, the trail just vanished.”

  “How the hell could it?” demanded Muir.

  Dave rolled a smoke. “I don’t know.”

  “You
couldn’t have looked very hard!”

  Dave lit his smoke and eyed the angry man. “I did my best while you were bellying up to a bar in Deep Spring. Besides, I don’t work for you, Muir.”

  Muir dropped his hand to his Colt. “I don’t like your lip, Yeamans!”

  Dave smiled thinly. “Then don’t rile me. Was Edrick in town?”

  “Yes!”

  “Shorty? Mort? Ochoa?”

  “All but Mort.”

  “How many vaqueros in Edrick’s corrida?”

  “Fifteen or twenty. He has a big spread beyond town and has some grazing land south of here.”

  Dave shoved back his hat. “Then he wasn’t in on it. Unless he has some hands working for him we don’t know about.”

  Muir turned back toward the house. “I haven’t got a goddamned cow left! What the hell am I going to do?”

  “You aren’t alone in that. Miss Waite hasn’t exactly got a cattle kingdom here.”

  “When will those two new hands be back?”

  “Hollis and Vidal? Couple of days.”

  “If they do come back!”

  Dave remembered how Vidal had looked at Leslie. “They’ll be back all right.”

  “You game to look for those rustled cows?”

  “What else is there to do around here?”

  Dave led Brazos to the corral and unsaddled him, rubbing him down carefully. He washed himself and then tapped on the kitchen door. Leslie was at the stove as Dave opened the door. Her face was flushed. She looked angrily at Muir and then adjusted a stray wisp of hair. She set a plate for Dave and he sat down to eat. It was damned obvious that Muir had been interrupted in the pleasant game of love. Dave told them the story as he ate. “I still think it’s hopeless to keep on,” she said as he finished.

  Muir slapped a hand on the table. “We’ll keep on,” he said.

  Dave filled his pipe, and surreptitiously watched the feisty redhead. Not once had Muir mentioned the loss of his two vaqueros. There was a cold core in the man, for all hs fiery temperament.

  Dave went out to the bunkhouse and cleaned his Spencer. Now and then he looked toward the house. Neither of them were in sight. There was a small green flame of jealousy in Dave, although Leslie had never given him any encouragement. He worked slowly on the repeater, a job he always liked to do, for handling the weapon had always given him a feeling of satisfaction. He polished the metal and wiped the stock with a linseed rag. He slid it into its sheath and then filled his pipe, going outside to sit on the bench next to the bunkhouse door. The new moon gilded the tips of the darkened peaks. Now and then the wind brought the murmur of voices to him from the front porch.

  Dave was dozing a little when he heard the crisp sound of flesh meeting flesh. Angry voices broke out. Dave placed his pipe on the bench and sauntered toward the front of the house. Leslie was standing near the porch rail. Mack Muir was at the foot of the steps, hat in hand. “If that’s the way you feel,” he said, “maybe I’d better pull out of this mess and take care of my own affairs!”

  She shrugged. “You made your so-called deal with my father,” she said angrily. “It gives you no privileges with me, Mack!”

  “You always thought well of me.”

  “Can’t you realize what has happened? My father has been murdered. I can’t think clearly on any other subject now.”

  Muir put on his hat. “I’ll give you time, Leslie.”

  Dave turned to go. Muir walked toward him as Leslie went into the house. “Were you listening?” he demanded.

  “I heard an argument.”

  “Keep your nose out of my business, Yeamans.”

  Dave grinned. “You sure are on the prod this evenin’.”

  “I have a right to be!”

  “Then go home and cool off.”

  Muir flushed. He glanced at the house. The living room and kitchen lights were out. “Maybe you’re waiting for me to leave?” he suggested.

  Dave yawned. “I’m going to bed, if that’s what you mean.”

  Muir spat. “If I thought you were figuring on cutting Leslie out from me I’d gun you down.”

  “Don’t start anything you don’t intend to finish,” said Dave softly.

  Muir’s right hand drove down toward his gun butt. Dave stepped in close, gripped Muir’s gun wrist with his left hand, and drew his own Colt. He prodded the redhead in his lean gut. “You see?” he asked quietly. He released Muir’s wrist and stepped back, sheathing his Colt.

  Muir was still gripping his cutter. For a moment he eyed Dave and then he turned away. “She’s waiting for you,” he said, “like a damned Globe hurdy-gurdy girl.”

  Dave gripped Muir’s shoulder, whirled him about and dropped him with a solid right to the jaw. Dave looked down at the redhead. “She’s a lady,” he said. “Maybe you’re not used to ladies. Either mend your manners or keep away from her!”

  Muir got up slowly wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. He backed away, eyeing Dave and then turned quickly, striding to his horse. He mounted the black and sank the hooks in viciously. The hoofs drummed on the hard road.

  Leslie came out on the porch. “Did something happen between you and Mack?” she asked.

  Dave walked to the foot of the steps. She was wearing a white robe over her nightdress. Dave caught the faint fragrance of lilac. “No,” he lied.

  She came down to the foot of the steps. “He worries me at times,” she said.

  “What was this deal he mentioned?”

  “He and father were talking of pooling their resources. At the time they planned it, I was engaged to Mack. He expected too much from me on the strength of the engagement and I broke it off.”

  “That explains a lot of things, Leslie.”

  She looked toward the road. “He has changed a lot,” she said quietly.

  Dave shifted a little as she came closer to him. He placed a hand on hers where it rested on the stair rail. “Don’t worry about him,” he said. “He talks a lot.” She did not move away. Dave took her by the shoulders. She pulled away a little and then raised her face. Dave bent and kissed her. She slipped her arms about his neck. Her warm softness pressed against him. Wild thoughts roared through his mind and then she turned away and was gone into the house. He heard her bedroom door close and a moment later the light went out.

  Dave touched his mouth, still warm from her lips. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said.

  six

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED Dave kept in the saddle as much as possible, acquainting himself with the ranch area. Leslie showed no indication that anything unusual had happened. She cooked and served his meals, talked to him about ranch business, and kept herself busy. Beyond that, there was nothing. The day Monte Hollis and Jesse Vidal were due back from the south with the new cattle, Dave rode down to meet them. There had been no visitors at the ranch.

  Dave found Hollis and Vidal at the creek, watering the new cattle after their thirsty trip through Twelve Mile Canyon. Most of them were butterball Herefords with a few crosses, black-and-whites, and several Durhams. Monte showed Dave the bill of sale. “We won’t have any trouble,” he said. “Bought the best we could get from Jimmy Mansfield and no one had better question his honesty or Jim will come up here as wild as a Nueces longhorn.”

  Vidal sat his fine trigueno, one leg hooked about his pommel. “How’s Leslie?” he asked.

  “Fine. Just fine. She’s damned anxious to get these critters bedded down at the ranch.”

  “Maybe she’s anxious to see me, Yeamans.”

  “No accounting for tastes,” said Dave dryly.

  Vidal flushed and looked at Monte. Monte grinned. “We’d better carajo these cows north,” he suggested.

  They got the herd in motion. As they approached the wide entrance to the valley they saw six horsemen angle toward them out of a motte. Dave spurred to the front of the herd. There was no mistaking Shorty Ganoe at the head of the horsemen. He drew rein and grinned at Dave with his battered face as thoug
h nothing had ever happened between them. “See you got some cows,” he said pleasantly.

  “Yeh,” said Dave, “you got a sharp eye, Ganoe.” The other men were a tough-looking lot, but none of them were familiar except Mort Hastings who sat his horse off to one side. Monte rode up as Shorty rolled a smoke. “Where’d you get the butterballs?” asked Shorty.

  “Jim Mansfield,” said Mort. He looked at Dave. “Let’s keep moving.”

  Shorty glanced back at his men. “We’re out checking again,” he said as he lit up. “Seems as though Dan has lost twenty more head the last few days.”

  Dave waved a hand at the herd. “You can see Mansfield’s brand,” he said. “Monte has a bill of sale.”

  “Do tell?” said Shorty. He looked back at his vaqueros. “Eddie! Slim! Joe! Take a gander at them cows!”

  Vidal cantered up. He eyed the three men riding alongside the herd. “What the hell is this?” he demanded.

  “Just a routine check, as Dan always says,” said Shorty easily. “Who’s this hombre, Yeamans?”

  “Jesse Vidal.”

  “You gonna let ’em look?” asked Jesse of Dave.

  Dave shrugged. “It makes them happy,” he said. “They haven’t got enough to do at the Lazy E.”

  “Damned if I’ll let ’em!” Vidal slapped slim hands down on his twin Colts. They came up swiftly, cocked and centered on Ganoe. “You tell them hombres to get back where they belong, you!”

  Shorty was gutty. He did not move. His eyes were cold as a sidewinder’s. “You hiring gunslingers now, Yeamans?”

  “Miss Waite does the hiring,” said Dave. “Put up those cutters, Vidal!”

  Jesse spat. “If you haven’t got the guts to stop them, I have!”

  Shorty shifted a little and held out a hand toward his three men. They halted and watched the slim kid with the sixguns. “Yeamans has guts all right,” said Shorty. “You got no call to draw them plowhandles.”

  Vidal smiled. “No one goes near that herd.”

  Shorty shrugged. “Regular hard case, eh? All right. Let’s ride, boys. Maybe we’ll talk about this some other time, sonny.”