Range Rebel (Prologue Western) Page 6

  “Draw, if you’ve got the guts,” said Jesse.

  Shorty smiled. “Why, I ain’t no gunman!”

  Monte rode toward the back of the herd to get it into motion. Shorty circled his horse on the forehand. Fifty yards from the herd one of the men drew a sixgun. It flashed. Jesse moved swiftly. Dave slapped his hat across the twin sixes. One of them roared, spurting dust from the hard earth. The Lazy E men sank the steel into their mounts. Jesse cursed and turned toward Dave. Dave drew and cocked his Colt. “Damn you,” said Vidal.

  Dave kneed his horse close to the kid. “We’ve got enough trouble without you acting like Ben Thompson, Vidal!”

  Jesse spurred his horse. He set off at a dead run for the retreating cowpokes. He fired a Colt and then drew rein, fighting the trigueno as it reared and plunged. One of the Lazy E men yelled and gripped his left shoulder, bending over with the pain of the slug which had holed him. Shorty waved his men on and they raised a cloud of dust as they rode down a slope out of sight.

  Jesse turned his horse and hammered up beside Dave. Jesse’s face was white and set. “You ever do that again,” he grated, “and I’ll gun you in half!”

  Monte Hollis rode in between them. “Goddammit!” he roared, “You wanta spook them cows? Dave is right, Jesse! We got enough trouble without you flashing them sixshooters!”

  For a moment Jesse eyed Dave, then he cross-pin-wheeled, flipping the twin Colts into the air and letting them smack into opposite hands. He rolled them and jammed them down into their sheaths, the while his hard eyes never left Dave’s.

  “’Sta bueno,” he said softly, and spurred his horse toward the herd.

  “He could have started a real ruckus,” said Dave.

  Monte rolled a smoke and flipped the makings to Dave. “All he’s done since we left is talk about that girl,” he said. He lit up. “He seems to think he’s all the protection she’s got.”

  “One of those men got hit hard,” Dave said. “It’ll start more trouble.”

  “Let’s chouse the herd.”

  “We’ll keep them near the ranch house. We’ll take no chances on Cup Valley until we get more vaqueros.”

  Monte laughed. “More men for fifty butterballs?”

  “Yes, if we have to. Once we show these longloopers that we can keep what we have, we’ll be safe enough with a larger herd.”

  “I hope you’re right, Davie. I just hope you’re right!”

  They drove the herd to the ranch and quartered them on a gentle slope above the buildings. Monte stayed with them. Dave went to the house to report the safe arrival of the herd. Jesse made tracks for the bunkhouse to clean off the trail dust.

  Leslie was waiting for Dave in the big living room. “I was worried,” she said. “I’d rather lose those cattle than have one of you hurt.”

  “We’ll keep them near here. Can you afford to hire a few more men?”

  She smiled. “Why? We might be able to use a cook.”

  “We have to protect what we have.”

  “It would only bring on more shooting. I’d rather stay just as we are for a time.”

  Dave nodded. “As you wish.”

  “Was there any trouble at all?”

  Dave hesitated. “Ganoe showed up with five Lazy E vaqueros. They let us pass.”

  She studied him. “You’re sure there was no trouble?”

  “No trouble.”

  She came closer to him. “You’ve been a great help, Dave,” she said softly.

  Dave took her in his arms. She seemed to expect it. He kissed her. He looked over her shoulder. There was a quick movement at one of the side windows. He tilted her head back. “Don’t worry about anything,” he said. “We’ll make a go of the Double W.”

  She turned away. “Dad could have used you. He fought on practically alone.”

  “Some day we’ll find out who murdered him.”

  She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. “I know,” she said. “I’ve got to get dinner now. Anything you’d like?”

  He touched his lips. “I’ve had my dinner,” he said. He opened the door. “Has Mack Muir been around?”

  “No. It seems as though I have hurt his feelings, Dave.”

  “We can manage without him.” Dave stepped down from the porch and rounded the house. Jesse Vidal was seated on the bunkhouse bench polishing his sixshooters. His dark eyes studied Dave for a fraction of a second and then he went on with his work, but in that short time Dave had a feeling as though a diamondback had been gauging him for the strike.

  It was after dark when the beating of hoofs on the valley road came to Dave. He walked down toward the fence, easing his Colt in its holster. Jesse was in the kitchen helping Leslie with the dishes. Half a dozen men drew rein at the gate. Bart Edrick swung down and came toward Dave, glancing back over his shoulder to see if his men were right behind him. Shorty Ganoe was watching Dave with slitted eyes. A tall, slim puncher was hunched in his saddle, his left arm in a sling.

  “What can I do for you, Sheriff Edrick?” asked Dave.

  Edrick jerked a thumb toward the injured man. “One of the Lazy E boys, Slim Edwards there, was plugged by you or one of your boys this afternoon. I’ve come to arrest the man what did it.”

  Ganoe slid from his horse. “It was Yeamans,” he said. “I seen him draw his Colt.”

  “You’re a damned liar,” said Dave.

  Edrick eyed the house. “Who’s in there?” he asked.

  “Miss Waite and Jesse Vidal, one of the new hands.”

  “Who’s with them cows?”

  “Monte Hollis.”

  “Get ’em both. Wait! Joe, you get Hollis.”

  Jesse and Leslie came down from the house and stopped behind Dave. In a few minutes Monte rode down the slope alone. “I left him to watch the steers,” he said to Dave.

  Edrick sucked at a tooth. “Now,” he said importantly, “who done the shooting?”

  “They shot first,” said Monte quickly.

  “Sho?” said Edrick. “What did they shoot at?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Edrick glanced at Jesse. “What’d you see?”

  Jesse glanced at Dave. “Yeamans drew on me to keep me from going after the Lazy E boys. Then he threw a shot after them to keep them moving.”

  “He’s lying,” said Dave.

  Ganoe nodded. “The kid is right. I seen Yeamans shoot toward us.”

  Dave felt icy cold. Leslie looked closely at him. “You saw what happened, Monte,” he said. “Tell them.”

  Monte rubbed his lean jaw and looked at the ground. “Like I said, I ain’t sure. But I seen you with a smoking Colt in your hand, Dave.”

  Edrick shifted a little. “You’ll have to come with me then, Yeamans. I got a warrant here.”

  “Yeamans said he wasn’t going to be choused no more by the Lazy E corrida,” volunteered Jesse quickly. “I tried to calm him down but he was on the prod.”

  Edrick held out a hand. “I’ll take that Colt,” he said.

  Dave drew his Colt and handed it to the peace officer. He looked at Jesse. “We’ll settle this soon,” he said coldly.

  Jesse raised his brows. “I only told them what you said!”

  Dave gripped Monte by the arm. “Tell them the truth, Hollis!”

  Monte pulled away. “I already said what I know.”

  “Get his hoss,” said Edrick. Monte went to the corral and got the claybank. Leslie came over to Dave. “You lied to me,” she said. “You, the one who is against shootings.”

  “Before God, Leslie, I didn’t do it!”

  She turned and walked to the house. “Let’s go,” said Edrick. Dave mounted. Two men rode in behind Dave. The wounded man bent his head in pain and held his smashed shoulder. Dave wondered why they had taken him on a long night ride in his condition. They rode south on the valley road. They knew he was the one to fear. It was a neat way of getting rid of him. He wondered if he would ever see the inside of the Deep Spring juzgado. It would be
easy to shoot him in the back and then swear he had tried to escape. Ley del fuego, as practiced by the gentle Mexican cousins along the border. Let a man escape and then shoot him down.

  They rode swiftly, saying nothing. Dave wondered when it would happen. His chances for a break were slim. It wasn’t until they reached the Deep Spring road that he saw his chance. The road skirted the brawling creek. On the far bank was thick brush. The moon was faint in the east. Edrick drew rein and looked back. “Shorty!” he called.

  Shorty spurred forward. They spoke in low voices, glancing at Dave.

  Dave shifted in his saddle. The man behind him was rolling a smoke. Dave sank the steel into Brazos and gave out with a piercing rebel yell. The man behind him cursed. The claybank was into the stream before the first gun split the air with its report. A slug whipped through the brim of Dave’s hat. The claybank struggled up the far shore. Guns twinkled in the darkness. Slugs cut through the brush. “After him!” yelled Edrick.

  The claybank crashed through the brush. Dave shielded his face with an arm. He sank his spurs in deep. Brazos plunged down a slope. Guns rattled on. Water splashed high as the first men hit the stream. Dave turned the claybank down a slope and then up a rise. For a moment he was in the open. A slug hit his left heel, numbing his leg. Then the claybank was in the clear, racing across a meadow. Dave looked back. Four men reached the far side of the open area. Guns flashed. Brazos hit a narrow trail and stretched out.

  Hoofs drummed on the earth behind Dave. He set the claybank at a steep slope, topped it, and plunged down the far side in a rattle of gravel. To his left was the shadowy mouth of a canyon and he turned the horse into it, praying that it wasn’t a box. Men yelled through the darkness. Hoofs thudded past the canyon’s mouth. Dave led the claybank south, threading his way through the thick brush. In half an hour there were no sounds from behind him. The moon was well up when he stopped for a breather. It was as quiet as the grave.

  Dave swung up on Brazos and rode south. He needed a gun, for now he was an outlaw, a ladino. Bart Edrick wouldn’t rest until he had rounded up Dave. Jesse Vidal had neatly placed Dave where he wanted him; on the run, suspected even by the woman he loved. It left a clear field for the jealous kid. In a way Dave was well out of it, but there was an inborn stubbornness in him. He was an outlier again, destined to play a lone hand. Very well, he’d play the lone wolf. It was his way.

  seven

  IT WAS CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT when Dave dismounted from Brazos in an arroyo that sloped down toward the ranch buildings. A dry wind swept mournfully through the valley and rustled the leaves of the cottonwoods. A rectangle of yellow light revealed a window of the bunkhouse. Dave set off afoot. There was a chance that some of Bart Edrick’s men had come back to the ranch to wait for him. He stopped at the far side of the corral and studied the area. There wasn’t a strange horse in the corral. Dave skirted a shed and stopped close behind the bunkhouse. He flattened himself against the wall and peered into the building. Jesse Vidal was seated at the table playing solitaire. Monte Hollis was lying on his bunk smoking his battered pipe.

  For a time there was nothing but the soft slap of cards on the table and then Vidal spoke. “We’ll run those cows down to Cup Valley in the morning. You can stay there with them, Monte.”

  Monte grunted. “One of us oughta be with those critters right now.”

  “Hell with it! Ain’t no one gonna bother them. Not with me around, they ain’t.”

  “Shore. Shore.”

  “Well, they ain’t!”

  “What are you goin’ to do tomorrow?”

  “Try to round up a few men. Edrick is gonna have the damnedest hassle on his hands he ever saw if he tangles with me.”

  “Yeh.” Monte tamped his tobacco. “What do you think they’ll do with Yeamans?”

  “Who cares? He’s nothing but a saddle tramp who thinks he’s the pure quill.”

  “He had the Edrick riled all right. It’d be easy for them to bushwhack him and then say he tried to escape.”

  “So?”

  Monte relit his pipe. “He wasn’t a bad hombre. I’m sorry I helped cold-deck him.”

  Jesse slapped his cards down hard. “Look! He riled me! Jesse Vidal! I aim to be a big man around these parts. This spread has possibilities. Leslie can’t help but like a real buscadero like me. I had to get rid of him!”

  Monte placed his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Yeh, but you’ll have your hands full now. Edrick wants this ranch. Mack Muir is riled about Leslie. Yeamans, if he gets away, will come agunnin’ for yuh.”

  Jesse spat. “I’ll get some good boys to back me up. Muir don’t worry me none. Yeamans hasn’t got the guts to stand up to me.”

  “I wouldn’t copper that bet.”

  “You talk like you like him.”

  Monte sat up. “Dammit! I do. He’s a good man. Besides, even if he didn’t see it, I think Miss Waite likes him.”

  Jesse’s handsome face worked. “Damn you! Don’t ever say that again!”

  “You never could face the truth about yourself, Jesse. You think you’re the fastest man with a horse, the fastest man with a Colt, the greatest ladykiller in the west.”

  Jesse stood up and placed his hands on his lean hips. “You saying I ain’t?”

  Monte groaned. “Take it easy. I was just trying to warn you that there may be a few more men with the same claims.”

  “Let ’em come!”

  “They will.”

  Jesse approached the older man. “Listen to me! You helped put Yeamans out of the way because I told you to.”

  Monte looked up angrily. “Yeh! Yeh! But I couldn’t look him in the eye.”

  Jesse grinned. “Maybe you’d like to ride into town with me and tell Edrick that Yeamans is innocent? Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

  Monte looked away. “You’ve got too much on me, Jesse. You know damned well I got to rid the rio with you.”

  Jesse leaned close to the older man. “You’re damned right you do! Just remember what I know about you.” The kid peeled off his shirt and unbuckled his heavy gunbelt, hanging them at the head of his bunk. He got ready for bed and put out the lamp. Dave could see the soft glow of Monte’s pipe, lighting the worried face. He had wondered why Monte had turned against him. Dave faded around the corner of the bunkhouse and went into the shed. He sat down on a box, wishing for a smoke, but fearing to light one. It would take time for Vidal and Hollis to get to sleep.

  The moon was on the wane when Dave pulled off his boots and padded back to the bunkhouse. His Spencer was racked on the wall beside his bunk. He stopped the window which was closest to his bunk. He could hear the quiet breathing of both men. He reached in the window and gripped his Spencer, easing it slowly out through the opening. He needed a sixgun too, for Edrick had taken his Colt. For a moment a perverse imp whispered in his ear, urging him to take one or both of Vidal’s matched forty-fours, but it might raise Vidal’s temperature still more against him.

  Dave walked to the house. He had seen several handguns hanging on a wall of the living room. He placed his Spencer in the shrubbery and went in through an open window. The house was quiet. Leslie’s bedroom door was ajar. He looked in. She was asleep, the faint rays of the moon revealing her unbound hair. He eyed her for a moment, fighting down another urging from the imp, and then he went back to the living room.

  He passed by two cap-and-ball Colts and a converted Remington and looked at a pair of Starrs. He had captured one from a Union sergeant at Gettysburg and had carried it until it had been stolen from him. He slid it into his holster and helped himself to cartridges from a desk drawer. A sudden movement in the bedroom sent him out of the window.

  There was a soft footfall in the living room. Leslie looked about the dim room, opened the front door and looked out and then went back to her room. Dave almost called out to her and then thought better of it. There was a job of work to be done before he returned to the Double W and cleared himself with her.


  Dave returned to Brazos and sat for a time in the saddle as he rolled and lit a smoke, eyeing the sleeping ranch, and then he touched Brazos with his spurs, riding south down the valley.

  Dave stopped at the line shack in Cup Valley and scrounged the blankets, cooking utensils, and whatever food he could find. He found a big canteen and filled it while he watered Brazos at the pool, glancing up now and then at the big common grave on the knoll. He left the valley and rode south again, heading for Twelve Mile Canyon. The mystery of the lost cattle trail still gripped him. If Twelve Mile had been used to chouse rustled cattle through, it would be used again. There was no better place for him to hole up in.

  Dave rode to the canyon where he had found the cliff-dwelling ruins. He worked his way to the far end of it, under an overhanging wall of rock. Perched high under the dome was a little cliff-dwelling, with a narrow footpath going up to it. He placed his gear at the foot of the path and then picketed Brazos in a off-shoot of the canyon. He carried his gear up the crumbling trail to the small dwelling. He inspected it by candlelight. It was still in solid shape and empty of debris. He made his bed and placed himself on it, falling asleep almost instantly.

  During the night the wind increased, shifting from the east to the north. Dave awoke. The faint sound of bawling cattle had come to him in his sleep. “You’re getting as skittish as a Johnny Raw recruit,” he accused himself, and then went back asleep again.

  The sun shining through the T-shaped doorway of the dwelling awakened Dave. He pulled on his boots and walked out onto the small terrace in front of the building. The canyon brooded in the early morning sun. A hunting hawk hung almost motionless on outstretched pinions and then suddenly glided off before the morning wind. Dave ate a cold breakfast, hooked his canteen to his belt and then plodded off down the canyon carrying his rifle. The sun shone on the smooth face of the larger cliff-dwelling to his left. “Hope you slept well, Jeb!” called out Dave as he looked up at the room where Jeb Gregg’s skeleton lay in the dignity of death.

  Dave was almost at the entrance to Ruins Canyon when he saw the pile of cow dung. He knelt beside it, raking through it with a mesquite stick. It crumbled readily. It had been there some time, probably from a ladino or a stray. He walked into Twelve Mile and headed south. He missed the easy, mile-eating gait of Brazos, but it would be easier for him to hide while traveling afoot. It was close to noon when he called a halt. The heat beat down into the great trough. He had seen no signs of human life or cattle tracks. He started back and eyed a place where a great fault split the canyon wall. The talus slope was steep but could be climbed. He worked his way up it. It was after two o’clock when he reached the top and sat down in the dubious shade of an outcropping to roll a smoke and take a drink. Jumbled country was to the east, with great upheavals of rock studded with scrub trees and thorny brush. A thin thread of smoke, miles to the east, was raveled by the wind. Somewhere in the area, he was sure, there must be a place where a great many steers could be hidden. But it was a hell of a big enterprise for one man to uncover.