Hearing the rush of footsteps, Matt swung around and set himself for the attack. He dodged the initial punch from one man, but that brought him within reach of the other. The second man’s fist raked along the side of Matt’s head, above his right ear. He fought off the pain of the blow, grabbed the man’s arm, and twisted at the waist, pivoting to throw the man over his hip in a wrestling move Smoke had taught him years before.
That move allowed the first man to grab him from behind. The man’s arm went around Matt’s neck in a choke hold and jerked him backward. Matt drove his elbow into the man’s belly, which caused the man to grunt in pain but didn’t loosen his grip enough for Matt to pull free.
The cowboy’s forearm pressed into Matt’s throat like an iron bar. Unable to breathe, cut off from air, Matt’s head began to spin and his vision blurred. He reached back with both hands, knocked the man’s hat off, and tangled his fingers in the man’s hair. Bending forward sharply at the waist, Matt hauled as hard as he could with his arms. The man came off his feet and with a wild yell tumbled over Matt’s back and crashed down in the dust.
Matt didn’t get any respite. Back in the fight the second man tackled Matt from behind, knocking him to the ground. He tried to drive his knee into the small of Matt’s back, but Matt twisted aside in time to avoid being pinned. He swung around and chopped a sidehand blow against the spot where the man’s neck met his shoulder. It landed with paralyzing force. Matt followed it with a left jab to the man’s belly, then slugged the cowboy with his right fist. The man’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and he went limp.
Matt put a hand on the ground to brace himself and shoved upright. He was battered and breathing hard but still had plenty of fight left in him.
“Got any more, Bannerman?” he snarled at the rancher. “Or are you done?”
A smile appeared on Bannerman’s hard-planed face. He waved away the other men who were closing in around Matt.
“That’s enough,” he said. “You’re quite a battler, aren’t you, West?”
“I don’t back up when trouble comes at me, if that’s what you mean,” Matt snapped.
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Bannerman jerked his head toward the door. “Come on in. You, too, Lew.”
“What about me, boss?” Talley asked as Torrance started up the steps to the porch along with Matt.
“You go on about your chores,” Bannerman said dismissively. Matt glanced at Talley and saw the anger and resentment in the man’s eyes. Talley might run the regular ranch crew, but it was clear that he didn’t have any authority over Torrance and the other gunmen.
Matt filed that knowledge away. He might not ever need it, but you never could tell when something like that might come in handy.
Bannerman led the way into a large room furnished with heavy furniture, woven Indian rugs on the floors, and numerous sets of antlers from moose, antelope, and elk mounted on the walls. A huge stone fireplace dominated one wall. It was a dark, masculine room that looked like it had never known the touch of a woman.
“Want a drink?” Bannerman asked Matt.
“I could use one after that tussle.”
Bannerman went to a sideboard, uncorked a bottle of whiskey, and splashed liquor into three glasses. He handed one to Matt, another to Torrance, and took the third one for himself.
“Sorry I had to do that. A lot of men claim to be tough, but then fold up when it comes to trouble.” Bannerman paused, then added significantly, “You didn’t.” He lifted his glass in salute.
Matt returned it, then downed the slug of whiskey as Bannerman and Torrance drank theirs. It was good stuff, potent but smooth. Matt wasn’t surprised. Bannerman didn’t strike him as a man who would settle for second best in anything. It was why the cattleman had his eye on the entire valley, including the land that had been used for years as a hunting ground by the Crow.
“So you want a job,” Bannerman went on.
“If the pay’s right,” Matt said.
“Ask Torrance,” Bannerman said with a nod toward the bland-faced gunman. “He can tell you that you’ll make more money working for me than for any other rancher in this part of the territory. For one thing, by the time I’m finished those other spreads will have gone under and been absorbed by the Circle B.”
“You intend to grab all the range around here, is that it?”
Bannerman’s face tightened with annoyance. “It’s not a land grab when the strongest man winds up with the range. It’s the way things were meant to be! Do you believe in destiny, West?”
The sudden question took Matt a little by surprise. “I suppose so.”
“Well, it’s my destiny to be the most powerful man in Wyoming. It’s all well and good to be senator or governor, but I’m going to be the man who pulls their strings. There’s a lot of money and power up for grabs, and I intend to have the lion’s share of it.” Bannerman reached for the bottle. “There’s enough so that you and Torrance and the other men who work for me can have a share in it, too.”
Matt shook his head when Bannerman proceeded to pour more whiskey into his glass. It was only the middle of the day, and Matt hadn’t eaten since breakfast in the Crow village that morning.
“That sounds mighty good,” he said. “What do we have to do to get our share?”
“It’s simple. You do anything I tell you.” Bannerman looked intently at him. “Anything.”
The man expected some sort of reaction. Matt shrugged and said, “Fine. Like I said, as long as the money’s good…”
“That’s what I like to hear. I like a man who understands the true value of money. Lew, get West settled in. You can tell him what his job will be.”
Torrance nodded. “Sure, boss.”
Bannerman lifted his glass again, which he had filled half full of whiskey. “Good to have you with us, West.”
“Same here,” Matt said.
That was a lie, of course. He thought Bannerman was repulsive and didn’t doubt for a second that the man would use a scared little girl as leverage to get what he wanted.
But Matt didn’t have any proof, and more importantly, he didn’t know where Bannerman might be holding Moon Fawn, if indeed he had her.
Starwind had been nosing around the line camps north of there when those gunmen jumped her, Matt reminded himself. He needed to get a look at that area as soon as he could.
Torrance took him back outside and said, “You can put your horse in the corral, West, then I’ll show you where you’ll sleep in the bunkhouse.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Torrance, I’d just as soon get started on the job.”
Torrance smiled. “Eager, eh? We can find something for you to do this afternoon. But it’s almost time for lunch now. Come on.”
Matt led the dun into the corral Torrance pointed out and unsaddled the horse. Torrance looked the animal over and said, “That is one ugly horse.”
“Yeah, but he’s got plenty of sand,” Matt said as he carried the saddle into the barn. He hoped that statement was true. He had only Hoyt Dowler’s word for it, since he hadn’t really had to put the dun to the test on the way out there.
As they walked toward the bunkhouse, Matt went on, “What were you and Talley and Hennessy doing down on that south range this morning? No offense, Torrance, but you don’t strike me as the sort of hombre they send out looking for strays.”
“We ride regular patrols around the whole spread,” Torrance explained. “The boss likes to keep people off his range. And right now the Indians who live a ways west of here are all stirred up about something.”
“I didn’t know there was Indian trouble in these parts.”
“Usually there’s not. Those Crows are just one step above blanket Indians. They don’t give trouble. But some little girl is missing, according to what I’ve heard in town. The chief’s granddaughter or something. If they get upset enough about it, they’re liable to go on the warpath. That’s another reason the boss wants scouts out all the time, keeping an
eye on things. If you ask me, the thing to do is ride over there and wipe out that redskin village. I don’t like waiting around for trouble to happen. I’d rather nip it in the bud.”
Several things about those comments bothered Matt. For one, he thought that Torrance’s derogatory opinion of the Crow was dead wrong. Just because Crazy Bear and his people preferred living in peace with the white men didn’t mean they had lost their courage or given up their dignity for a mess of blankets, like some tribes had done.
For another, Torrance acted like he didn’t know what had happened to Moon Fawn. Torrance seemed to be the ramrod of Bannerman’s hired guns. Wouldn’t he be aware of it if Bannerman had the girl?
Matt didn’t think asking a question would make the gunman too suspicious, since they were discussing the subject anyway. He said, “You have any idea what happened to the girl?”
Torrance shook his head. “For all I know, she wandered off and fell in a ravine or a mountain lion got her.”
As far as Matt could tell, Torrance sounded completely sincere. He pushed matters a little farther, saying, “Has there been any trouble with the Indians? Anybody on the crew been hurt?”
“No, not so far. It pays to be careful, though.”
Matt didn’t understand that at all. If it had been Bannerman’s men who attacked Starwind the day before, several of them had been wounded and maybe even killed in the ruckus. Torrance should have mentioned that.
If they weren’t Bannerman’s men, why had they attacked Starwind when she started searching the area for her niece?
Matt didn’t have an answer for that. Crazy Bear had made it sound like he and his people had searched the entire valley for the missing girl, except for the Circle B. That meant Moon Fawn had to be on the ranch somewhere, didn’t it? That reasoning was why Matt had gotten the job with Bannerman in the first place.
The mystery had deepened. Matt still felt the answers lay in the area where Starwind had been attacked the day before. As soon as possible, he wanted to get up there and have a look around for himself.
Doing so might be the same thing as painting a big target on his back…but it wouldn’t be the first time he had done such a thing, he told himself wryly as he followed Lew Torrance into the bunkhouse.
Chapter 27
After lunch, which was served in a mess hall attached to the bunkhouse, Torrance told Matt, “Reckon the first thing we need to do is get you acquainted with the range you’ll be patrolling. The spread’s too big to ride all the way around in one day, but I can show you part of it this afternoon. We’ll take a pasear [walk] up north a ways.”
Matt nodded without showing his true reaction to the gunman’s words. That was the area he wanted to have a look at. Unfortunately, having Torrance along with him would limit the amount of searching he could do.
“I don’t mind exploring it on my own,” he offered, but Torrance shook his head.
“No, I’ll go with you. Wouldn’t want you running into any trouble by yourself on your first day.”
They saddled their horses and set out from the ranch headquarters. Matt glanced back at the big whitewashed house, wondering suddenly what the chances were that Moon Fawn was locked up somewhere in there. Eventually he might have to figure out a way to have a look around inside the house.
He still wasn’t sure what Reece Bannerman would have to gain by kidnapping the little girl. If Bannerman intended to use Moon Fawn as a bargaining chip to force the Crow to give up their hunting ground, he would have been in touch with Crazy Bear and given the chief his demands already, wouldn’t he?
Matt sensed something else was in play, something he didn’t know about yet.
Within a couple hours after leaving the ranch headquarters, Matt began to recognize the area where he had rescued Starwind from those gunmen the day before. He said, “Bannerman’s range comes this far north?”
“Well…not the part he’s actually filed on, I suppose,” Torrance answered. “But this is open range country, West, you ought to know that. A man can graze his cattle wherever he wants to, as long as he’s strong enough to hold the range.”
“As long as somebody else hasn’t filed on it,” Matt said.
Torrance snorted. “Nobody’s filed on this range. There aren’t any spreads up here except for Circle B. The Indians seem to think they have some claim to this area because they’re used to hunting on it, but you know good and well they never filed on it. Indians don’t believe that anybody can own property. It’s all just there for them to use.”
Matt knew that was true. The concept of land belonging to somebody was foreign to the Indians, which was one reason they had had so much trouble adjusting to the white man’s ways.
They rode past a small, stone-and-timber cabin. Matt nodded toward it and asked, “Is that a line shack?”
“Yeah. The boss sends men up here during the summer, when all the stock is moved to this end of the range. There are half a dozen of them built at intervals along the edge of the foothills. Nobody’s using them right now. The regular crew won’t start pushing all the cattle up here for another month or so.”
“Maybe not,” Matt said, “but somebody’s in that cabin. Look at the chimney.”
“What do you mean? There’s no smoke coming out of that chimney.”
“No, but you can see the heat still rising from it. The fire may be out now, but it was burning just a few minutes ago and the ashes are still hot.”
Torrance’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the little ripples of heat in the air that Matt had spotted first. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “You’re right. Nobody’s supposed to be there.”
“Maybe we’d better check it out.”
Torrance shook his head. “We ride straight up there, we’re liable to get blasted out of the saddle. We’ll go on past, then once we’re out of sight we can circle back around through the trees and come at the cabin from behind. Something’s going on here, and I want to know what it is.”
So did Matt, since he felt the chances were pretty good it had something to do with the missing girl.
The two men hadn’t given any indication they were paying undue attention to the supposedly empty line shack. Not in any hurry they rode on—past the cabin. Matt felt eyes on him, watching him, and figured whoever was inside the cabin was peering out through the chinks and loopholes. He thought again about having a target painted on his back, feeling it more than ever before.
Matt and Torrance continued riding north, and within a few minutes, the cabin had disappeared from sight behind them. When they were sure they were out of sight, Torrance jerked his head toward the trees on the hillside.
“Let’s go,” he ordered.
They urged their horses to a faster pace and loped into the timber. Since Torrance knew the country better, he led the way as they circled back toward the cabin. It didn’t take long to reach the vicinity of the line shack.
Torrance reined in and motioned for Matt to do likewise. They swung down from the saddles, and Torrance said, “We’ll go ahead on foot from here.”
Leaving their mounts ground-hitched, the two men moved forward through the trees and underbrush. Matt’s hand moved toward the butt of his Colt as he heard movement up ahead. He relaxed as he recognized the sounds as horses shifting around and blowing air through their noses.
Matt and Torrance stepped into a clearing a moment later and found six horses there, contained in a crude rope corral. “Check their brands,” Torrance whispered. “I don’t think they’re Circle B stock. I don’t recognize any of them.”
Matt moved closer and looked at the marks burned into the horses’ rumps. All the brands were different, and none of them were Circle B.
That didn’t necessarily mean anything. The gunmen who hired on to ride for Bannerman could have drifted in from anywhere, and their horses would naturally bear different brands. But at least the fact that they hadn’t come from the Circle B remuda wasn’t a direct indictment of the rancher.
Matt wondered
if the men who’d attacked Starwind the day before were inside the cabin. Torrance motioned to go around the corral and close in on the cabin.
They came out behind it. Both men dropped into crouches and parted the brush carefully so that they could study the place. No one moved around the cabin, but a thin plume of smoke curled from the chimney. Whoever was inside had rekindled the fire.
Torrance put his mouth next to Matt’s ear and said quietly, “Whoever those bastards are, they don’t have any right to be in there. I want to draw them out. You up for it?”
“What do you want me to do?” Matt asked.
“See that stack of firewood next to the cabin? We’ll split up. I’ll go left, and you go around to the right where that firewood is. Grab a chunk of it and throw it up on the roof. They’ll have to come out to see what the hell made the noise.”
Matt thought about it for a second and then nodded. The plan sounded like it would work, and as far as he could tell, Torrance meant what he said and wasn’t trying to set up some sort of trap for him. Both men drew their guns, then emerged from the brush and catfooted toward the cabin, moving fast but quietly.
Matt reached the rear corner and pressed his back against the wall for a second, listening. He heard the low rumble of men’s voices inside the cabin. Then he stole along the wall to the stack of firewood and picked up a good-sized piece. He stepped away from the wall far enough so that he could heave the chunk of wood into the air above the cabin.
It landed on the roof with a solid thud, then bounced and rolled off, making even more racket. A man inside the cabin let out a startled curse, and another one said in a loud voice, “What the hell’s that?”
Moving quickly to the front corner, Matt waited, gun in hand. The door of the cabin was thrown open, and three men stepped out to look around. One held a Winchester slanted across his chest, and the other two gripped revolvers in their fists.
Matt had hoped all six men would come out of the cabin, then he remembered he had probably killed one of them and at least two of the others had been wounded, no telling how badly. The three who showed themselves might be the only able-bodied ones left in the bunch, and one of them had a bloody bandage tied around his arm.
The Family Jensen # 1 Page 20