Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  The Kid nodded, but made no comment. The Thumb Butte area was six miles across the valley from the badlands where he’d had the run-in with Old Stob, that red-eyed mossyhorn. Was it accident or design that had caused Wald to send him to the other side of the ranch?

  Yet the next day he realized that his new working ground had advantages of its own. He worked hard all morning and rounded up and turned into a mountain corral forty head of cattle that he had combed out of the pifions.

  Switching his saddle to a bay pony, he took off into the draws that led south and west, away from the ranch. An hour’s riding brought him to the Argo trail, and he cantered along to the little town at Argo Springs. Here was the only land office within two hundred miles or more where a mining claim could be registered.

  A quick check of the books, offered him by an obliging justice of the peace who also served in five or six other capacities, showed him that no mining claim had been located in the vicinity of the badlands. Hence, if the killer of Jim Kurland had found the claim, he was working it on the sly.

  He did some further checking, but the discovery he made was by accident. It came out of a blue sky when Pete Mallinger, at the Wells Fargo office, noticed his brand.

  “Bar W, eh? You bring one of them boxes over here? The ones Wald’s been shippin’ to El Paso?”

  “Me? No, I just rode over to get myself some smokin’.”… He grinned confidentially. “The boss doesn’t even know I’m gone.”

  “I wouldn’t let him ketch yuh. He’s a tough one, that Jasper Wald is. Throw a gun on a man soon’s look at him. Got money, too, he has. He’s buyin’ up most of that Agua Dulce Canyon country.”

  The Sandy Kid rolled a smoke and listened, his eyes sweeping the narrow street with its hitching rails and clapboarded buildings. Jasper Wald was not making enough on the Bar W to buy any land, not even with all his free-and-easy branding operations. Nothing you could really rp complain about, but nevertheless the Bar W brand was showing up on almost everything on the range that came within sight of a Bar W hand.

  Before he left, the Kid managed to get his hands on the address in El Paso. The boxes were being shipped to Henry Wald, a brother of Jasper, and they were notably heavy.

  The Sandy Kid strolled thoughtfully away from the door of the Wells Fargo office and crossed the dusty street to the saloon. He might as well have a drink while he was here. He pushed through the swinging doors into the bare, untidy barroom. Dutch Schweitzer was leaning an below on the bar, staring at him.

  “Howdy.”… The Sandy Kid strolled up to the bar and ordered a drink. “Looks like we’ve both strayed on the same mornin’.”

  Dutch looked at him with sullen eyes, “No, I’m on the job. The boss sent me over here.

  He didn’t send you.”

  (“Shore he didn’t. I rounded up enough stock for a full day in that country where I’m workin’.

  It’s dry work, so I ambled over for a drink.”

  “At the Wells Fargo office?”

  The Kid shrugged. He picked up his glass and tossed off his drink. “I’m on my way back”… He said and turned to go. Schweitzer’s voice halted him.

  “Wait.”

  The Sandy Kid turned. Suddenly, he felt cold.

  I He had never met a man in a gun battle, but there was cold deadliness in the big German’s eyes. The Kid stood with his feet apart a little, and his mouth felt dry. He felt sure Dutch meant to kill him.

  Schweitzer had been drinking but was not drunk. The man had an enormous capacity for liquor, yet he rarely drank to the point where he was unsteady or loose talking. Only, when he drank he grew mean and cruel.

  “You’re a smart kid. Too blamed smart”… He said meaningly.

  Two men in the back of the room got up and eased out through the rear door. The Sandy Kid could see that the bartender was obviously frightened.

  Curiously, the Kid was not. He watched Dutch carefully, aware that the man was spoiling for trouble, that he had a fierce, driving urge for brutality. Some inner canker gnawed at him, some bitter hatred that he seemed to nurse for everything and everybody. The Sandy Kid knew it was not personal animosity. It was simply that in these moods Dutch Schweitzer was a killer, and only the tiniest spark was needed to touch him off.

  In that mental clarity that comes in moments of great stress, the kid found himself aware of many things a wet ring on the bar where his glass had stood, the half-empty bottle near Schweitzer, the two empty tables in the back of the room. He saw the sickly pallor on the bartender’s flabby face and the yellow hairs on the backs of Schweitzer’s hands.

  “You stick your nose into trouble.”… Schweitzer lifted the bottle with his left hand to pour a drink. Then his face suddenly twisted with blind, bitter fury, and he jerked the bottle up to throw it at the Kid.

  Afterward, the Kid could never remember any impulse or feeling. He simply drew and fired without any thought or plan, and he fired at the bottle.

  It exploded in a shower of glass and drenched Schweitzer with whiskey. He sprang back, amazed, and when he looked up at the Kid he was cold sober.

  Slowly, his eyes wide and his face pale, Schweitzer lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “I ain’t drawin’”… He said, astonishment making his voice thick. “I ain’t makin’ a move.”

  “See that yuh don’t”… The Sandy Kid said flatly. He glared at the bartender and then backed through the swinging doors and holstered his gun. With a wary eye on the saloon, he crossed to his horse, mounted, and rode out of town.

  He moved in a sort of daze. He was no gunfighter and had never fancied himself as such.

  He was only a drifting cowhand who dreamed of someday owning his own spread. He had never found any occasion for split-second drawing, although he had practiced, of course.

  He had been wearing a six-gun for years, and he practiced throwing it hour after hour, but more to ease the monotony of long nights on night guard than from any desire for skill. It had been something to do, like riffling cards, playing solitaire, or juggling stones.

  Like all Texas men of his time he had done his share of fighting and he had done a lot of shooting. He knew he was a good shot and that he nearly always got what he went after, but shooting as quickly and accurately as he had done in the saloon had never been considered.

  Out of town, he did not ride away. When Dutch Schweitzer returned he would tell Jasper Wald what had happened. There would be trouble then, the Kid knew, and the least he could expect would be to be fired. Yet there was something he would do before he left town.

  Riding around the town in the juniper-clad hills, he dismounted and seated himself for a long wait.

  He saw Dutch ride out a short time later. He saw the streets become less peopled, and he saw the sun go down. When it was dark, he moved down to the Wells Fargo office. When Dutch left he had been driving a buckboard, and that meant something to the Kid.

  Using his knife, he cut away the putty around a pane of glass and then reached through and unfastened the window. Raising it, he crawled in.

  For an instant he stood still, listening. There was no sound, so he struck a match and shielding it in his hands, looked around for the box. He identified it quickly enough by the address. It was not large but was strongly built. With a hammer he found lying on a shelf, he pried up one of the top boards. He struck another match and peered into the box. Inside, wrapped in sacking, was a lot of the same ore he had found in the leather bag under the skeleton of Jim Kurland!

  He blew out the match and then pushed the board back in place, hitting it a couple of light taps with the hammer. Then he went out, closed the window, and replaced the pane of glass, using some slivers of wood to hold the pane in place.

  Jasper Wald, then, had killed Jim Kurland and found the claim. Or perhaps he had found the claim first. The ore was extremely rich, and he was shipping it, a very little at a time, to El Paso, where his brother was probably having it milled.

  A slow process, certainly,
but it was high-grade ore, and no doubt Wald had made plans to file on the claim when there would be no danger of Kurland’s disappearance being linked with the proceedings. Everyone from the Forks to the Stone Tree Desert and Agua Dulce Canyon knew Kurland was the only mining man around and also that he regularly penetrated the badlands of the Stone Tree.

  The Sandy Kid took to the trail and put the roan to a fast trot. He was foolish, he told himself, to be mixing into something that was no concern of his. It would have been wiser to forget com% what he had seen after he came out of that crack in the mountain. Even now, he reflected, it was not too late to travel to some far-off place like the Blue Mountains or maybe that Grand Canyon country of Arizona, which he had never seen but had heard cowhands lying about.

  Little as he knew about gold, he could tell that the ore he had seen was fabulously rich, for the rock had been lined and threaded with it, and being so heavy, it had to be rich ore. Such a boxful as he had seen in the express office might be worth two or three thousand dollars.

  Now that he thought about it, he had an idea where that claim was located. Not more than a half mile from where he had jumped into the L crack to escape the steer, the plateau broke bar just sharply off in a sheer cliff, some fifty or sixty feet high, that overhung the waterless, treeless waste of Stone Tree Desert and could even open upon the desert itself. That rupture, obviously the result of volcanic disturbance, could have exposed I the vein from which the ore had come.

  Pure speculation, of course, but the Sandy Kid had an idea he was nosing along the right trail.

  Also, he was aware that his interest did not arise I from chivalry. He was not going into this to help a lady in distress. Trouble with Jasper Wald and his two hard-bitten henchmen was not lightly to be invited, and if he did go into it knowing what he was facing, it was only partly because of the way Betty Kurland had looked at him that he was following through.

  It was a fool thing, he told himself. He had no particular urge to get money. Much as he’d like a ranch, he didn’t want to have his head shot off getting it. He admitted to himself that if it had not been for Betty, he would never have gone all the way into this fight.

  “The devil with it”… He said viciously. “I’ll go back to the Bar W an’ roll my soogan an’ hit the trail!”

  But when he came to the last forks, he kept on toward the mountains. He circled when he hit the willows and let the pony take its own gait.

  He was just edging out toward the cliff edge where he could see over into the Stone Tree when a rifle bullet hit the fork of his saddle with a wicked thwack, and then the bullet whined off ahead of him. It was a wonder it hadn’t glanced back into his stomach or hit the pony’s head.

  The echo of the report drifted over him as he hit the ground running, and he grabbed the bridle and swung the bay pony back into the brush. Then he slid his Winchester .44 out of the saddle scabbard and Injun crawled toward the cliff edge.

  That shot meant that somebody wasn’t fooling, so the Kid wasn’t planning on fun himself.

  He was some shakes with a Winchester, and when he got to cover where he could see out, he looked around, trying to locate the spot the varmint had shot from. There was nobody in sight.

  The Sandy Kid was not a trusting soul. His past dealings with Comanches had not been calculated to inspire any confidence in the serene and untrammeled appearance of woods or mountains. So after a long look, he left the bay pony tethered to a bush and crawled to the very lip of the cliff. When he glanced over, he could see something that looked like a pile of waste and rock taken from a mine tunnel, but he wasn’t looking for that. All in good time he could have an interest in the gold.

  Then, in the rocks further along the rim of the cliff, he detected a slight movement.

  He looked again, widening and then squinting his eyes. It looked like a boot heel. Not much of a mark at that distance, and not much damage could be done if he hit it.

  “We’ll scare the daylights out of yuh, anyway!” he said, and lifting the Winchester, he nestled his cheek affectionately against the stock and squeezed off a shot.

  Dust obscured the spot for a moment, but no dust could blot out the startled yell he heard.

  Somebody lunged into view then, and the Sandy Kid’s jaw dropped. It was Betty Kurland!

  She was wearing a man’s trousers and a man’s shirt and limping with one boot heel gone, but that hair could belong to nobody else!

  He got up, waving his arms, and ran out to meet her. She turned on him, and her own rifle was coming hip high when she got a better look and recognized him. She came on a couple of steps and then stopped, her eyes flashing with indignation.

  “I thought you were my friend”… She flared at him. “Then you shoot at me!”

  “You shot at me”… He declared. “How was I to know?”

  “That’s different!”

  Such feminine logic was so amazing that he gulped and swallowed. “Yuh shouldn’t have come out here”… He protested. “It isn’t safe!”

  “I wanted to find my father”… She said. “Where is he?”

  He led her to the lip of the cliff, and they found a way down. The Kid wanted a look at that desert, first. They came around in full sight of the mine tunnel and were just in time to see a man climbing out of a hole.

  “I’ll go get what’s left of Kurland”… They heard the man say. “They’ll never find him here!”

  The Sandy Kid was cursing softly, for he had been so preoccupied with the girl that he had walked around unthinking and now found himself looking into a gun held by Jasper Wald. The rancher had seen him, even if Jack Swarr, climbing from the freshly dug grave, had not.

  “Well, now”… Wald said. “If this ain’t nice!

  You and that girl walkin’ right up on us!”

  “Don’t you try nothin’”… The Kid said. “This girl is known to be here. If she doesn’t show up you’ll have the law around.”

  Wald chuckled. “No, we won’t. Not for long, anyway. I’ll just tell them this Kurland girl showed up to meet you, and you two took off to get married, over to Lordsburg or somewheres.

  They’ll figger yuh eloped and never even think of lookin’ for yuh!”

  Swarr grinned. “Hey, that’s a good idea, Boss!

  An’ we can pile “em in the same hole with her pa!”

  “If I were you”… The Sandy Kid said, “I’d guess again. I just come from Argo Springs. I know all about that gold ore you’ve been shippin” to El Paso, and I ain’t the only one.”

  Jasper Wald hesitated. His idea for getting rid of the two had been a sudden inspiration and a good one, but the thought that the Kid might have mentioned the gold to someone in Argo Springs disturbed him. It would mean he would have to move slowly, or worse, that he was already suspected.

  Suddenly there was a clatter of stones, and they looked up. Only Wald, who held the gun on the Kid did not shift his eyes. The newcomer was Dutch Schweitzer.

  “Watch that hombre, Boss”… The German said hoarsely. “He’s gun slick!”

  “Him?” Swarr was incredulous. “That kid?”

  “How old was Bill Bonney?” Dutch asked sarcastically.

  “He flashed a gun on me today so fast I never even saw his hand move!”

  Angered and worried, Jasper Wald stared at the Kid. Quickly, Swarr explained.

  “Aw, Boss”… Dutch said, “he’s lyin’. I nosed around town after he left. After he left me, I mean. He never talked to nobody.”

  “How did I find out about the gold in that box yuh brought in? Addressed to Henry Wald, in El Paso?” The Kid asked him.

  “He must have seen the box”… Dutch protested.

  The Sandy Kid’s mind was running desperately ahead trying to find a way out. “Also”… He added, “I checked on this claim. You never filed on it, so I did.”

  “What?” Wald’s shout was a bellow of fury. His face went dark with blood. “You filed on this claim? Why, you “Rage drove all caution from his mind.
“I’ll shoot yuh, blast yuh, and let yuh die right out in the sun! You his “Boss”… Swarr shouted. “Hold it! Mebbe he’s lyin’! Mebbe he didn’t file! Anyway”… He added craftily, “why kill him until he signs the claim over to us?”

  Wald’s rage died. He glanced at Swarr.

  “You’re right”… He said. “We can get possession that way.”

  The Sandy Kid chuckled. “You’ll have no cinch gettin’ me to sign anything.”

  “It’ll be easy”… Wald said sharply. “We’ll just start by tyin’ up that girl and takin’ her boots off.

  By the time she gets a little fire on her feet, yuh’ll sign!”

  Dutch Schweitzer glanced at his chief.

  Then he helped Jack Swarr tie the girl. Swarr knelt and pulled off her boots. He drew deeply on his cigarette and thrust it toward her foot.

  Dutch stared at them, his eyes suddenly hardOA-FI ening. “None of that”… He said. “I thought yuh were bluffm’! Cut it out!”

  “‘Bluffin”?” Swarr looked up. “I’ll show yuh if I’m bluffin’”… He jammed the cigarette forward, and Betty screamed.

  Dutch Schweitzer’s face went pale, and with an oath, he grabbed for a gun. At the same time.

  Jasper Wald swung his gun toward the German.

  That was all the break the Sandy Kid needed.

  His right hand streaked for his gun butt, and he was shooting with the first roar from Wald’s gun.

  The Kid’s first shot took Jack Swarr in the stomach as the big man lunged upward, clawing for his pistol. Dutch had a gun out and was firing. The Kid saw his body jerk with the impact of Wald’s bullet, and he swung his own gun.

  Wald faced him at the same instant.

  For one unbelieving instant, the Sandy Kid looked over the stabbing flame of his own Colt into the flaring muzzle of Wald’s six-shooter. He triggered his gun fast at almost point-blank range.

  He swayed on his feet, his legs spread wide, and saw Jasper Wald’s cruel face turn white before his eyes. The rancher’s knees sagged, and he went to the ground, glaring bitterly at the Sandy Kid. He tried then to lift his gun but the Kid sprang forward and knocked it from his grasp.