The Crimson Hills

by L. P. Holmes

  Wall nodded. “If I hadn’t felt completely that way before, I have since the Gravelly affair.”

  Tres came up sitting. “What Gravelly affair?”

  Wall told about it, of the trap set for him at Gravelly, and how close his escape had been. “If you take a look at the cantle of my saddle, you’ll see how close Joe Muir came to getting me,” he ended. “Lilavelt ordered that, or Cube Spayd would never have been in on it. So if that’s the way Lilavelt wants to play this game, that’s the way it will be.”

  Tres marked the flinty cast to Wall’s face and the sudden pinched-down chill in his eyes. He nodded. “Lilavelt’s suffering right now, Dave. I never did know the man very well, only saw him a couple of times, in fact. Even so, I could see the greed sticking out all over him. And a greedy, self-centered hombre is seldom a brave one when the chips are down. He’ll know by this time that his scheme didn’t work, so I’ll bet he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since. He’ll be seeing you in every shadow.”

  “Me, and a lot of other ghosts,” growled Wall.

  From time to time Wall got up, moved out to where he could look across to the Monuments and down to the approaching herd. By this time he could make out the dark mass of the cattle under the hovering banner of dust. They were coming on steadily, with no sign of opposition. He returned swearing.

  “If Bart Sutton’s going to do anything about this, he’d better get started. In another half hour that herd will be through the gap. What the devil’s the matter with the man? I warned him, plenty.”

  “There’s a reason,” said Tres thoughtfully, “why men like Lilavelt so often trample better ones. The better man doesn’t like violence. And then too often he hits half-heartedly instead of full out, because he feels that being in the right will fight most of his battle for him. Sounds good, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”

  Wall built and smoked another cigarette, then went over to his horse and stepped into the saddle. “We’ll leave the pack horse here and move in a little closer, Tres.”

  They went on downcreek another quarter of a mile and crossed to the west bank, holding there to the muffling outline of the willows. The Window Sash herd was coming remorselessly closer. Now it was possible to pick out the riders accompanying it, three at point, more along the flanks and in the drag. Maybe a dozen in all, a strong force, one that wouldn’t be easy to handle.

  “Lot of power in a herd of cattle,” observed Tres. “Like a head of flood water, they can roll over and drown a man. Sutton better show his hand pretty quick, or he won’t have any.”

  Wall did not answer, his lips pulled thin with bitterness. He might as well have saved his breath, it seemed, as far as Bart Sutton was concerned. But maybe he shouldn’t blame Sutton too much. A fair man, thoughtful of the welfare of his men, maybe he felt he had no right to throw their lives on the line in an affair like this, where the issue added up to his own private gain or loss. Some men were big enough to feel that way and probably Sutton was like that … though mistakenly.

  And then Tres Debley exclaimed sharply: “Over at the Monuments, Dave! There comes the Square S!”

  Wall had been watching the herd. Now he swung his head. Lilliputian figures they were, at this distance and through the coiling distortion of sun haze, but mounted men beyond doubt, and moving down at an angle toward the point of the herd. But hardly enough of them for this chore. Wall watched for a moment, then looked at Tres.

  “They’re going to need help,” he said briefly. “But this is no particular cause of yours.”

  Through his bruises Tres flushed. “The hell you say. Thought I told you that where you rode, I ride? Well, that’s it.”

  Wall squared around in his saddle again. “We’ll watch for a little and see how things shape up.”

  The gap between the point of the herd and the group of Square S riders closed. And then there were darting figures swinging out from the herd, massing and moving to meet the Square S contingent.

  The two mounted groups held to close formation only for a little time as the distance closed between them. Then they began to spread and wheel and jockey for position and, though he could not pick up the reports at this distance, Dave Wall knew that rifles were beginning to bark out there, that the battle was joined, and that the invisible boots of Luke Lilavelt would be trampling out the blood of better men. It took only a moment to see that the superior force with the herd was getting the best of things. Almost immediately the Square S riders began to give ground.

  Wall lifted his reins. “Come on, Tres!”

  They went in at a hard run, angling toward the point of the herd, an idea taking form in Wall’s mind as he rode. Two extra guns out in that tangled fight might make a difference, but again they might not. However, it was the herd that Window Sash was trying to put through, and if that herd could be turned!

  The herd, with the weariness of a long drive in it, had slowed as soon as the pressure had drained away. The dust cloud caught up with it and settled down. Cube Spayd had left but four men with the herd, one at point, one on either flank, and one in the drag. The rest of his men he’d pulled off to meet the Square S attack. When the dust settled down about the point rider, bitter and shrouding, he cursed it and moved ahead blindly.

  To Tres Debley, pounding along beside him, Dave Wall yelled: “Long chance, Tres! But we’ll hit the point and see if we can turn it. That’ll give Window Sash something to think about besides swapping lead with Sutton’s crowd. All right with you?”

  Tres’ answer was to begin unstrapping the reata at his saddle fork.

  There was just the faintest kind of small, hot breeze stirring, coming up from the south. It sifted the dust out in a long, saffron banner. Wall and Tres sped into this and it shrouded and hid them. The closer they got to the herd, the thicker the dust, until only a few yards was the limit of vision. The smell of the cattle and the sound of its steady bellow of protest against the weary miles rode with the dust. Wall held his loose-coiled reata in one hand, and when a steer suddenly loomed huge through the dust, he charged straight at it, flailing at it with the coils of his reata.

  The animal whirled, plunged away, smashing into the others behind it. Then Wall, following, found cattle all around him, bellowing, surging, pushing back and to one side. Tres Debley, following Wall’s example, added the pressure and persuasion of his own clubbing reata.

  For a little time the pressure of the strung-out herd was too great to make any real impression on. It came pushing ahead, pushing ahead. But Wall and Tres kept fighting it, fighting a little at an angle instead of straight on. And gradually the animals immediately about them began to give to the side. Sensing this, Wall yelled thinly: “Stay with ’em, Tres!”

  The point rider, blinded by the dust, had not seen Wall and Tres move in. But by now he knew that something was wrong. Cattle, instead of following him, were moving away from him, shifting to one side. He spun his horse, sent it lunging back through the dust. Abruptly he almost rode down Dave Wall.

  The man had drawn his gun and he made a cursing, high-riding figure. There was nothing Wall could do but lash at him savagely with the hard coils of his reata. The blow landed, the hard-braided rawhide heavy and punishing across the fellow’s head and face. It did two things. It spoiled utterly the direction of the shot the rider threw and it knocked him so far off balance that the sudden side swing of his horse, dodging to miss full collision with Wall’s mount, spilled him out of the saddle. Wall raced on, the smell of powder smoke blending with that of dust in his nostrils.

  The point of a herd was like the head of a snake—where it led the body must follow. And now, weary though it was, the point of the herd was knowing a growing panic. It was a catching fever, passing from one critter to another like fire sweeping dry grass.

  Wall and Tres redoubled their efforts, half-strangled in the dust, yelling now and working those clubbing reatas until their a
rms grew numb and weary. But they had that point going, curving out in the start of a turn. A lead steer broke into a wild, crazy run, sucking another and still another with it. Racing on the outside of that curve, keeping even with it, Wall and Tres kept pressing, pressing, until, abruptly, they knew they had their gamble won.

  The whole herd was in quickening movement now. The center body of the herd began to race after the fleeing point and the drag slashed after the rest. In its entirety it became a wide rough half circle of hurtling bovine flesh, of spouting, upsurging dust, the point leading back the way it had come, then veering left toward the desert and the poison bog holes and sinks of the Stinking Water swamp.

  Wall pulled a little wide and stopped, Tres coming up beside him on his sweating, blowing horse. Tres was exultant. “That ought to worry somebody!” he yelled.

  It did. The left flank rider, caught on the inside of that curving, blind river of cattle, had to ride for his life. The right flank rider and the one at the drag, lost in that fog of dust, charged helplessly about, not at all sure of the how and why of this, but knowing that something had gone radically against plan.

  Out where the fight against the Square S riders was going on, a Window Sash hand raced in on Cube Spayd, yelling wildly, jerking a violently indicative thumb over his shoulder. Spayd, blind to all else but the battle at hand, cursed the man out of the way, but when the fellow persisted, Spayd turned and looked and saw the herd streaming away.

  Cube Spayd had bossed this drive, led it this far. He had, on seeing the Square S opposition appear, gone into battle with a savage, ruthless truculence and had seen the Square S forces give way and back up, slowly but definitely. He had known the exultation of what had been a winning fight. But the fight meant nothing unless the herd was put through. Now it was running—but the wrong way.

  Spayd didn’t know why or how it had come about any more than did some of the wondering Square S men, but they did know that the pressure on them began immediately to let up, while Cube Spayd began yelling wildly at his men, splitting his force, sending some back after the herd, trying to rally the rest to press on in the fight.

  So far, the fight had been at relatively long range. Even so, two Square S horses were down and a Square S rider was humped sickly in his saddle, dazed and reeling with a smashed shoulder. As yet Window Sash had suffered no casualties.

  A Square S man levered another shot from a reeking Winchester. He had fired with no particular aim, using the whole shifting, dust-filmed mass of the enemy as a target. But he shot better than he knew. The bullet told with a sodden thump.

  Men about Cube Spayd, men close to him, listening to his raging orders, saw him suddenly reel far back over his saddle cantle, where he seemed to hang, stiffly rigid, his face to the sky, his teeth bared, his voice dead in his throat. Then all substance seemed to pour out of him and he was a limp huddle, folding down the side of his horse and piling up on the ground.

  It was a vital, breaking blow to Window Sash. The tough ruthlessness of the leadership that had brought them this far was gone, lying dead there on the hoof-trampled earth. The color of Luke Lilavelt’s money wasn’t enough to hold the rest of Window Sash to the chore. Had the herd still been coming steadily ahead they might have made a try at seeing the affair through, even with their leader gone. But the herd was careening away to the south and east and it was a stampede that built up panic and dragged defeated men with it.

  They broke away in ones and twos and threes and soon only Cube Spayd remained, marking the high point of their advance. It was like a tide that had rolled so far, then broke on some invisible rock, and so flowed back, faster and faster.

  Square S gathered its forces, counted its casualties, then came ahead, measuring the battlefield with grim eyes. Out where the dust was clearing they saw two riders, sitting their horses quietly, showing neither hostility nor friendship. Four Square S men rode slowly over, rifles ready across their saddles. The leader of the four was a raw-boned, hard-jawed man with a bloodstain on one shirt sleeve. There was haggard fire in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you run like the rest?” he growled. “If you’re aimin’ to try and talk this thing out now, you’re crazy. You started it … we’ll finish it!”

  Dave Wall said: “Before you go jumping at conclusions, ask yourself why that herd swapped ends and started to run. Not on its own account, friend.”

  The raw-boned rider started slightly and his stare was hard and searching. “Your voice … I heard it the other night when I was on guard at headquarters. You’re Wall?”

  “That’s right. I told Sutton this herd would be coming in and offered to take a hand in fighting it back. He couldn’t see it just that way. But Debley, here, and I took a cut at things anyhow. We figured if we could turn the herd and start it running while Cube Spayd and his crowd were busy holding you off, it would help some.”

  “Once you rode for Lilavelt, now you ride against him. Why?”

  “We got our own good reasons.”

  The raw-boned rider nodded slowly. “Your business. Well, turning that herd helped all right … helped plenty. They were tough up to a point, and then all of a sudden they were done for.” He pushed a hand across his face and slacked off a little in his saddle, a man drained dry by the short and savage fury of battle.

  “Knowing Spayd,” said Wall, “I wonder at him quitting so suddenly. He’s a tough hombre.”

  One of the other Square S riders spoke up. “They broke right after one of their crowd went down. Maybe that was Spayd. What’s he look like?”

  “Tell you better when I see him,” Wall said. “If you want it that way?”

  The raw-boned rider reined about. “Come on.”

  They rode over and Dave Wall had his look. He nodded. “That’s him, sure enough. Well, there’s your answer. A hard man, riding a hard trail, come to a hard ending.”

  Wall built a cigarette, brooding a moment. Here was another ghost for Luke Lilavelt to remember. Wall shook himself and looked at the raw-boned rider. “If it’s all the same to you, my partner and I’ll be drifting.”

  The raw-boned man, friendlier now, shrugged. “Far as I’m concerned the trail’s open. I’ll see that Sutton hears about that herd being turned … and who did it. Good luck!”

  Chapter Eight

  Sheriff Cole Ashabaugh, lounging at ease in the doorway of his office, saw Dave Wall and a companion turn in at the lower end of Basin’s street and come jogging along that hot and dusty way. As they pulled to a stop before him, he lifted a hand in greeting, marked the signs of far travel on riders and mounts, and tried without success to read the thoughts behind the weathered darkness of Wall’s face.

  Wall said: “Cole … howdy!” And then, before dismounting, put a long glance on Luke Lilavelt’s office.

  Ashabaugh said: “He’s not in town, Dave. Hasn’t been since you left. I’ve begun to wonder.”

  “Wonder what?” Wall stepped from his saddle and stamped some of the riding stiffness from his legs.

  “Whether you haven’t caught up with him somewhere and forgot to tell me about it?”

  “No such luck,” said Wall. “Shake hands with a good friend of mine … Tres Debley. Tres, this is Sheriff Cole Ashabaugh.”

  They had made the long ride down from the Crimson Hills country by easy stages and along the way Tres had lost virtually all the signs of his beating at the hands of Hippo Dell. He took Ashabaugh’s hand with a quiet nod.

  “How’s Jerry making it?” asked Wall. “And any word from the south yet?”

  “No word so far,” informed the sheriff. “Jerry’s healthy, but restless. You want to see him, I suppose?”

  Ashabaugh gave Wall the jail key and Wall went in alone. Jerry Connell came to his feet eagerly. “Dave! Man … it’s good to see you. What’s the word?”

  “Nothing yet. Tough ride, hey, feller?”

  Jerry, going
sober, nodded. “Plenty. Much more of this and I’ll end up talking to myself. Been out to the ranch?”

  “Not yet. Heading there when I leave here. Judith’s been in to see you, of course?”

  “Every other day. She’s great, Dave. And I sit here thinking what a dog I am for getting her into this mess.”

  “None of that,” rapped Wall sharply. “We made a bargain, all of us. We’ll see it through.” Then in a milder tone: “They can’t keep you locked up here forever without taking some kind of direct action. Keep your chin up.”

  They talked for a little while, and then Wall left. Tres Debley was waiting for him in Ashabaugh’s office. The sheriff, as he accepted his key back from Wall, drawled: “Before you leave, Dave … a couple of questions. Word leaked in from Lilavelt’s Gravelly headquarters that a man had been killed out there … fellow named Muir. Know anything about that?”

  “Yeah,” answered Wall bluntly, “I know all about it. Come outside and I’ll show you something.”

  He led the way to his horse and indicated the bullet-gouged cantle of his saddle. “That’s where Muir’s slug hit. And he had first bite.” Then he sketched in the other angles of the Gravelly affair briefly. “How did the word reach you, Cole?”

  The sheriff pulled a folded bit of paper from his shirt pocket, smoothed it out, and handed it over. “I found this shoved under my office door one morning.”

  It was a page that had been torn from a small notebook. On it was roughly printed with pencil a few words that read:

  Ask Dave Wall what he knows about the killing of Joe Muir at Gravelly.

  Wall’s lip curled as he returned the paper. “Friend Lilavelt doesn’t overlook a single angle, does he? I’ve seen him use a notebook about this size, plenty of times.” He faced Ashabaugh grimly. “You’ve heard my story, Cole. What’s the answer?”

  The sheriff pocketed the paper again, shrugging. “You never were a liar, Dave. Your story suits me until somebody can prove different. If I can ever get you and Lilavelt face to face, maybe we’ll reopen the question. If you’re going out to the ranch, tell Holt that Henry Laramore has got another jag of saddle stuff he wants softened up. Maybe you can take over at the ranch long enough for Holt to keep Henry happy?”