The letters Oor C could be transformed into the numbers 8 or 6 or 9, and C could also be made into Oor G; 7 into 9 or 4; D or P could be altered to become B; V turned into N, M, or W; or a symbol could be added to turn a letter brand into a letter with a slash, line, or circle. There were any number of changes that an expert running-iron user could create.
Brands were often changed when cattle were sold, but almost equally often, a new brand was simply added beside the old one. In an economy based on cattle, brands were generally the only identification steers had, the only way by which their ownership could be established. All ranches registered their brands at the nearest county seat, and the county authorities saw to it that a record of the brand was forwarded to the state territorial capital, where all brands were also registered.
“Well?” Snag asked Ki. “You satisfied now? If you’re the foreman of the Circle Star, you know damn well that here in Texas it’s against the law to even carry a running iron.”
Ki nodded thoughtfully. He knew that the law cited by Snag did indeed exist; mere possession of a running iron drew a minimum sentence of five years in prison for the man having it. However, he’d been watching the prisoner’s face while he and the Lazy G crew talked, and the pleading he’d seen in the man’s eyes could not be ignored. Ki knew the look of guilt, open as well as disguised, and his sixth sense told him that the eyes he’d looked into were not those of a guilty man.
“What you say about the law is true,” Ki admitted, watching Snag without letting his attention be noticed. “But it does not automatically make a rustler of every man who has a running iron. Even if it did, the man must be brought before a judge and a jury and be legally tried and convicted. It is not the same thing as catching a rustler in the act of stealing cattle.”
“Aw, to hell with that shit!” Fletch growled. “We ain’t got time to fool around with the law! It’s too damn slow!”
“But it is the law,” Ki pointed out gently.
“Look here, chink, we got as much respect for the law as you have!” Miller said. “Except it’s like Fletch just told you, it takes too long. We’d lose two days taking this rustler to the county seat. We’d have to stay there a day or two while he was being tried, then it’d take us another two days to get back! We got work to do!”
Ki asked in his softest voice, “Tell me, Miller, would you feel the same way if you were sitting there with a noose around your neck, waiting to be hanged?”
“Now what the hell kinda question is that?” Miller asked.
“A fair one,” Ki replied.
“Damned if it is!” Fletch snorted. He turned to Snag. “Well? How about it, Snag? Has everybody got cold feet, or are we going to string up this worthless cattle-rustling bastard?”
“If you still feel like doing it, we will,” Snag said. He looked from one to another of the Lazy G men. Fletch nodded at once, so did Miller. Ossie inclined his head after a moment of hesitation.
Pete said, “I was about to change my mind, but if the rest of you’re set on going ahead, count me in.”
“That’s settled, then,” Snag told them. He went on, “You already got your rope on him, Fletch. Take the slack outta the noose and toss the other end over that mesquite limb.”
Fletch toed his horse up beside the prisoner, whose eyes had grown increasingly fearful as he watched and listened to the discussion that was to decide his fate. The Lazy G man pulled the noose tight and tossed the free end of the rope over the one branch of the mesquite that was sturdy enough to hold a man’s weight. He was starting back to join the others when Snag spoke.
“Damn it, get his hands untied from his saddlehorn! If they’re still fastened, the rope won’t pull him off the horse! Ain’t you never strung up a rustler before, Fletch?”
With an angry look at the strawboss, Fletch untied the pigging-string that secured the prisoner’s hands to his saddlehorn. While he was still pulling the knot of the pigging-string when retying the man’s hands, the victim struck.
Chapter 2
With his hands bound, the accused prisoner had no weapon except his head. As Fletch was raising his head after examining the pigging-string to make sure the knot was tightly cinched, the prisoner arched his back and butted Fletch in the jaw. The unexpected impact almost sent the Lazy G man from his saddle, and the prisoner kicked frantically at his horse’s flanks, trying to get the animal to move. Belatedly the horse started off, but with no guiding hands on its reins, it ran directly toward the other men from the Lazy G.
Ossie, Miller, and Pete closed in around the hapless prisoner and grabbed his arms. Fletch spurred up to join them. Snag did not move to help them, but kept his attention on Ki. During their long discussion, Snag had allowed the muzzle of his revolver to sag, as Ki had expected he would, but now he brought it up to threaten Ki once more. He did not give Ki his full attention, but darted his eyes away from time to time, watching his men lash the prisoner’s arms behind his back, tighten the noose of the lariat, and toss its end over the limb again.
Ki had been waiting for an opportunity to create just such a diversion without getting shot himself. He used the moments when Snag’s attention was distracted to drop one hand to his waist and free the loose knot that held in place the surushin he wore instead of a belt. By the time Snag’s eyes were on him again, Ki was once more sitting motionless.
“You decided to give in, Chinaman?” Snag asked mockingly.
“I have decided to see how far you will let your men go,” Ki replied.
“Don’t make no mistake, they’ll go all the way,” Snag told Ki. “And after that rustler bastard’s kicked his last kick, them and me’s going to make up our minds what to do with you.”
“I’ve done you no harm yet,” Ki pointed out.
“Right enough. But it ain’t in the cards to let you go free after you seen us give that rustler what he’s got coming. Only thing we got to settle is whether to use the rope or a gun.”
Ki did not answer, but turned his eyes pointedly to the scene under the mesquite. There, Fletch, Miller, Ossie, and Pete were having a low-voiced discussion, apparently over the part each of them was to play in the lynching.
Whatever the subject of the discussion, it was soon over. While Fletch and Pete stationed themselves on each side of the prisoner, Miller knotted the free end of the lariat that had become a lynching rope around his saddlehorn. Ossie led Miller’s horse in a small half-circle away from the tree, backing it until the slack had been removed from the rope. The lariat now stretched tautly from the bound man’s neck, over the limb to Miller’s saddlehorn.
Miller nodded to Fletch and Pete. They each raised one hand in the air. Ki glanced at Snag, and saw that his eyes were fixed on the victim. Fletch and Pete brought their hands down in hard slaps on the rump of the prisoner’s horse. The horse leaped forward and the lariat hummed as it tightened.
Ki whipped out the surushin, whirled it twice around his head, and launched it at Snag. The rope sang through the air, pulled taut by the lead weights at either end, and wrapped itself around Snag, securing his gun hand to his body. In one fluid movement that was a continuation of throwing the surushin, Ki reached into one of the many pockets of his leather vest, then extended his arm in a rapid whiplash motion. A razor-edged shuriken throwing-star left his hand and spun, glittering, through the air. The small, star-shaped disc sank itself into the mesquite limb where the hanging rope was drawn tight over it, severing the lariat cleanly. The prisoner dropped to the ground.
For a moment the angry cowhands did not grasp what had happened. Then they identified Ki as the one who had thwarted them, and, as one man, spurred toward him.
Ki covered most of the distance that separated him from Pete and Fletch while the two Lazy G hands were still gaping at the sight of their prisoner’s horse galloping away.
Pete’s hand was sliding up to the butt of his revolver as Ki closed in. Before he had the gun started from its holster, Ki linked his own arm through the crook of Pete’s elb
ow. While his horse was carrying him past his adversary, Ki locked his sinewy hand on the Lazy G man’s wrist.
Using his biceps and Pete’s own ribcage as lever and fulcrum, he brought Pete’s right arm up and away from his body, then twisted the arm up and back until, with a sharp, popping snap, the bone of Pete’s upper arm came out of its socket at the shoulder.
Screaming with pain, Pete dropped off his horse and lay writhing on the ground. His dislocated right arm flopped in response to the jerking of his body, the arm itself now beyond any of the man’s efforts to control its movements.
Ki’s rush had carried him beyond Fletch, who now had to turn his mount in order to bring his gun to bear. Ki yanked at the reins of his combat-wise horse. The animal planted its hooves and spun in its own length, leaving Fletch still pointing his pistol at the empty space where the Lazy G man thought Ki’s horse would have taken him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ki saw that Miller and Ossie had now drawn their revolvers. A quick glance behind him confirmed that he’d put himself between them and Fletch. Neither Miller nor Ossie could fire at Ki without the risk of hitting Fletch. For the moment they were forced to sit and watch, holding their useless guns.
Ki’s mount completed its turn and he kicked the animal ahead toward Fletch. He reached his objective just as Fletch’s horse, turning in response to its rider’s frantic tugs on the reins, brought Fletch’s body squarely in line with Ki. Ki was now less than an arm’s length away. Fletch started bringing up his gun.
Ki thrust his forearm out to stop Fletch’s arm from rising. His stiffened fingers slid along Fletch’s arm and stabbed into the Lazy G man’s diaphragm. Ki’s stone-hard fingertips smashed into Fletch’s solar plexus. The shock of the thrust carried with paralyzing force through the shallow wall of flesh between the ribs and stomach muscles, and into the complex of nerves that lay just below the breastbone.
Fletch’s face twisted into an agonized grimace as the paralysis sped from the nerve-center and stopped him from breathing. His shoulders tensed as they arched backward, and his revolver dropped from nerveless fingers. For a moment Fletch poised in his saddle, unnaturally erect, then slumped and slid slowly to the ground, one booted foot caught in his stirrup.
As Fletch fell, Ki rolled out of his own saddle, knowing that Ossie and Miller would have a clear shot at him, and that they would not hesitate to use their guns. They were already spurring toward the jammed-up animals when Ki left his saddle. He waited, sheltered between the two horses. Ossie came abreast of Ki’s horse, Ki dove between the animal’s legs and rose to his knees as Ossie’s horse came abreast.
Reaching up, Ki grasped Ossie’s ankle and pulled the booted foot out of the stirrup. Yanking Ossie’s leg straight, Ki put his shoulder under the calf and reared up. Ossie let his pistol fall when he began flailing his arms, trying to stay in his saddle. Ki brought the leg up higher. Shoving the booted foot toward Ossie, Ki clamped his free hand on the man’s knee. He pulled down on the knee while pushing up on the ankle, then twisted both hands sharply, to dislocate Ossie’s hip. Ossie tumbled from his saddle, thudded to the earth, and lay still, moaning.
Snag was still fighting to free himself from the entangling ends of the surushin, but Miller had circled halfway around the three milling horses and was trying to get a shot off at Ki. The horses were in the way, and Miller reined his mount around to get Ki in his sights.
Ki moved the instant the horse started to turn. Squirming under Ossie’s horse, Ki vaulted up on the rump of Miller’s horse while the man’s back was turned. Perched precariously behind Miller, Ki smashed the steel-hard edge of his right hand down on the sparsely fleshed tendons that ran from neck to shoulder. His chop tore loose the tendons and the nerves anchored to them.
Stiffening in his saddle, Miller’s eyes rolled upward and he toppled to the ground, his body board-stiff.
Ki slid off the horse’s rump. His own mount had worked free of the mill now, and was only a long step away. Ki leaped into its saddle and started back toward Snag.
During the few seconds Ki had needed to dispose of the four Lazy G hands, the strawboss had stayed bound by the surushin’s horsehair rope. The twirling lead balls on each end of the flexible rope had met and wound together behind Snag’s back. His right hand, still holding his gun, was pinned firmly to his chest, the muzzle of the weapon pointing up into the empty sky.
Snag began spewing out obscenities as he saw Ki coming close to him. He stopped trying to reach the entwined ends of the surushin with his left hand and tried to reach it up and take the revolver from his right. Ki reached him before Snag could make the exchange. Without drawing rein, Ki stiffened the fingers of his right hand once more and drove his fingertips into Snag’s exposed larnyx. The obscenities choked off into a muffled, gasping wheeze as Snag fought vainly for both speech and breath.
Ki lifted the man’s pistol from his weakening hand and tossed the gun as far as he could. He stayed close to Snag only long enough to release the surushin, and freed it just as the strawboss fell to the ground, his chest heaving as he struggled to fill his lungs.
Less than a minute had passed since Ki launched his attack on the Lazy G crew. Ahead, he saw the prisoner. The man’s arms were still bound behind his back. From his neck, the rope severed by the shuriken trailed on the dry earth. Ki nudged his horse into a gallop and caught up.
“I still don’t know whether I was right in saving your neck from that lynching rope,” Ki remarked, unwrapping the pigging-string from the man’s wrists. As he began to work at the knot in the bandanna that still gagged the prisoner’s mouth, he went on, “But as soon as you can talk, I’ll listen to your side of the story and make up my mind whether to let you go or turn you over to the sheriff.” Ki whipped the bandanna free, and for the first time got a close-up look at the prisoner’s grime-streaked face. He stared and said unbelievingly, “Why, you‘re—you’re just a young boy!”
“I’m old enough to take care of myself,” the youth retorted hoarsely, through dry, cracked lips.
Ki took his canteen from the looped saddlestring that held it, and passed it to the young man. He said, “You’ll talk easier after you’ve had some water.”
While the youth was drinking, Ki sized him up. He was not more than eighteen, and was likely even younger, but his build was husky. His face was unlined under its coating of dirt, and the sparse stubble that showed through the dust and grime indicated that he’d only been shaving for a couple of years at most. His lips and chin were firm, with just a suggestion of grim purpose in their lines. His bare head was covered with a thick shock of light brown hair that badly needed combing.
A long gurgling drink and a second, slower sip of the water freed the youth’s throat. “I sure owe you a lot, mister,” he told Ki. “I‘d’ve been dead and swinging on that tree to dry if you hadn’t come along when you did.”
“Save your thanks,” Ki advised him. “First I want to know your name and where you’re from.”
“Charley ...” the youth hesitated and then finished in a rush of words, “Smith. And I’m from over in central Texas.”
Ki wasn’t taken in by the obviously false name, but he decided to let both that and the evasion as to the exact location of the young man’s home pass for the moment.
“Well, Charley Smith,” he began, “you might not want to answer my next question, and you might try to lie your way out of the scrape you got into, but I want to know why you were carrying a running iron. Don’t you know there’s a law against it?”
“I sure do, now,” Smith replied. “But I didn’t till you and them other fellows got to talking about it.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Ki warned him.
“Look, mister, I can’t do better’n the truth, and the truth is that I found that damned piece of iron someplace between the Box B ranch house and the Lazy G. I don’t know exactly whose range it was on, but I can sure take you back there and you can see the print it made in the dirt where it was
laying.”
“All right, we’ll let the running iron pass for a minute,” Ki told Smith. “What were you doing crossing the Box B?”
“I work there. For Mr. Brad Close. I did until yesterday, that is. Then ...”
“Well, go on. What happened yesterday?”
Smith hesitated, his unlined brow knotting into a frown. After a moment he said curtly, “I got fired.”
“Why?”
“Because after we’d finished rounding up what cattle was left after them rustlers took Mr. Close’s market herd, the foreman said there wasn’t going to be enough work on the ranch so’s they’d need me any longer.”
Ki was as quick to discern the truth as he was to smell a lie, and young Smith’s explanation rang true. He asked, “How long ago was the Box B market herd rustled?”
“Let’s see...” Smith thought briefly and said, “A little bit more’n two weeks ago.”
That would explain why he and Jessie hadn’t heard about it when they’d returned to the Starbuck ranch, Ki thought. In only two weeks, the news wouldn’t have spread beyond the Box B. He put another question to Smith. “You didn’t get into some sort of trouble that made the Box B foreman fire you?” Then quickly he asked, “What’s his name, by the way?”
“His name’s Dave Martin,” Smith replied promptly. “And I didn’t get crossways of him nor of Mr. Close, neither. What Dave said was that I was just hired on as an extra hand to help drive the market herd to the shipping pens, and being the last man they’d put on, I had to be the first one they let go.”
This reply, too, rang true. Ki said, “I don’t suppose you’d object to riding back to the Box B with me, then?”
“I wouldn’t mind one bit.”
Ki nodded. “I guess that’s all I need to know,” he said. Come on. We’ll be on our way.“
“What about them men that was setting out to hang me?”
“They won’t be chasing us, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
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