Blake. Not that it was discussed in public, for nobody knew who the vigilantes were and it was not considered healthy to make comments of any kind about their activities.
At first, two gamblers had been taken out and lynched. Others had been invited to leave town. That, it was generally agreed, had been a good thing--a move needed for a long time. However, the attempted lynching and eventual killing of Gid Blake had created a shock that shook the ranching community to its very roots. Still, Blake might have been involved in the rustling. Then Joe Neal vanished, and the one man who had questioned the right of his disappearance had been mysteriously shot.
Another man, a loyal Neal cowhand, had likewise been killed. Nobody mentioned the reasons for these later killings but the idea got around. It was not a wise thing to talk in adverse terms of the vigilantes.
Despite this, Ben Otten had been giving a lot of thought to the vast 46 range and the thirty thousand head of cattle it carried. After all, somebody was going to get it.
Otten was aware that Lud Fuller imagined himself to be first in line, and Nevers, while saying little, was squaring around for trouble. Information had come to Otten that Nevers had quietly eased several hundred head of his cattle to 46 range and that his line cabins nearest to the 46 were occupied by several men to each cabin. Nobody was going to get that range without a fight. And now this stranger had come.
Opening the manila envelope, Otten took out the papers and examined them. There was a letter addressed to him, advising that Michael J. Blaine had been appointed manager of the 46 holdings with full authority to sign checks, to purchase feed if necessary, or any and all things appertaining to the successful management of the ranch.
There was a power of attorney and several other papers that left no doubt of Blaine's position. Otten knew the signature well, and there could be no doubt of it. Joe Neal was alive. Moreover, he scowled, these papers were dated some weeks prior to this day.
Otten looked up. "These seem to be in order, but I'm afraid I don't understand. Where is Joe?"
"I left him in El Paso, but he's not there now. In fact, he told me he wanted a vacation. I doubt if he'll be back here for several months, or even a year. "
Otten leaned back, chewing on his cigar. "Have you got any idea what you're steppin' into?"
"More or less."
"Well, let me say this. You'll have few friends. Neal was a well-liked man, but there was envy around. When he disappeared nearly everybody began maneuvering to get a'piece of his spread. Some of them have been counting on it pretty strong, and you'll have trouble."
"I'm no stranger to it," Blaine said quietly, "but I'm not huntin'
it."
He picked up a letter from among the papers. This informed all and sundry that Blaine was manager of the ranch with complete authority to hire, fire or purchase. It was signed by Neal and two witnesses, both of them known locally as prominent El Paso businessmen.
"Get the word around, will you?" Blaine suggested. "I'm going out to the ranch in the morning. I hope there'll be no trouble." "There will be."
Blaine turned toward the door and then stopped. The girl who had driven the buckboard was coming through the door, walking swiftly. As she walked she peeled the gloves from her hands. She was about five feet and four inches and very pretty. Her eyes were deep blue, her hair red gold. She was apparently angry.
"Ben, have you heard anything from the capitol? Are they sending a man up here to investigate my father's murder?"
"Now, Mary, you know they can't be sendin' men all over the state to look into ever' little squabble. We're all sorry about Gid, but it just ain't no use to fret."
"Another thing. I want you to find me a new foreman. Miller is getting completely out of hand. He's even claiming the range now. Says I'm a woman and can't hold range."
Otten got up. His face was square and brown. He looked more the successful cattleman, which he was, than the banker. He was worried now, but obviously uncertain as to what course to adopt. "There's no law says a woman can't hold range, Mary, you know that. But I reckon it won't be easy. You'll have to fight for it just like Blaine here."
She turned sharply and seemed to see Utah for the first time. "Blaine? I don't know the name. What are you fighting for?"
"He's manager for Joe Neal, Mary. Come from El Paso to take over."
"Manager for Joe Neal?" She was incredulous. "I don't believe it! What would Joe want a manager for? Anyway, Joe Neal's dead, and you know it as well as I do. If this man says he's Neal's
manager, he's lying."
Utah smiled from under his eyebrows. "Those are hard words, Ma'am. An' Joe Neal is alive--and well."
"He couldn't be!"
"Sorry, Ma'am, but he is. "
"But I was told--!" she broke off sharply. Then she said, "We
heard the vigilantes got him."
"He's alive and I'm his manager."
She looked at him scornfully. "Maybe you are. Go out an' tell that to Lud Fuller. If you get back to town alive, I'll be inclined
to believe you."
"Thank you, Ma'am," he smiled at her. "I shall look forward to seeing you when you've decided I'm not a liar. I sure hate to have such a right pretty girl think so hard of me."
He turned and walked out and Ben Otten looked after him, mightily puzzled. There was a quality about him . . . Otten was reminded vaguely of something. For an instant there, as the man spoke and then as he turned away, Otten had seemed to smell the dust of another cowtown street, the sound of boot heels on a walk; but then the memory was gone, and he saw Mary Blake turn on him again. He braced himself to meet her anger.
It was strangely lacking. "Who is he, Ben? Where did he come
from?"
Otten picked up the letters and stacked them together. "His credentials are in order, Mary. Joe Neal is alive. At least, ' he amended, "he was alive when these papers were signed. Nobody in this world could duplicate Joe Neal's scrawl. And those witnesses are names to swear by."
"But who is he?" she persisted.
"His name is Michael Blaine. I reckon we'll just have to wait and see who he is. Names, Mary, " he added, "don't account for much. Not out here. It's action that tells you who a man is. We'll see what kind of tracks he makes."
"Mighty small ones after he meets Lud. I'll bank on that." Otten fumbled the papers into the envelope. That faint intangible memory was with him again. It caused him to say, "Don't be too sure, Mary. Never judge a man until he's showed himself. Unless I miss my guess, that man has smelled gunsmoke."
Gunsmoke! That was it! The day that Hickok killed Phil Coe in Abilene! That was the day. But why should it remind him of this? This man was not Hickok, and Coe was dead.
The afternoon was blistering hot. Utah squinted his eyes against the sun and walked up the street. By now the two loafers at the livery stable would have started their story. By now all eyes would be looking at him with speculation. Yet it was unlikely that anybody in Red Creek would know him. Most of these people had been around for several years. This was a settled community and not a trail town or a wide-open mining camp. They would have heard of Utah Blaine. But there was very little chance they would guess who he was--for awhile.
He carried his new saddlebags in his left hand and he walked up to the hotel and pushed open the door of the long lobby. The clerk turned and looked at him from under the rim of an eyeshade. Stepping up to the desk the clerk turned the register. "Twelve," he said, "at the end of the hall upstairs."
Blaine pulled the register closer and wrote in a quick, sure hand, Michael J. Blaine, El Paso, Tex.
The clerk glanced at it, then looked up. "Be with us long, Mr.
Blaine?"
Blaine permitted himself a smile. "There seems to be a difference of opinion on that subject. But I'll tell you--I'll be here a lot longer than some of them that figure otherwise. "
He took his saddlebags and went up the steps. Inside the room he doffed his coat, placed the new six-shooter on the table
beside him and proceeded to bathe and shave. As he dressed again, his thoughts returned to the girl. She was something, a real beauty. He grinned as he recalled her quick challenge and accusation. She had fire, too. Well, he liked a girl with spirit.
Glancing from the window he saw a man come out of the saloon across the street and stare up at the hotel. Then the man started across, little puffs of dust rising from his boots. He was a tall, slightly stooped man with unusually high heels. They gave him a queer, forward-leaning movement. He paused in the street and stared up again, something sinister in his fixed scrutiny.
Blaine turned from the window and opened the carpet bag he had brought with him. From it he took a pair of holsters and a wide gunbelt. He slung the belt around him and buckled it, then took from the bag two beautifully matched pistols. They were .44 Russians. He checked their loads, then played with them briefly,
spinning them, doing a couple of rapid border shifts and then dropping them into their holsters. Suddenly his hands flashed and the guns were in his hands.
He returned the guns to their holsters and, with strips of rawhide, tied them down. Once again, despite the heat, he put on the black coat. There was a sudden hammering on the door. "Come in," he said. "It isn't locked."
The door slammed back and the man from the street stood in the doorway. He was even taller than Blaine, but he was stooped and his jaws were lean, his cheeks hollow. He stared at Blaine. "You ain't goin' to get away with it!" he flared. "I'm tellin' you now, stay away from the 46!"
"You have rights there?" Blaine asked gently. "That's no affair of yours! We'll have no strangers hornin' in." "My job is not to horn in," Blaine said. "I'm to manage the 46. That's just what I intend to do. "
"Bah!" The man stepped further into the room. "Don't try to throw that guff on me! Lee Fox is no fool! Neal's dead, an' you damn' well know it! An' I ain't sorry, neither. He cornered that range when he first come into this country and he hung onto it. Now he's gone an' the rest of us have a chance. Believe you me,
I'll get mine!"
"Fox," Blaine said quietly, "regardless of what you may think or hope, I am manager of the 46 Connected. As such I will warn you now, and I shall not repeat it later, that I want none of your stock on 46 range. Nor do I want any branding of mavericks on our range. Every foot of it, every inch, is going to be held. Now
that's settled."
"You think it's settled! Why, damn you, I--" His eyes caught the rawhide thongs about Blaine's legs and he hesitated, his voice changing abruptly, curiously. "Gunman, hey? Or do you just wear em for show? Better not be bluffin', because you'll get
called."
"Fox," Blaine's voice was even and he was smiling a little, "I do bluff occasionally, but I can stand a call. Don't forget it. Any time you and anybody else want to call, they'll have sixes to beat."
Chapter Three.
The stallion was fretting in his stall when Utah came down to the stable the next morning. Saddling him up, he led the dun stallion outside and mounted; then he rode up to the eating house. Despite the early hour, two other horses were tied at the hitching rail before the cafe.
Both men looked up as he entered. One of them was a slender young fellow with an intelligent, attractive face. He had sharply cut features and clear gray eyes. He nodded to Utah. "How are you, Blaine? I recognized you from the descriptions." He held out his hand. "I'm Ralston Forbes. I own the local newspaper."
Blaine shook hands gravely. "First I've heard of a paper," he said. "You take ads?"
Forbes laughed. "You wouldn't ask that if you knew the business. Advertising is the lifeblood of the business."
"Then take one for me. Just say that Mike Blaine has taken the job of manager for the 46 Connected and in the absence of Joe Neal all business will be with him."
Forbes chuckled. "If I didn't need the dollar that ad will cost you, I'd run it as news, because it will be the worst news some of these ranchers have had in years. All of them liked Joe, but they liked his range better. In a free range country you know what that means."
"I know." Blaine was aware that a subtle warning was being conveyed by the editor. He also noticed that the other man was not saying anything, and that Forbes expected him to. However, they didn't have to wait much longer.
The man was short and blocky with a beefy red face and hard gray eyes. He stabbed a slab of beef and brought it to his plate. "Have your fun," he said, "while you're able. You won't last long."
Blaine shrugged. "Two ways to look at that."
"Not hereabouts. These folks don't take kindly to no brash stranger comin' in here tryin' to run a blazer on em. Joe Neal was hung. He got his neck stretched nigh two weeks ago."
Blaine's voice was soft. "Were you there, friend?"
The blue eyes blazed as the man turned his head slowly. "No. But I've got it on good authority that he was hung." He slapped butter on a stack of hot cakes. "I'll take that as true. The gent who told me should know."
"It wouldn't be Lud Fuller, would it?"
The man did not look around this time. He kept spreading butter. "What makes you mention Lud? He was Neal's foreman."
"I know that. I also know he was there." Blaine filled his cup again. "And, friend, I'll take an oath on that."
Both men stared at him. The only way he could swear to it would be if he saw it. If he had been there, in the vicinity. The short man shrugged it off, cut off a huge triangle of hot cakes and stuffed it in his mouth. When he could talk again, he said, "You go on out to the ranch. You tell that to Lud. Better have a gun in your hand when you do it, though. Lud's fast."
"Is he?" Blaine chuckled. "I've known a few fast men."
Rals Forbes was suddenly staring hard at him. He slammed his palm on the table. "I'm losing my mind," he said excitedly. "What's the matter with me? You're Utah Blaine!"
The stocky man dropped his fork and his mouth opened. He took a deep breath and swallowed, then slowly his tongue went over his lips. The feeling in his stomach was not pleasant. A tough man, he knew his limitations, and he did not rank anywhere near the man that Utah Blaine was reputed to be. Nor, he reflected, did Lud Fuller. There was only one man, maybe two, in all this country around who might have a show with him.
"That's right," Utah replied, "I'm that Blaine."
He got to his feet and Forbes walked to the door with him.
There Forbes hesitated briefly and said, "By the way, Blaine, if you make this stick you could do me a favor. There's a girl homesteading on your range. Right back up against the mountains. Her name is Angela Kinyon. Joe let her stay there, so I hope you will."
"It's still Joe Neal's ranch."
Forbes looked at him carefully. "All right, leave it that way. Angie's all right. She's had a hard time, but she's all woman and a fine person. Just so she stays, it doesn't matter."
"She'll stay."
"And watch your step, Utah. Not even you could stop this bunch if they get started. Every man in this country has been poised and ready to jump at the 46 range. They'll have it, too. I doubt if even Joe's being alive will stop em now. They've wanted it too long, and this is the first excuse they've had. It would take a hard, gun-fighting outfit to hold it now, and even then it would be a question. One man could never do it."
"Any of that crowd that could be trusted?"
"I doubt it. When you ride onto 46 range, you ride alone."
Riding up the trail to the crest of the Tule Mesa, Utah Blaine rolled a cigarette while studying the country. His knowledge of this land might mean the difference between life and death, and he was too competent a fighting man not to devote time to a study of the terrain.
The trail went down off the mesa and into the coolness of a pine forest before cutting through some cedars and down into the valley itself. There were rich green meadows close along the streams, and along the streams there were cottonwoods, willows and sycamore trees. The ranch itself lay in a grove of trees, most of them giant sycamores.
Large and ancient, the
ranch house occupied a small knoll among the trees with the barns and corrals below it. As Blaine rode up to the yard he saw a man come out of the bunkhouse with a roll of bedding under his arm and start up the hill toward the house. The sound of his horse stopped the man, who turned to stare at him.
Utah glanced once at the bunkhouse. Another man had come
from the door and stood there leaning against the door jamb, a
cigarette in his lips. Blaine walked his horse toward the man with
the bedding. This, he rightly surmised, would be Lud Fuller.
Fuller was a big man, thick in the waist, but deep in chest and
arms bulging with muscle. He was unshaven and had cold, cruel eyes.
Blaine drew up the horse and swung down, trailing the reins. "Are you Fuller?" he asked.
"What d' you want?" Fuller demanded.
Blaine smiled. "My name is Blaine. I'm the new manager of the outfit. If you're the foreman, we'll have business to discuss. "
Fuller was astonished. Of all the things he might have expected, this was certainly not one of them. It took him a minute to get the idea and when it got across to him he was furious. "You're what!" He dropped his bedding. "Look, stranger, I don't know what you've got in your skull, but if that's a sign of it, you're breedin' a mighty poor brand of humor."
"This is no joke, Fuller. Joe Neal appointed me manager. I've visited the bank and Otten agrees my papers are in order. You'd better take that bedding back to the bunkhouse--unless you're quitting. "
"Quittin", hell!" Fuller stepped over his bedding. "Neal's dead, an' this here's a crooked deal!"
Blaine's eyes were cold. "No, Lud, Neal isn't dead. He is very much alive. Does that signature look like he was dead?"
Blaine handed the letter to Fuller who glared at it, too filled with fury and disappointment to speak. He was scarcely able to see. Yet the signature was there, and it was Joe Neal's. Nobody could ever write like that but Neal himself.
"You can't get away with this!" Fuller's voice was hoarse.
"I'm not trying to get away with anything, Fuller." Blaine kept his voice calm. "I've been given a job, and I've come to take over. From here out you'll be subject to my orders. "
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