"Like hell!" Fuller snarled. "I'm boss here and I'll stay boss. There's something rotten about this!"
"You're exactly right. It's a rotten deal when a man's friends turn against him and try to hang him for nothing except that they want to steal his ranch. Now get this into your skull, Fuller. You take orders from me or get off the ranch! And you can start right now!"
Fuller was beyond reason. Unable to coordinate his thoughts and realize what had happened, his one instinct was to fight, to strike out, to attack. Despite the fact that he had himself put the rope on Neal, he knew that signature was genuine. But this curbed none of his anger.
Men were coming from the bunkhouse. Only minutes before, Fuller had rolled his bedding and told them he was moving into the big house. They had looked at him, but said nothing. Like himself they wanted to get something out of this new situation. But most of them wanted to strip the ranch of cattle, sell them off and skip. They were men Fuller had hired himself, for Neal had left most of the hiring in his hands. Only Rip Coker had spoken up. He was a hatchet-faced cowhand, tough, blond and wicked. "I'd go slow if I were you," he had said, "the old man might show
up"
"He won't.'
"You seem mighty sure of that. Maybe you made sure he won't."
Fuller had glared, but something in him warned that Coker would be no easy task in a gun fight. With his hands--well, Lud Fuller had never been whipped with fists. But the lean, wiry Coker was not the man to fight with his hands. Therefore Fuller had merely turned and walked up the hill with his bedroll. Now he was stopped and he could hear them coming, Coker among them.
"Joe Neal," Fuller persisted, "is dead. I'm takin' over."
Blaine shook his head. "Sorry to tear down your dream house, " he said, "but you're just a little previous. Get back to the bunk-house with your bed or load up and get off the place."
Blaine turned to the seven men who had come up the hill. "I'm Blaine, the new manager here. I have shown my papers to Fuller. Before that I showed them to Otten. They are in order. Any of you men who want to draw your time can have it. Any of you that want to stay, you have a job. Think it over. I'll see you at chuck."
Deliberately he turned his back and started up the hill to the house.
Fuller stared after him. "Hey! You!" he yelled.
Blaine kept on walking. Opening the door to the house, he stepped inside.
Rip Coker chuckled suddenly. "Looks like you should of took my advice, Lud. You jumped the gun."
"He won't get away with this!" Lud said furiously.
"Looks to me like he already has," Coker said. "Don't you try buckin' that hombre, Lud. He's out of your class."
Lud Fuller was too angry to listen. Slowly, the men turned. There was muttering among them, for several had already been
spending the money they expected to get from the stolen cattle. Now it was over. Coker looked toward the house with a glint in his eyes; then he began to chuckle softly. The situation appealed to him. It had done him good to see the way Blaine turned Fuller off short. But what was to happen next?
Wiser than Fuller, Coker had complete appreciation of the situation in the Red Creek country. Fuller might grab the ranch, but he would never keep it. He was only one wolf among many who wanted this range, and his teeth were not sharp enough, his brain not keen enough. In this game of guns, grab and get, he would be out-grabbed and out-gunned.
Rip Coker rolled a smoke and squinted at the blue hills. There would be some shuffling now. It seemed like one man against them all, and the odds appealed to Rip. He chuckled softly to himself.
Lud Fuller walked back to the bunkhouse and slammed his bedroll on the bunk. He glared right and left, looking for something on which he could take out his fury. Then he stalked outside and walked toward the corral. He would ride over and see Nevers. He would see Clell Miller on the B-Bar. Something would have to be done about this and quickly.
Coker watched him saddle up and ride out; then he turned and walked up the steps to the house. He was going to declare himself. As he reached for the door, Blaine pulled it open and stepped out. He had his coat off and he was wearing his two guns low. Rip Coker felt a little flicker of excitement go through him: this man was ready.
"My name's Coker," he said abruptly. "Been on this spread about four months. I'm the newest hand."
"All right, Coker. What's on your mind?"
"Looks like you're in for a scrap."
"I expected that."
"You're all alone."
"I expected that, too." Blaine grinned briefly. "Tell me something I don't know, friend."
Coker finished rolling his smoke. "Me," he said, without looking up. "I always was a sucker. I'm declaring myself in--on your side."
"Why?"
Coker's chuckle was dry. "Maybe because I'm just ornery an' like to buck a tough game. Maybe it's because I don't like fightin'
with a gang. Maybe it's just because I want to be on your side when you're pushed. "
"Those are all good reasons with me." Blaine thrust out his hand. "Glad to have you with me, Coker. I won't warn you. You know the setup better than I do."
"I figure I do." Coker nodded toward the north. "Up there are about thirty land-hungry little ranchers. They are tougher'n boot leather, an' most of them have rustled a few head in their time. The B-Bar has a foreman named Clell Miller. He's a cousin of one of the old James' crowd and just as salty. He's a whiz with a six-gun and he'll tackle anything. He's figurin' on ownin' the B-Bar when the fight's over. And he figures on having added to it all that land between Skeleton Ridge and the river--which is 46 range."
"I see."
"Then see this. Ben Otten's friendly enough, a square man, but range hungry as the rest. If the thing breaks up, he'll come in grabbin' for his chunk of it."
"And the rest?"
"Fuller, Miller and Nevers are the worst."
"What about Lee Fox?"
Coker hesitated. "I don't figure him. He's poison mean, killed two of his hands about a year ago. Nobody figured him for a gun-slick, but when they braced him he came loose like a wildcat and he spit lead all over."
"Any others?"
"Uh-huh. There's Rink Witter. He's Nevers' right hand."
"Heard of him. "
"Figured you had. He's hell on wheels. "
"How about these men to the north? Who's the big man up there?"
"Ortmann, and he's a hard man."
Blaine chuckled suddenly. "Sounds like I'm buckin' a stacked deck. You still want in?"
"You forget, I've known this all the time. Sure, I want in. I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
Chapter Four.
Mary Blake swung down from her mare and stripped off the saddle and bridle as she turned the horse into the corral. There was no one in sight when she started toward the house, and she reflected bitterly that for all her father's training, she was not showing up so well as owner of a ranch. Not with a foreman like Clell Miller. But how could you fire such a man? She knew he would not go and she had no desire for a showdown until she was ready. Right now she had nothing to back her play. All she could do if he refused to go would be to shoot him from the house, and that went against the grain.
She felt lost, trapped. Two or three of the old hands would stand by her, she knew that. Kelsey and Timm would not fail her, and both were good men. But they were only two against so many, and she was too shrewd to risk them in a pointless struggle. They provided backing she had to keep in reserve until the likely moment came.
As she went up the steps, Miller came around the corner of the house. He was a tall, well-built man and good looking. He had a deep scar, all of three inches long, on one cheekbone. It was his brag that he had killed the man who put it there, and he liked to be asked about the incident.
'Back so soon?" His manner was elaborately polite. "Did Otten offer to send his men over to help?"
"I need no help."
He looked up at her impudently. "No? Well, maybe not. Look
s to me like you're out on a limb."
She could see the danger of this sort of talk and swiftly changed the subject. "Joe Neal's alive."
Clell Miller had looked away. Now he swung his head back, swift passion flushing his face. "What was that? What did you say?"
"I said Joe Neal is alive."
"He's back in town?" Miller was incredulous, but had a lurking suspicion that she was telling the truth. Fury welled up within him. That damned Lud! Couldn't he do anything right?
"No, he's hot back. He's in El Paso. He sent a manager down here. A man named Blaine."
"Blaine!" Miller's dark features sharpened suddenly and his eyes were those of an animal at bay. "What was his other name? What did they call him?"
Surprised at his excitement, she shrugged it off. "Why, his first name is Michael, I think. Do you know him?"
"Tall man? Broad shoulders? Green eyes?" Miller was tense with excitement.
"Why, yes, that sounds like him. Why, who is he?"
Miller stared at her, all his animosity toward her forgotten with this information. "Who?" he laughed shortly. "He's Utah Blaine, that's who he is, that hell-on-wheels gunman from the Neuces, the man who tamed Alta. He's killed twenty men, maybe thirty. Where did Neal round him up?"
Utah Blaine! She had heard her father talk of him so much that his name had been a legend to her. Mary remembered her father had been driving north right ahead of Shanghai Pierces big herd when Utah was trail boss. Gid Blake had been stopped by herd cutters, and she knew every word of that story from memory, how Blaine had faced them down, killed their fastest gunfighter and told them to break up and scatter. Her father had gone through without trouble, although at first he was sure he was going to lose cattle. Somehow she had expected Utah Blaine to be an older man. It was strangely exciting to realize that her girlhood hero was here, taking over the 46 Connected.
Clell Miller was excited, and for the moment he had forgotten his troubles. Miller had never faced a gunfighter of top skill, but he knew that many rated Blaine right along with them. There were
those who said he was faster than Hardin. But he knew nobody was faster than Hardin, not anybody at all. Nevertheless, it would be something to kill Blaine! Something inside him leaped at the thought. To be the man who killed Utah Blaine! He walked off without a further word, bursting with excitement and the desire to talk.
Mary went on up the steps and closed the door carefully *behind her before crossing the porch. When she entered the large room decorated with Navajo blankets the first person she saw was Tom Kelsey. He got up quickly and stepped toward her. He was a solid, squarely built man, a top hand in any crowd, and he was, she knew, in love with her--not that he expected anything to come from it.
"Ma'am," he said quickly, "I think Miller's fixin' to drive off some cows. He's got maybe a hundred head bunched in Canyon Creek."
"Where's Dan Timm?"
"He's watchin' em, Ma'am. We figured I'd best come back an' tell you."
"Thanks, Tom, but there's nothing we can do. Not right now, anyway. We'll have to let it ride. We can't risk a showdown."
Tom Kelsey twisted his hat in his fingers. This he knew perfectly well, but it griped him. He wanted to do something. But while a fair hand with a gun, he was not in Clell Miller's class and knew it. Nevertheless, to let him get away without a fight went against the grain.
"We may have a chance now, Tom. I want you to do something for me. Ride back and get Timm. Send him to me. I want one of you to stay in this house from now on. I don't trust Clell or any of that crowd. But after you have started Timm back, I want you to ride on over to the 46. Utah Blaine is there."
"Are you sure? What's he want there?"
She explained, her eyes watching the bunkhouse through the window. "I want you to tell him I want to see him. And talk to him alone."
When he had gone she walked into her own room and began to comb her hair. She was a slim, boyish girl with beautiful eyes and lips. Her figure, while only beginning to take on the shape another year or two would give her, was still very good. She looked at herself in the mirror, her not too thin lips, good shoulders and nice throat and chin.
For the first time since her father's murder she thought she saw a way out. She had Timm and Kelsey. If they could get together with Blaine, they would have the beginning of a fighting outfit. Not enough, but such a man as Blaine was a man to build around.
As Mary Blake pondered the problem of concerted action against those who would split up the range of the two large outfits, Lud Fuller was whipping a foam-flecked horse down the trail to the Big N outfit of Russ Nevers.
Within him burned a dull rage that defied all reason. Joe Neal, whom he had hated during all the time he worked for him, was alive! He did not stop to think how he was alive, or what had happened--all he could think of was that fact. Not even the appearance of Blaine had hit him as hard.
His hatred for Neal was not born of any wrong Neal had done him, for Neal had always been strictly fair with his men, his foreman included. That hatred was something that had grown from deep within the fiber of the man himself, some deeply hidden store of bile born of envy, jealousy and a hatred for all that seemed above him.
To any other man but Lud the grievances would have been trivial things but, during long hours in the saddle or lying on his bunk, Lud's slow mind mulled over them and they grew into festering hatred and resentment.
Nevers looked up as Lud rode into the ranch yard. "Neal's alive!" Fuller burst out, his eyes bulging. "He ain't dead! He sent a man--"
"Shut up, you fool!" Nevers stepped toward him, his voice cracking and harsh. "Shut that big mouth! I know all about it! What I want to know is what you're doin' here? Roust out your damned vigilantes now and hang him!'
"Neal? " Fuller asked stupidly.
"No, you fool! Blaine." Angrily he stared at the big foreman. "Don't stand there like a fool! Get busy! Let him alone for a few days and he'll get set! Hang him! Hang him now! His rep is bad enough so there'll be an excuse! Get busy!"
Lud Fuller was halfway back to the ranch before he began to get angry at Nevers.
Chapter Five.
All the hands were at table when Utah Blaine walked in and seated himself. He felt like hell and didn't care who knew. He hated checking over books and that was what he had been doing for half the night. The first thing, of course, was to find out just what it was he was managing, and he discovered it was
plenty.
Thirty thousand head, Joe Neal had said. Well, the ranch would carry more, and some of those were ready to sell. It was time the ranch was worked over but good. There was water and there was grass. He considered that with a cold, clear brain and liked what he decided. It was time some new elements were injected into this game.
Coker had stated it clearly the night before, and he decided he liked Coker. Also, there had been that talk with Tom Kelsey. Mary Blake wanted to talk to him, but she had little to offer. Kelsey had said she had two loyal hands. Still, that made four of them if they worked together, and Kelsey, while not as salty as Rip Coker, was a solid man. The sort that would have staying power. He would talk to Mary Blake.
Lud Fuller was there, his big jaw swinging up and down as he chomped his food. "Lud," Blaine said, "there's a lot to be done on this outfit. Take four men and head for Squaw Peak. There will be
some of our stuff up there. I want everything wearing our brand thrown back across the river."
Fuller started to object angrily. Squaw Peak? Why, that was away north! There would be no chance for him to organize any vigilante meeting up there! He started to object, but the logic of the move appealed to him. Those nesters were always cutting out 46 stock and butchering it.
"You givin' up that range?" he looked up from his plate.
"I'm givin' up nothing. From what I hear Ortmann an' his boys up there are makin' mighty free with our stock. Well, we'll throw our beef back across the river until we get a chance to clean them out of there."
A
ll eyes were on him. "We'll clean them out," he said, "or make believers of them."
"That's a sizeable job." The speaker was a long-geared man with sparse red hair. "They'll fight."
"I've tackled sizeable jobs before," Blaine said shortly, "and they fought."
There was no answer to that for they all knew the story of the mining town of Alta where three marshals had lasted a day each, and then Utah Blaine rode in and took the job. Four men had died the first week he was on the job. The leader of the bad ones going first, on the first night. Twenty-two men had been jailed that night, and two had gone to the one-room hospital with cracked skulls.
Alta, where there had been a killing every night, and where sixty-two men had been buried in Boot Hill before one townsman died of natural causes. The town where there were seven thousand belted men headed straight for the doors of Hell, and every one of them packing a gun. Two thousand miners and five thousand to rob them--and Blaine had tamed the town. It was there they started calling him Utah.
Like I said," he continued, "take your men and move up there. Work well back up in all the draws. No stock but our own, but start it for the river. Nobody works alone, work two or three together and hit both heads of Chasm Creek. Check the head of Gap mighty careful because I've an idea when they take our beef it goes over from Gap into Chalktank. Then work south. It will be slow, but throw the beef back over the river."
"You aim to talk to Ortmann?" Red asked.
"When I'm ready."
The other hands waited expectantly. "Coker, there's a busted stall in the barn, and that corral needs work. That's for you." He looked beyond the hatchet-faced warrior. "The rest of you work south along the edge of the mesa to Skeleton Ridge. You do the same thing. Throw the cattle back across the river!"
He finished eating and took a final swallow of coffee. Abruptly, he got to his feet. As he picked up his hat, he let his eyes go over the crowd. "I'm new here. New to you and you're new to me. If any of you ever have any kick coming, you come and make it. But get this between your ears. I'm runnin' the 46 and I'm goin' to run it smooth. If it gets rough, then I'll smooth her out. You boys won't have any trouble as long as you do your jobs."
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