Longhorn Empire

by Bradford Scott

  Brant dismounted. He peered closely at the faces of the two men and shook his head. Both were hard featured characters, and both were unfamiliar to him. He turned his attention to the cow. It also was dead, drilled squarely between the eyes. Brant uttered an exclamation as his glance fell upon the brand.

  “Hell!” he muttered, “it isn’t a Running W critter. It’s one of Norman Kane’s Flying V’s!”

  The stench of scorched hair and flesh assailed his nostrils. He bent over the brand, touched the seared flesh with a tentative forefinger. Suddenly his eyes widened. He bent closer. A moment later he whistled softly through his teeth. He rocked back on his heels, staring.

  “Well, I’ll be darned!” he muttered at length. He straightened up, swept the surrounding terrain with a searching glance.

  “Got to make sure about this,” he muttered. “If I’m right—well—”

  He left the sentence uncompleted, turned and examined the nearby growth with his eyes. He picked up one of the dead brand blotters and carried the body into the thick growth. Returning, he performed a like office for the second man. Then he turned his attention to the two well-trained horses that, despite the shooting, still tautened the ropes noosing the dead cow. Taking their rigs off Brant turned them loose. Each bore an almost undecipherable brand, more like a skillet of snakes than anything else.

  “Mexican burn,” Brant muttered. “Practically impossible to tie up with anything.”

  He concealed the rigs in the brush, then noosed the cow’s neck hard and fast to his pommel.

  “All right, feller,” he told Smoke. “You got a chore to do.”

  With little difficulty, the powerful moros dragged the body into the grove. Brant drew his knife and went to work. With care, he cut out the section of hide upon whch the brand was burned. He ripped it loose, turned it over and examined the inner side. Again he whistled, his eyes glowing.

  “I was right,” he muttered, “plumb right. Now I understand where our cows have been going. Of all the slick schemes, this is the limit! Darn nigh foolproof, too. If the hellions hadn’t gotten so nervy and took to doing their blotting in broad daylight, the chances are we never would have caught on. Now to get the evidence on that hellion. This isn’t enough. He’d like as not win out in a court fight. Well, I reckon it’s up to me. Got to play a lone hand. Isn’t right to ask anybody else to take chances.”

  Brant left the dead cow and went to work cutting brush. He piled the cut branches over the body of the cow and the bodies of the dead brand blotters. Nor did he neglect the two rigs he removed from the horses. Within an hour he had all the evidence of the recent happening thoroughly concealed. He uprooted boulders and weighted down the heap of brush, against the chance of coyotes rooting out the bodies. He speculated the two horses that were quietly grazing nearby.

  “Would be taking too much of a chance to lead them away,” he decided. “Let ’em run loose. If they drift back home, it’ll puzzle the hellions, and mebbe scare ’em a mite, but I don’t think they’ll tie ’em up with what happened. Not soon enough to do them any good, anyhow.”

  Mounting Smoke, he rode swiftly for home. Twilight was falling when he reached the ranch-house. He ate his supper, talked with Webb for a while and then retired to his room in the casa, ostensibly to sleep. But as soon as things were quiet, he slipped out again. In the tool shed he selected a pair of heavy wire cutters.

  “Here’s where I become a law breaker,” he muttered. “Got a feeling it’s justified, though. No other way I can figure to get the lowdown on that sidewinder. Taking a chance, but there’s no way out that I can see.”

  Saddling Smoke, he rode south by west again. The night was dark and silent when he approached the wire that enclosed Norman Kane’s Flying V spread. He rode slowly along the fence peering and listening. Finally he reached a spot where a number of cattle were bunched. He drew rein and dismounted.

  Brant knew he was taking a chance. If Kane’s riders happened to be patrolling the fence and sighted him, he could expect no mercy. And there was the disquieting thought that an overlooked shotgun bomb might be planted somewhere in the vicinity, although he rather doubted it. He had a feeling the fence was not being patrolled. If he was right in his suspicions of the Flying V owner, he was sure it was not. But there was the catch. He might be all wrong in his surmise. And if he was, and Kane was vigilantly guarding his wire, John Webb would likely need a new foreman tomorrow.

  Leaving Smoke standing with dangling reins, Brant approached the fence. The grazing long-horns raised heads and eyed him suspiciously. He could see the starlight glinting on their rolling eyes. Some snorted and moved farther from the fence. An old bull rumbled deep in his throat, as if considering the advisability of a charge. Brant set the cutters against the top wire.

  The snip-snip of the tool sounded loud in the stillness. Brant paused a moment. The night remained silent. He went to work again, cutting the strands from top to bottom. He moved to the next post and repeated the per for mance. The wire fell to the ground, leaving a wide gap in the fence. Nothing else happened. Brant slipped back to his horse, expectantly.

  Shadowy and grotesque in the wan starlight, the cows began moving toward the gap, following an instinct that seems inherent in all cattle. Brant watched them stream through. He turned Smoke and rode back the way he had come, pushing the moros as hard as was advisable. He realized he had no time to waste.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Running W hands didn’t take kindly to being roused from their slumbers in the dark hours before the dawn, but a few words of explanation shot them wide awake and rarin’ to go. They saddled up in a jiffy and thundered south by west toward the cut in Norman Kane’s wire.

  It was already full of daylight when they sighted the Flying V fence. A number of cows had streamed through the gap and were scattered about on the Running W range. The cowboys rode among them, peering at brands with shrewd experienced eyes. Finally Brant singled out four critters for special examination. These were herded together and headed for the Running W casa.

  “We got to june along,” Brant told his men. “If we got caught down here, there’ll be some prime gun slinging before we’re ready for it; and if I’ve slipped up in this business, we’ll find ourselves on a mighty hot spot.”

  Old John Webb was in the ranch house yard when the troop arrived, driving the protesting cows before them. He let out a bellow of astonishment.

  “So you work dodgers have decided to go in for a little wideloopin’ for a change, eh?” he roared. “You take them Flyin’ V cows right back where they belong! What’s the big notion, anyhow?”

  “They’re not Flying V cows, Uncle John, they’re Running W cows,” Brant grinned as he dismounted.

  Old John glared at him. “So!” he rumbled. “I always figgered you’d crack up sooner or later—too darn much book larnin!’ Runnin’ W cows! I can’t trust my own eyesight, I suppose?”

  “Not this time you can’t,” Brant chuckled. He turned to his men.

  “It’s a shame to have to cash in the poor critters, but there’s no help for it,” he said. “Okay, shoot ’em and get the hides off.”

  While the astounded Webb looked on speechless, the order was obeyed. Soon four green hides were stretched on the ground, hairy side down. Brant silently pointed to the “evidence.”

  All of the four cattle chosen by Brant were young steers, none much beyond the calf stage. An experienced cowman knows the brand on a calf is written plainly inside the skin; one burned on later is less definite, and, if the animal is getting old, is sometimes not visible at all. Courts recognize the validity of the testimony of experienced range men concerning the markings on a dried hide.

  And on the four green skins stretched before his eyes, John Webb saw the indubitable marking of the earlier burned Running W brand!

  Webb, his eyes literally starting from his head, turned to Brant in bewilderment.

  “Who—what—how—” he sputtered.

  “One of the s
lickest jobs of brand blotting I ever saw, that’s all,” the foreman returned. “Don’t you see how it was done? Half of a Running W, with a little altering of the horizontal bars, is just about the same as a Flying V. Remember when we met Norman Kane the first time that day up at Doran’s Crossing. You remarked to him that your burn, the Running W, started like this but was twice over. A pretty good description of the Running W when set against the Flying V. Now recollect how Kane’s branding iron is shaped. On each side of the letter is a flat ‘ear.’ When the brand is stamped on the hide, the burn left is just like this—”

  Brant stooped and traced the mark in the dust at his feet.

  “See it? Okay. Now blot half of the Running W, set the V carefully over the other half and the flat ear completely effaces the blot. Then just a mite of work with a running iron—a cinch ring or a piece of telegraph wire would do the trick—and there’s a perfect Flying V. After a few days, not even a careful examination on the outside of the hide, would show that the brand had been altered. But yesterday, I ran onto those two blotters just as they were finishing their chore. Even then, if they hadn’t given the game away by waving me ’round, I doubt if I would have caught on. They could have said they were just branding an unmarked critter they had reason to believe belonged to their outfit. It was only after I leaned down close to examine the brand that I caught on. They worked a mite fast and hadn’t quite covered the blotted half of the W as they would have if they hadn’t been interrupted.”

  “How about the ear-marks?” asked Webb.

  “Another thing that worked out prime for Kane,” Brant replied. “Our ear-mark is an under-split. His is an under-bit.”

  Brant again drew a diagram in the dust. “Two swipes with a knife blade and the change is made. You’ll notice the ear-marks on these hides are fresh cut.”

  Old John’s face set in lines hard as chiselled granite. “Okay,” he said, “wait till I get the rig on my horse. We’ll ride down there and clean out that nest of sidewinders.”

  But Brant instantly vetoed the proposition. “No,” he said, “we won’t. We’ll take care of this matter in a law abiding way, so that there will be no comeback. We’ll take these hides to the sheriff at Tascosa and lay our evidence on the boards. We’ve got all we need. There’ll be plenty of cows on Kane’s range with altered brands. I counted nearly a dozen besides these four in that bunch I turned out last night. We’ve got Kane up against a stacked deck. The sheriff will deputize us to assist him. We’ll catch them flat-footed and I figure there won’t even be any resistance, which will all be to the good. No sense in getting somebody plugged or cashed in when we don’t have to. We’ll do this right.”

  “Reckon you’re talkin’ sense, per usual,” Webb admitted. “Okay, let’s head for town. Pack up them hides and bring ’em along.”

  In Tascosa, Sheriff Willingham grimly examined the four hides. “It’s an open-and-shut case,” he said. “We’ll ride down there and take ’em in. I’ll swear in you fellers as a sheriff’s posse. We’d oughta catch ’em flatfooted, and I figger we won’t have a mite of trouble.”

  However, the sheriff was considerably wrong in his “figgerin’.” Just then one of the Running W cowhands hurried in.

  “Boss,” he said to Brant, “them two jiggers what own the Posthole—Doran and Hansen— just rode out of town skalleyhootin’. They forded the river and headed south by west. Sure were foggin’ the dust. I figgered you’d oughta know about it.”

  Brant instantly swung into action. “Those two hellions are in cahoots with Kane, of that I’m sure,” he told Willingham. “They’ve caught on, somehow, to why we’re here. They’re headed down there to warn Kane and the bunch. If we don’t get right on their tail, the whole lot of them will slide across into New Mexico.”

  “Let’s go!” barked the sheriff.

  Five minutes later the posse thundered out of town, with excited citizens thronging the streets. The waters of the river boiled to foam as they stormed through the shallows. Then with irons drumming the hard surface of the trail, they raced south by west. At the crest of each rise they stared anxiously ahead, but many miles were covered before they sighted Doran and Hansen pushing their horses up a long slope.

  “They got a head start, but we’re gainin’ on ’em,” grunted the sheriff.

  Brant nodded, estimating the distance yet to go and the lead the hard riding pair enjoyed. For a moment, confident in Smoke’s great speed and endurance, he contemplated pushing on ahead of the posse, but reluctantly dismissed the notion. He knew Sheriff Willingham would not approve. Also, he had nothing definite on Doran and Hansen that would justify slinging lead at them, and he knew that if he came within rifle range, a gun fight would be inevitable.

  Mile after mile they travelled, the horses wet with sweat, their nostrils flaring, and their breath sobbing and panting.

  “If those hellions down there have time to fork their bronks, we’re done,” Brant told himself. “Our cayuses are going to be just about finished by the time we make the Flying V.”

  But before the Flying V wire came into sight, Brant’s pulses were pounding with exultation. Doran and Hansen were now within long rifle range, and their lead was being cut down by the minute. Plainly, their mounts were giving out. Less than six hundred yards separated pursuers and pursued when the pair swerved their staggering horses through the gate and flung themselves out of their saddles in front of the Flying V ranch house. From the crest of a rise, the posse could see figures running wildly about; but when they had negotiated the far side of the sag and again sighted the casa, not a man was in sight. The house itself lay ominously quiet, with closed door and shuttered windows.

  Sheriff Willingham halted his troop just outside gunshot range. “They’re holed up in there, all right,” he said. “Okay, you fellers wait here. I’ll ride ahead and have a pow-wow with ’em.”

  “I’ll ride with you,” Brant offered.

  “No you won’t,” the sheriff declined emphatically. “You’ll stay right where you are. If those hellions are out to get anybody, it’s you. I figger they’ll hardly take a shot at me alone. Wouldn’t gain ’em anything but a murder charge which, so far as I know, there isn’t, yet.”

  He rode slowly forward, his badge of office gleaming on the front of his sagging vest. A few yards from the gate he reined in.

  “Norman Kane!” he shouted.

  For a moment there was silence, then Kane’s clear voice replied:

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I have a warrant for you, Kane,” the sheriff called back.

  “Okay, come ahead and serve it, if you figger it’s healthy,” Kane’s voice jeered.

  Willingham moved his horse forward a pace. A rifle cracked inside the house. A bullet whistled past the sheriff’s head.

  “The next one won’t miss,” Kane warned.

  The sheriff reined in his horse. “You can’t get away with it, Kane,” he shouted. “If you won’t come peaceably, you’ll come anyhow.”

  “Mebbe,” Kane replied, “but I figger we’ll thin out your bunch considerable before you bust in.”

  “Okay,” the sheriff answered quietly. “You’ve asked for it, now you’ll get it.”

  With this ultimatum, he wheeled his horse and rode back to the waiting posse.

  “Get that fence down and ride in,” he ordered. “We can slide up purty close to the house through the brush. Four men work around to the back. Must be a back door to that casa. Don’t let ’em slip out that way. Okay, let’s go.”

  Ropes were flipped to the tops of fence posts, a section of the wire was razed. The possemen rode through, dismounted and tethered their horses in a thicket. Then they began to creep forward, taking advantage of all cover that offered. A shot rang out, another and another. Bullets whined past, clipping leaves and twigs.

  “Got loopholes between the logs,” the sheriff grunted. “Must have figgered on somethin’ like this from the start.” He glanced at the sun. It was low in the west.
/>
  “Not long till dark,” he said. “That’s what they’re playin’ for—time. They figger they can slide out once it gets real dark, and give us the slip. All right, you fellers, see if you can do something to slow up that gun slingin’ before somebody gets hurt.”

  The possemen opened fire, aiming at the chinks between the logs. The fire was returned from the ranch house. Sheriff Willingham swore angrily.

  “We’re just about as close as we can hope to get,” he told Brant. “And it ain’t close enough. If we try to rush ’em, across that open space, we’re goin’ to lose men, and there’s no guarantee we can bust in even if some of us make it to the door. The hellions wouldn’t neglect that angle. Them planks look thick, and chances are they’re double or triple with iron bars across ’em.”

  Brant was studying the ranch house. “I got a notion,” he exclaimed suddenly. “Be back in a mite, Cape.”

  Brant began working his way back through the brush. In the thicket where the horses were tethered he paused. He located a tough withe which he cut and trimmed. He notched the ends, fumbled a bit of string from his saddle pouch, bent the stave and strung it. He had a fairly serviceable bow. Three more slender withes provided arrows which he trimmed with care, weighting one end of each with a bit of stone wedged in a notch. He removed his neckerchief, tearing it into three strips. These he dampened slightly at a trickle of water nearby. Then, with his teeth, he wrenched the bullets from several cartridges. He sprinkled the powder over the slightly damp cloths and rubbed it into the fabric. He spread the cloth in a patch of sunlight and let it dry for a few minutes. Then he carefully wrapped a strip around the head of each arrow. With this contraption under his arm, he made his way back to the sheriff. The possemen were still keeping up a desultory fire, which was answered from the casa. The uneasy whine of passing lead punctuated the reports.