Many obscure things were clearing up in Redding’s mind now, as a result of this brand inspection. Small wonder that Wagonwheel had been able to underbid every rancher in Lavarim Basin and get the government’s Indian contract year after year. The beef Wagonwheel delivered to Curtwright’s corrals at the Pedregosa Agency hadn’t cost Duke Harrington a bloody shilling.
Removing his rope from the dead animal, Redding wondered aloud, “It’ll be interesting to get Teague Darkin and Duke Harrington face to face in a court of law. I wonder what Blaze Tondro’s cut on the deal was?”
In a general way, he had accomplished what he had set out from Trailfork to do. But Sheriff Lennon needed time to assemble his posse for the attack on Tondro’s citadel in Thunder Rock Canyon; there was no pressing need for Redding to return to Lavarim Basin today.
Seeing the dust of Tondro’s trail drive turning the sun to a copper rivet in the enamel-blue sky, Redding made his decision. He would continue trailing this herd until it was shoved onto Wagonwheel graze, as per Teague Darkin’s orders.
That would put him close to the headquarters of the man of mystery, Duke Harrington. Indirectly, part of the cleanup job he had been sent to the Basin to accomplish would entail picking up Harrington, on charges of defrauding the Federal Government.
A better opportunity to visit Wagonwheel would not present itself. If he delayed too long, Harrington might skip the country. Wagonwheel Ranch, then, was his next objective.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Duke Harrington
Wagonwheel Ranch appeared completely deserted when Redding first glimpsed it from an Axblade ridge the second morning after Tondro’s riders moved the stolen herd from its bed ground.
A faded Union Jack hung in one of the windows of the frame ranch house; there was no other visible sign of its foreign ownership. Its barns, corrals, and outbuildings were in good repair but on a far less pretentious scale than Crowfoot.
Deserted though Duke Harrington’s headquarters appeared, Redding pulled up his horse well out of gunshot range to size up Wagonwheel’s layout. Some suspicion of danger was buzzing in his head. Long schooled to trouble, Redding was too much a realist to ignore the warnings of his primitive instincts.
In all probability the ranch was deserted; the Wagonwheel crew was probably busy on some far range with its fall beef gather. Tumbleweeds had blown across the lawned yard to bank against the front steps of the ranch house. No stock moved in the corrals or around the haystacks in the horse pasture. A rusty windmill idled on its wooden tower, its clutch out of gear, the sheet-iron tanks at its base half emptied by a month’s evaporation.
Fifty miles to the south of where Redding now sat his saddle, Crowfoot’s brand-blotted cattle now grazed peacefully on the southern limits of Duke Harrington’s range. They had been moved up from the pass by night, Tondro being prudent enough to keep his Mexican drovers out of sight by day.
Yesterday’s dawn had revealed the herd spreading over the grama-grass flats north of Wagonwheel’s drift fence, segregated from the rest of Harrington’s range by a deep, mile-wide arroyo which bisected the Wagonwheel graze laterally from the Axblade mountains to the Indian Reserve.
Any cruising brand inspector, covering this corner of the Territory, would see nothing amiss in cattle bearing the British syndicate’s iron and grazing on Wagonwheel’s south range.
Whatever plans Teague Darkin had for this portion of Joyce Melrose’s beef, he had made certain, with Tondro’s help, that only a scattering of Wagonwheel-branded steers would be found on Crowfoot’s lease. And these could conceivably have strayed over the mountains during the spring and summer months.
Daybreak yesterday had found Redding camped midway down the west slope of the Axblades. Tondro’s crew had put the stolen herd onto Harrington’s graze during the night. Then, their job done, Blaze Tondro and his vaqueros had vanished. To all outward appearances, Crowfoot’s stolen herd had been feeding north of the Wagonwheel drift fence indefinitely.
Redding shrugged off Tondro’s disappearance as of no immediate concern. The rustler crew would spend a day or two returning to Thunder Rock, on the east side of the Basin, probably covering most of that distance well below the Mexican border.
There was no mystery about Darkin’s having called on Tondro for the manpower needed to get the herd off Joyce’s lease. The Crowfoot foreman could not spare his own crew for the job without delaying the Crowfoot trail drive across the Basin on its way to Paloverde’s railhead.
Tondro’s willingness to work cattle not intended for his own illicit market outlets in Mexico was proof in itself of some close-knit teamwork existing between the rustler king and Teague Darkin.
Redding felt well pleased with the rewards of his trek to the Axblades these past three days. He had the evidence in his saddlebags now of Darkin’s crooked work with a running iron during the past year. Better yet, he was now in a position to return to Trailfork to organize a posse, under Sheriff Val Lennon, and plan their climactic strike on Tondro’s stronghold.
That trap must not be sprung until Tondro and his men had had ample time to return to their hideout; a scout would establish when to lead a posse into the Navajada wilderness.
With Joe Curtwright safely in boot hill now, there was little chance that Joyce’s stolen cattle would ever be moved to the Indian Reservation and sold. The only job left undone, so far as Redding was concerned, was making contact with the mysterious Duke Harrington.
Now, looking down at Harrington’s ranch, Redding got his first intimation that the Wagonwheel was not as deserted as it had appeared. Lennon’s field glasses showed Redding a furtive movement of a window curtain in one wing of the main ranch house.
It was a small thing, an infinitesimal blur of motion, but no vagrant wind had stirred that curtain. It was held back for a good ten seconds and then released by hidden hands. The movement put a crawling tingle on Redding’s skin as he realized he had been spotted and might at this moment be framed in a bushwhacker’s gun sights.
But it was hardly likely, even if Harrington himself was here, that he would recognize anything hostile in Redding’s appearance. His law badge was out of sight, pinned to his undershirt. Outwardly he was just a nondescript saddle tramp drifting down the mountain road which linked Wagonwheel with the Basin.
This British-owned ranch was better than a hundred miles by road from Trailfork and Crowfoot Ranch; another twenty miles removed from Tondro’s bastion in the Navajadas.
Harrington would probably be out on the range, over-seeing his fall beef gather. Whoever was inside the house could probably be talked into revealing Harrington’s present whereabouts.
Redding gigged the steeldust into a fox trot, ignoring the likelihood that he was under surveillance. He pulled up at the windmill tanks and let the horse drink. Then, dismounting with the stilted awkwardness of a man who had been many miles in saddle since daybreak, he rolled himself a cigarette while he took a seemingly casual look at the roundabout scene.
Finally he led his horse over to the hitchrack in front of the main gate and sent a tentative halloo toward the house. Empty echoes rebounded from the clapboard walls.
Redding half-hitched his reins around the chewed cottonwood tie bar and trailed his spurs leisurely through the gate and up a gravel path, kicking dry Russian thistles aside as he mounted the steps of the Texas-style gallery which fronted the house.
As he rapped his knuckles on the front door, he thought he heard a furtive sound of motion inside. He knocked again, and waited, whistling a few bars of the “Cowboy’s Lament.”
Suddenly the window behind the faded Union Jack went up, with a suddenness that startled Redding’s taut-keyed nerves. He turned without haste, to find himself being regarded by a wizened, egg-bald oldster who had a Remington .44 six-shooter thrust through the waistband of his bibless Levi’s. The old man was leaning out the window, glaring at his visit
or.
“If you’re thinkin’ of bracin’ Wagonwheel for a job,” this cadaverous-looking derelict called sourly, “you’ve drawed yoreself a blank, stranger. Wagonwheel’s got a full crew, and roundup almost over, nohow.”
Redding grinned, tonguing his cheek thoughtfully. This old gaffer was probably a roustabout left behind to watch after the place during the roundup. A crotchety old man who apparently scorned the traditions of Western hospitality, at least where drifting saddle tramps were concerned.
“If you’re hongry, the woodpile is out back,” snapped the roustabout. “Saddle bums work for their bait here.”
Redding spoke for the first time. “I ain’t looking for a handout, my friend. I’d like to talk to the owner of this outfit. You run this spread?”
Visibly flattered by this, the old man ducked his head inside, slammed the window shut, and a moment later unlocked the door and peered out at his visitor.
“This ranch,” he said with a touch of arrogance, “is owned by the Albion Cattle Company of London, England, which same is five-six thousand mile from here.”
Redding leaned against the doorjamb, casually inserting a toe of his Coffeyvilles against the threshold. “But I understand an hombre named Duke Harrington manages this outfit. Are you him?”
The roustabout scowled, undecided as to whether he was being hoorawed or not. “The Duke,” said the old man finally, “draws pay for runnin’ Wagonwheel, but he don’t cotton to livin’ in this hellhole jack-rabbit country. You’ll most likely find him at the Palace Hotel, Market Street, Frisco, Californy, which same is a thousand-odd mile from here—”
“All right, all right.” Redding laughed. “But he ain’t in California now. Not at roundup time.”
A flush spread across the roustabout’s seamed cheeks. He started to shut the door in Redding’s face, when he found it blocked by the toe of the waddy’s boot.
The roustabout made a clawing motion toward the gun at his belt; then checked the movement as he saw Redding drop a hand casually alongside his own holster.
“I tell yuh Harrington ain’t here, stranger. You better scat afore I lose my temper.”
At this instant a suave voice issued from somewhere inside the room at the roustabout’s back. “Let the stranger in, Jinglebob. I’ll see him.”
The roustabout’s reptilian eyes touched Redding briefly as he eased the pressure of the door on the rider’s boot.
“Come in,” Jinglebob growled, “but keep them fancy shootin’ irons where they are.”
As Jinglebob retreated behind the opening door, Redding stepped inside. For a moment he could see nothing inside the semidarkness which clotted the Wagonwheel house. Then he made out the vague shape of a spotted-horsehide divan extending at right angles from a lava-stone fireplace. All the window shades were drawn against the heat of the day, making a shadowy grotto of this place.
Silhouetted against the hot glare of sunlight pouring through the doorway, Redding had the uncomfortable feeling that he had been outmaneuvered here.
He ducked his head to clear the lintel as he stepped inside, at once putting his back against the wall. Then he saw a man’s tall shape limned indistinctly against the background of faded wallpaper across the room.
“Run up the shades, Jinglebob.”
The man’s voice carried a familiar timbre in Doug Redding’s memory, one he could not immediately place.
“Did you hear me, Jinglebob?” snapped the voice. “I want Mr. Redding—alias George Blagg—to get his look at me.”
Instinct sent the SPA detective’s hand toward the low-slung gun at his right flank. That movement was arrested by the dry metallic click of a gun hammer being notched to full cock across the room.
Old Jinglebob hobbled over to the window where he had first challenged Redding out on the porch. He ran up the crinkled green blind to let a shimmering bar of sunlight flood the room.
A cold sensation struck Redding in the pit of his belly as he stared at the big brown-coated man who held the six-gun on him. He had expected to find the dissipated, outcast son of British nobility standing there. Instead he was meeting the pale-green glitter of triumph in the eyes of Joyce Melrose’s foreman, Teague Darkin.
“Your former range boss, Señor Blagg,” sneered the Crowfoot foreman. “On Wagonwheel, however, I prefer to be called Duke Harrington.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Old Bloodstains
Pure despair was a seething sensation in Doug Redding. Accustomed to brushing close to death, accepting it as a hazard of his chosen work, the cattle detective knew he had never been closer to doom than at this moment.
“You’re a man of many parts, Darkin,” Redding said, groping his arms to hatbrim level, the breath running out of him in a long gust. “I won’t say I’d guessed how the deck was stacked.”
The outlaw-foreman showed his teeth in a taut smile which accentuated the rusty outline of his close-cropped mustache.
“A man of many parts, such as yourself, Redding? Jinglebob, take this man’s guns. Our guest happens to be an operative in the pay of the Stockmen’s Protective Association.”
The old roustabout approached Redding cautiously, as if he had been ordered to draw the fangs from a coiled snake.
“You told me you wanted to sleep till noon, Duke,” whined the old man, reaching out gingerly to remove an ivory-stocked gun from Redding’s near holster. “That’s why I didn’t wake you when I seen this buckaroo ridin’ in.”
Desperation put its wet ooze on Redding’s skin. Another five seconds would see the Wagonwheel flunky in possession of his other gun. Yet to attempt a draw now would invite Teague Darkin’s point-blank fire.
His moment of indecision was soon terminated by the feel of his second gun being lifted from leather. Jinglebob, taking no chance, crowded Redding’s spine with the first Colt. With his prisoner disarmed, Jinglebob retreated quickly to stand with his back to the closed door.
“Well, Darkin,” Redding said in a bleak monotone, “it looks like you’ve outfoxed me. I’ll check the bet to you.”
Teague Darkin—this man who, incredibly, was also playing the role of manager of this British-owned ranch, edged over to a circular mahogany table in mid-room and eased a hip against the polished curve of the wood. He holstered his gun now that old Jinglebob was covering their prisoner from the rear.
“We have things to talk over, my friend,” Darkin said easily. “I tried to spare you the hazards of Lavarim Basin, you recall, the night you met my fiancée over at Paloverde.”
Redding blinked. He was thinking back to how Tondro had held him prisoner at Thunder Rock Canyon while his courier, Rafael, rode to the Axblade graze to bring Darkin over to the mountain hideout to identify him as an SPA detective.
Yet, at that time, Darkin had been ignorant of Redding’s true identity. Jace Blackwine had not known that, or else he was bluffing, trying to collect a bounty from Tondro. Redding was morally certain that Darkin had not known the truth about him at the time he hired “George Blagg” to work the Crowfoot roundup. He had first learned the truth from Joe Curtwright, most likely.
“Things to talk over?” Redding prompted, slowly lowering his aching arms. “Such as what?”
Darkin reached in the pocket of his town coat for a cheroot, bit off the end, and thrust it between his teeth. His movements had a spurious aura of gentility which made Redding doubt that this man was actually a Britisher.
“You have seriously embarrassed my romance with Joyce,” Darkin said, with only the thinnest note of malice touching his voice. “As a matter of fact, I would never have known she had any doubts as to the true circumstances back of her father’s demise last spring had I not opened the Major’s safe in her absence and discovered her correspondence with your Colonel Regis of the SPA in Sage City.”
Redding said, “So that was why you and Blaze Tondro got wise
that I was meeting Joyce at Paloverde that night.”
“My friend Tondro, unfortunately, failed in his assignment to put you out of the way at the outset. I don’t mind telling you I was no little disturbed to learn that the man he shot at the hotel that night was one of Blackwine’s mustangers instead of the redoubtable Douglas Redding.”
There was a run of silence. Finally Redding said, “I had a little talk with another partner of yours, Darkin. Joe Curtwright, the Indian Agent. He tells me you bushwhacked Joyce’s father.” It was a shot in the dark, but it hit home.
For a moment Teague Darkin’s outward mask was altered by Redding’s disclosure. Then he shrugged. “Under the circumstances,”—Darkin grinned—“I will not bother to call you a liar. It so happens that Joyce’s father was a doomed man from the moment he took me on as his foreman. It was essential to my long-range plans that ownership of Crowfoot should fall into my hands. As long as the Major was alive, that was impossible.”
Redding cut in. “But you murdered him because you were afraid he was wise to your rustling Crowfoot beef for rebranding with your Wagonwheel iron—and selling it to the government with Curtwright’s connivance?”
Darkin shrugged. “The Major trusted me implicitly to the last, Redding. He thought his beef losses were due to Tondro’s operations. I was careful to nourish that theory of his until the time was ripe to dispose of Major Melrose.” Redding’s brain was busy. Ten feet separated him from the table where Darkin was leaning. He could cover that distance in two strides. The question was whether old Jinglebob would cut him down from behind if he made the move.
Stalling for time, knowing Darkin intended to murder him when it pleased his whim, Redding said, “You didn’t have to murder the old man. Crowfoot would have been as good as yours as soon as Joyce became your wife.”
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