Winter Range

by Alan Lemay

  The paroxysm died away. "And with a face like that," Bob Elliot was able to say at last. "Oh, naturally! Oh, of course!"

  "I've found it a useful face for fighting a wolf," Kentucky agreed equably. "Still, I don't see"

  "Just the brand," said Bob Elliot, "that always goes loco over the nearest gimlet-headed girl."

  There was quiet while a man could count fifteen. "I'm going to finish rolling this cigarette," said Kentucky Jones, "and I'm going to roll it right. Then I'm going to see if I still feel the same way about that last remark. And if I do I'm going to smash your teeth down your throat."

  "Maybe you are," said Bob Elliot, without emotion. "Floyd, I hear somebody rustled the bullet that killed John Mason."

  "Uh huh," said Hopper.

  "I'm not sure that I saw that done, Floyd," said Elliot, disregarding Kentucky now, "but I think maybe that I did; and I think so more and more." Sheriff Floyd Hopper came awake. "Who was it?"

  "I don't want to name a name," said Bob Elliot, "unless we can make a test to see if I'm right. If I'm right, the party that took that bullet passed it on to another; and I don't think this second one passed it on. I don't know but what he's just dumb enough to have it still."

  "And where is it?" said the sheriff.

  "I think," Bob Elliot said, "that you'll find the bullet that killed Mason in the clothes of this man here: Kentucky Jones."

  The three were motionless for a moment. The sheriff stared from one of them to the other. "Look here"

  "That settles it," said Kentucky. He smashed Bob Elliot across the face with his open hand.

  The owner of the 88 staggered against the wall, spun half around with the weight of that openhanded slap. His face went white, his lower lip curled downward, and through the exposed teeth his breath sucked in.

  Jones said, "Take care of yourself" Elliot's hand made a whipping snatch at the gun at his right thigh as Kentucky struck again, this time with his closed left hand. Elliot's head snapped back; he seemed to teeter for a moment, face upward, then buckled at the knees and went to the floor like a dropped saddle blanket.

  "For God's sake get out of here," said the sheriff. "Get out of this town! He'll kill you when he comes up."

  AMPO RAGLAND struck a match, and as the light of three or four lamps filled the room the faces of the riders likewise lightened. They had been more than four hours on the way. From Waterman, Kentucky Jones had pushed his horse steadily, and as darkness closed down he had overtaken the Bar Hook people. With them he had ridden the long Bar Hook horse trail across the Bench, until they came out at last upon long rolling reaches, and the rambling buildings of the Bar Hook loomed before them, dark and shapeless.

  The kitchen wing in which they now gathered was built of big square-hewn logs; but the interior was neatly plastered, roomy, and hospitable, like the kitchens of the big Spanish-grant ranches a long way to the south. They could cook for the combined outfits of Wolf Bench in that kitchen, when need arose.

  Jean Ragland said, "There's no fire made." And Kentucky noticed the odd way in which they all fell silent for a moment, as if it was a strange and uncommon thing that a fire should not spring into being and set coffee on itself, at a deserted ranch.

  "You see," Campo Ragland said to Kentucky, "we generally have a cook around here; lately it's been a lame boy named Zack Sanders. Used to be a rider, but his horse fell on him and turned him into a cook." The broad bland curve of his forehead receded to thinning hair the color of rust. Where his hat protected his forehead it was blotched with freckles, suggesting what a bran-spattered face he had offered the world in his youth. "But this boy is kind of gone missing on us, it seems."

  "Been missing long?"

  "Last week he was supposed to take two days off, and he rode over to see a girl he has over here thirty, forty mile," Ragland said. "I didn't notice it so much Saturday, when he didn't come in, that being the day that this-this accident happened to Mason. But in Waterman today his girl said he left there Saturday sun-up. That's four days gone."

  "He'll probably show up," Lee Bishop grunted.

  "Oh, I suppose so." Campo Ragland jerked himself into activity again, and began throwing wood into the great stove. "The way things been going around here, it gets a feller nervous, I guess."

  In a little while the big stove began to fill the room with a lazy warmth, and the hot smoky smell of frying beef and potatoes began to thaw the riders out. Kentucky Jones, a butcher's apron draped over his easy-going frame, whistled through his teeth as he dug out caches of canned goods with the unerring instinct of the born grub-hunter. With the hearten ing warmth the mood of the Bar Hook changed, so that for a little while it could have been any ranch house, anywhere except that the presence of Jean Ragland made a difference here. That girl could subtly change the time and place, making it different from any other ranch house and any other night. Perhaps no cowboy ever rode for the Bar Hook without feeling that he was in some part riding for this girl.

  Looking at her now Kentucky Jones would not have guessed that she had today testified concerning a death that had occurred within fifty yards of this door; and that in the midst of those proceedings she had felt impelled to thieve the heart out of the evidence of that death. The cool balanced poise of her head and the quiet of her face beautifully alive even in repose-belied the shadow which he knew must hang over her here like a storm cloud over a lonely rider trying to hold his herd.

  He had come here to find out the exact nature of the shadow which had fastened itself on the Bar Hook, and upon Jean Ragland as a part of the Bar Hook; and, accordingly, he turned now to studying the others as they ate. Lee Bishop, the solid, squareset foreman, was not a man, he decided, who could be counted on for any very great variety of imagination nor quickness of insight. Undoubtedly he would stand steady as a rock in a pinch. Evidently he was a man born at a branding and raised in the saddle, for he would hardly have attained a foremanship at thirty had he been handicapped in experience.

  The other two cowboys Kentucky Jones classified as a couple of kids. Jim Humphreys, though only five years younger than Bishop, would perhaps always be a kid. And Billy Petersen was the youngster, essential to every outfit, who would be given the undesirable jobs of horse-wrangling and night herd, and errands which were a nuisance. Two more rawboys who had been reluctant to leave town were expected in before morning; and when these were in, the winter outfit of the Bar Hook would be complete. The outfit as a whole was typical, ordinary.

  But Campo Ragland remained silent throughout the meal; and for the moment Kentucky could make out no more about him than he already knew which was little enough.

  "Sure miss Zack Sanders around here," Campo said at last, getting up. "Might's well set out what we'll need, handy to breakfast, I guess."

  "Dad," said Jean, "I'll take care of all that."

  "You get along to bed," her father told her gruffly. "I want you to get some sleep."

  Jean hesitated, as if she would argue the point; but appeared to reconsider, and obediently picked up a lamp.

  Kentucky Jones moved efficiently about making ready for morning, bringing wood handy to the stove, locating the breakfast grub, as if preparing against an intricate problem. Out in lonely camps upon the range these men would have got their own breakfasts effortlessly, without thought; but here, where a cook was supposed to be, a cookless breakfast loomed as an ordeal untold.

  "I wish I knew "Campo began; he was ladling fresh coffee into a big pot with an enormous spoon "I wish I knew-" Suddenly he stopped, and stood staring, while from the poised spoon a thin trickle of dry coffee dribbled to the floor.

  Jean Ragland had returned, and was standing in the broad doorway. She still carried the lamp, and its sharp near light, illumining her face remorselessly, showed that her features were drawn by a hard and unaccustomed emotion. It took a moment or two for Kentucky Jones to realize that what he saw in the girl's face was fear.

  For a moment no one spoke. Jim Humphreys let an armload of woo
d fall with a thundering crash. Then Ragland said, very low, his coffee spoon still motionless, "What is it, Jean?"

  Jean Ragland's voice could hardly be heard. "Someone's been through the house."

  "Been through the house?"

  "Ransacked it-through and through!"

  Her father let the big spoon splash into the coffee pot. Jean turned, throwing the light into the room beyond, and for a moment father and daughter stood together in the doorway, staring at what the others could not see. Then slowly, with a curious uncertainty, Campo Ragland moved out of their sight Jean followed him with the lamp.

  Billy Petersen, the youngster, made a jump for his sheep-skin coat, jerked a gun out of its pocket, and stuck it in his waistband; Jim Humphreys said, "Don't be a damn fool, Billy!" And they followed Kentucky Jones to the door through which Campo had disappeared.

  The room which Kentucky Jones now studied from the doorway was long and broad, but it had the low log-beamed ceiling common to the northern ranches, rather than to the desert layouts of the southwest. In one end a huge fireplace with a sixfoot opening was built of rugged chunks of the native rock, and near this Campo stood, holding up a second lamp. The owner of the Bar Hook was turning slowly, his face expressionless as he combed the details of the room.

  They heard him say, "You're right; there's no question about it'

  Jim Humphreys said, "Is there anything we can----"

  Ragland shot them a quick glance, as if momentarily he had forgotten that he was not alone. "It's nothing much, I guess," he said in a rocky voice. "This dump has been searched, all right. That's all. Wait back, you."

  Jim Humphreys and Billy Petersen returned to the kitchen. At the doorway Kentucky Jones turned and stood for a moment in a final survey of the main room. He saw Ragland pass on into the next room. Jean moved to follow him.

  Then suddenly the girl stopped and stood rigid. Following her eye, Kentucky Jones saw at once what she was looking at. It was a trivial thing; yet sufficiently out of the way to identify itself at a glance as the focus of the girl's attention.

  On the wall hung a cheap picture frame, perhaps ten inches in its longer dimension, made of narrow dark wood, with acorns represented at the corners. And it was distinguished from other picture frames by the fact that there was no picture in it. Through its glass could be seen the torn manilla paper which had backed the frame, and a section of the wall.

  Jean Ragland set her lamp down, stepped forward and jerked the empty frame from the wall. For a moment she stood irresolute, glancing quickly about her.

  "Do you want me to wrangle that for you, too?" said Kentucky from the doorway.

  For an instant she stared at him, her eyes wide and hostile. It was surprising to him - a little. That afternoon, at the inquest, she had pressed into his keeping the bullet she had taken from the evidence. But now he knew that she had not elected him as her ally, nor wanted more than momentary aid.

  Her father's step sounded close at hand beyond the other door. Jean dropped the picture frame behind a wooden chest that stood against the wall, and picked up her lamp again as her father re-entered.

  They went back into the kitchen. Billy Petersen, Jim Humphreys, and Lee Bishop were waiting there, as they had been told to wait. Campo Ragland paused in the main room a moment to exchange the briefest sort of word with Jean. But his announcement was to all of them, at once.

  "Somebody's ransacked this dump," he told them slowly. "Somebody's ransacked it good. There's a rifle gone."

  Lee Bishop said, "Is that all?"

  "They pried open the cash box, but didn't take anything, so far as I know. It beats me."

  "We can spare a rifle, I guess," Jean said sharply. Except for a certain soberness, Kentucky was unable to make out in Jean's face any sign of the cold still terror he had seen in it a little while before. But he saw now that a change had come over Campo Ragland. Campo's face was stiffly expressionless; but the eyes were those of a man lost in uncertainty.

  Kentucky Jones did not know Campo Ragland well. In the course of his efforts to establish himself in rimrock cattle, he had held parley with Campo perhaps half a dozen times. But he knew Campo to be typical of the Wolf Bench breed of owners, a man as durable as the hide of his own range-bred ponies. Behind his genial facade Campo had always been completely sure of himself. But now, while the outer aspect of the man was still little changed, Jones saw that the inner confidence was gone, as if the qualities which had made him the fit boss of a hard-held and forever-resistant range were cut through at the root.

  "We may as well get some shut-eye, I guess," Campo said. "One of you fellers better turn out in the morning and load the stove."

  "I'm a pot-buster," Kentucky offered. "Leave breakfast to me."

  "All right. Might's well turn into Zack's bunk, then."

  Alone in the little lean-to room off the kitchen where Zack had lived, Kentucky Jones sat for a little while on the bunk, and smoked a final cigarette. The bullet that Jean had taken from the inquest was now displaced in his mind by the empty picture frame which the panic-stricken girl had hidden from her father's sight and his puzzlement was immeasurably increased. It was time to take stock of what he knew.

  He did not conceal from himself that his interest in the murder of Mason turned upon the involvement of Jean. The foundation of the thing was, of course, the fact that John Mason was dead, shot from the saddle within fifty yards of Ragland's door as he arrived from the 88 on Bob Elliot's pinto horse. Jean Ragland had stolen from the evidence the bullet that had killed Mason and the sheriff probably had the mate to that bullet. Upon this foundation now rested a miscellany of puzzling and unrelated detail.

  A Bar Hook rider had lied about his whereabouts at the hour of Mason's death. A lame cowboy cook was missing from the Bar Hook. Somebody had ransacked the Bar Hook ranch house, taking away a rifle and a picture out of the frame. Jean thought little of the disappearance of the rifle, much of the empty frame. Unquestionably, he needed more of the missing fragments before he could piece that picture together.

  In the meantime the range was thrown out of balance by the death of the cow financier. Bob Elliot, facing ruin, could save himself only by forcing Ragland over the edge in his place. In one stride Kentucky Jones had stepped into a situation of greater pressure than any he had before encountered in an active life. Things had happened at the Bar Hook which did not explain themselves, and other things would follow upon them which, could they be foreseen, must be averted at all costs.

  For what seemed a long time he lay awake, listening to the snap of the frost in the heavy timbers of the house, while his mind quartered the case like a lion hound failed of the scent. Presently he became aware that there was something he had left undone. Without striking a light he opened a seam in the lining of his coat and extracted the bullet which Jean Ragland had pressed into his hand that afternoon. He opened the window, and found that the snow was drifted here against the log wall. Kentucky Jones hesitated a moment more; then flicked the bullet that had killed John Mason out into the drifted snow.

  HATEVER else happened the work had to go on. Campo Ragland had contracted to ship five carloads of long two-year-old steers to a southern feeder, but although the cars were already waiting on the Waterman siding, the gather and cut for the shipment still lacked many head. The two other Bar Hook cowboys Harry Wilson and Joe St. Marie-had come in from Waterman during the night; and with this full force Campo himself jumped into the job of finishing the work in a day.

  After breakfast Kentucky Jones made an opportunity to familiarize himself with the scene of Mason's death. "I suppose," he asked Lee Bishop, "that's the pump house?"

  "Yeah, that stone dump. The place where I found Mason is about three horse jumps southwest. He was lying face down with his head this way, and I but I guess you heard all that. The trail he was coming in off of, from the 88, strikes four mile down the edge of the cut and then turns along the edge of the rim, and strikes the 88 layout after about eight mile more. There's
a shorter way up over Cat Ridge; but what with the rocky going, it takes about as long."

  "It worked out so I missed part of the inquest," Kentucky said. "Did it come out why Mason was riding from the 88 to the Bar Hook? Seems kind of funny the way things stand between the two brands."

  "Yeah, that was all thrashed out," said Lee Bishop. "Old Ironsides was always a great hand to keep in touch with all corners of Wolf Bench; and he was just making one of his regular circuits of the range."

  "I heard he was riding one of Elliot's plugs."

  "Yeah. His way of doing was to borrow some horse that could be counted on to go home by itself, and at the next outfit borrow another such a horse, and so on. This time he was riding an 88 horse."

  "Yes, I got that," Kentucky said. "One of Bob Elliot's top horses - a big pinto, with white forelegs."

  "So they said. We got to get going, Kentuck. You and me aren't working with Campo today; there's a little job over here we got to wrangle separate. Rope you a low grade horse."

  Kentucky had expected that Jean Ragland would make a chance to talk to him; but Lee Bishop was in a hurry to be on the move, and they took the trail toward the rim before Kentucky could talk to Jean alone.

  For a long time they rode in silence; Bishop had given no hint as to the nature of their errand, as yet.

  "I don't know exactly what we're up against here," the foreman said at last; "I haven't said much to the old man yet. I think we'll be able to tell just about how it's going to work out when we get up here four, five mile. It's made a beginning, I think."