by Alan Lemay
"What has?" said Kentucky.
"You'll pretty soon see. I wish to God Jean was out of here. There's no better cattle woman anywhere than Jean. But this might not be a good place for her, pretty quick here."
"What's become of her mother?" Kentucky asked him. "Seems like there used to be a Mrs. Ragland, last summer when I first came to Wolf Bench."
"There's still a Mrs. Ragland. She's putting in the winter out on the coast."
"I reckon she's got judgment," said Kentucky. "I hear that out there they've got a big rock candy mountain, where the rivers are whisky, and the cows have rubber horns. Though, come to think of it, that might not interest her."
The foreman shrugged moodily. "You can call it judgment. It looks more like a run-out, to me." He checked himself, already sorry for what he had said. He tried to apologize, and made it worse. "There isn't anybody means any better than Mrs. Ragland does; it's just that somehow she doesn't take to cattle, I guess."
"Looks like Jean would have gone with her?"
"Jean takes after her father," Lee Bishop said. "This busted-up country is bred into her blood and bone. She's a true Ragland. There's been a Ragland running cattle on Wolf Bench since the first long-horn showed."
"And how long has there been an Elliot?"
"Well, there's always been an Elliot too; though until Bob Elliot took it over from his old man, the 88 was just a kind of a chicken-yard outfit. It's Bob that's got ambitious."
Kentucky Jones decided to try one of his shots in the dark. "Lee," he said casually, "have you let anyone in on the fact that Mason was not killed at the time he was supposed to be?"
Lee Bishop did not respond for a moment; then he turned to face Kentucky Jones slowly. "How's that?" he said without expression.
"Let it go," said Jones.
"Kentucky," said Lee Bishop, "I want to know what you were driving at."
"Not much, Lee. From the way you talked at the inquest, it seemed to me like you didn't join in with the others in figuring that Mason was killed before the snow begun."
"I said," Lee Bishop responded combatively, "that there wasn't no snow under him, didn't I?"
"You mean you grant that he was dead before snow flew?"
The foreman did not answer for almost a hundred paces. Then he burst out with a sudden unaccustomed display of black temper. "I'm tired of these here everlasting questions! I don't want to hash this thing over no more, you hear me?"
HEY came out now upon a high point of the rim, a monstrous declivity so sheer that it seemed as if at some time the world itself must have cracked to let the desert down. Far below the Bake Pan country began, a flat plain stretching into blue distance. Only here, from the heights, did a man get a full view of that vast flatness. Perhaps it was just as well that a rider out in the middle of that illimitable desert land could only see a little of it at a time. Seeing it all at once any horseman would have had a right to be disheartened; just as a man who could see his whole life ahead of him might not have the heart to go on.
At a glance the vast flats of the Bake Pan seemed utterly devoid of life. Cowmen's eyes, however, could pick out here and there among the dark dots of sage and catclaw other dots that were cattle. They grazed in little scattered bunches, and the bunches themselves were far between, for this land could carry but ten or fifteen head to the mile. But what interested the riders on the rim was something else - a greater concentration of cattle, a long, dark irregular string of them lying on the face of the desert like a blacksnake whip.
"Uh huh," said Lee Bishop. "There you have it! How many head would you count that drive?"
"Maybe twelve hundred," said Kentucky. "88 stock?"
"Sure they're 88! You know now why Bob Elliot put on six more hands!"
Already, then, this thing had come. Legally the public domain was open to all, whatever tradition or moral justice might hold. But Bob Elliot must have known that the brand which held this range would defend it bitterly; and this land had been Bar Hook graze for a long time.
Perhaps, Kentucky Jones considered, Bob Elliot could not wholly be blamed. It was hard to withhold all sympathy from a man making a stubborn fight in the face of a crush-out. But it seemed to him that there was something grossly unnatural about the manner in which the move was being made. The force of Elliot's motive, as well as his general method, he could understand. In Elliot's position almost any enemy of Ragland might have been expected to attempt a gradual infiltration of the Bar Hook range. But this sudden, openly-hostile mass move was like nothing Kentucky Jones had ever seen. The thing was too swift, too unequivocal, too bald-faced.
"Eight riders," Lee Bishop commented. "He certainly is figuring to make this stick! He wouldn't be laying on all those riders if this was anything more than a beginning, Kentuck."
"Can the Bar Hook stand it, Lee?"
"We'll damn well see," said Lee Bishop. He squinted at the sun. "It's pretty near a three-hour ride to get down to where them cattle is, but I guess we got to go; sorry we didn't bring no sow bosom and hard-tack, Kentuck."
"To hell with grub," said Kentucky, swinging his horse into the down trail.
It was warmer down on the Bake Pan, and the snow which lay deep and unbroken on Wolf Bench had here already dwindled to wetly glistening rifts. Across the long flat reaches the cattle plugged dustlessly, to a persistent bellowing of cows separated from their calves. Out from the herd, as the Bar Hook men drew near, rode a lank angular man on a hammer-headed roan pony.
"This is Bill McCord," Lee Bishop said in an undertone; "he's from away. Bob Elliot's run through half a dozen range bosses in the last three years, but this one will suit him, I guess. He"
"Yeah I know him. If he found you drinking at a crick he'd ride through upstream, to see if you objected to mud. Hello, McCord."
McCord ignored Jones. "Howdy, Bishop."
"I see you're moving a few head of stock," Bishop began.
"Figure to," said McCord. The two foremen eyed each other. A certain amount of humor showed in the hard-seamed lines of McCord's face, but it was the kind of humor that starts trouble; and in his green eyes there was no humor at all.
"Moving right on through, I see," said Bishop.
"Some day, maybe," said McCord. "Not this year."
"No?"
"No," said McCord, his voice casual. "Wouldn't be surprised if we'd stop and turn free, up here ten mile."
"No," said Bishop. His voice too was casual, as if he were answering a question. "No, these cattle aren't going to stop and scatter up here ten mile. Not anywheres near it."
"You don't mean to tell me?" said McCord. "Why, I heard this was open range."
"Open," said Bishop, "from your nearest water half way over to our nearest water; and not one calf jump more!"
Two cowboys had left the loafing cattle and were walking their horses toward the parley with a studied detachment. McCord now signaled them with a motion of his head, and they came up to range themselves a little behind the 88 foreman. Both were armed; but Kentucky recognized neither.
"So?" McCord said to Bishop.
"So," said Bishop. "I'm right sorry to have to set you right on these few mistakes. We'll spare you feed when we've got feed to spare. But just now the Bar Hook bunches are working down off the Bench. There'll be another four thousand head on this range, right soon."
McCord grinned, his eyes unwavering from those of Lee Bishop. "I ain't interested," he concluded dispassionately. "I got my orders-and I'm carrying 'em out."
Kentucky stirred uneasily in his saddle, sorry to see that Lee Bishop was getting mad.
"Save yourself trouble," Bishop was saying. "This herd is going back into the graze it belongs in; and it's going deep back, son!"
The half grin suddenly dropped from Bill McCord's face, and in its place flashed an ill temper exceeding Bishop's own. He kicked a spur into his horse so that it spun and brought up with the right side of horse and man toward the Bar Hook riders. This move brought squarely into view the hols
tered forty-five that swung behind Bill McCord's right thigh, below his short coat. Until now the 88 foreman had kept his right hand in his pocket; but he now brought it to the reins beside his left, and they saw that his right hand was ungloved.
"Why, my short friend "said Bill McCord, his voice hard and even; and he began to swear, slowly and distinctly, his green eyes ugly on Bishop's face. The cursing of Bill McCord was neither varied nor picturesque, but it was hard-bitten, personal, and direct, and its slow evil-toned syllables carried enough efficient ugliness to raise welts on the hide of a mule.
"Put your scabby pony up that rim," Bill McCord finished; "go tell your old man that I put your proper name to you, and sent you home!"
For a moment no one spoke. The foreman of the Bar Hook sat his horse like a frozen man, apparently unable to believe his ears, so unexpected, so unaccountably sudden had been the break. Then the blood rushed to Bishop's head. With a wrench of his bit he put his horse staggering against Kentucky's; the animal danced crazily, mouth high and open to the raw jerk of the curb. Bishop thrust a widespread shaking hand at Kentucky. "Gun," he stuttered. "For God's sake give me gun"
"I haven't got any gun, Lee."
For an instant Bishop hesitated, rigid in the saddle, his horse dancing under him. Then an inarticulate curse broke in his throat; he slashed the spurs into his pony and it bounded forward at the horse of Bill McCord.
Kentucky swung himself half out of the saddle in a wild snatch at Lee Bishop's rein, and managed to catch it near the bit. As the pony whipped to its haunches, Kentucky struck Bishop a terrific wallop on the back with his open hand, seized his foreman's shoulder, and shook him hard.
"Hold it, Lee damn it, you hear me?"
Abruptly Lee Bishop quieted, straightened in his saddle, ran his gloved hand uncertainly over his eyes. The color was draining out of his face again, leaving it grey. For a moment the man had been insane.
"I'll take it," Lee Bishop said at last.
"And you'll like it," said Bill McCord.
"I'll take it, and I'll like it," said Bishop, his eyes expressionless on McCord's face. "Enjoy it, you! Because you'll never see the like of it again."
Bishop turned his horse, unhurrying, no longer rigid in the saddle, and walked his pony away.
Kentucky followed; but as he turned he saw that there was no satisfaction in Bill McCord's grin. Rather it seemed to him that the man was disappointed, chagrined.
Suddenly he thought he understood McCord's deliberate attempt. For some definite reason that remained unknown, Bill McCord had done all he could to make an opportunity to kill Lee Bishop in self defense.
HE climb to the rim was a laborious one, and the early dusk was no more than an hour away when they again reached the home ranch of the Bar Hook. They were nearly in before Lee Bishop had anything to say.
"I haven't carried a gun," he declared, "since I was a kid, except to hunt with; and I never pulled a gun on a man in my life. But if I'd had so much as a bean shooter I'd have killed McCord where he sat."
"Tell me one thing," Kentucky said. "What in all hell did you figure to do there when you jumped your horse at him?"
"I don't know," Bishop admitted. "Seems like my thinking machinery slipped out of gear."
"Do you know any reason why McCord should want your scalp?"
"That's just what gets me," Lee Bishop said. "Doggone it, I hardly know the man. He knew I had to tell him to move his cattle back."
Kentucky tried a new shot in the dark. "Lee, how long have you known that Bill McCord was mixed up in the killing of Mason?"
Bishop stared at him. "What you talking about, boy?"
"That man has some reason for wanting to down you, Lee. Ask yourself what you know that isn't good for him."
Bishop did not answer for nearly a quarter of a mile. "It beats me, Kentucky; I can't think of anything I got on him. If I'd only had a gun"
Immediately they sought out Campo Ragland, whom they found moodily swallowing scalding coffee in the kitchen, his boots clogged with half-melted snow. Lee Bishop briefly told his boss of the drive of the twelve hundred head the prompt, bold beginning of Elliot's play for the Bar Hook range. Of his own clash with McCord he made little.
"McCord cussed me out good. I would have took a poke at him, one time there, only Kentucky reached out and kind of steadied my horse."
"Twelve hundred head," Ragland considered. His eyes brooded heavily upon the coffee pot. "Well, if that's all of 'em, I suppose the range can stand it; I've seen worse years for grass."
Lee Bishop stared at him dumbfounded. "All of 'em!" he finally exclaimed. "Of course that ain't all of 'em! You'll find out that this here is only a pointer and a beginning. It's the start of a freezeout, that's what it is."
Ragland said moodily, "He's in no shape for that."
"Sure he's in no shape for it," said Lee Bishop spunkily. "But it's what he's after just the same. He's going to load that range, taking what death losses he can't get out of His only chance of hanging on after he loses his lease is to crowd in here before then that's what we've got here!"
"He's sure forcing his hand," Ragland growled.
"Sure he is. It's going to be one brand or the other before that boy's through."
"It's bad all right," Ragland admitted.
"Come tomorrow," Lee Bishop said, "I can take our boys and go down there and stop that herd; and"
"Elliot isn't going to draw back his cattle. He'll
"Then, by God, we'll smear into them and put 'em back!"
"They'll pistol-whip you, you start that stuff!"
"I don't believe-" Lee Bishop began. Then he changed what he had started to say. "Well, then, I suppose," he said, "we'll just have to pistol-whip 'em back. Me, I don't know any other way."
Campo Ragland slammed his coffee cup onto the stove. "I don't want any of that," he said. "That's old-time stuff it don't go nowadays. Nobody ever made anything by any such business yet."
Lee Bishop stared at him. "Maybe," he said, "I better ride in and ask the sheriff would he please ask 'em to move back as a personal favor to him."
Campo Ragland threw his foreman a short ugly glance, but did not reply to this sarcasm directly. "After all," he said, "you got to make allowances. That brand is fighting for its life."
Lee Bishop looked at Kentucky, turned away, and hopelessly spread his hands. Kentucky led the way out; it was time to feed hay, anyway.
"What the devil's got into him?" said Bishop as soon as they were outside. "Do you suppose he's going to lay down and quit on us?"
"Maybe he's holding back to kind of catch Elliot on the rebound," said Kentucky.
"How, for instance?" demanded Lee Bishop contemptuously. "Yah! He's on his knees like a shinneried bull."
"He sure set up an over-hopeful holler," Kentucky admitted. "Does he generally bust out with the shilly-shallies this way?"
"No! I've never seen him like this before." Bishop fell into a moody silence while they walked as far as the hay racks. "Look here," he said, suddenly turning on Kentucky. "You know what's holding him back?"
"No," said Kentucky honestly.
"I know! I know only too darn well. I tell you-" His voice stopped as sharply as if he had been struck, and he stood staring past Kentucky Jones.
Spinning on his heel to follow Bishop's eyes, Ken tucky saw that the foreman was staring at a forlorn dun horse which stood low-headed before the bars of one of the corrals. An arm's length of broken rein dangled from one side of its bridle, trailing on the ground; and it stood spread-legged to avoid the chafe of a saddle that was no longer on its back, but under its belly.
"So Zack is dead," said Lee Bishop slowly, at last.
"His horse?"
"Yes."
NEW sense of shock and malignant uncertainty descended upon the Bar Hook people with the return of Zack Sanders' low-headed horse, Zack's broken saddle under its belly. Lee Bishop and Kentucky Jones called Campo Ragland out, and the owner of the Bar Hook examined the hor
se and its equipment in a black mood.
"Unsaddle him and feed oats," was all Campo said. And he returned to the house.
The other riders, as they returned from their work, had more to say. To these men Zack Sanders was no mere name. Some of them had known him for a long time, worked stock with him often before the fall of his horse had turned him into a cook. Now they were faced by the assumption that he lay dead in some unknown place, lost in the rocks and snow.
"He shouldn't have tried that trip," Jim Humphreys said. "I bet you it was his game leg made him fall."
Harry Wilson, a small man, wizened beyond his middle age by many a winter in the saddle, allowed that this was the bunk. "If that's so, how comes that streak of blood on the swell of his saddle fork?"
Billy Petersen, the young horse wrangler, said, "Maybe he was fixing to shoot a rabbit or something, and his horse shied, and as he fell the gun went off"
The boy stopped. Probably there was no one there who had not seen immediately the parallel between this suggestion and the accepted theory of John Mason's death. Somehow the improbability that this could have happened twice threw doubt on the theory that it had happened at all. There was an awkward pause.
Jim Humphreys said he didn't see why Zack's horse hadn't come in before, if it was coming. "Here Zack's been missing since last Saturday. That's-let's see going on five days. And here this horse don't come in"
"Probably he tried to go back to the wild bunch, but the wild bunch kicked him out."
"How long do you suppose he's run loose?"
"It couldn't have been long or the saddle would have got lost off."
"I've heard of 'em staying on a month."
When the other riders had gone about their work of feeding the stock, Lee Bishop took Kentucky Jones aside. The blocky foreman was in a subdued but lowering temper. "It's bad when you learn that a boy you've known for a long time is dead," he said; "but it don't change the other thing, Kentuck, nor take off of us what we got to do. I don't suppose there's anything we can do for Zack Sanders now, but in the meantime Bob Elliot is swamping the Bar Hook range. Right now, while we talk, I suppose he's turning free the cattle that we saw moving onto our range today. Tomorrow they'll be getting ready to move a thousand more and that won't be the end either. We got a fight on our hands, Kentuck, and that's the next thing here."