Savage Range

by Short, Luke;

  Boyd’s mouth dropped in amazement.

  Jim gestured with his gun. “You two stand right here.” The others were scattered in a loose circle about the fire in their blankets. Jim passed between them, lifting a gun where he saw it and feeling gently under blankets when he did not see one where it should be.

  Finished, he stepped off to one side of the camp and said, “Better roll ’em out.”

  Boyd called, and the men tumbled out of their blankets. It was a full minute before the first man noticed Boyd’s and the guard’s unnatural attitude. The fire wasn’t going, either. He looked over in the direction they were facing, and then, after staring at Jim a full ten seconds, announced, “Well, I’m damned!”

  The others looked where he looked. Slowly they came to attention. One or two made covert attempts to look for their guns, and Jim let them look.

  Boyd said suddenly, “If this is another bushwhack, Wade, let’s have it.”

  Jim only smiled. It was almost full light now, so that he could see every man. “Pull your boots on,” he suggested. “I’ll be here for some while.”

  He moved over to face them, picking Donaldson out from the others.

  “I caught your guard asleep,” he announced quietly. Mako looked over at the young puncher, his eyes gently reproving.

  “I took a look at Bonsell’s camp last night,” Jim went on. “It’s empty. Like to know where his crew is?” Without waiting for an answer, he told them. They were impressed, even the young men, one of whom apparently thought so little of their danger that he had slept on guard.

  “Want to know where your man Cruver is?” Jim continued. “He’s drunk at the Freighter’s Pleasure. He went in town to bully a girl last night and got beat up for his pains.”

  He fell silent. Mitch Boyd cursed Cruver in measured disgust. The others just looked helpless.

  “You’re a sorry lot,” Jim murmured. “Led by a sorry man on a sorry job. I spotted your campfire night before last two miles away. The only reason you’re alive now is because Bonsell gives you credit for bein’ a heap smarter than you are.” He pointed to the rim. “What’s to stop Bonsell from plantin’ a dozen men up there and killin’ you all in your sleep?” His voice was sharp, disgusted, and it cut like a whip.

  Old man Reed said, “What’s to prevent your doin’ it yourself, now, Wade?”

  Jim was not taking time to make an appeal. He didn’t care what these men thought of him, just so they listened to him; and he went straight to the brutal point. “Why should I shoot you? Didn’t Bonsell turn me over to Haynes to take the blame for that first raid? What do I owe Bonsell, only a slug in the back?”

  “What do you owe us?” Mako Donaldson asked gently.

  “Nothin’,” Jim said bluntly. “But Bonsell wants you dead. And if I can fox Bonsell and keep you alive, I can make it harder for him. That’s the kind of talk you want, isn’t it?”

  Mako Donaldson didn’t answer, only regarded him thoughtfully. Jim looked around at these faces, all of them suspicious and resentful and a little angry. “What do you aim to do now?” Jim asked.

  Mitch Boyd spoke up. “Wipe Bonsell out.”

  “How?”

  “Find his crew and fight.”

  “You couldn’t find his crew with a posse,” Jim said mildly. “I tell you, they’re scattered all over this country.” He looked over at Mako. “What are you goin’ to do, Mako? Ram around this country like a bunch of Ute squaws, leavin’ a trail a kid could read, makin’ camps like this camp tonight?” He paused. “You’ve seen a little in your time, Mako. How long do you think you’ll last if you do that?”

  “Not long,” Mako admitted.

  Jim shifted his attack. “What kind of a man do you think Bonsell is?” he inquired mildly. “What would you do if I told you that Max Bonsell was in the Excelsior house the other night when you surrounded it?”

  “Then he’s dead,” one of the younger men said.

  “He’s as alive as you are,” Jim said. “Hell, you can’t even lick a man when you have him down. When Bonsell saw he was surrounded, he left that house. He went right through your lines. He shot a man of yours. He cut the cinches on your saddles so you couldn’t ride for a half day. And then he piled all your beef up in Mimbres Canyon while you were braggin’ to each other how tough you were.”

  “How do you know that?” Reed asked.

  “I sat there not twenty yards from Cruver and watched the whole thing,” Jim answered calmly. He saw the disbelief in their faces turn to sheepishness.

  “I’m cold,” a young puncher said. “Let’s build a fire if we want to parley.”

  “There you got it,” Jim jeered. “You’re cold, so you’ll build a fire, and your smoke will be spotted. In a half day, you’ll have Bonsell’s men swarmin’ down on you.” He looked contemptuously at the lot of them. “The trouble with you is, you’ve lived in this back lot all your lives, playin’ poker together and talkin’ mighty soft, on account of the whole bunch of you murdered Jim Buckner a few years back. You all know it. You all hold it over your neighbors’ heads. You’ve never had a real fight. You can’t use guns. Turn you loose in a tough Texas county and the lot of you would be swampin’ out saloons because you weren’t smart or tough enough to run cattle.”

  His voice was savage with scorn. “What kind of slick-eared dude do you take this Bonsell for? Do you know he’s payin’ out over two thousand dollars a month for that fightin’ crew of his? I know what they are because I’ve seen them—a killin’, cutthroat crew that could brag of a hundred murders between ’em. He didn’t hire ’em for protection; he hired ’em to clean this range for him. And they’re a bunch of curly wolves that can do it. They’ve partly done it already. And they’re only waitin’ for one more dumb move of yours to finish it.”

  Boyd blustered, “I’ll fight any man in his crew and lick him.”

  “Nobody is questionin’ your guts,” Jim said quietly. “I’m questionin’ your brains. I had to wake up your guard out here this mornin’ so you wouldn’t die of fright when you saw me in camp. You, Boyd, you were buildin’ a fire. You didn’t have a gun on you, did you? I could have knocked you over like a sage hen. With another man, I could have killed the lot of you in your blankets. I’m holdin’ the whole lot of you now with one damn gun!”

  Boyd started to protest when Mako Donaldson said curtly, “Keep quiet, Boyd!” He turned to Jim now. “What you say is true, Wade. We aren’t a match for Texas fightin’ men. We’re small ranchers, and when we got into trouble, we turned to Cruver.”

  “And he’s drunk now. He doesn’t give a hoot for the whole lot of you.”

  Mako nodded. “That’s right. Now we’re right where we started. What should we do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Lick Bonsell, of course.”

  “But you can’t do it. You admit that.”

  Mako answered carefully, resignedly, “No, it don’t look like we could.”

  “And you haven’t got fifty head of beef between you. You haven’t got houses, barns, tools, wagons, not even food. You haven’t got money. You don’t own the land you’re on. Even if you did you couldn’t hold it against Bonsell’s crew. What have you got, Donaldson?”

  Mako was silent.

  Jim said, “What’s holdin’ the lot of you here? You, Mako, you’ve got a son. Are you goin’ to stay here and let him be hunted down and killed? You, Boyd. You got two boys. Would you stack them up against an hombre like Ball or Pardee or MaCumber in a gun fight? You can’t give ’em land when you die, nor cattle, nor a house. What can you give ’em?”

  “Then you think we should pull out?” Mako said.

  “If you can get out.”

  Boyd said, “Whaddaya mean, if we can get out?”

  Patiently, Jim reiterated what he had said. Boyd might be sure that every road, old and new, every trail, even the cattle trails, would be patrolled once a day by Bonsell’s riders. If they spotted the tracks of a dozen riders on any of these
, Bonsell’s men would follow. And when a man least expected it, he would strike.

  “Then how can we get out?”

  “Split up in pairs and keep to the rough country,” Jim said quickly. “Don’t build fires and don’t stop ridin’ for a week. Sift out of the country. Don’t stop to fight, just run.”

  It was brutal advice, but as Jim gave it, he looked at the faces of these men and knew he had won. They were heartsick and broken already, held together by Cruver’s jeering arrogance. Without the driving temper of him, they saw their predicament in a colder and clearer light. They were defeated, and Mako Donaldson was the first to acknowledge it.

  “I’ll vote that way,” he said quietly. “This is a hell of a country, haunted for every last man of us. I’ve fought it half a lifetime, and it’s brought me to this. I know when I’m licked.”

  Jim holstered his gun and then said nothing, but the gesture gave an impetus to the others. Boyd was the stubborn one, but he was arguing for the sake of argument, Jim knew. Mako took up the cudgels for Jim, and Jim squatted there, almost forgotten, as these beaten men gathered in a loose circle around Mako and Boyd and listened to the heat of their arguments.

  The sun laid its flat light on the land now, framing long shadows that still held the night’s chill. Jim rose and moved over into the sun, letting it warm him. He was standing that way, back to the sun, when—

  Crash!

  The sharp flat explosion of a rifle blasted the morning stillness.

  Jim whirled around, took a step backward, caught himself, and drawled quietly, “You built one too many fires, boys. This is it.”

  Chapter Twelve: POCKET OF HELL

  The squatters looked at Jim for a long second, giving a second man on the rimrock time for a clean shot. It caught Boyd in the back and drove him to his knees and then to his face.

  Jim yelled, “Your guns, dammit, your guns! Get into the brush!”

  Suiting words to actions, he rolled behind a thick piñon at the edge of the camp. Mako Donaldson, swearing softly, made the tree behind him just as three more rifles joined the shooting. Jim felt his arm, and his hand came away sticky. But it was a poor shot and a clean wound. The slug had driven through the fleshy part of his upper left arm. Bandaging it swiftly with his handkerchief, he took stock of the situation. A neater death trap than this could not have been found. Sooner or later, these riflemen up on the rim would flush out down the canyon, and only a miracle would bring a man through that gantlet of fire. And Jim was not fooling himself; he was the man they wanted. He was the man they had shot at first.

  The squatters were beginning to return the fire, but there was nothing to shoot at. The Excelsior slugs were searching out the trees now. Soon it would be too hot to remain here.

  Bellied down, Jim peered out from under the tree at the canyon rim. It was not steep, salted with boulders which would afford some protection. A rush up it would be suicide, but not as quick suicide as a run down the canyon. Four riflemen were stationed up there, and they were doing their shooting with vicious accuracy.

  Jim turned to Mako, whose seamed face held a fatalism that he could not hide.

  “Where are your horses?” Jim asked.

  “The very back of the canyon. In a cave there.”

  “Send a man up here to me, a good man.”

  Mako called back through the brush. Presently, a young puncher came crawling on his belly to Jim. He was in his early twenties, a sober-faced leaned-down man whose eyes held a wild excitement.

  “The rest of us have got to get out of here,” Jim said, “but you’re going to stay. Now listen to what I say. I’ve picked out four rifles up there, and there must be more, because four men wouldn’t attack this crowd. They’re tryin’ to stampede us down the canyon, and the rest of that crew will be strung along it, waitin’ to pick us off. Our one chance is to rush that rim and fort up on the ridge beyond it.”

  “You’ll never make it,” the puncher said quietly.

  “Maybe not. There’s a little cover here between here and the horses. We’ll dash for them. Mako says there’s shelter where they are. Is there?”

  “Yeah. It’s a cave, kind of, with an overhang of rock.”

  Jim nodded. “That’ll give us time for my plan. But I want you to stay in the cave after we’ve pulled out.”

  “What for?”

  “Because if we make that rim, we won’t have a horse left under us. I’ll try to make the ridge back of the rim and fort up there. When we’ve drawn them up surroundin’ us, you make a dash down the canyon.”

  “For help?”

  “Help, hell!” Jim said savagely. “The only help you can get is San Jon. They wouldn’t be back here before midnight. By that time—”

  “Yeah, I know,” the puncher said. “There won’t be a man alive.”

  Jim nodded curtly. “You’ve got to get horses.”

  “How many?”

  “About eight,” Jim said. “That’s more’n we’ll need when we finish here. I don’t know how you’ll get ’em. Can you do it?”

  The puncher nodded.

  “When you get ’em, leave them over to the west of the fight, some place where they’re safe. When you’ve done that, you’ve got to come back to this cave for the saddles and bridles we’ll leave. Can you do that?”

  Again the puncher nodded.

  “Then saddle those horses and make your way back to us on foot. If you can’t get through, then build a fire on a height of land over to the south to tell us you’re ready. When we see that fire, what’s left of us will pull out for the horses, headin’ due west of the ridge. You’ve got to pick us up somewhere out there in the dark and take us to the horses.” He paused, watching the puncher’s face. “Can you do it, mister?”

  “Hell, yes,” the man answered immediately.

  “Then we’ll rush the cave when the word’s passed around.” He turned back to Mako and told him to pass the word around to break for the cave. Mako did. When Jim figured that time enough had elapsed, he rose up on one knee, rammed his gun in his belt, and broke free of the brush. His course was zigzag, from shelter to shelter. A rifleman on the rim tried to search him out, but Jim didn’t give him enough time to sight.

  Ahead of him, he saw the wide, high opening of the cave yawning darkly in the rock. It was a huge pocket eroded by the wind, big enough to shelter a dozen horses with ease.

  When Jim achieved it, he quieted the horses while the others, one by one, either made the cave or did not. He did not want to watch them, to see that grim fear on their faces, for this was only the beginning. When the last man came through safely, they made a count. There had been eleven men here. There were eight now, only one of them hit besides Jim.

  In the still shelter of the cave, with only the stamping of the restless horses to interrupt him, Jim told them his plan. He laid no blame on them for the attack, since what was done was done. But he explained a simple choice—either they could saddle up and try for the canyon mouth, running the fire of a dozen guns that were certain to be there, or else they could make a daring and fast try for the ridge beyond, with only these four riflemen to harry them. They voted for the ridge at once. They listened to Jim like children, and when he saw their blind faith in him, he could hardly make himself go on.

  Every man here, he announced, was to fashion a hackamore of his lariat, leaving saddles and bridles here. He himself would lead the rush for the rim. Once outside the cave, they would turn up the slope, swinging under the necks of their horses, Indian fashion. It would give them the necessary half-minute protection, if they were lucky, until they achieved the boulders, and from there on it was every man for himself in the fight for the ridge. The first men up must silence the two rifles on this side of the rim. Every man must carry all the ammunition he could, for this would be a siege.

  The firing outside had stopped. The Excelsior crew could afford to hold their fire until a last futile dash for the canyon mouth took place. In case the squatters didn’t come out before
dark, there was dynamite to take care of that.

  Mako’s puncher remained dismounted. When the others had made the hackamores and mounted, bending over because of the low ceiling, Jim pulled out his gun, looked around at them, and then gave the signal, putting his spurs to his horse.

  At sight of them boiling out, fire from the rim opened up again. Jim, slung under his horse’s neck, put his mount up the slope. Another rider passed him and, just short of the rocks, had his horse shot down. Jim saw him fall free and make the shelter of the boulders, rock splinters whipping up around him. Jim’s horse only lasted a second longer, but once he had made the rocks, he pulled up his rifle and started to throw lead at the opposite rim. Under his scorching fire, the rifleman withdrew, and the other riders had a better chance. Three of them, fighting their lunging horses up that treacherous slope, in and out of the rock maze, almost made the rim before their horses were killed. The others, afoot, advanced swiftly, the racket of their gunfire a clanging bedlam in these rocks. Jim saw they were converging on one rifleman. He chose the other, almost directly over the cave. Passing from one rock to another, he soon saw that this man had not discovered him, but was shooting over his head at the others.

  With careful haste made necessary by the situation, Jim circled wide, coming up to the right of the sniper. Almost at the rock rim, he cut back toward him.

  The sniper was settled in a little pocket where he could command the valley. His gun was pointed southeast. Jim approached from the north. Crouching down against the rocks, he was not ten feet from this man. To achieve the pocket, however, there was a six-foot sheer of sandstone that he had to mount.

  Gun in hand, he got his wind back, then swung himself up on the scarp. The man was lying on his belly, sighting his rifle. Jim’s gun butt scraped loudly on the rock, and the man whirled at the sound.

  It was MaCumber. For one part of a second, he looked at Jim, and then he swiveled his gun around, shooting wide from his hip in his haste for the mark. Jim, half his body over the edge, gun in hand, thumbed back the hammer, and MaCumber’s body jogged abruptly. Surprise washed into his eyes. And then Jim, hanging there, emptied his gun at him.