by Short, Luke;
“He looked like a rough customer,” Lily said, a little worry creeping into her eyes.
“Yeah,” Scoville said carelessly. “Every time I see one of them steely-eyed gunnies walkin’ around on his hind legs with a I-dare-you-to-do-it look in his eyes, I just can’t help twistin’ his tail.”
“Be careful, Phil,” Lily said suddenly. “If he works for Buckner, we can be sure he’s just as crooked as his boss. After he’s got the information from you that he wants, he’ll probably turn on you and pistol-whip you.”
Scoville looked at her, his eyes surprised and hurt. “Pistol-whip me? That stuffed Stetson? Why, lady, I’ll tie him in a knot and pin him on your hat, if you give the word.”
Lily looked fondly at him. She understood that beneath his levity there was a real contempt for men like Warren, and that these men stirred up a fearless hatred in him. Moreover, he was a better man than they were, as his handling of Cruver proved. Other times, his real gentleness showed.
Warren returned in a half hour, and Scoville was still mending his bridle.
At sight of Warren, Scoville grinned. “If he trusted you with two hundred bucks out of his sight, he’s a bigger sucker than you are for not runnin’ away with it.”
Warren unsmilingly handed him a stack of gold pieces. Scoville pocketed them and went out and saddled his horse.
Buckner’s camp was down-river, a couple of miles off the stage road.
Scoville sized up the man before he dismounted among the cottonwoods. Buckner was an impressive-looking man, and not all his impressiveness stemmed from his rich black suit, now covered with dust, and his fine hand-tooled boots. He had a thin and sensitive face, untanned by wind or weather, and his hair was white and thick. This was what Mary Buckner’s father looked like, Scoville thought. Only the man who sired Mary would have had eyes not quite so calculating, and his chin would have been a little firmer. Also, he would not have had that arrogant, impatient cast to his face, or if he had, he would have apologized for it with a smile. Harvey Buckner did no such thing.
He said, “You’re Peters?”
Scoville got down. “Sometimes,” he drawled. “Sometimes not. It depends on who I’m talkin’ to.”
“Are you the man who wrote me about Bonsell?”
Scoville wanted to be cross-grained. He was going to enjoy this. “Depends on who you are,” he said. “I didn’t catch the name.”
Buckner looked faintly irritated. “Buckner, of course. James Buckner.” He held up the letter. “Answer my question. Are you the man who wrote me this letter?”
“Depends,” Scoville said. “I ain’t seen the letter yet.”
Buckner walked over and handed him the letter. Scoville looked at it and said, “I might have.”
“Well, I’ve paid you good money for information. I want that information.”
“You only paid me a little less than half. It’ll cost you another three hundred to get what you want.”
Buckner looked over at Warren, who shrugged. Then, without protest, he opened his shirt to disclose a money belt. He took it off and dumped its contents on a blanket, which flanked a cold fire. From the pile of gold coins, he counted out another three hundred dollars in gold eagles and passed them over to Scoville.
Scoville, unwilling to pass up the chance to tender an insult, picked three coins at random, tested them with his teeth, and then pocketed them.
“All right. What do you want to know?”
“You said Bonsell had changed the boundaries of the Ulibarri grant. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I done the work myself.”
Buckner’s eyes narrowed. “How did you do it?”
“Buried charcoal in a pit and put the old stone in the middle of it, like the old corners was fixed.”
“You mean it looks like the old corner?”
“As near as I could make it.”
Buckner was quiet a moment. “How much land was taken off?”
“Along the west boundary, I reckon it was close to ten miles. Same on the north.”
Buckner looked at him shrewdly. “You’re lying, Peters.”
“All right, I’m lying.”
“Aren’t you?”
“That’s what you said. You ought to know. Of course, a man with brains might think of havin’ me show him.”
“I intend to do that,” Buckner said absently. “But on the face of it, it sounds like a lie. Bonsell wouldn’t dare do such a thing. How could he get away with it?”
“You ever see the old markers?” Scoville countered.
“No.”
“Then if you never saw the old markers, how would you know that they’d been changed?”
“Why, the records, of course.”
“All right. But when a man has that much land, he just takes it for granted. He don’t run to check the corners. He just asks his foreman to show him. An estimate is good enough.”
“Not for me.”
“No, he didn’t figure it would be good enough for you,” Scoville said. “Bonsell said you’d suspect your own mother of givin’ you lead quarters for the Sunday-school collection.”
Buckner flushed. “He did, did he? Well, what’s to stop me from prosecuting him?”
“Blackmail,” Scoville said mildly.
It gave him a feeling of pleasure to see the caution creep into Buckner’s eyes. “Blackmail?” he echoed. “What kind of blackmail?”
“He never said. Only he told us if you got salty about it, he always had somethin’ he could threaten you with.” That threat, Scoville thought, being his real identity.
Buckner considered this a long moment, and Scoville could almost see him weighing his chances. Could Max Bonsell gather definite proof that he was not James Buckner? The answer was no, Bonsell couldn’t, and it showed in the confident smile Buckner displayed.
“Now, my man, come along,” he said in a businesslike way. “I want to see the forged corners.”
“It’ll take a day’s ride.”
“Of course it will! Are you ready to ride?”
All that day they rode west, since San Jon was located just over the middle of the south boundary. It was a strange ride, one in which Scoville had a chance to gauge the mettle of Buckner. He found him a closemouthed man, not disposed to talk of his own affairs. On the other hand, he wanted to know the affairs of the Excelsior. He was amazed to hear that it had been burned down, but he received the news of the destruction of the squatters’ cattle with obvious pleasure. Of the fight on the ridge and the flight of the squatters, he knew nothing simply because Scoville did not know of it himself.
They camped at dark “close to the corner,” as Scoville put it, and Scoville slept peacefully, since he would be of use to them until they knew the exact location.
Next morning, bright and early, Scoville lead them to the corner marker. It lay atop the tallest ridge in sight. A great deal of work had been put in here by Ben and himself. Trees had been grubbed out by their roots, until the ridge was absolutely bald. Four tall cairns had been built, and in the center of them was yet a taller one. Under this lay the charcoal, and buried in it was the marker of soft sandstone, inscribed in Spanish after the corrective survey in the early 1800’s.
Buckner looked at it and remarked, “This is certainly fresh-looking. Not much attempt to disguise it.”
“One good rain and it would look a hundred years old,” Scoville said. “Just wash the dirt away and give that pile of brush time enough to dry out so it’ll burn. If you’d waited a month longer, you couldn’t have told it from the old one.”
“And where is it?”
“Over that next line of hills.”
Scoville pulled out his sack of tobacco and rolled a smoke, waiting for what was coming. Buckner looked at the ground carefully.
“This is skillful up to a point,” he said. “As I remember it, the record of the original survey says that on the southwest corner, the marker
lies on a butte, whose south face is of black malpais. I don’t see any malpais.”
Scoville shook his head. “No, you’re wrong. It says a butte of white quartz formation in the survey records. This may be a little over ten miles from the real marker, but it’s the only butte of white quartz formation we could find around here. That’s why we picked it.”
Buckner looked up swiftly. “No, my man, you’re wrong. It says a butte with a black face. Have you seen the survey records?”
“Hunh-unh. But Bonsell has, hasn’t he?”
Buckner nodded. “But he’s got it wrong if he says it speaks of a butte of white quartz.”
Scoville took the cigarette from his face and laughed. “If I had to bet between your memory and Bonsell’s, I’d bet on Bonsell’s. He never forgot a place he ever saw, a face he ever saw, or a name he ever read. And I can’t be mistaken because he picked this place out himself. The translation said, ‘From this butte of white quartz, a line was run ninety miles due east to—’”
“Eighty miles,” Buckner prompted.
“Ninety miles.”
“Eighty miles! Good God! Whose land is this, yours or mine?”
“Listen,” Scoville said sharply. “I ain’t feeble-minded. I’m repeatin’ what Bonsell said—and he said that. You got a charter for this land, ain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Can you read Spanish?”
“Of course.”
“So can Bonsell. He can speak it. And Bonsell said that charter translated meant that the grant was ninety by forty miles.”
Buckner looked at him in open amazement. “You mean Bonsell told you that?”
“I said it, didn’t I?”
“But translated it says eighty miles, not ninety miles.”
“You got it with you?” Scoville countered. “I know Spanish.”
“You fool, do you think I carry it with me?”
“I dunno. That’s what I asked.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I can find out when I get back to town.” He looked around him again, smiling. “Well, this butte business will prove a forgery. Bonsell got a look at those survey reports along with the charter one night. Apparently his memory isn’t as good as you suppose.”
Scoville shrugged indifferently, willing to let the matter drop. He had done what Jim Wade asked him to do, and that was to try and find out if Harvey Buckner had the charter with him. He did have, but just where, Scoville didn’t know.
Buckner turned to Scoville. “What did you say your real name was?”
Scoville’s hand dropped to his gun. He whipped it up before Ray Warren could make a move.
“Scoville,” he said. “You can tell that to Bonsell if you want. Just in case he denies it. Watch him when you give the name.” He waited.
“What’s the gun for?” Buckner asked.
“I’m just careful,” Scoville murmured. “I’ve got five hundred dollars on me. That curly wolf that rides with you would kill a man for white cigarette papers if he decided he didn’t like to smoke brown ones. I’m lightin’ a shuck. Anything else you’d like to know?”
Buckner smiled. “Nothing, thank you.”
“You’re good and damn welcome,” Scoville said. “If I can prove to you that Bonsell’s a crook and has been cheatin’ you, it’s worth a heap more than the gold you gave me. So long.”
Backing away, he led his horse down the slope and into the brush and rode off. Neither Warren nor Buckner made any attempt to follow him. He wondered if Buckner believed all this of Bonsell, and judged that he did. That done, there was only one thing remaining. He must try to find out where Buckner had the charter.
He waited until he judged the two of them had left, then swung back and picked up their trail. They were headed for town, riding at a long mile-eating trot, backtracking themselves. Every so often, on a height of land, he would pull up and glass the country. Ahead, not more than a mile, Buckner and Warren were riding east.
Scoville settled down to following them. In midmorning, he saw where their tracks split, one heading north, toward the hill hide-out where Scoville told Buckner Bonsell’s crew was holed up, the other heading for San Jon. On the next ridge, Scoville saw that it was Buckner who was riding for town and at a faster pace than formerly.
Once Scoville was sure of Buckner’s destination, he circled out and, alternating between a walk and a trot, struck out for town. It was a steady, mile-eating pace, and he knew that he would reach San Jon before Buckner.
Presently he struck the San Jon road, and just outside of town he stopped and pulled his horse back in the brush and watched the road.
In fifteen minutes Buckner rode by. Following at a safe distance, Scoville saw him ride into the plaza and pull up at the tie rail in front of the bank. He went inside, was there ten minutes, then came out. He walked over to Kling’s emporium, came out with a package, got his horse, put him up at the feed stable, and then went over to the hotel, just as the town was lighting up for dark.
Scoville tried to piece all these moves together and decided he couldn’t unless he knew one thing. He went into the bank and asked a clerk, “Did a big tall gent with a lantern jaw leave some papers here yesterday to be called for by another man, by that gent that just went out?”
The clerk said, “We aren’t allowed to give out that information.”
“I know. I don’t care about the papers. I just think I recognized him. Might be by the name of Warren?”
The clerk relented and said he thought that was the man’s name.
Scoville left, grinning. A little guessing might tell a man that the first thing Warren had done yesterday was to take the charter and other papers and ride in to the bank to put them in safekeeping for Buckner, who did not want his visit made public until he had talked with Scoville. That was borne out by the fact that Buckner had camped out last night, away from the town, whereas he was staying in the hotel tonight. His trip to the bank was to verify the survey words and the charter. His trip to the store was probably for a clean shirt. He had no baggage, no place else to hide the papers, or he would have carried them with him. And he would not carry them with him because it was too dangerous.
Scoville smiled a little as he waited for clean dark. Then he could tell Mary and Cope and Jim Wade something that would please them, please them mightily.
Chapter Fourteen: PLAYED FOR A SUCKER
Bonsell’s camp was in the dip between two ridges far off to the west of where the Excelsior buildings had stood. It was a shallow bowl, deep enough to afford shelter and to hide the sight of the fire, but it was a place commanding all the country surrounding. An easy place to defend, an easy place to escape from, a good hiding-place because a rider traveling either side of this ridge would not suspect there was a depression atop it capable of holding a dozen men and their horses.
His guards were numerous, and they stayed awake. One of them had spotted Ray Warren in early afternoon and had watched him try four different ridges in his attempt to find the camp. When dark came, the guard stepped out, hunted Warren down, and, at the point of a gun, asked him his business. Warren told him, and was taken back to camp.
He left his horse outside the circle of firelight and picked his way through the lounging Excelsior crew to the fire, over which Bonsell was squatting.
Bonsell looked up at his approach and, seeing him, smiled. He knew Warren well enough to distrust him, simply because the man was utterly loyal to Harvey Buckner.
They shook hands, and Bonsell said, “Didn’t know you were in the country, Ray. How’s the boss?”
“He’s here, too. At the hotel in San Jon.”
Bonsell’s eyes grew wary. Funny Buckner didn’t tell him about his visit, he thought. But he only said, “Good. I got a present for him.”
“What’s that?”
“This range is clean, now. We run the last of them squatters off last night.”
“He’ll be glad to hear that,” Warren said. “He wants you to ride in tomorrow for a t
alk.”
“Anything wrong?”
“I dunno. Just reckon he wants to straighten a few things up.”
Bonsell nodded carelessly. “Eaten anything today?”
“Damn little.”
Bonsell got up and went over to the grub box. A quarter of beef wrapped in a tow-sack hung from a branch of a tree beside the box. He took it down, slapped his pockets, then called idly, “Who’s got a knife?”
Ball had one. He came over and tendered it to Bonsell, then held the quarter while Bonsell sliced off some steaks.
While he was bent over his work, Bonsell murmured, “Ball, if you can hear me clear your throat.”
Ball cleared his throat.
“Go out and lame Warren’s horse. Pull a shoe. Sabe?”
Again Ball cleared his throat. With his steaks and some cold biscuits, Bonsell went back to the fire. Warren was still warming his hands, talking with Pardee. Bonsell joined in the conversation as he prepared a meal of steaks, biscuits, and coffee, and afterward Warren ate. They talked of the right the squatters had put up, and marveled at what stubborn men they were. Bonsell obliquely tried to question Warren as to the reasons for Buckner’s visit, but Warren wasn’t telling anything. His secrecy only verified what Bonsell had suspected; there was something Buckner had on his chest. And he was going to get to Buckner alone when he didn’t have that gunnie of a Warren to side him.
After they had smoked, Warren rose and said, “I’ll be gettin’ back to town.”
Bonsell politely invited him to throw his blankets here, and Warren just as politely refused.
“Then see you tomorrow in San Jon,” Bonsell said.
Warren talked a moment with some of the crew, then walked over to his horse, mounted, waved, and rode off.
As soon as he was out of sight, Bonsell said to Pardee, “Saddle my black and be quick about it.”