by John Benteen
And that, Gaylord thought, hunkered against the chill wind, was where Fielding had outsmarted them. Wyoming’s charter was unique in giving women voting rights. Until now they’d hardly used them, and had been no factor in Warshield or Colter County. But Fielding and Carla had seen the opportunity and seized it. Gaylord would not underestimate the lawyer again, and Gruber would do well not to.
“Frank,” Jonas said tautly.
A shadow moved in the dusk. “Charlie,” a voice came softly, and the half-breed appeared from behind a clump of boulders. He sniffled, dragged a hand across his nose. “It’s the Chain men, okay. Camped up the draw. That one with a sawed-off and a face like he’s been dead a year—what’s his name?”
“Lang,” Gaylord said.
“Him and three others.”
“How far ahead of us you reckon those horses are, Charlie?”
Crippled Deer considered. “They passed this way four hours ago; the Chain men, one.”
“They been on the run ever since they lifted them animals.” Gaylord thought aloud. “They’re likely almost to the county line by now, but not quite. Those horses will be dead beat, they got to rest and water. And they couldn’t make any time through this country in the dark anyhow.” He paused, in his mind unreeling a map of the county. “Bone Canyon, I expect. There’s water there and grass, and it would be easy to hold the bunch. We got time. They won’t travel again until the moon’s up, at the earliest, and likely not before first light. Okay, let’s mount and join up with Chain. Charlie, you lead the way.”
Filing up the draw behind the half-breed, Gaylord thoughtfully chewed a match. Gruber had not told him which men he’d dispatched after the thieves: he was not pleased to find Lang among them. The skull-faced gunman set his teeth on edge, the kind of man he’d have rousted long ago if he weren’t on Chain’s payroll. Gaylord had seen brass tacks, at least a dozen of them, driven in the shotgun’s stock. It was not an affection he respected. Well, he would handle Lang—or send him back to Chain.
Crippled Deer drew rein. “They’re over in that side draw, where it fans out in a holler.”
“Right enough. You two stay here.” Gaylord put his horse around the half-breed and rode up the side draw. The taint of campfire smoke was strong in his nostrils; presently he saw the glow of flames. Pulling up his mount, he boomed: “Lang! It’s Frank Gaylord!”
A moment’s silence. Then Lang’s voice came back to him, dry and raspy, the kind of voice a skull would have if one could talk. “Gaylord? All right, ride in slow, until we recognize you.”
He put the sorrel forward toward the fire, saw, where the draw widened, the four men well away from the light, dark shapes standing tensely, and he knew that guns were trained on him.
“You see me now, Lang?”
“We see you. Come up, Gaylord.”
He turned in the saddle and called to Jonas and Crippled Deer. Then he rode on into the firelight and dismounted. “Hello, Gaylord.” Lang came forward, shotgun cradled in his arm’s crook. “You know these others? Fisher, Harmon, Lightner?”
“Gentlemen,” Gaylord said as Jonas and Crippled Deer rode in. “How’s the coffee situation?”
“Enough left, I reckon.” Lang, lean, almost skinny, in his middle thirties, turned to the fire and the light danced on hollow cheeks, shadowed the sockets of deep-set eyes. When it touched his pupils they gleamed with an odd, reddish light. Thin lips seemed never to quite close over big, yellow teeth. “That half-breed better have his own cup.”
“If he hasn’t, he can drink out of mine,” Gaylord said coldly. Jonas and Charlie dismounted, and the coffee was poured; Crippled Deer lacked a cup and Gaylord passed him his. “You made some time,” he said to Lang.
“We’ll get ’em tomorrow,” Lang said.
“No. Tonight. Tomorrow they’ll be across the county line.”
“County line. What difference does that make?”
“Plenty, to me,” Gaylord said. “They cross the line, I have no jurisdiction.”
Lang’s lips peeled back in a ghastly grin. “This has jurisdiction everywhere,” he said, touching the shotgun barrels.
Gaylord did not answer. Instead, he went to his horse and opened a saddlebag. The metal stars he took from it gleamed in the firelight as he turned, holding them cradled in one big palm. “All right,” he said, “line up here. All four of you.”
Lang looked at the stars. “We don’t need that tin.”
“You wear this tin or you head back to Chain,” Gaylord said.
Lang straightened up. “Not if it means we got to stop at the county line.”
Gaylord ignored that. “Raise your right hands and repeat after me … ”
Lang sucked in breath. “Now, you listen, Gaylord—”
“No, you listen,” Gaylord said. His eyes raked the four men coldly. The other three were no petunia blossoms, he thought, but they were not in Lang’s class. “I am the sheriff of this county and I’m deputizing the bunch of you. Once you pin on that star, you take my orders or I’ll have your hide. You don’t want to wear it, you get out now. Make up your minds.”
Lang stared at him, lips peeled back from teeth. Then he grinned crookedly, a ghastly twist of mouth. Slowly he raised his right hand. “All right. Whatever happens, it’s up to you to straighten it out with Gruber.”
“Repeat after me,” Gaylord said, ignoring that. “I, whatever your name is, do solemnly swear … ”
They mumbled it. He handed them the badges and watched while they pinned them on. “Now,” he said. “Fifteen minutes. Then we put out that fire and ride.”
“You’re the boss,” said Lang, but his eyes were hard and there was mockery in his voice.
Gaylord led them, with Charlie right behind and Jonas bringing up the rear. It was not a matter of trailing, now, but of instinct and knowledge. Long years behind a badge had taught him to think like a variety of wild and dangerous men: he could put himself in the boots of rustlers, highwaymen, bank robbers, and horse thieves. In the first place, these stock lifters should still have no idea that they were being trailed; secondly, they had pushed their stolen horseflesh to the limits of its endurance. And in the third place, they obviously knew the country, and Bone Canyon was probably where they had been heading all along. A gamble, but all the pieces fit, so it was as close to a sure thing as he needed. They could make some time and reach Bone Canyon by two hours after midnight. That was just right, for at that time of morning the human spirit—and a man’s alertness—was at its lowest ebb. He remembered how he and Clint had hit Dann and Hoff at that time ... and then put the memory from his mind. To wipe it out he thought of Florence.
He had kept his promise to her; he had been at Chain every free moment to see her. And she had kept hers to him; she had come to Warshield every week. And the door to that whole new world Gaylord had glimpsed that first night at Chain had now swung wide. There had been long rides together, alone, and the pleasure of showing her his country. And there had been endless talking, and more than talking; there was passion beneath that sweet exterior, a passion that drew her to his arms and had her returning his kisses with what was almost wantonness. They understood and knew each other now, and Gaylord could see a dazzling future stretching before him: Sheriff Gaylord and his wife, later, maybe, Congressman Gaylord and his lady. Even, perhaps, Governor Gaylord, with Florence by his side ... A heady dream for a man not used to dreaming, but one now within his grasp, almost. First, of course, he had to get reelected. Without that he was nothing; without his badge he had reached a dead end. And he was not without rivals, either; Hart, the young Englishman, had his eye on her. “But really,” Florence had laughed. “He’s so effete, so effeminate—compared to you.” And then, eyes kindling, smile fading, lips parting: “Kiss me again, Frank.”
Governor Gaylord. No, it was not beyond possibility. Neither was a big ranch, with the right backing, and some sons and daughters with yellow hair. ... Hell, Gaylord thought, with a woman like that, the sky’s th
e limit. A man would be a fool not to shoot as high as he can reach. ... Then he reined in, and so did Charlie Crippled Deer. Because both of them had recognized an overhang of rock: they were nearing the entrance to Bone Canyon.
“Charlie,” Gaylord said.
The one word was all the half-Crow needed; he was off his horse in an instant, scuttling up a ridge, crouched low, making no sound at all, quickly lost in darkness. The others waited, without words. Gaylord was thinking of the canyon’s shape, like a buttonhole, narrow entrance, narrow exit, swag in the middle. Lang started to roll a cigarette, but Gaylord seized his bony hand. “No fire,” he said. “No light.”
It seemed, there in the cold darkness, like an eternity, but in reality only twenty minutes passed before Crippled Deer materialized from nowhere. “Jesus,” Lang said, swinging up his shotgun as the man appeared.
But Gaylord blocked him off. “Well?”
Charlie was panting slightly. “They’re there, all right. Got both ends roped off and they’re sound asleep.”
“Okay,” Gaylord said. “Charlie, you guide Jonas and Lightner to the north end, block it, and take cover. Drop Harmon on the west rim as you go. I’ll put Fisher on the east. Lang and I’ll block the south end. When you’ve put down your man, give your coyote yap, just loud enough for us to hear it. Then we’ll move in from each end. You men on the rim, you cover us, but don’t you open fire unless they do. You’re just our insurance. The idea’s to surprise ’em while they sleep, and take ’em alive. I’ll have the ass, every scrap of it, of any man who opens fire before they do or I do. That understood?”
“Good Christ, Gaylord,” Lang snapped. “If they’re asleep, we can shoot the bunch—”
Gaylord turned on him. “You hear what I said? They go in alive to face a judge. You shoot before I tell you to, you’ll face one, too. And I’ll swear out the warrant.”
“Gruber—” Lang began.
“Can’t save you, and he won’t, if I’m after you,” Gaylord said. “Now, you understand? We’re not out here to tally brass tacks for that greener.”
“All right,” Lang grated finally.
“Charlie, move out,” Gaylord said.
He waited until Crippled Deer and his men were gone. “You stay here,” he told Lang, and he and Fisher went on foot in darkness. Gaylord got him to the heights on the east rim and stationed him in good cover behind a rock-burst. “You lay doggo unless they resist. Got it?”
“You’re the boss,” Fisher said, and Gaylord scuttled off. His body ached with weariness as he silently descended to the canyon mouth, but he ignored it, except to think: Clint would still be fresh and rarin’ ... Maybe, after all, it was a job for a younger man. Then he thought of Clint trying to deal with Lang, and he shook his head. No. Clint lacked a wad, yet, of having what it took to run Colter County …
“Lang,” he whispered. “Gaylord. Coming in.”
“All right.”
He joined the skull-faced man in the cover of a bend of the canyon’s mouth. “Now we wait,” he said.
Lang whispered an obscenity.
Gaylord crouched there by him in the darkness, yearning for a cigarette, feeling the tension that always came before the risk. But when he moved out he would be all right. Meanwhile, he was conscious of Lang’s smell. He himself stank, after his long ride, but Lang’s odor was worse, that of someone long unwashed, a kind of rotting smell.
Time passed. The moon was long since up but clouds veiled it nearly totally. Down canyon, Gaylord heard horses almost too tired to graze. Their own were tied far enough away, with the wind right, so that neither they nor the bunch in the canyon would catch each other’s scent and give alarm.
Waiting was part of it, always had been. That was how you took your men alive. Damn, did Lang never bathe?
Then it came, the yapp-yurr of a coyote, from three quarters of a mile away, wholly authentic. But Gaylord recognized it for what it was. His pulses hammered. Now. Time to move out.
“Let’s go,” he whispered. “And remember, hold your fire unless they shoot or I do.”
He held his Winchester at low port as, slightly crouched, he moved forward, feeling his way for maximum silence. They passed through the narrow canyon mouth and entered the loop of the buttonhole. Gaylord saw the glow of fire embers, like a red star fallen to earth, three hundred yards ahead. Men exhausted by a long, grueling day would lie around it in their blankets. Dead to the world, easy meat.
He cast a glance to his right, at Lang. The man had fighting savvy, all right. Like a wraith, shotgun raised, he seemed to drift over the ground. And now the fire was only two hundred yards away. There was plenty of time. Ten minutes to cover the next hundred and fifty. Down-canyon, horses snorted, shifted, one neighed: Charlie Crippled Deer and Jonas were coming through them.
By the fire, a form lifted, a man coming up under blankets, propped on his elbows. The horse down canyon whickered again. “What—” Gaylord heard the mumbled word, saw the body twist, fumbling—maybe for a weapon.
He ran forward. “Don’t move!” he roared. “You’re covered, all of you! Hands up! It’s the law, Frank Gaylord speaking!”
Jonas snapped, from the other side, fifty yards away, “You heard the man! Stand fast! First bad break and you’re dead!”
Jonas, Gaylord thought, had the stuff. He’d make a sheriff someday. His voice was right.
The awakened man froze, then turned his head, his face a white blotch in the darkness. “Gaylord?” he said groggily. And now the other two were sitting up. “It’s Gaylord,” the first man said. “Boys, he’s got us cold. For God’s sake, don’t drag iron.”
And then, that simply, it was over. And yet it was not simple at all, Gaylord thought: only seemingly so because he and Charlie knew the country and he knew his business. A man who knew his business always made hard things look easy.
“Charlie,” he said, “build up the fire.”
The half-breed piled the wood they’d gathered onto the embers. Meanwhile, Jonas warily collected guns. “Sheriff,” he said, “near as I can tell, they’re slick.”
“We’ll see. On your feet, you men. Hands on your heads. Face the fire. I’ll shoot the first one breaks bad.”
In the firelight, they staggered out of bedding, still stunned and groggy, and Gaylord felt a kind of sadness. He knew one of them, Tully Wyatt. Short and heavyset, a Chain rider last year: he stood out in Gaylord’s mind because he carried a banjo with him everywhere he went and played it superbly at the least excuse. He had been in demand for dances last year. “For God’s sake ... Tully!”
“It’s me, I’m afeared, Frank.” Wyatt’s voice was dull and heavy.
“Who’re these other two?”
“Henderson and Wilson,” Lang rasped before Wyatt could answer. “Chain men, too, until last summer.”
They were hardly more than kids, Gaylord thought. Still, he was thoroughly professional as he shook them down, checking cuffs, backs of waistbands and, boot-tops for knives. But they were slick, all right. A pistol each, and one rifle among them, comprised their armament.
“Goddamnit, I never have no luck,” Tully Wyatt said. Greedily he drank his second cup of coffee. “I’d’ve sworn it would have been a week before anybody even knew those hawses was gone. But that blasted wagon—”
“Tully,” said Gaylord. “You oughta have known better anyhow.”
Dawn was near now, the sky streaked with gray. “Maybe,” Tully Wyatt said. Then he laughed bitterly. “Anyhow, I got a square meal out of it. That’s more than me and the other boys have had since God knows when. Since Chain blacklisted us, anyhow.”
“Blacklisted you,” Gaylord said. He leaned against his saddle, rifle cradled in his lap. Physically, he felt a sense of well-being: it had turned out that the rustlers had neither coffee nor food; they had not eaten all day. But Gaylord’s men and the Chain riders were well supplied: a big meal had been cooked and then cleaned up by everybody, rustlers and lawmen alike. The horse thieves’ weapons
were stacked well out of reach; anyhow, Gaylord had sized them up as not dangerous. Three young cowboys, none of them as old as Clint ... and now years in prison faced them.
Well, that was how it went, and you trained yourself to quench any feelings about it you might have. “What do you mean?” he went on. “Blacklisted?”
“Hell, Sheriff, you know,” said Henderson, whose four-day beard was mostly pale fuzz. “Or maybe you don’t. You never had to work for thirty a month and scant and greasy found like us.”
“I’ve served my time lookin’ at a cow’s rump,” Gaylord said.
“Not for an outfit like that Chain,” Wyatt snapped, and his round face had lost its good humor. “Anyhow, it was the food that got us blacklisted. Spring roundup last year, and all the other wagons was eating good. Take Hart’s outfit for example, you could bang the coffeepot anytime you took a notion, and there was pie once a day. But Chain? Good Christ A’mighty! Day in, day out, beef and beans. Same thing three times a day, the whole roundup. And that’s where me and Woodie Henderson and Larry Wilson got crosswise. Major Gruber rode out one day, and we braced him. Goddamnit, all we wanted was pie like the other outfits got; we thought he didn’t know what was goin’ on and would set it right. I mean, your friend Lang there was wagon boss, and Lang don’t eat nothin’ anyhow. So we thought we’d take our bitch to the major.”
“Go on,” said Gaylord.
“Well, there ain’t no more,” Wyatt said. “He clouded up and rained all over us. If we didn’t like the chuck, we could haul our freight! He paid us off then and there, like we was slaves or dawgs or somethin’, and chased us out of camp. Okay, to hell with him. Plenty of other outfits need riders at roundup time. Well, we have wandered all over Wyomin’. And there ain’t a job to be had, not the minute we let our names loose. I mean, it took a while to sink in, but then we had it. Somebody had laid the black-ass on us. Well, by God, we damned near starved. We would’ve, if it hadn’t been for my ol’ banjo! I picked up a buck here, a buck there, to keep us through the summer playin’ it. Then we tried the fall roundup.”