“He didn’t come this way,” one of the posse volunteered.
“This was the closest water so we circled around.” He looked at Stan again. “Do I know you?”
“I haven’t been around long,” Stan said. “Just came in to help out a little.”
“Well, they can use it. Carrie’s all right but she’s not up to all she has to do. I hope you can help her, son. I hope you can.”
He heard the buckboard coming as they led their horses to the trough. He felt his mouth go dry.
Several of the men had remained in the saddle. His own horse was unsaddled and in the stable. He was trapped, his stomach gone hollow, his heart beating with slow, heavy throbs.
The buckboard came up in a clatter and a rattle and swung into the yard. A pair of matched grays driven by a girl. A girl with red hair and freckles.
The girl from the hotel.
CHAPTER 2
The red-haired girl’s eyes were upon him. Her surprise obvious.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he heard himself saying, “I haven’t done much yet. But I’ll get to it.”
“I guess we interrupted, Carrie,” the man with the badge said, “comin’ up the way we did. But I’m glad you’ve got some help until things get straightened out. If there’s anything we can do…”
“No, Mr. Blake,” she replied, “Stan will take care of things. I have an idea he will prove to be the best hand we ever had. If he doesn’t,” she added, smiling, “you will be the first to know.”
“ ’Day, ma’am. We’ll be ridin’ on.”
“I think you must be, Sheriff. There’s been a hanging.”
Stan felt a chill finger run along his spine. He stood very still. “They caught a man in town, and he’d been spending that new gold…like that stolen from the stage. When they searched him they found a lot of it and, well…I believe they were kind of hasty.”
Blake’s face showed angry impatience. “Damn it, I—!” Then he looked to her. “Sorry, ma’am, but they should have held him for trial. This here lynching has got to stop.”
He swung his horse and rode out, followed by his posse.
For a moment Carrie and Stan simply stared at each other, then she said, “Put up the horses. Then come into the house. I think we should have a talk.”
She got down from the buckboard before he could move to help. She looked straight into his eyes, a cool, searching glance.
She was pretty, he realized suddenly, very pretty. The few freckles only made her more attractive. He had always liked girls with freckles, anyway.
He took the team into the shadowed recesses of the stable and stripped off the harness, hanging it on hooks left for the purpose. He took his time, trying to think it out.
Where did she stand in all this? Why hadn’t she given him away? How had she gotten his name? Was this her ranch? What had she meant when she added that comment to the sheriff that if he did not pan out he would be the first to know?
He could saddle up and run, but his direction was the way the posse had been searching, and if he left here now there would be questions, too many questions.
He dried his hands on his pants, wiped the sweatband of his hat, and started for the house.
Coffee was on and it smelled good. When he removed his hat and stepped into the house there were two cups and saucers on the table along with bread and butter and some cold slices of meat.
“Sit right down,” she said, “I’ll be only a minute.”
He sat down carefully, holding his hat in his hand. It was a cool, pleasant room with window curtains, rag rugs on the floor, and a couple of oval, tinted pictures on the wall. One was of a man with a round head and a collar that was a size too large, the other a dignified-looking woman with her hair done up on top of her head except for three curls on each side of her face. They looked like all the other pictures of people he had ever seen.
There was a Bible on the table, a big, square old-fashioned Bible with heavy leather covers. There was a coal-oil lamp and in the corner some shelves with books, about twenty of them, and some stacks of Godey’s Lady’s Book. The room was neat, clean, and quiet.
In a moment she came in, poured coffee, and sat down. She looked across the table at him. A pretty girl, he thought again, but a stubborn one.
She smoothed her skirt over her lap, then she lifted her cup. “The first thing you must understand,” she said, “is that you are my prisoner.”
“What?” He was not sure he had heard right. “What did you say?”
“One word from me and you would be arrested, perhaps hung. I shall not give that word unless I must. If you do your work properly and conduct yourself correctly I shall not give it.”
“I have done nothing,” he said, which was a small lie. He had participated in a holdup, even if it had been done without criminal intent.
“That is no concern of mine,” she said primly. “That would be for the courts to decide…if it ever got so far. My concern is this ranch. My father has been injured. It will be weeks before he is able to work, and it may be months. In the meantime, I have you.”
He did not believe it. He stared at her, shocked. “Now see here,” he began, “I—”
“You see here! As you noticed, the sheriff is a friend. So is every man on that posse. So are many of the people around here. If you leave before I permit you to leave, or if anything happens to me, you will be caught and hung…hanged.”
He studied her for a minute. “You know,” he said, “you’re not a very nice girl.”
She flushed to the roots of her hair, but her chin lifted. “My character is not under discussion. Each day until you understand the situation here I shall lay out your work. Each day I shall expect a report that the work has been completed.
“The weather is good. You will sleep under that farthest cottonwood. When you are on the home ranch you will have your meals here with me. You will attend strictly to business. From time to time there will be visitors. Talk to them as little as possible and perhaps I can keep you alive.”
“What about wages?”
“You—? You speak to me of wages?”
“Yes, ma’am. I will want wages. Slavery has been outlawed in this country. I shall want thirty dollars a month and found, payable at the end of the month. If you don’t want it that way, turn me in.”
She stared at him, uncertain whether he was bluffing or not. His features were bland, unreadable. Suddenly uncertain herself, she wavered. Then she said, “I see no harm in that. If you were not here I should have to pay someone else.
“Also,” she continued, “I shall want your gun. You will not need one here.”
“I have no gun. I have no firearm. Neither rifle nor pistol. They were taken by the man who murdered Bud Aylmer.”
Obviously, she did not believe him, but before she could speak he said, “Please think back. You saw me in the hotel. If I had been carrying a weapon you would have seen it.”
He finished his coffee and stood up. “If you have no further need of me, I’ll be going. In the meantime you might list the things that need to be done.”
—
He went outside and stopped in the morning sunshine. He should get out of here, get as far away as he could, yet he was certain she would do just as she threatened and Stan had no doubts about that sheriff—he was a tough man.
Her name was Carrie…Carrie what?
What kind of a spot had he gotten into, anyway? How long did she expect to hold him here? Until her father returned? And what if he never got well?
Stan Brodie, he told himself, play it cool, play it smart, and when the chance comes…run!
He had never been given to idleness, and the presence of work was the occasion for work. He started by repairing the corral gate, which needed fixing. Then he forked hay to the horses. The hay started him wondering. It was good meadow hay, and the meadows spoke of low ground, possibly water. He had seen little water coming here and most of the range closer to town was indifferent, at best.
He led out his horse and saddled up. As he tightened the cinch he looked across the saddle at the house, and she was standing in the door with a rifle in her hands.
“You wouldn’t be thinking of leaving?” she suggested.
“Just thought I might ride out and see where that hay came from. If I am to be of any help I’d better get acquainted with your range.”
He rested his hands on the saddle. “You know, if you’re going to keep an eye on me you’d better ride along. I might just decide to take out of here.”
“There’s the sheriff,” she replied, “and that posse. Then there’s that rough crowd in town who might want another hanging. I am not worried about your leaving.”
She lowered the rifle. “Ride north two miles. That point of rock with the white streak of quartz in it marks our corner. Then ride east for six miles or just about that. You will see a hole in the rock, high up. That’s the Keyhole. Everybody around here knows it. Ride south four miles to Two Cabin Creek and about a quarter of a mile further on you will come to our line fence. Then come back here.”
“Sounds like quite a layout.”
“It could be. If you see any riders over toward Two Cabin, stay clear of them. They won’t be friendly.”
“May I ask why?”
“They want the water in Two Cabin. They settled over beyond there knowing they couldn’t make it without our water and knowing it belonged to us.”
Stan Brodie considered that. “What happened to your father?”
“His horse fell with him.”
“Where’s the horse?”
“We had to destroy him. He broke his leg.”
This was a wide and empty land where the short-grass plains ran up to the mountains and lost themselves in the open mouths of the canyons. Yet it was a deceptive land, for viewed from afar it seemed only one vast plain of gently rolling hills with here and there a butte or mesa standing stark against the sky. Riding over it one found that the plains and rolling hills were cut by shallow canyons and the dry streambeds that ran only in the hours following heavy rain.
Stan Brodie had punched cows in just such terrain, and rode warily. Without a gun he felt naked and exposed. He had climbed somewhat and the grass seemed greener, due no doubt to some pattern of prevailing winds and rainfall. Miles away he could see what he was sure was the Keyhole, the rock Carrie had mentioned.
There were a few longhorns mingled with some of the whiteface cattle they were beginning to bring into the country. Dipping into a grassy hollow near an arroyo he came upon the ruins of an adobe house, gutted by fire. A lean-to barn some distance away was also burned…Indians probably.
Suddenly a buzzard flew up, then another. He rounded a turn in the arroyo and before him lay the remains of a dead horse. Two more buzzards flew up and he drew near. This must be Carrie’s father’s horse.
Buzzards had been at work on the carcass, but the forepart was little damaged. He glanced at the broken leg. It had been a bad break, offering no chance to save the horse. He was about to ride on when something else caught his attention. Swinging from the saddle, he walked back.
Across the front of the horse’s leg right above the break the skin was broken, a straight-across gash that had cut to the bone. The animal must have run full tilt into something, maybe the bottom wire of a fence, tripping the horse and throwing the rider.
He returned to his horse and mounted, but he did not ride away. That horse had ridden into something, a taut wire it looked like, yet such a wire in a canyon like this was unlikely. He looked around, studying the rocks and the ground.
Whatever tripped that horse had to be close by. No horse was going far with a leg like that.
He wished he had a gun.
He walked his mustang down the canyon, then pulled up. A lot of hoof tracks…This must be where the horse had fallen, then it stumbled up and hobbled around.
The horse would have been killed when they found Carrie’s father.
What had that horse tripped over? Had Carrie guessed that the horse tripped?
No wire.
The canyon widened a little and there was a cove on each side. He walked his horse over and checked one cove. Nothing. In the other he found the tracks of two horses and the stubs of cigarettes smoked by men who waited here. One of them smoked his cigarettes tight and small.
But were those tracks and cigarette stubs left before or after the accident?
He glanced back toward the dead horse, out of sight now. Walking his horse, he studied the rocks on both sides of the small canyon.
Turning, he strolled back down the canyon, keeping his horse beside him. One wall of the rocks was honeycombed and pitted, and suddenly he saw what he had been expecting: a place on the edge of one of the holes where something had chafed the rock.
Squatting on his heels, he glanced into the shallow hole. It joined another hole not over a foot away. A wire had been run into one hole and out the other, then tied to itself outside the holes.
He stood up and glanced directly across. A juniper, squat and gnarled, stood just opposite. Walking over he could see where something had scratched the bark.
He walked back, brushing out any tracks he might have made, then mounted. Someone had stretched a wire across the canyon at that point, then somehow, by a shot or some other means, had startled Carrie’s father or the horse into a run. Hitting the wire he had spilled over, breaking the horse’s leg and injuring himself.
Stan glanced around quickly. He had better get away from here, and fast. Quickly he turned his horse into some deep sand in the bottom of the arroyo where no defined hoofprints would be left, then he climbed out of the arroyo and lost himself along a hillside covered with juniper. It was scattered, but in places it was quite heavy. He was barely under cover when he glimpsed three riders. Reining in, he waited in a clump of five thick juniper trees, watching the riders.
He had never been one to decorate bridle or saddle with flashy ornaments and he was glad for that now, for they picked up the sunlight and could be seen for miles. The three riders came along up the hill on a line that would take them within fifty yards of where he sat.
There was no escape. The best thing he could do would be to sit still and hope they did not see him.
Stan Brodie was without illusions. Nothing in his twenty-two years had given them fertile ground for breeding. Still, he had his own dreams and aspirations, and none of them included being killed. He had no enmity for any man but trusted few of them.
If these riders did not ride for Carrie they had no business being where they were, and if they had no business there it was likely they would not wish to be seen.
He had no loyalty to Carrie. She had taken advantage of his seeming guilt to use him for her own purposes, and he had no choice but to go along until he could choose a time for escape.
What he wished to avoid was getting in deeper while he waited.
He was positive an attempt had been made to kill her father, and if it had not succeeded it was not for lack of trying. The attempt was sufficient to convince him they would stop at nothing…and here he was, unarmed, and within easy rifle-shot of them.
He spoke softly to his horse, whose ears were pricked toward the oncoming riders.
That these men were among those who were trying to get Carrie’s water he had no doubt, and they would assume he was a spy.
He had made a fool of himself once and he did not intend to do so again. Every time he had gotten into trouble it was from keeping bad company…but how was he to know about Tex? Yet, he admitted, he had known. He had not trusted him from the first. It was the whiskey that mellowed his doubt of the man.
The man they hung in town? Could that have been Tex? Possible, but unlikely. It was more likely that stranger he met on the trail had gone back, looked, and found the stolen gold Stan had hidden under the pack rat’s nest.
Yet Tex could still be around. Certainly, he had known that bartender.
The riders turned sharply away fro
m him and began to spread out. Then for the first time he saw that several head of whiteface cattle had come into the open below him. The three riders rode toward them and hazed them off toward the west. That they were Carrie’s cattle he could not doubt, but he was unarmed and men who had killed once would not hesitate to do so again.
With the cattle drifting west the three turned back and rode up the hill toward him. Suddenly one of them pulled up sharply and called out.
Stan swore bitterly. They had found his tracks. One glanced up the hill toward the clump of trees, then scanned the side of the hill to right and left.
Abruptly they turned and rode down the hill. Stan mopped his brow. Of course, they did not know if he was still up here, nor would they guess he was unarmed.
And that gave him an idea.
CHAPTER 3
When he rode into the ranch-yard Carrie came to the door. “Supper’s ready.”
A thought came to him that was disturbing. “When you drove up in the buckboard you called me by name. How did you know it?”
“I heard somebody call you that in town.”
Now a gentleman did not call a lady a liar, but that simply was not true. Nobody in town knew his name. Tex and Bud had only known him as Montana, a name he had given himself on the spur of the moment. So how could she have known?
“I saw three riders,” he commented at supper.
“On our ranch?”
“Yep.”
“Did you order them off?”
He gave her a wry smile. “Three armed and unpleasant men? And me without a gun?”
She was irritated. “Well, perhaps I was foolish. You’d better wear a gun. Get yours out and carry it.”
“I don’t have one.”
She started to reply angrily, then stopped. “But if you don’t have a gun, then how—?”
She was wondering how he could have held up the stage, and he saw no harm in letting her wonder. “I don’t have a weapon of any kind,” he said, “but this knife.” He put his hand on the haft.
“That man…the one they found in the hotel…he had been killed with a knife. They found it.”
Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists Page 33