Dark Angel Riding

by Paul Lederer

  Chapin, seated at the table with a cup of coffee between his hands, was in no mood for any further conversation, but Dancer did ask for and receive instructions anew on how to locate the flats.

  Therefore, he started out through the bright cheerless morning toward the round-up camp. The sun was bright on the remaining dewdrops, scattering jewels across the buffalo grass. Star-flowers and blue gentian seemed to have sprung up and blossomed overnight with the new moisture. These low-growing flowers carpeted the long land prettily. As Dancer passed he startled a covey of desert quail and they took briefly to flight before hiding themselves away in a brushy thicket.

  He could smell the herd before he could see it, and he could hear it clearly. Half a thousand steers milling and lowing in the near distance. Pleased with the warming sunlight, they nevertheless were uneasy, wishing to be pushed onto fresh graze. The low hills were rocky and mostly barren, but the flats when Dancer reached them, were long-spreading and stained with the green of grass. The herd, moving about restlessly, raised a constant bovine clamor. Horns clicked together like castanets. They resented being held so closely packed together.

  Two cowboys circled the herd, holding them in a tight bunch. Three or four dogs could also be seen, biting at the hocks of any rogue steer that tried to make a break for the long desert beyond. A low mesquite-wood fire burned near the herd’s head. Three or four cowhands crouched near it, sipping coffee or standing to watch the new morning arrive. Branding-irons were being heated there, ready to slap on a trail brand for the mingled Rafter B, Champion and Weaver cattle, readying them for their long drive to Carson City where the cattle would shortly become table beef for the miners all along the Comstock Lode from Silver City to Elko – men who had no time to waste raising food for themselves while silver and gold waited to be discovered in the heart of the hills.

  Dancer slowed Washoe as they made their way down the rocky slope to the flats proper. Heads lifted around the fire and one man pointed, calling out something unintelligible across the distances. Several of the men rushed to their ponies and swung into their saddles. Two of these had unlimbered their rifles as Dancer approached. He held his free hand high to indicate his lack of hostility and halted Washoe. His gesture apparently did nothing to cool tempers. Rather, other men rushed to join them, whooping and yelling to each other and the band of men raced toward Dancer in an angry flood. At their head rode Charley Spikes, and before asking any questions the bearded man, at the gallop, raised the butt of his rifle to his shoulder and triggered off a near shot.

  SIX

  Dancer kicked free of his stirrups. Astonished, angered at this turn of events he rolled to the rocky ground, bruising his shoulder and knee. He drew his Colt, knowing that he had no chance against the half-dozen men riding down on him. But why were they! There was no second shot from the ranks of the cowboys. Perhaps they believed that the single shot from Charley Spikes’s repeater had found its mark.

  Before the horsemen had reached him, Dancer had risen to one knee and with his hair hanging in his eyes he leveled his Colt in their direction. He did not wish to shoot another man, but neither did he wish to be ridden over and gunned down by the boiling mass of riders. Above the storm of sound produced by the onrushing hoofs, the whoops of the cowhands, an authoritative voice boomed out.

  ‘Hold up there! What in hell are you doing, Charley! Hold up, men!’

  Dancer glanced over his shoulder to see a rider arriving from the opposite direction. It was Jared Fine, sitting a lathered black stallion. He must have been riding hard after the first shot exploded in the silence of the bright morning. Dancer rose unsteadily to his feet as the oncoming riders slowed their mounts and began to mill and circle. He lowered his Colt to his side, easing the hammer down. Jared Fine was still furious with Charley Spikes, still blustering as he tried to shout at Spikes and calm his stallion at the same time.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, Charley! You know this man,’ he said inclining his head toward Dancer who stood unsteadily beside Washoe.

  ‘Yeah, I know him now,’ the bearded man replied in surly agreement. He shoved his rifle into its scabbard roughly and complained, ‘How the hell was I to know who he was a mile off? He was riding in from the direction of Pinetree. We got no men over in that direction.’

  ‘You know my horse,’ Dancer said, forcing himself to still his anger. He picked up his hat and replaced it. ‘You’ve seen it plenty of times.’

  ‘Country’s full of gray horses,’ Spikes shot back defensively; that was a feeble excuse, Dancer knew. A Western man doesn’t mistake one horse for another, nor the way a man sits his saddle.

  ‘Besides,’ Spikes went on, ‘the sun’s still low. We couldn’t see nothin’ but a lone rider coming in where none should have been.’

  Jared Fine was still furious, but a second thought crossed his mind and he asked Dancer, ‘John, why are you alone? What’s happened to Billy Dent?’

  The cowhands, at a rough gesture from Fine, had started to drift back toward the herd to work. Charley Spikes lingered, still looking as if he were the aggrieved victim of circumstances.

  Dancer swung aboard Washoe once more, Dancer told the two men about the previous day’s shooting, about spending the night in the line camp with Chapin. Jared Fine listened thoughtfully, his anger not subsiding as he learned that another of his men had been killed on the range.

  ‘Pinetree will pay for this,’ he muttered when Dancer had finished explaining matter.

  ‘I’ll take care of them if you’ll let me,’ Charley Spikes said with heat.

  ‘I’m not likely to trust your judgement for a while, Charley,’ Fine said with irritation. ‘How long have you been running cattle? That shot of yours could have stampeded the herd!’

  And killed me, John Dancer thought, but did not say. All right – the cattle were of more importance to Jared Fine than Dancer’s life. He thought he could understand that. The herd was a way of life; Dancer a passing cloud. Before another argument could flare up, bad feelings focusing again on him, Dancer asked Fine:

  ‘What do you want me to do today?’

  Fine pondered heavily on the question, his mouth drawn down, his brow furrowed. He glanced at Spikes – still angry and defensive – and told Dancer:

  ‘Head on back to the home ranch. We’ve got all the men we need out here right now.’

  Dancer nodded to the big man, knowing that Jared was simply trying to separate him and the bad-tempered Charley Spikes. Perhaps later the two would sit down with Cassandra Blythe and decide among them that Dancer was just too much of a problem to have around and cut him loose. If so, John reflected philosophically, it wouldn’t be the first job he had lost.

  What bothered him more, he thought as he started Washoe southward, was Spikes’s animosity, the bearded man’s sudden violent reaction to his arrival at the gather. Washoe with that white splash on his chest, the two white stockings on his front legs, was easily identifiable even at a distance. Also, the sun had not been that low, not low enough to blind a man, Dancer knew. He had been riding down a hillslope as he approached the camp, in shadow.

  Beyond all that, what would prompt a man – even if he suspected a lone rider to be from the opposite camp – to simply start shooting, having no idea of the man’s intentions?

  Something was definitely wrong on the Rafter B – the bad-luck ranch. He wondered whether Spikes’s motive had been to keep him from seeing what was going on in the camp itself. They were now busy burning a trail brand on the gathered cattle before they were driven to market: the Rafter B’s herd, Ben Champion’s Snake Eye steers whose brand was simply a dot inside a square and Weaver’s Double X herd.

  What if there were other cattle being illegally burned with the same trail brand? What if there were indeed Pinetree steers mixed in with the herd and that, in fact, the complaints of LaFrance and Luke Garner were true – that there was rustling going on by Rafter B men? Or by Champion or Weaver? Those shoestring ranchers had little enough and m
ight hunger for more, given the opportunity to grab it.

  Dancer wished that it were possible to speak privately, honestly, with the Pinetree owners, but that was a remote chance after the saloon confrontation that had left Wes Carroll dead.

  Lifting his eyes to the sky which was still lightly bannered with sheer clouds, and toward the sawtooth mountains to the west, it occurred to Dancer again that Foley’s thinly disguised advice that he just hit the trail and ride out of the valley might have been the best he’d yet received.

  But now as Dancer crested the sage-screened hill and saw the small house across the slender river, he cast aside that thought once more. If there was trouble afoot on the Rafter B, if there were thieves among the crew, if there was more murder ahead – there was a young, trusting woman in that house who needed to be protected against the storms of disaster. For any evidence of wrongdoing by Rafter B would weigh against Cassandra even before she had had the chance to present her claims to her land and its water source to a judge in the capital.

  And bullets, once they started flying, were not particular about their target.

  Grimly, Dancer started down the slope toward the house, his thoughts tangled and melancholy.

  The bunkhouse was empty as Dancer dragged in. Foley and Calvin Hardwick must have been out taking care of yard work somewhere. There was a strange horse – a stubby palomino – hitched to the bunkhouse rail, he noted, but no sign of its rider.

  Dancer tentatively touched the coffee pot with his fingertips, found that it was still hot and poured himself a cup. He had barely lifted it to his lips when the strange rider appeared, his hair and hands wet. He had obviously been cleaning up at the well. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, he grinned when he saw Dancer. Reaching for a towel to dry his hands he introduced himself.

  ‘Jason Burr,’ he said. After shaking hands he rolled down his cuffs and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  ‘John,’ Dancer replied.

  Burr was no more than twenty, but his skin was already leathery from the Western sun. His smile seemed genuine, his good humor congenial. He perched on a bunk and told Dancer: ‘I’m glad to meet you.’ He spread his hands. ‘I’m glad to meet anyone! I rode in at seven this morning, got hired by the boss lady, and haven’t seen another soul since.’

  ‘Most everyone is out at the round-up,’ Dancer said. He leaned back against the table and sipped carefully at the hot coffee. Why had Cassie hired this enthusiastic young man? Hadn’t he been told that very morning that they already had all the men they needed out on the Tortuga? Maybe Cassie figured that on a trail drive an extra hand could be useful, especially with matters standing as they did.

  ‘Where you up from?’ Dancer asked.

  ‘Laredo is the last place I had any sort of situation,’ Burr said, meaning that he had been drifting. ‘How’s things around here?’

  ‘There’s been trouble,’ Dancer told him honestly.

  Burr said meditatively, ‘Well, there’s trouble wherever a man goes, I guess.’

  ‘So it seems,’ Dancer agreed darkly. ‘Did the boss tell you what we’re supposed to do today?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Jason Burr said with a wide smile. ‘Truth be told, I don’t care much as long as she hired me on.’

  It was then that Foley came into the bunkhouse, his arms bare and muddy from some task. He was briefly introduced to Jason Burr; then he told them: ‘Boss wants the two of you mounted and ready to ride within the hour.’

  ‘Ready to ride where?’ John Dancer inquired. Foley’s narrow face was drawn down; his eyes met Dancer’s unhappily.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but she means to cross to Pinetree and have a talk with LaFrance and Garner.’

  None of this meant anything to young Jason Burr, but to Dancer it was a shock. ‘Pinetree?’ he said disbelievingly.

  ‘That’s what the lady said,’ Foley replied heavily. ‘I’m glad you’ve come back, John. She was going to go over there with just the kid here. She saw your horse out front and told me to give the message to both of you.’ The old man sighed and said: ‘Well, now I have to get back to my chores. Take care of her, John! I don’t know what she’s thinking, but you know Mrs Blythe. Once her mind is made up about something, nothing will stop her from doing it.’

  After Foley left, leaving the door open to the bright morning, Jason asked Dancer what the significance of the old man’s speech was. Briefly Dancer sketched the troubles on the range between the contending ranchers, not omitting the three killings that had occurred since he had arrived. Jason shook his head more with wonder than concern and Dancer figured that the kid, despite his youth, had already been in a few scrapes in his time.

  ‘I’ve got to switch horses, Jason,’ Dancer said. ‘My gray has been traveling a lot.’

  ‘All right,’ Burr answered agreeably. ‘My palomino’s fresh. We made night camp not three miles from here last night. Anything I should do while you’re tacking up another mount?’

  ‘Yes,’ John Dancer replied soberly, ‘check the loads in your guns.’

  John Dancer found Calvin Hardwick nailing down a few loose slats on the grain shed. He told him what he needed: ‘I’ve got to ride out again, Calvin. Washoe’s pretty beat up. Do you mind if I take your bay?’

  ‘John,’ the scrawny old-timer said around a mouthful of nails, ‘anything I have is yours. If it hadn’t been for you I’d have no grub today, no cot to sleep on tonight.’

  Dancer thanked the man, returned Washoe to the stable, forked hay for the animal and began saddling the bay horse, which eyed him with some uncertainty. Before Dancer had given the cinch one last tug, Jason Burr had appeared in the open double-wide doors to the barn and announced:

  ‘The boss lady’s ready … and impatient.’

  ‘One minute – this old horse is being cantankerous, holding air.’ Dancer gave the bay’s stomach a nudge with his knee to give the animal the idea that it was time to quit playing pranks, tightened the webbed cinch and, after adding his rifle scabbard to his accoutrements, led the balky bay out into the still-new morning, seeing the sun slant through the oak trees and glint off the face of the river. Cassandra Blythe sat on the bench seat of her surrey, her hands knotted together, her face taut with worry. She brightened as Dancer approached.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re back, John,’ she told him, and he could hear the relief in her voice. ‘I expected you here last night. When you didn’t show up, I sort of panicked.’

  ‘Is that why you hired Jason Burr?’ Dancer asked, resting his boot on the step of the surrey.

  ‘Is that his name…? Yes. I’d made up my mind to go over to Pinetree and see if we can’t work this out amicably. Somehow. Everyone is out at the round-up. Was I to take Foley or…?’

  ‘Calvin,’ Dancer provided.

  ‘Yes, Calvin. Oh, I don’t really think Victor LaFrance or Garner would harm me, but this is certainly no time for a woman to be riding out alone with all that’s been going on.’

  Burr was arriving now, leading his young palomino, smiling as always, yet looking a little doubtful. Dancer said to Cassie: ‘Maybe I should drive the surrey. We still have some talking to do.’

  ‘Oh?’ Her comflower-blue eyes opened wider, surprised at his suggestion. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Word hasn’t got back here yet – about Billy Dent?’

  ‘What about Billy?’ she asked, suddenly anxious.

  ‘That’s one of the things we have to talk about,’ Dancer told her.

  ‘Very well,’ Cassie said, looking even more worried now, as if she were on the brink of a breakdown. Nevertheless, she was determined. As Foley had remarked: once her mind was made up about something, she would do it. Dancer had to admire that in the woman, although the wisdom of riding onto Pinetree range was debatable.

  Dancer explained briefly to Jason Burr that the younger man was to be the outrider now. He then tied the lead to Calvin Hardwick’s bay horse to the rear of the surrey, stepped into the swaying buggy and unwrapped the r
eins from the brake handle. He started Cassie’s coppery roan on toward the property line.

  The morning was fine and clear. They startled a group of yellow-breasted meadow-larks from their feeding in passing, and twice a pair of pheasants. Dancer also spotted a four-point mule deer buck on a low ridge, not far distant. It raised its head and watched warily as they passed. The desert creatures had all emerged from their secret places, it seemed, lured forth by the rainfall which had filled formerly dry tinajas and which still left a few silver rills running across the barren land.

  They dipped low across the sandy wash which Dancer recognized as Paiute Gulch – the Pinetree borderline, and continued on. Burr, rifle across his palomino’s withers, scanned the surrounding terrain for any possible threat as he rode.

  Dancer told Cassie about the death of Billy Dent, and she nodded sadly, saying: ‘This is why it has to stop, John! This pointless conflict. There must be a way to put an end to it. Let them take me to court in Carson City. If I lose my case, so be it. I do not want any more blood on my hands.’

  The country around them was richer than Dancer had been led to believe. Instead of sere desert, they now passed over generous patches of blue gramma and buffalo grass, and there were sycamores and liveoak trees, if not in profusion, at least in plentiful stands. It was difficult to see why Pinetree was so obsessed with driving Aaron Blythe and now Cassandra out of the territory. Except that, he reflected, once men have some, they always want more. More becoming in time a twisted obsession. What of Snake Eye and Double X, he wondered. Did Ben Champion and Weaver, having less than their neighbors, feel slighted by Fate?

  Dancer let the red roan find its way while he glanced at Cassie. Her tense, lovely face had grown weary and fearful. He did not like to see her that way. He would have done anything to relieve her distress. He tried chatting about other matters.