by Paul Lederer
Now, here and there, he could make out men he had seen at Tortuga Flats. He could even read the brands on the cattle. The horses took on color as the moon drifted higher. The canyon now closed in upon them even more tightly – a gray, rocky wedge through the massed hills. Dancer found himself growing uncomfortable in the tight limits of the narrow pass.
He looked across the rolling bulk of the cattle’s backs to the riders on the opposite flank, then glanced behind him. He stiffened abruptly as the specter appeared, his hand tensing on his rifle.
Out of the shadows came the big black, moon-glossed stallion with Jared Fine on his back. Fine was a distance back still, but he was riding forward with seeming interest as he studied Dancer and Washoe. Then curiosity was replaced by certainty and Jared let out a yell. ‘Hold that man!’
One cowhand raced his buckskin horse toward Dancer, trying to grab Washoe’s bridle, but John rapped his hand hard with the barrel of his Winchester, cracking bone. The cowboy yowled and withdrew. Fine was still coming, his stallion now lifted into a dead run. Dancer looked around wildly, but there was no way out of the canyon’s cramped confines. He had made a mistake in judgement, goaded by his own temper. Now he would have to pay. Dancer waited grimly, watching Jared, followed by two outriders, bear down on him. Fine raised his arm in a wild gesture and one of the cowboys raised his rifle to his shoulder. It was then that the Pinetree riders set upon them.
NINE
The roar of the guns was like sudden thunder in the narrow canyon. LaFrance, it seemed, had played his last trump card well, for there were riflemen above them in rocky crags, firing down at the Rafter B men. The cattle as one lifted their heads and began to stampede, adding the rumble of their hoofs to the tumultuous night.
Dancer swung Washoe away from the herd just in time to avoid a wide-eyed, onrushing red steer. There was no telling how many men had gone down before the volley of gunfire, how many had been trampled by the surging steers. Surely the men riding point would have had to do some fancy riding to avoid the panicked herd.
Some of Jared’s men tried to fire back at the ambushers, but they needed to be more intent on avoiding the onrushing herd on their panicked cowponies than on shooting. Besides, the riflemen on the cliffs offered no distinct targets, there was only the constant flare of their rifle muzzles to aim by. For the most part, Dancer saw, the Rafter B crew was attempting to escape, not on fighting what could only be a losing battle in the stony chute.
A group of three cowboys who seemed to know their way raced past him, flagging their horses with their reins or with hats, urging them on with curses. Dancer heeled Washoe and fell in with them. If there was a way out of the canyon, they were more likely to know it than he. They rode on at a dead run. One of the cowhands had the bad luck to have his pony – a stubby dun with a Snake Eye brand on his hip – lose its footing on the rocky ground, slip and slide backward directly into the chaotic stream of cattle.
No one glanced back to watch him die beneath the pounding hoofs of the rioting herd.
A hundred yards on Dancer saw the riders swing to the right, into a narrow feeder canyon. And he followed them. Fine might have come this way as well, if he had escaped the stampede. If he had been trampled back there, through his own folly, well, Dancer thought without pity, it was poetic justice.
The moon was hidden again as they entered the steeply walled canyon, narrow enough for only a single horse to travel it at once. Their way zigzagged up the face of the canyon wall for perhaps a hundred yards and then widened as they emerged onto a moonlit flat where the scent of sage was heavy and he could see a long stretch of broken ground studded with agave, greasewood and yucca. He could still hear the thundering stampede in the canyon below. By the time they reached the head of the chute, Dancer considered, the cattle would be dead tired, and if there were more Pinetree riders stationed there, they would be able to collect the herd without much resistance and drive them on their way toward Carson City with only a few hundred pounds of beef run off their bones.
It seemed that LaFrance and Luke Garner had won in the end.
Dancer followed the two riders ahead of him at a distance. They were talking between themselves, but he could make out none of their words. Their horses were weary, their own pulses still racing. Perhaps they were discussing finding an easier way to make a living.
As yet they had paid no attention to him at all. Now he reined up, letting Washoe blow again. Scanning the distances he thought he could make out a light from Rafter B’s home ranch. Would that be where Fine had gone if he had survived? There was no telling. Maybe the disgraced foreman would simply slink out of the territory to try hatching a new plan in another place.
Once more Dancer was proved wrong.
He heard the onrushing hoofbeats behind him, swung his head around in time to see Jared Fine’s black stallion charging across the flats toward him. Fine drew his horse up in a lather, unsheathed his rifle and took careful aim. Dancer dropped to Washoe’s side and rolled to the ground. A boulder he had not seen in the darkness was waiting and he fell onto it, smashing ribs. The breath rushed out of him; pain encased his chest. He fumbled for his handgun, could not find it on the dark earth.
Fine fired again.
The sound of the rifle’s report racketed across the flats. This bullet too tagged Dancer. It smashed through his ankle, tearing bone into fractured splinters, severing tendons and muscle. It felt as if a blacksmith had laid his foot across his anvil and taken a sledge hammer to it. Dancer again searched for his pistol in the darkness, again failed. Jared Fine was still coming, but slowly. Too slowly. He wanted to be sure of his man, it seemed. But looking that way through the hair that screened his eyes, John saw that his big black stallion was standing dead in its tracks, frothing and trembling. It wasn’t patience that had stopped Fine, but a foundering horse which could run on no more although Fine continued to whip it with his quirt.
Dancer needed to get back in the saddle. There was no way Fine could follow – if he could do it. He tried to rise, but his foot gave way. Fire shot through it; broken bone grated. His ribs protested just as violently. He was never going to make it into leather, not in this condition.
Looking under Washoe’s belly, Dancer could now see Jared Fine dismounting, starting toward him on foot. Desperation prodded Dancer’s next move. He shoved his hand through Washoe’s stirrup, and clamped his other one to it, his fingers gripped tightly together.
‘Run!’ he shouted, and after a fraction of a moment’s hesitation, the well-trained Washoe did as he had been commanded. A rifle shot rang out and another as Fine raced toward him shooting wildly as he ran after them.
Dancer’s shoulder slammed against another rock and his body took another jolting blow. On foot Fine would never catch Washoe. He could run after them for a while, but if Dancer could only hold on long enough … just hold on.
Washoe raced on through the night, over rocks, through stands of sage and sumac. Dancer heard another rifle shot, but he could tell by the sound of it that it was over a great distance. Jared Fine would be trying now to bring Washoe down, but in the darkness with Washoe gaining distance with every long stride, his chances were slimming. John now thought he had a chance of making it.
So long as he could hold on to the stirrup. Dancer’s shoulders seemed half out of their sockets. His chest burned as if enraged rib monsters were tearing it apart. He could no longer feel his foot at all. His vision was blurry; swarms of colored dots swam behind his eyes.
So long as he could hold on. So long as he did not black out with the pain.
So long as … and then the demons had their way and he fell into a dark swirling tunnel, longer and darker than the route to Hades.
The room in which he found himself on awakening seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember ever having been there before. The bright sunlight through a half-open door was stunning. He closed his eyes again. Shifting slightly on the hard cot he saw a man in the corner of the room watching him. He,
too, seemed somehow familiar, but Dancer could not remember him either. Pain returned as he awakened and he touched tightly bound ribs gingerly. The agony in his ankle was nearly enough to wish himself lost again in the blackness he had been haunting for the last…?
‘How long have I been here?’ he asked with his eyes still closed.
‘This would be your second day, but you ain’t staying.’
‘Chapin?’ Dancer asked, remembering the red-mustached man’s name.
‘That’s right.’
‘Then I’m out at the line camp. How did I manage to get here?’
‘You’d have to ask your horse. I suppose it remembered the way.’
‘Where is Washoe?’
‘I put him up out in the lean-to. I wrapped those ribs of yours as well as I could, put some plaster on a few other bumps and nicks you got. The foot,’ Chapin said with a shake of his head, ‘I didn’t even try to touch it, not when I saw the bullet hole going through your boot from side to side.’
‘I thank you for what you did,’ Dancer said sincerely.
‘I wouldn’t leave a dog out in the yard in the condition you were in.’ Now Chapin’s tone grew more serious. ‘But you have to leave now, John. I can’t have you here. This job is all I’m likely to ever have from here on out.’ He reminded John of his missing thumb by holding up his now cleanly bandaged hand.
‘I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,’ Dancer said. ‘As soon as I can.…’ he said, trying to sit up as his broken ribs shouted with pain.
‘You can leave now,’ Chapin said with little pity. ‘I’ll help you to your feet. Then I’ll get you into your saddle if I have to throw you up on it. You’re trouble, John, too much trouble for me to handle.’
‘I’ve got to get to Mrs Blythe’s house,’ Dancer said as he sat on the edge of the bunk breathing roughly, holding his side.
‘No, you don’t,’ Chapin said strongly. ‘You aren’t listening to me, John. I been down there. The word is that you were working with Pinetree all along, that you helped them rustle the big herd on its way to market. Mrs Blythe lost just about every cent she had. Now she’ll lose this ranch, barring a miracle.
‘Besides, don’t you think Jared Fine and Charley Spikes would love to see you?’
‘Fine made it?’
‘He made it. He’s back. They’ll have a sharp eye out for you, you can bet on that. Besides, there’s a little matter of three or four murders, including Marshal Bingham’s, hanging over your head. No, John,’ Chapin said severely, ‘you are going to let me help you into the saddle and you are going to ride out of this county. If you ever come back they’ll either shoot you down like a dog or string you up — that much is certain.’
That was how John Dancer had eventually happened to ride into Brownsville. Scarred, broken and bitter. He lay awake many a night in his hotel room planning his revenge. He wished he were a forgiving man, but a saint would have had a problem finding forgiveness in his heart for Jared Fine.
The long three days of the ride back to Nevada gave Dancer plenty of time to think over his decision, to consider the wisdom of simply riding on, past the Rafter B and its troubles. Perhaps if it were only his wish for revenge that drove him onward, he would have done that – leaving the bad-luck range behind for ever.
But Cassie was still there. What had become of her life since the night raiders had driven off her herd? Had the court in Carson City supported her claim to the land and to the water lights, or was she totally without resources now, due in no small part to the machinations of Jared Fine? Try as he might, Dancer could not forget her blue eyes, her delicate figure. He had seen her collapsed with grief as she attended to her dead husband, then had seen her draw upon some inner strength, determined to fight on for what was hers only to have the carpet pulled out from under her.
No, Dancer thought now as the long ride was taking its toll on his injured body and the high, white sun scorched his back, he could perhaps have swallowed his fury against Jared Fine and let him have his triumph, but he could not in good conscience leave the young widow to the gathering vultures.
The new morning dawned in muted tones. The sawtooth mountains were draped in dark clouds and the wind across the desert flats was rising, drifting sand across the land, spurring an occasional dust devil up to twist across the landscape. Dancer studied the dark morning sky thoughtfully. It had rained only once before this year, that was when he had been riding for Rafter B. Now it looked to be fixing to storm again. Was that some sort of omen, a warning to stay away? The wind folded back the brim of his hat as he sat Washoe, looking out across the land he knew not well, but too intimately. Below him was Rafter B range. He saw no cattle along the banks of the slow-flowing silver river or grazing on the grass of the shallow vales. No smoke rose from the chimneys of the buildings below, but he was still far away and maybe the rising wind was drifting it away as soon as it rose from hearth or stovepipe.
In other times he would have swung down to ease Washoe’s burden, but he had been out of the saddle only twice since leaving Brownsville, lowering himself awkwardly to the ground to sleep, dragging himself back into the saddle at daylight. Washoe was in prime condition. Long rested, exercised lightly every morning by the faithful young Toby Waller, he accepted this unusual burden without complaint.
Dancer could walk. But for no more than five or ten minutes at a time. Even then he moved with a hobble and gingerly step. He was a cripple by almost any definition, would remain one for the rest of his life, he now knew.
The sky grew darker yet. A high dark shelving of cloud began to creep out across the flats. In the far distance Dancer saw a bolt of forked lightning briefly illuminate the black sides. Large scattered raindrops began to spatter the dry earth around him. Reaching back, Dancer untied his bedroll and shouldered into his black rain slicker.
He tugged his hat lower and started toward the Rafter B as the rain fell ever more heavily, the lightning drew nearer and the thunder increased in violence. Down the slope he walked Washoe.
A dark angel riding grimly through the dark and violent storm of an unsettled morning.
Through the mesh of silver rain Dancer could see no men about the ranch. The rain might have driven them to cover. Or, he thought, perhaps there were no longer any hands on the Rafter B. Perhaps it had collapsed that completely.
However, he could smell woodsmoke. Someone was living here, if only Cassie herself. Of course, she could have finally given up the ranch. Perhaps Jared Fine or even Victor LaFrance now occupied the house and was sitting in front of the fire, warming his feet.
Dancer drew Washoe up in the thin shelter of the cottonwood grove, peering through the driving rain at the bunkhouse, barn, the main house. All was familiar, but he seemed to be viewing it in a dream. The slanting rain intensified the illusion. Lightning crackled near at hand and was followed almost immediately by a cannonade of thunder. Dancer could smell sulfur in the air now and the wind had increased, tormenting the cottonwoods, tearing dry branches free in the upper reaches of the trees.
Washoe shuffled his feet uneasily at the near strike. Dancer calmed the animal as well as he could and then heeled the big gray horse forward, moving out from shelter to cross the yard toward the barn. There still seemed to be no one around. If there was, the constant rain would cover his passage somewhat, and there was no reason a man would be standing at the window staring out at the dismal morning except by chance.
Rain was dripping in curtains from the eaves of the barn’s peaked roof as Dancer ducked his head and rode Washoe through the open double doors into the inner gloom of the horse-smelling building. There were three horses inside. Only one did John recognize – the bright-eyed little red roan Cassie used to draw her carriage. The carriage itself sat in a far corner. Calvin Hardwick’s sturdy little bay pony was not there. He had more than likely been given his walking papers long ago.
There were at least two men at home, then.
And Cassandra Blythe.
The
re were more, as Dancer discovered at that very moment. He had turned Washoe’s head back toward the barn doors when a mounted man wearing a yellow slicker appeared there. He could not make out Dancer’s features immediately in the depths of the barn’s shadows, but then he did and he grabbed for his holstered revolver.
Encumbered by his slicker, Charley Spikes was too slow reacting as he pawed for his belt gun. He hollered out: ‘Dancer!’ and as the muzzle of Spike’s pistol rose in his direction, Dancer shot the man. The report would have been audible even above the raging storm and Dancer heeled Washoe roughly, breaking for the open. Someone rushed from the front door of the house, and at the head of the awning in front of the bunkhouse, another figure in shirtsleeves appeared.
A shot rang out from the man at the house as Dancer appeared in the yard. The second man, the one who had been sheltering in the bunkhouse raised a shotgun and Dancer changed direction. He guided the racing gray horse up onto the bunkhouse porch and galloped its length, Washoe’s hoofs clattering against the wooden planks. Before the man with the shotgun could level his weapon, Dancer had ridden him down.
Washoe’s shoulder caught the man in full stride, and he was thrown back off the porch, his shotgun flying free onto the muddy yard. Dancer jumped his horse from the porch and spun it on its heels. Charging back across the yard he rode toward the house, not away from it and through the driving rain he could see the heavy features of the man who stood there, Colt revolver in his hand.
Even then Jared Fine could smile nastily, confident of his superiority in all things. He triggered off his .44 twice, missing the charging horseman both times. Dancer one-handed his Winchester, thrust it in Fine’s direction like a knight in the lists, and pulled the rifle’s trigger, catching Jared Fine full in the chest.