by Lauran Paine
“But she’s already been bad hurt up here, Frank. Damned if I’ll stand by and see that happen to her again. Damned if I will!”
“What makes you think she’ll get hurt? Listen to me … she’s tough like her paw was. She’s resourceful, too. You saw that today, the way she got clear of that bull elk and got back to the cabin, alone, through country she didn’t know at all.” McCoy shook his head from side to side with strong emphasis. “As for young Brian … you know him better’n I do, but I’m a fair judge of men, and I say he’s not the kind that’d hurt her.”
“Maybe not,” muttered Miggs, tossing aside the little stick he’d been holding. “Damn it all … I wish I knew, Frank. I wish I knew what lies ahead.”
McCoy snorted, stood up, and gingerly kicked the stiffness out of his legs. “Don’t we all,” he said sardonically. “Don’t we all. Come on, now, let’s head back. I could go for one more cup of java before I turn in.”
They were both standing erect, preparatory to moving toward the house, when two slim shadows passed across their view going out into the quiet night from the direction of Miggs’ cabin.
Just for a second, both these older men thought they were Brian and his men heading back for their camp, but because there were only two instead of three, and also because one was a good head shorter than the other, they stood motionlessly watching.
“Bev and young Brian,” breathed Frank. He swung, looked gaugingly at Miggs, and said further: “Mighty nice night for a stroll.”
Miggs said: “She ought to be in bed, her with a hurt arm and all.”
McCoy made a wry smile into the darkness. “She’s not even feeling that arm. Come on, let’s get that coffee.”
Miggs went, but he kept swiveling his head to gaze concernedly down where those two strollers had been. At the cabin door, McCoy halted, caught Miggs looking worriedly back, and exasperatedly wagged his head.
“I sure overplayed my hand this time,” he growled.
Miggs swung, faintly scowling. “What’s that mean, Frank?” he demanded.
“Well, I knew you’d take to her. I knew you’d be good for her. But this acting like an old she-bear with just one cub …” McCoy shook his head again, pushed the door open, and stepped into the warmly lighted log house where Lex Murphy and Red Morton were soberly sitting, playing twenty-one at Miggs’ big table.
Both cowboys looked up and around. Red said: “Miss Shafter an’ Fred went for a walk. She figured it might not be a bad thing for someone to make sure the horses were all right.”
“She figured!” exclaimed Jackson Miggs, scowling.
Red nodded. “Yup, she asked Fred to go with her.”
Frank McCoy went over, dropped down at the table with a hard little knowing smile, did not look back at Miggs, and said: “Deal me a hand.” He then swung toward Miggs. “How about that coffee, Jack? I expect these boys could use some, too.”
Jack passed around the table to the woodstove, hefted the pot, shook it, found there was still plenty of liquid in it, poked up the coals, and set the pot over an open burner. He took four cups down from where Beverly had hung them after doing the supper dishes, placed them thoughtfully side by side, and continued to stand there with his back to the card players, hearing their careless words and thinking of something entirely different.
When he eventually brought over the steaming brew, Frank was ahead in the card game, and if any of those players, McCoy included, had anything besides the game on their minds, it neither showed in their talk nor in their expressions.
But Miggs had a desire to go back outside. He was in fact turning away from the table when McCoy’s tired, rough voice reached out and halted him.
“Sit in for a few hands, Jack. I’ve always wanted to get a crack at some of that dang’ money you’ve got cached away.”
The two exchanged a long, knowing look. Miggs made no move back toward the table, so Frank spoke again, this time selecting his words carefully so that their meaning was lost on Murphy and Morton but not upon Jackson Miggs.
“We’ll get to Holt tomorrow … and everyone else who’s out to hurt folks. But right now … that night out there is big and it’s private. Especially private.”
Frank looked over at Lex Murphy, who was shuffling the cards, and carelessly said: “Deal Jackson a hand. We need new money in this game. Besides, it sort of bothers me winning cash off nice young lads like you two.”
“I’ll sure bet it does,” ironically replied Murphy, putting a baleful loser’s look upon raffish Frank McCoy. “I think that’s actually a tear there in the corner of your eye, McCoy.”
Miggs went over and eased down. He accepted the cards dealt him, and Frank McCoy, after one final look, forgot Miggs to concentrate on winning another hand.
A little later Beverly silently entered the cabin. She smiled at those four lifted faces, drifted over to stand briefly behind Miggs where she put a small, broad, nut-brown hand affectionately upon his shoulder. A moment later she went around behind raffish old Frank McCoy and did the same thing. After that, she told Murphy and Morton good night and disappeared around behind her partition.
Jackson Miggs let his breath out in one long, soft sigh, and concentrated on playing twenty-one.
Fred Brian did not come back into the cabin. The card players scarcely thought of him except to take it for granted that he’d gone on to his own camp and bedded down.
Chapter Eleven
It was 5:00 a.m. and not quite sunup yet when Lex and Red came hiking up to the cabin. Miggs wasn’t there; he was up the canyon, looking after the horses, but he saw them and called softly before they awakened McCoy and Beverly Shafter with their knocking.
They went to where Jack stood, waiting. While still fifty feet off, Red Morton said from a worried face: “Fred’s gone.”
Miggs looked blankly from one cowboy to the other. “Gone. What d’you mean gone?”
“He didn’t bed down last night. When Lex and I left the cabin, we never thought to go an’ look at his blanket roll. We just naturally figured he was sleepin’.”
“But he wasn’t,” put in Lex Murphy. “And this morning we could see that his blankets hadn’t been slept in at all.”
Something triggered alarm in Jackson Miggs. He turned without another word, went hiking out where Tolman’s animals were, and counted them. One horse was not there. He went over where the pack outfits and saddles were hanging and counted those, also.
Evidently this had not occurred to the pair of cowboys, for now Red Morton stepped over, flicked a dangling rope, and said: “Hell, yes, Lex, he’s ridden off somewhere. This is where he hung his rig yesterday when we come on back from shaggin’ that Holt outfit.”
Whatever Murphy’s comment might have been, he didn’t get a chance to voice it.
Jackson Miggs said roughly: “Saddle up, boys. Saddle up an extra pair of horses for Frank and me. Be fast about it.”
Miggs was already striding rapidly toward the cabin before Morton and Murphy completely understood. He entered the cabin, went over and shook McCoy awake, made a motion for Frank to be silent, and told McCoy about Fred Brian’s disappearance.
Frank sat up, ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, ran bent fingers through his awry hair, and fixed Miggs with a watery glare. “He hasn’t been took off, too, has he? Why would Holt want a big …?”
“Wake up,” snapped Miggs, fighting to keep his voice low enough not to awaken Beverly behind her partition. “Of course no one took him, Frank. Shake the cobwebs out of your skull, will you? He’s gone over to settle with Holt.”
McCoy sat abruptly upright. “Alone, Jack?”
Miggs said impatiently: “Get dressed. Lex and Red are saddling up for the lot of us. Fetch your guns and hurry outside.”
McCoy tumbled out of bed, reached for his trousers, which were across the back of a nearby chair, jumped into them
, and groped around under the bunk for his boots.
Jack went back outside. He had his long-barreled rifle, his six-gun holstered to his hip, and his big knife. He needed nothing more and took nothing more.
Murphy and snub-nosed Red Morton passed along toward Miggs from their cow camp. They, too, had six-guns, but their other supporting weapons were the ubiquitous Winchester carbines of cattlemen. This gun, one of the best short-range guns of its kind, was almost indestructible, but it could not, within a hundred yards, compare with Miggs’ and McCoy’s long-barreled rifles for either range or cold accuracy. There was one consolation, though—Holt’s men, being cowboys, too, would have no better guns.
Miggs stepped out to come alongside one of the led horses. He was mounting when the cabin door opened. Frank McCoy came out with a screwed-up face, flapping shirttail, and his weapons, and stood there, blinking at a fresh new day, and let off a deep-down, growled curse.
The four of them slow-paced their way across Miggs’ meadow to the yonder trees, swung westerly, and said nothing to one another for a half mile, after which Frank asked garrulously just where, exactly, they were going.
“It’s about five miles from here,” explained Red Morton, twisting to look back at McCoy. “There’s a white-water creek an’ meadow cut in two by a long erosion gully.”
Miggs placed the site at once. It was, in fact, one of his favorite winter trapping places. Some thirty years earlier, militiamen, chasing marauding Utes, had cornered a band of Indians in that gully and wiped them out to a man. There were still some rusted old guns down there, not to mention an assortment of bones that were not exclusively those of Ute warhorses.
“Know the spot?” Frank asked Miggs.
“Yes, I know it.”
“Then let’s dust right along.”
Miggs shook his head. “No need. Besides, we couldn’t make much better time than we’re making right now. And, Frank, to be on the safe side, we can’t get hurt saving these horses.”
“Sure, but …”
“Listen, Fred’s been gone most of the night. Whatever he had in mind, he’s probably already done. Killing ourselves and our animals won’t reverse that.”
McCoy subsided, riding along, tucking in his shirttail, muttering uncomplimentary epithets about being yanked out of a good sleep, and alternately cursing Fred Brian for a fool and beseeching some vague deity to preserve Brian from whatever tomfoolery the range boss was up to.
The sun climbed steadily, warming them whenever they crossed over one of those upland parks. By the time they were within a mile of the place that Red had indicated was where he and Lex and Fred had trailed Denver Holt and his crew to their new cow camp, Jack was in the lead. Frank was directly behind him, and Brian’s two cowboys were strung out behind McCoy.
Jack halted at a spring to get down, drink, and water his animal. When the others clustered around, Miggs said: “Red, we’re going to leave these horses in a little while. You stay with ’em while the rest of us go on afoot and scout up Holt’s camp. Whatever happens, don’t let Holt set us afoot.”
After they had all watered and rested, Miggs led them ahead, but from here on he cut and quartered, seeking Fred Brian’s tracks. He found them less than a half mile from the forest’s ending, where Holt’s camp was distantly visible in the large broken meadow dead ahead.
He also found something else. The exact spot where a second man had appeared, coming up from behind Brian on foot.
“And that,” exclaimed Frank McCoy dryly, “is that!” He proceeded to point out to Morton and Murphy how one of those men had driven the other one on ahead of him out across the cow camp meadow.
“Brian’s probably a real good cowman,” allowed Frank, “but he hasn’t a brain in his danged head when it comes to walking into traps with both eyes wide open.”
Jack Miggs privately agreed with McCoy, but instead of saying so, he dismounted, tossed his reins to Morton, crooked a finger at Frank and Lex, then started onward to the forest’s final fringe of irregularly spaced big trees.
“If we knew what time they got Fred,” Frank softly said to Miggs, “we’d know about what they might do next.”
“Not much they can do,” retorted Miggs, squinting over the big green meadow in dazzling sunlight. “He didn’t shoot anyone or run off any bulls. I doubt like hell if he even got to ask any questions. Kind of hard, being orey-eyed and fired up to fight, when some feller’s got his cussed six-gun zeroed in on your kidneys from the rear.”
The cow camp of Denver Holt and his men was a long half mile on across the large meadow. It was, in fact, on the far side of the erosion arroyo that bisected the park. Perhaps if the sun had not been so dazzlingly bright and sharp, they could have made out more than they did, but at any rate it appeared to Jackson Miggs that Holt’s camp was either empty of men, or else they were hiding, perhaps in that intervening deep arroyo.
“In some predicaments,” Miggs said conversationally to Frank and Lex Murphy, “camping out in a big clearing like that is about the same as committing suicide. But in this case, it isn’t.”
“Yeah,” grumbled McCoy, “how do we get over there without being seen for half a danged mile before we’re even close? Old Holt played this one smart … he’s about as far from the surrounding trees on any other side as he is from this spot right here.”
Miggs looked up. “You want to ride out, Frank, with your hand, palm out, to show ’em we come in peace?”
McCoy glared. “You crazy, Jack?” he demanded. “Maybe with Utes a feller’d have at least half a chance. But with that Holt outfit … uhn-huh … they cut loose on us before without even singing out. I wouldn’t ride out into plain sight, even of their empty camp. That’s a rough, tough bunch of cattlemen, that bunch.”
“Lex,” said Miggs, “you got any ideas?”
“Fire the grass if it was dry, but since it ain’t dry, no, I got no ideas at all.”
Miggs drew back, stood straight up, hooked both arms around his rifle, and gazed out for a long time before saying: “There’s a way. It’s not very good, maybe, but it’s the only thing we can do. Frank, I’ll ride out loose and easy. If anything happens, I’ll duck down and side ride back here. If that happens, you two give me a lot of cover fire.”
“Side ride?” called Lex Murphy, looking troubled.
McCoy said brusquely: “Hang one heel behind the cantle of your saddle, drop all the rest of yourself down out of sight over the side of your horse. If you got to shoot, you do it by firing under your horse’s neck.” McCoy finished his explanation, squinted at Miggs, and said: “How about singing out first?”
“No good, Frank. That way we wouldn’t, even one of us, ever get close enough to see whether Brian’s in their camp or not.”
“Doesn’t look to me like anyone’s in it,” commented Lex Murphy. “Still as midnight out there.”
“Sure,” growled Frank. “If a feller doesn’t want anyone to know he’s lying low, waiting for a good shot, he’s not likely to run up a flag saying … ‘Come on in, I’m waiting.’”
Murphy swung to put a swift, indignant stare upon McCoy, but he said no more, and neither did Frank. Miggs, satisfied with what he’d seen, jerked his head at the other two and started back for the horses.
Red Morton stepped out in front of the animals, held up one hand for silence, and faced southward. At once the others also turned and halted.
For a long moment, there was no sound at all. Jack caught Frank McCoy looking at him; he was on the verge of heading along for his horse when he heard it—the faraway sound of lowing cattle and shouting men.
Lex Murphy reached up, scratched the tip of his nose, puckered his brow, and said to Red Morton: “Those aren’t our critters. The sound isn’t right.”
“Probably this Holt outfit’s gatherin’ up their cattle to push ’em somewhere else,” responded Morton.
“I know a good way to find out,” said Miggs, and went over, swung up, shortened his reins, and waited for the others to get astride. When they had, he said: “Frank, take ’em down through the trees and see what’s happening. I’m going on out to their camp and look for sign.”
McCoy looked first southward toward that oncoming noise, then westward where Miggs was riding down through the last tier of trees and out into plain sight upon the yonder meadow. Frank seemed uncertain. Neither he nor the two cowboys made any southward move for a long time, not until they saw Miggs cross half that big meadow without incident.
“All right,” McCoy muttered then, “let’s go see what Mr. Holt’s up to.”
The three of them picked their way carefully toward the distressed bawling of driven cattle. They did not look back to see what had become of Miggs, and Jack did not look toward them either as he rode openly in the direction of the cow camp that he now knew was deserted for some reason, while Holt made a gather of his Durham cattle.
The camp itself was typical; trappings of the cowman’s trade lay carelessly scattered. There was no one anywhere around, and even a careful examination of the big erosion gulch provided Miggs with nothing to go on in his search for some sign that Fred Brian had been here.