by Wesley Ellis
For a few moments the fate of the stagecoach was uncertain, but Ki managed to stay on his feet and keep a firm pressure on the reins, and the horses at last responded to the familiar command. They calmed down and finally came to a halt.
Ki tossed the reins to the dumbfounded driver. “Just hold them at a stand!” he shouted, his eyes fixed on the freighter who’d been handling the freightwagon, and who was just getting to his feet.
Launching himself from the top of the stage, Ki flexed his legs to absorb the shock of his landing and started running for the man who’d tried to crash his wagon into the stagecoach. The teamster saw him coming and whipped out his sheath knife. He spread his legs and dropped into the crouch that experienced knife-fighters favor, holding the nine-inch blade low, weaving it at waist level in a series of figure-eights.
Ki was armed with his own knife, but he left the slender, curved blade in its waistband sheath. He was confident that his skill with a blade was equal or superior to that of the man who stood waiting for him, but Ki wanted to do more than merely take his opponent alive; he wanted to humiliate the man by defeating him without using a weapon.
“You better back away before you get hurt, Chink,” the freighter said tauntingly. When Ki came on without hesitating, the man added, “All right, yellowbelly! I warned you once! Now you got no excuse when I slice you up in little pieces!”
Giving no indication that he’d heard the teamster’s warning, Ki pressed on. The freighter lunged at him, bringing his knife up in a slashing thrust, its point aimed at Ki’s abdomen.
Ki turned his body an instant before the blade reached him, and instead of reversing his turn to face his adversary, he spun around with dazzling speed and at the same time brought down the edge of his hand with a slashing stroke that landed on the freighter’s forearm just above the wrist, where sensitive nerves lie across the bone with no protective sheath of muscle tissue.
His arm numbed by the blow, the teamster opened his hand involuntarily. His knife fell to the ground while Ki’s body was still only halfway through its turn.
As he spun around on his right foot. Ki extended his left leg, bringing his foot up to shoulder height and snapping his heel forward just as he completed the turn. Ki delivered his kick with the force of a bludgeon, and heard the evidence that it had struck its intended target when the man’s collarbone broke with a loud pop.
For a second or two, while the teamster began crumpling to the ground, his arm dangling uselessly, Ki stood with his leg still upraised, watching the mingled look of pain and surprise that contorted his attacker’s face. Then he lowered his foot and stood with his arms quietly at his side, looking down at the writhing form of the man who, a few seconds earlier, had threatened to slice him into small pieces.
Few of the men working in the supply yard had seen the brief encounter between Ki and the teamster. Their attention had been caught by the smashing of the freightwagon into the front of the saloon, and they were just now dropping whatever work they’d been doing and running to the scene of the crash. Ki glanced at the man on the ground, decided that he would be unable to stand for the next few minutes, and after kicking the knife out of reach of his defeated assailant, he walked over to the stagecoach.
Jessie and Bobby, shaken and tossed inside the careening vehicle, were just getting out of the coach. The driver still sat in his seat, a look of dazed surprise on his face. Jessie raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“Yes,” Ki said simply. “It’s started.”
“I was sure it had, when I saw that teamster deliberately trying to wreck us,” she said. “You didn’t take the time to ask him any questions, I noticed.”
“No. It’ll be a few minutes before he feels like talking, and I wanted to be sure you were all right.”
“A little shaken, but nothing more,” Jessie said. “Bobby, how about you?”
“I’m fine, Miss Jessie,” Bobby replied. “Do you really think that man was trying to hurt us? That it wasn’t just an accident?”
“I’m afraid so, Bobby,” Jessie said. “I haven’t told you everything that’s involved in this situation you and your grandfather have gotten into. I wanted to wait until we got to the valley. Would you mind if I don’t explain until then?”
“No. I guess not, Miss Jessie. But if it wasn’t an accident, how’d he know we was going to be on the stage?”
Ki answered him before Jessie could speak. “Word travels fast on a telegraph, Bobby. And there’s only one stage running into Hidden Valley. But Jessie and your grandfather will explain everything to you. Right now we’ve got to do something about that man who tried to wreck us.”
“What do you think we should do, Ki?” Jessie asked. “I’ve been thinking about him myself.”
Ki shrugged. “I’m sure he won’t have anything to say, when we do question him.”
“Let’s take him to the construction office, then,” Jessie suggested. “Though I don’t imagine for a minute that the South Sierra Railway superintendent will be any more helpful than your friend here.”
Leaving Bobby at the stage, Jessie and Ki walked over to the teamster. He was sitting up now, rubbing his face with one hand, his other arm dangling and useless.
“All right,” Ki said harshly. “Get on your feet. We’re going to see what your boss has to say about what you tried to do to us a minute ago.”
“I didn’t do a damn thing!” the teamster snarled. “You can’t go blaming a man because his team runs away!”
“You tried to kill us,” Jessie said coldly. “And they put men like you in jail for attempted murder.”
“You’ll have to prove it!” the man replied. “And there ain’t no way you’ll be able to do that!”
Ki picked up the knife that he’d kicked aside. “We’ll talk to your boss first. Now march! And don’t try to run, or I’ll give you a chance to feel how sharp this blade really is!”
Chapter 4
Both Jessie and Ki found that their predictions had been correct. The superintendent of the construction job listened without trying to hide his lack of interest as they described the deliberate attempt to wreck the stagecoach. When they’d finished, he looked at the teamster for a moment and shook his head.
“I never saw this man before,” he said coolly. “I hope you understand that the South Sierra Railway doesn’t hire teamsters. We’ve contracted the hauling work to a firm in San Francisco.”
“If that’s the case, you’re not responsible for any accidents they cause, are you?” Ki asked. The tone of his voice was so gentle that it was almost sarcastic, but he looked guilelessly at the superintendent as he asked the question.
Ignoring Ki, the superintendent said to Jessie, “As I understand your story, Miss Starbuck, you and your companions in the stagecoach weren’t actually in an accident. I don’t deny there was an accident, you understand, but it occurred across the road when the freightwagon hit the saloon, and took place after the wagon had already passed by the stage without touching it.”
“Technically he’s right, Ki,” Jessie said quickly.
“I’m glad you agree, Miss Starbuck,” the man said. “Now I suggest that you overlook the dispute this teamster had with your man. Leave this for me to settle. I’ll see that the company the man works for disciplines him and pays for the damages to the saloon building.”
Ki frowned and began, “Just a moment—”
Jessie broke in quickly, “Never mind, Ki. Come along. I’m sure the best thing we can do is to leave the teamster here and let the superintendent and the contractor handle things.”
Walking back to the stagecoach, Ki asked Jessie, “Why were you in such a hurry to get away, Jessie? I’d like to have argued with that superintendent a little bit.”
“We’d have gotten nowhere, Ki. You could see by the way he acted that he knew the accident had been planned, and he had all the answers ready.”
“He was glib enough,” Ki agreed. “And I’m sure he was telling the truth when he sa
id the freighting was contracted by the railroad to another company, but I’m equally sure the other company’s also one controlled by the cartel.”
“Yes, of course.” Jessie was silent while they walked a few steps, and then she said, “Not that we had any doubts, but this proves the cartel is behind the railroad, Ki.”
“Did we really need any proof?”
Jessie shook her head. “No. But this shows us that what we’ve got to do now is strike them before they can get ready to attack us again, and keep on hitting them until we win!”
For the first three miles after the stagecoach left the supply depot, rails had been laid roughly parallel to the road. At the point where the completed trackage ended, a half-dozen handcars were lined up, and beyond them, crews were at work setting rails. The clang of sledgehammers driving spikes into the tie-plates that held the rails firmly on the crossties filled the air as the stage rolled past the work gangs. At the points where rail lengths butted together, other gangs worked on their knees, installing fishplates to hold the joints tight.
After the rails ended, there was still another mile where pick-and-shovel crews were placing ties in gravel ballast and leveling them in line with stakes driven earlier by surveyors. When the stage passed the last of the tie-laying gangs, there was nothing but graded roadbed for several miles, with ties lying beside the grade, waiting for the crews to reach them.
“I’d say we’ve seen the last of the South Sierra Railway for a while,” Ki commented as he looked at the wide swath the grading crews had cut across the rising terrain. “The south pass into Hidden Valley isn’t too far ahead, is it, Bobby?”
“Only about another mile and a half,” Bobby replied. “Mr. Abel’s ranch starts just a little bit this side of the pass.”
“A cattle ranch?” Jessie asked.
“Oh, sure, Miss Jessie. There’s four more in the south end of the valley, too.”
“Is there enough range and water in the valley to support five ranches?”
“Well, they ain’t anywheres near as big as yours, but all of ‘em raise cattle.”
“Longhorns? Or mixed breeds?”
“Herefords, mostly. I worked on Mr. Abel’s ranch during roundup. I guess maybe that’s what I want to do when I grow up, is be a cowboy.”
“If you do, and you ever need a job, there’ll always be a place for you on the Circle Star,” Jessie told him.
“I’d sure like that,” Bobby said. “Mr. Wright and all the rest of ‘em were real nice to me while I was there.”
Ahead, the road curved sharply up a gentle rise, and shelving rock formations began to show, their sharp edges outlined in crisp detail by the westering sun. The dark strip of turned dirt that marked the railroad right-of-way ended abruptly at the beginning of the curve. The stagecoach slowed, and the shouts of the driver grew louder and came more often as he geed the team up the increasingly steep grade.
At the top of the incline the driver pulled up and called, “I got to stop here and breathe the team, if you wanta get out and stretch your legs a minute or so.”
Ki swung out of the coach and lowered the stirrup-step for Jessie. She had just stepped to the ground when a man’s voice behind them said politely, “Would you folks mind turning around so I can get a good look at you?”
Jessie and Ki turned to face the speaker. He was a tall, suntanned man, dressed in rancher’s cords. A rifle was cradled in his elbow and Ki noticed that though the weapon was held with apparent casualness, the man had his right hand wrapped aroung the stock’s throat and his finger was positioned to slide quickly to the trigger. Behind them, Bobby spoke from the open door of the stagecoach.
“It’s all right, Clegg,” the youth said. “This is Miss Starbuck and Ki. You don’t need to worry about them, they’ve come to help Grandpa.”
“Bobby Tinker!” the man with the rifle exclaimed. “Dog-gone you, boy! Don’t you know the Captain’s been fretting ever since you left? What got into you, anyhow?”
Jessie spoke quickly. “That’s a long story, Mr. Clegg. Perhaps you’d better wait and let Captain Tinker tell you the details after he’s talked with Bobby.”
“Clegg’s my first name, Miss Starbuck. Clegg Sanford. I’m Blaine Abel’s ranch foreman, and I guess like everybody else in the cattle business, I’ve heard about you and your daddy.”
“My father’s dead, Mr. Sanford. And this is Ki, who—well, Ki helps me whenever I need help.”
Sanford nodded to Ki, who returned the salutation. Then he said to Jessie, “I’d feel better if you’d just call me Clegg, Miss Starbuck. And I’m sorry about your daddy. I know the Captain will be too.”
“Father’s been dead for some time, Clegg,” Jessie replied. “I was surprised when Bobby told me that Captain Tinker hadn’t gotten word of his death.”
“We’re sorta tucked away in a corner here in Hidden Valley, Miss Starbuck. It takes a long time for news to get to us.”
Ki said, “I’ve been wondering why you met the stage with a rifle, Clegg. Has the railroad crowd been stirring up trouble?”
“Not any more’n usual.”
“That could mean almost anything,” Jessie said.
“Well, it means we’ve had some water holes salted and some steers shot at night. But it’s been little piddling stuff, so far. Then, when they got the grade up to the pass a few days ago, Blaine figured they might try some kinda tricks, like setting off a charge of dynamite to open it up.”
Ki nodded. “So you’re guarding it. I hope you’ve got enough men to keep someone on duty day and night.”
“Oh, Blaine’s worked things out with the other ranchers. We take turns, and the work gets done, and nobody’s put out much.”
“From what you’ve said, I get the idea the ranchers aren’t anxious to have a railroad through the valley,” Jessie said.
“We’d like to have a railroad. It’d save driving steers to the Southern Pacific shipping pens up north when we take ‘em to market,” Clegg replied. “But not this railroad. They started out acting like crooks, and that gave us a pretty good idea how they’d act if they got in.”
Before Jessie could ask Clegg any more questions, the stage driver called, “Horses are rested now. Better get moving, if we’re going to make it the rest of the way before dark.”
Hidden Valley, as Jessie viewed it from the stagecoach in the late afternoon sunlight, was as different from her beloved Circle Star as any place could be. The valley might have been on another planet, an older and more settled world than the one on which the ranch was located. The only feature common to the two areas was that both were virtually treeless. In all other ways, Hidden Valley contrasted sharply with the endlessly sprawling, bare and unpeopled expanse of the vast southwest Texas prairie. Still, Jessie found herself drawn to the isolated pocket of green that nestled between the mountains.
For the first two or three miles, lush pastures stretched from the road on both sides. Late as the summer was, the grass in the fields was still green, and came midway up the stumpy legs of the whitefaced Hereford steers that grazed in small herds on the unfenced land. Only two of the ranch houses were visible from the road, but Bobby pointed out the locations of those that were nestled in valleys or behind low rises of the ground.
Gradually the pastures gave way to farms, where there were neat dwellings and oversized barns spaced widely apart, with fenced crop rows stretching away from them in neatly spaced lines. Most of the farm crops had been harvested, but men were working in some of the fields visible from the stagecoach. Between the bare acres where the harvest had been made and the fields freshly plowed, a few fields still showed green squares of rectangles of unpicked vegetables not yet ready to go to market.
Twilight was approaching and the sky had turned a deep, clear blue by the time the stage stopped in the town, which bore the same name as that of the valley. The driver pulled the team to a creaking halt in front of the livery stable. For a moment after they alighted, Jessie, Ki, and Bobby stood by the coa
ch, adjusting to the lack of motion after the swaying of the top-heavy vehicle. Then, while waiting for the driver to get their luggage from the boot, they stepped out into the road to look at the town.
There were no houses near the livery stable; it was isolated by an expanse of corrals and barns from the nearest dwellings. A hundred yards or so beyond the corral, the unpaved road became a street, and the town began. Ki took the two heavy bags, and Bobby carried Jessie’s second piece of baggage, a light portmanteau.
They started up the street, passing two or three houses on either side, all of them well back from the road, and reached the beginning of a board sidewalk. The first buildings beyond the few set-back houses were an unusually large sprawling structure that rambled back from the sidewalk and just beyond it a tall, square frame building of two and a half stories.
As they got closer, they could see at the eaves of the high house a sign that said ROOMS. Above the narrow veranda of the first structure, an even larger sign extending to the street read SALOON. On the saloon’s narrow veranda, a half-dozen men lounged on benches.
“Grandpa’s house is a little ways off,” Bobby told his companions. “We’ve got to go through town, to the other side of the courthouse square.” They were approaching the saloon, and the boy added, “We can cross to the other side of the street if you don’t want to walk in front of the saloon, Miss Jessie.”
“Why, I don’t mind one bit walking past the saloon, Bobby,” Jessie smiled. “But you know where we’re going. Ki and I don‘t, so you lead the way and we’ll just follow you.”
After Jessie’s reassurance, Bobby chose not to cross the street. The wooden sidewalk was far too narrow to allow them to walk three abreast, and was really not wide enough for two, so Bobby led the way, a half-step ahead of Jessie, and Ki kept a step behind. As they neared the saloon, two of the half-dozen men who were on the shallow veranda moved close to the edge and eyed the walking trio. Both of the men had on Montana-creased hats, and wore neckerchiefs at the throats of their checked gingham shirts, and duck jeans tucked into high-heeled boots. Both had on pistol belts. Their attention was focused on Jessie, and she kept her eyes straight ahead, ignoring their stares.