by L. P. Holmes
So that was the way it was. Martell unsaddled, watered the black, and turned the horse loose to forage, knowing it would not stir far from the other horses munching beyond the wagons. When he got back to the fire, a pad of blankets awaited him.
The womenfolk had retired to beds in the big wagon. Martell could hear them murmuring back and forth as he smoked a final cigarette, watching the last dwindling glow of the fire, the fading coals winking redly through a powdering of gray ash.
In the sky the stars spilled their eternal chilling glitter, watching the vast roll and turn of the earth still into sleep. The tensions of the long day ran out of Martell, letting weariness move in. He took a final drag at his cigarette, tossed the butt into the fire ash, rolled up in the blankets. Some time later he awakened to hear the roll of hooves beating by in the dark, heading north. The Rocking A, riding home, no doubt. The cadence of speeding horses faded and died in the distance. Martell went back to sleep.
Chapter Five
The sun was an hour high the next morning when Bruce Martell struck the south bank of Hayfork River and turned west along it. Behind him, at the Carling camp, he had left two women who had made a stronger impression upon him than any of their sex since the days of his own mother. And from Aunt Lucy, at least, he’d had a warm invitation to visit them again.
The girl, Tracy, had been gracious and not unfriendly, but had shown a reserve that was slightly puzzling. She had been, Martell mused, easier to talk to on the ride out from town the previous afternoon after snagging him away from that mob of crazy settlers. Her reserve, her vague impression of withdrawing, came after they had reached the Carling camp, after his incipient argument with Jason Spelle.
Well, that could be the answer. Maybe there was something between her and Jason Spelle, and Spelle had chided her for taking the part of a strange saddle man. Either way, it was a part of something that had passed, another day marked off with all the other yesterdays.
On his way up to the river, Martell passed several settler camps. He swung wide of these. Even so, twice he saw men watching him warily from the distance, and the early morning sunlight glinted on weapons they held. These were harsh reminders that the rough doings of yesterday had not been due to casual circumstances. Hate and enmity had not died with the night. It was here again to greet this fair new morning. It was something that lay across this land like some pale and shifting menace. And Martell, old in experience with such things, knew that it was a menace that would only be wiped away by the searing flame of guns.
It would, he told himself, come certainly to that, men being what they were. Few of them reasoned with their heads, many of them with their passions, which were blind and brutal things. Men always learned the hard way. They had to be hurt savagely before they put reason ahead of force.
In itself, this Hayfork River was a pleasant stream. Big, gaunt oak trees spread wide blots of pleasant shade along its higher banks, while lines of willow and alder hugged the main watercourse, between the spreading gravel flats built up by past freshets. As always, the bounty of water and cover attracted wildlife. Coveys of quail buzzed and called about the willow thickets and in the green facades of wild grapevines climbing high among the alders. Smaller bird life was everywhere, and across deep, cool pools wood ducks splashed and glided.
At midmorning Martell crossed a small creek coming into the river at right angles, and he paused here to let the black horse drink. Beyond stretched a wide, deep-earthed flat, lush and thick with sun-dried grass. Moving on up to the level of this, Martell saw, some four hundred yards ahead, two wagons drawn up in the shade of a big oak. A little apart from the wagons a man stood, a rifle across his arm. Drawn up in front of him in a thin semicircle were three riders. There was grim portent in the picture.
Martell’s first thought was to swing wide and ride around this thing. But this was the first camp he’d run across in quite a distance, and hereabouts somewhere, according to what Ezra Banks had told him, he might find the Clebourne camp. This could be the very camp he was looking for, and if he rode around it, then what? Maybe the figure with the rifle was Kip, his kid brother.
No, that wasn’t Kip. The kid was of a more slender build, not as tall. Just the same, something nagged at the back of Martell’s mind, intuition, prescience—something pushing him forward. Hardheaded, practical, he fought against it. He’d had trouble enough yesterday. This could be none of his mix. Yet, he shook the reins and the black lifted to a fast jog, taking him straight in toward the wagons. He had cut the distance to less than a third before the three riders became aware of his approach; the man with the rifle must have seen him from the moment he lifted out of that little watercourse back there.
The riders broke up their semicircle, swung, then bunched, warily watching both him and the settler. Martell was high and alert in the saddle as he cut down the distance. And then, presently, there he was, within fifty feet of them, letting the hard pressure of his scrutiny run across them.
There was a thread of desperation in the settler’s voice as he boomed, “You, too, can stop right there!”
“You’ve nothing to fear from me, friend,” answered Martell. “These others … what about them?”
There was uncertainty in the settler’s reply. “I don’t know. They’re not Rocking A. They’re looking for somebody. They say he’s around this camp. I say he ain’t. They don’t believe me.”
“No, by God!” growled one of the riders, “we don’t. You admit your name is Clebourne. The word I picked along the way is that Kip Martell came into this basin with you, driving your second wagon. Where is he?”
Bruce Martell had his good look at the speaker. Inside, he was chill and taut. Outwardly the only sign of this was in the darkening of his eyes, that look brushed with smoke.
This fellow he was looking at, what would he be wanting with Kip? And this was the Clebourne camp—but where was Kip? Martell edged the black closer.
The settler swung his rifle in a little arc. “Move along, the lot of you,” he said tautly. “This is my camp. Stay out of it!”
Martell did not watch the settler any more, but he missed no move, no shade of expression of the other three.
“You heard what the man said,” he drawled coldly. “I’m sure he means you. Move on!”
The leader of the three was swarthy, with a broad, blocky face and black, round eyes. There was a snaky fixedness about them, just as hard, just as cruel.
“You’d be siding this sodbuster?” he growled.
“Could be. Yes, I think so. Changes the picture, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe … maybe not!”
“It does. Move on!”
The swarthy one shifted a little in his saddle. His black eyes flickered. Uncertainty was beginning to work in him.
“You could be good,” he blurted, “or you could be ordinary. The issue ain’t big enough to find out … now.”
He spun his horse and spurred away, the other two pounding after him. The settler lowered his rifle and spoke with some bewilderment. “Well, I will be damned. Never expected to see the day when a saddle man would take my part against others like him. What do you want?”
Martell answered him with a question. “That fellow was right … your name is Clebourne?”
The settler nodded. He was a big man, bearded. “Yeah. I’m Jeff Clebourne.”
“If Kip Martell isn’t here, where is he? I’m Kip’s brother Bruce.”
“I’ll be twice damned!” exclaimed Clebourne. “Get down, man. You’re plenty welcome. Kip’s been wondering when you’d show. Yeah, Kip’s right here. But I couldn’t tell Horgan that, could I?”
“Horgan?” Martell swung his head, stared after the vanishing three. “That fellow was Pitch Horgan?”
“None other. First time I ever saw him in my life, but from Kip’s description, I couldn’t be mistaken. Yeah, that was Horgan.”
&nb
sp; As Martell stepped from the saddle, Clebourne turned toward the river and waved a long arm. Two figures came scrambling immediately into view, and hurried toward the wagons. One of them carried a rifle, and Martell knew this one at a glance. Along with Clebourne he moved to meet them.
Recognition came from the other side. “Bruce!” came the yell. “Bruce! The old lone wolf himself!”
Martell’s eyes softened. He gripped the kid’s hand, wrapped his other arm around him. He thought he saw the kid blink rapidly a couple of times.
“This is him, folks,” chortled Kip. “Look him over. Didn’t I tell you that when this big, tough nut came riding in, then the coyotes’d get off the trail? Well, you just saw what I meant.”
He pulled Bruce around. “These are my people, Bruce. Jeff and Cadence Clebourne.” He said it again. “My people.”
That slim figure that had come running up from the river with Kip, she stood, lithe and brown and big-eyed, in her denim shirt and faded jeans. Maybe nineteen or twenty years old, Bruce guessed, with a shadow of some fear, still far back in her eyes. Bruce gave her that faint, slow-breaking smile.
“Kip’s people are my people,” he said. “I’m happy to know you both.” He shook hands with Jeff Clebourne. He turned back to Kip. “What’s Pitch Horgan doing here, kid?”
The exuberance died out of Kip’s face. “Tell you about it later. I didn’t enjoy skulking back there behind the riverbank. But don’t think Jeff was facing them alone.” He shook his rifle. “I had a bead on Horgan every second. If he’d made one phony move, I’d have cut him in half. But Jeff thought if he could put over the bluff of me not being here any more, it would be the best way out. There was … Cadence to think of.”
Kip looked at the girl, and in that glance Bruce read a lot. He didn’t press the point, slapping Kip on the shoulder again. “Good to find you, kid. I started out soon as I got your letter. Quite a country, this. Something I never expected, though. That you’d become a man of the soil.”
Kip grinned. “Sodbuster, you mean. Well, things happen, and a man’s ideas change. Get the kak off that horse of yours and make yourself at home. This is home now, Bruce, and you’re not going anywhere.”
While Bruce took care of the black, the Clebournes, father and daughter, showing a fine consideration, busied themselves about camp chores, leaving Bruce and Kip together.
“All right, kid,” said Bruce quietly. “How about Horgan? You’re not running away from anything, are you?”
“Only from a life that came near making a damned fool of me,” answered Kip simply. “Or maybe it’s better this way … from being a bigger jack than I had been. Sure, I was getting pretty wild, riding with Pitch and his crowd. I ain’t claiming any credit for breaking away from them in time. Put it that I was just lucky. Anyhow, I was flat on my back in a boarding house at Brenner Station, getting over a case of plain, old-fashioned measles, when Horgan and the gang made the big break and pulled a rustling job, back in the Madeline Plains country. That’s where the luck came in. If I hadn’t been sick, I’d probably have been in on that job with them. Bruce, I was a lot of fool there for a while, wasn’t I?”
“There were times when I was pretty worried, all right,” admitted Bruce. “For I’d heard some talk down the country about a guy named Horgan who had all the earmarks of getting outside the law, sooner or later. And there were reports that you’d been seen with him. I was all set to ride in and drag you off by the scruff of the neck as soon as that marshal job I’d contracted for in Rawhide was finished. There was a sizable bonus guaranteed me if I’d stick the full year, and I wanted that bonus. So I kept my fingers crossed and stuck it out. But … go on.”
“Well,” said Kip, “I stuck around Brenner Station for a time, getting my strength back, doing odd jobs for my keep. A couple of settler wagons came through, heading for War Lance Creek, where the jump-off of a land rush into Indio Basin was to start. Driving one of those wagons was a girl. She looked at me and I looked at her. Right then, I knew I was all done with Pitch Horgan. I got to know that girl and her father.”
“The Clebournes?” asked Bruce.
“Right. Jeff asked me if I’d be interested in coming along to Indio Basin. He said that while Cadence could drive a wagon as good as any man in ordinary traveling, it was sure to be a wild, rough stampede when the jump-off scramble really started, and he didn’t want Cadence trying to fight a wagon through it alone. The proposition suited me, right down to the ground. So I wrote you the letter then, telling you where you could find me, where I was going.”
“But why would Horgan be looking for you, kid?”
“I’m coming to that,” said Kip soberly. “There was a ’breed, Lip Matole. He showed up and braced me the night before we pulled out of Brenner Station. Matole was one of Horgan’s crowd and he said Horgan had sent him after me. That rustling deal on the Madeline Plains had cost Horgan a couple of men and he was short-handed for another job he was figuring on. I told Matole nothing doing, that I was cutting loose from the old crowd and going my own way. Matole began getting mean about it. He’d seen me with the Clebournes, and pretty soon he made a crack about Cadence. That seemed to blow something loose in my head. Next thing I knew I was looking at Matole through smoke … and he was down.”
Kip scrubbed a nervous hand through his curly hair. “I thought that would finish me with Jeff and Cadence, sure. I told them the whole story, all of it, right from the first. I didn’t leave out a thing. I didn’t make any excuses. When I got through, they hadn’t changed a bit. They still wanted me to come along. Bruce, they’re the finest people in the world.”
Bruce nodded with satisfaction. “I’m happy about the whole thing, kid. To know you’ve rubbed out the old trail and are now on a new and good one. Don’t let the memory of that Matole hombre bother you.”
“I won’t, if Horgan’ll let it be that way. But Matole was a favorite of Horgan’s, and it looks like Horgan is out to find me and even up for him. I had no idea Horgan was here in Indio Basin, until a few days ago. A friend of Jeff’s dropped by and said he’d met up with a guy who was asking around, trying to locate me. He described Horgan, so I knew the shadow of the old days was still hanging over me. Since then I’ve been like a flea on a hot griddle, dodging for that riverbank every time a man in a saddle shows up. I don’t like that sort of stuff. If I were on my own, I’d hunt Horgan up and tell him to cut his wolf loose. I’m not afraid of him. But I’ve got to consider Cadence. I don’t want her to ever have to look at me and remember any other dead man besides Lip Matole. Damn Horgan, anyhow! Why can’t he leave me alone?”
“We’ll see if that can’t be taken care of, kid,” said Bruce. “You’ve got the right idea. Keep out of his way, and let nature take its course.”
Chapter Six
The Rocking A headquarters stood at the head of a long, sloping flat in the Lodestone foothills, some three miles north of the Hayfork River. A bachelor outfit, everything about it was built entirely for utility. There were no frills. What Hack Asbell was pleased to call his ranch house was a three-roomed cabin, no more, with a narrow porch running across the short front of it.
Hack Asbell stood on this porch and stared down across the morning sunshine at the rider coming up the flat on a big black gelding. Asbell turned his grizzled head and yelled.
“Carp!”
Carp Bastion stepped out of the bunkhouse opposite.
Asbell said, “Take a look.”
Carp did and swore, first in surprise, then with growling satisfaction. “I don’t know what would be bringin’ him here, Hack, but whatever it is and when it’s done with, I want a private word with that jigger. Just him and me. Twice he got the jump on me. This time we’ll start from the same line.”
“You want to die young, Carp?” scoffed Asbell. “You’re ordinary as hell with a gun. But that hombre, he’s got the earmarks all over him.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about guns,” said Carp. “I ain’t got that much against him. I’m goin’ to have one of the boys get the drop on him and make him take his gun off. Then him and me’ll toe the scratch, and I’ll find out, one way or the other.”
Asbell’s smile was thinly dry. “You’re a funny one, Carp. Just like a damned kid at times. You just got to know whether you can lick a guy or whether you can’t. It could be interesting. But if he knocks your ears back, remember you went hunting for it.”
“He knocks ’em back, I won’t cry.” Carp dodged back into the bunkhouse.
Asbell was smoking a black cheroot. He rolled it from one grim lip to the other as he watched Bruce Martell ride up. Martell came in steadily, loose and easy in his saddle, eyes lazy but alert. He pulled in and inclined his head.
“Howdy! Glad to find you home, Mister Asbell. Got time for a little talk?”
“Thought I told you to stay the other side of the river,” growled Asbell.
“True,” murmured Bruce. “But here I am. Your fur was considerable rumpled then. I’m gambling it’s smoothed down some since.”
“I still say I’ll hang the first damned slow-elker I come across,” snapped Asbell acidly. “But … light and have your say.”
Bruce stepped from the saddle, moved up on the cabin porch, and reached for his smoking. He was silent while he built his cigarette. Asbell stirred restlessly.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Beef,” said Bruce. “Beef to feed hungry settlers.”
Asbell swung around. “Friend,” he said with thin harshness, “that’s a touchy subject with me. You ought to know that.”
Martell nodded. “I know. But this is a legitimate deal, with profit for you and for me. I want to buy some beef stock from you.’
“How many and what for?”