There was an instant burst of firing in reply, and I heard a heavy fall somewhere near me, and the grunt of a man hitting the ground. A spot of white … a man riding a paint horse showed, and I fired again.
The horse swerved sharply and then we were all firing. The surprise had been mutual.
They came unexpectedly from the night, but they charged when all four of us were almost together, and our fire smashed them back, caused them to swerve. Shouting and yelling, they bore down on the herd.
The cattle lunged to their feet and stampeded down the valley and away from camp.
Catching the momentary outline of a man against the sky, I fired again, and then again. Hastily I reloaded and started after them. But as suddenly as it had happened, it was over. The attackers were gone and the herd was gone.
Zeb came riding up out of the night. “Dan! Dan?’”
“Yeah … somebody’s down.”
There was a rush of horsemen from camp, and Pa yelled out, “Dan? Are you all right?”
Zeno Yearling spoke from nearby. “Here he is. I think it’s Aaron.”
Pa struck a light. Aaron was down, all right. He was shot through the chest and he was dead.
“They’ll pay for this,” Pa said. “By the Lord Harry, they’ll pay!”
We circled warily, hunting for other men who were down. We found two of theirs. One was a man named Streeter, a hanger-on who had drifted to the Cowhouse country from over on the Nueces after trouble with the Rangers. The other man we had seen around, but did not know.
“Two for one,” Tap said.
“Two, hell!” Pa exploded. “I wouldn’t swap Stark for ten of them! He was a good man.”
“We’ll wait until daylight,” I said, “then go hunting.”
We rode back to camp with Aaron across a saddle. Nobody was feeling very good about it, and I didn’t envy Pa, who would have to tell his widow.
There was no talking around the fire. Picking up some sticks, I built the flames up. We checked around, but nobody else had been hurt.
“Two doesn’t seem right,” Zeb said. “I know we hit more of them. They came right at us, close range.”
Karen and Mrs. Foley were at the fire, making coffee. Taking the Patterson, I cleaned it carefully, checked the loads, and reloaded. Then I went out and looked the line-back dun over to see if he’d picked up any scratches. He looked fit and ready, and I knew him . For a to6gh little horse.
The day broke slowly, a gray morning with a black line of trees that slowly took on shape and became distinct. With the first light, we saddled up again.
Tim Foley, despite his arguments, was forced to stay behind with the wagons, and Frank Kelsey stayed with him.
“You’d better stay, Tom,” Pa said. “We’ve lost one married man already.”
“Be damned if I will!” Sandy replied testily. He hesitated. “We should leave another man. Suppose they come back?”
4/5
“Free”—Pa looked over at Squires—“you stay. You stood guard last night.”
“Now, look here!” Squires protested.
“As a favor,” Pa said. “Will you stay?”
Freeman Squires shrugged and walked away. The rest of us mounted up and moved out.
The trail was broad enough, for they had followed the herd into the night, and the herd had taken off into the broad, empty lands to the south.
This was Lipan country, but the Lipans, of late, had been friendly to the white man.
We rode swiftly into the growing light, a tight bunch of armed horsemen, grim-faced and bitter with the loss of Aaron Stark and our cattle. No longer were we simply hardworking, hard-riding men, no longer quiet men intent on our own affairs. For riding after lawless men was not simply for revenge or recovery of property; it was necessary if there was to be law, and here there was no law except what right-thinking men made for themselves.
The brown grass of autumn caught the golden light of morning, and the dark lines of trees that marked the Concho fell behind. Our group loosened, spread out a little to see the tracks better. Among the many cattle tracks we searched for those of riders.
Away off on the flank, I suddenly came upon the tracks of a lone rider whose mount had a magnificent stride. Drawing up, I checked those tracks again.
It was a big horse–far larger and with a better gait than our cow ponies—and it carried a light burden, for the tracks indicated the weight upon the horse must be small.
The tracks came from the northwest, which did not fit with those we followed, unless they were being joined by some scout sent on ahead. Yet why would such a scout be sent? And who among the renegades who followed the Holts could possibly have such a horse?
The tracks had been made the night before, or late the previous afternoon, and I followed them, but kept my own party in sight.
Suddenly the tracks veered sharply west, and I drew rein, looking in that direction.
There was a clump of black on the prairie … mesquite? Cautiously, rifle ready, I walked the dun toward it. The size grew … it was a clump of trees and brush almost filling a hollow in the plain.
The edge broke sharply off in a ledge of rock, and the tops of the trees barely lifted above its edge. The tracks I followed led to the edge and disappeared into the copse.
Warily, I followed.
Then I heard running water, a trickle of water falling into a pool. A wind stirred the leaves, then was still.
My horse, ears pricked, walked into a narrow trail where my stirrups brushed the leaves on either side. After some thirty yards of this, there was a sudden hollow under the arching branches of the live oaks, and an open space some fifty feet in diameter, a pool a dozen feet across, and a magnificent black horse that whinnied gently and pricked his ears at my dun. There was coffee on a !re, and bacon frying, and then a voice spoke. “Stand where you are, senior, or I shall put a bullet where your breakfast is.
My hands lifted cautiously. There was no mistaking the ominous click of the cocking gun … but the voice was a woman’s voice.
Chapter Three.
She was young and she was lovely, and the sun caught and entangled itself in the spun red-gold of her hair, but the rifle in her hands was rock-steady, its muzzle an unwinking black eye that looked at my belt buckle.
A fiat-crowned Spanish hat lay upon her shoulders, held by the chin strap which had slipped down about her throat. She was dressed in beautifully tanned buckskin, the skirt was divided for easy riding–at first I had seen, although I’d heard of them before this.
“Who are you? Why are you following me?”
“‘Unless you’re one of the cow thieves that ran off our herd last night, I wasn’t following you until I came across your tracks out there.”
The rifle did not waver, nor did her eyes. “Who are you? Where do you come frown?”
As she talked, I was getting an idea. Maybe a wild one, but an idea.
“The name is Dan Killoe, and we’re from over on the Cowhouse. We’re driving to New Mexico. Maybe to Colorado. We’re hunting new range.”
“You spoke of cow thieves.”
“They ran our herd off last night. The way we figure, it’s a passel of thieves from back on the Cowhouse. If we leave the country with our stock, they’ve all got to go to work.”
She watched me with cool, violet eyes. Yet it seemed to me she was buying my story.
“You must have heard the cattle go by a couple of hours back,” I added. “Now may I put my hands down?”
“Put them down. Just be careful what you do with them.” Carefully, I lowered them to the horn of the saddle. Then I glanced around. “Seems to me you’re a long way from home,” I said, “and you a woman alone.”
“I am not alone,” she said grimly. “I have this.” She gestured meaningfully with her rifle.
“That’s a mighty fine horse you’ve got there. Fact is”—I pushed my hat back on my head—“that’s one reason I followed you. I wanted to see that horse.”
She lowered her rifle just a little. “Have some coffee?” she suggested. “It will boil away.”
Gratefully, I swung down. “I’d like a cup. Then I’ll have to follow after the others and lend a hand. I figure in about an hour we’re going to have us a scrap with those thieves.”
My own cup hung to my saddle-horn and I helped myself and looked again at her. Never in all my born days had I seen a girl as pretty as that.
“Now,” I said, “I’ve got an idea. You wouldn’t be looking for somebody, would you?”
She glanced at me quickly. “Why do you ask that?”
“Wondered.” I took a swallow of hot coffee. “Do you know anything about the Comancheros?”
Oh, I’d hit pay dirt all right, that was plain enough from the way she reacted. “I know about them,” she said.
“We picked up a maverick a while back, and he was in mighty bad shape. He had been shot and he had been dragged, and the Comaneheros had done it.” “He’s alive? He’s all right?” “Friend of yours?”
“Where is he? I am going to him.”
“He’s in bad shape, so you take it easy. We found him out in the brush, and the wolves had been at him. He’d fought them off, but he was chewed up some.” I swallowed the last of the coffee and rinsed my cup at the stream. “He’s got nerve enough for three men. How he ever crawled so far, I’ll never know.”
She gathered her meager gear. “I am going to him. Where is your camp?”
“Ma’am, that boy is in bad shape and, like I said, he had some rough treatment. I don’t know you, and for all I do know you might be one of his enemies.”
“I am his adopted sister. After my father was killed, his family took me into their home.”
It was time I was getting on, for I’d already lost too much time, and the Kaybar outfit was riding into trouble. “You ride careful when you get to camp. They are expecting trouble, and you might collect a bullet before they see you.
“You ride north from here. The camp is on the Antelope near where it empties into the Middle Concho. Tell them Dan Killoe sent you.”
Mounting up, I rode up to the plain and swung south. Keeping to low ground, I rode swiftly along, coming up only occasionally to look for the trail of torn earth where the Kaybar crew had passed.
They had been moving slowly, so I figured to overtake them before they ran into trouble.
But I was almost too late.
When I finally saw them they were fanned out, riding toward a bluff. The country beyond that bluff stretched out for miles, and I could catch glimpses of it. Suddenly, just as I slowed down so as not to rush among them, the grass stirred between them and me and a man reared up, rifle in hand.
Intent upon making a kill, he did not notice me, and my horse made little sound with his hootbeats on the plain’s turf. Not wishing to stampede their horses by rushing among them, the dun was walking at a slow pace when the man rose from the brush.
He came up with his rifle and lifted it, taking a careful sight on Tap, and I slapped the spurs to the dun. I was not a rider who used his spurs, and the startled dun gave one tremendous leap and then broke into a dead run.
The ambusher heard the sound of hoofs too late, and even as he brought the rifle into position to fire, he must have heard that rushing sound. It could not have been loud, for the turf was not hard and there was short grass, but he turned quickly, suddenly, but I was fairly on top of him and he had no chance. I fired that Patterson of mine like you’d fire a pistol, gripping it with one hand and holding it low down close to my thigh.
He was slammed back by that .56-caliber bullet as though struck by an axe, and then I was over and past him and riding up to join the others.
As if on order, they all broke into a run, and when I reached the ridge they had been mounting, I saw the camp that lay below.
At least two dozen men were lying about, and my shot must have startled them, for they evidently had jumped up and started for their guns, those who didn’t have them alongside.
There were several men with the herd, and my first shot went for the nearest guard.
It was a good shot, for he le the saddle and tumbled in a heap, and then we ripped into that camp.
We were outnumbered two to one, but our coming was a complete surprise and we made the attack good. I saw Tap wheel his horse and come back through a second time, blasting with a six-shooter.
Then he tucked that one away and started blasting with a second one, and unless I missed my guess, Tap would be carrying at least two more.
In those days of cap-and-ball pistols many a man when fighting Indians—and some outlaws too–carried as many as six pistols into action because of the time it took to reload. And some carried extra cylinders that could be placed fully loaded into the pistol.
A big man with a red beard and red hair all over his chest jumped at me, swinging a rifle that must have been empty. The dun hit him with a shoulder and knocked him head over heels into the fire.
He let out an awful yell and bounded out of that fire with his pants smoking, and sticks and coals were scattered all over the place.
We swept on through camp and started those cattle hightailing it back to the north, and if we picked up a few mustangs in the process, we weren’t taking time to sort them out, even if ‘d we been a mind to.
We got off scot-free.
Ben Cole had a bullet burn alongside his neck, and he grumbled all the way back to the Concho about it. Fact is, it must have smarted something fierce, with sweat getting into it, and all. But you’d have thought he had a broken knee or a cracked skull, the way he took on.
Zeno Yearly rode back alongside me. He was a long-legged man with a long face, and he didn’t look like he could move fast enough to catch a turtle in a barley field.
However, out there when the fighting was going on, I’d noticed he was a busy, busy man.
Tap fell back beside me. “Where’d you drop off to?” he asked. “I figured you’d taken out, running.”
“Had to stop back there to talk to a girl,” I said carelessly. “She offered me coffee, so I stopped by.”
He looked at me, grinning. “Boy, any girl you find out in this country, you can have!”
“Prettiest girl you ever did see,” I commented, “and she’ll be back at camp when we get there.”
“You’re funnin’!” He stared at me, trying to make out what I was getting at. The idea that the girl actually existed he wouldn’t consider for a moment, and in his place I wouldn’t have believed it either.
“Too bad you’re getting married,” I said. “Puts you out of the running.”
His face flushed. “Who said I was getting married?” he demanded belligerently.
“Why, Karen. She allowed as how you two were looking for a meeting house.”
His face flushed a deeper red under the brown. “Nothing to that,” he protested. “Nothing to that, nothing at all.”
“She seemed mighty positive,” I said, “and you know how folks out here are, when it comes to trifling with a good woman. Tim Foley is a mighty handy man with a shotgun, Tap. I’d ride careful, if I were you.”
He grinned. He was recovering himself now. “Now, don’t you worry, boy. Nobody ever caught old Tap in a bind like that. Karen’s a fine girl.., but marriage? I ain’t the marrying kind.”
Whether it was what I’d said or something else, I can’t say, but that night I noticed Karen sitting by herself, and she wasn’t liking it, not one bit.
The redheaded girl was there, and she was the center of quite a bit of fuss by the womenfolks. Most of the men hung back. She was so beautiful it made them tongue-tied, not that any of them, unless it was Tap, would have won any prizes in an elocution contest.
Me, I hadn’t anything to say to her. She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, and to ride out there by herself took a lot more nerve than most men would have, riding right through the heart of Comanche country, like that.
Two or three times she looked over at me, but I pai
d her no mind. Most of the time she spent talking to the Mexican or fixing grub for him.
Karen’s face was pale and her lips were thin. I’d never noticed how sharp and angular her face could get until that night, and I knew she was mad, mad clean through. Tap, he just sat and joked with the men, and when he got up Karen would have cut him off from the bunch, but he stepped into the saddle and rode out to the herd.
Tom Sandy came up to the fire for more coffee, and for the first time I saw he was wearing a six-shooter. He favored a rifle, as I do, but tonight he was packing a gun. Rose was at the fire, too. A dark, pretty woman with a lot of woman where it mattered, and a way of making a man notice. She had those big dark eyes, and any time she looked at an attractive man those eyes carried a challenge or an invitation.
Or something that could be taken that way. Believe me, she was no woman to have around a cow outfit.
Sandy looked across the fire at her a few times, and he looked mean as an old razor-back boar.
Rose dished up some beans and beef for Tom and brought them to him, and then she turned to me. “Dan, can I help you to something?”
I looked up at her and she was smiling at me, and I swallowed a couple of times.
“Thank you, ma’am. I would like some more of those frijoles.’”
She went to the fire for them, giving her hips that extra movement as she walked away, and Tom Sandy was staring at me with a mean look in his eye.
“Hot,” I said, running a finger around my shirt collar.
“‘I hadn’t noticed,” he said.
Pa came over and dropped down beside me. “Tap figures we’d better get on the road right away in the morning, before daybreak. What do you think?”
“‘Good idea,” I said.
Tom Sandy walked off, and Pa looked at me. “Dan, you aren’t walking out with Rose Sandy, are you?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Somebody is. Tom knows it and he’s mad. If he finds out, there’ll be a killing.”
“Don’t look at me. If I was planning to start something like that, she wouldn’t be the one.”
At sunup we were well down the trail and moving steadily westward. Away from the stream the land was dry and desolate, and showed little grass. It was a warning of what lay ahead.
Killoe (1962) Page 5