by J. T. Edson
A gasp left Freda’s lips. She could hardly believe her ears and felt like singing aloud in joy. After seeing the way Dusty, Mark and the Kid handled the eight Double K hard-cases and made them back off, she did not doubt but that the ranch would be safe in their hands.
‘We haven’t much food,’ she said, ‘but the way you told it none of you do much work either.’
From the grins on three faces Freda knew she had said the right thing. Her reply showed them she had the right spirit and knew cowhand feelings. Her father did not take the same lighthearted view.
‘Just a moment, Freda,’ he put in. ‘These gentlemen are welcome to stay over and rest their horses, but we won’t expect them to work for their food.’
‘Why not?’ asked Dusty. ‘The way this pair eat they need work, or they’ll run to hawg-fat and be good for nothing when I get them back to home.’
‘But — but—!’
‘Shucks, give it a whirl, sir,’ interruped Dusty. ‘Mark here’s good for heavy lifting which don’t call for brains. Lon might not know a buffalo bull from a muley steer, but he’s better than fair at toting wood for the cook.’
‘And how about you?’ asked Freda. What do you do?’
‘As little as he can get away with,’ Mark answered.
The girl laughed and turned to her father. ‘Papa, this is Captain Dusty Fog, Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid.’
It took Lasalle a full minute to reconcile Dusty’s appearance with his Civil War record, or his peacetime prominence. Then Lasalle saw the latent power of the small man, recognized it as an old soldier could always recognize a born leader of men. His daughter was not a victim of cowhand humour. This small man was really Dusty Fog. He still did not know what he could say or do for the best.
Then his daughter took the matter out of his hands, made a decision on her own and showed him that she was a child no more.
‘I’ll show you where the hands bunked,’ she said. ‘You can move your gear in and then I’ll find you some work.’
‘I’m beginning not to like this here job already,’ the Kid told Dusty in an audible whisper; ‘This gal sounds too much like you and I’m all for a day’s work — providing it’s spread out over three days.’
With that the three cowhands started to follow Freda, leaving her father with his mouth hanging open, not knowing how things came to happen. Then he recalled a piece of news overheard in town, something which might interest the three cowhands.
‘Mallick’s started wiring off their range. He’s already fenced off the narrows all the way along their two mile length from the badlands down to where they open out on to his range again. He doesn’t allow any trail herds to cross the Double K.’
‘He’s done what?’
Lasalle took a pace backwards before the concentrated fury in Dusty Fog’s voice as the small Texan turned back towards him. Mark and the Kid had turned also and they no longer smiled or looked friendly.
‘Put wire across the trail, clear across the narrows. Says any trail herd which wants to make the market has to swing one way or the other round his range.’
The girl looked from her father to the three cowhands. She knew cowhands hated barbed wire and fences of any kind. She knew all the range arguments about wire; that cattle ripped themselves open on the spikes; that a man might ride into such a fence during the night hours and not see it until too late. She also knew the hate went deeper than that. From the Mississippi to the Pacific a man could move or let his cattle graze without being fenced in. He could ride where he wished and had no need to fear crossing another man’s land as long as he obeyed the un-written rules of the range. Through all that expanse of land there were few if any fences and the free-roaming cowhands wanted to see it stay that way.
‘How about the herds already moving north?’ Mark asked quietly. ‘This’s the trail Stone Hart uses and he’s already on his way.’
‘I think we’d all better go into the house and talk this out,’ Lasalle replied, but some of the tired sag had left his shoulders now and he seemed to be in full command of himself.
He led the way around the house side and in through the front door. The Kid collected the fallen Army Colt, although Lasalle paid no attention to it, or to the shotgun which the Kid leaned against the door on entering. He waved his guests into chairs and rooted through the side-piece drawers to find a pencil and paper. With these he joined the others at the table and started to make a sketch map of the outline of the Double K. It looked like a rough square, except that up at the north-eastern corner the narrows thrust out to where it joined the badlands. All in all Lasalle drew quite a fair map, showing his own place, the other small ranches and the general lay of the land.
‘Did some map-making with the Field Engineers during the War,’ he remarked. ‘This’s the shape of the Lindon Land Grant. We ranch here. This was the Doane place, but they’ve sold out. This’s the Jones place and the last one here is owned by Bill Gibbs. The town’s back here, out beyond the Double K’s south line. If the new owner can buy us out it will make his spread cover a full oblong instead of having the narrows up here.’
Taking the pencil Dusty marked the line taken by the northbound trail herds. He tapped the narrows with the pencil tip. Freda noticed that he handled the pencil with his left hand, yet he drew his Colt with his right. He must be truly ambidextrous, she thought.
‘And he’s run wire down this way,’ Dusty said. ‘From the badlands up that way, right down to where the river starts to curve around and down to form his south line.’
‘So I’ve heard. I haven’t been out that way.’
‘Which means any drive that comes up is going to have to swing to the west,’ Mark drawled. ‘Or go east and try to run the badlands.’
Lasalle nodded. ‘Mallick claims the trail herds won’t cross Double K.’
‘Which’d mean the drive would have to circle right around their range to the west, lose maybe a week, maybe more’s drive, or cut east and face bad water, poor graze, worse country and the chance of losing half the herd,’ said Mark quietly. ‘I can’t see any trail boss worth his salt doing that.’
‘Me neither,’ agreed the Kid. ‘What do we do about it, Dusty?’
‘Wait until the Wedge comes up and see what Stone allows to do.’
‘Huh!’ grunted the Kid, for once not in agreement with Dusty’s reply. ‘I say let’s head up there to the narrows and haul down that fence.’
‘The Double K have twenty men at least on the spread,’ Lasalle put in. ‘They have such law as exists in this neck of the woods. Elben has eight men backing him in Barlock, all being paid by the Double K.’
‘Which sounds like a powerful piece of muscle for a man just aiming to run a peaceful cow outfit,’ drawled Dusty. ‘Have you seen this new owner?’
‘Nobody has yet, apart from the hard-cases stopping folks crossing their range. They say the new owner hasn’t arrived yet, that he bought the place without even seeing it.’
‘So we don’t know if he is behind this wiring the range or not.’
‘No, Captain, we don’t. Only it’s not likely Mallick would be doing all this off his own shoulders is it? It’d take nearly four mile of barbed wire to make a double fence along the narrows and that runs to money.’
Changing hands Dusty started to doodle idly on the paper. This ambidextrous prowess was something he had taught himself as a child, mainly to take attention from his lack of inches. He thought of Englishmen he had known, a few of them and not enough to form any opinion of such men as a whole. Yet none of those he had known ever struck him as being the sort to make trouble for folks who couldn’t fight back.
‘We ought to head over and see if this English hombre’s to home, Dusty,’ growled the Kid, sounding Comanche-mean.
‘It’ll wait until we’ve a few more men,’ Dusty replied.
‘Hell, after they come here today—’
Lasalle stared at the Kid. This had been the first time Tring’s visit received a mention.
Freda hurriedly told of the arrival of the Double K men, their threat to the property and their departure. The rancher’s face lost some of its colour, then set in grim lines as he thought of what might have happened had Dusty, Mark and the Kid not been on hand. His attempts to thank the three young Texans met with no success for they laughed it off and, the way they told it, Freda did the running off wielding a broom to good effect on the hard-case crew.
All in all Dusty seemed far more interested in the closing of the trail than in being thanked for a very necessary piece of work.
‘Lon,’ he said. ‘Reckon you could find Bent’s Ford, happen you was looking for it?’
‘Likely, but I’m not looking.’
‘You are. Just as soon as you’ve thrown a saddle on that white goat out back.’
‘Be late tonight when I get there,’ drawled the Kid.
‘Happen that fool Nigger hoss makes it,’ grinned Mark.
‘Ole Nigger’ll run hide ‘n’ tallow off that brown wreck you ride,’ scoffed the Kid. ‘I’ll make Bent’s tonight all right, only I might find the hard boys have been here and took off with your guns.’
‘I’m here to protect them, Lon,’ Freda put in.
‘Sure, with birdshot in both barrels. Say, reckon you can throw up a bite of food to eat on the way, something I can carry easy.’
She sniffed. ‘I’ll flavour it with birdshot. Just remember that I’ve nothing in the house, except for what’s in your greasy-sack.’
‘Do what you can,’ Dusty suggested. ‘Then Mark and I’ll take you into town and buy supplies.’
‘Mallick won’t let us buy anything on credit,’ Lasalle pointed out.
‘We never said anything about credit.’
An indignant flush came to Lasafle’s cheeks as he caught the meaning of Dusty’s words. He thrust back his chair and came to his feet, facing the small Texan across the table.
‘I can’t accept charity—’
‘And none’s being offered. Man, you’re the touchiest gent I’ve come across in many a year. This’s a loan until Stone Hart arrives and you can sell some stock.’
‘And any way you look at it Dusty and I’m going to eat our fair share of that same food.’
Freda stepped to her father’s side and laid a hand on his sleeve, her fingers biting into the bicep.
‘We accept,’ she said and her voice once more warned her father not to argue. ‘Thank you all for helping.’
‘There’s another thing though,’ Lasalle said, surrendering the field to his daughter. ‘Mallick has told the storekeepers they won’t serve any small ranch folk unless they bring a note from him. He keeps a deputy in each store to make sure the owner obeys.’
‘Well now,’ drawled Mark idly, ‘reckon we could do something about that, don’t you, Dusty?’
While agreeing with his big amigo on the point that they could do something about it, Dusty did not want to make war in Barlock until he had a fighting force at his back. While he and Mark could likely go into town and make Elben’s deputies sing low, they might also have to do it to the tune of roaring guns and that could blow things apart at the seams. Dusty wished to avoid starting hostilities if he possibly could. It was not fear of odds which worried Dusty, odds could be whittled down and hired gunmen did not fight when the going got too stiff. With the Wedge at his elbow Dusty could make the hired hard-cases of Double K think the going had got too stiff, then likely put its new owner where he must make his peace.
Every instinct warned Dusty that more than lust for land lay behind this business. The Lindon Land Grant spread wide and large enough to satisfy a man, especially a man new to the cattle business. The entire area was well watered, that could not be the cause of the trouble. So he must look deeper for the reason and when he found it would best know how to avert trouble.
Dusty wanted to meet the English owner if he could, Mallick certainly, to get the measure of his enemies, if enemies they should be. It might be that both were new to the west and did not know the cattleman’s hatred of barbed wire, or the full implication of Lindon’s Grant. If so, and they listened, he might be able to steer them in the right direction.
‘What do you want me to do at Bent’s, Dusty?’ asked the Kid, breaking in on his pard’s thought train.
‘Leave word for Cousin Red to carry on up trail without us. I don’t want him waiting at Bent’s, or coming back to help us. That herd has to make the market. And don’t spread the word about this wire trouble. I don’t want this section swarming with hot-headed fools all looking for trouble.’
‘They’d likely be down here and rip down that fence,’ drawled the Kid. Which same could sure show the Double K bunch how folks feel.’
‘And might start lead flying.’ Dusty answered.
He looked beyond the mere basic events. If Keller or Mallick aimed to keep the fence they had trained fighting men to help them. No matter what public opinion might think about the fences Keller had the law behind him in his right to erect one.
Before any more could be said Freda came in and announced she had food ready for the Kid’s departure. So setting his black Stetson at the right ‘jack-deuce’ angle over his off eye, the Kid headed out back to saddle his white stallion.
The girl followed him and watched the big white horse come to his whistle. She had the westerner’s love of a good horse and that seventeen hand white stallion sure was a fine animal.
‘Isn’t he a beauty?’ she said, stepping forward. ‘Can I stroke him?’
‘Why sure,’ grinned the Kid, ‘happen you don’t want to keep both hands. See, ole Nigger here’s mammy done got scared with a snapping turtle just afore he was born and he don’t know whether he’s hoss or alligator.’
Freda studied the horse and decided that, despite the light way he spoke, the Kid called it right when he told of the dangerous nature of his horse. That seventeen-hand white devil looked as wild and mean as its master. So she refrained from either touching or approaching the horse. This was a real smart move for Nigger would accept the touch of few people; in fact only the Kid could handle his horse with impunity, it merely tolerated the other members of the floating outfit when circumstances forced them to handle it.
With his horse saddled ready to ride the Kid went astride in a lithe, Indian-like bound. He looked down at Freda and grinned, the grin made him look very young and innocent again. Removing his hat he gave her an elaborately graceful flourish with it, then replaced it.
‘You get some buckshot in that gun, gal,’ he said, ‘and afore I get back here. Birdshot, huh!’
Before she could think up a suitable reply he turned the horse, rode around the side of the building, through the water and up the slope. He turned, waved a cheery hand, then went from sight.
Only then did she realize that he had not asked for directions to Bent’s Ford. A momentary suspicion came to her for Dusty claimed they had never travelled this way before. Then the thought left her and she felt just a little ashamed of herself at having it. The Ysabel Kid needed no spoken directions to help him find his way across country. Out there, although the first drive of the year had not yet passed, he would find enough sign to aim him north and all the trails converged at Bent’s Ford in the Indian Nations.
‘Lon gone?’ Dusty asked, coming to the front door as the girl returned to the house.
‘No. He’s sat on the roof, playing a guitar.’
Somehow Freda felt in a mad gay mood, far happier than she had done for a long time. She gave a guilty start, realizing it must be the excitement of the day and the pleasure at having company which made her act in such a manner.
CHAPTER FOUR
A PAIR OF DRUNKEN IRRESPONSIBLE
COWHANDS
‘ABOUT these supplies?’ Mark Counter asked as Dusty and Freda entered the room from seeing the Kid on his way to Bent’s Ford.
‘I’ve told, Mark,’ Lasalle replied. ‘Mallick won’t let us buy any unless we sell out to him.’
‘Looks like we’ll ju
st have to go in and see Mr. Mallick,’ drawled Dusty.
‘Poor Mallick,’ Freda remarked, the gay mood still on her.
Her father watched her and for the first time realized how lonely she must be out here miles from town. He wondered if they might be better to take Mallick’s offer, leave the ranch and make a fresh home in a town where she could have friends of her own age.
Then he thought of the strength Mallick had in Barlock. With Elben, the town marshal, backed by eight gun-wise hard-case deputies, Dusty and Mark would be hopelessly outnumbered. They stood a better than fair chance of leaving town headed in a pinewood box for the boothill.
‘It’s risky—’ he began.
‘Could be, happen we rode on in and started to shoot up the main drag,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Only we don’t aim to. We’ll just ride on in peaceable and ask him to act a mite more sociable and neighbourly.’
‘And if he doesn’t want to act more sociable and neighbourly?’ Freda asked.
‘Don’t reckon there’s much we can do at all,’ drawled Mark, sounding mild but there was no mildness in his eyes.
‘ ‘Cepting maybe try moral suasion,’ Dusty went on, just as mild sounding.
‘Ole Dusty’s real good at that, too,’ Mark said. ‘Yep. I can’t think of a better moral sunder than him. Excepting maybe his — Uncle Devil and his cousin Betty.’
‘And what if Mallick doesn’t fall for this moral suasion — whatever that might be?’
‘Tell you, gal,’ Mark answered. We’ll likely hide behind you.’ They left it at that, although Freda wondered what moral suasion might be. Her father was smiling now, looking more confident in himself all the time, more like the man she always remembered. Freda saw for the first time the strain he had been under for the past few years since her mother died. Now he looked better, ready to take on the world and its problems.
‘Where at’s your hosses, gal?’ Mark asked, taking up his hat.