"I think you're right," Madden said, "but I'll ride up there anyway."
In the low ground I found the place where he had stopped to pull on his boots, and he had walked on from there. By that time his feet must have been sore.
The low ground turned out to be some old wallows, with a cut where run-off water had headed for the creek. He had followed that slight cut, scarcely deep enough to cover a creeping man, down to the creek bed.
That creek wasn't much. Dry now, in wet weather it must have run with a good stream. There were traces in the bottom of recent water ... it had probably been there only a short time before our man came along. He might even have found a drink.
We scouted both ways, and found his trail going upstream. He had stopped often to rest. "Must be wounded," Cotton said.
"Or maybe he's a city man, not used to rough walking."
"You think it's Tarlton?"
"Could be," I said.
A few spattering drops of rain fell, and we went into our blanket rolls for our slickers and put them on. The rain fell harder, and cut visibility. It was a cold rain, driven by a stiff wind that kept our hatbrims slapping our brows.
"This'll wipe out the tracks," Cotton said.
"He'll stay with the stream bed. It's his best chance to find water ... a pool somewhere, or maybe a spring."
We did find an occasional track, but the rain was already making them shapeless. Despite the fact that the man was tired and perhaps wounded, he kept going. "He's got sand," Cotton said. "I'll give him that."
The rain became a downpour. Our horses splashed through gathering pools, and a trickle started in the stream bed. We searched the banks for any hideout, even the simplest shelter, or for anyplace where he might have climbed out of the stream. Occasionally we ourselves rode our horses up the bank and studied the country. It was gently rolling, with here and there a bluff or a somewhat steeper hill, barren of any but the simplest growth.
Ahead of us was a bank where the stream at high water had cut away the rocky edge. Somebody had rolled down slabs of rock and set up a few drift logs to make a crude shelter.
"How about some coffee?" Cotton suggested.
Our horses needed the rest more than we did, and there was room enough for them under the overhang.
"It's a wonder he didn't stop here," Cotton said. "I'll make coffee if you want to look around."
We got down from our saddles and led the horses under the overhang. There was plenty of fuel, and Cotton built a fire. Knocking the water from my hat, I looked around me.
This was an obvious spot for our man to find shelter—that might be why he had not stopped ... if he had not. He might have thought they knew of this place.
"There's been a fire," Cotton said. "Look at that charcoal. The edges are still sharp. Charcoal wears down mighty fast in wind and rain."
"No rain in here but you're right, Cotton. Still, we can't bank on anything."
With the rain pounding down. I prowled about. Soon I could smell the coffee, and then the bacon. I turned to start back—it was a casual glance over my shoulder that stopped me.
There was a place where a great old tree on the bank leaned far over, branches dropping down to make a sort of natural stable. The falling rain, the darkness of the rain clouds, and the shadow of the tree, all so obscured my view that I had to look again to be sure of what I saw. A horse was there, standing three-legged, head drooping.
The place was somewhat beyond the shelter where Cotton Madden was making coffee. It was just around a slight bend in the creek, and in a sort of notch just a few feet out of line with the stream bed, and the eyes just naturally carried on beyond, upstream.
Rifle ready, I walked slowly forward, studying the rocks around, the tree itself, for any possible point of concealment. But there was nothing of .the sort.
As I came close I recognized the horse—it was another of Gate's horses. And then I saw the body.
A man in a checkered shirt lay on his face near the horse's head. One hand gripped a half-drawn pistol. He had been shot at close range, and in the act of drawing; and he had been shot right through the skull.
There had been another horse here, and another man. Had that man killed this one? Or had there been another, unseen attacker?
I stood there for a moment, looking down at the dead man, and could not help but wonder how he had come to this. It is a question that often comes when one looks upon death, I suppose, as if one might find some common denominator. He was an ordinary-looking man, who under other conditions might have found steady employment somewhere, making a modest bit of money. No telling what this man might have been, or had been.
Who had killed him? Had it been Tarlton? Or one of our other men? After all, I knew none of them, for Tarlton would have hired them after I had started west. Only it was a cinch that any man riding a Gates horse was an outlaw, for the horses had been stolen.
One thing was certain: two men must have stopped here. One had killed the other and ridden off; or somebody else had killed this man, taken the other horse and departed, leaving this horse for the other man. Which would mean that other man was somewhere about. But the horse had been tied more than one day, which posed another question.
Taking the bridle, I led him to the stream for a drink. He drank long and thirstily, and as he drank I kept my eyes moving. If that outlaw was somewhere about I had better see him before he saw me.
Cotton came from the overhang to call me, and saw me with the strange horse. He glanced at the brand, always the first thing any cowhand would do, and when I led the horse to tie him alongside our mounts, I told Cotton what I'd found.
"You still think Tarlton's around?" he asked.
"That could have been him who got away with the other horse."
We considered the question while we ate and drank coffee. Tarlton must be found. "He's a tough man, Cotton," I said. "I can read the sign. He's a gentleman, but there's iron in him, and he'll make a fight of it."
Leaving Cotton to guard the horses, I began a careful scout through the rain-drenched trees. Every branch I brushed sent down a shower of big drops. I found the second man in a nest of boulders and brush. He was dead, sprawled over a log behind which he had taken shelter. He had been shot through the skull, evidently as he was about to fire over the log. His rifle was there, his body as it must have fallen. The leaves under the body were dry.
Standing up, I looked in the direction which he must have faced. The man at whom he was about to fire must have been among the trees not far off. I walked ahead, making no sound upon the grass.
Two brass cartridge shells marked the place from which the man—Tarlton I hoped—had fired. There were no tracks a man could see, but a quick swing through the trees behind his firing position brought me to a barely discernible boot track, and then to the tracks of a horse.
I went back to Madden, and we mounted up and took the trail. "He just backed out of the place and got away on his horse," I said. "I doubt if he knew his man was dead. He left the other horse, in case. Or maybe he was getting away with one horse when the other man opened up on him."
The hillside was slippery with mud. We found water standing in a well-defined track.
"He surely ain't ridin' for Cheyenne or Laramie," Cotton commented.
"He lost some cows, Cotton. He's going after them."
"Alone?"
"He's that kind of man. By the time he could get help those cattle might have been drifted miles away—even down into Colorado, maybe. He's riding a hot trail."
"How long ago, d'you figure?"
"Well, look at it. Caxton Kelsey, Queenie, and the rest were in Fort Laramie, so they must have had to leave the cattle at the Forks and drive a small bunch in to sell."
"Then Tarlton might have reached the Forks while they were gone."
Of course, the owner of the ranch would be there, and any riders he might have. And if it was a hideout for outlaws, some of them might be around.
We came up to the Forks a
t sundown. The ranch was a low-roofed log shack about thirty feet long by ten feet wide, facing three large corrals and a lean-to shed, built on the flat between two creeks. The high banks of one of the creeks formed two sides of a still larger pasture on the bench beside the creek. It had been fenced at the upper and lower sides, and in the space between were several hundred head of cattle.
In the corral were at least two dozen horses. Cotton Madden studied the scene on the lower ground, then began to build a smoke. As he rolled the cigarette, we could see a slow column of smoke rising from the chimney below. A light appeared in a window.
Hunkered down behind the crest of the hill, I sat with Cotton hiding his cigarette in his cupped palm, and watched the ranch buildings turn from gray to black, then merge into the night, leaving only the lights in the window showing. For a short time, against the red of the sky, we could see the thin gray column of smoke, but it vanished shortly after the first star appeared.
Down below us a door slammed and we heard voices, but at that distance, we could make out no words. How many were down there? There might be two, or two dozen.
And where was Tarlton? Was he dead back there on the Wyoming grass? Or was he somewhere about, watching those lights, as we were? Or was he, perhaps, a prisoner down there? I doubted that. If they found him, they'd kill him ... if they could.
"What you figurin' to do?" Cotton asked.
"I'm studying on it. The logical thing would be to slip down there, open the corral bars, and stampede their horses and then the cattle. We could have them well on the trail north before they ever got horses."
"They'd come a-huntin' you," Cotton said.
"I'll face that when the time comes. The thing is, where's Tarlton? I've got an idea he's somewhere about, contemplating the same sort of action we're studying. I wouldn't want to stampede those cattle right over him."
We waited a spell, giving them a chance to finish eating and get to playing poker with their boots off, maybe, or to crawl into their bunks.
"Cotton," I said finally, "I'm going down there and scatter their saddle stock from hell to breakfast. You hang your rope over a post on the upper fence and pull her down, then circle around and start the cattle running. Get them out on the flat. Get them started north if you can, and come daybreak try to bunch them a mite. I'll catch up and lend a hand."
He pushed his hat back on his head and rubbed out his second cigarette. "No, you don't," he said. "We're in this together. I signed on to ride for the brand; and where you go, I'm going. If there's any shootin' done, it will be down there by the house and I want my piece of it."
I won't say I wasn't pleased. Two of us could handle it down there better than one, only I'd hoped to keep him out of range. "All right," I said, "if you want to get a belly full of lead, come on."
We tightened our cinches and mounted up. I doubted if they were keeping any sort of watch, but they would be quick to react to any kind of trouble. Our plan was simple: we would ride down the corral bars, and stampede the horses. All of them, I hoped.
Once the horses were on the run, we would ride to the corral and cut the north fence and stampede the herd. We would start them up the creek to where it came down from the flat, and start them north.
It wasn't likely they would be expecting trouble, for this was a lonely, isolated area in which nobody had begun to settle as yet. North of us and south of us there were trails or stage routes, but through this region there was nothing, and no ranches anywhere around.
To the north and south there were several good markets for small bunches of cattle. To the north it was the forts and the Indian agents; to the south it was the mines.
The night was still. We walked our horses down the slope of the hill toward the creek, following no trail. We could smell the wood smoke now. At the back of the corrals we drew up and swung down. "You keep an eye on the door and the windows," I said. "I'll open the corrals."
Hunkered down behind some logs, Cotton made ready to argue with anybody who might take it into his head to come outside. Me, I walked along the corral toward the gate, and was so intent on opening it quietly that I overlooked something I should have noticed. Lifting the bar, I swung the gate open and all hell broke loose.
They had rigged a weight to pull the gate shut when anybody let go of it; and fastened to the same line they had half a dozen tin cans of pebbles. When I pulled that gate open, the line tightened and all those loose pebbles rattled in the cans.
Inside the house a chair fell over and somebody swore. The next thing I knew, as I was propping the gate open the house door opened and light fell across the yard, putting me right in the spotlight. At the same instant, Cotton fired.
The bullet hit the door jamb and the man in the door sprang back, swearing. Cotton fired again and I heard a rattle of falling glass, and then I was around the corral, sprinting for the back of it.
Cotton was up, yelling at the horses, and we heard them start. A rush of hoofs, more yells and shots, and the horses exploded from the wide-open gate.
Somebody fired from the house, the light went out, and men burst from the door, scattering right and left. I hit the saddle on the run and felt my horse's muscles go taut as he leaped away. Cotton let out a wild Texas yell, and we skirted the corral, guns blazing at the men around the house, and then we were racing away up the draw toward the cattle.
Cotton ran his horse up the bluff by a trail we had spotted earlier, while I drew up in the deepest shadows under some trees and waited, counting the seconds it would take him to reach the other side. Suddenly I heard a screeching of wire. Something broke, and I yelled at the cattle and fired my six-gun.
From almost under my feet a man leaped up and fired, the gun blazing right in my face, so close my eyes were momentarily blinded and I felt the powder sting my cheeks. I slammed down with my gun barrel at the black object I took to be a head and felt it fall away under my gun barrel with a grunt of pain.
My horse lunged toward the path up which Cotton had gone, but even as he sprang that way I saw something dark race across the trail ahead of me. "Block the trail!" came a yell, and I turned the buckskin on a dime and went racing away.
There were bluffs on both sides near the ranch house, and no chance to go up either of them. The pasture fence blocked the way toward the cattle and Cotton, and the only way left was back down and past the house. There was no time to hesitate, and I took it on the run.
Somebody had relighted the lamp in the house and the door stood open, throwing its rectangle of light on the hard-packed ground between the house and the corrals. I crossed that stretch of ground with my horse running all out, heard the slam of six-gun shots against my eardrums, and saw a man leap to the door and swing up with a rifle. Dropping low alongside my bronc, Indian-fashion, I snapped a shot at him from under my horse's neck. Snapped was right—the gun was empty!
Tugging myself back into the saddle, I saw the rifle stab the darkness with flame and, holding the reins in my teeth, I thumbed cartridges into my gun. There seemed but one possible chance, and I turned my horse downstream, skirting a stack of hay and plunging into the unknown darkness beyond.
My horse was going full tilt when we saw the fence. It was just a glimpse, the darker bars across the gray, and the buckskin did the only thing he could do ... he jumped.
There was an instant of flight, then the buckskin hit, went to his knees, and sent me flying over his head. Instinctively I tucked in my head, and when I hit the dirt I landed on my shoulder and rolled over. Momentarily dazed, I lay still, unsure whether I was alive or not. Staggering up, I could see nothing of my horse.
From the house came a shout. "Go get him! He can't get away!"
There was the sound of running feet and, turning, I plunged into the blackness where there had been trees along the stream, if memory served me right. Luckily, dazed though I was, I reached the trees. Instantly, I stopped.
They would be right behind me, and they knew the terrain and I did not. Desperately, I needed my
rifle, but it was in the scabbard on my saddle. The six-shooter was all right, but I trusted myself better with a rifle, and was prepared to face anything with a Winchester in my hands.
There were perhaps seven or eight of them, to judge by their voices. Occasionally they called out, as they moved down toward the pasture fence. They assumed I did not want to let my position be known and would not risk a shot, and they were right. To have fired one shot would have been to draw fire from all their rifles. One shot might miss; it was unreasonable to suppose eight would.
Putting my hand behind me, I felt bushes, and to my left a tree. I eased back against it, and worked my way around it, placing my foot down gently at each step until I knew what lay beneath it.
As they came on, I managed to put thirty feet or so behind me, and was desperately hoping to find some place to hide. The night was still. The lower pasture they were coming toward was much like the upper. As they reached the fence where I had taken my spill, I came to the fence along the side toward the creek. My hand touched a bark-covered rail, felt for the space beneath it, and then I slipped through. The stream must be close now.
It was growing lighter now the moon would be rising. Remembering how the stream had looked from the crest of the hill above, I recalled that the stream bed was all of fifty yards wide, but the stream itself not over five or six. That meant I would be fully exposed, a black figure moving across white sand; and without doubt a rifleman would be watching such an easy target.
If a body had been taking odds, my chances were about fifty to one to wind up a corpse. There were a lot of men out there with the idea of salting me down, and they had the guns to do it with. Otis Tom Chancy's time looked to be about up. Nevertheless, I figured to make them pay for their fun. I had me a good bit of ammunition and I could shoot maybe not as well as some, but well enough. As a last resort, I had a bowie knife with a blade sharp enough to slice bone as if it was cheese.
Suddenly a voice spoke, not twenty feet off. "Bud? I figure he got away. Plumb and total."
"You just hold that. You stow that gab. He didn't get away. There's no place he could go."
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