“Don’t be a fool!”
“For once I’m goin’ to fight!” He took a step toward Clay. “You ain’t takin’ Nina away from me!”
Clay spread his hands. “Elkhart lied.”
Kate stepped down and came to Clay’s side. He was surprised when he felt her soft arm slip around his waist. “Clay isn’t going to have two women, Joe,” she said, and she kept her voice very level and calm because Alford was full of whisky and bewildered and choked with rage and he might start shooting. “Clay and I are going to be married. Now go home to Nina.”
Clay didn’t know who was more surprised—Joe Alford or himself. He looked down at Kate. She gave him a tight smile, then watched Alford again. The Chihuahuas at the mouth of a canyon stirred restlessly. Kate’s men were standing up in their stirrups, trying to see what was going on. Sam Lennox stood a little to one side, holding a rifle.
Clay felt Kate tremble against him. He put his own arm about her waist. She clung to him tightly and her arm chafed the raw rope burns that circled his body.
“It’s true, Joe,” he managed to say. “Kate and me—”
“You’re lyin’,” Alford said.
“Go home to Nina,” Kate said again.
For a moment the big redhead seemed utterly confused. Then he straightened up. “Get away from him, Kate. When I count to three I’m goin’ for my gun. And he better go for his!”
Kate cried, “No!” but Alford began to count in a crazy screech.
“One, two—” Clay lunged against Kate, knocking her to the ground. In the same movement he dived for Alford’s legs. A gun roared. Something jerked the back of his shirt collar as he came in low, and then he crashed into Alford. They both went down, but Clay got up first. He kicked Alford’s gun away. He stood glaring down at Alford, breathing heavily.
“You poor damn fool,” he said.
Kate picked herself up and began brushing dust from her levis. She looked frightened. Some of the steers had started to bolt at the sound of the shot, but Lennox hit the saddle on the run and tore off to get them quieted.
Clay picked up Alford’s gun. Alford wobbled and lurched up to his feet. He seemed dazed now.
Kate said, “Go home, Joe. Go home to Nina.”
Alford didn’t hear her. He pointed a thick, wavering at Clay. “Elkhart claimed you and Nina—”
“There’s nothing between us, Joe.”
“You said that before, when Russ Hagen seen you.” Clay hesitated, glanced at Kate, then said, “You won’t have to worry about Hagen spreading any more stories. I killed him.” He flicked another glance at Kate. She had gone white at the grim news.
Kate recovered her composure and said to Alford, “The day Elkhart says he found Nina and Clay together was the day I was there with them. Nina told Elkhart she wanted nothing to do with him. And to get even—to save his precious pride—Elkhart spread those dirty stories.”
Clay started to jack the shells out of Alford’s gun. “You don’t have to do that,” Alford said, and his voice was no longer thick.
Clay studied him a while, then handed over the loaded gun. Alford holstered the weapon, wiped a forearm across his mouth. He nodded at the two bunches of cattle and said, “A man can’t make no money with cows in his own backyard. He’s got to sell ’em.” Then he caught up his horse and set it at a dead run toward Spade.
Clay stood woodenly, trying to remember just what Kate had said and how she had said it. He felt a growing excitement. Yes, he remembered.
“You meant it?” he said. “About marrying me?”
She stepped away from him, suddenly cool and distant. “Alford was going to do something foolish. I lied to stop him. Nothing more.”
The chill in her voice disturbed him. “You don’t like it because I had to kill Hagen to save my own life.”
She shrugged, but did not look at him. “That has nothing to do with it. I’d like to make the cattle drive with you to Las Rosas. But that’s all I would like.”
He wanted to argue with her, but decided against it. She was as unpredictable as the future, one moment apparently liking him, the next, hating him.
Because Kate knew the country well he had her draw a map on the ground with a pointed stick, showing Elkhart’s property enclosed by the new fence. The most logical place to make a break through the fence, she explained, was on the old cattle trail at Juniper Crossing, almost due north from here. Clay picked a spot eight miles west, knowing that even with his full crew Elkhart could not hope to patrol the entire fence. It was a gamble, but his only chance. If they could make a towering rock known as Big Hat by midday tomorrow, they would be reasonably sure of success.
There would be a full moon tonight, and although Clay disliked pushing a herd in darkness, he knew it might give them a chance to get through Elkhart’s fence and across his land before another night. He was gambling that Elkhart would expect trouble at those points where it would be easier to drive cattle, and leave the other crossing less heavily guarded.
They had been on the trail some hours when, shortly after moonrise, they reached the spot Clay had picked. Kate rode up and sat looking dolefully at the fence. Clay produced a pair of wire cutters and swung down.
“Here’s your chance to turn back,” he said.
“I’m game,” she said, but he detected a note of anxiety beneath the boast.
Again he tried to get her to give up this foolhardy plan, but she told him if he wouldn’t let her go along with his herd of Chihuahuas, she’d wait and cross later on her own.
“Might be better at that,” Clay conceded. “Elkhart wouldn’t likely make too much trouble for a woman.”
“Don’t be too sure,” she said. “He hates me after I interfered the other day in the canyon.”
Clay warned the men to be on their guard. They sat their saddles stiffly, holding rifles, peering off into the moon-swept flats that comprised Elkhart’s formidable Arrow ranch. The cattle lowed, stomped the ground, not liking to be driven after dark. Clay cut the fence and with his saddle rope pulled aside the loose wires to clear the break. Black-bearded Sam Lennox quietly gave the order to push the combined herds through the fence. It was a grim business and Clay knew what each rider was thinking. Elkhart would treat a fence cutter the same way he’d deal with a rustler. There wasn’t much to leave to the imagination.
Clay said to Kate, “Go on back, it’s too risky.” And when she refused again, he added, “You go home and I’ll sell your herd in Las Rosas and send you the money. Or maybe you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you, Clay, and I’m going with you.”
He extended his hand. She surprised him by leaning over in the saddle and taking it in her own. They looked at each other in the moonlight and he saw her teeth flash in a brief smile.
“It was all worth it,” he said solemnly. “Everything. To find you.”
Because he was caught up in the floss of a long-dead dream, he didn’t hear the hoofbeats.
“Somebody’s coming,” Kate whispered.
He reined off, drawing his rifle. Not fifty yards away, two riders pulled up their horses and looked at the cattle streaming through the break in the fence. Then they wheeled and went pounding back over their own trail at a dead run.
Shouting at Lennox to keep the cattle moving, Clay dug in the spurs and started after them. Those two riders must have been sent out by Elkhart to patrol a section of the fence. Once they reported their findings, the whole Arrow crew would take the warpath.
Recklessly Clay kept his horse at a gallop, ignoring the danger of riding full tilt over the uneven ground in the moonlight. But the roan had speed and wind and quick sure feet. At first Clay thought he would never be able to overtake them. Then he began to gain. Wind stung his eyes.
In one way the moonlight was a blessing, in another, a curse. For there were two of them and he was clearly silho
uetted.
One of the riders ahead turned in the saddle. A red eye winked at him. He heard the angry whine of metal beside his head, then the crash of a rifle. He looped the reins loosely over the saddle-horn, lifted his own rifle and took quick aim. As he squeezed off a shot he saw another red dot and then felt the lethal whip of air across his face. He fired again. One of the shadows ahead slid off a horse and into deeper shadows. He came thundering up, passed a riderless horse and something that thrashed weakly upon the ground.
He was closing in on the second man when the rider’s horse stumbled. The man fought to keep his saddle, then went cartwheeling into the brush.
Reining in, Clay came up slowly, holding his rifle on the man. The rider rolled over and climbed to his feet, hands lifted. “Don’t shoot, Janner,” he said. “Reckon you don’t remember me—Bob Bailey. Fella that was drivin’ the wagon load of wire the day your cows stampeded.”
Bailey was trembling, and his mouth hung open so that Clay could see his teeth through the tangle of brown beard. He acted as if he expected to be shot. “Where’s Elkhart?” Clay demanded, dismounting and drawing the man’s gun.
“He’s got a camp ’bout ten mile east,” Bailey said, watching Clay’s rifle. “He’s got the crew strung out along the whole fence. If there’s trouble the one that spots it is supposed to round up the other boys. You sure crossed him up by makin’ your drive at night. Only a fool would do that. Them cows are liable to run.”
“If they do, they’ll run toward Las Rosas. You’re riding with us.”
Bailey’s horse, recovered from the fall, stood some distance away. Clay caught it and led the animal back to Bailey. As they started back Clay saw that clouds were whipping in from the north, screening the peaks of the Sabers. If the night turned black it could hamper the drive.
When they reached the spot where Clay had shot Bailey’s companion, they found the man passed out. Clay’s bullet had smashed into his right shoulder. They got the man into the saddle and Bailey, riding alongside, held him there.
“You got to know this, Janner,” Bailey said, when they were moving toward the herd. “I got no love for Elkhart. I draw his pay but I ain’t goin’ to risk my neck for the likes of him.” He turned in the saddle. “He says he’ll hang anybody that cuts his fence.”
“That might take some doing,” Clay snapped, but it didn’t take away the chill brought by Bailey’s words.
When they caught up with the herd Kate smiled her relief. Clay put Bailey to work, helping push the herd, but he warned the men to keep an eye on him. The wounded man—Bert Collins—had regained consciousness. Sam Lennox bound up his shoulder. The rider managed to stay in the saddle of one of the extra horses, but that was about all.
Tense and weary, they drew up as light touched the eastern horizon, and ate jerky and cold biscuits. Clay was disappointed to see that although they were several miles from the fence they still had not reached Big Hat. The rock was still ahead of them.
As they drove the tired, balky herd north, Clay kept riding back to the drag, bandanna over his nose to screen out the dust, scanning their backtrail. Any man with the eye of a pigeon could see this funnel of dust. He expected Arrow to come at them any minute. The deeper they got into Elkhart’s land, the more he cursed himself for allowing Kate to accompany him on this mad venture. But if she felt any fear she didn’t show it. She did a man’s work in the saddle, flicking the end of her saddle rope on the hides of steers trying to cut away from the herd, going after strays.
Two hours after daylight he heard the crackle of distant gunfire. He drew rein, listening. Kate watched him anxiously through the dust. Another burst of fire reached him and he guessed the position to be somewhere around Juniper Crossing. Some poor fool trying to get through the fence at the obvious crossing, where Elkhart was bound to be waiting. Who was it? Bogarth? Not likely. Maybe Leo Reese or Shanley.
He had a sudden urge to take his men and ride to the aid of this unfortunate. But he knew this wasn’t possible. He owed something to Kate. He couldn’t just ride off. And besides, he told himself angrily, if the pool had stuck together, they could have all broken through the fence at the same time. There’d have been a war, sure, but it was better than knuckling under to Elkhart, paying toll or driving across the Sink.
Not that he had made any great show of it, he told himself. The Chihuahuas were still scrawny. The sparse Spade grass had not put any weight on them, and by the time they made this fast drive they would weigh in even less. Ruskin would take one look at them and cut his price, and Clay couldn’t blame him.
An hour later he almost reeled with shock when Nina Alford, her blonde hair loose about her shoulders, come pounding up on a spent horse. Clay wheeled away from the herd and managed to catch Nina just as she fainted dead away. As he lowered her to the ground, Kate rode up and dropped down at his side.
CHAPTER 19
The herd milled and the riders gathered to see what the Alford woman’s presence meant. Clay gave Nina a drink from his canteen. Her eyes opened. She looked wildly around, then clutched his hands.
“Elkhart’s got Joe,” she whispered hoarsely. “He’s going to hang him unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you give yourself up, Clay.”
Clay scowled. “Elkhart knew where to send you to find me?” he demanded. And when the blonde head nodded, he said, “Why doesn’t he jump us then?”
“He hasn’t enough men,” Nina explained breathlessly. “His crew is scattered along the fence.” She whimpered once. “But he can still hang Joe.”
Clay got up slowly. The palms of his hands were moist. “How’d Joe get himself into this mess?” he asked.
“Last night he insisted on starting out with about a hundred head of cattle,” Nina explained in a dead voice. “He said if you could do it so could he. I came with him because he was still drunk.” She pushed a trembling hand across her forehead. “Elkhart disarmed the crew Joe had with him and sent them back across the fence. Then he told me I could save Joe’s life if I found you—and got you to come back.” She bit her lip. “Oh, Clay, what are we going to do? I don’t want Joe hurt. I—love him, Clay. But it isn’t right to ask you to save him.”
Clay climbed heavily into the saddle. Kate said, “Don’t, Clay. Don’t try to do it alone!”
“Keep the herd moving—fast,” he ordered. “I didn’t rot in a Mex prison to come up here and turn my profit over to Byrd Elkhart.”
Kate beat her hands together. “Is that all you care about? Just profit?”
“Do what I told you!” he yelled.
Sam Lennox reined in beside him. “I’ll go with you, Clay.”
Clay nodded. “A bonus for this, Sam. You’ll earn it.”
“The hell with that, boss. You saved my neck in the stampede. I’m not goin’ for the money.”
“And you saved my neck in the canyon.” They were riding stirrup to stirrup. “You’ll still get that bonus.”
As they rode Clay tried to set himself straight on the baffling subject of Joe Alford. Crazy damn fool, Joe. Drunk and reckless. Exposing not only himself to danger, but his wife and his friends. Friend, though. Was he really Joe’s friend? How much did he owe Joe Alford? Their association these past months had brought them both nothing but trouble.
Yet he kept stubbornly on, and within a few miles he caught the flash of sunlight on glass. Somebody tracking their approach through field glasses. Well, the hell with it. There was no use in trying to sneak up on them.
“Let’s come at ’em from two sides,” Clay said. “If things get too rough, hightail it. Get back to the herd and watch out for Kate French. I’ll try and get Joe out of this. And if I don’t—”
Lennox shot him a sidelong glance. “First time I ever knew you to have any doubts, Clay.”
“Maybe I don’t show it, but you’d be surprised how much mush a
man has in his guts at times.”
“You ain’t the only one, Clay. Me too.”
“You can still keep out of it, Sam.”
“You don’t let a man hang if you can help it,” Lennox said soberly. He wheeled away from Clay and rode east so as to come up on Elkhart’s camp from the opposite direction.
Finally Clay reached the crest of a hill. He drew rein and saw Elkhart resting on a deadfall in the center of a small basin that was Juniper Crossing. A dry creek bed followed the cut fence for a hundred yards, then veered south into the undergrowth.
Elkhart lifted a lazy hand in greeting to Clay. So far as Clay could tell, Elkhart had only two men with him. One of them held three horses. The second stood beside Joe Alford’s buckskin horse. Alford sat the saddle, with hands roped behind his back and a noose around his neck. Clay’s breath caught in his throat when he saw that the end of the rope had been played out over a cottonwood limb and tied to the trunk of the tree. If that buckskin horse made one wrong move Joe Alford would be hanging by his neck.
Carefully, rifle in hand, Clay moved his horse down the slope. Elkhart’s confidence bothered him. The man actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Fifty feet away from Joe Alford, Clay reined in.
Elkhart got slowly to his feet, stretched, then said, “I’ve sent word to the rest of my crew to head this way.”
“So.”
“Two of my boys are missing or we’d have corraled my crew sooner than this. Those two were supposed to do the patrolling. Don’t suppose you know anything about them disappearing, do you, Janner?”
“Nina Alford said you wanted me,” Clay said. “I’m here.”
Elkhart looked him over. “You’ve been a tough opponent, Janner. I could ride your bunch down and shoot you to pieces. But you’ve cost me a lot and I’m going to do it differently. I want to see you sweat.” He glanced at his two men, one holding the horses, the other at the rump of the buckskin horse that held Joe Alford. “I want your herd for damages, Janner.”
Clay gave a short laugh to mask his uneasiness. “Damages for what?”
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