by Short, Luke;
Mitch flushed with pleasure. “Anyone could’ve seen you’d want to know that.”
“Why?” Bannister asked curiously.
Mitch was tripped up. His answer would sound pretty obvious, but it was the only one he could think of. “Why, so you’ll be ready to meet him.”
Bannister murmured, “Oh, hell,” and turned away. “Come back after you’ve eaten. Maybe your head’ll be clearer.”
After Mitch had gone, Bannister cocked his booted feet up on the desk and smoked. The blacksmith across the way had started work, and the ring of his sledge, bell clear, true, rhythmical, gave Bannister a feeling of real pleasure. He liked to hear it around him hour after hour.
Whenever he had a spare moment, Bannister would go over to old Symonds’s shop and watch him. Sometimes he would help Symonds, and these times he would be ordered around like any fumble-fingered apprentice. He took his cursings, always deserved, and sweated away, trying to recover his mistakes. He and Symonds never talked, but Bannister respected him more than any man he knew. He listened now to the slam, tap-tap; slam, tap-tap, and could almost picture the iron’s white glow and Symonds tentative blows before the heavy sledging once started. He wanted to go over and watch, but he fought the impulse. Instead, he walked to the door and stood in it, observing Symonds.
When the blacksmith looked up, Bannister said gravely, “Mornin’, Symonds.”
“Mornin’,” Symonds answered.
“Hit the gong,” Bannister said, and went inside. The clash of a heavy triangle boomed out over the morning air. It was Bannister’s way of calling his foreman.
Hugo Meeker was ten minutes in coming. He did not apologize for his lateness; it was understood by them both that some jobs could not be left. Meeker had come from Texas with Bannister, but his appearance had not changed in the last twenty-five years. His wedgelike jaw, bleak eyes, his languorous movements, his rare smile, his hard, driving speech, were the same now as always. His body was leaner, perhaps, saddle gaunt, and he smoked more, but they were the only differences.
Sitting down in the chair Mitch had just vacated, Hugo waited until Bannister quit looking out the window and dropped his cigar butt on the floor.
“You were late last night,” Bannister observed.
“Sure,” Hugo drawled. “I had a little business that almost got by me.”
He reached in his hip pocket and took out an already opened letter. It was addressed to Wake Bannister.
“That come in the mail last night for you. I had a hunch and opened it.”
Bannister looked at the letterhead on the envelope, which read Southwestern Railroad. Taking out the letter, he unfolded and read it, and his eyes glinted with a kind of simmering excitement.
“So they’re building on through to Wagon Mound,” he said softly, looking at Hugo. “Advance agents comin’ in a month. Well?”
“I had another hunch,” Hugo drawled. He reached in his shirt pocket this time and took out a letter addressed to Sheriff William Wardecker, Wagon Mound. It bore the same letterhead. Bannister opened it and read. It contained the brief news that the railroad was building through to Wagon Mound, and that their advance agents would be in San Patricio County within a month to arrange for the purchase of right of way.
“Well?” Bannister asked again.
“The Wagon Mound stage was just loading at the depot. As soon as I read your letter I figured there’d be another like it in the Wagon Mound mail. So I hightailed it to the ford and got the letter.”
“Held up the stage, you mean?”
Hugo nodded. “I was quiet as a kitten. I took the sacks, waved the stage on, built a fire, found the letter I wanted, and then took the cut over the mesa, held up the stage again and give them back their mail.” He was laughing silently. “They’ll have a hard time figurin’ that one out.”
Bannister smiled fondly at the drawling, insolent indifference of the man. Years ago Wake Bannister had learned this man by heart, or enough of him to know that he thought ahead of ninety men out of a hundred, and could outtalk, fist-whip, or gunfight, and beat the other ten. That was why Hugo Meeker could open Bannister’s mail on occasions and never be given the hint of reprimand.
“But we can’t keep it quiet long,” Hugo drawled. “I’ve already greased Kean at the telegraph office, so he’ll hand over anything sent to Wardecker. But when the railroad don’t get an answer, they’re liable to write to Tolleston or Patton or even—”
“He’s dead.”
“Well, any big auger over there.”
Bannister nodded absently and picked up the railroad’s letter addressed to him and read it again while Meeker rolled a smoke.
“About these horses they want for grading teams,” Bannister said. “How soon can we have enough broke out?”
“In a week, if we have to.”
“We don’t. I’ll write and tell them that my boys are out on a drive now, and that it’ll take at least a month and a half to break out that many. That won’t hurry up things any.”
“How much time have we got?”
Bannister looked at his letter. “A little over three weeks, accordin’ to this.”
“That time enough?”
Meeker settled down in his chair and inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He did not take it out of his mouth when he exhaled, so that a cloud of blue enveloped his face.
“That’s cuttin’ it close, Wake.”
“I don’t think so,” Bannister said. “Mitch Budrow dropped in this morning.”
“I saw his horse back of Mooney’s.”
“Tolleston suspects we were behind the hold-up. So we’re saved the trouble of puttin’ the suspicion in their minds over there.”
Meeker said softly, “The hell he does? What did those boys do—ride Dollar-branded horses?”
Bannister laughed and said, “No. It seems that McWilliams, who was bringing a prisoner back, had lost so much sleep that he couldn’t make Bull Foot, so he pulled into Wagon Mound and was going to ask to borrow their jail. He walked right info the hold-up. Tolleston, who is always ready to blame Wintering for anything, claimed McWilliams and his prisoner were part of the gang.”
“Who was the prisoner?” Meeker asked.
“A saddle bum name of Webb Cousins. Wanted for that train stick-up last year.”
“So what does Tolleston do now?”
Bannister smiled faintly. “He sent Mitch down to see if these bank robbers were hanging around Bull Foot. If they are, Tolleston aims to work up the San Patricio outfits with some fightin’ talk against us. Then he’ll raid Bull Foot.”
Meeker was listening carefully. Into his eyes crept a look of sultry devilment and considerable amusement. Then he laughed silently again.
“Buck never changes,” he said quietly. “Set a trap and he walks into it.”
Bannister tapped the desk with his fingers and a slow frown creased his forehead. “There’s only one thing I didn’t like about that hold-up, Hugo.”
“Patton?”
“Yes. That wasn’t necessary.”
Hugo shrugged. “I told them not to shoot, but they claimed they couldn’t help it. Besides, Patton would have got his in the end, anyway.”
“I know. But it’s clumsy.” And, as if this was utterly dismissed from his mind, he said, “When you go out, send Mitch back.”
Meeker rose and started to leave. Bannister said, “Where are those five Montana hardcases?”
“Over in the old bunk house, drunk.”
“Watch them till they sober up. They understand their orders, do they?”
“Plenty. They’ve never had so much money before.”
Bannister grunted. Meeker opened the door, but Bannister stopped him. This time his speech was a little more subdued than usual.
“When did Britt pull in last night?” Bannister asked.
“Close to two.”
“Been out with that girl again?”
“I reckon,” Meeker said noncommittally. “His pony was carryin�
�� some of that clay from the west side of the Broken Arrow range on his fetlocks.”
Bannister nodded, and Meeker went out. Mitch was waiting outside and stepped in at Meeker’s invitation. He sat in the same chair and held his Stetson in his blunt hands, his attitude much like an attentive pupil.
Bannister said mildly, “Tonight you go back to Tolleston and tell him that you saw two of these Montana hardcases drinking in a back room of the Melodian with Hugo Meeker today.”
Mitch nodded.
“That’s all,” Bannister said. “Go on over to the store and tell Mooney to give you his back room and sleep till dark.” He looked at Mitch thoughtfully. “Any curiosity?” he asked.
Mitch quickly shook his head. There was none of the old impudence in his eyes.
“When you come back next time, I want to know when Tolleston is planning to raid Bull Foot, what route he aims to travel, how many men he aims to bring along, and who they are. Can you do it?”
Mitch nodded. “Mac will know, and he’ll talk to me. I’ll get word to you.”
“All right.” Bannister turned away. “I’m sending your mother a check for a thousand dollars tonight.”
Mitch’s eyes looked uneasy. “Thanks,” he said, then: “How is she?”
“She started a little store with that last check I sent.” He smiled meagerly. “Each letter she wants to know more about her boy who died a hero saving my trail herd from rustlers.”
Mitch flushed. “I’m obliged, sir. I’d rather have her think that than know the truth.”
“I daresay she’d prefer it, too,” Bannister said dryly. “By the way, that U. S. marshal from Tucson is still corresponding with me over you. The woman’s murder has never been solved—naturally. It seems he’d heard you were headed for this basin.”
Mitch waited humbly.
“I’m having a hard time convincing him he’s wrong.”
Mitch’s eyes were filled with a gratitude that Bannister had seen only in dogs, and he turned away in disgust. He couldn’t help hating weak men. Even a woman killer was less despicable if he retained his spirit and pride. But ever since the day Hugo Meeker had found Mitch Budrow gaunt and starved and sick and delirious in his mean fugitive’s camp up over the Frying Pans, Bannister had never seen him show spirit. He had gladly consented to act as a spy in Tolleston’s home ranch; had even shown an amazing resourcefulness when he wandered into a Broken Arrow line camp and collapsed. He had been taken by Tolleston’s hands to the home ranch, and in time had easily found a place there. More than once he had given Bannister valuable information, but Bannister despised him. He even despised the petty blackmail necessary to insure Mitch’s loyalty.
He was barely civil now. “Come back when you’ve got what I asked.”
Mitch left quietly, cowed to the very core of him.
In a few minutes Bannister rose and went over to the blacksmith shop. He said to Symonds, “Some of the boys will be bringing their ponies in for shoeing, Symonds. I want you to look their feet over carefully.”
“Startin’ when?”
“This morning.”
To Symonds this meant only one thing. There would be considerable riding on rock. And the only considerable expanse of rock around these parts lay over in San Patricio County.
“All right,” he said. It was none of his business.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tolleston had his horse saddled by the time the hands were finished breakfast. He stopped Mac and Webb, and told Webb his duties; they were all simple, all petty, all pointedly trivial, designed to keep him within sight of the house. While two of the hands cut and hauled cedar poles from the hills, Webb was to set the anchor posts for a new corral. He was to clean the old feed corral, then patch the roof on the cookshack, then do some needed blacksmithing on wagon tires. All the jobs, Tolleston had emphasized, would place him in clear view of the horse corral, where Martha Tolleston’s pony was. If Webb saw her take her horse out, he was to take the blaze-face sorrel from the corral and follow her. With these instructions given, Tolleston left for town, and Webb set about work under Mac’s watchful eye.
In mid-afternoon, as he was pitching dirt on the bunkhouse roof, he saw Martha Tolleston leave the house. She was dressed in an outfit of deep brown, a divided skirt, blouse to match, man’s Stetson, and boots. He waited until she had saddled her horse and ridden off west, then went over and threw his loop over the sorrel, Mac coming to watch. The horse was docile, and even though he had been on grass for months, did not offer a show of spirit.
Saddling him, Webb was angry at the man who had ruined him, for the horse had lines that argued speed and bottom and fight.
Once out of sight of the house, Webb reined up and considered. Right now, for the first time, he was free of Mac’s prying watchfulness. He had a poor horse under him. He had no canteen, no gun, no food. He was remembering everything that Wardecker had told him about the trouble of getting out of this country. To hell with Wardecker. He would try it.
North looked best, the mountains lowest. He would try it there.
He lifted his horse into a lope, but inside of a mile knew he would have to ease up. The horse was blowing hard. Then, to make up for his slow time, he headed for the closest rock he could see. Here, at any rate, they would have a hard time trailing him. He had not been on his way twenty minutes, when he looked back. He saw a rider following him, stopping occasionally to pick up his track.
Webb spurred his horse on, cursing. In another quarter mile, he had to stop. The horse was heaving violently, useless to him as a mount.
Cursing bitterly, Webb waited. Presently the rider came into sight. It was Mac. He rode up to the waiting Webb and pulled up.
“I figured you’d try that. You don’t believe a rock’s hard till you butt your head against it, eh?”
Webb grinned suddenly. “You can’t shoot a man for tryin’.”
“Can’t I?” Mac said grimly. “I can and I will.” He gestured to Webb’s horse. “It’ll take that nag just nine hours to make the closest foothills. I know, because I’ve tried her. If you’re gone more than three hours this afternoon, I aim to come after you. And next time I do,” he said quietly, grimly, “you won’t like the place you end up in.” He motioned with his arm. “Now git back there and pick up her trail. And remember what I told you.”
Webb wheeled his horse and rode back, Mac a dozen paces behind him. When he came to the tracks of Martha’s horse, he turned and followed them. Mac did not even bother to watch him go. The cocksureness of the man made Webb angry. He felt like a small child who has been told what he can and cannot do, and who gets caught the first time he makes a misstep.
Grudgingly, then, he turned his attention to business. He would have a better chance of not being seen if he took the direction in which Martha was traveling, then circled wide of it and came back every mile or so to pick it up again. Traveling this way, he began to think about Martha Tolleston. Buck had never said it, but Webb was certain that he suspected her of meeting a man. And Webb found himself anxious to see the man she was afraid for her father to meet.
At every rise he dismounted and scanned the country ahead for a sign of the girl, keeping hidden himself. He was entering more broken country now, a land of shallow canyons and rock and sandstone rubble and clay, eroded by wind and water.
Her tracks, when he next picked them up, turned more to the north, where the land sloped up to a bench and the canyons were deeper. Webb went cautiously now, for she was traveling the bed of a crooked arroyo, and the next bend he rounded, he might stumble upon her.
Where he saw this arroyo fork into a larger one, he pulled up. Whoever would meet her would doubtless come up this arroyo, since this would be the only comfortable travel here, and if two sets of tracks should be seen in the sand, there was a chance he might be discovered.
Backtracking a quarter of a mile, he dismounted, left his horse where it was off the trail and screened by brush, and set off on foot. Once on the bank of the arroy
o, he traveled it carefully, keeping hidden. He had walked less than three hundred yards when he saw below him the girl seated on a rock close to the far bank of the arroyo. Her horse was ground-haltered in the shade, and she seemed to be waiting for someone.
Webb thought of what Buck Tolleston had said about taking her horse. Of course she would fight—or would she now?
If he were to go down and say, “Miss Tolleston, your old man is havin’ me spy on you. I don’t want to. If you’ll give me your horse, I’ll ride off and never bother you again,” would she do it? He didn’t know, but he was willing to try.
He was just ready to hoist himself out of the brush when he heard a whistle far down the arroyo. That would be the man she was going to meet. Webb sank back, disgusted. He knew she would not give him her horse once he had seen the man she was meeting. And then it occurred to Webb that, if he were close to where she was, he might contrive to steal one of their horses.
He backed away, traveled up the arroyo a few hundred yards, crossed it, and came down the far bank. His approach to the spot where Martha was sitting was careful, quiet, and in the last fifty yards of it, which he crawled on his hands and knees, he heard the whistle again, and this time closer. At last he settled himself behind a thick clump of mesquite on the arroyo’s rim. Here, he figured, he could hear enough to know if they strolled away from the horses or not.
Presently Webb heard the soft hush, hush of a horse traveling in sand. Then he heard a man’s voice call out, “Hello, Marty.”
For some unaccountable reason, Webb disliked the voice the minute he heard it. Martha answered quietly, “Hello, Britt.”
“Been waiting long?”
“Not long.”
A pause as saddle leather creaked. “The reason I was late is that I think the old man’s having me followed. I doubled back and waited today.”
“Was he?”
“Not today.”
Another pause, and then Martha said swiftly, “Please don’t, Britt. You’ve been nice. Don’t get sticky.”
The man laughed shortly. “If I haven’t it hasn’t been because I never wanted to, Marty. You know how I’ve felt about you.”