by Paul Durst
Anne lifted a rope from a corral post and built a loop with an expert flip of the wrist, walking towards the horses still standing in the corral. Carmody started forward, intending to catch her mount for her but Caleb’s hand on his arm restrained him. ‘She ain’t helpless, son,’ the old man chuckled.
Carmody leaned slowly back into his former position against the post, his cigarette dangled forgotten from his lips as he watched Anne. Two or three of her own mounts had been in the corral when Caleb had run the others in, and it was one of these she was after now. Eleven horses altogether. Carmody had seen good ropers unashamedly take more than one loop to pick out a mount in a bunch like this; but then he imagined that her own private horses would be more gentled and would probably stand for her when the others moved away.
Anne crossed the corral slowly, the loop dragging behind her, half-hidden by her body from the now-milling animals. Two of the wilder ones now spooked and crowded the others and all eleven were off, running wall-eyed in a close-packed mass half-hidden in the cloud of rising dust. He saw the loop sail through the air and settle, and when the dust cleared a little he saw she had snared a blaze-faced bay from the middle of the bunch and was bracing herself as she worked him pitching and fighting toward the snubbing post. Her movements were cool and sure, she let the struggling mount do most of the work, and when his head came down she took slack and half-hitched him quickly to the post and turned to pick her saddle from the corral rail.
Carmody turned to Caleb with a questioning glance. ‘She ain’t going to ride that one?’ he said quietly.
‘Watch,’ was all Caleb said.
Anne soft-talked the quivering mount as she blanketed and saddled him and he quietened a little. But Carmody knew instinctively from the way the bay watched her that soft-talk alone would not be enough. She favoured a hackamore, he noticed, and that moved him to genuine admiration, both for her ability and her savvy. The bay was by no means gentled, but it stood quietly when she slipped off the rope and coiled it, restraining him only on the hackamore rein.
Anne mounted quickly, and Carmody was glad to see her distract the bay by earing him down as she swung up. The bay was in motion sideways but she found her seat without effort and seemed to take genuine satisfaction in the fact he still showed fight. When he felt her weight the bay stopped sidling and took off straight up, shaking the ground as he hit hard on his forefeet and straightening his back with a kick of his hind legs that slapped the saddle hard along his backbone, showing daylight between skirt and blanket. But Anne was still there, glued to the saddle through all the crazy angles and tickling his ribs with a fluid fore and aft motion as she raked him in the rhythm of his jumps. The bay knew he was saddled for the day and settled for a final attempt to gallop around the corral, but she hackamored him to a halt and let him get his wind while she turned to Carmody.
‘All set, Jeff,’ she said. There was nothing in her voice to show that she considered the feat unusual, even for a woman. She was merely a working rancher who had saddled a frisky horse and was now waiting for one of her hands to saddle his own mount and join her.
Carmody only nodded and picked up his saddle. The last of the string he had just topped was tied outside the corral alongside the livery mount. He dumped the saddle in place and as he tightened the cinch he glanced back at Anne now talking quietly to Caleb and he felt glad that he had already taken the edge off the horse he was now saddling. Any show of fight now, no matter how well he rode, would make him look clumsy in comparison with what he had just seen. He mounted up and took the rented horse in tow, reining in beside Anne as she came out of the corral while Caleb held the gate.
They rode in silence for awhile, across the creek through the cottonwoods and up the long slope that led out of the little valley. Finally Carmody’s curiosity got the better of him. He turned to her and said off-handedly, ‘Where’d you learn to ride like that?’
She mistook his question for criticism, glancing mechanically down at her saddle, stirrups, hackamore. Finding no fault with the way she rode she looked up at him, puzzled, and asked, ‘Like what?’
‘I mean, like you did back there. Who taught you to ride like that?’
‘My father. Why, do you find it strange that a woman should be able to ride?’ The question was guileless.
Carmody said wryly, ‘No, not exactly. I’ve seen a few women ride.’ He shoved back his hat and added, ‘Side-saddle. On a gentle horse.’
She smiled, and there was a touch of bitterness in the smile. ‘I was an only child. My father wanted a son. He never had one. We had a big horse ranch up in Wyoming Territory. He made his living breaking and selling stock to the cavalry. I guess he’d counted on a son being a big help to him. When my mother died and he lost all chance of having a son I guess he decided I’d have to make up for what I’d done to his life. I was running wild mustangs when I was only twelve. By the time I was fourteen I was breaking them. I just grew up that way and never thought there was anything strange in it. I seldom saw another woman and it wasn’t until I married Clint and came here that I found I was a little different. But it didn’t bother me much, except’ – she turned to smile at him – ‘except that I learned to wear skirts in town to keep “decent” women from staring at me like I was a fallen woman.’
Carmody rode on for a while in thoughtful silence. Then he said, ‘Did your husband let you ride, rough ones, I mean?’
She laughed. ‘Good heavens, no! Clint nearly had a fit when he first met me at a horse camp up in Wyoming. And it took him a long time to even get used to the idea of me wearing men’s clothes around the ranch after we were married. He bought me the first dress I ever owned. And I guess he thought that when Penelope came along it would change things for good – turn me into a real housewife and mother instead of a half-wild horsewoman.’ Her laughter faded. ‘But he never lived to see Penelope.’
She stopped talking and Carmody felt sorry the conversation had strayed as it had. But something she had said somewhere along the line disturbed him vaguely, though he couldn’t exactly put his finger on it. Then suddenly he realized what it was. During the trial he’d heard that Anne Merriweather had been sent East to her mother to have her baby. But she’d just said she had no mother. He tried a gentle question.
‘Must’ve been pretty hard on you, losing your husband. Didn’t he have any folks or anything around here you could go to?’
She shook her head. He had an old aunt back East. It was Caleb’s sister, really. But he called her his aunt, even though he’d only seen her once when she came out to visit Caleb years back. They both insisted that I go back to stay with her and have Penelope there. They said a ranch with no woman around wasn’t a fit place for me to have a baby.’ Her tone saddened again. ‘I was back there when Clint got killed. I didn’t even get to the funeral, of course. So far away. Even the trial of the man who killed him was over when I got back.’ Her voice grew distant and she seemed not to be talking to him but to herself. ‘I don’t know why, but I wanted to see that man. Maybe – maybe I wanted to tell him how much I hated him for what he’d done to me. Clint and I had only been married eighteen months. That’s a short time, Jeff – a short time to be happy in. And those eighteen months were the only happy months I’d ever known.’
She fell quiet for a minute and Carmody did not intrude on her thoughts. Then suddenly she said in a quiet voice, ‘They didn’t hang the man who killed Clint. The judge said he wanted to be lenient because he wasn’t twenty-one. And there was some legal question that I didn’t understand – something about him just trying to rob Clint and the killing being more or less accidental. I don’t remember how long he was sent to prison for. Ten years, I think.…’
With time off for good behaviour makes it eight, Carmody was thinking.
‘… so he should be out soon. I’ve been meaning to write to the warden at Huntsville and ask to be told when he’s set free. Maybe I’ll do that and.…’ She didn’t finish. The rhythmic beat of their horses�
� hoofs sounded loud in the silence; but not loud enough to cover the hatred in her voice.
Carmody said nothing.
CHAPTER 4
When they came within sight of Anson’s fence Anne reined in and pointed, saying, ‘There’s where the trouble is; where that gully cuts down the side of the slope into my place. The gully’s too steep to plant fence posts, so Anson just strung the wire across and weighted it down with rocks. It works all right to keep his cows in, because they graze right up to the edge of the gully and then turn back to find more grass. But my cows start in to graze down here where the gully widens out and they just wander uphill where it narrows like a funnel and leads them under the fence and out onto Anson’s land. There’s plenty of clearance under the fence because the rocks don’t weight it clear to the ground. You’ll see better when we get down a little closer.’
They had just started to ride on when the whipsnap of a rifle shot reached them. Another followed after a short interval. Then two more.
‘Sounded like down there in that gully someplace,’ Carmody said. Remembering Anson’s threat to shoot Anne’s straying cattle, both clapped spurs to their horses simultaneously. They were still a quarter of a mile from the gully when they saw a thin column of dust rising from the bottom of it, but whatever was raising the dust was still hidden by the steep banks. Then Carmody gave a shout and pointed. Well inside Anson’s fence where the gully headed on high ground a rider appeared. He was heading away from them, moving fast, sliding a rifle back into its boot as he rode. Four steers lay dead on the gully floor, the blood glistening as it seeped from the bulletholes in their foreheads.
Carmody raised his head and peered up the length of he gully into Anson’s territory. ‘Recognize that fella?’ he asked quietly.
Anne nodded, biting her lip to keep back angry tears. ‘Neaf Hacker. He was with that bunch you met in town yesterday when they shot Pinto.’
Something down below drew Carmody’s attention. He examined the ground below the fence carefully for a minute, then went back to his horse and remounted and joined Anne.
‘I wondered how that fella raised so much dust,’ he said as he came up beside her.
‘What did you find?’
Carmody pointed into the gully. ‘See those marks down there? Your steers were on their own ground when they were shot. Your friend Hacker dragged them up where they are now to make it look like they’d strayed.’ Then he added grimly, ‘Not that it makes a hell of a lot of difference. He had no right to shoot ’em either side of the fence. If Anson wants your cattle kept out, let him string his wire lower down.’
‘Well,’ Carmody sighed, ‘neither cussin’ nor cryin’s gonna help get your steers back. How much are they worth on the market right now.’
She studied for a minute. ‘They were yearlings just coming two – about fourteen dollars a head on the siding. Maybe sixteen in Kansas City.’
‘Call it sixteen,’ Carmody said. He slid his Colt from its holster, flipped open the loading gate and spun the cylinder to check the load. ‘You catch that livery mount and take him back to your place. I can take him to town some other time. Right now I’m going to collect.’
She looked at him in alarm. ‘Collect? Collect what?’
‘Why – the money for them steers, that’s what.’ He screwed up his face with the agony of mental arithmetic, ‘Let’s see – sixteen a head, four steers.’
‘Sixty-four dollars,’ she snapped, ‘and don’t think I’m going to let you do a fool thing like riding up to Booth Anson’s front door and ask him for it.’
He looked at her in amazement. ‘You know of any other way to get it?’
‘If he got you inside his territory he’d shoot you and have a dozen witnesses to say it was self-defence.’
Carmody raised an eyebrow. ‘Supposin’ I shot first?’
She shook her head violently. ‘No, Jeff – I won’t let you. It’s not worth it.’
‘Supposin’ I go anyway?’
‘Then you’re fired,’ she said firmly.
Carmody said nothing, staring across the fence into Anson’s range.
Anne turned the bay around. ‘Might as well catch up your livery horse and we’ll ride into town together. Mose Dalmas ought to be back from Canadian by now. We’ll tell him what happened – for all the good it’ll do.’
‘The sheriff?’ Carmody said. ‘Why’d you say it like that – is he scared of Anson or something?’
She nodded. ‘At least I think so from the way Anson’s crowd has the run of the town when they’re there. Mose just shrugs off their shenanigans as high spirits; but I think he’s afraid Anson is too much for him to handle. Anyway, we’ll soon find out. This is the first time anything this serious has come up. It might make a difference.’
Carmody was turning the thing over in his mind as they rode back to where the livery mount cropped at the parched grass. A visit to the sheriff, in Anne’s company, was something he wanted to avoid. Dalmas would be sure to remember him from eight years back. Anne’s bitter hatred of the man she thought had killed her husband would blind her to any reasoning Carmody might produce.
He reached out and caught the lead rope to take the rented buckskin in tow and the idea dawned. He hesitated, glancing back in the direction of the gully. ‘Seems a shame to waste all that good beef,’ he mused aloud.
He could see Anne turn to follow his gaze. ‘Can’t do much about it in this heat,’ she said regretfully.
‘Got any salt back at the house’ Carmody said slyly.
‘Y-e-ss!’ she said. ‘I could get Caleb to help me. We could load a couple of barrels of salt in the spring wagon and bring it out here and butcher on the spot. At least we could save some of the meat for winter.’ She turned and eyed Carmody who was calmly puffing a cigarette and gazing at nothing in particular. ‘You could go to the sheriff, couldn’t you – tell him what happened? I’d go with you, but since I’ve got to go get Caleb and you’re going in anyway.…’
Carmody straightened in the saddle and pulled his hat down. ‘Sure, I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back soon as I can and give you a hand saltin’ down that beef.’ He was turning away when she called to him.
‘Jeff!’
He turned around. ‘Yeah?’
‘You’re not thinking of sneaking off to collar Booth Anson when my back’s turned, are you?’
Carmody grinned. ‘And get myself fired? No thankee, ma’am. I’ll do it real legal-like, the way you want it. But I’m kind of hoping you’re right about the sheriff bein’ scared of Anson.’
‘Why?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘Because then you’ll have to let me ride up to Anson and get your sixty-four dollars back.’ Still grinning at her, he raised his hand and touched his spurs to his mount, cantering off in the direction of town.
Anne sat watching him for a minute till he disappeared over a rise. Then her frown relaxed and gradually gave way to a smile. ‘Cocky son-of-a-gun!’ she said aloud. She turned and rode away slowly with a thoughtful expression. It was difficult to believe she had known this man less than twenty-four hours. Yet in that time she felt he had done something to her life; entered it with a kind of easy permanence as if he belonged there. Still, he hadn’t really done anything to make her feel like that. Well – he had stood up to Booth Anson over the pup yesterday. But any man who might have happened along would have done the same. Then she shook her head quickly. No, not just any man. He hadn’t even been wearing a gun there.
She’d had that feeling about him that morning when she offered him a job. She knew, like it was part of a plan, that he wouldn’t refuse. Other men she’d hired in the past eight years had been different. Some of them had got big ideas – here was a young widow with a ranch. Others had just been plain worthless; either they were constantly trying to climb in through her bedroom window or else they went completely the other way and began to hate her when they realized they were actually working for a woman. But all of them had drifted on. Carmody
wouldn’t. She knew. Not that there was anything like that mixed up with her feelings for him. But there was something comfortable in having him around. Something solid.
It gave her a start to realize that the only other man who had ever come riding into her life so completely in focus was Clint Merriweather.
She shook her head quickly and put her mount into a lope as if to leave this disturbing thought far behind.
It was high noon when Carmody rode into Sand Valley and reined in at Buckley’s livery. He dismounted and watered the horses. Then he lifted the tin cup from the pump and filled it, drinking the cool water in slow gulps.
Buck Buckley came out while he was drinking and leaned against the doorframe. Carmody turned around.
‘Hot, ain’t it?’ Buckley said.
‘Hot enough,’ Carmody answered. ‘Brought your nag back in one piece. How much do I owe you?’
Buckley ran his eyes over the rented horse. ‘Don’t look like you damaged him much. Make it seventy-five cents – fifty for the horse and two-bits for the saddle.’
Carmody paid him and asked, ‘Sheriff back yet?’
The other nodded. ‘Seen him ride in early this morning.’ Then he glanced at the horse Carmody was riding. ‘M.W.’ he said. ‘That’s the Merriweather brand. You ridin’ for Anne?’
Carmody mounted up. ‘That’s right,’ he said and rode off. He swung down in front of the sheriff’s office and tied up.
Mose Dalmas looked up from his desk at the sound of Carmody’s boot heels and Carmody saw the gimlet eyes search his face while the lawman’s own face remained dead-pan. But there was recognition in the eyes.
‘What can I do for you, mister?’ Dalmas said.
‘Did you get those guns I left at the post office yesterday?’
Dalmas frowned, giving Carmody a quick glance of reappraisal. ‘Yeah, I got them. Mind tellin’ me exactly what happened?’
Carmody ignored the question for one of his own. ‘Did Anson pick them up?’