“Stage is about due,” Flynn commented.
“No rush this time of year,” Downey the barman said as he leaned his thick elbows on the mahogany. “Folks just naturally start avoiding this country just shy of first snowfall, and they’re smart.”
One of the strange riders looked around. “Does it get cold here?”
Flynn nodded, looking into his glass. “You’re up high, man. You’re right near a mile above sea level here, and any place out of town it’s higher.” He indicated Radigan with a jerk of his head. “Up at Tom’s place it’s a half-mile higher. And cold? Seen it forty below up there, many a time.”
The door opened then and a big man came in. As tall as Radigan’s six feet and two inches, he was thirty pounds heavier than Radigan’s one hundred and eighty-five. His square, powerful head sat on a wide thick neck and powerful shoulders, yet for all his beef he moved easily, and he glanced sharply at Radigan, then again.
“I know you from somewhere,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“You live around here?”
The cowhands had straightened up at the bar and so had Flynn. “Could be.”
The newcomer hesitated as if to say something further but a shrill yell from down the street and the rattle of hoofs and harness brought the stage up to the door.
Flynn, Radigan thought, was relieved, but he made no move toward the door until the three cowhands had gone out. The big man stood in frowning concentration, then called after the last man through the door. “Coker,” he said, “shake the snow off those robes in the buckboard.”
Radigan glanced out the window. It was snowing, not very seriously, but snowing nonetheless. He felt relieved. A good snow now might close the country for all winter. His first glance registered the snow, but the second caught the horse tied behind the stage.
Hickman stepped in the door. “Sheriff,” he said, “we’ve a dead man out here.”
Downey came from behind the bar. All of them went out but Tom Radigan. He refilled his glass.
Hickman glanced at him curiously. “Ain’t you curious?”
“Me?” Radigan glanced at him. “I’ve seen a dead man.”
He tossed off his drink and stared at his glass, wondering why he ever touched the stuff. He didn’t really like it and he had discovered long ago that it took a lot to have any effect on him and when he got the effect he didn’t like it.
The door pushed open and men came in carrying a body which they stretched on the pool table. The big man followed them in, his features a study in puzzled anger. A man obviously the stage driver entered with Downey and Flynn.
“About ten mile out,” the driver was saying, “we come around a bend and there was this horse, walkin’ toward us. We figured it was somethin’ for you.”
The deputy sheriff stared sourly at the dead man. Why didn’t they let the horse keep going? Clean out of the county? “Anybody know him?” he asked.
Nobody spoke up. In the silence Hickman glanced quizzically at Radigan. Flynn noted the glance.
“He’s some shot up,” Downey commented, “and I’d say early last night.” At Flynn’s questioning glance Downey flushed. “Worked with doctors durin’ the war,” he said. “I know something about wounds.”
“He could have come quite a ways,” Flynn commented, “since early last night.”
Tom Radigan was sure he knew what Flynn was thinking, that the unknown dead man could have come from the ranch under the mesa. There were not too many places he could have come from except maybe Jemez or Jemez Springs. Deputy Sheriff Flynn, Radigan decided, was no fool.
“All the wounds are in front,” Radigan commented.
“That’s where you’d expect ’em to be,” Hickman said. “That’s Vin Cable.”
Flynn turned sharply around. “Damn it, Hickman!” he demanded irritably. “What would Vin Cable be doing up here? He’s a warrior, a dollar-on-the-barrelhead fighting man.”
Hickman shrugged. “How should I know what he was doin’ here? Maybe somebody is startin’ a war?”
“Cable must’ve killed five or six men,” Downey said.
“That folks can testify to,” Hickman added. “No tellin’ how many he dry gulched.”
The big man turned sharply on Hickman. “You talk a lot,” he said.
“You don’t like it?” Hickman’s voice was mild. He was idly whittling with a bowie knife.
“Stop it,” Flynn said, glaring at him. The deputy looked as sore as a hound dog with a bad tooth. He smelled trouble, Radigan surmised and, good officer that he was, wanted to avoid it.
Coker came to the door and called to the big man, “Ross, Miss Foley is ready to go.”
Radigan followed them to the street, and Flynn trailed after.
A tall young man was helping a girl in a gray traveling dress from the stage. She had dark-brown hair and, as Radigan saw when she glanced up at him, green eyes. He escorted the girl to the buckboard and paused there as Ross joined them. Whatever he said caused the young man to turn on him, startled and angry. The girl waited, listening.
Flynn seemed to make up his mind. “You folks planning to settle around here?”
Ross turned squarely around to face him. “We do. We’ve rented the Hansen place until our cattle come in, and then we’re moving up on Vache Creek.”
Flynn started to speak but Radigan interrupted. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he said.
All eyes were on Radigan.
“And why not?” Ross demanded.
“Because he missed,” Radigan said quietly.
Chapter 2
*
THE WIND SKITTERED a dry leaf along the boardwalk and one of the stage mules, shifting his weight, jangled the harness. Radigan’s three words hung in the still, cold air, a challenge issued and a line drawn.
The man who was helping the girl into the buckboard turned his face toward them. “What’s that mean?” he demanded.
His was a lean, handsome face with a hint of repressed savagery behind it that Tom Radigan had seen in faces before. There was impatience in such men, impatience that could lead to trouble, impatience that might get them killed or lead to the killing of others.
“My name is Radigan. The R-Bar is my outfit and the R-Bar is Vache Creek.”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand.” It was the girl speaking, and her cool, cultured voice seemed to be merely tolerating stupidity in one who knew no better. “We own twenty-two sections along Vache Creek.”
“Along Vache Creek,” there was no yielding in his tone, “there is but one ranch and room for but one. I own it.”
She arranged her skirt with one casual hand, and the smile went no farther than her lips, lips that were a shade too thin, eyes that were too cool and measuring. “You are mistaken, sir. I am sorry for you, of course, but men who squat on land that does not belong to them must expect to be moved off. That land has been in my family since 1844.”
“And you were so sure of your title that you sent your insurance on ahead?”
Ross Wall took a quick, belligerent step forward. “What’s that mean?”
“Read it any way you like.” Ross was the dangerous one at the moment and Radigan’s eyes held on him. The foreman was a fighting man, and he looked a hardheaded man who would take some convincing. “An outfit that sends a gunman ahead of them can’t have too much confidence in their title.”
“You accusing us?”
“Vin Cable didn’t come here for fun. He didn’t take a shot at my segundo for fun and, from all I hear, he was a man who commanded a high price. I think he was paid insurance that there’d be no argument about titles.”
Flynn interposed. “Tom, we’d better look into this. After all, if they have a title—”
“Any title they have isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” Radigan was brusque. “Moreover, there isn’t range enough in Guadalupe Canyon to winter a jack rabbit, and the only range on Vache Creek is my range. There will be no cattle along that creek whose brand do
es not read R-Bar.”
Hickman stood with one foot against the wall, a lean man in soiled buckskins who listened with cynical amusement.
The girl spoke again. “I am Angelina Foley. The land along Vache Creek is part of my father’s estate, and the terms of Governor Armijo’s grant are clear. No doubt you have made improvements on the land.” She opened her purse. “I am prepared to pay for those improvements, and to buy what stock you have.”
“That’s fair,” Flynn said quickly. “How about that, Tom?”
“The land is mine. It will remain mine. If you had taken the trouble to inquire in Santa Fe you would know the status of any grants by Armijo.”
For the first time Ross Wall looked uncertain. He glanced at Angelina Foley, awaiting her lead, for obviously this was something for which he had no reply.
“Would you fight a woman, Mr. Radigan? I thought Western men more gallant.”
There was no yielding in Radigan. “When you opened the ball,” he replied, “you called the tune. Anybody, man or woman, who comes hunting a bullet title to my land is going to have to prove title with more than conversation. And a woman who takes cards in a man’s game holds the status of a man and is entitled to no more respect.”
“Now, see here!” Flynn said angrily. “You’ve no proof of connection between Vin Cable and this lady! None at all! You just back up on that! Back up, d’ you hear?”
Abruptly, Radigan turned and walked back into the saloon. The body of Cable had been removed from the billiard table to a back room where it was partly visible lying on another table.
Jim Flynn followed Radigan into the saloon and leaned on the bar beside him. “Have a drink, Tom?” Flynn tried to speak casually.
“I have one. Thanks.”
“Too bad…tough time to lose a place, winter coming like this.”
Radigan shot Flynn a hard glance, but made no reply.
“If I were you I’d talk to these people, and try to work out a deal. Their herd is already on its way here.”
“What’s got into you, Jim? Are you deputy sheriff of the county or their lawyer? That land is mine. I’ve lived on it and worked it and have an air-tight title. You don’t suppose I’m going to be pushed off my land with a bluff like that, do you? You’d better decide where you stand, Jim.”
Flynn’s face flushed with dark blood. “I stand for the law, and I’ll enforce the law! You put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
“Seems to me,” Hickman commented mildly, “that Radigan’s case is the best one, Jim. He’s been in possession four years we know of. He says he’s got an air-tight title. Was I you, Jim, I’d give that some thought.”
Hickman’s interference angered him, yet there was sense in what he said. Still, Flynn told himself, it was unreasonable that such people could be bluffing, or that such a girl could be dishonest. These were quality…he had seen it at first glance, and he was a man who had been taught respect for decent women. The idea that an educated, intelligent lady would have a hand in anything shady was beyond consideration. Nor would an outfit of this size have come here without having a clear title. Like many another man he had respect for money and power, and these newcomers showed every indication of both.
“A girl like that wouldn’t lie,” Flynn said.
Radigan had no humor in his smile. “If you can say that, Jim, you’ve been lucky in the women you’ve known.”
The door opened and Angelina Foley came in with Ross and the younger man.
“I am asking you again, Mr. Radigan, to vacate the premises on Vache Creek.”
He turned to face her. “Somebody’s misled you, ma’am. Have you ever seen this land you claim? Have you any idea what you’re getting into? Guadalupe Canyon runs north of here, and rim to rim it’ll vary from maybe a half-mile to a mile. In the bottom it isn’t anywhere more than a few hundred yards wide, and nowhere along that canyon is there graze for a herd.
“North of there it narrows down and sometimes in the winter we’re snowed in for a month at a time, one time it was three months. In the summer that country will carry quite a few cows in the high meadows, but to winter cattle up there calls for a special brand of know-how that no Plains country puncher will learn in a season. Most places folks will tell you a man who tries to winter cattle a mile and half above sea level is crazy.
“I’d say, ma’am, that you’ve been poorly advised to bring a herd up here at this season. My advice would be to head out of here for the nearest fort or reservation where they’re buying cattle for the Indians and sell out. After you’ve spent a winter here, if you still want a piece of this country, you can find a piece that’s not already taken.”
“My land is on Vache Creek, Mr. Radigan,” she replied coolly. “I am asking you to vacate in the presence of witnesses. If you do not, well, I’m afraid my men won’t take kindly to your being in the way of ranch operations.”
“Seems odd,” Radigan said quietly, “that you’d come into a cold country in the late fall knowing you’d built no buildings on the land. Looks like you knew about mine and figured to have me out of them. Seems you should know you have to feed stock part of the winter, and yet you bring a herd up here. Figuring to use my feed, too? Was that why Vin Cable came first?”
Jim Flynn’s brow puckered and he glanced at Angelina Foley, his eyes registering doubt for the first time. It was a telling point, and any man who had grown up around cattle would recognize the logic of it.
She turned toward the door, then glanced back. “You have heard what I said. You have been notified to vacate. When my herd arrives, we will move onto the land.”
The batwings swung to behind them, and there was silence in the saloon and stage station.
“There’s six men here,” Hickman advised, “and there must be a dozen or more with the herd. I’d say you’d chosen yourself a fight.”
“I’ve one man worth a dozen of these, plenty of grub and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition. If it’s war they want they’ve come to the right place.”
He downed his drink and turned to the door. It was time he started back. The few flakes of falling snow had disappeared, but the suggestion remained in the air, and the sky above was flat and cold.
At the door Hickman’s voice stopped him. “Jim,” the trapper suggested mildly, “there’s a thought behind this. Now these folks have a right smart outfit. Good horses, good clothes, good rigs. Wonder why they left wherever they were? Folks that prosperous don’t usually pick up and move. Mostly, movers are poor folks.”
Flynn turned around, ignoring Hickman. “Cable was shot in front,” he said, “and any man who can get lead into Vin Cable in front is entitled to it, but I’m a curious man.”
Briefly, Radigan explained, telling the story simply and without embellishment from the moment he saw the trail across the meadow. Despite himself, Flynn was fascinated. A fighting man himself he read between the lines. Most men would have gotten themselves killed in such a situation, but Radigan had outthought, outtricked and outshot his man.
“He have a grudge against you?”
“I never knew who he was until Hickman put a name to him.” Radigan paused. “Jim, I’d suggest you examine their papers before there’s any trouble. They’ll have some sort of a trumped-up claim, I’m sure of that. But look them over.”
“Papers?”
“They’ll have a deed or something. They wouldn’t just come in here and demand a ranch without something to show.”
Jim Flynn felt like a fool. He had been ready to order a man off his ranch on the mere say-so of a bunch of strangers. He must see those papers…worst of it was, he had a time with reading. He felt irritated and trapped. When he had taken this job it had promised peace and quiet with only an occasional drunken Indian to make trouble—and now this.
When Radigan rode his horse into the ranch yard John Child came out of the house with a lantern. He watched Radigan dismount stiffly and within the warm stable he listened while Radigan stripped bridle and saddle
and related the events of the afternoon.
“It’s a hard-case outfit,” he said finally, “and my hunch is the man behind it is that Harvey Thorpe, the girl’s foster brother. He did little talking, but he did a lot of looking and listening.”
“And they’re bringing cattle? If they get caught in the canyon by a heavy fall of snow they won’t have any more cattle than a jaybird.”
“That’s working for us…they don’t know this country. I started small and built carefully and most of the stock we have now was born right here, and they’ve learned to rustle for their grass in rough country.”
The R-Bar was almost twenty-eight miles north of San Ysidro. There were two Indian villages closer, and a few white men in each, but none that concerned him. In the time he had lived on Vache Creek there had been few visitors, and most of them riders passing through, and not one that he could place as a possible scout for the Foley outfit. Most of the riders, and he could count them on the fingers of his hands, had been drifters heading for the breaks to the north to hide out from the law, heading for Loma Coyote.
Did Angelina Foley know of what this range consisted? The rugged mountains, high mesas, hidden valleys and hanging meadows? His cattle were scattered because of the grass, and now were mostly held in proximity to stacks of cut hay, yet here and there he had built fences, utilizing natural features of the terrain wherever possible. During that first winter he had been constantly in the saddle, scouting the places where the wind left grass exposed and where snow did not drift. Coming from Illinois he had known something of cold weather before he came west, and during the drifting years he learned more both from his own experiences and from ranchers he talked to in Montana and Nebraska. It would require such knowledge for these newcomers to survive.
Child shivered. The wind off the mesa was cold, this time of night. “If you need hands,” he suggested, “there’s some you could have.”
“Look, John,” Radigan said, “if this comes to a shooting fight, you don’t have to stay. It’s my fight, and—”
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