“It is all of that, but there isn’t enough of it. I’ve hoped to open trails to other valleys where cattle could be kept, but as it is, that’s mostly timber country, over half of it stands on edge, and probably the easiest way to be rid of you would be to step out and let you try it. You’d lose cattle, men and horses.”
“You seem to have done all right. I can scarcely believe you, Mr. Radigan.”
He nodded to indicate the men at the bar, aware they were listening. “Above all, what will you do with your hands?” It was a chance to inject some doubt into their minds. “There isn’t work up there for more than two or three men on the few acres you’ll have.”
“Acres?” she protested. “There are miles, twenty-two square miles, to be exact.”
Downey came in with the tea. “Had to use two pots,” he explained. “Never had such a big order before.”
Radigan took the smallest pot and filled their two cups and then he quietly drew his gun. “Serve the rest of it to them.” Radigan indicated the three men at the bar with his gun barrel. “I’ll see that they drink it.”
Coker’s features stiffened and his hand started for his gun but stopped as Radigan’s gun muzzle swung to cover him. “Start drinking. You, too, Barbeau.”
“I’ll be damned if I do!”
Radigan’s gun tilted a little. “You asked for a tea party and now you’ve got it. Start drinking or I start shooting.”
Hickman was grinning widely. Startled, Angelina Foley could only stare from Radigan to her men, astonished and unbelieving.
“If you aren’t drinking by the time I count three,” Radigan said casually, “I’ll break an arm for each of you.”
He came easily to his feet and moved across the floor toward them, keeping Angelina and the door in his line of vision.
“I’ll kill you for this!” Barbeau shouted.
“Maybe—but I can start shortening the odds right here. You wanted tea, now get on with it.”
Coker slammed down his cup. “I’ll be damned if I will!” he shouted and grabbed at his gun butt.
Radigan’s gun barrel slashed right and left and Coker hit the floor as if dropped from a roof. “Get on with the tea drinking,” Radigan said calmly, “or I’ll pile you three deep.”
Angelina Foley was white with anger. “See here!” she protested. “You can’t do that!”
“I’d hate to hit a woman,” he said.
Involuntarily, she sat down. “You…you wouldn’t dare!”
“If you play games with men,” he replied, “you’ll play by men’s rules.”
He handed his six-gun to Hickman. “Barbeau was hunting a fight,” he said. “You just keep them off my back.”
Barbeau slammed down his cup and turned sharply around. “Fight?” he yelled. “You’d fight me?”
Radigan hit him.
Barbeau staggered and Radigan stepped in, watching Barbeau’s fists, and whipped a wicked left into Barbeau’s belly. Barbeau was a talker as well as a fighter—he had expected to do some talking about what he was going to do, and he had been startled by Radigan’s willingness to fight, and the savagery of Radigan’s attack confused him. He backed away, but Radigan gave him no chance to get set. A left and right to the face shook him up, and desperately he put his head down and charged, swinging.
A wild right staggered Radigan, but the rancher stepped outside of a left and brought his fist down on Barbeau’s kidney. The heavier man gasped and plunged in, grabbing for a clinch. Radigan hit him flush on the chin with a short right that stopped him in his tracks.
Barbeau stared through his raised fists at Radigan. This fight was not going as his fights usually went. The right he had taken was a stunning blow, and Radigan looked cool and easy, not even breathing hard. For the first time Barbeau realized he might be whipped and the thought was maddening. Recklessly he charged, swinging powerful blows with both hands. For a few minutes they fought hard, and Barbeau drove Radigan back across the room. Bitner was cheering, and Barbeau was sure he had Radigan going. He felt his right land solidly, and automatically he slowed to let Radigan fall.
In the instant he slowed, Radigan struck him in the mouth, splitting his lip and spilling blood over his shirt front. Astonished, Barbeau saw Radigan standing before him…the rancher had taken his best punch and had struck back at almost the same instant.
Barbeau rushed, but the heart was out of him. Wildly, he knew he was not going to win. Never before had he hit a man solidly with his right hand when that man had not fallen, but the punch apparently had left Radigan undisturbed. Radigan had grown up around the camps of Michigan loggers before coming west to Texas, and he had served a postgraduate course in fist-fighting among the freighters and the riverboatmen. Few cowhands of the seventies knew anything about fist-fighting. Arguments were settled with guns and fists rarely used, hence Barbeau’s victories had been won over men to whom fist-fighting was completely foreign. To Radigan fist-and skull-fighting had been a way of life from boyhood into young manhood. He had lost fights, but he had won many more, and Barbeau had none of the rough skill to which he was accustomed.
Barbeau rushed again, trying to grapple with Radigan, but the rancher gave ground suddenly and the overbalanced Barbeau fell forward. Grabbing Barbeau by the collar, Radigan jerked him forward over his own extended leg and hurled him to the floor.
Barbeau lay on his back, staring up at Radigan from dull eyes.
Then slowly he started to get up, and Radigan backed off to give him room. When Barbeau was on his feet, Radigan walked in, feinted, and hit the heavier man in the belly. Filled with tea, Barbeau backed up, gasping and gulping, overcome with nausea. He backed away, lifting a hand to ward Radigan off. He was battered, bloody and beaten, and he knew it.
Radigan picked up his gun and dropped it into his holster. Coker was sitting on the floor holding his head in both hands.
“I don’t want trouble,” Radigan said, “but I won’t run from it.”
He turned to face Angelina Foley. Her face was white, her eyes hard with anger.
“I doubt if you realize what that Vache Creek country is like,” he said, “but if you want to come up with one man, and I’d suggest Ross Wall, who is a cowman, I’ll show it to you. Most of it is over seventy-five hundred feet above sea level, and it is the most beautiful mountain country in the world. It is also one of the roughest, coldest and has the most snow.”
Downey was standing near the window. “Stage coming,” he said.
Radigan put on his hat and walked outside. His knuckles were split and sore but he felt good. It had been his first fist fight in a long time, and he was suddenly glad he had put in much of the summer splitting rails for fences and cutting wood for winter. Nothing like an ax or a crosscut saw to put a man in shape.
He remembered Thorpe. With him such a fight might be different, for Thorpe was no Barbeau, and despite the fact that he looked the fashionable young man there were shoulders on him, and there was something about the lean savagery of his face that was a warning. Also, when they had first met he had noticed scars on the man’s knuckles.
The door closed behind him and he turned to see Angelina Foley looking at him. Her gaze was cool, curious, and, for the first time, almost respectful. “Would you have struck me?” she asked curiously.
He had never struck a woman in his life, but he looked at her as if surprised by the question. “Why, of course,” he said. “I meant what I said.”
“You’re no gentleman, Mr. Radigan!”
He grinned at her. “No gentleman would have a chance, dealing with you. You’d tease, flatter, maybe cry. You’d pet him, lie to him, cheat him. Well, you can cry for me or pet me, but you’ll never do the rest. Try cheating me and I’ll spank your little bustle.”
Her eyes held a challenge. “We may be on opposite sides, but you’re a man, and I like you. You may call me Gelina.”
“You’re a beautiful, desirable woman,” he said, “but I wouldn’t trust you across the street. Befo
re this is over you’ll hate me more than you ever hated any man, but seriously, take my advice and leave now. This fight will exhaust everything you’ve got and leave you nothing.”
She smiled. “You have one man working for you, Mr. Radigan. I have thirty. I think I’ll win.”
He nodded seriously. “But I have something else working for me. The most dangerous ally a man could have—the weather. What will you do with your cattle when the ground is three to six feet deep in snow and no feed anywhere?”
The stage rolled to a stop and the cloud of dust that had pursued it now caught up and drifted over it, settling on the horses and around them.
Radigan watched the driver climb stiffly down from the box, his face red from the chill wind. Hickman had followed him out, and Downey was opening the door to help the passengers down. Radigan shifted his weight and a board creaked under his feet. Looking across the stage he gazed toward the distant mountains, and then a girl got out of the stage and the easy banter stopped as if cut with a knife. Whatever Tom Radigan had expected it was not this.
Under a perky little bonnet her eyes were guileless and blue, her face was that of an innocent child but her body was such that no clothing could conceal the lines of her figure. He caught his breath, half-hypnotized as she came up the steps. He was aware that everyone on the walk was staring, and aware she was thoroughly enjoying it.
She turned to Downey and said, “I am looking for Mr. Child or Mr. Radigan, of the R-Bar.”
Downey started to speak but his lips found no words. In this land of few women there was nothing in his experience that prepared him to cope with this emergency. He stared and his lips parted and then he dumbly indicated Radigan.
She turned to him and surveyed him gravely out of large blue eyes. “You’re not my father,” she said, “so you must be Mr. Radigan.”
Her eyes went past him to Gelina Foley. “Is this your wife?”
Radigan chuckled. “No, ma’am, this is my enemy, Miss Gelina Foley.”
She looked at Gelina with a thoughtful expression. “I think she’s my enemy,” she said. “She likes you.”
Hastily, Radigan said, “Gretchen—that is your name isn’t it?—can you ride?”
“I can ride anything that wears hair,” she said, “but I’ll have to change my dress.” She glanced quickly at Gelina. “Do you like her?” she whispered audibly.
Gelina’s face flushed and deliberately she gathered her skirt and descended to her buckboard where Bitner was waiting to help her in. Without a backward glance, they drove away. Inwardly she was fuming. Why! That…that baggage!
Angrily, Gelina flounced in her seat. The very idea! Why, that girl was no more than a child! And with a body like that! Accustomed to the attention of men, she realized jealously that from the moment that girl had gotten out of the stage nobody had so much as looked at her.
Her anger, she realized, was unreasonable. She sat back in the buckboard and began to plan. They must move at once, and she would run them out of the country. They would not wait any longer. After all, there were but two men there, and they could not be on watch all the time and still do the things that had to be done.
Her brows gathered. He had spoken of snow. Involuntarily she glanced at the dull sky. But that was nonsense. It never grew very cold here, this was New Mexico. Nonetheless the leaden sky depressed her, and without knowing why she was increasingly worried. Remembering what Radigan had said, she began to wonder just what it was Harvey Thorpe had in mind—it was he who had insisted they come here. But leaving Texas was imperative, and this was the only property to which they had claim. And it should take only a few days to be rid of Radigan.
Yet even as she thought that she remembered the cool, masterful, almost easy way in which he had beaten Barbeau. She had rarely seen a man whipped more thoroughly. And Vin Cable was dead—there had been four bullet holes in his body.
It was not going to be as easy as Harvey believed. Suddenly, she was glad Ross was along.
*
GRETCHEN CHILD RETURNED from Downey’s home where she had met Mrs. Downey, a buxom, motherly Irish woman, and where she changed her clothes. She now wore a neat gray riding habit and whatever the dress had left to imagination the habit revealed. Uncomfortably, Radigan was aware that she would be unlikely to find anything that would make her look less exciting than she was.
As if, he reflected grimly, the Thorpe-Foley trouble was not enough!
He helped her into the saddle but she really needed no help. He saw at a glance that whatever else she might be she was at home in a saddle.
“You’ll not be able to stay at the ranch,” he warned. “It won’t be safe.”
“I trust you,” she said.
Hastily, he explained. “I didn’t mean that. We’ve a range war on with those people back there. A shooting war, I think.”
“I saw your knuckles. Has the war started?” She looked at him seriously. “I’m strong. I can work, and I can use a gun. I’m really strong.” She held out her arm, doubled to make a muscle. “Just feel of that.”
Chapter 3
*
THE CATTLE CAME first. They came up the canyon on the third day after Radigan’s return with Gretchen Child, and they came in a solid mass, hurried on by a dozen cowhands. Obviously they had been driven up the canyon earlier and held at the cienaga during the night.
The cattle came first and they came fast. Radigan was putting a little feed in the makeshift corral hidden among the fallen rocks from the weathering of the mesa when he heard Child yell.
He heard him yell, heard a shot, and he dropped the pitchfork and came running. He shot the first steer into the yard, but a glance told him there was no stemming that tide of beef and he ducked into the house after John and slammed the door, dropping the bar into place. Almost before he could reach the window the yard was crowded with cattle.
Child rested the muzzle of his Winchester on the sill of the window beyond the door and glanced over at Radigan. “Smart,” he said, “mighty smart. We’re not supposed to get out.”
A big steer was pressed tight against the door, and others were so close to the windows that Radigan could have reached out and scratched their backs. The ranch yard was jammed full of steers pressed in a compact mass. Beyond them, to left and right, the herd was spreading out in loose formation, but those in the yard were held tight by a circle of cowhands and tight-drawn ropes. The cowhands were out of sight behind the barn or in other concealment.
“Hi, the house!” The voice was the booming one of Ross Wall. “You want to get out, toss your guns out the window!”
Child glanced at Radigan but he motioned for silence. Several minutes passed. After the first few minutes of realization Gretchen had calmly returned to her housework, putting a meal on the table as though there was no enemy within miles. Yet Radigan noted she wore riding boots and a rough skirt—she was ready to go.
Wall did not know about the tunnel, and that was what would save them. Nobody knew about that but John Child, and obviously somebody in town had told Wall or Thorpe or both of the fact that the ranch house had but one entrance.
And without the tunnel they would have been helpless, for there was no escape from the house except by the tunnel, for driving the beef into the yard had imprisoned them just as surely as if walled with stone. They could kill the beef, but if they did they would then be killed themselves and no one would say they were killed without cause.
“If you want to eat,” Gretchen said, “it’s ready.”
“Go ahead, John. You sit down. I’ll take mine here at the window.”
“Hello, the house!” It was Wall again. “Radigan, I know you’re in there, and you haven’t a prayer! Throw us your guns and we’ll let you out!”
They would get the house, but at this time of year, hoping to move in themselves, they would not burn it. Living in the hills would be rough but they could stand it for a short time, at least. Keeping well back away from the window, Radigan considered the situ
ation.
Long ago he had planned for just such an emergency, but he had expected the trouble from the Utes. He had built for defense, but had planned for abandoning the place if it became necessary. Here, as at the barn, there was another way out, but the way out of the house was through a tunnel that opened in thick brush at the foot of the mesa near where the horses were picketed. It was not far behind the house, and it was unlikely anyone would examine the talus slope at the mesa’s foot. To the casual eye it looked like a thousand other such slopes at the base of a thousand such mesas.
There was no way they could get at the house from the rear so it was unlikely anyone would find reason for checking that slope.
He could hear the murmur of voices from beyond the cattle. Obviously, the fact that no reply came from the house was disturbing to them, for there is no bargaining with a man who won’t talk.
Gretchen brought coffee to the window, keeping well out of line. Radigan smiled at her. “You walked right into trouble. I’m sorry.”
“Will we have to leave here?”
“Yes.”
“We will need blankets and warm clothes,” she said. “I’ll get them ready.”
He watched her as she walked away, amazed anew at the calm with which she accepted the situation. He glanced out the window again…they had to stall until after dark, for the chance of escape in daylight was less…all was quiet. The cattle were jammed tight and held there, pressing against the door.
Ross Wall hunkered down beside the fire, spreading his cold hands to the flames. “He’s there, all right. No way he could get out. I talked to a man down to San Ysidro, man helped build this place and he swears there was only one door. Small house like that, there’s no need for another.”
Thorpe squatted beside the fire and rolled a cigarette. “We’ve got to get him out of there. If he’s got grub he could spend the winter there.”
Wall looked around gloomily. “He sure didn’t tell no lies about grass. If this is all there is we can’t hold the herd on it for a week.”
“There’s more.”
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