West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels

by James Reasoner

  "That's so, but the two of them's workin' together at the moment. Rustlers," I said in a conspiratorial whisper. "They been swappin' hands back and forth to help one another out. Me and some of the OH boys found Mr. Cheshire's stolen cattle up in the mountains, and I took word to him 'bout that. He sent me into town after his daughter."

  I knew the promise of a sale had ridden roughshod over the man's common sense when he pushed the slicker across the counter to me. Not making a mad grab for it convinced him I was on the level.

  "Did Miss Mira say where she was headin' when she left?"

  "Had the feelin' she was hittin' the trail, but it wasn't gonna be right away."

  "Might be she was intendin' on waitin' for somebody?"

  "You?"

  I didn't bother talking around that. Let him think Mira Nell was waiting for me to escort her back to the Triangle K, just as the slicker would ever find its way across a wrangler's back in Jack Cheshire's employ. It wasn't as if I thought this was stealing. He had ordered me around like I worked for him, so it was only fair that I accept payment for those services. Money wasn't likely to be forthcoming so this raincoat would be just as good, if not better. Money can't keep you warm and dry out on night herd.

  "I'll put that down on the Triangle K bill," he said. I took the slicker, snapped it out full length and slid into it. The fit was about all any wrangler could ask. "Here," he said as I turned and started for the door. "You gotta sign. Put your mark beside this line showin' you took the raincoat."

  He had entered the sale in his ledger. I took the pencil from him, licked the lead and sketched a tiny storm cloud raining to beat the band on a poor hunched over cowboy. I studied my drawing for a moment, then added a lightning bolt to give a better balance. Craning his neck let him see what I had done. A smile came to his lips.

  "I kin sell that fer the price of the slicker, if it comes to that."

  "Mr. Cheshire's not one to welsh on his debts," I said. The expression on the man's face lent speed to my retreat. Jack Cheshire might not be the most prompt in paying's the way I read that dark look.

  The slicker flapped like a cavalry garrison flag in the gathering wind, but I felt as snug as a bug behind its oilskin grandness. I walked over to the planks laid down as a walkway in front of the saloon, then paused. I had what passed for food in my belly, along with a beer. Returning to swap lies with Gus appealed to me. Showing off my new slicker would go a ways toward impressing him, too, but that didn't solve the problem of finding Miss Cheshire.

  I walked along the street, my mind turning over everything I'd heard since getting back to town. She had rations for the trail. Not enough for a chuck wagon, just for a pair of riders. The store owner hadn't said, but I got that impression from him — that and I'd read everything entered into the store ledger that Mira Nell had bought as I drew my small cartoon.

  A chair in front of the bank held my weight as I rocked back and pulled my battered hat down a bit to shield my face. It was almost comical how I looked out a pair of holes in the brim and saw everything going on in the street. I'd been shot at so many times I hadn't noticed how close I'd come to having those same holes poked through my pumpkin head.

  After a twenty minute rest, my guesswork paid off. Mira Nell Cheshire rode up, kicked a fine leg out and slid to the ground. An expert spin wrapped her horse's reins around a hitching post. The ends had barely stopped whipping about by the time she brushed past me and went into the bank. It was nearly closing time. She had waited until now to be the last customer in. Should anyone come asking after her, they'd have to track down the banker or teller and maybe she would have a full twelve hour head start if her pursuer waited for the bank to open in the morning.

  The lovely blonde came out with her hands thrust into her coat pockets. I saw the edge of a ten-dollar bill poking out of the pocket as she hurried to mount and ride away. Wasting no time, I climbed to my feet and lit out after her. She didn't quite gallop off, telling me she waited for Hanks in town and not out on the road, but my short rest hadn't renewed all the energy I usually had. Being shot at and spending so much time in the saddle had plumb worn me down.

  She turned down the side street by Doc Delacroix's office, and I knew she met Hanks at the livery stables. I still puffed and panted by the time I got there. Working out my six-shooter, I cautiously approached the half-open barn door. A quick look inside caused my heart to sink. She was nowhere to be seen. A stableboy mucked the stalls.

  He looked up as I blocked the door.

  "You come fer yer horse? I got him all curried up and fed and everything." He rested his shovel against a stall and stepped out so I saw him more clearly.

  This wasn't the man of Mira Nell's assignation. Barely into his teens, his face was pockmarked as if he had lived through a bout of smallpox. I recognized acne when I saw it. I'd been afflicted when I was about the same age. The first pimples had been annoying, but a face filled with them hadn't fooled my ma into believing I had to be quarantined. Staying home all day and drawing rather than going to school would have been a godsend, not that I actually spent much time in the schoolhouse when I was supposed to.

  It's always better to have an excuse than to play hooky. It saves having to come up with excuses, though Ma always believed whatever I told her. Pa was another matter, and he sorely honed my story-telling skills. More often than not, what was sorely tried was my rear end and his patience.

  "Miss Cheshire," I said. "She was here?"

  "Oh, yeah," he said, his eyes glazing over as he remembered the lovely blonde girl. "Her and that fella met up." He smirked. "They kissed, full on the lips, and I know they ain't married."

  "What did he look like?"

  "Well, cain't say. I, uh, I wasn't exactly lookin' at him."

  "This a likeness?" I pulled out the drawing, now so creased and faded it was hardly more than a lump of paper.

  He squinted, then moved closer until his face was only a couple inches from the page.

  He nodded.

  "That's him. That's the one Miss Cheshire was smoochin' with." He looked up hesitantly. "You got a pitcher of her, too?"

  "That's a matter for Marshal Toms," I said. It would be a cottage industry drawing Mira Nell Cheshire for everyone in town — or at least all the men.

  He started to ask what I meant, then shrugged.

  "Did they ride off together?"

  "Yeah, together, after he — "

  "After he what?"

  "Well, they kissed, like I said, then they got to arguin'. Couldn't hear about what. He grabbed her all rough-like and shoved her to her horse."

  "She didn't leave with him because she wanted to?"

  He shrugged. To answer that went beyond his imagination.

  "Which way did they go?"

  My heart sank when he shook his head again. It began looking like Mira Nell's romance with an outlaw had taken a nasty turn. She might even have been kidnapped by Josiah Hanks, and I didn't have any idea where they had ridden.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I rode slowly from town. If smoke had come out my ears from so much thinking, it wouldn't have been any surprise. Considering what I knew, the two weren't running from the law — or even Jack Cheshire's ire. Following tracks in the half-frozen mud along the road was something no tracker could do, though I'd heard tell of Apaches who could do just that. It wasn't hard for me to discount those stories as being embellished when it came to facts. The Apaches rode in the Southwest deserts and it never rained there. Why, I heard one story about it being so dry there the federal marshals rode around and arrested anyone not spitting since it robbed the land of that much moisture. When one owlhoot spilled a gob of particularly vile tobacco, a mesquite tree popped up over night and spread its thorny branches across half of Texas, living off that one hint of wet.

  I drew rein and stared at the muddy road. My wandering mind came back to the problem at hand. Josiah Hanks had no reason to run away. If Mira Nell was any kind of daughter, she'd want her pa's per
mission to marry. Neither of those motives took them away from the Judith River Basin. I could be wrong, and I frequently had to invent reasons why that happened, but I thought both of them were still here. Maybe not at the Triangle K ranch house, but nearby. The rustlers knew the mountains better than wranglers who had worked this country for years. Holing up and riding out the storm caused by recovering the stolen beeves made sense.

  Mira Nell just might find hiding out with her beau to be romantic.

  Horse sense told me that. But I had been wrong before.

  I could ride back to the Triangle K and let Mr. Cheshire know his daughter was still alive, but he would take his anger out on me for letting her ride away with Hanks. Killing the messenger had been a popular way of venting wrath for quite a spell. I had left town without telling Marshal Toms anything of what had happened out on the range. He would find out without hearing it from my flapping chin music.

  Turning in the saddle, I looked north. It had been too long since I'd slept in my own bunk. By now Mr. Phillips might have given it to another cowboy. More than one wrangler had opined as to how being so near the stove was the best spot in the bunkhouse. Losing the bunk would be galling, but not getting paid for the work I'd done and even collecting a reward for finding the stolen cattle would sorely hurt my poke.

  Monte responded to my shifting weight and headed for the OH. Who was I to argue with such a smart saddle horse?

  An hour after noon I rode up to the barn. Most of the hands were gone, but Rusty sat on the chopping block whittling at a block of white pine. He watched me without saying a word as I dismounted and led my horse into the barn. As I worked to water and feed Monte, I sensed I had company.

  "Not talkin' to me?"

  "I might git myself into trouble doin' that," Rusty said. "Your notoriety at gettin' the rustled cattle back faded real quick."

  "So Jack Cheshire rode by to get his beeves?"

  "Mr. Phillips and Cheshire got into a shouting match. Surprised the echoes didn't reach you, wherever that might have been."

  "Town. I was followin' Mira Nell Cheshire, but I thought I was actually on Hanks' trail."

  "You need spectacles if you cain't tell the difference between that ugly galoot and a purty filly like Miss Cheshire."

  I laughed. With a few last strokes, I wiped the mud off Monte's flanks. It wasn't a proper brushing but had to do. It was time for me to tend to my own needs. The shoe leather sandwich I'd swallowed so long ago at Gus' — calling it eating gave food a bad name — needed some company. Thoughts of Texas Pete's grub made my mouth water as much as my belly moaned in protest.

  "I'm a poor choice to tag as an expert tracker."

  "You doin' whatever Jack Cheshire tells you? Mr. Phillips will cut off your privates if he hears what you been up to."

  I appreciated that. Finding an empty crate to sit on, I took the weight off my feet and leaned so my back held up the barn wall.

  "Wasn't like that, not at all. I lost both the lovely lady and Hanks in town. They headed toward the mountains where I suspect the rustlers have a hideout."

  "She's one of the gang?"

  "Doubt she thinks on it that way. I see a girl besotted with lust. Hanks came along and offered a lonely girl what she was bein' denied by her pa. She wasn't allowed into town to associate with the likes of us or anyone. I ain't sayin' she's my type, mind you, but Hanks ain't a bad lookin' gent. If he pays her court, says a lot of flowery things, she's bound to swoon and be putty in his hands."

  "So she's one of the gang," Rusty said, grinning.

  "I wouldn't turn her over to the marshal." A flood of thoughts confused me for a second. Marshal Toms might tell me to do a wanted poster of her since he had asked for a picture for his private admiration. But would he throw her in the clink? How badly did he want to keep her around? She might spend a year in his cell waiting to stand trial just so he could ogle her beauty.

  "Not many folks would. I cain't see her out there stealin' cows."

  "Good of you to come back, Russell."

  The deep voice caused me to about fall off my crate. I sat up, then stood when Jesse Phillips walked into the barn. Even Rusty, not known for deference to any authority, stuck his knife back into its sheath and hid his carving behind his back like a guilty schoolboy caught flinging spitballs.

  "I've ridden a mile or two since I was back here, sir. I — "

  "Never mind whipping up one of your tall tales. Save it for the trail drive. Horace just sent word that he spotted a campfire up in the hills. Him and his boys are too tuckered out to investigate. You and Rawlins don't have anything better to do. See if it might be where the rustlers got off to after you drove them out of their winter pasture."

  Mr. Phillips held out his hand. It took Rusty a second to realize what the man wanted. He passed over his knife. With deft strokes, the rancher drew a map in the side of a stall showing where he wanted us to hunt for the outlaws.

  "If you find them, don't tangle with them yourselves. Come on back and get Horace and the rest of us. Understand?" He drove the knife into the wood so hard the tip buried an inch deep and poked out the far side of the stall. Mr. Phillips sounded calm, but a storm raged inside him over the cattle thieving.

  "Come on, Monte," I said to my poor horse. "We're hittin' the trail again."

  "I don't want to tangle with 'em again," Rusty said. He looked peaked.

  "You feelin' all right?"

  "I'm feelin' scared, that's what I'm feelin'. Let the marshal deal with them."

  "Not his jurisdiction."

  "Then fetch the sheriff. Or a federal deputy. Or the cavalry. Ain't our job to bring lawbreakers to justice."

  "It is if Mr. Phillips says it is." Defending the boss came naturally. I owed him much, but what Rusty said was true, too. He was my partner. For two cents, I'd find a place to camp and draw until my fingers cramped. Maybe it was a good thing I didn't have two cents since having plenty of money'd mean I wasn't doing my poor paying wrangler's job.

  We rode straight into the hills. The map had been plain enough for anyone to follow, but my memory for both details and terrain stood us in good stead. Looking ahead at the uplift in the trail we took warned me of the dangers. Straying would get us lost in country neither of us had seen before. Worse, the storm building on the mountain tops promised another inch or two of snow before we got back to the nice, warm bunkhouse.

  "Where'd you get that slicker?" Rusty asked.

  "Pay for doin' my job," I said. The tails of the yellow oilcloth flapped in the growing wind. I tucked them under my legs, both to keep my thighs warm and to prevent the noise from alerting a sentry.

  We'd ridden for quite some time but hadn't seen a living soul. Not even marmots or a stray cow marred the barren landscape. Riding up the increasingly steep path made me as uneasy as Rusty. I checked my surroundings to be sure we hadn't gone astray. If Mr. Phillips had etched out the map properly, we headed directly for the spot where Horace had seen the campfire burning.

  I twisted about in the saddle and looked at the back trail. It was possible a rider at the foot of the steep incline could see a fire, if it was . . .

  "Off the trail," I said urgently. Not waiting to see if Rusty obeyed, I urged Monte along a crossing game trail hardly wide enough for him to place his big hooves.

  When I had a big boulder between me and the summit, I stopped and waited for Rusty to catch up.

  "What's the problem, Charlie? You see somethin'?"

  "The only spot where a fire could be seen from down below is over there." I made a hook from my finger and pointed over the boulder in front of us. "There's a natural sandpit there. If the fire Horace spotted was higher along the slope, it wouldn't be visible."

  Before Rusty answered, I put my finger to my lips and cocked my head to indicate I heard something. His ears were sharper than mine. He heard the two voices, also. He mouthed out, "Rustlers!"

  I shook my head and rode closer so I could whisper to him, "A man and a woman talkin'. We
found Mira Nell and Josiah Hanks."

  "Wind's pickin' up," he said. "Gonna get right cold soon. Snow, too." He sawed at his horse's reins to turn about and retreat. I grabbed his arm and danged near pulled him from the saddle.

  "I want to make sure who's around this rock."

  "We was told to fetch help. This is where Horace said the rustlers camped. Them's rustlers!"

  I pressed Monte's reins into Rusty's hands and dismounted. He let out a yelp like a stepped on pup.

  "I ain't lettin' you have all the fun!"

  He secured the reins under a rock, then drew his pistol. I grabbed his wrist and made him stick the iron back into its holster. Having it go off by accident as we climbed in the rocks would seal our fate and probably than of Mira Nell Cheshire as well.

  He grumbled but came after me as I picked my way upward between two large rocks. I sank down when I caught the scent of wood smoke. I had to creep another couple yards toward the sandy pit before I saw the fire. Wind began whipping around, sending snowflakes flying like tiny, wet bugs. Each one that caught in the rising smoke turned into a firefly that burst into a red fireworks explosion. In spite of the fire, the whole area was cloaked in shadow and took the better part of five minutes before I made out the two figures to one side.

  Their horses had been tethered in an adjoining sandy area closer to the trail. Occasional nickering told me I had done the right thing approaching from this direction. The horses would have given us away if we'd passed by along the upward trail.

  "What're they sayin'?" Rusty's whisper, soft and hoarse and coming from only inches away from my ear, got smothered in the wind. If I could hardly hear him, the two below us wouldn't overhear him at all.

  Straining, I heard Mira Nell arguing with the man, saying she refused to ride on. She demanded to be taken back to the Triangle K. His answer lost itself in the wind.

  "This isn't right," Mira Nell said, louder. "We have to see my pa. He'll know what to do."

  "Like hell! All he wants is to string folks up. Taking off with you puts a noose around my neck."

  "I want to go back. Stop, you're hurting me!"