by A. J. Arnold
The top hand quickly rolled him over, holding his head down so that the rest of the liquid spilled out. When Buck at last seemed to breathe more rhythmically, Jake turned him on his back and tried to settle him some. Buck’s blue eyes flickered open for a second. A pine-needle rasp came from between his lips, unlike any human sound Strickland had ever heard.
He pondered. If Buck was saying something, he’d never figure out what it was. It was going to be a hard night for sure. Hell, he thought, he’d bet he didn’t get away from there even tomorrow.
Jake turned out to be right about the dark hours, but the victim of Newt Yocum’s wrath was awake the next morning. Looking up, carefully, Buck saw Jake Strickland’s well-trained sorrel following the sun into the camp. He watched while the top hand got a fistful of grain from his saddlebag, then held it behind his back. The friendly horse came right up to Jake, trying to reach around him to get the treat.
Buck thought to himself that it looked like a game they played, regular. He wondered why some people controlled their animals with love and others used the spur and the whip. Glancing around to see where his own mount was, Buck saw a long-legged gelding but not the little grulla he’d been riding.
Surprised, he swung around to ask Jake about it. But the damaged cords in the back of his neck sent a blinding wave of pain to his head. Once more he felt he was sliding off the mare with a rope around his neck.
Strickland moved the unconscious Buck back to the blanket where he’d spent the night.
Well, Jake thought ruefully as his gray eyes studied the inert form. He guessed he sure enough wouldn’t get in to see Mr. Thompson today. But probably another day wouldn’t make much difference, anyhow.
The top hand had to stay put for two more days, talking to his charge and watching while Buck answered in sign language. On the third morning Buck was able to swallow his first solid food, and it tasted good to him after so long.
“Thanks,” he said, hoarsely but unmistakably.
The single word shattered the silence and startled Jake. “Huh? Yeah, sure, kid, any time. How’s your throat? If you can eat and talk, maybe we can get away from here.”
Buck had by now developed the habit of quietness, and found it hard to think in words.
As his right hand explored the diamonds on his still-sore throat, he managed, “You say you got questions?”
Jake hesitated, rubbing his palms together. “You see, I don’t like to hurry a man in your position. But if I don’t get back and report to my boss—”
Buck held up his hand. “What you’re wonderin’ is if you were justified in savin’ my hide.”
Strickland paused again before he spoke, watching Buck closely.
“It’s not for myself, you understand, or even just my boss. But I’ll most likely need to say something to the sheriff, too, if he ever gets back to this range.”
“Like I told ’em when they put the noose around my neck, I only took enough to cover my wages.”
Buck cleared his throat and went on, his new-found voice gaining a little in strength.
“When I went to sell the steers, that bastard trail man would only give me a quarter of what he’ll get in Dodge. So I still never got all the money I had comin’ from Old Man Blough.”
Strickland shook his head in disbelief at Buck’s boldness.
“How’d you come to know where to sell stolen cattle? If I was to pull that, I’d probably pick the sheriff to try and sell them to, and get caught right away.”
Buck’s fingers still touched the diamonds, etched in a chain on his throat, as if he were counting them.
Finally he rasped, “It’s a long story. My voice ain’t in good shape to do the telling.”
“Make it as short as you like, or as slow as you need,” came the resigned reply. “After all, I did ask.”
Buck had time to think. In the last three days, it felt like he’d had too much time. He considered how much to tell this man who had saved his life, and had come to the conclusion that he owed Jake. But only Jake, and nobody else.
He started with his fast ride out of San Antonio, and why he’d taken a horse that he had no title to. Then he described Glenn Saltwell ’s trail drive, and his own subsequent discovery that he was helping to move stolen cattle.
Buck had to stop often for sips of water, and also to take rest periods for his voice. It sounded to Strickland’s ears like a crow with a sore throat. By late afternoon, Buck managed to get to the actual delivery of cattle to Glenn Saltwell. Jake could hear his anger at how he felt both the rustler and Henry Blough had used him. His voice was bitter as he concluded he’d tallied up and had still come out seventy dollars behind.
Jake grunted, wondering about it all. He knew he was only hearing one side of the story, and yet he wanted to believe it. Could this kid somehow be totally in the right? God, he hoped so.
Buck spoke again, raw with pain and rage.
“’Course, I was sore as a boil at Glenn, but I wanted my money. So when I saw his men changing the Standing Arrow brand to a pine tree, I figured here was the way to get my wages’ worth. And that’s how I came to get caught rebranding my boss’s steers.”
Strickland sat digesting the tale, his head down and his elbows resting on his knees. At last he raised his searching eyes to Buck’s face, probing for the look of truth.
“Question comes to mind,” he said finally, as he settled on what he thought he saw.
“Will you give what money you got for the cattle to Mr. Blough?”
Buck’s tone was as metallic as a sixgun. “Sure. I’ll give Old Blough the thirty, soon as I get the hundred he owes me. Ain’t much to ask, seein’ it’s fair.”
His words cracked with a powerful emotion Jake hadn’t as yet seen him show.
“Seein’ I’ve forever lost the chance to follow my girl to Oregon.”
Jake shook his head. Yeah, the kid would feel marked, all right. And betrayed, and screwed, and a hell of a lot more.
He said, “OK, I see your point. I’ll do what I can, but it’d look better to the ranchers on this range if you was to give Blough the thirty, regardless. Think you could sit a horse, come tomorrow early?”
A vein of clear strength cut through what would be Buck’s permanent huskiness of speech.
“Yes, I can do whatever I set my mind to. If you want me to meet Old Man Blough and a couple of the other ranchers, I’ll show. I ain’t sure right now how much I’ll tell on Saltwell’s operation. Maybe I never cottoned to Glenn, But I did work for him. Ain’t used to being Judas to nobody.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. Not only did his young friend show the blunt, practical honesty he’d seen at the hanging tree, but a fast shot of maturity, as well.
“I take it you don’t aim to meet with Newt Yocum at all? And Blough only so long as other and neutral men are there?”
“You hit the nail square, Jake.”
Buck shrugged his shoulders. “If you mean to set up a meet, I’ll wait someplace ’til you come and let me know I’ll be treated fair.”
“Tell you what,” Jake bargained, uncoiling like a length of rope as he stood up. “I’ll leave right now. I’ll bypass Blough and that so-called deputy and go right to my own boss. Then I’ll join you wherever you say at dusk tomorrow, and we’ll decide from there.”
“Daniel Thompson?” Buck demanded. “You’d speak to Wide Loop on my behalf?”
Strickland flinched at his boss’s nickname. But his firmness held steady as he nodded.
“Fine, then,” Buck agreed. “I’ll get by alone OK tonight and tomorrow. At sundown tomorrow I’ll be in that bunch of rocks and scrub trees, kind’a off by itself, about three miles east of here. You know it?”
“Right. It’s around halfway between Thompson’s and Blough’s ranches,” Jake confirmed.
“You got it. If you don’t make it before the sun is fully set, wait ’til the next night to come.”
Strickland leveled a long and intense look at Buck as he muttered, “See y
ou soon.”
He saddled his sorrel and headed northeast, in the direction of his home ranch.
Buck watched until the top hand was out of sight. Then he broke camp and got on the geld, traveling south. After riding for well over an hour, he came to the abandoned sod house with its corral of rotted poles. Just the way things were when he’d first discovered this place by accident, Buck knew hardly anybody came to the soddy or was even aware it was there. He guessed he was as safe as a man in his circumstances could be. Safer, at least, than staying behind, alone, where his own rope had been put around his neck.
He watered the horse Jake had brought him out of a small pool caught below the spring of the stream close by, and hobbled it on fair graze. Making himself as comfortable as he could manage, he settled down to wait.
But Buck’s mental turmoil refused him rest. The small dingy house did little to cheer him. He went outside to sit on a rise and watch the horizon, just to make sure nobody would stumble in on him. As he waited, his thoughts teemed and whirled around. What if Jake couldn’t set up the ranchers’ meeting without giving away Buck’s position?—Which was exactly why he’d moved camp so soon after Jake’s departure.
In fact, could he really trust Strickland? The man had saved his hide, but then, he was definitely for law and order. Maybe he’d only done it to spite Newt Yocum’s high-handed way of doing things.
Buck’s sweaty palm pushed the dark chestnut hair from his forehead and rubbed his throbbing temples. Damned if he knew what to think, but at least he reckoned he’d handled it right. The meeting place was good. Nobody could sneak up on it, with open prairie on all sides. He’d be able to see anyone coming long before they got there. Yeah, he’d taken care of that fairly decent.
He started to think and plan again. If this didn’t work out, he’d have to disappear. It occurred to him to get hold of the money he’d hidden in the base log of Henry Blough ’s bunkhouse, at least.
Sure! he thought as his pounding heart pulsed the first healthy color into his face in days. And if he didn’t want to be accused of horse thieving, he’d better go get his own mare. Then, too, he had another pair of pants and a couple of pairs of socks in the bunkhouse.
And he needed a gun. He’d have to time it so as to arrive when Old Man Blough and Nancy were sound asleep, or at least too busy to notice him when he slipped in and lifted his stuff.
An unbidden notion flushed Buck. Then he considered it more soberly. What was his boss’s wife really like? She’d appeared to him to be kind and gentle. Warm, friendly, and very feminine—but only in a proper and ladylike way. Certainly not like—it almost made him choke to reflect on the image. Not like what his sister Rebekah was: a chit who’d give herself openly to a man, and pleasure herself outright in it.
And yet, he’d seen Newt Yocum leaving Nancy’s house in the dead of night, when her husband was away.
Just who in hell did he think he was? Buck rebuked himself bitterly. He shook his head as if trying to throw away his guilt. After all, he’d damned near done it to Sarah.
Buck couldn’t face his disturbed ponderings. He trained his mind instead upon the dirty, blood-loving sheriff’s appointee. Newt and his stupid twin cohorts, Willy and Clem, had shared the bunkhouse with Buck while they made their search for the cattle rustlers. What in hell would he do if he found them still sleeping there?
Yes, but he had to go, he determined as he flung off a shiver of fear. He needed to get his money and gear, and he’d best get the mare back. If he had to run, at least he’d be on his own horse.
Buck grew pleasantly tired now that he’d made some plans, but forced his eyes to stay open in watchfulness until full dark. At length, exhausted, he rolled up in his sleeping blanket on the knoll and had a long and dreamless sleep.
Chapter Twelve
It was well past midnight when Buck walked the long-legged gelding into the Blough yard, dismounting near the corral gate. He put his hand over the geld’s nose in warning. God, if it whinnied now! But it stilled, obedient. Buck took his lariat and slipped into the enclosure, finding his grulla standing against the far fence. She waited expectantly, recognizing him and flicking her ears in greeting. The other animals in the corral moved away, all but one yearling stud Buck had liked to pat and tease.
The little horse raced up to him, but when he reached out to touch its nose, it wheeled and kicked up its heels. Buck would have sworn its loud, raucous snorting could have been heard half a mile away. He tensed and froze while he waited to see if a light would come on. But when it appeared that the brief commotion hadn’t stirred anything up, Buck led the mount out and changed his saddle from the gelding to the mare.
Turning the geld into the corral and tying the mouse-brown to the fence, he crept toward the bunkhouse. As he reached the door, he remembered that it always shrieked shrilly.
If he could just pull up on it, that might do the trick, Buck reassured himself. He moved with painstaking effort, getting riled at how long it seemed to take to lift the latch. At last he pushed the door inward, gently, but still the screech should have wakened the dead. When it didn’t, he took heart, sure now that nobody was in there.
But, on the other hand, Buck fretted, what if somebody had heard that damned door and was standing in the dark with a sixgun? If he flung it wide, he’d be a good target, silhouetted in the doorway. He held on rigidly to the latch while he sucked in a deep breath and willed his galloping heart to slow down.
In the stillness his eyes finally adjusted to the dark in the little cabin while he nudged the door open, open—an inch at a time. As he sneaked into the room on cat feet, Buck’s jaw dropped at the sight. Faint moonlight through the single window showed Yocum and the two brothers. Turned on their sides in heavy coma-like sleep, the wall by their faces absorbed the ragged broken snores.
As Buck’s mouth snapped shut, his stomach lurched and seemed to leap into his throat. Should he quit now and get the hell off Blough’s property, as far and as fast as he could ride? Or should he wake up these bastards one by one and kill them?
He fought against the hate-filled battle inside him. No, he thought at last, shaking his head to clear it. Buck forced his common sense to prevail. He’d come for his money and belongings, that was all. Anything else, and it would all be for nothing. He had to go and find his gear.
Quietly he went down the length of the quarters to the last bunk. Reaching underneath it, with an eye on the sleeper there, Buck felt for his bag, found it, and fished it out with caution. He was thankful that all his clothes were as he’d left them. Next he got down on his belly and groped for the split in the base log where he’d hidden the money from Glenn Saltwell, three gold eagles.
Examining with his fingers in the crevice, he thought, holy cow! It wasn’t all there. One—no, there was another one, after all. Ah, yes, all three. Good!
Suddenly Clem, sleeping above him, groaned loudly and flopped over onto his back. Buck panicked and rolled out from beneath the bunk, clutching his possessions. He leaped to his feet, ready to run. As he straightened up, his shoulder whacked against a hard object.
Buck realized after a minute that he hadn’t awakened anybody. He forced his labored breathing to quiet while he reached out to touch what he’d bumped. To his surprise and relief, he found a gun in a holster, hanging on the post that supported the bunk. He grabbed it, cocked it, and began to back with a tortoise pace toward the squeaky door.
Step by aching slow step, he inched down the length of the bunkhouse until at last his free hand touched the still partly opened door. A thought flashed through Buck’s mind. If he pulled it shut, the damn thing’ d shriek fit to rouse a cadaver. He’d just go out and leave it be.
As a wave of renewed terror surged through him, the scar on his neck burned with a pain he remembered well. His head picked up the awful thumping and banging of his heart. Unaware of the passage of time, Buck’s brain finally cleared enough to feel a rhythm to the pounding as his whole body shook with it.
Wind in his face—firm, fast hoofbeats—he was riding away as swiflty as the grulla mare could take him. Damn, damn, damn, he gritted in cadence to her thundering stride. He wasn’t even conscious of having broken across Henry Blough ’s yard and having climbed up on the mouse-brown.
Shortly the chill night air put coolness back into Buck’s thinking. As he gulped in a lung-filling breath, he reckoned that riding a running horse through the darkness just before dawn was not a very safe way to start a day. Nevertheless, he felt some satisfaction that there seemed to be no immediate pursuit.
He inhaled deeply again, taking stock of where he was. He suddenly realized he was headed north instead of southwest to the spot where he’d planned to meet Strickland. Buck grinned into the heavy night. Well, hell, at least he’d done something right. If Newt and the twins tried to track him, this way he had a fair chance to lose them.
Pulling the mare to a halt, he dismounted and walked out of earshot of her loud panting. As he strained to hear the sound of horses on his backtrail, the thick silence comforted him. Buck at last decided that even if his hasty departure had wakened Yocum and company, they weren’t too hot on his heels.
He’d lead them farther yet in the wrong direction, he planned as he went back to the quieted grulla. He’d turn towards Dodge ’til he came to that outcrop of rock. Then he’d ride southeast so’s anybody following him would figure he was headed for the herds coming up from Texas.
Buck felt more cheerful as he rode away. He reckoned he could easily turn west wherever he found a place that his tracks wouldn’t be obvious. And still he could get to the meeting place by midafternoon.
The afternoon sun beat down on the ring of rocks and trees with heat too intense for so early in the spring. Buck got to his feet as he mopped his brow with a bandanna already wet enough to wring out. He walked slowly and stopped often, making again the circuit just inside the oval.