Every spring showed itself and men and horses felt good. The sky was clear and a weak sun showed itself. They rode slowly over a shoulder of hill and came to a deep wide valley.
They halted their horses and drank in the scene.
“Good country, Rem,” Sam said. “A man could raise cows here.”
McAllister pointed.
“Somebody did.”
Sam’s eyes followed the pointing finger. The Negro squinted to focus on a distant moving object. He made out the distant cattle, all longhorns, feeding slowly along in the valley below.
“They’s considerably gaunted down,” he said.
“So’d you be,” McAllister reminded him, “hoofing your feed from under the snow.”
“Look yonder,” Sam said idly. “An overslope.”
McAllister saw a small straggle of cattle come out from a thicket almost immediately below them. Perhaps a half-dozen animals, all busy filling their empty bellies after the hard winter. He saw that their ears bore the overslope mark, the same as that used by Colonel Struthers. Not a surprising coincidence; there were only so many earmarks. But he said, for some reason he didn’t understand, “Let’s ride down and take a look.”
They rode slowly down the slope and neared the cows. Suddenly, as one animal turned its left flank on broadside to them, Sam halted his horse and gave an exclamation of pure astonishment. McAllister saw it at the same time and also halted. The two men looked at each other.
Sam said: “Who would of believed it? That’s the colonel’s brand, all right.” The Flying S stood out bold and firm.
“There could be two brands the same,” McAllister said. “This is a long way from home. Different branding organisation.”
Sam thought. “They’re all marked the same.”
“Cow there’s gettin’ around to droppin’ a calf.”
“There’s some northern critturs here,” McAllister said. “See yonder. Bearin’ another brand, too.”
Some more cattle were drifting out of the brush. They bore an undercut earmark and a brand that looked like a Lazy G.
“What do you reckon, Rem?” Sam asked.
“I reckon these’re our cows.”
“Me, too. See that big brindle steer? I know him like I know myself. Did ever two fellers have luck like it? We winter in the hills and spent all the time thinking up ways of finding them cows and there they is not five miles off. It’s a Goddamn miracle.”
“Let’s get out of here,” McAllister said, “before we’re spotted.’
Sam reined his animal around and said: “Let’s go.” They rode back up the slope, found cover and surveyed the scene once again. They had a problem on their hands and they knew it. They’d found the cows, as Sam said, by a miracle. Now they had to get them back. Who had possession of them? Was it the men who had stolen them? How strong were they? McAllister and Sam were in a weak position. There were only two of them, they were low on ammunition. It could be that they were faced by an impossible task.
“So what do we do now?” Sam wanted to know. “Get the law?”
“Do you know if there’s any in this neck of the woods?”
“No, I reckon I don’t. But I have ole Boss’s papers on me. I can prove the cows is the colonel’s.”
“Well, that’s somethin’.”
They discussed their problem a little, then rode north along the rim of the valley, keeping to the best cover they could find, watching the valley, finding more and more cattle as they went. McAllister wished he had glasses with him so that he could see their brands. An hour later they came in sight of smoke and a little later spotted a cabin nestling down in the timber. A short way off was another structure also with smoke coming from it.
“We don’t know that the cows belong to the houses,” McAllister said, “but the chances are they do.”
They tied their animals and went down a little to have a closer view. In the next hour, they learned that there were at least a dozen men down there. That seemed to make their minds up. No outfit this size would carry so many men normally. It seemed conclusive that here were the men who had stolen the herd. This was the secret hangout of the Jayhawkers.
“Wa-al,” McAllister opined, “I reckon we found ’em, Sam.”
They went back to their horses and rode home. When they ate their meal that evening, Sam said: “I don’t know what the hell we do now, but I reckon we just don’t go in there an’ brace them jaspers.’
“No,” said McAllister. “But it don’t mean we can’t whittle ’em down some.”
Sam gave him a look.
“You aim to do somethin’ crazy?” he said softly.
“Yes,” McAllister told him, “that’s what I aim to do. Surprisin’ how often bein’ crazy pays off. Thing is the other feller always expects you to act sensible.”
Sam said a little dubiously: “Feller could git hisself killed dead bein’ overly crazy.”
McAllister nodded.
“It could turn out that way, but all he has to do is not get in the way of no bullets.”
Sam didn’t look convinced.
Chapter 17
Night was two hours off and McAllister was preparing. Sam reckoned he ought to be going along too, but McAllister wouldn’t hear of it. Sam would be necessary when it came to fighting. Right now was the time for a bit of scouting and McAllister was the one for that.
“I’ll pussyfoot around a mite,” he said. “See how the land lies, then we can think up a trick or two.”
“You be careful, boy,” Sam said. “There ain’t a man down there ain’t a killer.”
“I guarantee they won’t see hide nor hair of me,” McAllister said.
McAllister’s preparations consisted of exchanging his boots for a pair of Cheyenne moccasins, cleaning his Remington forty-four with great care and sharpening his belt-knife. He had discarded his shotgun chaps and wore only his levis for freedom of movement. He reckoned on coming and going as silently as an Indian. Sam watched with some interest.
“You git in trouble, boy,” he said, grinning, “you use that knife. We’re kinda low on shells.”
McAllister grinned back.
“I’ll remember that.”
He saddled the canelo, shook once with Sam and was wished luck.
“I got luck, Sam,” he said. “I can feel it in my water. Besides, them fellers has had it all till now and it’s time it changed.”
He rode north, following the line of the hills, but keeping carefully away from the skyline. He didn’t hurry, because there was a timepiece in his head pacing off the miles and he wanted to get to a certain point at the right time. And he did that. He swung around into the main valley from the north just as dusk was falling, kept to the brush and breaks in the ground as much as possible, then, finding a good hiding place for his horse, he tied the canelo and went ahead on foot. Full dark had now fallen and he had to rely on his memory of the ground as he had seen it from the valley wall the day before. The actual ground he was treading he had never stepped on before, so it was no easy task to bring himself up with the house. He feared that he would go past it in the dark, but either his judgment was good or his instinct aided him, for suddenly he spotted a light off to his left and he knew that he had nearly missed the first building by no more than thirty yards.
He looked south along the valley and saw the lights of the second building. He knew then that he was nearer the smaller of the two. He turned toward this and approached it silently from the rear. As soon as he was near the wall of the building, he heard the rumble of men’s voices. There was one window at the rear and this he approached. In place of glass, he saw, there was the oiled paper so common on the frontier. And this, the found, was torn in one place. This offered him an excellent hearing hole, gave him the opportunity of seeing inside. He put an eye to it and looked in.
He could not see the whole of the single room of which the interior was made, but he had a fair enough view. In his sight were four men. Two he recognised at once. One was the
man who had fetched him at gunpoint from the hotel. The other was Forster, the man he wanted. He couldn’t believe his luck. The third man looked like a halfbreed Indian; the other bore a resemblance to the man who had taken him from the hotel. Could be his brother, McAllister guessed.
Forster was doing the talking.
* * *
Bob Dunn, the younger of Mike Grotten’s hands, had ridden in from the east. He carried with him momentous news, but he wasn’t aware of the fact. He turned his horse loose in the corral, strolled into the shack and said carelessly: “There’s somebody in that old cabin beyond the breaks, boss. Musta wintered there.”
Mike was alert at once. The halfbreed Ute had told him not a few hours earlier that he had seen strangers in the valley the day before. He hadn’t been able to impart the news earlier because he had slept the night at the far end of the valley.
Mike asked: “Did you take a look at them, Bob?”
“I only saw one.”
“What was he like?”
“He was a nigger.”
Forster was on his feet in a second.
“My God, Dice,” he cried, “you hear that? It could be him.”
Dice was a little startled, but he didn’t let the news throw him.
“He isn’t the only Negro in the country, captain,” he said calmly.
“But there were two men nosing among the cattle yesterday. Isn’t that so, Mike?”
Mike nodded.
“That’s right enough.”
“We’ll soon know,” Dice said. “We’ll ride over there first thing in the morning and take a look.” He looked at his boss and for the first time wondered if Link Forster was the man he had once thought he was. Forster stayed where he was, white of face, staring into space.
* * *
McAllister reached the cabin after midnight, was challenged as he approached it and was met by Sam with a gun in his hand.
“I’m real glad you ain’t takin’ any chances,” McAllister said. “Specially after tonight.”
“What happened tonight?”
McAllister told him what he had learned from his trip down into the valley. Sam sighed when he heard the news and said: “Heigho! We don’t sleep warm no more. This is where we move on.”
“An’ fast,” said McAllister. “There’s got to be a whole lot of country between here and there between now an’ then.”
They moved. Bedrolls were rolled, food packed and the spare horse loaded. Within an hour, they were ready. They didn’t know which way they should go and McAllister spoke for both of them when he said it didn’t much matter except they wanted a base away from the valley.
“It’s real high on the far side of the valley, Rem,” Sam suggested. “Most likely we’ll find a real good spot to hole up there.”
“Right,” said McAllister, “we’ll go around the north end of the valley and go into the hills to the west. An’ hope there ain’t no damn Indians around there.”
They mounted and trekked north, not troubling yet to hide their tracks, knowing that it was virtually impossible in the dark. They moved as fast as possible over the unknown ground and circled the valley wide, till they hit water that flowed west. They watered the animals here and drank themselves and Sam voiced the opinion that if they followed the water west they would hide their tracks successfully, but their pursuers might expect them to do that.
“I reckon we should hit the east of this ridge and find water goin’ east,” he said.
McAllister nodded—
“Then head north again, circle wider and still come down west of the valley.”
“That’s hit, boy. It’ll take us two, maybe three days, but we’ll stay healthier that way.”
It was agreed. They followed the present water to its parent ridge, lost their tracks as best they could on rock, then headed over the ridge and down till they hit water again. This they followed east and north-east till dawn and headed north, but not before they had both worked on rubbing out their tracks for a considerable distance from the water. It wouldn’t fool a good tracker, but it would delay him for some time, maybe even as much as half a day.
They were on the edge of the plains again now and the going was good. The only snag was that Sam was still not up to his full strength and, though he made no complaint, he was tiring. And McAllister could see. At noon, when they entered the foothills again he called a halt on the grounds that the animals were getting dangerously tired. Which was true enough. Sam snatched a couple of hours sleep and then they moved on. They crossed a shoulder of the hills, came into a rough and tumble country of strewn rocks and untidy brush and rode over stone wherever possible. They climbed another ridge before dark and came on westward flowing water again. This was luck indeed. There was light enough for them to travel along this for an hour with the water up to their girths, then they camped. It was well-hidden country, so they risked a fire and enjoyed the luxury of drinking the last of the coffee they had hoarded. From now on it was going to be a gastronomically joyless trip. They also smoked almost the last of their tobacco.
Sam chuckled: “I’ll kill one of the opposition, just for a smoke.”
At dawn, they were on the move again, heading west along the water course, slowed badly and growing impatient, but knowing that this way would be the safest in the long run. By the time the water petered out, they both reckoned that they were now about level with the valley. They headed over a high ridge and came down into wild country, well-timbered and watered. There were game signs all over and once they sighted the spoor of a bear. They traveled across this valley, climbed its western wall and camped that night in the high hills. It was cold and they were glad of the buffalo robes the Indians had given them. They were now almost out of food and on the following day they would have to replenish their larder. What they would do when they were in the proximity of the enemy’s valley for food, they did not know, for there was no time to jerk any now. However, on the following day they risked a shot and killed a buck, cooked as much of it as they could and packed the cooked meat along with them. They were swinging south again now and were trying guesses at how far some tracker had gotten on their trail.
“If it’s an Indian,” McAllister said, “I reckon he’s two days behind us. If it’s a whiteman, three-four. Any road, that’ll give us time for a quick visit to the valley before we move camp.”
Sam agreed.
The next day, McAllister stopped his horse on a high shoulder and said: “I reckon we’re opposite the enemy camp.”
Sam grinned widely.
“Boy,” he said, “you’re ‘most as good as me. You passed it a hunnerd yards back.”
They dismounted, unsaddled and hobbled the horses. They ate, drank a little from the small stream nearby and smoked the very last shreds of their hoarded tobacco.
“Wa-al,” Sam said, “you’re the general. How do we do it?”
“Cheyenne fashion,” McAllister said. “Go in light with no horses. We come back on their horses.”
“Do we burn anythin’ or kill anybody?”
It was McAllister’s turn to grin.
“Right now we’re after horses,” he said, “but if we did so happen to burn a house or shoot a feller or two it would brighten the day considerable.”
“Right. Let’s get some sleep.”
They found shelter from the still cold wind in the timber, slept warm until dark and rose as if by mutual agreement. While Sam rolled the beds, McAllister checked the horses. They then cached their rifles in the trees, checked their belt-guns and started west. They both felt pretty good. They walked for four hours before Sam halted with a hand on McAllister’s arm.
They had been walking across the deep grass of the valley for a couple of hours, wading once through a deep creek and meeting cattle frequently. The valley seemed full of cows.
“There’s horses ahead,” Sam said.
McAllister who prided himself on his acute senses was nettled.
“I don’t hear a thing,” he said.<
br />
“I didn’t hear ’em,” Sam told him, “I smelled ’em.”
“Can that nose of yourn take us right to them?”
“I reckon.”
“Then lead on.”
Sam led the way unerringly, stopping every now and then to listen, bringing them between the two shacks and straight to the edge of the corral that stood to the east of the smaller one.
McAllister whispered: “Rope a horse each, open the gate and ride.”
“I go in first,” Sam said. “You’ll scare ’em. Horses don’t scare for me. You watch that cabin to the north. That’s nearest. Stand right alongside this here gate, I’ll bring a horse to you. You drop anybody that comes out of that door.”
McAllister swore succinctly and said: “Go ahead.”
Sam said: “Take it easy now, boy,” climbed silently over the corral fence and disappeared into the darkness. There was nothing but starlight to see by and the horses in the corral were no more than a dark shifting mass. Both shacks were in total darkness. McAllister listened. He heard Sam speaking softly to the horses. McAllister found that he was tense. He eased the Remington in its holster high on his right hip ready for a quick draw. He opened the gate cautiously and waited.
“Rem.”
Sam was at his side so suddenly that McAllister’s heart pounded.
“Yes?”
“There’s your horse, yonder.” Sam made a noise with his mouth and a half-broken mustang came to the corral fence as docile as a kitten. “I’m goin’ to mount now and drive ’em out. They’ll cross the yard, so anybody comes out the shack too fast, he’ll git his toes trod on.”
Kill McAllister Page 12