“Then the six men he reports are the same who stole our money? Asa Parker and his men?” Horner’svoice was a deep growl. “Do the authorities verify this?”
“I don’t see how they could, at this moment.” Wylie removed his reading glasses and cleaned them with a pocket kerchief. “Apparently MacCallister thinks they are. But what if they are, sir? How do we proceed? There are no legal authorities in the Neutral Strip. That’s No Man’s Land.”
“We’re a railroad, Wylie. Private enterprise, with government sanction to conduct our business as we see fit. We don’t have the limitations of law. If there is no law, we make our own.” Horner turned to a big section-gridded map on the wall. He stooped to peer at its lower right corner. “The Neutral Strip ... south of both Colorado and Kansas ... buffer betweenKansas and Texas ... runs from Black Mesa and the Cimarron breaks on the west, over to the Indian territories east ... there’s nothing shown here, Wylie. No features at all.”
“No, sir. As I said, the Neutral Strip is No Man’s Land. There’s nothing there ... officially.”
“Well, it’s all outside of our grants and bounds. That region is all C.R.I.P territory. Julius Randolph’s domain. Lordy, wouldn’t that son of a bitch love this, if he heard about it! Nine thousand dollars in Kansas Pacific currency straying over into his claims! I guess to protect myself, I’d better notify the U.S. Bureau of Transportation ... about the robbery, and all.”
“They already know, sir. We’ve had an inquiry from a Mr. Sypher about it. He also inquired about our broadcast alert for Mr. MacCallister.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Horner frowned. “Nosy functionary, isn’t he? I assume we haven’t responded?”
“No, sir. Private dealings within the company are none of the bureau’s business. Not unless we choose to make them so.”
Horner nodded. “Very well. Establish contact with Mr. MacCallister, Wylie. Advise him that—”
“Sir, I don’t know how to contact him. He’s left Dodge City, and the only working wire beyond there is someplace called Hardwoodville. Out on the Cimarron.There’s nothing in the Neutral Strip.”
Horner’s scowl was like a thundercloud. “Then find him! Find him, Wylie. I want this matter resolved,before the transportation bureau calls in federalmarshals. My God, Randolph could swing votes with this! He could make me a laughing stock!”
“Sir?”
“Our stock would drop by half if word got out that we had set bounty on persons or properties within the claimed jurisdiction of another railroad. The C.R.I.P. would love to take over our land rights. So would A.T.S.F. They’re both bargaining right this minute for transcontinental privileges.”
“But this is simply a matter of recovering stolen property, sir.”
“That stolen money came from public funds, Wylie. Right now, it is unaccounted for and out of my control, and this MacCallister has no more credentialsthan a bounty hunter out for a posted reward!I want you to find him and get him on our payroll. Make it clear that he is working for the KansasPacific in this matter!”
Wylie shrugged, shaking his head ruefully. “I’ll try, sir. Do you really think he’d trade a finder’s share of nine thousand dollars for railroad wages?”
“Damn the wages,” Horner sighed. “He can have the whole nine thousand if he recovers it. Just don’t let the bureau or Randolph get to him first! Find him, Wylie. Do it! In the meanwhile, I’ll notify Julius Randolph and the C.R.I.P. that we have an agent in pursuit of felons somewhere between Dodge City and Texas. Our agent, an employee on legitimate railroad business.”
Falcon MacCallister was completely unaware of the political turmoil seething in his wake as he topped out on the great swell of grassland south of Crooked Creek and headed into the sand hills above the Cimarron’s north bend.
He had covered nearly forty miles since leaving Dodge City, and his eyes ached from hours of squintinginto bright skies across distant horizons. The land was wide and empty, with the illusion of featurelessprairie that always confounded so many travelers.
Since leaving Dodge City he had not seen a sign of civilization. It was as though the westward advance of progress ended where the rails did. Mile after endless mile, there had been no sign of humanity. It was illusion, though. Out here a man could see forever, but much of what was there was hidden.
He had known for at least ten miles that he was no longer alone. For the past hour there had been riders to his left and behind, moving with him across the miles, being careful to stay out of sight. To the hunter’s eyes of Falcon MacCallister, though, they were discernible. Flocks of birds, hints of dust, even the telltale stance of a little group of antelope far away were like signal flags, saying where the riders were.
He didn’t how many there were, but he guessed who they were—a bunch of drifters, toughs, and bounty hunters who had left Dodge some hours ahead of him. They must have holed up somewhere, waiting for him to pass. Whoever they were, they sure weren’t friendly. For most of the ride, up on the flat plains, that they were there had been just a fact to note—a matter of curiosity. They had kept their distance. But it was sunset now, and the sand hills offered more cover than the empty prairies. The riders were crowding in, too, still furtive but getting closer.
He knew they would show their hand soon, and it would be at a place of their own choosing.
He knew that Cate and Hogue were among them. It didn’t matter much who the rest were. What did was staying alive.
He had let Diablo set his pace, pushing the followershard. They would be expecting him to stop soon. Forty miles was a long day’s ride. In the sunset he saw the sand hills spreading before him—ancient dunes now covered with sparse surface grass but still contoured by centuries of ceaseless wind. They would be marking time out there, guessing at how far he would go before making camp. And they would be thinking about an ambush.
He saw the spot they would likely choose. A mile ahead, shadowed in slanting sunset, rose a high crest that stood like a slanted wall across his trail.
He would head for that dune. A tired rider on a tired horse, he would decide to rest there rather than make the climb tonight. So they would figure.
And if they got around behind the ridge, they could pick him off with braced rifles, or at least pin him down and come at him without warning wheneverthey were ready.
Making camp below that dune—out of the night wind—was what any tired man might do. And setting an ambush there was what any outlaw bunch would do. Neither was what Falcon had in mind.
Whether or not they knew him, it was unlikely that they really knew Diablo. Most folks didn’t expecta horse like Diablo.
Full seventeen hands and in his prime, the big black was a mix of racer and warhorse. And from long experience, Falcon knew that he had more stamina than any two ordinary horses. He was tired now, of course. But his shoes were new, his legs sound, and he had not yet begun to show a lather.
“Let’s make this interesting, sport,” Falcon mutteredas the rising of a dune hid him from any spottersto the east. “Let’s see if they mean business.”
To anyone watching from the surrounding crests, the rider disappearing behind the lone dune was a weary traveler plodding one last mile before supper camp.
But what came into view on the other side, half a mile south, was a fresh racer at full gallop, showeringsand in little sprays at each long stride.
Falcon had covered three hundred yards in full view and was still gaining speed when he heard the first distant shouts off his left flank. “Let it out, boy,” he urged Diablo as he bent low over the black’s neck. “Show those buggers how it’s done.”
Like black thunder, Diablo flew down the trail and the rising dune came to meet them.
The old dune was eighty feet high—a slipping slidingridge of compacted sand barely clad in thin sparse clumps of grass. In the flare-light of sunset, shadows faded and features were obscured. Falcon let Diablo have his head, to select his own path.
At a sharp angle they climbed,
rivulets of sand cascading behind them. Falcon let the horse climb nearly to the top of the dune, then tightened the reins and turned him. Bounding and skidding, they descended the slope, straight down its face, and Falconguided to the left.
He had left plain trail to the top of the dune. But in the dimming twilight his descending trail—several hundred yards to the west—left no visible track at all.
Twenty minutes later Falcon crawled on his belly to the crest of a scoured-out dune and looked towardthe long ridge. There were at least fifteen ridersover there, a few at the top, the rest scrambling upward. By fading evening light they were hardly more than moving shadows against the ancient sands.
Those at the top had halted, milling here and there, straining to see into the darkening valley beyond.Their voices drifted back on the wind: “Where’d he go? I can’t see a damn thing!” “He’s down there someplace! Somebody get out a glass! Look toward the river!” “Hell, Billy, I don’t see anythingout there! The son of a bitch just disappeared!”
One by one the shadows converged at the crest of the dune, then disappeared over it.
As evening became night, Falcon MacCallister passed the time resting himself and his horse. There was little graze in the sand hills, but a handful of grain and a hatful of water kept Diablo content for a time. MacCallister’s supper was pemmican and water. With darkness the winds turned cold, but he made no fire. With Diablo tended, he wrapped himselfin his soogans and allowed himself a hunter’s nap—dozing an hour with his senses alert.
Two hours after the riders had passed, MacCallistercrossed that same rise—the rim of the sandy lands—at a different point and paused at the crest. It was full night then, but the silvery glow of brilliant,high plains starlight lighted the land. From the high crest he could see vague patterns in the sandy swales below—pale patches where hooves had gouged the grass and stirred the sand in passing.
Even by starlight the trail pointed like road sign, saying where the riders had gone. Falcon nudged Diablo down the incline. At the foot of it he cut west, then southwest again. Only a fool would ride a fresh trail of men who hunted him. He followed the trail, all right, but he took his own path and it was aside—taking advantage of the terrain for naturalcover.
A mile or two along, he found them. Their night camp was pitched in a trough among the sand hills. Beyond, the starlit land sloped away into distance, toward the valley of the Cimarron.
He left Diablo in a little cove just above and west of the gang’s camp, and went in on foot.
Most of the gang were asleep, around the embers of their cookfire. A small group at the fire was talkingquietly, all facing the low-burning flames.
Fools, he thought. They felt the safety of numbers, and had set no guards outside the camp. Using the cover of the rolling, windswept dunes, Falcon slipped close. At thirty yards he could make out a few faces in the firelight, and hear a few words carriedon the cold erratic wind. The few still awake were staring into the fire, speaking now and again as men do when they mistake darkness for shelter.
Just a few years ago, Falcon thought, this bunch wouldn’t have lasted the night out here. Any band of rovingKiowa or Cheyenne who happened along could have walked right in on them and killed every last one while they were still fire-blind.
He recognized a few of them, faces he had seen at Dodge. One of them he knew by name. Sandy Hogue was still awake, near the fire. Falcon knew that Jack Cabot was there, too.
Watching the men around the fire, it was easy to spot the one who dominated this gang. A short barrel-chested young man with the shoulders of a wrestler and the eyes of a snake made it clear by his every move and glance that he was in charge. Falcon studied him closely. Long cornsilk hair hung wild below his flat-crowned hat, and the firelightlit a face that might have been a child’s—a round-cheeked beardless face with only a little stubble,a face that seemed designed for laughter until one looked again at these cold slitted eyes in it.
Instinct told Falcon that this was no show-off kid. This was a dangerous man, with a flaring temper that could be wild and lethal. Despite his youthful appearance, this one was no child. This was a dangerousman—far more dangerous than most of the toughs and saddle tramps around him.
In the shadows just away from the fire, another one who didn’t seem to fit lay sprawled on a sand slope, resting on a saddle as if it were a forty-pound pillow. This one didn’t join in the talk, but Falcon had the feeling that these two were partners. Where baby face went, the quiet one would be there, too.
Then he heard a few words of conversation on the faltering wind, and learned a name. Baby face was called Billy.
Falcon catalogued them all in his mind. Billy and his quiet shadow, Jack Cabot and Sandy Hogue, two or three more from the tables at Spiro’s. The rest were saddle bums, fiddle-footed badmen along for the ride, and maybe a share in whatever came to hand. There were thirteen in all.
Falcon spent an hour in the gang’s camp, slipping from one point to another, listening and sizing them up, before he decided he had learned all he could.
Cabot and Hogue might have set this bunch onto Falcon’s trail, or some of them might be thinking of that private bounty that someone with the initial S had advertised. Mostly, though, the bunch was heading for No Man’s Land, to sign on for wages with someone called The Colonel. Billy and his partnerwere encouraging them, and directing them.
Someone in No Man’s Land was paying top dollar for gunhands, and among the words Falcon heard were Wolf Creek and Paradise.
Falcon was watching from a distance when the gang headed out at dawn. They scattered out and circled for a time, looking for his trail, then began drifting southwestward by twos and threes, toward the Cimarron Valley. He lost sight of a lot of them for a while, and when he saw them bunched again they were half a mile away—tiny figures of mounted men heading away.
Patiently he lay concealed atop a dune and counted them. Then he counted them again. There were only eleven now. He scanned the surrounding lands, and watched the gang until they were out of sight, but saw no sign of the missing two.
He was on his way back to where he had left his horse when something whisked past his ear like an angry bee. Even before the sound of the gunshot reached him, he was crouched and running, headingfor the only cover in sight.
A second bullet kicked sand in his face as he dived into a shallow wash screened with sparse bone-white grass. He tried to see where it had come from, and something hot scorched his shoulder like flying fire.
He flattened himself, counted six heartbeats, and rolled aside, belly-down and several feet from where he had been. Hanging his hat on the muzzle of his rifle, he held it at arm’s length and raised it slowly, only a few inches. Hard sand erupted six inches from its brim, and this time he saw where the shot came from.
The shooter was a hundred and fifty yards away, firing from behind a comblike ridge. Now he knew where the missing outlaws had gone.
Without returning fire, Falcon edged farther to the left. Winds had scoured out a little shelter here, a foot-deep depression under the shallow swell of the sand. He kept low and out of sight, digging in, giving himself a little cover. Then he waited.
Moments passed. Then, on that comb ridge out there, a shape changed. Aligning his rifle, Falcon pumped three quick shots toward it and saw the dust spray as his bullets struck.
He didn’t think he had hit anybody, but he had given them something to think about. He rested his rifle on cold earth, braced himself, and waited. They would have to show themselves to shoot, and now he was ready.
When the shots came, though, they were from his left, and the first bullet almost flattened him as it smashed into his ribs just above the canteen slung there. Like a coiling snake he swivelled, belly-down, and emptied his magazine at the disappearing silhouetteatop a rise a hundred yards away.
Long wild hair waved beneath a flat-crowned hat as the sniper disappeared from sight in a shower of spraying sand and singing lead. The man was hit, but moving. He
stumbled, swayed, then was gone.
Another shot from the north buzzed over Falcon as he struggled to reload his .44-40. The gun felt unusually heavy, and his fingers were awkward. Glancing down, he saw dark blood spreading, seepingthrough the cold sands beneath him. Too much blood.
With a dry curse he thumbed the last shell into the rifle, worked the lever, and began a methodical fire-and-fire-again—first at the knoll to the north, then at the rise to the west, then north again. Big lead bullets tore up the ground out there, and his shots echoed like rolling thunder.
The morning didn’t seem as bright as it had. His vision was dimming from shock and lost blood. But he kept it up. He fired, waited a heartbeat, and fired again, as flitting shadows flicked along the crest of the north dune and disappeared.
Falcon was hit bad, and he knew it. His only hope now was that the ambushers didn’t know how bad.
Staying flat, he got out his knife and cut a wide strip from the bottom of his buckskin shirt. He rolled over, wrapping the cured hide around him. He could feel the hole in his side, way around to the back, and could see the one in front—a gaping, bleeding tear just above the waist. Holding the bandage tight, he fired again, with one hand, toward the north ridge. There was no response.
Awkwardly, he levered another round into the chamber, then laid the rifle down to pull the bandagetight with all the strength of both hands. It was slippery, soaked with his blood, but he managed a tight knot. Drawing his belly gun, he pushed its muzzleunder the buckskin on the right side, then twisted it there. The pressure of the binding sent flaring agonies through his left side, almost blinding him with pain, but he held the twist in place. Then he gave the gun one more cruel push and snugged its butt into the loop of his belt.
Falcon couldn’t tell whether the hint of movementbehind the little ridge to the north was the brim of somebody’s hat, or just the grass waving in the wind. He managed one more shot from the .44-40.A cloud of dust scudded above the distant grassy dune.
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