‘A fool, a stranger, or a friend,’ Six said. No one else would come riding in here that way. He heaved his massive frame up out of the chair with a grunt and a sizable expenditure of energy, and stepped to the front of the porch, squinting forward, holding the pipe in his hand.
The rider, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, drew rein and grinned insolently. ‘Howdy, Chet.’
‘Cody Longwell,’ Six murmured. ‘About time you got here.’
‘I got held up,’ Longwell said, grinning, ‘by a very entertaining meeting. Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you about it.’
Six
Through the window, Elena Ochoa saw McCracken’s big shape silhouetted against the early-morning sun. McCracken was standing in the yard, giving the day’s work-orders to the segundo, Nate Shattuck. Old San Saba, the cook, came out of the bunkhouse with a mop stuck into a wooden bucket of water and sloshed the filthy water out onto the ground and went back inside. McCracken finished talking to Shattuck, whereupon Shattuck nodded, jerked his hat brim down tight over his forehead, and walked with long-legged strides toward the corrals to saddle up. Standing at the window, arms folded over her breast, Elena frowned at McCracken’s outline. When he turned and walked forward he seemed to uncoil with the grace of a huge, smooth-moving panther. His hat peak was high and bold against the sky.
Elena stepped away from the window, still frowning, and paused by the bed to consider herself in the mirror. She had a face, all right; she couldn’t say she thought much of it, right now. The skin was too olive, too sun-whipped; the eyes too dark, the hair too black. It wasn’t what appealed to men. Men liked the soft, pale-skinned town girls with bleached-straw hair and delicate long fingers and frail waists.
She watched her own grimace in the mirror, then swung away and left the bedroom. When she came into the front parlor she heard McCracken’s knock at the front door and hollered out to him: ‘Come on in.’
The door opened and his big shape filled the doorway, all bones and hard-knotted muscles and great slab shoulders. An old habit made him remove his hat. ‘Your dad around, Elena?’
‘He’s out in the barn,’ she said. ‘Cleaning up that sore on the palomino’s foreleg.’
McCracken nodded and turned. Elena bit her lip. ‘Wait a minute.’
He cocked his head over his shoulder, looking at her. She felt aggravated by his politeness. After a moment McCracken said, ‘What is it, kid?’
She shook her head. ‘Never mind. And don’t call me ‘kid’.’
She watched the lazy upturn of his lips into the mocking smile he used on her. ‘Well, now,’ he drawled, ‘nobody’d know you’re over voting age by the things you do, Elena. Maybe if you acted more grown-up, you’d get treated that way.’
She stamped her foot. ‘Damn it, Ben McCracken, you ought to know better.’
‘Better than what?’
‘Better than to get fooled by prissy women and false manners. It’s all a fraud—can’t you see that?’
‘Take it easy,’ he murmured, grinning. ‘You’ve got sharp claws when you want to show them.’
‘Well,’ she said tartly, ‘if teacups and crinoline and pale skin and fake manners mean more to you than honesty and guts, then I’m sorry for you, you big ox.’
McCracken laughed gently. He took a pace forward and put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his head to look into her eyes. ‘Listen,’ he said quietly, ‘let’s have a truce, you and me. How about it?’
‘Aagh,’ she said in disgust. ‘Get out of here, Ben. Let me alone.’
He shrugged amiably. ‘All right,’ he said. He turned and tramped out the door.
When it clicked shut, she bit her knuckle and wheeled back into the bedroom, holding her back stiff and her head high. But when she reached the bed, she slowly gave way, and lay down on the coverlet with moist eyes.
After a while she got up and sallied outside into the sunlight. The mountain air was cool and bracing; a bird flew overhead and settled on a tree limb. Restlessness twanged her nerves and she wanted to saddle up and ride out across the country, but she knew McCracken was in the barn with her father. Her stubbornness kept her rooted where she was until presently Will Garrison, the youngest member of the crew, came up on foot from the corrals. She waved him over and Garrison, towheaded and lanky and awkward with youth, removed his hat clumsily and came up to her.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘Saddle my horse, will you?’ Immediately she regretted her sharp tone but it was not in her to apologize.
Young Will gave her a curious look. This was not like Elena. Always she carried as heavy a load of labor as did any of the men on the crew. Will looked surprised, but inbred loyalty made him say without hesitation, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and change his course toward the barn.
Elena stood where she was, biting her lip, feeling foolish and counteracting that feeling by raising a defiant glitter to her eyes and planting her hands firmly on her hips.
When the towheaded youth reached the barn door, she saw him turn and look back at her. It was just a momentary glance as young Will turned into the barn, but it came to Elena with a start that the youth was soft on her. Instinctively she brushed back her hair with her palms. A slow smile came to her lips and it was a measure of her practical way of life that she put this little piece of information back into a corner of her mind for possible future use.
Nate Shattuck, the segundo, rode up from the corrals, tipped his black hat to her as he came by, and rode on, closely followed by Obregon, who together with McCracken, Shattuck, old San Saba and Will Garrison made up the total of Wagon Wheel’s crew. Those two horsemen, outward bound on their day’s chores, rode up the easy pitch of the upper trail and presently flopped over the hilltop and out of sight among the trees.
Elena stepped into the full glare of the sun and looked up at the sky, shading her eyes with her hand. A few fleecy clouds dotted the southern horizon; otherwise the sky was a uniform wide expanse of brightening blue. Soon the brassy sun would begin to slap heat, down upon the timberline country.
Young Will came out of the barn leading her saddled horse, a long-legged sorrel. When he handed her the reins, his eyes were averted. She smiled softly and made a point of saying, ‘Thanks, Will,’ in a quiet, even voice. Elena gathered the reins, tested the cinch, and swung aboard with the easy skill of long habit. Garrison stepped back and grinned uncertainly and abruptly wheeled, walking quickly away toward the tack shed, but not before she had a glimpse of a sudden flush of embarrassment rising to his smooth cheeks. Elena settled her weight in the stirrups and just then she saw her father and McCracken appear in the wide barn doorway. As McCracken looked up at her and frowned questioningly, she jerked the horse’s head around and neck-reined it out of the yard, spurring fiercely.
Away from the buildings, Elena left the main trail and threaded the trees, climbing steadily along a pine needle-carpeted slope until, some time later, she came out on a bald rise of land above timberline. From here, she was able to look down upon the tortuous land and view a wide panorama. Not far below she could see Shattuck and Obregon entering a meadow, distributing small chunks of salt for the grazing cattle. Farther down a break in the trees was the Wagon Wheel yard. Faint in the distance, seen over the tops of several lesser pine-covered humps, was the headquarters of Scott Kramer’s Turkey Track ranch. Sight of that place brought her thoughts around to Kramer and she conjured up an image of him—a lean, black-haired Pennsylvanian loaded with hard-driving ambition; a darkly handsome man with a fire of intolerance and roughshod arrogance in his eyes. Pushing himself and his crew with fierce energy, Kramer had built his ranch up and made a power of himself all in the space of a few years, so that today he stood as a peer with all the other cattlemen who had pioneered this land and had put years of sweat into the soil. And not satisfied yet, Kramer continued to drive himself relentlessly, constantly growing in wealth and power. She found herself wondering where it would end. Perhaps with Scott Kramer in the chair of the territorial governo
r? It was not beyond possibility; Kramer’s ambitious pressure was a tangible thing that came out of him and touched everyone he knew.
Thinking of all this, Elena felt her eyes grow hard. She turned her face and spat on the ground. It was true that Kramer had approached her with offers. They were not the kind of offers she would be inclined to accept under any conditions. Alone with Kramer, she had seen and hated the faintly leering smile he assumed.
She shook herself, as if that would rid her of the unclean feelings that came to her with thoughts of the Pennsylvanian. Then, about to swing her leg down into the stirrup, she saw a rider trotting out of the Wagon Wheel yard, and curiosity prompted her to drag her field glasses out of the saddlebag and train it on that rider.
As she had suspected, the tall, redheaded figure was Ben McCracken’s. While she watched, McCracken turned down the trail that led to Kramer’s Turkey Track. He had not ridden far when a sudden shape materialized out of the trees and accosted him on the trail.
McCracken stopped and a conversation was struck up. The second man, gaunt and tooth-grinning and riding a blue, was a stranger to Elena. When the conversation began to last longer than a meeting between strangers should last, she began to frown, wondering about the stranger’s identity and his business with McCracken.
Presently the two riders parted and McCracken went on his way, and Elena, with a number of crisscrossing feelings traveling through her, put the field-glass away and turned her horse into the trees. She felt the coarse fabric of the Levi’s against her legs and the slow rocking of the horse’s easy gait. The sun flickered through the treetops and the land was silent and cool.
Seven
McCracken left the Wagon Wheel yard and turned into the trail that led toward Kramer’s ranch. When he rode past a clump of sycamores, a man’s voice called and a horseman emerged from the trees—Cody Longwell.
McCracken took his hand away from his gun and folded both palms over the saddle horn, reining in and waiting for Longwell to come up. Longwell said, ‘I figured it might not be too smart for me to ride right in. Might be some boys on your crew that would recognize me and start to holler.’
‘You always did like sneaking around in the brush, anyway,’ McCracken observed.
Longwell grinned. ‘Sure. More fun that way.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be over on the backside of the mountain, hunting for stolen beef. What brings you down here?’
‘Information,’ Longwell said. ‘The kind I expect you might like to have.’
McCracken watched him a moment and grew impatient. ‘All right. What information?’
Longwell leaned back, relaxing in the saddle, and brought out cigarette making’s from his shirt pocket. Then, while McCracken watched dourly, the grinning gunman proceeded methodically to roll a smoke, afterward handing the makin’s to McCracken. Longwell said, ‘This is pretty valuable information,’ in a tentative tone of voice.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You got a match?’ Longwell said blandly.
McCracken finished constructing his own smoke, handed the rice papers and tobacco sack back to Longwell, and dug into his vest pocket for a match. Scratching it alight on his thumbnail, he lighted his own cigarette and handed the glowing smoke to Longwell, who used it to light his own and returned it. McCracken broke the match and dropped it, and looked evenly at the gaunt man.
‘A man’s got to eat,’ Longwell said.
McCracken looked disgustedly at him. ‘All I’ve got in my pocket is small change. It wouldn’t do you any good.’
‘Maybe,’ Longwell suggested, ‘you could dig up something healthier?’
‘No deal. If you’ve got something to tell me, spill it. Otherwise, forget our whole agreement and ride out of the country, Cody. I’m not in a mood to deal with a man who plays both halves against the middle.’
Longwell grinned and puffed on his cigarette. ‘All right-all right. It was worth a try, wasn’t it?’
‘Was it?’
‘Come on,’ Longwell scoffed. ‘Don’t pull that high-and-mighty act with me, Ben. I know you better.’
‘Maybe,’ McCracken murmured. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘I paid a call on Chet Six last night.’
McCracken grunted. ‘That was smart,’ he said dryly. ‘I couldn’t think of a better way to let him know you’re prowling around his bailiwick.’
‘He’d find out, anyway,’ Longwell said easily. ‘He’s got eyes all over these hills. Now he knows I’m here and out in the open, maybe he won’t be so suspicious of me—it might give me a freer hand to operate inside his district.’
‘All right. It might work. Go on.’
‘I had a drink with him and shot the breeze. After a while he drifted over to the poker table and sat in with some of his boys. I was standin’ at the bar, mind you, and I guess maybe he figured I was out of earshot—anyway, I got wind of something I don’t think Six would like to have anybody know.’
‘And?’ Impatience with Longwell’s roundabout approach was goading McCracken to anger.
Longwell grinned at him. ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘You got plenty of time.’
‘Time for what?’
‘Time to get ready for him. You see, Six plans to pull off a big raid against Box B.’
‘How big?’
‘His whole crew, the way I got it. Eleven-twelve men. They figure to sweep right across Box B and take every steer they can gather. If any of Bannerman’s crew gets in the way, Six gave orders to cut them down.’
McCracken frowned, digesting it. ‘That’s a fast switch for Six. Up to now, he’s been satisfied with small pickings—small but steady. Hell, Cody—it doesn’t make sense. If he runs off too many cattle from Box B, Bannerman will go under. Then there won’t be anything left on Box B for Six to steal. He’ll be drying up his own source of supply.’
Longwell shrugged and tapped ash from his cigarette. ‘Maybe he’s gettin’ greedy,’ he said.
‘Six is too smart for that. Maybe he was just planting a bug in your ear to see what you’d do with it.’
‘I doubt it,’ Longwell said. ‘But you can play it that way if you want. Ain’t no skin off my nose.’ He lifted his reins. ‘Wait a minute, Cody.’
Longwell looked expectantly at him. McCracken said, ‘When did he say this job was to be done?’
‘Tonight,’ Longwell said blandly. ‘Soon as the moon comes up.’
McCracken felt air whistle through his teeth. ‘Short notice,’ he murmured.
‘Yeah,’ Longwell said, and grinned. ‘Well, I reckon to be gettin’ back to my knitting. Nice to shoot the breeze with you, Ben. To let you know if anything comes up.’
‘Do that,’ McCracken said absently. With surprising speed, Longwell faded back into the trees, leaving him alone in the trail. With his mind in a swirl, McCracken put his horse down the road toward Kramer’s Turkey Track, lifting the animal to a steady canter.
Scott Kramer’s lean, dark features were bent into a frown. ‘Where’d you find this out?’
‘I’ve got ears in Six’s camp,’ McCracken told him, unwilling to reveal anything more than that. ‘Frankly, I’m not entirely sure I believe it but the important thing is that it may be true—and if it is, we can’t afford to ignore it.’
‘Why not? He hasn’t threatened your place or mine. Let Bannerman do his own worrying.’
Exasperated, McCracken demanded, ‘Tell me something, Scott. You ever think of anybody but yourself?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Hell,’ McCracken said disgustedly.
A slow smile grew on Kramer’s face. He walked across the parlor, filled with heavy masculine furniture, and stood by the open front door looking out at the orderly group of sturdy buildings that formed his headquarters. He said, ‘Ben, I built this place up from scratch. I worked like a grubbing dog to earn the money to buy this land away from old Ochoa. I’ve kept working exactly the same way—and look what it’s got me. I
defy you to find a better-run outfit in the Territory, or one with more potential for climbing to the top. I did it all myself, Ben. Nobody did me any favors. Nobody offered to protect me from Chet Six or anybody else. Six knows how tough I can be—and you can bet his boys don’t do their long-looping around this neck of the woods. They stay clear of me and that’s not because I’ve got any chummy neighbors to protect me—it’s because I always jump in and fight for what’s mine. If Bannerman had that kind of guts, Six wouldn’t have the gall to raid him. Bannerman put himself in this mess—and it’s up to him to get himself out.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ McCracken said, restraining his feelings. ‘Where I come from, it means something to be a neighbor.’
‘Maybe that’s because you didn’t grow up in a city slum.’ Kramer wheeled on him and the hot arrogance flamed in the lean man’s dark eyes. He had a long, straight nose and a shock of black hair thrown carelessly back; his jaw was firm and square and he had the appearance of what he was: a hard, long-muscled man supremely sure of his own abilities. He said, ‘I came into this land, took a look at it, and realized that this land is here for me to make something out of it. That’s what I’ve done. I can’t help it if Bannerman can’t wear the same size boots—Bannerman’s not my responsibility. Neither are you.’
‘Nobody counts but yourself. That it?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Kramer challenged.
‘You’re a dangerous man, Scott,’ McCracken murmured.
‘Dangerous to what? My rules are simple enough. I mind my own business, strictly. I’m only dangerous to a man who gets in my way and tries to prevent me from doing that.’
McCracken shook his head. ‘Don’t you believe in anything at all?’
‘I believe in myself.’
McCracken uttered a short, dry laugh. Ignoring him, Kramer went on: ‘I believe in protecting freedom. My freedom.’
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