by John Shirley
“No, ma’am!”
She glanced at him. Defiantly he came up and stood by her. “Papa said I was to take care of you!”
“Jim—”
But then Pike was yelling, “Do it, Red! Go on. You too, Wurreck!”
The two cowboys at the fence ran to their horses, climbed on, and backed them up, tightening the ropes on the fence posts. The posts grated, coming loose in their sockets. Katie hesitated, still not sure which way to jump.
“Stop!” was all she managed—and then the section of fence came apart with a squealing, crunching sound, and the horses dragged the boards back onto Circle H property. A wide gap showed in the property fencing now.
“Let’s get those cattle moving!” Pike called out. “Right through the fence!”
The cowboys loosed the ropes from their saddles and galloped off toward the small herd.
“No, that I’m not going to permit!” Katie shouted. “Curly—aim at the ground. Keep those cows back!”
She swung the muzzle of her rifle and fired at the ground in front of the Circle H cattle. Curly fired, too, his rounds striking close to hers. The animals bawled and milled restlessly, backing away.
“Mrs. Durst—!” Pike began.
“Shut up, Pike!” she snapped, reloading her rifle. “You listen to me! I’ll shoot the cattle who come across that fence line!”
She fired again, feeling the kick of the rifle butt more now; more dirt sprayed, kicked up near the cattle. “Curly, get those ropes. Use ’em to block the fence line!
“Mister, unless you plan to kill us, you got to move that herd back!” Curly called. “I’m going to block up this hole! I’m coming over on your land!”
Pike gaped at Katie, then at the cattle, then back at her.
Curly trotted over to untie the ropes, and to Katie’s considerable exasperation, Jim and Hector followed him and began to pull the ropes back toward the fence. Now her son was right in the line of fire!
She could see Pike’s mouth moving, could read his lips as he cursed her, but he turned his horse and rode toward his men. Katie watched tensely. Was he going to help them run the cattle her way? She’d have to shoot some of those cattle. She had to make some kind of stand.
But then Katie saw him waving his hat at the other men, sending them back toward the Circle H ranch house. She figured he was going to ask for further orders from Harning.
She waited till the three cowboys had ridden off and then went to help stretch the rope across the gap in the fence. They’d be shoring up that fence the rest of the day, she supposed.
Katie seethed with anger. Tom Harning had reckoned that without her man there, she’d back off and let him claim some of the Durst land. Maybe scare her into leaving the ranch.
She had stopped the intrusion. But there was not much hope it would end here. She turned to Jim, who was dragging a rope along toward the fence line. “You, Jim!”
“Yes, Mama?”
It was in her mind to give him a tongue-lashing for refusing to go back to the ranch. But he had done only as he thought his father would want him to. “Jim”—she kept her voice gentle—“next time I tell you to go back to the house, do it.”
“If I can, Mama.”
Now how was she to argue with that?
“What we going to do after we rope up the fence, senora?” Curly asked, pulling a rope free from an uprooted post.
She bent to work and said, “I’m going to bring Sheriff Beslow in on this. We’ll just see what he has to say.”
But Katie didn’t have a lot of faith in Beslow. She had a feeling she was going to be fighting this land war on her own.
* * *
* * *
Twenty days into the drive. Not real close to Denison, and not real far from it.
It was a hot midday, the sun glaring in a cloudless sky, as Mase rode out to the low ridgeline with Ray Jost at his side.
“That where you saw him, up by the oaks?” Mase asked, pointing.
“Yep. Just sitting cool as a cucumber on that stolen mule, watching me when I brought those strays back this morning. Maybe thought he was going to get one for himself before I come along. Wasn’t you wanted that Indian left alone, Mase, I’d have tried to lasso him off that mule, too. That old mule can’t outrun this horse.”
“Your first job is drover, Ray. You can’t be out chasing after that boy.”
“Stolen stock matters, don’t it?”
“It does.”
“And he got a saddle, too, and a rope, and Jacob’s saddlebags! He tells me he had a knife in there, and a shirt, and some varmint traps.”
“Yeah. I’m asking myself, why is he riding along with us?”
“Looking for a chance to steal beeves of course!”
“Could be. Not so sure. But why let us see him like this? It’s no accident.” They reached the copse of oaks without sighting East Wind Blake, but Ray pointed out the tracks. “Those are the tracks of Jacob’s mule, sure!”
“You’re in the right of it there,” Mase said, looking at the tracks. “These are fresh tracks.” He looked north along the ridgeline and saw a little hollow of brush spotted with trees big enough to hide a mule and a man.
“He could be in that brush there—see it?”
“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Ray said, nodding.
Mase dismounted and reached into his coat where the telescope Katie had given him was tucked against his bosom. He placed the spyglass to his eye and fixed it on the thicket. He could just make out the mule’s head within the foliage, lifting up a little to sniff at the air. “Yep, I see the mule. That boy is in there. He’s watching us, sure.” He took an oilcloth package from his saddlebag and rode up to the nearest oak. He lifted the package in the air, waved it, and hung it on a broken-off snag sticking out from a branch.
“What you got in there?” Ray asked.
“Food—salted meat, bread, some wild onions.”
“You really going to feed that thief, Mase?” Ray asked in disbelief. “What for?”
“He saved my life. That’s one reason. You know, he could have taken that remuda horse with him, but he brought it to me, and he risked his life doing it.” Mase looked down at the herd. “Let’s go down and get some chuck. Then we’re movin’ out. I hope to be in Denison day after tomorrow. . . .”
* * *
* * *
Hiram Durst wasn’t looking forward to this job. There was something about these sheepherders that stirred him inside.
He was sitting on his horse, at dusk, looking down from the hilltop at the small procession of oxen-drawn wagons, seeing the young men, two women, and even some children accompanying their elders. There could be gunplay, because they were trying to get around paying Leadton the goods taxes levied by the town council, and he saw two of the young men walking beside the wagons with rifles in their hands.
There were several sheep ranches up in the high valleys in the hills west of Leadton. The ranchers had to bring their wool and meat animals through town—or blessed close—to get them up to Morrisville, some distance north, where their best market was found. Now and then those moving their goods tried to skirt Leadton and avoid the “toll tax,” as the council liked to call it. He didn’t blame the sheepherders for that. Might be, as some claimed, that the merchant toll tax was illegal in Texas, and that it was too damned big a percentage of the goods’ worth even if it was legal. Collecting the money could be rough when Sheriff Greer got himself involved. And it was Greer who’d found out the sheepherders were trying to slip by without paying today.
They were driving their wagons on the eastern trail, two miles out of their way, and soon they’d pull up to wait till night. Then they’d slip by Leadton in the dark.
But they’d been seen, and someone had told Greer just for the ten-dollar reward. Now the town sheriff was waiting aroun
d the turn in the road, him and the Kelso brothers and Joe Fletcher, his supposed deputies. Hiram had been brought along partly to “make things official” and to work out how many wagons there were, get an estimate of their goods and their likely resistance.
Hiram had a sick feeling in his belly about this business.
He drew his stallion back from the hilltop and quickly rode down a game trail, through an arroyo, and out onto the main trail where Greer and the others were waiting on their horses.
“Is it like the prospector said?” Greer asked as Hiram rode up.
“It is,” Hiram admitted. “They look like they could be ready to fight over this one, Mike. Let me go parley with them.”
“We’ll start it that way,” Greer said. He had a big bullwhip coiled around his saddle horn, and now he reached out to run a long contemplative finger over its hard leather. “How we finish depends on them. I’m not going to dicker.”
“Better to just up and teach ’em a lesson right now,” said Joe Fletcher. “They’re taking this eastern trail to give us the slip!” Fletcher dressed sharp and kept a pleasant expression on his bland face; he wore a long blue coat, a white shirt and a vest, and a string tie. He tried to affect the look of a banker and claimed to be a “loan agent.” More like a confidence agent, Hiram figured, when he wasn’t playing deputy for the sheriff. Always had a smile that looked as if he was about to crack a joke—but the joke never came out. Queenie said, Joe Fletcher? He seems friendly till you look in his eyes.
“Joe’s right,” said Rod Kelso. “Put the fear of God in ’em.” Rod was a crafty-eyed man, with slick black hair, a bitter set to his thin lips, and pitted skin.
“How much firepower they have?” asked Phil Kelso.
Rod’s shorter, younger brother looked almost handsome compared to him, except his eyes were a little too close together. Both men wore striped pants, English riding boots, and frock coats, but—thanks to Hiram—Phil had that new brown high-crowned hat to go with his tan coat. It’d make such a good target. . . .
“They have rifles and shotguns,” Hiram said. “And they’ve got the look of men ready to use those firearms.”
“Go on, then,” Greer said grudgingly. “See if you can get them to lay down the simoleons peacefully. But do it quick. I don’t want to sit out here all damn night.”
“Durst is liable to get himself shot, doing this fool thing,” said Phil, chuckling as Hiram rode around the turn in the trail.
Good chance of that, Hiram admitted to himself.
The first of the four covered wagons pulled up short when Hiram blocked their road. He drew his mount to a halt in the midst of the trail, with his right hand up, trying to look friendly. The steep hills were gathering shadows in the thickening dusk, and Hiram couldn’t see the sheepherder’s faces clearly, but he saw light gleaming on the weapons of the two walking toward him. Beyond them a big older man with a spade beard and the cast of a patriarch was up on the wagon, his hands on the oxen reins. He had a shotgun propped within reach.
The two men with the rifles came striding into the dimming light, and Hiram recognized them. He’d run into them in Leadton when they were there buying supplies. They were the Marcheson cousins, Johan and Sid Marcheson, both of them with close-shorn blond hair, scant beards intended to make them look more manly than they were. They wore overalls and heavy boots. Sid, who seemed as scared as he was angry, was younger and thinner.
“Johan and Sid, I think. That right?” Hiram called out, still maintaining his smile.
“What you want, mister?” Johan asked.
“I’m collecting taxes for the city of Leadton. Toll tax on goods.” He glanced past them, could see the bales of wool stacked in the wagons. There’d be mutton in there, too, probably in barrels, for they slaughtered some of their rams and lambs for butchers in Morrisville.
“This ain’t Leadton,” said Johan.
“Close enough according to town rules,” Hiram replied, shrugging. “I’m afraid the sheriff and the town council are firm on the matter.”
“We ain’t paying it. Now, get out the way.”
Hiram sighed. He sat back in his saddle and let one hand fall to rest on the butt of his Colt. He kept himself relaxed and retained the smile on his face.
But they saw where his gun hand was. Till now he’d never had to do more than bluster and shoot into the air to get the tax money. And one time he’d had to engage in fisticuffs with an outraged farmer. Luckily Hiram had come out on top.
This time he wasn’t so sure he could get away without shooting one of these young men. There was a look in Johan’s eyes. . . .
“We’ve got to insist, boys,” Hiram said. “You’ll still have most of your profit.”
“What’s the price this time?” Sid asked, licking his lips.
“We estimate—four hundred dollars.”
“What!” Johan burst out. “You have taken leave of your senses, mister!”
“Just the messenger here. Now, you can provide equivalent goods, or you can find the cash—”
He broke off as Sheriff Greer, the Kelso brothers, and Joe Fletcher rode up, guns in hand. They had the drop on the sheepherders. “Drop those weapons, or die where you stand!” Greer shouted.
“Hold on, damn it!” Hiram said. “Let me talk to them, Greer!”
Greer pointed his pistol at the old man in the wagon. “You young fellas drop those guns, or I kill the old man!”
The Marcheson cousins looked at each other—and dropped their weapons. The old man put his hands up.
Fletcher and the Kelsos kept their guns on the cousins as Greer got down off his horse, taking his bullwhip with him. He got a good grip on the handle of the whip and shook it out to full length. “I hear something about how you’re not going to pay up?”
“Now, listen, mister,” Johan said. “We just want a fair—”
Greer slashed the whip through the air so it looped around Johan’s calves. Greer pulled him off his feet with a jerk of his arm, dragged the bullwhip free, and commenced using it. Johan Marcheson screamed in pain.
“Stop that, Greer!” Hiram shouted.
Phil Kelso turned his gun toward Hiram. “You failed to get it done. Now the sheriff’s seeing to it. You can get out, or you can get down off your horse and stand with them sheepmen.”
The whip rose and fell, snapping, snapping, snapping, and the boy shrieked and tried to crawl away. The old man shouted something Hiram couldn’t make out.
“I’m going back to town, Kelso,” Hiram said. “Point that gun somewhere else.”
Phil gave him a yellow-toothed grin and holstered the gun.
Sick to his belly, Hiram turned his horse and started back for Leadton. He was done with this job. He had no choice but to simply ride away.
But the sounds pursued him. The whip cracking over and over, echoing in the ravine, and the boy screaming . . . women weeping, the old man begging Greer to stop . . .
Hiram got maybe fifty feet down the trail. Then he reined in the horse and turned around. He drew his gun and fired into the air and then aimed the pistol at Greer. “Sheriff Greer!”
Greer stopped what he was doing and turned to glare at Hiram. The Kelsos and Fletcher were looking over their shoulders at him.
“Sheriff! Just needed to get your attention. Hold on, will you?” Hiram swung the gun toward Sid. “Boy—you people got two hundred dollars with you?”
“We do! That’s about all we got! We was going to buy some supplies—”
“Just get it and give it to the sheriff.”
Sid ran back toward the wagon.
“What the hell you doing, Durst?” Greer snarled.
“I’m quitting my job, Sheriff.” He tilted his gun hand back so the pistol was pointed at the sky. “But I’m getting you something to take back to the town council. Now, if you want to bring all this up wi
th me later in town, you surely can.”
“Was you pointing that gun at me?” Greer demanded.
“Sure looked like he was!” said Phil Kelso.
“Like I said—needed to get your attention.” Hiram kept his gun loose in his hand, still pointed up. But they all knew he could drop it down and start shooting if he needed to. “You were getting carried away, Mike. Might’ve got you into trouble—there’s a deputy US marshal up in Morrisville.”
Greer grunted and coiled up his whip.
Sid came running back with a bag in his hand, panting. “This is all we got!”
Greer snatched the bag of money and climbed on his horse. He rode up next to Hiram and said, “Don’t you ever point your gun at me again. You came to town with a reputation. But it’s not going to help you if I want you gone. Just stay the hell out of my way.”
Then he rode past, the other three men following him, all of them eyeing the gun in Hiram’s hand.
Hiram waited a while, making sure the sheriff, the Kelsos, and Fletcher were gone.
Then he holstered his Colt, rode past the sheepherders tending to the sobbing Johan, and found a trail back to Leadton.
CHAPTER SIX
They were about eight miles from Denison when Mase spotted the Indian kid again.
A cold wind was blowing from the north so that the cowboys turned up their collars and pulled their hats lower, but the cloudless sky was a sharp blue, and there were yellow and red wildflowers on the low hills. The Indian boy was riding alongside the herd, about two hundred yards off. He was carrying what looked like a string of game dangling from his left hand.
Mase had just returned to the herd after scouting a few miles north. He’d discovered they were about to overrun some farmer’s fences, so they had to move the herd west about half a mile. He was riding back to give this news to Pug when he saw the young Sioux approaching on Jacob’s mule.
Mase turned his horse and rode slowly out toward the boy, careful to seem unthreatening and in no great hurry. The boy pulled up, seeming to hesitate as Mase approached.