“I’ll take that as a compliment. And I admit, I sorta like to stick my nose into things, too, whether it’s wanted or not.”
“Somebody’s liable to try to cut it off one of these days.”
“They’ll have a fight on their hands if they do.”
The two cowboys rode along in silence for a few minutes, then Stovepipe went on. “Ain’t no doubt about it now. Vance is plumb smitten with Miss Rosaleen. Don’t reckon anybody could blame him, either. Why, if I was twenty years younger—”
“Thirty’s more like it.”
“Well . . . give or take. Anyway, he’s stuck on her, and I reckon the feelin’s startin’ to get sorta mutual. Be interestin’ to see what happens when her daddy figures out the same thing. He won’t be too happy about some grub line rider courtin’ his little gal. Of course, Malone don’t know the full story yet.”
“And you do.”
“I’m gettin’ there,” Stovepipe said. “Slowly but surely, I’m gettin’ there.”
* * *
It was the middle of the afternoon by the time they reached Wagontongue.
Coolidge had started to complain about being hungry. “I never got any lunch, you know. I was too busy being attacked for no good reason.”
“Yeah, you go on spinnin’ that yarn,” Stovepipe told him. “We’ll just see how many folks believe it.”
“You’ll get supper tonight, Coolidge,” Wilbur said. “In jail.”
Despite being the county seat, Wagontongue didn’t have a courthouse. The most substantial building in town was the redbrick train station on the southern edge of town with corrals and loading pens on the other side of the tracks. County business was done out of a frame office building on Main Street, and next door was a sturdy stone building that housed the sheriff’s office and jail.
Riding with their Winchesters across the saddles in front of them, Stovepipe and Wilbur drew a lot of attention as they rode along the street with their prisoner. Everyone in Wagontongue knew who Dax Coolidge was, and most of them were afraid of him. Even, when it was obvious that he was disarmed, they stared nervously at him, as if they were worried he might explode into violence at any moment.
Coolidge cooperated, though, other than looking back over his shoulder every now and then to curse or smirk at Stovepipe and Wilbur. “You won’t keep me in jail.”
“Not our job to keep you there,” Stovepipe said. “That’ll be up to the sheriff.”
Coolidge just let out a contemptuous laugh at that. Stovepipe noticed several men hurrying ahead of them toward the sheriff’s office, so he wasn’t surprised to see slab-jawed Charlie Jerrico standing on the boardwalk in front of the office, waiting for them. Gossip had moved faster than the riders.
Jerrico hooked his thumbs in the gunbelt slanting across his hips and scowled at the three riders. “What the hell is this all about?”
Stovepipe, Wilbur, and Coolidge reined in.
“Got a prisoner for you, Sheriff,” Stovepipe said.
Even as he was speaking, Coolidge bulled in verbally. “I want to file a complaint, Jerrico. These two saddle tramps kidnapped me!”
“Kidnapping’s a pretty serious charge.” Jerrico looked at Stovepipe. “You’re one of those Three Rivers men, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. Name of Stewart. This here’s my pard Wilbur Coleman. I reckon you could say we made a citizen’s arrest on Coolidge. He was about to murder Vance Brewster, another hombre who rides for the Three Rivers.”
“That’s a lie,” Coolidge said in a scathing tone. “Brewster had a gun in his hand. If I’d killed him, it would have been self-defense.”
“Not hardly,” Stovepipe said. “A gun-wolf like you against a kid like that? That’s murder, any way you look at it.”
Coolidge sneered. “Not according to the law.”
“And we ain’t even mentioned nothin’ yet about how you tried to molest Miss Rosaleen Malone.”
That drew surprised, scandalized murmurs from the crowd that had gathered in the street in front of the sheriff’s office.
Jerrico frowned and jerked his head toward the door. “Inside now, all three of you. We’re not gonna conduct law business on the street.”
Wilbur dismounted first, then kept his rifle pointed in Coolidge’s general direction as the gunman climbed down from the saddle. Stovepipe swung down last.
“Leave those rifles out here,” Jerrico told them.
“I don’t rightly trust Coolidge,” Stovepipe said.
“I don’t care. Nobody walks into my office waving guns around. You can consider Coolidge to be in my custody. I’ll be responsible for him.”
“You’re arresting me?” Coolidge demanded.
“I’m holding you until I find out what happened. Get inside, now.”
Stovepipe and Wilbur returned their rifles to the saddle boots, then all four men trooped into the office.
Jerrico pointed to Stovepipe. “All right, Stewart, I’ll listen to your version first.”
Coolidge said, “That’s not fair!”
“Shut up, or you can tell your side of it from inside a cell.”
Stovepipe explained about riding up on the brutal battle between Coolidge and Vance Brewster. He concluded by saying, “Vance went to pick up the gun Coolidge had dropped, and Coolidge grabbed a hideout gun he had in his boot. He was about to shoot the boy, like I said before, when I shot the gun outta his hand.”
“You shot the gun out of a man’s hand?” Jerrico asked in evident disbelief. “How far away were you?”
Stovepipe shrugged. “Fifty yards or so, I reckon.” He shook his head. “Didn’t say I did it a-purpose, mind you. I could’ve been aimin’ for his head and missed. But either way, it worked out all right.”
Jerrico looked at Coolidge. “So you claim that’s a lie?”
“What Stewart told you was true enough, I suppose,” Coolidge said with obvious reluctance, “but he and Coleman came up at the tail end of the trouble. They didn’t see the Malone girl try to grab her carbine and shoot me, just because I was on Three Rivers range. She was loco, Sheriff, pure loco.”
“I’ve never known Miss Malone to act like that,” Jerrico said.
“Well, she did today. And then Brewster came along and jumped me. All I was doing the whole time out there was trying to defend myself.”
Wilbur let out a disgusted snort, making it plain what he thought of Coolidge’s claim.
Jerrico glared at him for a second, then asked, “Where are Miss Malone and Brewster now?”
“She took Vance back to the ranch headquarters so he could get his wounded arm patched up again,” Stovepipe said. “He got hurt a few nights ago fightin’ rustlers.”
“How come I haven’t heard about that?”
Stovepipe shrugged. “I reckon Mr. Malone ain’t got around to reportin’ it yet.”
“Let him know he’d better ride in and tell me about it.”
“I can do that,” Stovepipe said. “What about Coolidge?”
The gunman pointed at Stovepipe and Wilbur. “I want to file charges against these two, and against Brewster and the Malone girl, too.”
“Nobody’s filing any charges until I’ve talked to everybody involved, and that includes Brewster and Miss Malone. They need to come in and give me a statement, too.”
Stovepipe was anxious to get the gunman behind bars. “What about Coolidge in the meantime? You gonna let him run around loose and cause more trouble?”
“No, I’m going to hold him, for now.”
Coolidge exploded. “What! You can’t do that. Damn you, Jerrico—”
The sheriff thrust his face up next to Coolidge’s and said through clenched teeth, “You’d better just shut up right now, mister, unless you want to land in even more trouble. If Miss Malone hadn’t been involved, things might have been different, but you can’t go around manhandling women, no matter what reason you think you have. You can cool your heels in one of my cells until I get to the bottom of this.”
<
br /> Coolidge looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t say anything else. He went along without putting up a fight as Jerrico gripped his arm and led him into the cell block behind the office. A moment later an iron-barred door clanged shut behind him.
“What were you doing on the Three Rivers, anyway?” Jerrico asked through the bars.
“That’s my business,” Coolidge said sullenly as he sat down on the bunk in the cell. “It’s still a free country, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but maybe not for you. Not for a while, anyway.”
Stovepipe and Wilbur were standing in the open cell block door watching the exchange. Jerrico came back into the office and closed that door, too.
“In a couple days, the Three Rivers is gonna be bringin’ in a herd to be shipped out,” Stovepipe said. “Will that be soon enough for Malone and Brewster and Miss Malone to talk to you?”
“Fine with me,” Jerrico said with a shrug. “Coolidge may complain about having to stay locked up that long, but I don’t particularly care. I’m tired of him strutting around here like he owns the whole territory.”
“Thanks for takin’ our word over his about what happened.”
“I’m not taking anybody’s word. I gave some serious thought to locking you up, too, Stewart. You’re the only one who actually fired a shot in the whole melee, right?”
Stovepipe smiled. “Come to think of it, I reckon I am. It was in a good cause, though.”
“We’ll see.” Jerrico nodded toward the office door. “Get out of here, and don’t cause any trouble while you’re in town.”
Stovepipe and Wilbur went outside. Stovepipe frowned at Coolidge’s horse and stuck his head back into the office.
“Sheriff, you got a little corral out back where you and the deputies keep your horses, ain’t that right?”
“Yeah,” Jerrico said from behind the scarred old desk where he had sat down. “So what?”
“Want me to put Coolidge’s horse back there for you?”
“Well, that would be helpful, I suppose. Thanks, Stewart.”
“Glad to do it, Sheriff.”
Stovepipe went to the hitch rack, untied the reins of Coolidge’s mount, and started toward the corner of the building.
“Now what are we doing?” Wilbur asked.
“Just helpin’ the sheriff for a minute.” Stovepipe led the horse to the corral, opened the gate, and shooed it inside. He closed the gate and leaned on it for a moment, head down and frowning.
“If you stand there brooding for much longer, it’s going to be dark before we get back to the Three Rivers,” Wilbur said.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Stovepipe turned away from the corral and took the reins to his paint from Wilbur. They mounted up and rode away from Wagontongue, heading north toward the Three Rivers spread.
“You made a bad enemy today, Stovepipe,” Wilbur said when the settlement was behind them. “So did Vance.”
“You mean Coolidge?”
“Yeah. Varmints like that always hold grudges.”
Stovepipe shrugged. “Ain’t the first time some bad man’s had a hankerin’ to ventilate me. Probably won’t be the last.”
“The way you go around hunting trouble . . . I reckon you can count on that.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Shadows were settling down over the range by the time Stovepipe and Wilbur got back to the Three Rivers. The yellow light from the windows looked warm and welcoming in the gathering darkness.
The dogs announced their arrival. Several men came out of the bunkhouse carrying rifles, among them Andy Callahan.
The segundo raised a hand in greeting when he recognized who the newcomers were. “Figured you boys would be coming back in this evening. You didn’t miss supper by much. I’m sure Aunt Sinead has been keepin’ some food warm for you.”
“Sounds good,” Stovepipe said as he swung down from the saddle. “Where’s Vance?”
“Inside talking to the boss and Miss Rosaleen.” Callahan chuckled. “When the boss found out what had happened, we had our hands full keepin’ him from charging over to the Rafter M to have a showdown. He’s been proddy lately anyway, what with all the trouble, and this was almost the last straw. Vance pointed out that Cabot may not have sent Dax Coolidge over here. Ever since he’s been in these parts, Coolidge has done pretty much whatever he wanted.”
Stovepipe agreed. “Pretty smart thing for Vance to say. The boy’s got a good head on his shoulders. Goin’ to war against the Rafter M oughta be a last resort.”
“Yeah, but if it comes to that . . . all of us intend to win,” Callahan said with a grim note in his usually affable voice.
Stovepipe couldn’t argue with that sentiment. A couple men offered to take care of their horses, so he and Wilbur turned the mounts over and went into the house.
Aunt Sinead greeted them by saying, “When I heard the dogs carrying on, I figured it meant you boys were back. There are plates of food on the table for you, still nice and hot, and plenty of coffee left in the pot, too.”
“Ma’am, you’re a godsend,” Wilbur told her.
“After you eat, Keenan wants to see you in his office. Rosaleen and young Mr. Brewster are in there with him now.”
Stovepipe and Wilbur went into the dining room and tackled the food, which was delicious as always, washing it down with sips of hot, black coffee. The meal helped restore vitality that had been sapped by all the riding they had done.
Finished, they went to Malone’s office at the side of the house. A pair of windows looked out at the bunkhouse and barn across the ranch yard. The door was open a few inches, but Stovepipe knocked on it anyway and Malone told them to come in.
A rolltop desk sat against one wall, with a table in the middle of the room. Vance and Rosaleen sat on one side of the table while Malone stood near the windows with his hands clasped together behind his back. He nodded to Stovepipe and Wilbur as they came into the room. “I understand I owe you fellas another debt of thanks for steppin’ in and helpin’ my girl.”
“That was mostly Vance’s doin’,” Stovepipe said. “He’d already lit into Coolidge before Wilbur and me ever got there.”
“Yeah, and Coolidge was about to kill me, too,” Vance said. “Don’t be modest, Stovepipe. You saved our lives, more than likely.”
“Stovepipe’s just naturally humble,” Wilbur said.
“And a trick shooter, to boot,” Malone said. “I heard about that, too.”
“Luck,” Stovepipe said.
Malone’s skeptical grunt made it clear he didn’t consider the shot to be luck at all, but he let it go and directed his questions to Stovepipe. “What happened when you took Coolidge to town?”
“The sheriff locked him up.”
“I’m surprised. Charlie Jerrico’s been bendin’ over backwards to stay neutral in the trouble between the Rafter M and the Three Rivers.”
“Well, bein’ impartial’s usually a good thing for a lawman.”
Malone snorted. “Not when one side is a bunch of thievin’ rustlers and backshooters.”
“Cabot and his boys probably say the same thing about you and the Three Rivers crew.”
“Maybe, but they’re just tryin’ to fool folks into thinkin’ they’re honest.” Malone shook his head. “It won’t work, especially with me.”
“The sheriff wants you to come into town and make a report about that rustlin’ a few nights ago.”
“Why?” Malone asked with a frown. “It’s all over with. We got the cows back, and sent some of those thievin’ varmints across the divide.”
“I guess Jerrico thinks it oughta be down on record. Anyway, he asked us to tell you.” Stovepipe looked at Vance and Rosaleen. “He wants to talk to the two of you, as well.”
“About the trouble with Coolidge?” Vance asked.
“Yep. Coolidge claims you attacked him, not the other way around, and he was just defendin’ himself.”
Rosaleen said, “That’s a lie.”
“S
ure it is, but I reckon the sheriff thinks he’s got to hear you say that. Until he’s questioned both of you, he’s gonna keep Coolidge locked up.”
Malone said, “Well, there’s that to be thankful for, anyway. Once a judge hears what Coolidge did, maybe he’ll wind up in prison where he belongs.” The cattleman cleared his throat. “How anxious is Jerrico to talk to us?”
“He said it’d be all right if you stopped at his office when you bring the herd in to ship it,” Stovepipe said.
“That’ll be day after tomorrow, more than likely. Tomorrow we’ll get a good tally and make sure all those critters are branded.” Malone cast a stern look toward his daughter. “Until then, I want you to stick close to home, Rosaleen. You got to go into Wagontongue with us and talk to the sheriff, but you can stay out of trouble between now and then.”
Her chin jutted out in defiance as she said, “I ought to be able to ride anywhere on this range I want to.”
“Maybe so, but where there’s one snake, there’s usually more. I don’t want you runnin’ into more Rafter M men.”
Rosaleen looked like she wanted to argue, but then she sighed. “All right. I’ll stay here while you finish getting everything ready for the drive into the settlement . . . but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Malone turned to Vance. “With that bum wing, you can skip the drive and ride into town with Rosaleen on the wagon.”
“I’ll be all right to help, boss—”
“You’ve done plenty already. Seems like every time my daughter needs a hand, you’re right there to make sure she gets it. How’s that happen?”
Vance smiled. “Just lucky, I guess.”
“Uh-huh. Lucky.” Malone didn’t look convinced. He was starting to catch on.
Stovepipe saw the mixed emotions he expected on the old cattleman’s rugged face. To Malone’s way of thinking, no grub line rider was a suitable match for his daughter . . . and yet, Vance had helped save her life more than once. If things continued, he was going to have quite a dilemma to deal with.
But first there was the matter of getting those cattle to Wagontongue and shipping them off to market.
* * *
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