“There is?” Romero’s tone was sarcastic. “Then perhaps you can explain what it is.”
Brazos could, but he just wasn’t ready to do so quite yet. Turning his back on the straw boss, he walked slowly back down towards the water. Underfoot were the deep plowed tracks of many hooves in the soft riverbank earth leading out of the water. Many times in the eight miles that they’d followed the Slave from the western end of Sweetwater Basin to where he stood now at the eastern end, the tracks of the cattle had disappeared into the river, then reappeared again farther on. It was an old rustling trick to confuse the pursuit and it had successfully delayed them many hours during the day.
But now there was something amiss with the tracks, leastways he was pretty sure there was.
He turned his head as Romero dismounted and strode down the slope, the ramrod’s face pale and tight in the shadowy gloom of the towering cliffs.
“Figured it out for yourself yet, Romero?” he asked, disarming the Mexican’s annoyance a little with a crooked grin.
“I have figured nothing out,” Romero replied tightly, “because there is nothing to figure out. Now ...”
“How many beeves you reckon made these tracks we’re standin’ on?”
“What sort of a question is that? Three hundred of course.”
Brazos shook his head slowly. “Wrong. More like a hundred and fifty. Mebbe even less than that.”
“What nonsense is this? Were not three hundred head stolen? And have we not been following the same set of tracks all day long?”
“We were followin’ that many.” Brazos gestured at the river. “Seems to me they drove three hundred head in up there, but only a hundred and fifty odd come out down here.”
Romero sneered. “Impossible.”
“Mebbe so, but that’s how I read it.”
“We shall soon see if what you say is so.” The ramrod turned and whistled through his teeth at the vaqueros. “Miguel,” he shouted, “come down here.”
Miguel Chaves, the Antigua’s top sign-reader, detached himself from the bunch and rode back.
Romero said, “Examine this sign and tell me how many cattle came out of the river here, Miguel.”
Chaves swung down and inspected the hoof-torn earth. He straightened and said, “The full herd, Juan. Three hundred beeves. But how could it be otherwise?”
“Never mind that,” Romero said. He turned to Brazos with a crooked smile. “Well, Señor?”
Brazos said nothing, but he was thinking plenty. Not only was there a mystery about the tracks, now there was a mystery about Miguel Chaves. The man had read the sign wrong.
“Very well, enough is enough,” Romero snapped. “You will either mount up and ride with the rest of us immediately or you can return to the house and inform Señor Kendrick that I have no further use for you.”
With that Romero spun on his heel, strode back to his horse and rode off. Brazos stood frowning down at the tracks for another handful of seconds, then slouched across to the appaloosa and filled leather.
He rode a little distance then reined in, looking back. He was reluctant to leave Sweetwater Basin, for this was the area where all the rustled cows had disappeared.
Yet there was nothing to be found in the basin and he knew it as well as anybody else having already combed its length. The beautiful basin, shaped roughly like a bottle, was a smooth, gently undulating expanse of rangeland bordered by low hills to the north and by the inaccessible, glass-smooth ramparts of the Bucksaw cliffs to the south. The Slave hugged the base of those cliffs for most of its journey through the basin and the few patches of graze on the southern banks between the water and the cliff base couldn’t conceal a flock of chickens let alone three hundred head of beeves.
Romero shouted to him again and reluctantly he turned his broad and muscular back on the basin, touched the appaloosa with his heels and rode up to join them.
They followed the tracks for a further hour. It was easy going. The rustlers had made no attempt to conceal the sign here, nor had they made any further attempt to point the cattle back to the river.
It was Romero himself who spotted the first beef. The animal was standing looking pretty beat and bleary-eyed by the lip of an arroyo chomping on gamma grass.
The riders inspected the beef curiously, then pressed on. A whoop of triumph went up from one of the lead vaqueros as he reached the rim of the arroyo and saw below him, dotted across the floor of the arroyo, peacefully munching grass, the rest of the herd.
Or so they believed until Brazos reined up on the arroyo edge and took a look. And what he saw gave him some satisfaction, even if it did at the same time confuse him far more than he’d been confused before.
“There’s not three hundred head of beeves there,” he told Romero. “A hundred and twenty at the most.”
Romero didn’t believe him at first, or seemed not to. But a quick count quickly proved Brazos right. The herd in the arroyo tallied one hundred and seventeen head and not one more.
There was an obvious explanation for that, Romero was quick to point out. This was only part of the herd. The rest had been driven on farther.
That theory held water until the cowboys had scouted around the entire perimeter of the arroyo and found not a solitary track leading out.
They were still puzzling over the mystery, Brazos as deeply as anybody, when they were hailed from behind. He turned in the saddle to see Benedict riding in with Brenda Kendrick.
Brazos grinned to himself as he watched Romero, hard-eyed, ride out to meet the pair. He didn’t know how Benedict managed it, but he always seemed to turn up with a good-looking woman.
“This is Mr. Duke Benedict of Southwest Insurance, Juan,” Brenda Kendrick said as Romero reined in before them. “Have you had any luck with the cattle?”
Romero studied Benedict for a silent moment before answering.
“We have recovered half the herd, but the rest, they have just vanished.”
“Vanished, Romero?” said Benedict. “The way those other beeves vanished?”
“It would seem so.”
Benedict frowned and looked back the way they’d come. “You mean they disappeared somewhere along the basin?”
“Yes.”
“But how? Brenda and I followed your tracks along the river. I didn’t see anything along the cliffs other than a few caves. There were no canyons or passes that cattle could be driven through.”
“That’s right, Juan,” said the girl. “How could the cattle possibly disappear in the basin?”
“I do not know.”
Benedict questioned Romero for some time, but the ramrod was unable to shed any further light on the mystery of the vanishing herd. Then the cowboys approached driving the remainder of the cattle and Romero said,
“It is time to return to the homestead. We can talk further this evening if you wish, Señor Benedict.”
Benedict nodded in silent agreement, a puzzled frown creasing his brows. As they fell in with the herd, he saw Brazos riding slouched in the saddle flicking little river pebbles down to bounce off Bullpup’s iron skull. Their glances met briefly and Brazos gave an imperceptible shrug to suggest he was as much in the dark as everybody else.
Duke Benedict was pensive and thoughtful as he lit an expensive cigar. If Brazos hadn’t been able to figure out what had happened from the sign, then they had a real mystery on their hands.
They crossed the river and followed the herd down Sweetwater Basin. The dull thudding of the hooves bounced off the ancient stones, the river growled deep in its bottom. The sun rapidly lost territory in the western sky as they rode, finally sinking in a spectacular burst of gold and crimson.
Benedict and Brazos rode level on opposite sides of the herd about a hundred yards behind Juan Romero and Brenda Kendrick. And despite his concentration on the empty walls of the basin, Brazos couldn’t help noticing how the girl frequently turned in the saddle to look back at Benedict.
Juan Romero noticed it too.
The door opened and Slim Samson came in looking tense.
“Bo, Arrillaga’s just rode into town. He’s got Drago and about a dozen of his hard cases with him.”
The man who turned from the broken window of the hovel on the edge of Mescalero was about thirty, but appeared much older because of the treachery asleep in his green eyes and the etched lines of cruelty cutting the corners of his mouth. His hat lay carelessly on the extreme back edge of coarse black hair that grew like a mane and was chopped off square at the shirt collar. He was tall, with a narrow, flat middle, heavy sloping shoulders, and a deep voice that, even when he spoke softly, trembled the dust motes in the still air of the room.
“Relax, Slim, no need to get all in a twist. We’re just goin’ to parley with him.”
“I got me a hunch he means to try and beat us down on price, Bo.”
Rangle crossed the room. He walked like a man with more savage energy than he could ever burn up.
“That’s on the cards. Our companero Arrillaga knows we’re relyin’ on him to take the Antigua beeves off our hands, so he’ll mebbe try offerin’ us even less than he did last night.”
“But hell, Bo, that ain’t no good. We took plenty risks liftin’ that herd we got out on the flats. Five dollars is lousy enough, but any less and it ain’t worth the trouble stealin’ ’em.”
“You worry too much. He needs us as much as we need him. C’mon, let’s go see Señor Arrillaga and find out where he stands first.”
They quit the room and headed up the street for Lobato’s cantina where a bunch of Mexican ponies were racked out front. Slim Samson was forced to half-trot to keep up with Rangle’s lunging strides.
Bo Rangle’s expression was pensive as he walked thinking about Arrillaga. When Rangle had first come in on the Antigua rustling deal, Lobato the saloonkeeper had been agent for the stolen beeves. When Arrillaga had moved in and shouldered Lobato out, Rangle hadn’t cared one way or the other. Now Arrillaga was getting greedy—and that was different.
They found Virgil Arrillaga seated at a table with his back to the wall in the cantina, flanked by scummy-looking Mexes weighed down with big rusty guns, and enough knives to open a cutlery business. Drago, Arrillaga’s beanpole, hawk-faced bodyguard, stood by the bar with his evil, muddy-colored eyes flickering around like a dangerous dog. Lobato, the cantina owner with ambition, was behind the bar with his hands out of sight. Some ten or twelve hard-looking local riff-raff were seated about drinking tequila and saying nothing.
Bo Rangle walked directly up to Arrillaga’s table and grinned.
“Right on time, Virgil.”
“Ah, my companero, Bo,” the Mexican said expansively. “Drago, fetch a glass of good wine for Señor Rangle.” He pulled out a chair. “Come, my friend, be seated and let us discuss our affairs like gentlemen in comfort.”
Everybody relaxed as Rangle sat down, grinning, as friendly as hell. Last night when Arrillaga and Rangle had failed to come to terms on a price for the stolen stock, Bo Rangle had left in an angry mood, but tonight he was a different man.
“To your very good health, Virgil,” Rangle said when the scowling Drago fetched his drink.
“And to good business,” Arrillaga responded, lifting his glass. He took a sip of his wine, then said, “Well, Bo, you have considered my offer?”
“Sure have.”
“And?”
“Well, you said you might come up with a new price by tonight, Virgil. Let’s have it.”
Arrillaga smiled like a big ugly cat. He was half-Mex, part Apache with a dash of Negro and a touch of Chinese. He was a man of various talents, all of them bad.
“Three dollars a head.”
Bo Rangle nodded his head and smiled. Yesterday it had been five bucks. The beeves were worth at least twenty.
“Okay, Arrillaga, you’re the boss.”
Arrillaga’s smile spread ear-to-ear as he looked across at Drago. He fished out a roll of greasy bills, and for a moment every hungry eye in the cantina was focused on more money than most of them would earn in a lifetime.
In that moment Rangle moved with the ferocious speed of an attacking jaguar. A knife flashed as he leapt behind Arrillaga, clutched him over the face with his left hand, reefed his head back with a savage wrench and put the first tenth of an inch of the steel in his drum-taut neck.
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
“All right,” Rangle hissed, “tell ’em to shuck their guns.”
Arrillaga didn’t cry out in terror or rage. His body was flaccid in Rangle’s iron grip. His yellow face was stretched into hideous distortion. A rivulet of vivid red blood ran slowly down his stretched neck, his eyes bulging.
He could hardly whisper. “Thees one beeg mistake, my frien’. But do as he say.”
The men hesitated, but only until Lobato came up with his shotgun.
“You heard him, companeros!”
It was the signal for Lobato’s men to haul iron and get to their feet and a gaping Slim Samson realized that Bo and Lobato had planned the whole thing.
Unsteady fingers tugged out six-guns and dropped them noisily to the floor. Drago hesitated, his muddy eyes blazing with a rage that shook his lean frame head to foot.
“Tell him,” Bo Rangle whispered in Arrillaga’s ear, the bass voice vibrating. “Tell him to get shook of his gun or I’ll kill you.”
Arrillaga licked ashen lips with a pointed pink tongue, his face now sheened with sickly sweat.
“Do as he says, Drago.”
Drago twitched with venom, but pulled his gun and placed it on the bar. Bo Rangle, with a devil’s grin, rammed his knee in Arrillaga’s back and cut Arrillaga’s tight, yellow throat right across and all the way to the bone.
Arrillaga got off just one scream as the vivid stream of life gushed forth. Rangle snaked the man’s gun from his holster, let the twitching body flop down, and shot Drago straight between the eyes.
The cantina went still as a morgue as Drago’s body stopped twitching. His face wearing a savage look that Samson knew only too well, Bo Rangle waved his smoking gun.
“Okay, gents, let’s parley.” The gun froze on a hulking badman with walrus moustaches like a bull’s horns. “Sanchez, I guess you’re number one now Virgil and Drago have kind of resigned.”
The big man licked dry lips and nodded. “Si ... I suppose that is so.”
“Right, then this is the new deal. You, Lobato and me, we all work in together. I steal the beeves, you sell ’em in Mexico and Lobato does the organisin’ here like he done afore Arrillaga horned in. Lobato gets a ten per cent cut off top and I get fifty. That’s sixty per cent, and you get the rest. How’s that hit you, companero?”
Sanchez looked at Arrillaga. Then he looked at Drago. Finally his calculating eye came to rest on Bo Rangle and there was only one answer a sane man could give.
“I theenk we work well together, Señor Rangle. It is as you say, a deal.”
“Figured you’d see things my way,” Rangle said and winked at a relieved Samson. He picked up Arrillaga’s blood-stained roll and stepped over the corpse and went to the bar. “Okay, get rid of the dead meat, and let’s have a drink. Come on, Lobato, look sharp, this is a big day.”
Lobato laughed to relieve his own tension and reached for a bottle of his best.
“We did it, companero!” he exulted. “We did it!”
“Sure, sure. But now you’re back in the box seat here, I expect you to handle your end right, fat boy.”
“Of course, you can rely on Lobato. There will be as you say, many more cattle?”
“Any amount.”
“All from Rancho Antigua?”
“Keerect.”
“When can we expect the next delivery?”
“Well, now we’ve straightened things out here, I’ll be pullin’ out for the north at first light. A day’s hard ridin’ll get me there. The beeves will be waitin’ for me, so I’ll be headin’ straight ba
ck. I guess about next Wednesday you can start lookin’ for us.”
“You say the cattle will be waiting? You mean they’ve already been stolen?”
“Dead right eh, Slim?”
Samson nodded at Rangle’s elbow. “Right sure enough, Bo. We’re what you call organized, Lobato.”
Lobato smiled in wonderment at gringo efficiency, then stopped smiling when he got a look at Arrillaga’s throat as they packed him out. A tremor of apprehension went over the man as he looked sideways at his new “partner” who was whistling a tune in perfect time to the lolling of Arrillaga’s almost severed head.
Lobato poured himself a treble tequila.
On the day following the rustling at the east graze, Duke Benedict came out to Rancho Antigua to take another look around. Nathan Kendrick gave him permission to borrow Hank Brazos when Benedict told him he’d been impressed by the man’s sign-reading ability, and the two spent the day going over the east graze, Sweetwater Basin, the Slave River, and the arroyo where some of the beeves had been recovered.
They found nothing.
That night, Kendrick invited the “insurance man” to dine with them at the great house. Kendrick still liked the idea of Brenda and Benedict, and was pleased to see them getting along so well together. But he was in a heavy mood that evening despite Benedict’s entertaining conversation. He was deeply concerned about the latest attack on his herds.
Juan Romero was deeply concerned as well, or at least the ramrod who’d been invited to dine with them, was in a heavier mood than Kendrick had ever seen him. Romero barely spoke during the long meal, and later when Brenda played the piano and sang for them, he just stood by the hearth with his arms folded, his eyes flicking from Brenda to Benedict and speaking only when spoken to.
It wasn’t until after Benedict had entertained them with a completely professional rendition of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and a maid-servant brought in coffee, that Kendrick guided the conversation back to what they’d been discussing over the meal and asked Benedict what he planned to do next.
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