by Frank Bonham
In Saddler there was a gusty turmoil. It had all happened so fast and so satisfactorily, so much better than he could have hoped. They heard horses running, and squared away for trouble. But it was Troy Cameron and Gil who came in. They checked their mounts beside the old log bridge.
Colonel Edwards slid off his horse. The old man looked really done, Saddler thought—his face pocketed with exhaustion, lips thinned back from long yellow teeth, the white stubble on his chin and cheeks like frost. Numbly chafing his hands together, he stared out over the foothills.
“Man, man, I’ve got the weak trembles for sure,” he panted. “I’ve really got ’em this time.”
“We’d better split up,” Bob Briscoe was saying. “Give them more trails to follow.”
“Split up!” Saddler snorted. “If Gil’s got any chance at all, it’s by all of us staying together.”
“Me!” Gil exclaimed. “Why me?”
“Because they’ll find your horse! And you lost your damned carbine, too. Who do you think they’ll come after?”
“But I never shot that fellow, Mike,” Gil argued. “I was firing at the ground. I just …”
“You jughead,” Saddler said with a sour grin. “You got a ricochet! Next time fire over a man’s head. My God, I’d think you’d know that.”
Saddler did not know for sure who had shot that logger. He did not care. But looking around at the exhausted men, he knew one thing. They were with him now. He had given them a crusade by burning their cabins. He had given Jackson a crusade by raiding the wagons. Jackson could no longer fight Mike Saddler without taking on every man in the Defiances.
What happened now would depend on Jackson. But there was no doubt that he would have to see Gil punished to keep Roth around. And if anything happened to Gil, the war would be on for sure.
“Get aboard, cowboy,” Saddler told Gil shortly. “We’ve got tracks to make.”
Cameron had not spoken since he and Gil pulled in. “Where to?” he asked.
“To camp. We can’t go much farther on these animals.”
“Gil can. He’s riding a fresh one. The rest of us ought to split up to give them more trails to follow.”
“I’d hate like hell,” Saddler scoffed, “to be Gil, and riding Deke Howard’s horse when they caught up.”
“I told Serena to tell them we’d swapped horses. So when they come in sight of me, they’ll think they’re after Gil. That’ll give him time to make it to Frontera.” He looked at Gil for approval. But Gil, biting his lip, only stared at him.
Saddler interposed his cold-jawed will harshly. “What happens in Frontera? Does he stand them off in the Pima Bar?”
“He knows what to do when he gets there.”
“But his friends,” Saddler said sarcastically, “can’t be trusted to know where he is, eh?”
“Fewer that knows,” the colonel snapped, “fewer that’ll spill it. Git ridin’, Becket! Fellers die settin’ still.”
Once more Gil tried to explain how the logger had been shot, but everyone seemed too played out to pay attention to him. Saddler felt fresh and strong and excited. He quirted Gil’s pony, and Gil grabbed the horn and crossed the bridge. Old Colonel Edwards, waving his arm, cried: “Split up, now! But everybody be at the Pima Bar tonight! I’m setting them up for the whole crowd.”
They clattered across the bridge and broke up. As Saddler rode on, he saw Cameron lazily drawing his saddle girth up a notch, and he thought: What a hell of a chance to take for a runt of the litter like Becket. Roth will skin him out like a muskrat if he catches him.
XII
Troy smoked a cigarette as he waited by the bridge. It was very quiet. Camp-robber jays scolded from the junipers. Done in, his pony stood with hung head. He thought glumly of Gil’s sister receiving the news that Gil was on the dodge. It would chill her on the whole territory, and on him particularly for not keeping Gil out of trouble. It concerned him that she should be angry with him. At first he had thought her spoiled and haughty, but he realized that inexperience instead had been her big trouble. She was getting plenty of experience now. Well, she was young, but either she would be a lot older soon or she would break down.
High in the timber above Muddy Creek he heard the horses coming.
Troy threw the cigarette in the stream. Mounted, he waited for them to descend the slope. They stopped and examined the tracks once. When the trail joined the wagon road, they came on rapidly. He waited until he could see them. There were about eight, he figured, coming with drawn rifles down the road. Troy hit his pony with the spurs.
The horse clattered over the bridge and a moment later someone shouted, and then he heard a bullet smack a tree behind him. He put his weight on the stirrups and leaned forward, making it easy on the tired horse, but it ran unevenly. He left the road and crashed through a thicket. Glancing back, he saw Jackson, big and solid on his horse, and Roth riding hatless behind him. A narrow gully opened before him. He gave the pony the spurs and tried to lift it into a jump. He felt the horse gather itself. Then without warning it stopped, forelegs braced, and he smashed into the saddle horn, lost his stirrups, and went over the animal’s head.
He saw the sandy bed of the gully beneath him and was trying to decide whether to cushion his fall with his hands when he landed.
He heard a voice like that of a baying hound. He moved slowly on the sand. With a rush it came back to him. He tried to get up, but he was too hurt to move fast, and, as he crouched there, he saw the horsemen line up, one after the other, on the bank of the gully. Jackson and Roth, Tom Doyle and some other riders. Jackson’s big, square face with his auburn mustaches was stony.
“Damn it,” he said, “it’s Cameron.”
Red Roth, the roany-haired, gristly little woodsman, slid into the gully. He wrenched Troy’s Colt from the holster and thrust it under his belt. Then he twisted Troy’s arm up between his shoulder blades. “Which way, Cameron?” he asked.
Troy slugged at Roth’s face. He hit one of the vein-shot cheek bones, and the man stumbled back. Roth pulled his Colt, but Jackson’s voice came down like a club.
“Red, you damned little grease ant! We’re looking for Becket!”
Roth straightened and spat. “Make him talk, then.”
Troy rose. Jackson began talking hard and forcefully to him. “We’ve got him like a fly in a bottle, Cameron. If he tries to cross the desert or holes up in the mountains, I’ll smoke him out in two days. If he hides in Frontera, I know every back room and alley in that town.”
“What will you guarantee him if he turns himself in?” Troy asked.
“He’ll get a trial. That’s all I’ll guarantee, though.”
“Why, sure,” Roth said, grinning. “I’ve got a white wig I wear when I try bushwhackers. Only trial he’ll get is a high limb and a low horse.”
Jackson scowled. “Shut up, Red. We’ll talk about that when we get him. What about it, mister?” he asked Troy. “Does he turn himself in?”
“Not while Roth’s in the deal. There seems to be a little confusion about guarantees.”
“But there’s no confusion about my finding him,” Jackson retorted. “Red, take him up to where you camped last night. I’ll stay on Becket’s trail and send word back later if I don’t find him. I’ll be taking Frontera apart tonight if I don’t. If you change Mister Cameron’s mind, I’ll be in town.”
After Jackson and his posse left, Roth and a gaunt woodsman with cheek bones like stones tied Troy’s ankles together under his horse and took him back to the road. A mile beyond Sheep Bridge they came to the place where Roth’s outfit had camped. There was a litter of trash and trampled earth here; a few trees had been felled to make a bullpen. Roth sat his buckskin pony beside Troy’s while he looked the area over, humming to himself and twirling the end of a rope.
“Hey!” the gaunt man said. He spoke a language that was more Scandinavian
than English, and Roth called him Swede. “That there barber chair!” Hasty felling had caused a massive splinter to remain standing, high and jagged, like a chair back fixed to the stump. Swede led Troy’s horse to the stump. Looking at the white, saber-like splinters, Troy felt panic. The logger dragged him from the horse. Then he struck him in the face. When he reeled against the stump, Swede threw a rope over him. He slipped behind the stump and the rope went tight.
Roth skeptically picked his teeth. “I hope you aren’t thinking of starvation, because that’s going to take time.”
“Watch,” Swede said. He found a branch two inches thick and snapped it off so that it was about the length of an ax helve. He went behind the stump and the rope tightened as he inserted it under the rope. Troy could see his shadow as he wound the branch around like a lever. The rope tightened like a wire guy in a fence. Troy gasped. Now he understood. Roth smiled with pleased comprehension.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “A persuader. That’s what we’ve got here. Cinch it up some more.”
The rope bit into Troy’s arms and chest so that he had to set his teeth against the pain.
“Where’s Becket?” Roth asked, his filmy blue eyes intent.
“The hell with you,” Troy said.
Roth nodded and the rope tightened. My God, Troy thought, my God, it’s going to cut me in two! The blood was cut off in his arms. When he breathed, the pressure of the rope against his ribs was unbearable.
“Back off,” Roth told his man, and the rope slackened. “Where is he?” Roth asked.
“Would you tell on one of your men?” Troy asked.
“No, but you’re the fella in trouble, not me.”
“All right, find him yourself.”
Roth walked behind the stump and took the branch from the woodsman. He brought it around clock-hand fashion and the rope slapped Troy against the stump with the dead force of a bull hitting the end of a rope. He groaned. He felt his ribs being forced inward and a sharp pain crossed his chest. Roth made a quick bight with the rope, securing the lever, and walked around to peer into Troy’s face. Troy closed his eyes.
“Cigarette?”
Roth seemed to have said it several times. He had rolled and lighted a cigarette and was offering it to Troy. Troy opened his lips. Roth broke the cigarette open and shook the tobacco on the ground.
“I reckon not.” He smiled sadly. “I’ve heard it stunts a fella’s growth. Wouldn’t want to be accused of doin’ that to a man. Swede,” he said, “what time’s it gettin’ to be?”
The logger pulled out a thick watch. “One o’clock.”
“Day’s goin’ fast,” Roth commented. “Let’s take a ride up yonder and see how they’re gettin’ on with the cleanup. We’ll be back in an hour or so,” he told Troy. “Anything you want to say before we go?”
Troy shut his eyes.
XIII
Fran heard the shots while she waited on a hillside near Mike Saddler’s burned cabin. There among the trees it was cold, and she drew into the blanket she was wearing, chilled and frightened. She had not carried the gun to the rocks where she was hiding. She would not have had the wits to fire it even if she needed it.
Again she heard rifles, and then silence, and she prayed for Gil. Her mind was as disordered as an attic. Somewhere she heard a horse. She stood up to look down the long valley, but could not see the rider. Yet she still heard the hooves approaching. Saddler’s cabin was a couple of hundred yards below, just beyond the trees. She hoped it would be Gil—or his friend, Troy Cameron. There was a dependability about Troy, a decency and a respect for others. He had asked her pardon for letting her make a fool of herself, and he seemed to mean it. She wished he were leading the raid against the wagons instead of that man Saddler.
Now she saw a rider come into Saddler’s ranch yard and stop. It was neither Gil nor Troy. It was Serena Jackson. She started down the hill at once. Then she heard the girl calling her name.
“Frances! Frances Becket!”
Fran called back. “Wait for me!”
When she reached the ranch yard, she found Serena standing, looking at the burned cabin. She was really a beautiful girl, Fran thought. She was tiny, with a wonderful figure. Her hair was black and her complexion rich and smooth. Her eyes were gray-green, the color of junipers, and her face was fine, with perhaps just a little of the expression you would expect in the daughter of a wealthy man. Fran did not know what to say. Gil and his friends were out making war on her father at this moment. Did Serena know it?
Serena spoke crisply: “I’m to take you to town, Frances. Troy asked me to see that you got there safely.”
“Troy? Have you seen him this morning?”
“Just a few minutes ago. There was some trouble, and since no one will be able to come back for you …”
“My brother’s been hurt?” Fran said.
“No, but someone else has. Where is your horse?”
“In the trees. Was it Troy?” Fran asked tensely.
Serena studied her with quiet curiosity. “No, it wasn’t Troy,” she said quietly. “Do you really think I’d be up here worrying about you if Troy were hurt?”
Fran felt a blush rising to her throat. “I … I wasn’t thinking.” Then she added: “You haven’t told me what happened.”
“A logger was killed. We’d better be starting,” Serena said impatiently. “Is there some food we can take? We’re going to be late.”
There was a small stone spring house at the side of a little stream that flowed past Saddler’s buildings. “Perhaps in there,” Fran said.
As they walked to the stone hut, Serena said: “I suppose you think my father is terrible for burning the cabins last night.”
“Someone is terrible,” Fran said.
“And of course it must be my father, since he’s so handy to blame.”
“I don’t blame anyone, yet,” Fran told her.
“But when you get around to blaming someone,” Serena said, “of course it will be Big Jim.”
“Miss Jackson,” Fran said desperately, “I never saw the Defiance Mountains until the day before yesterday. I know there’s bad feeling, but how can I form an opinion so quickly? And Troy tells me it can still be worked out.”
“No,” Serena said gravely, “not after today.”
“But if the man who killed the logger is … is tried …”
“Frances,” Serena said quickly, “I didn’t want to tell you this. But they think Gil killed him.”
Fran shut her eyes. She leaned against the spring house. Somehow she had known something like this had happened. “Where is he?”
“He’s on his way to Frontera. He’s to hide in the belfry of the church. He’ll be all right until they can move him. I’m sorry,” she said, “but Troy said I should tell you.”
Fran could not speak. She worked at the latch of the spring house door. Inside, it was redolent of smoked hams and rancid butter. Serena pressed past her and began gathering a few things in her shawl.
“Mister Saddler,” she said, “should churn his butter before the cream goes sour. Heavens.”
Fran was thinking of Gil when he was a boy. He had dreamed more than most and his coming here when he was only twenty-one was scarcely more than a dream. He was no better prepared for ranching in a wilderness than she was.
“Look here!” Serena exclaimed. Fran peered into the gloomy stone hut. “A bullet mold. A clock. Two chairs and a tool chest. Isn’t a spring house an odd place to store things like that?” She came out and stared at Fran. “I declare, he’s put everything he owns in there!”
“But it’s a shelter,” Fran said. “Perhaps he saved them from the fire. No, that couldn’t be.” She remembered what Saddler had said about saving a butter mold and a table.
Serena’s dark-lashed eyes watched her closely.
“So he must have
moved them here before the fire,” Fran concluded. Now she understood what it meant. “Why, if he moved them before the fire, it could have been Saddler who set the fire. Else how would he have known it was coming?”
Serena gazed down the meadow, her eyes bitter. “And because of him a man has been murdered.”
“We must tell Troy,” Fran insisted. “After everyone knows it, it will take the pressure from Gil. They may even find Saddler was guilty of the killing.”
“Yes, it’s nice to think so,” Serena said coolly.
“Miss Jackson,” Fran cried, “I’m trying to be fair! I haven’t told you I’m frightened for Gil because you were the one who picked his hiding place. I haven’t said anything about my brother and his friends being burned out. Can’t you at least be as fair?” Serena smiled. “I haven’t said I resented your traipsing around with my fiancé, either.”
“I haven’t been traipsing around with him,” Fran protested. “Someone had to take me to Gil’s cabin, and Troy was the only one who was there.”
“I know. But I can’t make myself believe it, somehow. That’s the way your mind works when you love someone. You think of all the things you’ve meant to each other, of your kisses …”
“I’ll get my horse,” Fran said, turning away. She was obscurely piqued. It was no business of hers if Troy had kissed Serena. But she didn’t like Serena throwing it up to her. Well, why not? she asked herself. Am I jealous, too? Of a man I scarcely know?
Serena was tying a small parcel of provisions to her saddle. Fran took the carpetbag Troy had had her bring. When she finished tying the roll to her saddle, she saw Serena watching her.
“Are you taking anything along for dress-up occasions?” the girl asked with a suggestion of a smile.
“If you mean that red dress,” Fran flared, “I asked Troy to tell everyone how I really happened to have it. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Yes.” Serena smiled, but her smile said: Who would believe such a tale? “But I thought, in case you needed to impress anyone …”
