by Short, Luke;
Corb’s voice came again, and it was wild with rage. “Rush them, damn you! There’s only five of them!”
Nobody moved closer to the camp, and there was no shooting. Up the creek Corb’s raging voice could be heard cursing out one of his men.
And then someone struck a match in the middle of the camp. It caught, and brush started to burn, and suddenly the whole camp was lighted up. Frank held his breath. Had one of Corb’s men succeeded in getting some brush together and lighting it to provide light for the killing? The riflemen started shooting again then, but Frank could see nothing to shoot at except the wagon.
And then suddenly, from behind him downstream and from behind the east ridge, a savage firing broke out. And Frank had it then.
Red and the crew had crawled out the gap on the west ridge, leaving one man to light the fire. And now his crew had Corb’s killers between themselves and the fire.
A shot ripped the brush behind him, and Frank knew that somebody, Red maybe, had him spotted. As soon as Corb’s crew saw what had happened there was a crashing of brush up the creek. A man streaked over the ridge and dived into the willows, thrashed around in the water heading upcreek. There was a savage fire out in the night. One man who had been across the stream raced through camp. There was a shot from the ridge; he tripped, sprawled and was brought up against the wheel of the chuck wagon and lay still.
The tables were reversed now, and Frank rose out of the brush and yelled: “Drive ’em up the creek, Red!”
Swiftly Frank’s crew beat up the creek, firing ahead of them. But off on the prairie they heard the thunder of running horses, and Frank knew that Corb had escaped with what remained of his crew.
One by one the crew drifted back to the fire. Joe Vandermeer had been shot through the arm, and his sleeve was soaked with blood. His teeth chattering, Frank bandaged him. Joe grinned up at him, and Frank smiled back, but that grin did something to Frank. It made up his mind for him.
Red drifted back, declaring that he had found four of Corb’s crew, all dead, and that Samse had better get the wagon hitched to move before Corb brought back reinforcements. Samse turned away to get the horses when Frank rose and called, “Wait a minute, Samse.”
Samse came back to the fire. The others—Mitch, Otey, Red and Joe—looked at him, come alert by the tone of his voice.
Frank said quietly, “I’ve been a damn fool for long enough. I ain’t goin’ to get that lease back for a long time, boys, and when I do it’s goin’ to be with a fightin’ crew. You ain’t gunmen and I ain’t payin’ you gunmen’s wages, so I don’t aim to hold you any more.” He looked at all of them. “Ride out of here for good and you’re welcome to horses and grub, and you can pick up your pay at the Stockman’s Bank in Fort Worth. There’s no strings hangin’ on that offer, and you better take it.”
Samse pulled back his shoulders and looked squarely at Frank. “I’ve done what I could, Frank, and it ain’t much. I hate to do this, but I’m goin’ to take up your offer.”
Otey said quietly, “I’ll stay.”
Red said, “Me too.”
Joe Vandermeer and Mitch didn’t say anything, only looked at Samse and nodded. While Joe and Mitch packed the grub Samse brought in the saddle horses. They shook hands all around, and it was Joe, Samse and Mitch who rode off, heading for Texas and peace.
Frank stirred then and said, “Pull some grub and blankets out of the wagon, Otey. I’m burnin’ it.”
It was a dismal moment, and once the brush was stacked under the wagon and lighted Frank didn’t even look at it. To him, a trail boss and the owner of the herd, the burning of the wagon was a gesture of bitter defeat. It was like selling his saddle. From now on he was just another rider, soon to be on the grub line.
They pulled away from the fire, silent. And then, from down in the brush near the creek, a faint voice called, “Don’t leave me.”
Frank looked at Red, then pulled his horse around, and they went into the brush. They found a man lying there, murmuring something in the darkness. Frank knelt by him and struck a match, and by its flare he saw one of Corb’s crew. The man was shot in the side, and his levis and shirt were soaked with blood.
The rider squinted against the match glare and reached out for Frank’s hand. “Don’t leave me here, Christian. I can’t move,” he pled.
“Corb’ll be back for you,” Frank said tonelessly.
The man gripped his hand harder. “He’s the one that shot me,” he said bitterly. “He’ll let me die.”
Otey said, “That satisfies everybody then, I reckon.”
“You ain’t goin’ to leave me?” the man whined. “Corb’ll come back and put a slug through my head. I wouldn’t rush the camp, so he shot me in the back.”
The match died, and then there was only the distant light from the wagon. The man had hold of Frank’s wrist, his fingers clutching to his last hope.
Frank looked at Red. “Reckon that’s true?”
“I reckon,” Red said, “Corb’d do it.”
Otey said bitterly, “Leave him there, Frank. What the hell do you care? Half an hour ago he was tryin’ to kill you!”
“Put me on a horse!” the man said desperately. “I got to get out of here!”
Frank said, “Can you catch another horse, Red? It don’t look like we could leave him here.”
Minutes later the four of them left the burning wagon and struck out into the night. Frank rode in bleak silence. He had come into this country with a crew, a wagon, a herd, a partner and a shack, expecting to take over a big leased range. There was left to him a scattered herd on range he couldn’t claim, a wounded man he couldn’t let die and two friends who were siding him in a hopeless fight. And, to cap it, he was a wanted man.
Chapter XIII
Beef issue to the Indians came once a week, and its color and excitement brought out most of the whites from the agency and the garrison. Long before daylight the Indians, thousands strong, moved from their camp a mile east of the agency to the slope by the huge issue corrals across the river and a mile or so from the garrison. Presently the cavalry troop from the garrison rode out and took their position on the slope above the corral, and the issue started.
Because the buffalo were gone and the young bucks had no other way to prove their hunting prowess, they hunted the cattle like buffalo. A steer would be turned out of the corral, and a pair of half-naked Cheyennes on their ponies would take after him. The chase might lead across the river or into the very parade ground of the fort before the Indians succeeded in downing the steer, his meager family ration for the week. Afterward the squaws and the children followed him and butchered the beef where it had been killed. There was always tension on this day, for the Indians wanted and needed more food, and the government would not give it to them.
Milabel, having received that morning the permission he desired from Puckett to offer a reward for Frank Christian, dead or alive, drifted out with the garrison crowd to watch the beef issue on the slope. Above the troopers policing the affair was a line of buckboards and buggies and saddle horses, and Milabel rode along the line as if he were looking for somebody.
When he spied Corb in a buckboard with one of his men Milabel pulled over to him.
Corb’s greeting was amiable enough, as one partner to another. Milabel said, “I want to talk to you.”
Corb said to the man beside him, “Drag it, Rob,” and then invited Milabel to share the buckboard seat. This casual meeting between two sworn enemies was remarked by most of the onlookers, but Milabel and Corb were oblivious to their stares.
Milabel pulled out a sack of dust and rolled a smoke with his huge fists and, after lighting it, said, “Puckett says all right.”
“Good,” Corb grunted. “We’ll see the agent after the issue. I’ll put up five hundred of that. We’re partners, ain’t we?”
Milabel nodded and they fell silent. Corb resumed his study of a young puncher he had been watching for the past few minutes. The puncher was alone
, seated cross-legged on the ground, the reins of his horse trailing behind him. He was dressed in ragged clothes, and the expression on his face was proud, a little bit wary and somewhat resentful as he watched the issue.
Corb pointed him out to Milabel and said, “Seen him before?”
Milabel studied him carefully a moment and said, “That’s one of Christian’s crew.”
“I thought so,” Corb murmured. He was remembering last night. He had not seen this puncher around the wagon when he had talked to Frank. And now the kid looked footloose. Corb’s idea suddenly turned to a hunch, and he murmured, “That kid may be worth talkin’ to.”
Milabel looked at him, puzzled.
“I’ll be back,” Corb said. He stepped out of the buckboard and strolled over to where Beach was sitting. He stopped beside him, and Beach looked up at him. Corb nodded coolly and murmured, “No payday, kid?”
Beach said, “What’s it to you?” in a surly voice and looked away.
“Nothin’. You look out at the pants, is all. Christian findin’ it tough to meet his pay roll?”
“Drag it,” Beach said.
Corb chuckled. “Sure. I never rammed money down any man’s throat.” He walked back to the buckboard and sat down again. Below on the slope a wild pair of Cheyenne bucks tried to turn their steer up the slope and into the cavalry troop. They had almost succeeded before a hard-bitten lieutenant, aware that trouble was brewing, pulled out a gun and killed the steer just as it was heading directly for his men. The Indians shouted angrily and shook their fists at the officer, and he laughed at them.
Presently Beach got up and led his horse over closer to Corb’s buckboard. He covertly studied Milabel and Corb, but they ignored him. He kept edging closer to the buckboard, and at last, with an appearance of nonchalance, he drifted over to stand beside Corb.
“Them damn Indians is goin’ to get in trouble,” he observed to Corb, and Corb nodded gravely. He was going to allow a man his pride, and Beach, at that moment, needed his pride pretty badly.
Beach cleared his throat and said softly, “What did you mean over there when you said you wouldn’t ram money down my throat? What money?”
Corb said bluntly, “I changed my mind. Milabel says you’re still workin’ for Christian.”
“I was workin’ for him,” Beach said bitterly. “I ain’t now.”
“Have a tangle?” Corb asked.
Beach sneered. “Got sick of hidin’. I pulled out.”
“Lookin’ for work?”
“Depends.”
Corb shrugged, “Riding’?”
“There ain’t much money in that,” Beach said, watching him closely. “I can get a ridin’ job with a dozen outfits.”
Corb rubbed his hands together and considered Beach closely. “I think you and me are talkin’ about the same thing. Do you want me to say it or do you want to?”
“You say it,” Beach murmured.
“I am goin’ to run Frank Christian out of the Nations or kill him,” Corb said. “It occurs to me that maybe you can help me.”
“I reckon I can,” Beach said. He was remembering Frank’s words to him that morning at the stampede, fighting words. No man was going to get away with calling him a sheepherder’s pup, not any man.
Corb said, “There’ll be a ‘dead or alive’ reward on Christian’s head pretty soon. I’ll help you collect it and give you the men to do it. How does that sound?”
Beach hesitated, now that the proposition was put to him so bluntly. He looked at the pair of them on the buckboard seat. Milabel’s face didn’t bother to hide his contempt, and in Corb’s eyes was a sort of irony that looked to Beach as if it were partly doubt.
He said as casually as he could, “Sounds like money to me.”
“Can you find him?” Corb asked thinly. “Remember, he’s on the dodge now and wild as a deer.”
Beach considered this, dragging the toe of his worn boot through the grass and staring at it. Suddenly his boot ceased moving, and he looked up at Corb. “You ain’t particular where this shoot-up takes place, are you?”
“No. It’ll be legal.”
Beach smiled wickedly. “Sure, I can find him for you.”
Luvie Barnes came out of the sutler’s store at the garrison in midafternoon and nodded to the men on the porch. They tipped their hats to her, and she got her horse at the tie rail, mounted and rode out toward home, a package under her arm. She was halfway down the slope to the river when she heard a horse behind her.
When it pulled alongside her and a voice said, “Afternoon, Miss Barnes,” Luvie turned in her saddle to see Scott Corb riding beside her. Luvie was impressed by Corb, not by his appearance as much as by the memory of her father’s tales of him. She said, “Good afternoon,” with respect.
Corb commented on the weather and gossiped a moment about the garrison, but he was not long in coming to the point, and it was done in an unusually blunt fashion.
“Miss Barnes,” he said finally, “I’m goin’ to tell you some things and I want your opinion of ’em.”
“Of what, Mr. Corb?”
“Last night my riders and myself were held up on Paymaster Creek by two men. A fight resulted, and four of my men are dead this morning. Several days ago a Circle R herd on the north fork was stampeded and a rider shot down in cold blood—by those same two men. It’s got to the place now where no rider is safe in this country with those two men loose.” He looked at Luvie. “You know who those two men are?”
“No,” Luvie said in a small voice.
“Frank Christian and Red Shibe,” Corb said.
“No!” Luvie said quickly. “I don’t believe that!”
“You’ve got to believe it,” Corb said, “because you can’t dodge a fact.”
“And you want my opinion on what?”
“How to catch ’em.”
Luvie shook her head, her blue eyes troubled. “But I haven’t any. How are any criminals caught—if they are criminals?”
“You doubt it?”
“Petty criminals, maybe, and troublemakers. But Frank Christian isn’t a murderer.”
“You know him, then?”
“I’ve—seen him, yes.”
“At your house?”
Luvie looked sharply at him. “Yes. Why are you so interested?”
“Because you’re goin’ to help us catch him,” Corb said.
Luvie pulled her horse up, her face surprised and angry. “I am? Even if I could, I wouldn’t, Mr. Corb! What ever gave you the idea I’d help you?”
“I had a hunch,” Corb said, “that you are more or less interested in your dad stayin’ in the beef-contractin’ business.”
“I am,” Luvie said slowly. Her eyes were frightened, and Corb saw it.
He made a swift gesture of dismissal with his hand. “Miss Barnes, I don’t like to do this. But you’d better know some facts. Frank Christian is trying to kill me, ruin me. He’s committed a dozen crimes that he could be arrested for, and against other people besides me. I have a way with these Indians, and if I give them the word they can make trouble for your dad. And if you don’t want trouble for your dad, then you’ll help me arrest Frank Christian.” He smiled faintly. “It’s not as if I asked you to commit a crime. I’m asking you to help the law.”
“But I don’t know where Frank is.”
“Edith Fairing does. She can find him for you.”
“Then why don’t you go to her?”
“Because,” Corb said, “she won’t do it. And you’ve got to—unless you’re willing to ruin your father.”
Luvie didn’t say anything for a long moment, watching Corb. This is what she had been afraid of since the very first, what she had warned her father against. And now that it was here she felt only an anger against Frank Christian. But much as she hated him, she couldn’t turn him over to the law to be tried for murder.
Corb was shrewd enough so that it wasn’t hard for him to imagine what she was thinking, and he saw it was time for hi
m to act.
“Miss Barnes,” he said gently, “nobody likes to be known as an informer, least of all a lady like you. But let me ask you some questions. Did you know that there are at least a thousand outlaws in the Nations and that most of them are wanted for murder?”
“Yes.”
“And did you know that neither the Indians nor the army nor the agency have made any attempt to bring them to justice?”
“Yes.”
“Then why should the army or the Indians or myself want to bring Frank Christian to trial for murder?”
“But you just said—”
“I said he was guilty of murder,” Corb said flatly. “If he’s caught he won’t be tried for murder. He’ll be tried for whisky peddling. He’ll get out on bond, be tried in Kansas and fined about the price of his bond. There’ll be no mention of murder. We’re only trying to get him out of the way and fine him.” He smiled genially. “Now does that make my blackmail seem pretty reasonable?”
“Are you telling me the truth, Mr. Corb?”
“There’s one way to find out,” Corb said. “Look around you. In the post office, in Murphy’s Hotel. There’s reward dodgers for Christian all over the post and the agency. They want him for jail break, not murder. They’re not ‘dead or alive’ dodgers, Miss Barnes.”
“But they will be if I don’t help you catch him?”
Corb nodded.
“And Dad will have trouble with the Indians if I don’t help you?”
Again Corb nodded. Luvie didn’t say anything, and Corb went on. “I’ve been by your house often. You don’t have a lamp in the front window. The night Frank Christian comes, in answer to the note you send him through Edith Fairing, you put the lamp in the window. I’ll have a man watching. Frank will be arrested then by an army detail. I’ll have a man watching for a week, starting tonight.” He touched his hat and bid her good-by and pulled his horse around.
In Darlington Luvie turned off on the street that Edith Fairing lived on.
