Trouble at the Redstone (Leisure Western)

by John D. Nesbitt

  “Well, that’s good.” After a few seconds, Will added, “Does Blanche keep her under lock and key?”

  “Blanche keeps the lard under lock and key. Or at least under her heavy hand.”

  “Can’t complain about the grub, though.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Will thought for a second. “Those two women don’t go out with the wagon, do they?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Who cooks out on the range?”

  “I do, whether we’re out on roundup or whether we go out there for a few days somewhere.” Calvert turned and gave an amused look. “No one complains then, either.”

  Will smiled. “After the story you told, I’m not afraid.”

  “No reason to be. Even if I do say so myself, when I cook, we eat good.”

  Will reflected again. “Does the boss go out with the wagon?”

  “The old man? He drops in, maybe sleeps one night in the bed wagon. He’s not one to sleep out on the ground or drink his coffee from a can.”

  “Is he gone right now?”

  “No, I think he’s around. You’ll probably see him at supper.”

  A little farther on, the two riders split up, and Will was left to his own thoughts. Riding the range was a natural activity for him, but he wondered if he fell into it too easily, as if by doing something he knew how to do he was letting himself get sidetracked. As he sorted things out, he reinforced the idea that as long as he was here at the Redstone, anything he learned might help him find the missing Al Vetch. And there were things to learn. First off, there was the death of Ben Forrester. The young man got killed for something, and no one seemed anxious to find out why or even to dispose of his personal property.

  A lesser question to ponder was the huffy behavior of Blanche the cook. Will did not expect her to be gracious to a crew of working men, but he didn’t think she should be so brusque, either. The thought occurred to him that she might spend some of her time in private ser vice to Donovan, in which case she might consider herself superior to men of her own class. Will figured he would form a clearer idea of that possibility when he saw the boss in the cook-shack.

  Out on the far end of his ride, Will came across something that caught his interest. In the midst of broad, broken country with deep gashes and large upthrusts, he found where the side of a ridge had been laid open and heaps of rubble lay scattered at the base. Riding closer, he recognized the red-veined tint of the sandstone he had seen back at the ranch. This must be the quarry. Still thinking that he might find Al Vetch facedown in some desolate spot, he rode his horse through the ruins. Aside from tin cans, bottles, and a few odds and ends of rusted broken cable, he saw nothing but discarded rock.

  When he met up with Calvert an hour later and the two of them dismounted for a smoke, Will told him of the place he had found.

  “That’s the quarry, all right. No one’s used it for years. Good place for snakes, accordin’ to Earl.”

  “It must have been a lot of work to cut all that stone and haul it back to the ranch.”

  “I’m sure it was,” said Calvert, stuffing his pipe.

  “That was back when someone had the time and money for that sort of thing.”

  “Not in Donovan’s time, then.”

  “Nah. He’s only been here ten, eleven years. No one has worked that rock pile for over twenty years, I’d say.”

  Will shook his head. “Lotta work.”

  “I’d say. I’m glad I missed it.”

  Will licked his cigarette and tapped the seam. “Always amazes me. No matter how hard the work is, there’s always someone who’ll do it. Layin’ track, buildin’ trestles and stone bridges. Puttin’ up tall buildings in cities. Haulin’ bricks and mixin’ mortar ten stories in the air, mountin’ big blocks of stone on county court houses. Some people must be born and bred to work like ants.”

  “Not me,” said Calvert, passing the match. “This line of work is rough enough, but at least you’re on your own a good part of the time. You can feel the breeze in your face, and when you want to stop for a smoke, you don’t have an Irishman crew boss on your ass.”

  “Did you ever work on the railroad?”

  “No, but I worked on a ditch crew, breathin’ dust down where there wasn’t a breath of air.” Calvert puffed out a cloud of smoke. “The one thing that was interesting was what the dirt looked like down there.”

  “Layers and such.”

  “That’s right. Gives you an idea of your future home. But even that doesn’t hold your interest for long.”

  “I guess not. How long did you work there?”

  “Two days. Then I went to punchin’ cows, and I’ve been doin’ that ever since.”

  Will took a long drag on his cigarette and blew out the smoke. “Sometimes I wonder what I’ll do when I can’t do this anymore.”

  Calvert wrinkled his nose. “I try not to think about that.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you think about it too much, you realize you might not get the chance to do somethin’ else.”

  Will sat on the edge of his bunk as he and the other men waited for the supper bell. Calvert said it was the one meal of the day when Blanche beat the triangle, and Will could see that the men had their routine of killing time until the call came.

  Aden, seated at the table with a cigarette in his mouth, was digging at his left hand with his jack-knife. “Damn sandburs,” he said to Brad Way. “Takes months to get ’em out.”

  Brad gave a nod of agreement, then went back to scraping the tar off a pair of elk ivories.

  Ingram, who sat in a relaxed pose next to the table, said, “It’s a wonder you get sandburs in your hands when you always wear gloves.”

  “I told you at the time,” said Aden petulantly, “it was durin’ fall roundup, and we were brandin’ a few calves that slipped past us earlier. I had my knife out to cut this one big bull calf, so I wasn’t wearing gloves. That son of a bitch had sandburs all up and down the hair on his back legs, and when he started kickin’, I grabbed a leg and got a handful of burs jammed square into me.”

  “Did you get him cut all right?” asked Calvert, who was smoking his pipe and sitting in a chair near the open door.

  “You damn right I did. He bellered and bellered, but he was a steer when he got up.”

  “It’s better to get ’em when they’re small anyway,” said Ingram.

  “Of course it is,” Aden snapped. “But we didn’t have any choice on this one.” He winced as he dug the point of his knife into the heel of his hand. Smoke was curling up in front of his face now, so he took a long drag on the cigarette and squashed the butt end in an empty sardine can.

  Will observed something he had noticed at noontime—the yellow stains on Aden’s right hand. The man no doubt took off his gloves to roll cigarettes and then smoke them, so his twenty or thirty cigarettes a day burned down to a stub between his thumb and first two fingers. All that tobacco probably helped him stay wound up tight.

  “Do you need a magnifying glass?” asked Calvert. “I’ve got one, and some needles, too.”

  Aden stuck his knife in the tabletop and pinched at the heel of his left hand. “Nah. What I need is for these sons of bitches to work their way out. They build a callus around ’em, and you dig out the dead skin, and the sticker’s still down in there. They got a little hook on ’em. All you end up with is pocked-up hands.”

  “Take warnin’, Brad,” said Calvert, pointing his pipe at him. “You get your hands too rough, and the girls won’t let you play titty.”

  Brad smiled. “I’ll be real careful.”

  At that moment the clear ring of the triangle carried in the ranch yard.

  “That’s us, boys,” said Ingram as he stood up.

  No one needed to be told. The men had all risen at once at the sound of the bell, and now they filed out. Calvert waited to go last.

  After the men had taken their places at the table but before any food arrived, another man came in through the door
. Will took him to be the boss, Donovan. He was an older man, maybe sixty or a little more, with a full head of gray hair combed to one side. He had a slight forward hunch to his shoulders, which were not broad to begin with. He wore a gray suit of lightweight cloth, a clean white shirt, and a brown gun belt with a white-handled pistol. The gun looked out of place on a man of his build and posture, for he was soft-bellied, and his belt hugged the underside of the white shirt.

  “Here’s Frank,” said Calvert.

  The boss took the seat nearest to the kitchen, gave a nod and a smile to the other men, and said, “I thought the weather was going to cool off a little, but it doesn’t seem to want to.”

  No one answered. Will, sitting across the table and over one seat, observed the man’s face as the smile faded. Donovan was clean shaven, with sagging cheeks and a wattled, wrinkled neck. Will couldn’t resist the impression that the pale face resembled a plucked Christmas goose, even unto the fleshy nose, which with its large pores looked like the goose’s tailpiece where the feathers had been pulled out.

  Donovan reached into his coat pocket and brought out a pair of thick spectacles and a folded piece of paper. He put on the glasses, which magnified his blue eyes, and unfolded the paper. With his head raised and his lips pressed together, he scanned the sheet and then set it on the table between him and In-gram, who sat at his right.

  “Here,” he said, pointing with his index finger. “Do you recognize this parcel?”

  “What’s this, a land auction?”

  “Correct.”

  Ingram frowned at the printed sheet. “No, I don’t recognize it from the description. Wouldn’t know if it’s any good.”

  Donovan resumed his close-mouthed impression, then took off his spectacles and put them in his pocket along with the refolded paper.

  Ingram glanced at Will, and when the boss had smoothed out his jacket, the foreman said, “Frank, this is our new man, Will Dryden. A good all-around hand.”

  Will rose halfway and held out his hand, and Donovan did the same. Will felt the soft hand give under his grasp, and then the two men drew apart and sat down.

  Donovan smiled blandly. “I always say, a ranch is no better than the men that work for it. And I learned a long time ago that the best way for me, at least, is to let a foreman take care of the operations. Able men like yourself don’t need me to tell ’em how to do their job.”

  Will hesitated, not sure what to say after these two separate bits of praise from men who hardly knew him.

  Calvert, who was passing out plates and forks, spoke up. “He’s a good ’un. He rode two different horses today, and I didn’t see him fall off once.”

  “They were both dog gentle,” said Will. “Give me another chance tomorrow.”

  Donovan let out a little laugh. “Sounds like you’re goin’ to fit in just fine.”

  The talk came to an end as Blanche came in with a rush, hefting a platter of fried beefsteak in each hand. From the way she set the meat down and was gone as quickly as she had come, Will did not detect any notice between her and the boss.

  Donovan, like the other men, had taken out his own knife and opened it. As Ingram served him a steak, he looked down at it as if he was wondering whether to buy it. His lips were pressed together as before, and beneath his sagging face there lurked an underlying hardness. Will thought the expression made quite a contrast with the easy smile and simpering comments of a moment earlier.

  Blanche came back with the pot of leftover beans, then made a quick return with two tin plates of fresh biscuits. Again the boss paid no attention, while Blanche remained aloof as always, as if she were feeding prisoners of war.

  Supper got under way, and for a few minutes no one spoke. Then the foreman, resting his knife and fork, said, “Good grub.”

  “It sure is,” said Donovan. “I wonder if we shouldn’t have some coffee.” With his voice raised a notch, he said, “Where’s Pearl?”

  The dark-haired girl appeared at the kitchen doorway, in a posture of waiting for the boss’s order.

  “How about some coffee, girl?”

  She disappeared and a few seconds later emerged with the coffeepot. She stood a couple of feet from Donovan’s elbow, turned over a cup, and poured his coffee.

  “Thanks, Pearl,” he said with an upward glance and smile. Then as she stood there, as if waiting to be dismissed, the boss turned to Will. “When I said earlier that a ranch was no better than the men who worked there, I meant the women, too. You can’t go wrong if you leave the kitchen in the hands of a woman or two. Not that men aren’t good cooks, of course. We’re just lucky here at the Redstone.” He turned again to Pearl, who stood with a wincing smile. “That’s fine,” he said.

  She set down the coffeepot and turned away. Donovan’s gray head turned, and he watched her until she disappeared into the kitchen; then with the rigid cast to his face, he returned to his meal.

  Earl Ingram broke the silence as he spoke to Will. “You’ll see the truth of what Frank said about men being good cooks.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yep. We’ll be goin’ out for a couple of days, and when we’re out on the range, Jim’s the cook.”

  “And a good one,” chimed in the boss.

  Aden spoke without looking up. “When will that be?”

  Ingram paused with a piece of steak on the tip of his fork. “Either tomorrow or the next day, dependin’ on what Frank wants.”

  Will looked at the boss, who was chewing with his chin tucked down. Either Donovan didn’t really let the foreman run things, or Ingram liked to defer to the boss when he was around. As for Donovan himself, he seemed to have let his thoughts wander somewhere else—maybe to the kitchen girl, Will thought, or to the land auction, or to places a hired man would never guess at.

  Chapter Five

  Will took his place with the other riders as Ingram led the little party out of the ranch yard the next morning. The foreman had given the orders as he wound his watch after breakfast, so Will helped Calvert pack a camp outfit of provisions and utensils. Each man tied a bedroll onto the back of his saddle, and then Brad Way held the pack horse while Will and Calvert tied on the packs. The sun had cleared the hills in the east and was casting long shadows as the group moved out onto the trail.

  Ingram had his usual air of command and self-assurance as he rode along with a toothpick in his mouth. He wore his brown wool vest as usual, plus a pair of snug-fitting brown leather gloves. In addition, now that he was out and away from the buildings, he wore a dark gun belt with a dark-handled Colt .45 in view. Will had noticed that Ingram tended to give orders on short notice, which was a common method of maintaining authority; now, as the foreman sat with his head raised in an almost-jaunty pose, he gave the impression that he was pleased with himself.

  Off to the foreman’s left and half a length back, the sullen Max Aden seemed to be wrapped up in his own form of self-satisfaction. He was decked out in his usual large-brimmed hat, denim jacket, large neckerchief, and prominent six-gun. His broad leather chaps went along with the tapaderos on his stirrups to suggest that he was accustomed to working in southern brush country. Then, as a finishing touch to his outfit, Aden wore a pair of buckskin gloves, tanned almost white, with long narrow gauntlet cuffs trimmed in short fringe and decorated with red and blue glass beads. As Will saw the gloves for the first time, he could imagine why Ingram had found them worth mentioning.

  Next in line behind Ingram and Aden, Will rode next to Brad Way. Behind them, Jim Calvert led the pack horse. Each man had only one saddle horse for this excursion, which meant there wouldn’t be much hard riding. As Ingram had sketched out the plan, the men would make a broad sweep of the country where they had been riding out each day. By the foreman’s estimate, there were about a dozen mama cows out there with unbranded calves—enough to make this job worthwhile. The men would gather what they could the first day, spend one night out, and bring in the whole bunch the next day.

  Calvert split off from the
other riders and headed west, where he would have a noonday camp waiting. The other four went south for a couple of miles until Ingram split them. He sent Aden and Way southwest, while he and Will went almost due west. They were all to meet up with Jim Calvert at Popper Spring.

  Will knew Donovan’s two brands quite well by now—the Rafter Six and the Lazy P-Bar—and he knew where Popper Spring was located, so when the time came to split up with Ingram, he rode off into the broken country without much worry.

  As he had done on his earlier rides, he kept an eye out for anything unusual, but the vast, quiet country seemed all in order. Cattle grazed in small bunches, and he saw no sign of anyone having herded cattle, driven horses, made an out-of-the-way dry camp, or anything of that nature. As the sun climbed in the sky, a haze and a drowse hung over the rangeland. He picked up a Rafter Six cow with a bull calf and pushed them along ahead of him, so the day slowed down even more.

  Ingram and Calvert were sitting in the narrow shade of a box elder tree when Will brought the cow and calf into the meeting place at Popper Spring. He let his horse drink at the water hole, then led him away and picketed him as the wary cow came in. Will sat on the ground with the other two men.

  “One pair, huh?” said the foreman. “I didn’t find anything. We’ll see what the other boys bring in.”

  “Here’s grub,” said Calvert. He lifted a white flour sack to uncover a tin plate of biscuits and another of sliced beef, a simple meal sitting on the dry grass.

  As Will had helped Calvert pack the food, he knew it had been cooked earlier and would be cold and dry now. He also noticed that Calvert had not made a fire, so the coffeepot hadn’t come out of the pack. Still, food was food, and in a lot of places a fellow would have to wait for suppertime to have anything at all.

  “We already ate,” said Calvert. “Dig in.”

  Will saw that the plate of biscuits sat on top of a small stack of plates, so he slipped one out from underneath and served himself.

  When he finished eating, he rolled a cigarette and stretched out to lean on his elbow and enjoy his smoke. He had just gotten comfortable when Aden and Way came into view with two pair.