Range War (9781101559215)

by Cherryh, C. J.

  “As we wish to be,” Constanza said, and motioned. “Your ten minutes are about up.”

  “Hell of a start to a day,” Fargo said, and headed south.

  He hadn’t gone twenty yards when he passed the fresh graves.

  39

  Fargo missed not having coffee. He could go without food but he liked to start his mornings with three or four piping hot cups.

  He had ridden about a mile when his craving got the better of him. Reining into the timber, he climbed to a flat spot and dismounted. He gathered downed limbs and broke them and used his fire steel and flint to kindle a fire. Once the flames were high enough, he emptied half his canteen into his coffeepot and unwrapped his coffee grounds.

  Soon a familiar pleasant aroma heightened his craving.

  There was an old saying to the effect that a watched pot never boiled but he was watching his and he was pleased when he finally held his battered tin cup in both hands and sipped. He didn’t need sugar or milk. The coffee alone sufficed.

  Rosy sunlight had spread over Hermanos Valley. It belied the dark underbelly.

  Fargo was on his second cup when he sensed someone or something was behind him. He started to draw and turn but a muzzle was thrust practically in his face. Staring into the Hawken, he smiled and said, “Morning.”

  “Your smoke gave you away,” Igmar Rolf said.

  Fargo scanned the vegetation. “Where are your pets? I didn’t think you went anywhere without them.”

  “I don’t,” Rolf said.

  “I’d like to see them,” Fargo said as casually as if he were making small talk with a friend. “And find out why you hate the Bar T so much.”

  Rolf came around and hunkered, careful to stay out of reach. “How did you know?”

  “You and your pets showed up about the same time they did. Either you were working with them or you were after them.”

  “I’m out to ruin Ben Trask. I wanted my pets to only kill his cows but they’d rather kill sheep.”

  “And ten-year-old girls,” Fargo said.

  “That was an accident.”

  “They’re your animals. It’s on your shoulders.”

  “You might be surprised to hear I accept the blame.”

  “Damned decent of you.”

  “Spare me your spite,” Rolf said. “If you knew my story, you’d be on my side.”

  “Tell me about Antelope Springs,” Fargo prompted, and drank more coffee to give the impression he was content to talk and nothing else.

  “Why should I?”

  “I’m curious what Trask did,” Fargo said. “What could drive a man to do what you’re doing?”

  Rolf was quiet awhile. Finally he said, “A hundred miles or so southeast of here is a small valley. A lot like this one. There’s plenty of grass and a lot of woodland and a couple of springs. Hence, Antelope Springs.” His face clouded with emotion. “It was my valley, Fargo. I was there long before other whites, and I’d lived there for nigh on thirty years. Then one day Mr. Benjamin Trask showed up. He was always on the lookout for new graze, he said, and he intended to make Antelope Springs his.”

  “The same as here. What did you say?”

  “I told him to go to hell and take his cows with him.”

  “He’s not the tail-tucking kind,” Fargo said.

  “I found that out a month later. Him and his hands struck in the middle of the night. They threw torches on our cabin. I shot a few and then a beam fell on my Martha.”

  “That’s how you lost your wife?”

  Rolf didn’t seem to hear him. “It made me half crazy and I ran outside and they shot me.”

  “You’re lucky to be breathing.”

  “Luck, hell,” Rolf spat. “Six or seven of ’em put lead into me. They thought I was dead. They burned my cabin and shot my mule and tore down my corral and left me lyin’ there in a pool of blood.”

  “Damn,” Fargo said.

  “So now you know.”

  “Not all of it. It’s taken you awhile to come after them.”

  “I crawled off into the hills and laid low. Took me more than a year to heal to where I could walk without a crutch. I wasn’t thinkin’ about revenge then. I wasn’t thinkin’ about anythin’ except how much I missed Martha. I took to drinkin’ and not carin’.”

  “What brought you out of it?”

  Rolf’s lips quirked in a strange smile. “A wolf.”

  “The tracks I’ve seen, the animal I saw, isn’t a wolf,” Fargo said.

  Rolf idly tugged at his beard. “I reckon I might as well tell you the rest. It was a wolf pup. The ma got shot. Not by me. Probably a hunter. When I found them, the pup was lyin’ next to the body, whimperin’. I took it in and cared for it. It was a female and I named her Martha after my wife.”

  Fargo rested his elbows on his knees. He was all interest.

  “Not long after, I went to a settlement for supplies. A man had a litter of pups he was givin’ away. I don’t know what made me do it but I took one, a male. Called him Caleb. He and Martha ran together, played together, ate together. She was about two years old when it happened.”

  “She had pups of her own and Caleb was the father,” Fargo said.

  Igmar Rolf nodded. “I didn’t know wolves and dogs could breed together. Guess you’d call the mix a mongrel but they were nothin’ like their ma or their pa. They were god-awful big, and god-awful mean.”

  “How many in the litter?”

  “Five.”

  “You’ve got two with you,” Fargo noted. “What happened to the rest?”

  “One was bit by a rattler and died when it wasn’t but six months old. Another got kicked by one of my mules when it nipped at her legs and had its head stove in. The third went off one day and never came back. That left Goliath and Esther.” Rolf gazed past him. “Their names are from the Bible. I can’t read a lick but Martha could. She’d read from it every evenin’.”

  “I sure would like to see them,” Fargo said.

  Rolf grinned. “Then turn around.”

  Fargo started to—and from behind him came a menacing growl.

  40

  “Do it slow,” Igmar Rolf said, “or you might get your head bit off.”

  The thing was huge. A mix of wolf and dog traits but twice the size of any wolf or dog that ever lived, its eyes blazed with feral intelligence and its lips were drawn back to bare slavering fangs. Its thick legs, its protuberant muscles, added to its bulk and the impression of raw ferocity.

  Behind it and to one side was a slightly smaller version, not as bulky, and shaggier.

  “Meet Goliath and Esther,” Rolf introduced them.

  Fargo smiled at the big one and it growled. “Not all that friendly, are they?”

  “The only human they’ll come anywhere near is me.”

  Fargo stared into Goliath’s piercing eyes and imagined those fangs ripping the throat out of ten-year-old Angelita.

  “And you can’t control them all that well.”

  “No,” Rolf admitted. “It’s as I told you. I wanted them to only kill the cowboys and Trask’s cows but they do as they please. And it seems like they enjoy killin’ sheep more.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “I’m out to get the son of a bitch who killed my wife. Nothin’ else matters.”

  Goliath suddenly took a step closer, his hackles rising.

  Fargo’s right hand was inches from his Colt. He might be able to get off a shot; he might not.

  “Down, boy,” Rolf said. “Leave him be.”

  Goliath crouched as if to spring.

  “See what I mean?” Rolf said. Rising, he stepped around Fargo and placed his hand on the wolf dog’s neck. “I won’t let him hurt you provided you give me your word.”

  “About what?”

  “I have nothin’ against you, mister,” Rolf said. “It’s Trask I’m after. So if you give me your word that you’ll light a shuck and never come back, you’re free to go.”
<
br />   Fargo thought of Delicia and Yoana. “What about the sheepherders?”

  “What are they to you?”

  “How many of them will your pets kill before this is over?”

  “How can I predict?” Rolf shrugged. “They are half wild, after all.”

  “Then I’m not going anywhere,” Fargo said.

  Rolf sighed. “I gave you credit for more sense.”

  Fargo had made up his mind. He didn’t give a damn about Trask and hardly gave a damn about any of the sheepherders except for Delicia but he couldn’t let any more little girls be killed. He was confident he could draw and put a slug into the old mountain man before Rolf could fire but shooting him wouldn’t solve the worse problem of the wolf dogs. Without their master, they’d likely wander all over, killing as they went. There was no telling how many folks they’d rip apart. So the way he saw it, he had to put an end to them—right here and now.

  Accordingly, Fargo set down his tin cup and made as if to reach for the coffeepot to refill it but as his hand rose he filled it with the Colt and pivoted on his boot heels toward Goliath and Esther.

  Rolf was more alert than he counted on, and saw him draw. “At him!” he bawled, pointing.

  It was the command to attack.

  Fargo didn’t quite have the Colt level when Goliath sprang.

  Those slavering jaws snapped at his face even as the brute’s heavy body slammed into his chest. Fargo was knocked onto his back with the giant wolf dog on top of him. He rammed his left forearm against the animal’s throat but it had no effect.

  Again Goliath snapped at him, and he shot it.

  Goliath howled and bounded back.

  Esther crouched to leap at him.

  Scrambling to his knees, Fargo took aim to be sure and paid for the moment’s delay with an explosion of pain in the side of his head. The world spun and he pitched forward. He experienced a fleeting instant of dread in which he imagined the wolf dogs tearing into him while he was helpless, and then the bright sunlight blinked to black. He wasn’t out long, though. He opened his eyes and heard crashing in the undergrowth and Rolf bellowing at the top of his lungs.

  “Goliath! Come back! Heel, boy! Come to me!”

  Fargo lurched to his feet, stumbled to the Ovaro, and yanked the Henry from the scabbard. He needed to go after them but his legs wouldn’t work. He managed a few halting steps and stopped to let his head clear.

  He was lucky Rolf hadn’t finished him off. The mountain man had gone off after his pet and the other one had gone with him.

  Scarlet drops led into the trees, so he knew he’d hit Goliath. The question was, would it kill him?

  Fargo tested his legs, raising and lowering first one and then the other. He was about to plunge into the woods when he stopped short and blurted, “What the hell am I doing?” Quickly, he climbed on the Ovaro and went in pursuit. The crashing had faded and Rolf had stopped shouting. He rode in the direction he thought they had gone but after fifty yards, he stopped. He hadn’t come across a single track. Reining to the north, he commenced a search. Every minute of delay increased their chances of getting away, and after fifteen minutes he was forced to admit they had.

  Fargo returned to the fire. He hated to let good coffee go to waste but he upended the pot and doused the flames. Winding down to the valley floor, he wheeled the stallion to the south.

  It was a long ride to the far end of the valley but he was spared from having to go that far. He was about halfway there when he galloped around a bend and nearly rode into hundreds of grazing cows.

  Fargo drew rein. The cows were being pushed north by Bar T hands. The point riders and two of the swing riders spotted him and converged.

  Griff Wexler was one of the point riders. The swing riders were Billy-Bob and Hank.

  Griff drew rein and demanded, “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  “I need to talk to your boss.”

  “You’ve got your nerve after what you did to Shorty.”

  “He was on the prod,” Fargo said, and looked at Billy-Bob and Hank, surprised they hadn’t explained the shooting to Trask and the rest of the hands.

  “I wish you hadn’t of come,” Billy-Bob said.

  “Mr. Trask is powerful mad at you,” Hank remarked.

  “I have to see him,” Fargo said. “It’s important.”

  “Oh, we’ll take you to him, all right,” Griff Wexler said. “But you’re goin’ to wish we hadn’t.”

  41

  Ben Trask wasn’t one of those ranchers who let their hands do all the work. He was riding flank.

  As Fargo was escorted around the herd, other cowboys joined them, so that by the time they reached Trask, he was surrounded by eleven punchers.

  Trask leaned on his saddle horn and waited. His expression didn’t give anything away. But the first words out of his mouth did. “I should thank you, scout. You’ve spared me the trouble of huntin’ you down.”

  “If it’s about Shorty—” Fargo started to say.

  “I warned you,” Trask said. “No one hurts my men except they answer to me. Hurt one, and you get hurt. Kill one, and you’re as good as dead.”

  “Damn it, Trask. Listen.”

  “I’m through listenin’ to you, mister. You and your talk about bein’ reasonable, about lettin’ those mutton lovers share the valley with us. And then you go and shoot one of my hands.”

  “He was trying to shoot me.”

  “So Billy-Bob and Hank told me. But Shorty was under orders not to cause trouble and that boy always did exactly what I told him. No, you shot him to protect the worst of the sheepmen, that Carlos.”

  Fargo was losing his patience and his temper. “I shot Carlos, too.”

  “What?”

  “He killed Porfiro and I killed him and now the sheepherders don’t want anything to do with me.”

  “Carlos is dead?” Billy-Bob said, and laughed. “I reckon it couldn’t happen to a nicer feller.”

  “Amen to that,” Hank said. “If I wasn’t so peaceable by nature, I’d have shot him my own self.”

  Trask hadn’t taken his eyes off Fargo. “It doesn’t change anythin’. You still have to answer for Shorty.”

  “And you have to answer for Antelope Springs.”

  Ben Trask stiffened. So did Griff Wexler and several of his punchers. They all looked at one another.

  “What’s Antelope Springs, boss?” Billy-Bob asked.

  “It was before you hired on,” Trask said gruffly. Abruptly reining away, he snapped over his shoulder, “Fargo, you come with me. We need to talk.”

  “I should go too,” Griff said.

  “No. Keep drivin’ the herd. We’re not stoppin’ until this whole valley is our graze.”

  Fargo followed, his hand on his Colt. If the rancher went for his revolver, there’d be another body to bury.

  Trask rode to the tree line, swung around so his back was to the forest, and drew rein. Taking a crumpled bandanna from a pocket, he moped at the sweat on his face and said thickly, “All right. How in hell do you know about Antelope Springs? More to the point, what do you know?”

  “I know you didn’t learn your lesson,” Fargo said. “You’re doing the same thing here you did there.”

  “So? Antelope Valley has been part of the Bar T for years now.”

  “And has come back to bite you on the ass,” Fargo said. “Igmar Rolf is still alive.”

  The rancher’s amazement was almost comical. “That’s impossible. We shot him to pieces.”

  “Then you admit it? You killed his wife and then you gunned the old man down.”

  “Old man, hell!” Trask practically roared. “He might look old but he’s as spry as you or me. And the most stubborn coot who ever drew breath.” Trask swore luridly. “Is that what he told you? That I was to blame?”

  “You had your men throw torches on their cabin.”

  “To drive him and his wife out. But the son of a bitch wouldn’t come. I could hear his wife yellin
’ at him to throw down his rifle and step out with his hands in the air, like I told him to do, but he refused. He waited until the cabin was fallin’ in on itself, and then he came out with his rifle blazin’. We had to shoot to defend ourselves.”

  “The same with me and Shorty.”

  If Trask heard him, he didn’t give any sign. He had gone on. “I’ll bet that bastard didn’t tell you all of it. How I offered him twice what his homestead was worth but he wouldn’t take it.”

  “A man has a right to live where he wants.”

  “Not when he’s killin’ and eatin’ my beeves, he doesn’t. He was too lazy to go off into the mountains after game and took to eatin’ my cows. Back then my range was near the valley he lived in but I didn’t need it and left him be. Did he tell you that? Did he tell you how my punchers kept findin’ slaughtered cows? I had a suspicion it was him so to stop the killin’ I offered to buy him out and he told me to go to hell.”

  “So you decided to drive him out and his wife died.”

  “As God is my witness,” Trask said solemnly, “I never meant for her to come to harm.”

  Fargo believed him.

  “Now you say he’s back?”

  “And he has two pets,” Fargo revealed. “Part wolf, part dog, and all mean. It’s them we’ve been hearing at night.”

  “Hold on, now,” Trask said. “If Rolf is after me, why have his pets been killin’ the sheepherders and their sheep?”

  “He can’t control them as much as he’d like to.”

  “Oh hell. That sounds like somethin’ that addlepated old bastard would do.”

  “It’s what I came to tell you,” Fargo said, “and to ask you one last time to let the sheepherders alone.”

  “I can’t. The Bar T has grown so much, I need this graze. I’m sorry, but there’s nothin’ you can do.”

  “Yes,” Fargo said, and loosened the Colt in its holster, “there is.”

  Trask’s eyes became twin points of flint. “Are you threat-enin’ me? Because if you are, you’ll find that I don’t kowtow to anyone. I’m not scared of you and I’m not scared of that old buzzard, either.”