Stoner's Crossing

by Judith Pella

  Carolyn sighed, remembering how often her mother had tried to convince her that being a female had its own merits. “The men may seem to have all the fun, Carolyn,” she’d say, “and maybe they get all the glory. But the women are the heart and soul of the frontier. The rooster may crow, Carolyn,” Deborah would grin, “but it’s the hen that delivers the goods. Maybe women are the unsung heroes, but the whole fabric of the West would unravel in a blink without them.”

  Deep in thought, Carolyn didn’t notice the sound of the music getting closer. When she finally began to focus on her surroundings, Matt Gentry was less than fifty yards away.

  “Howdy, Matt,” she said quietly, just loud enough for him to hear, but careful a sharp sound didn’t spook the herd.

  “What’re you doing out here at this hour?” Matt rode up next to her.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Now, I’m not only gonna be in trouble for rustling, but also for tarnishing a lady’s reputation!”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Carolyn. “Besides, my grandfather is sawing logs. I don’t think a stampede would wake him.”

  “So, why are you here, Carolyn?”

  “Told you, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I mean, why’d you join the drive?”

  Carolyn looked out at the herd, reluctant to tell him the truth because it sounded so arrogant, so meddlesome. But since he already must think very little of her after their last meeting, she decided she had nothing to lose by being honest.

  “I felt bad about the other day, Matt. I was hoping I could make up for it somehow, maybe help you some way.”

  “Out here on the drive?”

  “Maybe you don’t realize it, but there’s a reason why you didn’t get fired the other day.”

  “I figured they were keeping me on so as to lead them to the rest of the rustlers.”

  Carolyn nodded. “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “Maybe I can lead them to the rustlers—the real rustlers. Anyway, next time those varmints try to pull something on me, I’m gonna be ready for ’em.”

  “Well, it might help to have someone on your side when that happens in order to back you up and verify your story.”

  “You?”

  “Is there anyone else around willing to take the job?”

  Gentry chuckled, then looked at Carolyn frankly. “I ain’t ever met anyone quite like you, Carolyn.”

  Sean had said almost the same thing to her the other day. Somehow it sounded different when Matt said it, more like a compliment.

  “So, do you plan on nursemaiding me wherever I go?” he asked after a short pause. Then he smiled. “It’s kind of ironic, now that I think on it.”

  “’Cause I’m just a girl?”

  “Naw! Nothing like that. It’s just that…aw, nothing, forget it. I’ll welcome your help, only I don’t want you taking away from what you really came here for. Your ma comes first.”

  “I know that, and I don’t know how I’ll be able to do both. But to tell the truth, I feel pretty helpless where my ma is concerned. Now that she’s got that fancy eastern lawyer, I don’t see where I can do more or better than him.”

  “I can use some help right now, watching over this herd. You ever do that before?”

  “Yeah, we ride in opposite directions in a circle around the herd to catch any strays and to make sure they ain’t getting restless.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.” He lifted his reins, then stopped and added, “It also wouldn’t hurt to look out for…anything unusual out there.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  Nothing “unusual” happened that night. Perhaps the rustlers knew that Matt would be extra wary now that he’d been duped twice before. Carolyn was disappointed, because she had hoped to settle the doubts about Matt once and for all. But there was still one more day and night left of the drive.

  57

  Carolyn slipped into her bedroll that night while everyone was still asleep. She and Matt decided it was best that no one knew she had joined him on his watch. The rustlers would never make a move if they thought he wasn’t alone, so the quieter they could be about it the better. Not to mention the fact that Caleb would have a fit if he knew she was out like that unchaperoned.

  The next day was fine for driving cattle. A stiff breeze diffused some of the summer heat, and coming out of the northwest, it helped keep the clouds of cattle-raised dust out of the drover’s eyes. They bedded the herd down about half a mile from the foot of the ridge Carolyn had noted the night of the storm. It was a notable elevation in that flat country, but she’d learned that’s about where the Texas Hill Country began.

  “We use Buck’s Canyon up there, off and on,” Matt commented, noting the direction of her gaze as she staked out the remuda. “It usually has plenty of good grass. In fact, I don’t know why we ain’t taking this herd up there. We haven’t used it for two seasons, and the grass has got to be better than at Duff’s. The water, too. And it’s closer.”

  “Sean said the grass wasn’t any good there,” said Carolyn.

  “That’s funny. Oh, well, he’s the foreman.”

  This last night of the three-day drive, the men were dog-tired. No one had had a good night’s sleep since it had begun. Caleb, too, was exhausted, for it had been years since he’d been in the saddle so long at a stretch. When Carolyn rode into camp from riding “cocktail,” she met a quiet, glum collection of men. One of the boys played for a while on his harmonica, but no one was interested in singing and he soon gave up. Before long, Matt stood, stretched, and announced he was turning in. He had the last watch of the night and was looking forward to six hours of uninterrupted sleep before he had to guard the herd.

  Caleb looked as if he wanted his bed, too, but he made no move in that direction until the other cowboy crawled into his bedroll for the night. Caleb was determined to be the watchful chaperon. But Carolyn was not in the least bit tired. In fact, she felt an odd sense of excitement stirring within her, an inexplicable feeling of expectation, anticipation. Was this going to be the night the rustlers would make an attempt on the herd? Or was it something else? She had to admit that this peculiar sensation had been gradually building all day. Maybe it was merely because she wanted something to happen.

  Carolyn dutifully said good-night to Caleb and went to bed anyway.

  But sleep eluded her, and the snores from the men only made it worse. Finally she slipped quietly from her bed. She wished Matt had his watch now. By the time his turn came, she’d probably be sleepy.

  She saddled her horse, quietly led the mare away from the camp, then mounted. She started out toward where the cattle were bedded down, thinking to pass the time with the cowhand on duty. Then the ridge, bathed in silvery light from the rising moon, caught her attention. The sky was clear tonight, with no pending storm to darken the trail. In fact, the light from the moon almost beckoned her. What was it about this place that drew her? Was it only every Texan’s fascination with high places and trees, so rare in most of this country? Or was it more?

  It wasn’t hard to find the trail that led up the ridge. She had expected the mesquite and underbrush to be thick from disuse, but she was relieved at the relative ease she had in traversing it. Perhaps farther on she would encounter obstacles, and so she picked her way carefully over the path. Her efforts would be rewarded, she thought, once she gained the top and commanded a view of the whole valley.

  As she made her way something began to nag at her. Matt said they hadn’t used this canyon for grazing in two seasons…why, then, wasn’t it more overgrown? Not only that, but the trail was trampled. Almost as if—

  Carolyn quickly dismounted. Going down on one knee, she had a closer look at the trail. This trail had definitely seen use, and very recently. And not from just horses, either. Cattle had been driven along this way, within the last week since the storm. The path was strewn with dung.

  She jumped back on her horse. If her suspicions were correct, good sense woul
d have told Carolyn to go back to camp and get help. But she was too excited to give much thought to wisdom and consequences. Besides, if the rustlers were using this canyon to get away with cattle, it would be stupid to alert them by bringing a bunch of cowboys clattering up here. It would be better if she quietly checked things out to see if her fears were founded before alerting everyone. If only Matt were with her!

  She moved now with greater stealth than ever. Would the rustlers be here now? Did they have some kind of hideout here? Why hadn’t anyone thought to examine this place before?

  As she proceeded farther up the trail, she saw evidence of just what an ideal place this could be for rustlers. It did not appear to be a box canyon or a single ridge at all, but rather a series of rugged ridges with broad swaths of pasture and nicely concealed behind hills. It might not be the first place you’d think of, especially if you weren’t familiar with the area. But surely the Stoners knew this ridge well.

  Maybe she was wrong, then; maybe there was no outlet. The series of hills and pasture could come to an end, perhaps in less than a mile, and in the dark, she just could not see where. But why bother bringing the stolen cattle in here only to have to drive them back over the same trail and out again? If Bonnell were stealing the cattle, he could use the seclusion of the canyon to change the brands. Then he could lead the animals back to graze on the open range again and claim the cows fair and square.

  That still failed to answer the most nagging question of all: How did they think they could get away with such an operation right under Caleb Stoner’s nose? Surely this canyon had to have been investigated.

  Carolyn’s thoughts were suddenly cut short by a sharp sound. Tres Zapatos heard it, too, and pranced restively.

  “Easy, girl.”

  Carolyn swallowed hard, her pulse raced. Someone was out there. And whoever it was had to have seen her, for she had hardly been trying to hide. The rustlers? Or whoever had tried to ambush her before? What had she gotten herself into? She could almost hear Griff groaning about her “blamed curiosity.” There was no way she could make a run for it on this trail, but she turned her mount anyway. Perhaps whoever it was did not want to be discovered any more than she did. They might just let her go—

  “Do not move!” The voice came out of the darkness like a muffled shot.

  “Okay!” she answered. “Don’t get jumpy now; I ain’t moving.” With great care, so as not to make a sound, she reached into her saddlebag for her weapon, hoping the darkness would conceal her movement.

  “You don’t listen very good.” A gun hammer cocked, and Carolyn froze with her hand on the flap of the bag.

  A figure stepped out into the open, but still shrouded in the shadow of a mesquite bush and out of reach of the moonlight. Carolyn tried to peer into the stranger’s face but it, too, was in shadows under a big sombrero.

  “Look, I ain’t armed,” said Carolyn holding her empty hands in the air. “So why don’t you put that gun away and we can talk friendly like.”

  “Get off your horse—very carefully, now.”

  Carolyn obeyed.

  “Yes,” said the man, “I would like to talk to you also—like a friend. The gun was only to guard against your possible trigger-happy reaction. I thought you were someone else.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “It’s not important.”

  Carolyn jerked her head toward the man’s gun. “So, you gonna get rid of that thing?”

  He holstered his weapon, then moved a few steps away from the bushes. Carolyn still could not get a very clear appraisal of him except to note that he had dark skin, with black hair and a heavy moustache that nearly hid his lips. He was probably Mexican or maybe mulatto; it was just too hard to tell. But his looks were of less concern than one other important detail. Was he one of the rustlers?

  “Who are you?” Carolyn asked.

  “I go by many names; Santiago is one.”

  “What’re you doing up here?”

  “I might ask the same of you.”

  “I was tracking rustlers.”

  He looked askance at her comment, tilting his head back so that she got a better view of him. He was a swarthy, good-looking man, perhaps in his forties, and almost certainly Mexican. His moustache hid his mouth so that Carolyn couldn’t read his facial expressions easily, but his eyes, dark and intense as they reflected the silver rays of the moon, were neither hard nor cold. They weren’t exactly friendly, but they did not evoke immediate fear. Whatever else this man was, he seemed a man of reason.

  “This is an odd country that sends a girl out after rustlers,” he said.

  “No one sent me, I just—oh, never mind, it ain’t important. What’s important is, have I found what I’m looking for?”

  “Ah, you wonder if I am a rustler?” The man’s moustache moved as if to accommodate a slight smile. “My answer might surprise you.”

  “Try me.”

  “You’re a very brave girl to stand up against a strange man out here all alone.”

  “What choice do I have? Besides, I never learned how to whimper and get faint like some fragile lady. My ma taught me a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of ’em.”

  “Your mother…ah.”

  Carolyn didn’t know what to make of that statement, and since the stranger’s eyes remained veiled, she couldn’t begin to speculate. “What brings you up to these parts, mister?”

  “Come with me, and I will explain all.” He turned and took a few steps as if expecting her to follow. When she made no move to do so, he said, “If I had wanted to harm you, I could have done so many times in the last hour. On your horse you made a very big target.”

  That was too true. Besides, Carolyn had become intensely curious about this stranger who had appeared out of nowhere, made no dangerous moves toward her and, most surprisingly, in all their conversation had not once expressed curiosity about who she was. She found it hard to believe he was a rustler leading her to her doom. Nevertheless, as she grasped Tres Zapatos’ reins and stepped out to follow the stranger on foot, she wistfully thought of her gun uselessly tucked in her saddlebag.

  58

  It was a narrow path they traversed, hardly wide enough for her horse to pass without brushing the thick growth of mesquite. They followed it on foot for about five hundred yards, taking a couple of turns. The moon still shone overhead, but there were enough big trees here, mostly oak and mesquite bushes as big as trees, to block out the natural light. Carolyn doubted she’d have found this trail even in the daylight.

  After about a fifteen-minute hike, they came to a small clearing in the brush. A blackened area in the center indicated a recent campfire, but there were also other signs of occupation—a bedroll, a saddle sitting on the ground, and a horse, a chestnut with a black mane and tail, tied to a tree branch.

  “In a few minutes,” said the stranger, “we can return here, make some fresh coffee and talk. But first, I want to show you something.”

  “I ain’t got all night, mister,” said Carolyn. “I mean, I’m with a small cattle drive at the foot of this ridge, and they’re gonna miss me pretty soon.”

  “I’ll try not to cause trouble for you, Carolyn, but it would be in your interest to hear me out.”

  “How did you know my name?”

  “That, too, will be explained. Leave your horse with mine; we can move faster without them.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Come.”

  It seemed a terribly foolish thing to do, but, still sensing no danger, Carolyn followed the man.

  It was another fifteen-minute hike through much of the same type of terrain, mostly uphill. Matt’s guard shift should be starting about now. Would he notice her empty bedroll and rouse the camp in alarm? Her grandfather would be furious with her. He might never let her out of his sight again. Yet Carolyn was curiously compelled to take that risk. This stranger was just too interesting to walk away from. She had the odd sense that he had many secrets locked behind that vei
led face of his. She simply had to find out what he was all about.

  He stopped so abruptly ahead of her that she almost collided with him. When she drew up next to him, he parted some of the mesquite. “Look down there.”

  Carolyn gasped. They had come to a ridge that dropped about two hundred feet into a canyon that was almost twice that in width, rising on the opposite side to form a wall several more hundred feet in height. It was a long canyon, easily several miles in length, with a grassy floor. About a hundred cattle placidly grazed in that meadow. Two cowboys on horseback guarded the herd.

  “The rustlers!” she murmured. “Does that mean these ain’t box canyons, and there’s a trail to get the stolen cattle through?”

  “Yes, but it’s a hazardous, narrow trail. You couldn’t get a herd much bigger than the one that’s down there through.”

  “I wonder if my grandfather knows about this?” she mused, mostly to herself.

  “Of course he does. He’s grazed cattle down there in the past. The trail you followed coming up here leads to the canyon, and it’s not too bad. It’s the trail leading out of the canyon, at the northernmost end, that’s treacherous.”

  “How do you know about all this?”

  “I think it’s time for some coffee at my camp.”

  “What about them?” Carolyn jerked her head toward the herd, indicating the guards.

  “I’ve been camped up here for two days, undetected. Believe me, I’m well-versed in stealth.”

  “You better have a mighty good story to tell.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

  Back at the campsite, the stranger who called himself Santiago built a small, smokeless fire, filled a coffeepot with water from his canteen and several handfuls of coffee grounds, and set it over the blazing flames. After ten more minutes of silence, the coffee was ready and he handed Carolyn a tin cup full. Only with great effort had Carolyn curbed her natural inquisitiveness. She figured this Santiago wanted her full attention when he began his explanation, and so she tried to be patient. But once the steaming cup was in her hands, as if it were a signal, she fired her questions like shots from a Gatling gun.