Redding put on his hat and carefully adjusted the lanyard under his jaw. He decided not to tell Joyce all he knew as yet. “Can’t say as I have,” he admitted. “This I do know—your foreman is in a hurry to get out to the bunk-house right now and get a couple of his friends off the ranch before you get wise that they’re here.”
“Two friends? Who?”
“One of them is a Mexican from Tondro’s hideout. The other is Joe Curtwright.”
Joyce’s eyes showed a round-sprung dismay. “Curtwright—you mean the Indian Agent? Why should he be hiding in my bunkhouse?”
Redding shrugged. “I intend to find out. If we give him enough rope, Darkin will hang himself. Did your father ever have any dealings with Curtwright, Joyce?”
She shook her head. “Not directly. But you remember Dad was on his way to visit Curtwright’s Reservation when he was murdered.”
She was close to tears. Almost without conscious volition, Redding found himself reaching for her, pulling her against him. He bent his head, and in the next instant his lips met hers. He felt the yielding pressure of her against him, her softness and her aloneness in this rustler-infested range which had been the Major’s doubtful legacy to her. Then her arms slipped over his shoulders, and her fingers laced through his hair as she responded unrestrainedly to his kiss.
Redding was the first to break the hot urgency of this moment. There was a shy guilt on his face as he felt her arms loosen their passionate embrace.
“There’s no saying what gets into a man to shove him into a play like this, Joyce,” he said hoarsely. “You hired me to restore your faith in Teague Darkin, not cut his props out from under him. I’m sorry.”
A tear made its glistening streak down her cheek as she stepped back to face him. “Don’t be, Doug. I only know that whatever happens—that after this moment’s closeness I can never let Teague touch me again. It—it was more to please an aging father that I consented to wear his ring, Doug, to be honest. That is something I want you to carry away with you tonight.”
Her words snapped Redding back to the cold reality of the hour, reminding him of chores undone.
At this very moment Darkin must be closeted with Tondro’s man and the Indian Agent, out in the bunkhouse. Redding’s instincts warned him that events were fast racing to a climax on Crowfoot tonight, and that Joyce’s arms were not for him. Not now. Perhaps not ever. As Matt had so often said, a man who wore a star could not afford the luxury of romance.
“Look,” he said roughly. “When Teague comes back, tell him you paid me off and that I’m heading for Cloudcap Pass, on my way out of the Basin. Tell him that—nothing else.”
“All right, Doug. But—”
“I believe you are safe enough here,” Redding hurried on, “or I wouldn’t leave you. Whatever kind of a man Darkin turns out to be, marrying you is the key to all his plans. He won’t let any harm come your way.”
As he stepped to the door Joyce intercepted him, something akin to panic showing in her eyes. “I’ve got to know what happened to you, Doug. I’ve got to know how things stand, where you are going—”
He gently removed her hand from his arm. “I want to see where Darkin goes, what he does when he thinks I’m heading for Cloudcap Pass, that’s all,” he reassured her. “I don’t want you to worry about seeing me again. I think you and I were meant to be together, Joyce.”
With that he was gone, stepping quickly out into the night. Joyce was glad that he was not here to see the quick tears which came to her eyes; it seemed wrong, somehow, to feel that she could come to love a man whom she had known so briefly, and yet she knew that love was the thing that was tormenting her now, making Doug Redding’s safety the uppermost thing in her life.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Message for Tondro
Avoiding the flaring spread of light from the ranch-house windows, Redding crossed the yard, noting that Darkin had taken his horse from the front rack by the gate.
As he faded into the shadows of the poplar lane, Redding saw the light in the bunkhouse wink out, followed at once by a sharp rattle of hoofs as someone headed away from the bunkhouse at a gallop.
He thought, I wasted too much time in there with Joyce, and indecision went through him.
If that rider should be the Mexican, Rafael, he would almost certainly be returning to Thunder Rock, and to trail him would be the easiest way to solving the enigma of the whereabouts of Tondro’s lair.
But if Teague Darkin was allied with Tondro as closely as Redding believed, it was imperative that he be on hand to check on what Darkin’s move would be upon learning from Joyce that his new cowhand, so recently a prisoner of Tondro’s, had left Crowfoot for Paloverde.
He headed toward the tree where he had left his horse. Coming clear of the poplars, he had a view of the horseman who had spurred away from the bunkhouse and knew from the bulk of him that it was Joe Curtwright. The Indian Agent was heading for the open Basin as hard as he could flog the buckskin.
Mounting the grulla, Redding headed down the wagon road. By the time he reached the end of the poplar lane, he turned for a last look at Joyce’s house and was in time to see Teague Darkin’s big shape opening the door and going inside.
The wind brought to his ears the sound of Curtwright’s horse.
Redding had his choice of waiting for Rafael to leave the ranch and intercepting him on his return to Tondro’s hideout; or running down Curtwright. He decided on the latter target; he might waste valuable time scouting the ranch for the Mexican courier to leave.
With the wind at his back, Redding believed he was out of earshot of the ranch. He put the jaded grulla into a gallop, and as the poplars dropped behind he saw the moonlight touching the long feather of alkali dust out on the flats, marking Joe Curtwright’s line of travel.
Looks to be heading for Trailfork, Redding thought, and came to the sudden decision that perhaps the Indian Agent was carrying some kind of message to a henchman in town.
The night breeze off the Navajada uplands carried a sudden drumming of hoofs to Redding’s ears. Two horsemen were hammering up the poplar lane behind him, leaving Crowfoot.
Pulling off the road, Redding gigged the grulla into a jungle of chaparral and dismounted, holding a palm over the stallion’s muzzle to throttle any betraying whicker when the two riders passed.
He lifted a gun out of leather, on the off-chance that he might have been seen getting off the road, although he believed the poplars had concealed him from the view of the following riders in this tricky moonlight.
Less than a minute later, Teague Darkin and the Mexican, Rafael, stormed past his covert, lashing their mounts at top speed along the wagon road.
Joyce told him where I was going and he aims to head me off before I reach the Pass, Redding concluded. He had his hunch confirmed when he saw Darkin and Tondro’s courier leave the road and head up the north ridge, on a short cut which would head off any rider traveling north toward the Paloverde road over the mountains.
He waited until the two had vanished over the pine-hung ridge. Then he mounted and put Blackwine’s horse out into the Basin again, heading for the remote twinkle of lights on the sky line which marked Trailfork town.
The grulla was nearly spent, but unless Joe Curtwright had saddled a fresh mount—which was doubtful, in view of the short lapse of time prior to the Indian Agent’s departure from Crowfoot—Redding believed he had a fair chance of overtaking the heavier rider short of the cow town.
He picked up the prints of Curtwright’s horse on the road, and a half hour’s riding brought him once more in sight of the Indian Agent, as Curtwright topped a rise less than a mile ahead, sharp-limned against the moon’s disk.
The grulla protested the spurs but maintained a steady canter. What reserve stamina the horse had left, Redding knew he must save for the final sprint when he had cut down Curtwright’s
lead.
Cresting one of the series of low, sage-dotted ridges which corrugated the floor of Lavarim Basin, Redding was startled to see an empty-saddled horse standing with drooped head among the tumbleweeds piled against the north fence.
This was Curtwright’s buckskin. Its hipshot posture favored a lame foot, and Redding read the complete story of Curtwright’s misfortune in an instant.
The buckskin had thrown a shoe somewhere back along the road and had gone lame to such an extent that Curtwright had decided he could make faster time on foot.
The westering moonlight made a bas-relief of the river of silver dust which was this road. In that soft sand Redding had little difficulty picking up the dragging footprints of the Indian Agent. Curtwright was heading toward Trailfork.
Redding followed these tracks to the crest of the next slope. At the crown of the bunchgrass-tufted hill, he saw where Curtwright had turned off the road, climbing the barbed-wire fence to strike off in a short cut directly toward the town lights.
Scanning the farther slope of this hill, Redding spotted his man less than two hundred yards away. Curtwright at the moment was skirting the rim of a dry wash which had put an unexpected barrier across his short cut.
Jumping the fence with a winded horse was out of the question. Redding moved along the barbed-wire strands for a hundred feet until he found a fallen post where his horse could cross.
He was fifty yards from the wash when he saw Curtwright stumble and fall, then pick himself up. A shift in the breeze had carried the sound of the grulla’s approach to the Indian Agent, and for the first time Curtwright realized he was being overtaken by a mounted pursuer.
Redding was close enough to hear the Indian Agent’s involuntary cry of alarm. Remembering that Curtwright had dropped his Bisley out at the water hole, miles from this spot, Redding knew there was a chance that Darkin had supplied him with a gun back at Crowfoot.
To check on that possibility, Redding triggered a shot over Curtwright’s head as he put the grulla into a trot, heading straight for the bayed Indian Agent.
Curtwright yelled something unintelligible and turned like a panicked calf to leap headlong into the shadowy gulf of the arroyo. As Redding reached the cut-bank and reined up, expecting to hear sounds indicating that the Indian Agent was trying to take cover or else claw his way up the far bank, he saw that once more Curtwright’s luck had gone sour.
In his blind leap to get out of range of Redding’s gun, the Agent had landed in a bed of lava boulders. His sprawled form now lay motionless in those bubble-pitted rocks.
Redding dismounted and slid down the cut-bank, knowing the winded grulla would stay put. He worked his way over to where Curtwright lay, keeping his gun ready for treachery, and made a quick check of the man.
Curtwright was alive but unconscious. His left ankle was twisted at a grotesque angle in his Hussar boot, and blood was oozing from a tear on his onion-bald scalp. His Mormon hat lay several feet to one side.
Hauling Curtwright’s two hundred pounds of dead weight out onto the sandy floor of the draw, Redding made a quick exploration of the fugitive’s pockets. He found what he wanted in Curtwright’s alligator-leather wallet, a scrap of paper he recognized as a page torn from a wall calendar of the Crowfoot bunkhouse.
Striking a match to augment the fading brilliance of the moon, Redding scanned the scrawled message which he believed Teague Darkin had given the Indian Agent to take to Blaze Tondro up in the hills.
I’ve nabbed Redding here at Crowfoot. Don’t know as yet how much he’s learned. How come he gave you the slip?
My reason for this message is that I need your help, Tondro. It’s worth $500 to me to hire a dozen or so of your vaqueros for a trail-drive job.
Important I get the Reservation beef onto Wagonwheel at once. C will be back at the Agency by the time you get this, but we can’t be sure if he can finish deal as matters now stand. Depends on whether Redding has sent a report out or not. Will bring him up.
Redding pocketed the message, lips pursed thoughtfully. He was morally certain Darkin had written this in the Crowfoot bunkhouse tonight. At the time, Darkin had thought he would find Redding waiting back at the ranch house with Joyce. How he had planned to nab Redding and return him to Thunder Rock, without the girl’s knowledge, he did not waste time trying to figure out now.
He scrambled back up the bank to get Jace Blackwine’s canteen off the grulla’s pommel. Returning to the unconscious Indian Agent, he sloshed the water over Curtwright’s face.
One thing was certain from the context of the message. Darkin hadn’t intended Curtwright to carry this message as far as Thunder Rock. The agent was to have passed it on to a relay man, probably in Trailfork.
When he learned the identity of that courier, Redding knew his Lavarim Basin manhunt would be entering its final phase.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
To the Navajadas
Curtwright rallied with a series of animal gruntings and strangled moans. He strove to prop himself up on the blow sand, but the wrench on his fractured ankle made the man pass out.
Before using the rest of his water to revive the Indian Agent, Redding took time out to use Curtwright’s pocket knife and cut the Hussar boot off the injured leg before swelling set in.
Returning to the grulla, Redding rummaged in Blackwine’s alforja bags, remembering that the mustanger kept a bottle of whisky there. He found one with a few ounces of amber liquor left in it.
Leading the horse down into the arroyo, Redding squatted down beside Curtwright, forced the bottle between the man’s lips, and tilted it.
The fiery stimulant roused Curtwright. The man’s eyes were wholly rational behind their greasy hammocks of flesh as he saw the expiring moon’s last rays touch the rutted planes of the range detective’s face.
Redding saw in his prisoner’s slack mouth the realization of complete and devastating defeat. This petty politician was at his rope’s end. How black the record of this man was, Redding could not guess; nor was he especially interested. Curtwright was a pawn in a far bigger game being enacted on this renegade range. His chief value now would be as a bearer of evidence against his cohorts.
“You were carrying a message to Trailfork for somebody to relay to Tondro,” Redding said.
Curtwright was in too great pain to bluster. He remained silent, watching his captor with the blinkless intensity of a wolf caught in a trap.
“This message,” Redding went on, “involved a herd intended for the Wagonwheel Ranch. I take it that Teague Darkin has a finger in this government beef-issue deal at your Reservation.”
Curtwright snatched for the whisky bottle in Redding’s hand and sucked down the last swig it contained. Revivified by the bite of alcohol in his belly, Curtwright became abusive.
“A damned lie, Redding. You got nothing on me. I’m a government man. I—”
This was no time for bickering. Redding pawed Darkin’s note out of his pocket and waved it in front of Curtwright’s face.
“Who were you to deliver this message to?”
Curtwright overcame the agony of his broken ankle enough to rasp out, “I never saw that paper before.”
Anger drew Redding’s lips thin over his teeth. “You damned fat slob, it’s in Darkin’s writing and on a page torn from the calendar in the Crowfoot bunkhouse—where you and Rafael were waiting for Darkin tonight.”
Curtwright’s pain-bright eyes went crafty. “Then it was planted on me unbeknownst. You can’t frame me, Redding.”
Redding sighed. He got to his feet, slipped a Colt from scabbard, and twirled the cylinder with his thumb tip.
“You’ll make prime coyote bait down in this draw, Curtwright. Unless the buzzards spot you first. You forget I saw you at Thunder Rock, eating supper with the Stiles girl the other night.”
Curtwright’s slabby jowls quivered. Sheer p
anic was growing in this man as he saw Redding turn the black bore of the Peacemaker at his paunch.
“You wouldn’t shoot a man in cold blood—”
“I’ll give you five ticks to tell me who you were going to turn this message over to when you got to Trailfork.”
“You wouldn’t shoot me.”
“Why the hell not? I’ve got no time for picayunes like you, Joe.”
Curtwright made his try at bluffing it out, but the ominous double click of the gun hammer coming to full cock wilted him.
“I believe you would kill me, you damned savage—Well, it was Clark O’Connor. Friend of Darkin’s who runs a stable over in town. I—I didn’t know who it was intended for.”
Redding tipped the .45 muzzle skyward, picking this information to pieces in his mind, testing it for truth. He already knew the Irish stableman had some affiliation with Blaze Tondro. A spy, most likely, acting as a listening-post at the county seat. Quite probably a man with knowledge of how to find Tondro’s hideout in the labyrinthian wastes of the Navajadas.
“Bueno,” Redding said, pouching his gun. “You can’t walk, so we’ll ride double on your friend Blackwine’s nag.”
Curtwright made a scared, whimpering sound. “What are you going to do, Redding?”
“Turn you over to Sheriff Lennon. You’ve lapped up your last gravy at the Pedregosa Reservation, Curtwright.”
Curtwright shook his head numbly. He had sold his accomplices down the river tonight, to save his yellow guts from a bullet. Right now, getting a doctor to set his shattered ankle was his only consideration.
It was hard work, boosting the fat Agent aboard the grulla. The pain of it wilted Curtwright in another faint, and he was only half-conscious when, an hour and a half later, Doug Redding hauled him from saddle in the alley alongside Val Lennon’s jailhouse.
The old sheriff, roused from bed, answered Redding’s knock clad in his drawers and carrying a gun in one hand and a stub of candle in the other. He only stared as the SPA operative stumbled into his living-quarters, lowering the beefy shape of Joe Curtwright to the rumpled cot Lennon had just vacated.
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