Winter Range

by Alan Lemay

  He crossed the trail and guided his horse in an aimless parallel for a little way, to simulate the trail of a loose horse wandering the range. Then he proceeded into the gap, ice crackling under foot where the snow had been crushed by passing hoofs. Twice he stopped to listen, but heard no approach ; and so came at last to a place which he thought would serve his purpose. He turned his horse up a slope so precipitous that his pony came down on one knee in the second stride; and a little way above the trail, in a twisted bunch of junipers, found cover sufficient for a man and a horse. By daylight it would not have served, but in the deep shadow of the gap, with only the thin light of the stars to moderate the dark, it was enough.

  The steel-dust pony found a level place to put its feet, and stood with hoofs bunched and head down, well worn out. Its long slow breaths drifted down wind slowly on the still air, faintly visible for a moment before they vanished. Kentucky Jones brushed the snow off a bit of rock, rolled himself a cigarette, and listened to the quiet.

  He had time for a second cigarette, and a third, leisurely smoked, with long waits between. He presently began to think that he had misread Joe St. Marie's purpose, and that the man had taken some other way. But there was nothing to do but wait, his brain tired out with its own running, like the horse. Somewhere afar off a pair of coyotes called and answered. He heard the distant hoot of a great owl, like the grunt of something enormous and uncanny, such as never existed on mountain or plain. And once, far off, he heard a rush of slipping snow where something stealthy for a moment moved carelessly, or in fear.

  When at last he heard an approaching horse it startled him, it had come so close before he heard it at all. For a little while he could make out no creak of leather, so that he feared the animal was not ridden; but presently the hurried tempo of the running walk at which the animal came on assured him that it was a ridden horse. He rose cautiously, freed his gun in its leather and put his left arm around the pony's head to hold down its nose, preventing its whinny to the stranger.

  Around a shoulder of rock seventy-five yards away the rider appeared; and he recognized the broad-banded black and white Mackinaw that Joe St. Marie wore.

  Kentucky Jones could see now why he had been so late in hearing St. Marie's approach. St. Marie was riding not in the center of the trail but in the rougher going at the side, avoiding the ice formed by the hoof-crushed snow in the trail itself. Even then, Kentucky had a moment of admiration for the horsemanship of this man. Under Joe St. Marie's saddle the sleepiest old plug always looked alertly awake, and spoiled horses, with mouths tougher to the bit than the grip of a man's hand, took on an unexpectedly decent sensitivity. It was as if something about St. Marie put into horses the fear of God.

  Kentucky's horse stirred and blew out its breath, anxious to signal the other horse. St. Marie was now within the twenty-five yards; he was leaning a little sideways in the saddle, peering into the junipers so directly that Kentucky thought the bronc rider was looking him straight in the face. Yet St. Marie came on. Kentucky drew his gun, and waited until St. Marie was almost below him.

  His voice was low as he spoke, but coming unexpectedly out of the quiet from within ten yards it lifted St. Marie like a fired gun. "Just a minute, Joe!"

  The result was as if Kentucky had snapped a strip of hide from St Marie's horse with a bull whip. The animal snorted and went forward in a great bound as St. Marie's spurs struck. Joe St. Marie himself in the same instant flung himself half out of the saddle and behind his horse. He had hooked his spur on the side nearest Kentucky into the cantle of his saddle and was riding low on the far stirrup, but the effect from where Kentucky stood was as if he had disappeared.

  Kentucky's horse, startled by the other's stampede, half freed itself with a great stamping of feet, throwing Kentucky off balance as he fired; but the shot caught St Marie's horse in its third jump. As the gun spoke the horse went down on its knees, nose into the snow, as if it had hit the end of a rope. Its hind quarters whipped upward and for a moment it seemed to hesitate, pivoting on the curve of its neck; then it slammed down upon its side.

  Kentucky was already down into the trail. Behind him his horse went down in a great thrashing of hoofs and tearing of juniper, thrown by the tied reins as it tried to stampede. Kentucky, gun in hand, sprang across St Marie's downed horse to where the rider lay.

  St. Marie lay on his back, his hands above his head, one of them still holding his gun, cocked but unfired. Kentucky took: the gun with his left hand. He would have eased the hammer down, but St. Marie's horse, shot through the shoulders, was trying to get up, straining its neck toward its withers. Using St. Marie's gun, Kentucky put a bullet through its head.

  The bronc rider was breathing heavily, but except that he had been knocked out by the throw, Ken tucky could not find anything wrong with him. When he had satisfied himself that St. Marie had no other weapon of any account, he unfastened St. Marie's bed-roll from the fallen horse, kicked it out flat, and dragged St. Marie onto it Then he sat down on the horse to await results.

  E STUDIED the knocked-out man with a curious impartiality. This bronc rider was a man of a peculiarly mixed type. In all things he was a figure distinct and complete in himself, with no ambition whatever to be anything that he was not; and he was a rider who could do more with a horse than any other man. But here an element of essential worthlessness stepped in. Fast and efficient though he might be while he worked, no boss could be sure St. Marie was at work at all, once he was out of sight.

  St. Marie groaned, and swore faintly in Spanish. But it was a quarter of an hour more before St. Marie at last propped himself up on an elbow and looked at Kentucky with comprehension. Kentucky saw the bronc rider stealthily ascertain that he was no longer armed.

  "Go ahead," Kentucky said, reading his mind, "pick up a rock. But when you do I'm going to blow your arm right off at the wrist."

  "Where's my mouth organ?"

  "Never mind the mouth organ. I didn't come up here for a concert."

  St. Marie sat up and rubbed his head with both hands. He looked around for his hat, recovered it, and tried to put it on; but flinched, and left it perched at a drunken angle on the side of his head. Once more he stared at Kentucky Jones.

  Kentucky smoked, and idly twirled his gun by the trigger guard; but he did not open conversation. He wanted St. Marie to begin that.

  "I suppose," said St. Marie at last, "you're waiting for the others to come up."

  "There aren't any others."

  "What are you waiting for then?"

  "I'm waiting for you to talk."

  "I got nothing to say."

  "If you don't want to talk," said Kentucky, "I'm not a damn bit interested in trying to make you. Just keep your mouth shut tight enough and long enough and you're through and that suits me."

  St. Marie studied him again. "Listen," he said at last, "listen. You guys got no call to rub me out. It'll only make it worse for you in the end Campo ought to know that. Just as likely as not, gunning me will be the one thing that turns around and hangs all the rest of it on him, before he's through."

  "You're mixed up," Kentucky grunted. "I've got no doubt you'll be rubbed out all right. But it won't be here or now, and it won't be by me. You're going up the chimney by due process of law, Joe."

  St. Marie seemed mystified. "You think you're having a lot of fun with me, don't you?" he said at last. "But don't you think for a minute that I don't know what you're here for, and why you were sent, just as well as you do."

  "I guess you're some affected by that knock on the head," Kentucky told him.

  St. Marie leaned forward, hitching nearer Kentucky. "Listen"

  "Stay where you are," Kentucky warned him.

  "All right. I'm not trying anything funny. Listen who's with you?"

  "How many of me do you think it takes to take you where you're going?"

  The quarter-blood seemed to take a flying grip on hope. "Look here," he said. "Look here! Campo Ragland's got me wrong. I know y
ou don't know me very good but Nombre de Dios, Kentuck-I swear before God I'm telling you the truth. I've shot square with Campo all along, and all the way. He's got no more reason to send you to get me, than as if he sent me to get you."

  "You're trying to whip over the skyline on us, aren't you?"

  "And what if I am? Wouldn't you? Listen, Kentucky if I hadn't meant to shoot square with Campo Ragland, do you think I'd have stayed at the Bar Hook as long as I did? And I'd have stuck with him right on through it, too; I'd have backed his play any way he wanted. Yes, by God, I will yet! Campo Ragland had no call on earth to be afraid of me."

  "Afraid of you?" Kentucky repeated.

  "That's what's gone haywire with that Godforsaken outfit," St. Marie said. In the lack of light his face showed only as a dusky blur. But there was a fanatic intensity in the stare which he held upon Kentucky's face. "That man has gone to pieces," he insisted. "That man isn't right any more. I wouldn't have left the Bar Hook at all, only pretty soon I seen that Campo was getting scared, and scared of me. That man is crazy."

  "You're spinning somewhat yourself," said Kentucky, "if you think that Campo Ragland is afraid of any bronc rider that walks."

  "That man has gone to pieces," St. Marie reiterated. Kentucky perceived that the man believed himself to be talking for his life. "Nobody that knows anything about this is safe in the same county with him any more. Maybe you're not safe yourself, for all you know. But look, Kentucky, I swear to God Ragland had no call to worry about me, even if I stayed in the rimrock; and he has a thousand times less reason to put me out of business, and head me off from what I'm trying to do now-or was trying to do, when you shot my horse out from under me."

  "And just what is this you're trying to do?"

  "All I want is to get out of this country. Where I made my mistake, I was saving the damn horse. I should have pushed through this here gap two hours ago. Jesu! All I want of this business is out."

  "I expect you do," said Kentucky. "But you're too deep in this business, Joe."

  "What difference does it make how deep I'm in, so long as I can keep my mouth shut, and disappear out of here? I"

  "A lot of difference," Kentucky told him. "I damn well mean to take you back."

  St. Marie appeared to be dumbfounded. "Take me back?" he repeated.

  "What did you think I was going to do, murder you?"

  St. Marie stared at him again. "Yeh," he said at last.

  Kentucky rolled a cigarette and considered. "We don't seem to see eye to eye in this, St. Marie," he said. "In the first place, I wasn't sent after you by Campo Ragland. Campo doesn't even know you've left the Bar Hook so far as I know."

  There was a considerable pause. "Jones," St. Marie said at last, "who are you? Are you a government man?"

  "No," said Kentucky. "I've come out here to take you back on my own hook."

  "In God's name what for?"

  "I guess," said Kentucky, "I'll ask you a couple of questions for a change."

  St. Marie shivered, but appeared to take heart. "And what if I give you the wrong answers?" he said, his tone altering subtly.

  "Then," said Kentucky, "I suppose you'll go right ahead and hang. Don't let me stop you."

  "Hang? For what?"

  "For the killing of Zack Sanders."

  For an instant St. Marie did not move. Then he drew a deep breath and let it go again. "I sure as hell don't know what you're talking about," he said. "Give me a cigarette."

  Kentucky tossed him the makings. "I'm going to describe a gun to you," he said. "The gun I'm thinking of is a blue-barreled .45. It has a hard rubber grip on the left side, but the grip on the other side got broke and was replaced with a piece of cigar box whittled to fit. There's a little piece split off the wooden part of the grip. The serial number looks like it begins with a 3, but it's really an 8." Kentucky told him the rest of the number.

  "That's my gun," said St Marie. "Or anyway, it was my gun once."

  "I know that," said Kentucky. "I found that out from the gunsmith in Waterman. Now I want to know exactly when and why you shoved that gun into the hand of Zack Sanders."

  "I never did give it to Zack Sanders," said St. Marie.

  Kentucky Jones lost patience. "Get yourself ready to walk," he said. "I got no time to listen to you lie!"

  "Tell me just this one thing," St. Marie pleaded. "Where did you get track of this gun?"

  "The gun we're talking about," Kentucky said, "was in Zack Sanders' hand as he lay dead near the Bar Hook pump house."

  The bronc rider swore softly. "If you're trying to hook me into something by way of that," he said, "you're up the wrong coulee. I lost that gun in a crap game in Waterman four months back. I can name you every man that was in that crap game, and they'll swear to what I say; and Ted Baylor will tell you that gun is the one he won from me that night."

  "Ted Baylor in a crap game with a bunch of saddle bums? That's a hot one!"

  "He was drunk, and he just stopped for one pass as he went through," Joe St. Marie insisted. "The lucky stiff got my gun on that one pass."

  "If that's so," Kentucky said, "that can be checked up later. For the time being I'm taking you back."

  "If you aim to take me back, I can just as well kiss myself good-by right now. I ain't got a Chinaman's chance of living to see trial and well you know it! I thought you swung with Campo Ragland. I even thought you were thick with Ragland's girl. You sure had me fooled."

  "What makes you think I don't swing with Ragland?"

  "If you swung with the Bar Hook, the last thing you'd want to do would be to drag me back into this case."

  "Then come clean and come quick-I'm cold, and I'm stiff, and I'm ready to ride!"

  The bronc rider was beginning to crack under the strain. "I don't know what your side is," he said hoarsely, "nor who you think you're working for, or why. But if you're fool enough to think you're helping out Campo Ragland, you're making one hell of a blunder."

  "Answer me this," said Kentucky, "and if I figure you've answered me with a lie, we're going to start back right now without any more talk. What do you know about the killing of Sanders?"

  "I swear I never knew Zack Sanders was dead until Lee found him," St. Marie said passionately.

  "Then tell me this," said Kentucky again. "You saw the killing of Mason?"

  "No," said St. Marie violently. "No! I wasn't anywhere near it."

  "It's pretty well known," said Kentucky, "that you weren't where you were supposed to be that day."

  "What if I wasn't? That Campo is a driving fool. I figured I'd done enough work for one week, and I took me a layoff on my own hook. Any cow boy does that when he thinks he's worked enough or anyway they do where I come from."

  "And where were you when you saw the shooting of Mason?"

  "I never seen it, I tell you! I was riding in, but I was anyway half a mile off and beyond the ridge when I heard the shots. I didn't even suspicion anything then. I went up to the house for grub. All in God's world I ever seen, when I went by the kitchen window Campo Ragland was cleaning his gun, his deer rifle. I never even knew Mason was dead until Lee Bishop found him that night. And I never knew that deer rifle killed him until the sheriff come out to see about Zack Sanders' killing, and told us Mason was killed by a small caliber. I swear"

  "You recognized the caliber of the gun he was cleaning as you walked past the window?"

  "I went on in the kitchen. He'd put it away from him by then. It was dear over on the other side of the room. But it was the only rifle in the room, and I knew that that was the one he'd had in his hands. I"

  "How come you to take such close notice of what was the caliber of the gun standing against the wall?"

  "How can a feller help knowing the different guns around a place by sight? I've used that gun myself"

  Kentucky Jones said slowly, "Was there anybody else at the ranch house then?"

  "Campo's girl was there. She was in the kitchen talking to her father. They'd been having a figh
t about something. But they cut it off quick when I come in. The girl looked like she wasn't feeling so good."

  Kentucky leaned forward, and his voice sounded as if it could saw chunks out of the frozen rock. "St. Marie, is that all you know?"

  "All I know?" His voice rose in insolent revolt. "What the hell do you think-" He checked. Kentucky Jones had cocked his gun, and the small metallic click tamed the bronc rider more effectively than as if Kentucky had downed him with a rock. "Jesu, Kentuck," he cried. "I can't tell you anything more! Sangre! It's enough to get my head shot off as it is!"

  "You're giving me this as the whole reason for stealing a horse and going over the hill tonight?"

  "In God's name, why wouldn't I go over the hill? Here's Campo with a killing on his hands that's stirred up the rimrock like no killing ever stirred it up before. Here's me, maybe the only man that knows a thing that would hang Campo higher than a buzzard. Is that reason for going over the hill or not? But I tell you I'd have stayed through if I hadn't seen him going to pieces right in front of my eyes. When fear comes into a man nobody's safe."

  "I'd give a thousand dollars," said Kentucky, "to know if you're telling the truth."

  For a moment Joe St. Marie dropped his gesticulating hands and said nothing. Then suddenly "Give me my saddle," he babbled, "and let me go! I can keep my mouth shut, I tell you! I can forget I ever worked for the Bar Hook! I can forget I ever set eyes on the rim! Let me get out of this God-forsaken country and you'll"