by J. T. Edson
‘Was he afoot, ma’am?’
‘No, on his pony.’
‘Then don’t you worry none, ma’am,’ replied Waco confidently. ‘I’ll find him for you.’
The woman watched Waco leave with some pride in her eyes. There was a good man; he was willing to go looking for her son when he should be making a vote-gathering speech. She aimed to see that everyone heard about it.
Waco was only too pleased to get out of making the-speech and his departure from the town took on the aspect of a criminal sneaking away from his crime. He kept a wary eye on the Twin Bridge Saloon as he rode behind it, heading across the Colorado River bridge and looking for some sign of the youngster’s passing. He had no trouble in finding the tracks of the pony, they were the only set on the side of the river. He was even more sure when, after riding some way down stream, he found a fishing pole resting against the tree. The youngster did not appear to have been lucky in his fishing and must have taken a ride. Waco followed the tracks, finding where the youngster hid behind a bush.
The tracks started off across country, the youngster apparently playing at some game, for there was evidence that he kept to cover and frequently stayed hidden for some moments before moving on again.
A faint, distant chattering sound brought Waco to a halt. He sat his horse without moving for a time, trying to locate where the sound came from. He heard it again, right off in the distant hills. The sound was somehow strange, yet appeared to strike a chord in his memory. He rode forward slowly, still watching the tracks and listening. There was one more burst of that chattering noise and Waco frowned. Apart from the distance it was away the sound might have been the warning buzz of a rattlesnake. Waco was almost sure he’d heard the sound before, but his tenacious memory could not remember where or when.
The youngster seemed to be wandering on for miles. Waco was alert for he’d seen fairly recent grizzly bear signs and the big bear was not the sort of thing for a boy to run into. Trailing was slow work, the ground not helping Waco to make fast time. It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon when he brought his horse to a halt behind a bush and waited to see who, or what, was coming through the thick cover towards him. Gun in hand, Waco waited, then sent his horse jumping out to confront a youngster riding a tired-looking pony.
‘Yipe!’ yelled the youngster, reining in and looking more than a little scared by the sudden appearance.
‘Hold hard, boy,’ said Waco soothingly. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you, but I reckon you’re a lil mite offen your range.’
‘Gosh-a-mighty, Drifter,’ replied the youngster. ‘I thought you was one of them Injuns I saw.’
‘Injuns, huh?’ Waco replied, grinning now. The youngster must have been playing a game, pretending he was an Army scout and trailing hostile Indians. It was a game Waco remembered playing when he was a boy about this age, in the Ranse River country of Texas. The boy here must have become so absorbed in his game that he just kept moving on, then finally, turned to head for home. He could be looking scared because he thought he’d gotten himself lost, for there was a real fear about him which showed plain enough to the young Texan:
‘Which tribe was they, amigo? Sioux, Cheyenne, Ute, Apache?’ The boy looked back nervously over his shoulder and licked his lips. Waco was more puzzled than ever. The youngster was plainly scared but his imagination, due to being lost, might be playing tricks on him. His pony must have been headed for home, using the inborn instinct of a range horse to head back for its stable.
‘I surely don’t know what tribe they was, Drifter,’ he finally replied. ‘But there was eight or more of them with that mean ole buffalo-hunter who sometimes hangs about with Matt Kyte.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
BETH MORROW COMES TO TOWN
IT was shortly after noon that Beth Morrow came in sight of the town of Two Forks. She rode the dainty dun gelding with the easy grace of a cowhand, matched the skill of the half-dozen hard-riding men who surrounded her. She was on her way to town for the election. Her BM crew were the last to be heading for town. Having only just ended their round-up and being one of the further ranches of the county, they’d not been able to make it before.
The men who rode around her were a typical batch of cowhands; hard-riding, hard-working and hard-playing men, loyal to the brand they rode for and more than loyal to their beloved boss lady. They rode with her, argued with her, laughed at her jokes and would have laid down their lives for her any time it was needed.
There might have been prettier girls, more intelligent girls, girls with more talent than Beth Morrow, but to even hint so in front of the ranch crew meant fighting the bunch of them. She made a good picture, sitting astride on the back of the dun gelding, her long black hair held hack with a red band, the Stetson hat hanging by its storm strap. She wore a tartan shirtwaist, blue jeans and dainty, high-heeled cowhand boots with spurs on the heels. It was a style of dress which set off her full and willowy figure.
Beth was worth a second look in any company. Her face was gentle and very beautiful. The eyes were dark and seemed to glow with a rich joy of life. The nose was small, well shaped and the mouth red-lipped, full, yet never feeling any kind of cosmetic, or needing it. It was a face of unspoiled beauty, unaided charm, a sweet, kind and gentle face.
Beth’s foreman, tough, middle-aged, craggy Seth Braden, was proud of her as he watched her from the corner of his eye, listening to her arguing with the hands. The girl could manage to be friend, sister and confidante to the hands and still be their boss, handling them with easy assurance.
‘What you aiming to do when we hit town?’ Braden asked, cutting across a long argument as to who ate the most pie in some contest they held.
‘See Bix and Simon first off,’ she replied. ‘It’s about time those two old villains earned their pay and stopped us losing cattle.’
‘We don’t need no lawman to do that,’ whooped a dark-looking young man by the name of Nakton White. ‘Just you say the word and we’ll head over there and take them Mormons to pieces and get back all our stock.’
Beth surveyed the cowhand with disgust, then turned to the others. ‘Hasn’t Darkie got a brain? He’s a regular Pinkerton sneak. He knows it’s the Mormons taking off with our stock.’
‘Waal, I got it on real good authority. Right smart from that tough Mr. Jack Hatch, hisself,’ replied Darkie, when the jeers of the others died down. ‘He allows it’s them, so it must be.’
‘Hatch talks too much,’ Beth said quietly.
Braden nodded his agreement. He thought of the tall, handsome, dandified cowhand he took on to help with the round-up. The man was a real good worker, but a loudmouthed trouble-causer and not the sort Braden cared for. That was the reason Braden left the man back at the BM house, with two of the old BM hands he could trust. When the trip was over, Braden aimed to change a horse in Hatch’s saddle string, giving the man notice that he was no longer welcome on the ranch.
‘You want for me to fire him?’ he asked the girl.
‘Was we to fire every hand who talks too much we wouldn’t have any of this worthless crew left,’ replied Beth.
The jeers and some of the comments thrown back at Beth would have given any stranger who did not know cowhands the idea that they were a poor mannered bunch. If the same stranger had dared to say half of the things to the girl he would have rapidly learned that the cowhands were exercising their rights as old friends.
Darkie White came alongside the girl and started to give out with large chunks of his wisdom, so she kicked his mean-looking horse in the ribs. The horse left the ground with a wild busking bound which almost landed Darkie on the ground and took some handling to get it back under control.
With a laugh Beth looked back to where, in the distance, the BM chuckwagon was following them, driven by the cook and coming to town for supplies. She put the petmakers to her dun’s sides, sending the little horse racing towards the cattle bridge over the Colorado River. The rest of the crew, not to be outdone, sent
their cowhorses hurling after the girl, riding with the centaur-like skill of the cowhand. They thundered over the bridge, on to Colorado Street, whooping, yelling and firing their revolvers into the air. It was nothing more than the usual way a ranch crew came to town, letting everyone know they’d arrived.
Beth brought her horse to a halt and the rest of the crew, red-faced and laughing, brought their horses sliding to a stop around her.
‘I’ll he headed back for home soon after dark,’ she told the grinning cowhands. ‘I don’t want to be gone too long, what with the cattle we’ve been losing. I don’t reckon any of you’ll be ready to come, though.’
‘Not us,’ Angus McKie, the ranch’s poker champion replied. ‘We don’t aim to head back until we’re busted clear through the blanket.’
‘Which same won’t be long if there’s a halfway good poker player in town,’ scoffed Beth. ‘Don’t you bunch go drinking the Twin Bridge Saloon dry.’
For all the banter, the cowhands and Beth knew they would go back to the ranch as a bunch, the same way they came to town. They would have taken their fill of city life by the time Beth was ready to go back home.
Beth watched the cowhands heading away, a tolerant smile on her face. None of her crew were heavy drinkers and would be capable of riding back to the BM under their own power. She was a true western girl, despite the fact that she’d been well educated in the east. She never forgot what the Morrows (she’d never known her parents, having been brought up on the BM by an aunt and uncle) had taught her; a saloon was not a place of evil, it was necessary. She knew there were bad saloons, she also knew that the Twin Bridge Saloon was not one of these and it was the favourite place for her crew. She knew the saloon women supplied a need in the west, as did the other women, not necessarily the same as the saloon girls, who worked the houses of the red lamp.
Beth swung from her saddle and looked at the two big posters outside the jail. She had not known that any other candidate than Von Schnabel was on hand for the election but could see there was now. Von Schnabel’s poster was big and blared out the message of his intention to clean out Two Forks. The other poster was just as large and glaring, but she’d never heard the name before.
‘DRIFTER SMITH FOR SHERIFF,’ she read, then mused aloud, ‘Now who is Drifter Smith? I’ve never heard of him before.’
She opened the jail office door and heard Bix Smith airing his views about the candidate for sheriff.
‘Dagnab that damned, no-good yahoo,’ he growled. ‘Done snuck off after that kid rather than come in and make a speech.’
‘Thought you done well at it, though,’ Simon replied, then he looked at the door. A beam of delight came to his face as he swung his feet from the desk top and stood up. ‘Howdy Miss Beth, howdy. You brought your boys in to vote for Wa— Drifter Smith?’
‘I don’t know?’ she replied, smiling back. ‘Who is he?’
Bix Smith looked straight at the girl. ‘As square, fair and good a man as ever drawed breath, Miss Beth.’
Beth looked hard at the old-timer. She’d never heard him sound so eager about any man he ever worked under, even the legendary Dragoon Dune, of whom Bix would never hear of a better. Now it seemed that Dragoon Dune had a man who was at least his equal in Bix Smith’s book.
‘Better than old Dragoon Dune?’ she asked mischievously.
Bix coughed, not wishing to be trapped in such a manner. ‘He ain’t all that old, but he packs a world of savvy. I’ve never seen a better man with a gun. Not real recent anyways.’
‘He chased Matt Kyte and four more gunhands out of the Twin Bridge,’ Simon went on. ‘Then backed down a tough drunk who was shooting Colorado Street up, took his guns and knives offen him without even drawing on him. Then he stopped a big bunch of Mormons from raising hell in town and made their Bishop sing low. There was a young gunhand got drunk and had a gun on Drifter, and ole Drifter took him. Then put that killer Keg Bullock under, and run Dillis out of town. He’s done plenty to tame this town down now. The cowhands like him, he gets on with them.’
‘Shucks, Simon. You all forgetting about this morning,’ interrupted Bix.
‘This morning?’ Beth smilingly asked. ‘What did this wonder man do this morning, after all that?’
‘Why, he heads out along the stage trail and stops a hold-up, brings in the five owlhoots. Then he’s supposed to come along to the Twin Bridge Saloon and make him a fancy speech to the folks, but Mrs. Schulze comes in and says her lil boy’s lost. So ole Drifter just says “to hell with speechifying, even if I lose votes”. And he heads out to find the button.’
The girl laughed. Any man who could bring out such admiration from this pair of hardened old-timers was a man to be reckoned with. She formed an idea that Drifter Smith was a hard, tough lawman in his early thirties, the sort who made a living running the tough towns.
‘He sounds quite a man. Do you think he can get who ever it is who’s stealing my stock?’
‘Why surely so,’ agreed Bix with complete confidence. ‘He’ll make a start on it as soon as he can. You should come in later on and see him.’
‘I’ll do just that,’ she promised. ‘Don’t worry. The BM vote’s going to your friend, Drifter Smith.’
The girl left the jail, making her way through the streets and meeting several people she knew. She was stopped and heard plenty about Drifter Smith. Her idea of what he must look like did not change, even though several of her girl friends were all talking about how handsome Drifter Smith was. Strangely, not one person mentioned that he was a Texan. For all that, the people in town, the ones she talked with, appeared to be sure that Drifter Smith would make them a real good county sheriff. By the time Beth visited the Trenard store and ordered her supplies she was sure that he was the man for her.
Nightfall found Beth standing by the wagon looking around for the members of her ranch crew. She’d been along to the jail and recorded her vote earlier in the day, but the famous Drifter Smith was not back from looking for the little boy and she had not yet seen him.
Beth stood by the wagon for fifteen minutes or so, then decided it was time she went to find her missing crew. She walked along the street and came to a halt at the corner of the Guesthouse. For a time she stood looking across at the Twin Bridge Saloon, then crossed over. She stopped by the window and looked in. She’d never been so close to the Twin Bridge Saloon before and was suddenly filled with desire to see what was on the other side of the swinging doors. Her every instinct warned her not to be silly; the good women of the town did not enter a saloon when it was open for business. The women inside would resent her presence, for inside the saloon was their province, they stayed off the street and expected the same courtesy to be extended by the townswomen.
For a moment she stood looking at the batwing doors, then drew in a deep breath and stepped forward. She pushed open the doors and moved into the bar-room of the saloon, looking around with considerable interest. The crowd appeared to be enjoying themselves but she could see nothing to offend her, things appeared to be as quiet and well-behaved as a church social. Her eyes went to a table in the centre of the room, her foreman, the foremen of three of the local spreads and a good-looking woman were playing poker. Beth started towards the table; she knew the woman was the owner, Ella Baker, for she’d seen her around town.
‘Seth. Let’s go after this hand.’
The words brought every eye from the table to the girl. Ella gasped, her face lost colour and her hands crumpled the cards she held. Seth Braden and the other three men stared at the girl and the BM hands at the nearby tables gave startled exclamations as they saw their boss-lady in the saloon.
Before any of the card players could say anything, Beth felt a hand on her sleeve and a voice said, ‘All right, girlie, out!’
Turning, Beth found herself facing a girl her own size, a tanned girl with short, boyishly cut hair. The girl’s face looked vaguely familiar and Beth frowned, seeing the man’s clothes and the gun. She turned back and s
poke to Braden.
‘Are you ready, Seth?’
Lynn Baker frowned, catching Beth’s arm and turning her. ‘I said out, girlie!’ she snapped.
‘Make me!’ hissed Beth, suddenly angry that this girl should try and push her around.
Ella came to her feet, trying to prevent trouble, but she was too late. Lynn dropped her hand, the gun lifting clear of the holster but she did not bring the Colt to line. Even before her mother let out a scream of: ‘Drop it’, Lynn was already releasing her grip of the butt.
Beth grabbed the other girl’s wrist, lifting it and banging it down on her knee as she’d seen the hands do in play at the spread. She felt the gun fall free and pushed the other girl backwards. Lynn staggered slightly and with a wild yell hurled herself forward, hands digging into Beth’s long hair and tearing at it. Beth let out a yell of anger mingled with pain, her own hands tangled with the short cropped black hair on Lynn’s head and they reeled backwards.
Leaping up, Ella came around the table fast, knocking aside one of her girls who came running to help Lynn. Then she made towards the wild tangle of arms, legs and thrashing, writhing bodies of the fighting girls. Braden caught her arm, holding her back.
‘Easy, Ella,’ he growled. ‘You’ll have a riot on your hands if you try and stop them. It’s Beth’s fault, she shouldn’t have come here.’
‘Yahoo!’ howled Darkie White as Beth swung a wild slap which staggered Lynn across the room. ‘Up the BM.’
The girls met again, tangling like two enraged wildcats. They tripped and crashed to the floor, rolling over and over, swinging wild slaps and waving their legs as they fought. They screamed in anger, squealed as a fist landed, each struggling to try and pin the other girl down. Lynn was used to tangling with tough saloon girls, she expected no trouble in dealing with this girl from outside. She found her mistake fast enough for Beth, despite her upbringing and eastern schooling, was just as strong and fit as Lynn herself. She’d learned how to take care of herself in her tomboy childhood and in the wild tangle gave as good as she got.
