Somewhat to his dismay when he looked back he saw that the foremost rider, instead of being daunted by the steep slope, was coming on stronger than ever. To convince Joe that the situation was not as bright as he would have liked, the man fired from the saddle of the climbing horse and missed by no more than a few inches. That could have been a fluke. It could also mean that the man knew how to use a gun.
Again Joe dodged to the right, gained the cover of a large boulder, turned his horse and took a shot back at the rider. He hit the horse. The animal stood on its hind legs, the rider jumped clear and the horse went over backward and rolled over and over down the hillside.
Shaken though he must have been, the rider, from where he lay, sent such a concentrated fire up at Joe that he was warned that he would not increase his health by staying in that neighborhood. He decided to retire and rode on up the hill. The man poured lead after him and hastened him on his way.
Joe found better cover at the top of the ridge and hastily dismounted. He could see now that the other men who had ridden back were now dismounted and were starting to work their way up the hillside on foot, rifles in hand. More of the posse were on their way back. Joe was pretty content. Although the situation was not all that he could have desired from his point of view, he had at least gained a short respite for Mart. Maybe now there would be time for him to have his wound fixed and for him to head deep into the hills and lose the posse.
He knew that his position was not a strong one. There was good cover up here for one man. There was also enough to go around for a dozen. That posse, once it had collected itself, would surround him and come at him loaded for bear. If he allowed that, it would without little doubt, be the end of Joe Widbee.
He stayed for some fifteen minutes on that ridge-top, keeping up a heavy fire to show that he was in earnest, then, finding that he was running short of ammunition, decided that it was high time that he made himself scarce. Accordingly, he backed away down the far side of the ridge, collected his horse and led him as quietly as he could away.
He headed home. He longed for some of his own good cooking.
He thought about Mart. He had found himself a pretty good woman there. Joe wondered... It was time Mart settled down. That wild type always settled more firmly than the quiet ones once they made up their minds they were well and truly caught.
Chapter Fifteen
Will Storm had several things on his mind. There was his brother Mart in the hills with a posse after him. There was the fact that he now had on his pay roll the son of Ed Brack. And there was the fact of that same Riley Brack, Pete Hasso and Will’s daughter Kate. The situation simmered, to put it mildly. Being Will Storm, he didn’t talk it over with his wife, Martha, nor did he mention it to his daughter, Kate. He watched and he waited prepared to quick and decisive action when the right time came.
His brother Mart was rather another matter. He had received no word from Joe Widbee and he was starting to worry. For all he knew, Mart might be in the hands of the law. Anything might have happened. Joe could have gotten himself shot. The fool took risks enough to chill a man’s blood. If Mart was taken, then it was time to hire him a first-rate Denver lawyer. If Joe had come to grief, Will didn’t know what he would do.
His mind naturally strayed to Ed Brack. When there was trouble in this country and a Storm was concerned, you naturally thought of Ed Brack. Will didn’t fool himself that Brack was beaten or that he had in any way accepted defeat. Brack still hungered for the rich range to the south of Broken Spur. The fact that he had been out-smarted by what he considered to be little men still stuck in his craw. No, the Lazy S hadn’t seen the last of Brack.
Will rode north along his valley, admitting to himself that he was not heading for the pass that was the doorway to Broken Spur for the sole purpose of checking that there were no Lazy S cows wandering over onto the northern range. That was unlikely and Will knew in the back of his mind that some instinct was leading him to check on the Brack country.
It was a fine day with a few clouds scudding before the wind in a deep blue sky. The valley looked at its best. The stock were in fine condition and were eating their heads off contentedly. Outwardly, the valley and its denizens were everything that a cattleman could dream of. He had ridden the pass and the surrounding hills for a couple of hours when he heard a pistol shot. A moment later, he heard a second. He turned his horse and loped toward it. He came out of the hills and found a lone rider in the pass. This was his son Clay. They met and Will who had not seen Clay for several days asked after his wife Sarah and then wanted to know what was so urgent.
Clay said: ‘There’s something you ought to see, pa.’
Will told him to go ahead and show him. Clay led the way south. They covered several miles and passed Clay’s house to reach the southeastern entrance into the valley, the way Will had entered with his family two years before. Near here he and Joe had found the rustler hanging from a tree, Hung by Charlie Dwyer, Ed Brack’s foreman. The first indication that when they entered this country they were riding into trouble.
Clay led the way out through the pass and then turned north into a pocket in the hills. About twenty minutes later in a tumbled land of rocks, brush and scattered timber, they heard the bawling of cows. Following this sound they found the animals penned in a draw. Will rode onto high ground, looked down at them and estimated them, with the skilled eye of a cattleman, at about one hundred. The earmark and brand told him they were Broken Spur animals.
‘Interestin’,’ he said.
‘Who did it?’ said Clay.
Will chewed it over in silence for a short while.
‘There’s a few answers to that,’ Will said. ‘Ed Brack could of done it to fix us good. Somebody could be stealin’ from Brack and thinks it’s safest to plant them near us so Brack thinks we done it.’ He laughed shortly and without humor. ‘It don’t matter a damn. They sure ain’t stayin’ there.’
Clay nodded and said: ‘I’ll go down and break the fence.’
He rode down and Will rode north, easing his horse down the steep sides of the draw toward the cows. By the time he did this, Clay had the fence down and the cows were starting to move out of the draw. Will unlatched his rope and brought up the rear of the moving mass of cattle, yelling at them and laying on with the rope. He wanted them out of there as quick as Clay and he could move them. He saw that Clay was clear of their van, swinging back to join Will. The cows headed out of the draw on the run. Ed Brack was going to lose some tallow this day. Once they were clear of the draw Will quirted his horse out of the dust and ran along the west side of the cattle, swinging them around. Clay followed him, running them out onto some fairly flat ground and finally getting them around to run in a northerly direction.
It was then that the shot came. Will had dropped back now or the thunder of the hoofs would have drowned the sound. Even so all he heard was the sharp faint crack like a twig breaking. The bullet missed him by no more than a couple of feet. He glanced at Clay riding ahead and saw that he had noticed nothing. Will’s instinct was to take cover, but he couldn’t leave his son exposed. He urged his horse to overtake Clay and saw to his relief that Clay was already slowing his pace and letting the cattle get ahead.
He pounded up to Clay, yelling.
As the second shot came, Clay was turning his horse right for some boulders. The shot passed between them. Neither man had a belt-gun with him, so, as they raced for safety, they pulled their carbines out from under their right legs.
As they dismounted and sent their horses scampering, two more shots came close upon each other. The fact that there were at least two rifles trying for them registered in Will’s brain.
They reached cover and jacked rounds into the breeches of the carbines. Will found that he was panting for breath, a sure sign that he wasn’t getting any younger.
‘Two of ’em,’ he said.
Clay said: ‘I’m not settlin’ down for a stand-off. Cover me, pa.’
Will said
: ‘Go carefully. These boys have to kill us, Clay, if they stole those cows.’
Clay nodded gravely. He knew as well as his father what they had gotten themselves into. He headed north through the rocks. He settled himself down to locate the two rifles. There was a scrabble of loose stones and Clay was out of sight. Will took stock.
There were two men around here someplace, prepared for a fight. They would therefore have a sufficiency of ammunition. He had only what was in the magazine of his carbine. He didn’t doubt that Clay was in the same position. They therefore had eight shots each. Not much. Every shot had to count unless he could get at the box of shells on his saddle. His horse had run north and had now stopped to graze some hundred feet from him. Not much chance there.
He saw the crown of a hat a hundred yards east and a little above him. It was tempting, but he held his fire. A shot came, hit rock near him and howled away into the blue. Will shifted hurriedly and looked in the direction of the report. He saw the wisp of smoke. So he had both men roughly located. He started to crawl south.
He had covered maybe thirty yards when he heard the rattle of rifle fire to the north. Ammunition or no ammunition, he had to take a hand or Clay could get himself hurt. He now reached the open ground over which they had run the cattle and this lay between him and the riflemen. As he started to run across this, his breath growing shorter every step he took, he was shot at from above. He reached cover with lead kicking the dust at his very heels and flung himself down.
Even as he did so, he heard the horse running toward the shooting from the south. At once he suspected that somebody was coming to aid the attackers, but on crawling forward and looking from the rocks, he saw that it was his youngest son, Jody. Seeing that the boy would ride head on into a hail of lead, he raised himself, waving his arm and yelling for the boy to go back. Instead of obeying his father, the boy seemed to be urged to come on faster. One of the riflemen laid down fire on him and Jody, lying along his horse’s neck raced for the cover of the rocks. He entered them near Will and piled from the saddle.
Will was furious with anger.
‘You damn fool,’ he roared. ‘I told you to go back.’
Jody looked at him blandly and said: ‘I reckon I didn’t hear you, pa. I thought you was tellin’ me to hurry it up.’
‘Now you’re here,’ Will said, ‘do you have any spare shells.’ It took no more than a moment for Jody to find a box of shells on his saddle and toss them to his father. Will broke open the box and spilled half its contents into his pocket. The remainder he gave back to Jody.
‘Clay’s in trouble up yonder,’ he said. ‘Let’s go get him out of it.’
They started forward, ready to shoot.
The bushwhackers must have known now that they were outgunned and outflanked. Will spotted a man on the move ahead of him and opened up with a steady fire. That seemed to convince the man that he did not have much of a future in the vicinity and he really got on the move in earnest.
With a yell, Jody ran forward. Although he was exposed, no shot came toward him. Will spotted a man running, dodging around boulders. He fired several shots, but they had no effect. He started forward himself, although by now he was pretty well winded.
A man appeared abruptly, not thirty yards in front of him. He stopped and rammed the butt of the carbine into his shoulder and only recognized him as Clay in time to stop himself shooting. Clay shouted and pointed to the north. Above the heaving of his breath, Will heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs. A moment later, he glimpsed two riders distantly heading north.
Jody came back to him, panting. When Clay joined them, he said: ‘There was only two and they’re both gone.’
Will asked: ‘Did you get a look at them?’
‘Sure. Charlie Dwyer and Hi Shuster.’
That shook Will a little. Dwyer he could understand planting Broken Spur cows near the Storm range. He spoke his thoughts: ‘Well, Dwyer planted the cows there to make it look like we had taken them. Did he do it just for himself or for Ed Brack?’
‘My guess is,’ Clay said, ‘he’s stealin’ from Brack. A good plan. If Brack finds out, he blames us.’
‘It makes sense. But how about Shuster?’
Hiram Shuster had owned the road-ranch at Spring Creek which was now Grebb’s place. Andy Grebb had bought him out and he had not been seen again in the country. Nobody knew what had happened to him. It looked like he had invested his money in the rustling business for a quick return. It wouldn’t be the first time it had been done and wouldn’t be the last.
Clay and Will walked together to collect their horses. As they mounted, Will said: ‘They won’t pen ’em there again, that’s one thing.’
‘There’ll be other places and other times,’ Clay said.
‘I dare say,’ Will agreed and they rode together to pick up Jody.
Jody said: ‘I reckon the no-account useless youngest son jest proved himself pretty useful. If’n I’d come up a few minutes later I’d of been plantin’ you two.’
Will said: ‘Shut your head.’
Chapter Sixteen
Ed Brack had a fresh horse saddled at his door. He took one last drink that brought a bright flush to his face and stamped outside. He was getting himself all tensed up to go down there and brace that upstart Storm. He’d show how scared he was of the whole scabby pack of them by going down alone.
When he reached his horse and struggled with his short legs he put his left foot into the stirrup iron, his foreman, Charlie Dwyer came up. Brack reached the saddle, cursing, and looked beyond Dwyer and was the bushed horse beyond, standing with hanging head.
‘You been tryin’ to kill that horse, Dwyer?’ he demanded.
Dwyer didn’t answer that question.
‘There’s been a little trouble, Mr. Brack.’
‘Trouble? What kind of trouble?’
‘I was looking for strays to the east of Three Creeks and I found a bunch of your cows penned.’
‘You mean ?’
Dwyer nodded.
‘I was jumped before I could do much about it. I let the cows out and headed ’em for home. Five of the Storm outfit came after me. I put up a fight, but there wasn’t much I could do against those odds.’
Suddenly, the idea of going down onto Lazy S range alone evaporated. This was time for a show of force. His mind considered the number of men he had available. His best man, Tristem, was out with the posse. Just the same, he could muster more men than the Storms could. He didn’t reflect that he had thought that thought in the past and hadn’t gotten anywhere with it.
‘How many men can you have ready to ride in an hour?’ he demanded.
‘Ten maybe.’
‘Get ’em. Fast.’
Dwyer moved. Within ten minutes he had a fresh horse saddled and he and two other riders were kicking up the dust riding out to gather men in from the lines. Ed Brack dismounted and strode back into the house. He’d have just one more drink.
There were several more under his belt before the men were in and roping fresh horses in the corral. By the time it came for him to ride he had never felt less like climbing into the saddle and his temper was shorter than ever.
Just the same, such was his character, he went. He didn’t like his property being touched. The Storms had stolen his son and they had done the same for his cows. He rode with his heavy chin out-thrust and murder in his thoughts.
The little army, armed to the teeth, rode steadily for the saddle, Brack having decided that he would ride in openly and show the Storms the contempt in which he held them. They were little men who ranched an area that would not make up one twentieth part of the range he claimed in various parts of the States. Why, he could lose the Three Creeks country in one corner of his New Mexico range alone. He had more cows stolen each year then the Storms owned without noticing that they were gone.
He rode down into Three Creeks like a conqueror at the head of his men, glaring around him and daring anybody to stand in his path. The young m
en who constituted his riders, thought it a hell of a lark going to teach an uppity cowman a lesson on their employer’s behalf. Their loyalty to their brand was total. At that moment. Thirty dollars a month and their keep and they would be ready to bear lead in their carcasses for Ed Brack who wouldn’t give them the time of day.
They knew they had been spotted when a rider distant to the south went racing off to the west, no doubt carrying word to headquarters than an invasion of the valley was taking place.
However, as they approached the house and saw the shimmer of the creek water beyond it and the line of the high ridge on the far side of the two creeks, the scene was peaceful. The horses stood quiet and sleepy in the heat in the corral, switching their ears and tails idly at the flies. The smoke rose lazily from the stone chimney. Mrs. Storm’s chickens pecked busily in the yard.
Brack looked about him with both anger and interest. Will Storm had made improvements since Brack had been here last. He didn’t like to think of the time he had been here last. For he had been a prisoner of the Storms, both he and his son, Riley. Will could have killed them then, but he didn’t. It rankled that he should owe his life to an enemy. Had he been in Will’s boots he would have acted differently. He thought of the man’s generosity with range and contempt. The man was soft. And weak. How then could he survive against a man with the strength and power of Ed Brack? It passed Brack’s understanding. And anything he couldn’t understand enraged him.
They halted in the yard. A couple of dogs came out barking at them and a horse kicked out idly. The hens pecked away as if unaware of their presence, busily working their way under the horses’ bellies.
The door of the house opened and a man walked out. It was Will Storm. He looked calm and he was unarmed. The calmness enraged Brack still further.
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