Sudden Troubleshooter

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘How many men on the Saber?’ Green wanted to know.

  ‘About twenty-five, all told. Gunnison, his son Randy – a misfit if ever one was born – a cook, an’ his riders. Last year or so he’s taken on’ a couple o’ jaspers who know more about guns than cows or I miss my guess. I reckon that’s some o’ Randy’s doin’.’

  ‘How far apart are yore people up here?’ was Green’s next query.

  ‘Not far, Jim, not far. Reb, here, is our nearest neighbor. His brand is the Star an’ Bar’ – he chuckled – ‘Reb’s from Virginia.’

  ‘I didn’t reckon that was an Irish accent,’ grinned the cowboy.

  ‘It ain’t that, for shore,’ replied Johnstone.

  ‘Reb’s about five miles east o’ here,’ continued Harris. ‘His land is next to Stan Newley’s Circle Diamond. South o’ them lies Terry Kitson’s Running K spread. The other one is Taylor’s Lazy T. He’s to the northwest, about six miles, not far from the river. Yu saw that, o’ course.’

  ‘That’s the one that runs east o’ town a mite. We crossed a small creek, too, on the way up here.’

  ‘That’s Borracho Creek. Mex for “drunkard”.’

  Green and Philadelphia looked their interest, and Harris explained, ‘The way she is right now, yu’d put her down as a little trickle, one o’ them “two yards wide an’ two inch deep” cricks. But yu noticed the crick bed?’

  Green nodded. ‘She’s a flash stream?’

  ‘Yo’re right, my boy. One rainstorm up in the mountains an’ that little crick turns into a ragin’ monster that’ll take a full-grown tree, root ’er up, an’ toss her fifty yards in five seconds, an’ kill a grown man in half that time. Yu, boy!’ He pointed at Philadelphia. ‘You stay away from that crick, yu hear me? If it looks like rain in the hills, yu get a good fifty yards from there afore yu stop runnin’.’

  ‘I’ll remember, sir,’ Philadelphia promised him.

  ‘An’ dang me if I aim to keep on callin’ yu that stone-breaker of a name. Yu mind if I shorten yore moniker to Philly?’

  The boy shook his head, smiling. At this moment Susan Harris came out of the house to collect their coffee mugs and to tell them that supper was ready.

  ‘Yu boys’ll want to wash up afore supper,’ said Harris, rising. ‘We can talk some more afterwards. I’ll show yu where yu can leave yore gear. Tomorrow we can take a look at the country, an’ I’ll introduce yu to the rest of our people up here.’

  Green stood, and his youthful partner followed suit.

  His eyes kept straying constantly to the doorway through which Susan Harris had disappeared, although he tried hard to conceal his interest from those nearby.

  ‘Smack atween the eyes,’ Green told himself. ‘Pore old Philadelphia. Life won’t be no bed o’ roses for yu, my young friend. I got a hunch that there’s a li’l lady who’ll let yu chase her plenty afore yo’re caught.’

  The look in the kid’s eyes told him, however, that it was a chase he would gladly join.

  Chapter Three

  THE NEXT day Jake Harris saddled up a horse, and the three men rode across his land to Newley’s Circle Diamond, stopping only to wave down at Reb Johnstone, who was working in the corral outside his compact, if somewhat rickety, old frame house. Newley turned out to be a small, nervous, dark-haired man of perhaps fifty with a tendency to start sentences which he never finished. He stammered a welcome to them, and they stayed long enough to drink coffee with Newley before moving on southward to Kitson’s Running K. Kitson turned out to be a heavily built man with a thatch of silvering hair. His smile was broad and friendly, and he was delighted to hear of Green’s encounter with Dancy.

  ‘Been waitin’ for the day someone would trim that jasper’s hair,’ he chortled. ‘Would’a’ done it myself afore now, but Jake keeps tellin’ us to stay outa trouble with the Saber.’

  ‘Yu got a nice place here,’ remarked Green. ‘Yu runnin’ many head?’

  ‘I don’t run cattle,’ Kitson told him. ‘My specialty is horses. I got about sixty head. Sell ’em to the Army.’

  ‘Good business,’ commented Green. ‘D’yu lose many?’

  ‘Allus did lose one or two to the odd war party or long rider lookin’ for a change o’ hoss,’ Kitson told them. ‘Lately it’s got so I lose a couple of head at a time. Never enough to get me real mad; just enough to make me wish Lafe Gunnison would fall down a hole an’ break his stubborn ol’ neck.’

  ‘Yu ever see anyone actually liftin’ yore stock?’ was Green’s question.

  ‘No,’ interposed Harris, ‘they’re too clever for that. We never do more than find the odd track here an’ there. We’ve tried trailin’ them, an’ allus lose ’em up in the Mesquites. The pine needles are so thick up there a ‘Pache couldn’t trail an elephant.’

  ‘Yu run this place alone, Mr. Kitson?’ asked Philadelphia.

  ‘Not exactly, son,’ was the reply. ‘I got a hired hand, a big dumb Swede who don’t understand a word I say. We share the work. He leaves it an’ I do it.’

  They rode off, after inviting Kitson over to the Harris house for supper that evening. They had already told Reb Johnstone to bring Stan Newley over. These two, who ran the smallest spreads and were, in fact, more like farmers than ranchers, concentrating upon wheat and barley crops rather than livestock, shared the work on their two places and had no hired hands.

  They reached Taylor’s spread at noon, and shared the rough lunch that Taylor and his two men were preparing when they arrived. Taylor was a short, compactly built man with a noticeable Scots burr in his voice. His riders were Jack Scott and Fred Peters; both men were tall, burned to the color of leather on their hands and faces by years in the saddle.

  ‘Jack used to be on the Saber, years ago,’ Taylor told his visitors. ‘He quit when Randy Gunnison came back from Santa Fe.’

  ‘Yu bet,’ said the slow-talking Scott. ‘That hombre’d make a saint cuss.’

  ‘An’ yu ain’t no saint,’ grinned Peters. ‘Yo’re right, though. Randy Gunnison gets my prize for the least-necessary man I ever met.’

  ‘He sure ain’t got many friends,’ observed Green. ‘I ain’t heard a good word said about him since I come to this neck o’ the woods.’

  ‘Unlikely ye will, either, laddie,’ Taylor told him. ‘The boy is a complete wastrel, an’ the despair o’ his fayther’s life. Old Lafe Gunnison has washed his hands o’ the boy.’

  ‘He seems to spend most of his time gallivantin’ off to Phoenix or Tucson,’ Jake Harris added. ‘Or swillin’ rotgut with some floozy in town.’

  ‘Strange, that,’ murmured Green. ‘From what I’ve heard about old man Gunnison, he don’t sound like a man who’d put up with that sort of shenanigans.’

  ‘I reckon he’s just given up on Randy, like everyone else in Yavapai,’ Scott put in. ‘His paw gives him no money, so he’s allus in debt. What money he wins gamblin’ he blows on women or booze.’

  ‘Well, yu gentlemen o’ leisure mayn’t have much to do but I have,’ Alexander Taylor told them, ‘so oblige me by washin’ yore crocks an’ dryin’ ’em afore ye leave.’ He stamped out of the house, and in a few moments they heard the steady chock-chock of his axe biting into the tree he was felling. Scott and Peters winked at their guests, and followed the old man out after washing their plates and cups.

  ‘He don’t stand much on ceremony, does he?’ gasped Philadelphia.

  ‘Ah, take no notice, lad,’ Harris laughed. ‘That’s Alex’s way of avoiding hearin’ yu thank him. He can’t stand anyone thankin’ him: just a quirk, I guess.’

  They washed their dishes and trooped out of the house, mounting and riding across the yard towards where the three men were working. ‘Watch this,’ chuckled Jake Harris, and rode over to Taylor’s side. ‘We’ll look for yu about eight, Alex,’ he said. The Scot nodded, without looking up from his work. ‘And Alex’ Taylor looked up enquiringly. ‘Thanks very, very much indeed for the lovely meal … hey!’

  The last explet
ive was occasioned when the Scot, with a broad grin, suddenly threw his hands up under Harris’s horse’s nose. The animal, startled, tried to rear and turn in the same moment, and Jake had his work cut out to remain in the saddle. Taylor grinned at the watching visitors.

  ‘I’ll bet he told ye I didn’t like bein’ thanked,’ he grinned. ‘Now ye know he was right. Goodbye.’

  And without a word he returned to his ax-work, while Peters and Scott pounded each other on the back at the sight of Jake Harris struggling to get his mount under control.

  ‘Hey, Jake!’ called Fred Peters. ‘Don’t mention it!’

  ‘Bah!’ snapped Harris, and wheeled his horse out of the yard and across country towards home, followed by his two new employees, broad smiles creasing their faces.

  Later that evening all of the men that the newcomers had met that day were enjoying coffee in Harris’s sprawling living room. A big hanging lamp cast a warm light, and a fire crackled in the stone hearth, for the nights were cooler up in these hills. The room was a pleasant one; on the scrubbed floor several catamount pelts were scattered, and Susan Harris’s touch was evident in the neat fringed cushions and the frilled curtains and the shining brass vases full of mountain flowers on the mantel above the fireplace.

  ‘Boy, this is the life,’ enthused Fred Peters. ‘Any time yu want to come over to the Lazy T an’ clean ’er up some, yu say the word, Miss Sue.’

  ‘If yu wasn’t so dadblasted lazy yu wouldn’t need to ask,’ put in his taciturn fellow rider.

  ‘If I worked any harder they’d be nothin’ for yu to do,’ retorted Peters. ‘I never did figger what yu do all day.’

  ‘Mostly what yu oughta be doin’ stead o’ jawin’,’ Jack Scott told him.

  ‘Listen to him,’ grinned Peters. ‘That’s why Gunnison tossed him off the Saber – couldn’t get him to work any way at all.’

  ‘This Gunnison hombre,’ Green ruminated. ‘I can’t figger why he’s so set on havin’ yore land. After all, he don’t need it. Jake was tellin’ me Gunnison owns all the land west o’ the river.’

  ‘Just greedy, mebbe,’ offered Kitson. ‘Some men ain’t happy if they don’t own ever’thing in sight.’

  ‘Plain stubborn, more likely,’ Newley said hesitantly. ‘He’s allus been …’ His voice tailed off.

  ‘Dang me, Stan, if I ever hear yu finish a sentence I’m likely to pass out,’ laughed Harris. ‘Still, yo’re probably more’n half right. Gunnison’s been in this country so long he thinks he’s some kind o’ tin Gawd.’

  ‘I see Jim’s point, though,’ Taylor said. ‘When ye think about it, there has to be some reason for Gunnison wanting our land. I can’t just put my finger on it, but it has to be something. He surely don’t need the grass.’

  ‘Tell me when all this trouble started,’ Green suggested.

  ‘About a year, eighteen months ago, more or less,’ Harris told him. ‘Gunnison roared an’ made a lot o’ noise when we first filed on this land, but we had no trouble.’

  ‘Then these nuisance raids started?’ prompted Green.

  ‘That’s right,’ Kitson told him. ‘Jake had a couple of men working here, but they soon quit. Couple of Saber riders roughed them up about a mile from the house. They never would tell us who, but it had to be Saber.’

  ‘We figgered it was probably Dancy, but couldn’t prove anything,’ added Harris.

  ‘They rode all over my wheat field one night,’ added Newley.

  ‘Flattened a whole year’s crop an’ I couldn’t—’

  ‘Do a thang to stop them,’ finished Reb Johnstone. ‘Stan here, got a shot th’owed at him ev’ah time he poked his haid outa the do’r.’

  ‘Tom Appleby, he’d ride up here, shake his head. Couldn’t find no trace o’ who done it,’ Kitson said. ‘I lost some horses. We trailed ’em to the edge o’ the desert, but it was like tryin’ to trail flyin’ fish in the water.’

  ‘Any gold or silver in these parts?’ was Green’s next query.

  ‘Nary a trace, laddie,’ Taylor told him. ‘We get the odd desert rat pokin’ around in the Yavapais, but nobody’s ever found enough to buy bacon. Yo’re away off course if yo’re thinkin’ we’re sittin’ on a gol’ mine.’

  Green shrugged. ‘On the face of it, it looks like yo’re right, then. Gunnison is just plain greedy.’

  The talk turned to other things, and Susan Harris replenished their coffee cups. As she went around the room, Green covertly surveyed the assembled men. The meeting was a friendly affair, and it was plain to see that all these men were good friends, a close-knit group of individuals who accepted each other’s weaknesses and strengths. ‘Not a bad apple in the whole barrel,’ Green thought as he watched them joshing Philadelphia, to whom for some reason Jake Harris had taken an inordinate liking. It was easy to see how they remained so determined in the face of Gunnison’s hostility.

  The sound of a horse’s hoofs pounding up the trail put an instant stop to the conversation. Like well-drilled troops, Harris and his friends moved quickly around the room. Sue dimmed the big light, and Kitson moved a tall cast-iron screen in front of the fireplace, concealing the flicker of the flames. All of the men moved near windows, their ever-ready guns in their hands. The organization impressed Green and he said as much in an undertone to Harris.

  ‘We worked this drill out about two months ago,’ Harris told him. ‘Do her automatically now. If Gunnison decided to catch us all in one place we’d be sittin’ ducks. Figgered it might be wise to surprise him if he tried it. We’re nigh on eager to try her out.’

  ‘Let’s hope yu don’t have to,’ Green said. A quick glance about the room showed him Philadelphia standing guard over the crouched form of Susan Harris, who had knelt down behind the big sofa. Despite the tenseness of the moment Green smiled to himself.

  A hail from outside brought a noticeable relaxation of the tension. ‘That’s Tom Appleby, ain’t it?’ said Peters.

  ‘Sounds like him,’ agreed Harris. He stepped near the door and shouted, ‘That yu, Appleby?’

  ‘Hello, Jake. Shore it’s me. Open up!’

  ‘Put up the lights,’ Harris ordered, swinging the bar back from the door and opening it. ‘Come on in, Tom.’

  The slim figure of the town Marshal entered after a moment on the doorstep spent beating the dust from his clothes. For the first time Green noted the fact that the Marshal wore a tied-down holster on his left hip. ‘Southpaw,’ Green told himself, ‘an’ no slouch, either, by the look o’ him.’

  ‘Gents, good evenin’,’ Appleby nodded. ‘Sorry to barge in.’

  ‘What brings yu this far north, Tom?’ asked Kitson.

  ‘Just doin’ my rounds, Terry,’ was the cool reply. ‘I wanted to check whether our friends found yu all right.’

  ‘Yu mean, to see whether we’re workin’ here or on the Saber!’ blurted Philadelphia. The Marshal favored him with a sour look.

  ‘I knowed yu didn’t go to the Saber,’ he said. ‘I just come from there.’

  ‘How’s Dancy?’ asked Jack Scott. ‘Sicker’n hell, I hope.’

  ‘He’ll survive,’ Appleby told him. ‘He won’t look so purty without his front teeth, is all.’

  Fred Peters chortled with delight, and danced over to pump Green’s hand. ‘Jim, yu shore done us a good turn comin’ to Yavapai. That rooster’s been needin’ his comb trimmed for a while now.’

  Green smiled. ‘I would’ve thought that was more in the Marshal’s line. Ain’t yu ever had occasion to pacify Dancy, Marshal?’

  Appleby looked at Green sharply, but the puncher was smiling disarmingly. The Marshal shrugged.

  ‘Green, yo’re a stranger in these parts, so forgive me if I sound a mite on the pompous side. Normally, Dancy just gets loud; then he goes away someplace an’ sleeps it off. Now an’ then he gets in a brawl. Someone loses a few teeth or gets an arm broke – never anythin’ that Dancy can’t walk away from.’

  ‘He was shapin’ to drill me!’ cut in Philadelphia.
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  ‘Wal, maybe, maybe not,’ Appleby said. ‘Be that as it may, Dancy’s the foreman o’ the Saber, an’ I have to bear that in mind when I tangle with him. It ain’t’ He held up a hand to stop the remark that Green was about to make. ‘It ain’t a question o’ playin’ favorites. It’s plain fact: if I ride the Saber too hard, an’ Gunnison decided to take his trade to Riverton, about fifteen miles upriver, Yavapai’d dry up an’ blow away. Jake here’ll tell yu I try to give everyone a fair shake. My job is to keep the peace in Yavapai. Outside town all I can do is try to help as much as possible.’

  ‘It’s true enough, Jim,’ Reb Johnstone said. ‘Tom heah does the best he can, all things considered.’

  Appleby’s smile was open and friendly, and it grew even wider as Susan Harris came into the room with the cup of coffee she had gone to make when the visitor’s identity was established.

  ‘Wal, now, I reckon this was worth the ride – a cup o’ cawfee from the purtiest gal this side o’ Tucson,’ grinned the Marshal. ‘How are you, Miss Susan?’

  Sue Harris blushed and smiled. ‘Well, thank you, Tom. We haven’t seen you for a while.’

  Green risked a sly glance at Philadelphia. The youngster was glowering at the Marshal, and the puncher smiled to himself.

  ‘Got to admit it,’ Appleby was saying. ‘Been powerful busy tryin’ to get a line on this lost Saber stock.’

  ‘Gunnison’s lost more beef?’ A worried frown appeared on Jacob Harris’s face.

  ‘A few head here, a few there. Nothin’ big,’ Appleby told them. ‘Just enough to be noticed. Any o’ yu boys seen any loose stock up in the hills?’

  No one spoke; Scott and Peters shook their heads.

  ‘Didn’t expect yu would’ve,’ Appleby said. ‘Beats me. Yu can’t even find tracks. It’s as if someone was flyin’ off with them.’

  ‘Mighty peculiar. Yu ain’t thinkin’ …? ’ said Kitson.

  ‘Hell, no, Terry. Yu boys give me yore word yu wasn’t lifting Saber beef an’ I believe yu. But Gunnison’s losin’ ’em just the same, an’ yu can’t blame him for feelin’ hot about it. He swears it has to be yu boys. I keep tellin’ him it ain’t. It’s deadlock.’