Lone Star 01

by Ellis, Wesley

  Almost to the front of the table now, he drew abreast of Croft. Foolishly, Croft shifted on the bench and reached out to place a cautioning hand lightly on Wylie’s arm. “Simmer down, Wylie,” he said. “Hear them out. Maybe these folks’ve got something to—”

  “Leggo!” Wylie wrenched away from Croft’s hand as though it were a snake biting his arm, then pivoted and shoved his palm flat into Croft’s face. “I’ll learn you to shut up!” he snarled, and mashed Croft’s head down into his dinner plate with a dull, meaty crunch. Dazed and half-blinded, Croft reeled to one side and began falling off the bench, and Wylie drew back his right foot to kick his boot into Croft’s unprotected belly. “I’ll learn you good!”

  Ki reacted before the kick could land. With an odd smile that masked his anger, he launched himself at Wylie, who immediately turned to meet him with clenched fists. Ki ducked Wylie’s first and last punch, catching the puncher’s outflung arm and angling to drop to one knee, swinging him into seoi otoshi, the kneeling shoulder-throw.

  Wylie arched through the air, over the heads of the seated men, and came down on the table, atop the meat platter and the bowl of mashed potatoes. He sprawled there, dazed and breathless.

  Even before Wylie hit, Ki was swinging around in the cramped space between the bench and the wall, to check whatever Wylie’s two friends might be up to. The nearer one was charging him with outstretched arms, as if he were tackling a drunk in a barroom brawl. Ki chopped the edge of his hand down at the fellow’s nose. He purposely held back a little so he would not break it, but it struck forcefully enough to hurt like hell, and tears of pain sprang into the man’s eyes. Ki followed through by kicking the man in the side of his knee, collapsing him to one side. He caught his right arm, crunched down on it with his elbow, and then brought his own knee into his hip.

  The man dropped to the floor, leaving the way clear for Wylie’s second pal to lash out at Ki with his wide leather belt. Ki had already seen this second one slide off his belt and fold it double, which was one of the reasons he’d had to dump the first man, for now he was able to step over the first man and catch hold of the second one’s right arm and left shoulder with his hands. At the same time, Ki moved his right foot slightly in back of the man so that as the fellow began tumbling sideways, Ki was able to dip to his right knee and yank viciously. His hizi otoshi, or elbow-drop, worked perfectly; the second man catapulted upside-down and collapsed jarringly on top of the first man, flattening them both to the floor.

  And Wylie, face purpling with rage, launched himself off the table, a well-honed bowie knife clutched in his right hand. “I’m gonna carve you apart!” he bellowed, slashing at Ki.

  Ki calmly stepped aside and then kicked up with his callused foot. His heel caught Wylie smack on his chin, so hard that Wylie flew backwards onto the table again. This time he sprawled cold on his back, staring sightlessly up at the rafters and cobwebbed ceiling of the cookshack.

  The rest of the Flying W crew gaped at Wylie, his two moaning pals, and then at Ki with stunned disbelief. They said nothing.

  Jessica broke the silence. “If these three want to quit, then they can quit. If any of you others want to quit, you can. Or you can stay. It’s up to you, but make up your minds. As I said last night, I don’t have the time—and the Flying W doesn’t have the time—for you to sit on your butts. Either start kicking or packing.”

  The feisty hand who’d first spoken, now spoke up again. “Well, boys, I reckon Miz Starbuck might have something. She sure has a powerful persuader, and she’s got me convinced. We gotta pitch in and stop the raidin‘, else we’ll all be grub-lining. ’Sides, none of us is safe from a bush-whack bullet ‘lessen we do rare up and fight back.”

  “Okay, count me in.”

  “We gotta do something, I see that now.”

  “Sure, we couldn’t face Miz Waldemar if we didn’t.”

  A consensus of agreement quickly swelled from the crew, including the one who’d refused to fight. “Might as well,” he growled, moodily building a smoke. “Guess it don’t make no difference how I bleed, fast or slow. I’ll be dead here anyways.”

  Diplomatically thanking the men for their splendid cooperation, Jessica rose and left the cookshack. Ki followed, amused as ever by how much she was her father’s child, equally as competent as Alex Starbuck had been in defusing and mastering tricky negotiations.

  Daryl stood momentarily by the shack’s open door, staring in bewildered at the sudden and complete change in the crewmen. Then he turned and swiftly caught up with Jessica and Ki, as they were walking toward the ranch house. “Jessie, that was great, but ...” He faltered, still stunned by her volunteering of his father. “But Dad can’t do it, you know how he drinks. He won’t want to.”

  “We’ve got to make him want to,” Jessica replied, and with a twinkle in her eye, she added, “I suspect that between handling those men, and Amabelle Waldemar’s cooking and cribbage, Toby’s going to find staying here to be a sobering experience.”

  Toby, when confronted, ranted and blustered. But he didn’t argue all that hard, and eventually he caved in with surprising grace. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising.

  Chapter 7

  After enjoying a dinner with all the trimmings, Jessica, Ki, and Daryl bade goodbye to Mrs. Waldemar, who was now feeling greatly heartened, and to Toby, who was crankily washing the dishes, his penalty for having been thoroughly trounced at cribbage. The trio stepped to the barn and re-saddled their fed and rested horses, then rode slowly out of the yard toward the main trail.

  Moving alongside Jessica, Daryl said, “I sure do like your notion of combining the two spreads. I think my boys will go for it, once we’ve pointed out the advantages.”

  “Problem is, Daryl, it’ll only work temporarily. We’ve stirred up the crew here and stiffened their spines, and maybe we can do the same for yours. But after a while, it’s bound to wear off.”

  “Meanwhile,” Ki added, “the rustlers can lie low, waiting for your crews to grow lax and drift apart before striking again.”

  “I don’t think they’ll wait,” Daryl responded. “They seem to be a nervy bunch of polecats, and I wouldn’t put it past them to try anyway, just to prove they’re stronger. Even if they did hold off our spreads a while, they’d still be able to hit the other ranchers.”

  Jessica nodded. “You’re right, there’s a good chance of that. But if the other ranchers haven’t gotten together before this to protect themselves, there isn’t much we can do now to help them.”

  “Well, there is one thing you can do now,” Daryl said with a grin. “You can both come to the Spraddled M and stay overnight. There’s lots of room, especially with Dad gone. And Jessica, after watching you twist the Flying W crew around your finger, I’d sure like you around in the morning, when I have my confab with the boys.”

  “Nice of you to offer, Daryl. Maybe we will, later.”

  “But I insist. You can’t mean to ride half the night, all that long way back to Eucher Butte.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then where ... ?”

  “I mean to ride to the Snake-Eyes.”

  “The Block-Two-Dot?” Startled, Daryl jerked erect in his saddle. “Jessie, by the time you get there, Cap’n Ryker’ll probably be in bed, in no mood to welcome a visit.”

  “I don’t want his welcome. I don’t want him to know.”

  “You’re talking in riddles, Jessie,” he said impatiently.

  She reached across and placed her hand fondly on his arm. “I’m sorry. You’re simple going to have to take my word for it—for a lot of things, right now.”

  Daryl gnawed his lower lip, frowning. “All right,” he said at last, “I know it’s useless to try changing your mind, once it’s made up. And I’ll take it on faith that you’ve got good reason. So I’m coming along and making sure you keep outta harm.”

  “Believe me, Daryl, Ki’s very good at that.”

  Daryl twisted in his saddle to look over at Ki. “
I’ve got every respect for your fighting abilities, Ki, but you and her don’t know the country like I know it.” He turned back to face Jessica. “Whatever you’re planning to do at Ryker‘s, it plainly involves sneaking in. Well, I’m the one who can get you there unseen, and if trouble pops, I’m the one who can get you two out.”

  “We accept,” Ki said, before Jessica could answer. “But you’ll have to promise to do what we say, when we say it.”

  “I promise to consider it. Now follow me.”

  Spurring his buckskin, Daryl led Jessica and Ki northeast across the Flying W valley. When they reached the hills that separated the Flying W from the Block-Two-Dot, they climbed in a wide circle to hit Ryker’s spread from almost due north. It took them over an hour to work their way through the jagged, forested heights and down around to where they could first glimpse the ranch.

  Spied at a distance, the barns and corrals and other buildings appeared dwarfed by the tall, sheer cliffs surrounding them on three sides. It was as if the Block-Two-Dot were set in a canyon-locked lagoon, facing a gentle sea of waving grass, and fronting a thin beach of roadway that cut in from a nearby pass. And it looked silent and deserted from where they paused, seeming to sleep in the clouded moonlight. But as they watched, a tiny figure left the bunkhouse and strolled to the corral. In a few moments it returned to the bunkhouse, and the yard was empty again.

  “They’re still awake,” Daryl commented dryly.

  “Then we’ll wait,” Ki responded, his eyes surveying the stone walls around the ranch. “Up there.” He pointed toward a fault in one cliff face, which formed a steep but not impossible slope to the top.

  Skirting the open valley meadow and keeping to the cover of rocks and trees, they eased along the base of the hills until they reached the cliff. Horses and riders struggled up the slope, hooves slipping and gouging out small avalanches of stone and dirt. When they struck the rim, they rested their mounts awhile, then cautiously rode toward a concealed ledge closer above the ranch.

  Finally they dismounted and picketed the horses, moving ahead on foot to a flat rock projecting out from the face of the cliff. They slid out and crouched at the edge, pleased to find they could view the dark, corrugated uplands and the bleak mountains beyond; the purple valley pastures that were mottled with the duskier splotches of cattle; the lofty walls of the box canyon in whose notch the shadowed ranch was nestled. Their perch was ideal, and they settled themselves for a long vigil.

  Time passed. A few hands left the bunkhouse now and then, for the outhouse or the barn or corrals. Nothing else happened.

  “Let’s go,” Daryl said restlessly. “It’s dead down there.”

  Jessica shook her head. “As you said, they’re still awake.”

  “Playing poker in the bunkhouse,” Daryl retorted. “So what? Why are you and Ki so determined to keep tabs on Cap’n Ryker?”

  “Because he’s been lying through his pearly teeth.”

  “C‘mon, Jessie, I know you’re competitors, but—”

  “It’s because we’re competitors that I know he’s lying. Listen, Ryker’s been saying he’s here to consolidate your ranches into one big operation. Well, if he had enough legitimate money to swing such a big package, he’d send representatives and agents to deal for him.”

  “So he likes to handle it all himself.”

  “Daryl, does Ryker look like the kind of man who’d come out here if he could avoid it? No. And the only reason he’d have to do it himself is if his finances are so shady and his reasons so sneaky that he can’t afford the risk of hirelings finding out. He wants the land, Daryl, I don’t question that, but his fancy story about Acme needing beef is only a cover to hide his real motive.”

  “Which is?”

  “That,” Jessie sighed, “is why we’re waiting.”

  Abruptly they stiffened, hearing the faint beat of horses hooves echoing hollowly from the pass. More lights began glittering in the Block-Two-Dot buildings, and crewmen from the bunkhouse came out into the yard. Ki stared into the darkness toward the pass.

  “Riders,” he said.

  Jessica kept her eyes on the ranch house. Only two windows were showing any light at all, one being where a front sitting room would be, and the other at the side, in what appeared to be a relatively new addition tacked on to the existing structure. Ryker’s office? It was impossible to tell. The window was draped, allowing only a thin crease of lamplight to filter through.

  Six or seven riders streamed out of the pass and along the wagon road, reining in when they reached the yard, the bunkhouse hands closing to meet them. Ryker’s big bulk was silhouetted in the ranch house doorway as he stepped outside. The men clustered around him for a short while, and Jessica wished she could somehow be down there to overhear the conversation.

  Ryker disappeared back into the house. There was more activity in the yard as some of the bunkhouse crew saddled horses and, together with the riders, galloped out of the yard. Hoofbeats drummed loudly and then receded as the men vanished back along the road and up into the pass. Quiet descended across the ranch again, the remaining hands returning to the bunkhouse and closing its door.

  Daryl rubbed his ear. “Wonder what that was about.”

  “Suppose I told you those were the rustlers?”

  “No!” Daryl gasped, stiffening. “Jessie, are you sure?”

  “Like I keep trying to tell you, Daryl,” she replied irritably, “I think I have some of the answer to what’s been going on hereabouts, and I think more of the answer is down at that ranch. But the only thing I know right now is that I can’t be sure of anything yet.”

  “But—but if you’re right, then we’ve got to go warn—”

  “Warn who? Which rancher, Daryl? And by the time we could follow that bunch to wherever they’re raiding, and then get help, they’d have struck and moved on. Relax, Daryl, we’re waiting.”

  Shortly, the lamp in the sitting room winked out, followed by another one being briefly lit at the far end of the house, presumably in a bedroom; Ryker was getting ready for bed. Fifteen minutes later, the lamp in the study was snuffed, and the entire ranch house was now dark, silent, undisturbed. Jessica hesitated for a while longer, but nothing suspicious occurred.

  “All right, let’s give it a whirl,” Jessica said, moving away from the edge. “I figure Ryker’s had time enough to fall asleep.”

  “But the men in the bunkhouse,” Daryl protested. “I know there ain’t many of them there now, but they’re all still awake.”

  She smiled tautly, “Why, they’re busy at poker, remember?”

  As they hurried to their horses, Jessica was glad to stretch her cramped muscles. Worming back down the steep, narrow crevice was ticklish business, but at last they reached the base of the cliff and cautiously began to approach the ranch.

  Coming to a small clump of trees at the extreme edge of the yard, Ki reined in and said in a low voice, “We’ll walk from here.”

  They dismounted and ground-hitched their horses, and Jessica whispered to Daryl, “You stay here and guard them for us.”

  “Not on your tintype,” he declared adamantly.

  “Daryl, you wouldn’t have gotten this far,” Jessica snapped crossly, “except you insisted on jumping into things you don’t know anything about.”

  “And you don’t either,” he reminded her. Stooping, he tugged off his boots; his socks had holes in them, but he ignored his bare toes sticking out, adding, “My feet are tougher’n rawhide, and when it comes to creeping around, the only one quieter’n me might be Ki, in those slipper-shoes of his.”

  Jessica turned to Ki for support, but Ki only shrugged, a slightly amused expression on his face. Grudgingly she gave up arguing, realizing Daryl could be just as stubborn as she was, and together the three glided from the trees and crossed into the yard.

  Reaching the near corner of the first outbuilding, they paused and listened, checking every shadow for the presence of a guard. They had seen none from the rock, but
this was not the time or place to rely on assumptions. Again, they saw no sign of one.

  From the outbuilding, they cut swiftly through the yard, making a wide circuit around the bunkhouse. They melted into the night beyond the corral, then eased back toward the ranch-house.

  They stopped just under the short overhang of the rear porch. Again they strained to hear, to peer into the blackness around them. A coarse laugh sounded from the bunkhouse; a horse in the corral snorted and stamped. Satisfied, Jessica rubbed her palm along the butt of her holstered revolver, and nodded to Ki. Ki took a skeleton key and a thin, pliant strip of metal from his vest and, squatting, went to work on the porch door. A moment later, the latch snicked back, and he warily pushed open the door.

  They slipped inside and stood in a dark pantryway, listening, gaining their bearings, before padding into the kitchen beyond. They passed through the kitchen by the glow of the banked fire in the large cast-iron stove, and entered a dining room with an oak table capable of seating a platoon, with elbow space to spare.

  At the other end of the dining room were double doors, luckily unlocked. Ki inched one open and they squeezed through into a sitting room. Near the single window was the wide front door, and opposite was a stubby corridor and an inner door, which she surmised led to Ryker’s bedroom. Straight ahead, therefore, would be the new wing containing his study.

  Breathlessly they crossed between the front door and hallway, fearing their footfalls might be audible. Jessica hesitated before continuing, bird-dogged by apprehensions, even though they heard nothing. Nothing at all ...

  That was what concerned her—hearing nothing at all.

  They crept onward nonetheless, through a succession of smaller rooms, pausing before entering each one to assure themselves of unobserved passage. Finally they arrived at the study door. This too was closed and locked. Swiftly, Ki picked the lock and pushed, hearing from its other side the rattle of a key in its escutcheon. They waited. All remained silent. Ki gradually eased the door wider, until there was room for them to dart into the study.