by Luke Short
John Lufton found loafing intolerable this morning. He had a hunch, which he communicated to none of his crew, that Jim Garry had turned the trick. If the army was going to move in on them by the first it wouldn’t wait until that very morning to arrive.
By the middle of the morning nothing had happened, although the crew was expecting it. Punchers hazing small bunches down to the big herd came clear down to swap talk with the boys riding herd. A fine snow was falling so that, looking up against the foothills of the Braves. Lufton could see and recognize his crew, black against the new snow, as they worked in and out of the timber.
The wagon had gone ahead, leaving its lone track string-straight across the flats. Ahead of the big herd the ground was white; behind it was a sea of churned mud, a great black swath that reached north until it disappeared behind a low ridge.
Lufton was riding point with one of his riders, but this was too slow for him. He touched spurs to his horse and went ahead, determined to see just how much country they had left to clear before Sand Creek.
Several hundred yards ahead of the herd he looked down toward the distant river and saw two riders approaching. He reined up, his heart suddenly heavy. Could this be the army? He pointed his horse toward them and went on.
Approaching closer, he saw that his fears were groundless. It was Cap Willis approaching with a stranger.
Cap greeted Lufton with unaccustomed politeness and said, “Gent to see you, Lufton. I thought I’d come with him.” There was a throttled mirth in his voice.
“Thanks, Cap,” Lufton said. He sized up the stranger as a city man who wasn’t enjoying himself. The man’s clothes were rumpled and muddy; he needed a shave, and his white shirt was days old and grimy. He was riding one of the livery horses branded Dollar, which was Settlemeir’s brand. In the man’s sallow face was an air of ruffled dignity and outrage.
“What can I do for you?” Lufton asked.
“Are you Lufton?” the stranger asked with some acerbity. “I’ve been introduced to ten John Luftons in the last three days. I’m a little suspicious, and with some reason.”
Lufton nodded. “I’m the only John Lufton around here.”
“I wish you’d tell your crew then,” the stranger said sarcastically.
Lufton frowned, and Cap said innocently, “I think he run into Willis and the boys by mistake.”
“I see,” Lufton said, his face impassive. “Well, you found me. What’s your business, Mr—?”
“Cable, Matt Cable. I’m a cattle buyer, Mr. Lufton, and I came to see you on business. Apparently none of your crew takes business seriously.”
Lufton began to see the light now, but his face remained grave. “How’s that?”
“I stated my business to one of your punchers south here, and he took me to his boss. I was under the illusion he was Lufton. I argued price with him for two days, sleeping in wet blankets and eating garbage. At the end of two days I found he wasn’t Lufton at all, but a man named Willis.” The man’s tone was indignant.
Lufton smiled faintly, but his mustache hid it. “He must have misunderstood you.”
“I hardly think so,” Cable objected angrily. “He introduced me to another man, and I went through the same thing, only to learn that he wasn’t Lufton either.”
“That’s too bad,” Lufton agreed. “But I’m Lufton, at last. What’s your business, Mr. Cable?”
Cable took a deep breath and plunged in. “As I told you, I’m a cattle buyer, Mr. Lufton. I’ve been informed that you want to cut down your herds.”
Lufton shook his head. “You’ve been misinformed.”
Cable bit his lip in chagrin. He looked sharply at Lufton and then smiled. “Look here, Mr. Lufton. I know you need a bargaining point and I’ll grant it. Only let’s meet on common ground. Everyone knows you’re being moved off the reservation today and that you have no range for your stock. Why can’t we make a deal?”
Lufton folded his arms and leaned on the horn. “I’m being moved off the reservation, you say?”
“By the army, aren’t you?”
“When?”
“Today was the deadline, I heard.”
Lufton gestured loosely back toward the herd. “See any army, Mr. Cable?”
“No, but they’ll be here.”
“So I’m rounding up my beef to hand over to them in one package?” Lufton asked dryly.
“What are you rounding them up for then?” Cable asked.
“To drive across the river to my own range.”
“But you haven’t any range, I understood,” Cable objected.
Lufton said gravely, “Then why am I rounding them up?”
Cap Willis turned his face away, shaking with silent laughter. Cable merely stared at Lufton as if he doubted his own sanity. “Mr. Lufton,” he said finally, “I have to get this straight. Are you being moved off the reservation by the army?”
“No.”
“Have you got range of your own?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want to sell any of your cattle?”
“No.”
Cable looked blankly at Lufton and said, “Then why am I here?”
“I was wondering.”
Cable began to swear then, and it was too much for Cap. He burst out into shouts of laughter, doubled over in his saddle. Cable was furious, and when he saw Lufton laughing silently he was inarticulate with rage. He yanked his horse around and started back for the river. The horse was tired or else unimpressed by its spurless rider, for it ambled slowly across the flats. Cable was drumming its ribs with his heels, all to no avail.
Cap, watching him ride off, went into new gales of laughter. He tumbled out of the saddle and knelt, shouting with laughter, and Lufton, at long last, joined him.
After noon the nesters, singly or in pairs, began to drift into Big Nels’s line shack. They came unbidden, and all for the same reason; from their different points of vantage they had seen that the army hadn’t arrived. The wiser of them were inclined to gloom. If the army didn’t arrive and seize Lufton’s herds, then sooner or later Lufton would try to move his stuff across and there’d be a fight. The less farsighted of them were satisfied, claiming that once Lufton saw he wouldn’t be kicked off the reservation he’d leave his cattle there instead of trying the drive into Massacre. If Sweet had been there they would have looked to him for advice, but he was gone and nobody knew where. Riling wasn’t there either. There were six of them altogether, and they crowded into the shack and loafed around the door of it, trampling the light snow into greasy mud, waiting for Riling.
In the early afternoon he came, riding in from the south. He rode straight to the shack and dismounted, and his face had an ugly set to it that told the nesters how he felt about it. He swung down in the inch-deep snow and pulled the reins of his horse over its head. The nesters were quiet now, waiting for him to speak, and on some of their faces was a faint dislike.
“Anybody seen ’em?” he asked brusquely.
There was a general shaking of heads, and Riling looked grim. “Well, there’ll be hell to pay for us then.”
Mitch Moten put his shoulder against the wall of the shack and said, “I don’t see it, Riling. If the army don’t kick Lufton off he won’t move.”
“The hell he won’t,” Riling grunted. “He means business. Some of you don’t understand that, it looks like.”
“He’s just after graze,” Moten insisted.
“After his own graze,” Riling said grimly. “He’s seen he can’t depend on an agent always takin’ his beef or lettin’ him use reservation graze. No sir, he’s goin’ to move into Massacre.
“Let’s wait and see,” Big Nels suggested.
Riling looked at him searchingly. “That might be sense except for one thing.”
“What?”
“We won’t have the army helpin’ us next time he tries.”
“Help us how?” Mitch said.
Riling pointed out, “This time if we can keep him fr
om crossin’ and get the army here he won’t have any beef to drive, will he?”
They agreed on that, but Riling was reminded that the army wasn’t here.
“Then get it here!” Riling said flatly, angrily.
He looked challengingly from one to another and he was raging inwardly. They were indifferent to him, almost, and it seemed that nothing could rouse them from their damned stupor.
“Listen,” he said savagely. “Don’t you see how we been tricked? Didn’t any of you hear what Moten said the other day?”
“Sure. Garry’s quit and is across the river,” Big Nels said.
“With Pindalest,” Riling added.
“What does that prove?” Moten asked.
“That Garry has forced Pindalest to call the army off long enough for Lufton to round up his stuff and cross it.”
Big Nels pondered that and then said, “Sounds pretty wild.”
“Then why isn’t the army here?” Riling countered brusquely. “Tell me that. Can anybody tell me that? Only one thing could stop them, and that’s a note from Pindalest telling them not to come.”
That was the strongest he could make it, and it sounded weak. It even sounded weak to him, although he knew that it was true. Jim Garry had stopped the army someway, and the only way he could was through Pindalest, who had no more guts than a mouse. And as long as Jim kept the agent the army would remain at Fort Liggett.
The nesters looked at each other, not excited, dubious. Riling wanted to smash them. Here they were, the men he had to have to find Pindalest and keep Lufton back across the river, and they weren’t even angry. The whole scheme was disintegrating before his eyes, and he couldn’t stop it.
He moaned softly, and when he spoke it was a savage pleading. “Don’t you see it? We’ve got to hold Lufton where he is and then get the army on him. We can’t do it unless we find Pindalest, can we?”
“Where’ll we look?” Big Nels said.
Riling smiled. “That’s talk I like to hear. I’ll find him. Mitch, you know the mountains. Come with me. I want one other man.”
He looked them over, and it gave him a sick feeling. He’d started out with a dozen. Riordan was dead; Sweet was dead; Shotten was useless; Garry had deserted; Fred Barden was dead, and Anse Barden had high-tailed it. That left seven, counting himself, and he was taking two of them with him. Four men to hold Lufton—and not one of them mad enough to risk his neck.
He said, “Avery, I’m goin’ to leave you to boss this here. Because if Lufton crosses he’ll kick you and your whole family out into the snow.” To Mitch and Big Nels he said, “Get your horses, you two.”
The men broke for their horses, and Riling watched them dismally. Everything had gone wrong. Was it too late to save it? That depended, he knew bleakly, on his ability to get Pindalest and send word to the army before Lufton was ready to cross his herds. For he felt with absolute certainty that once Lufton knew the army was to seize his stuff he would sell. The only reason he hadn’t sold already was Jim Garry. He saw Garry’s hand in all this, saw how Garry had put his finger on the weak spot in Riling’s plan. A slow, murdering wrath rose in him when he remembered that he had missed Jim Garry over at Commissary. The only way to save this was to find Pindalest, get word to the army, hold Lufton from crossing, and then, when Lufton saw he was about to lose, he’d sell.
But find Pindalest first of all. Riling had a hunch, which he kept to himself. When Moten and Big Nels joined him Riling put his horse out in a southeasterly direction.
“This ain’t toward the Three Braves,” Moten observed presently.
“It’s toward Blockhouse,” Riling said and explained, “Garry don’t know the Three Braves. We do. He’ll more likely hide right under our noses. That’ll be at Blockhouse.”
When Amy was finished with her work in the kitchen she turned down the lamp and started down the corridor to the living room. Outside Carol’s door she paused and listened. Something was wrong with Carol, really wrong, Amy knew. A little after noon three days ago she had returned with Ted Elser and gone straight to her room, locking the door. Amy had caught only a glimpse of her, and Carol looked like death. She had remained in her room most of the time since and had refused to eat or to answer questions.
Amy saw the crack of light under the door and knew Carol was awake. She knocked, and Carol answered in a dull voice, “What is it?”
“Will you drink some tea, Red?” Amy asked through the door.
“No, thanks.”
Amy was about to say more and then thought better of it. If Carol didn’t want to tell her what was wrong she wouldn’t ask. There was enough of her father in her for that. She went on into the parlor and lighted the lamp. It seemed big and empty, and Amy knew suddenly it was useless to try to do anything. She was worried about Carol and knew she wouldn’t know any peace until she found out what was the matter.
She went back to the kitchen, slipped a coat on and stepped outside. There was a lamp lighted in the bunkhouse, and Amy headed for it. At the door she knocked, and presently it was opened by the Chinese cook. Beyond him, at the big table, Ted Elser and Tim Minder, the blacksmith, were playing checkers.
“May I come in?” Amy said.
Both Ted and the blacksmith came to their feet, and Amy said, “I’d like to talk to you, Ted.”
The blacksmith and the cook retired through the door into the mess shack, and Amy sat down on the bench. Ted settled down beside her, his lean face impassive and his glance evasive.
Amy put it bluntly. “Ted, what’s wrong with Carol?”
“Wrong?”
“Don’t pretend, Ted. Anybody could see it when she came back the other day. What happened?”
“You better ask her,” Ted said, not looking at her.
“Where were you?”
“Maybe she better tell you that too,” Ted said, staring at the lamp in front of him.
“But I’m just trying to help her,” Amy said, exasperation in her voice.
“Nobody can,” Ted said gloomily. “Nobody—” He ceased talking. The lamp flame was guttering, the way it always did when the door was opened.
He looked over his shoulder, and Amy, watching him, looked too. There, standing in the doorway, was Tate Riling, a gun held loosely in his hand. There was a sudden commotion in the mess shack and voices, and then Tim Minder and the cook, their hands over their heads, came into the bunkhouse followed by Mitch Moten.
Big Nels Titterton stepped in behind Riling, nodded sheepishly to Amy and said to Elser, “Stand up. I’ll take your gun.”
Ted came to his feet slowly, and Amy did likewise. Nels took Ted’s gun.
Amy said calmly, “Somehow, I didn’t think you’d come to this, Nels. I knew Riling would want to when the army didn’t show up, but I didn’t think you’d let him.”
Big Nels flushed clear to the roots of his hair. “We don’t aim to hurt anybody or do anything, Miss Amy. We’re lookin’ for somebody.”
“Jim Garry and Pindalest?”
“Then they’re here?” Nels said.
“No.”
Riling had a trace of a smile on his face as Amy answered. “You have the word of a lady,” Riling sneered. “Myself. I’ll look.”
“Careful with your tongue!” Elser said sharply.
Riling raised his gun lazily. “My friend, unless you want to see this thing go off you’d better take your own advice.”
“Keep quiet, Ted!” Amy said sharply. If Ted hadn’t seen it she had: Riling meant business as he had never meant it before. Amy knew he’d calmly shoot down anybody who crossed him now in this mood.
“You’re welcome to look for him,” Amy said.
Riling bowed mockingly, but there was no humor in his eyes. He said to Big Nels, “Take the cook and look around the bunkhouse here. Mitch, take the old man and look around the barn and sheds. I’ll take these two over to the house.” He stepped aside and said, “I don’t think I’ll need a light, but I warn you, I’m nervous in the dark.”
Amy ignored him and walked out, Ted behind her. The three of them tramped over to the house and into the kitchen in silence. Amy said, “Where do you want to begin?”
“Anywhere. You”—and he waved his gun at Elser—“keep ahead of her, and she’ll carry the lamp.”
They went through the storerooms and the lean-to and then Lufton’s bedroom, the parlor, Amy’s room and finally arrived at Carol’s locked door.
Ted tried the door and then looked at Amy.
“That’s my sister’s room, and she’s in it,” Amy said to Riling.
“Get out of the way,” Riling ordered. They backed a way down the corridor, and he lifted his foot and kicked the door. It opened with a crash, and Riling nodded his head toward it. “Get in there, both of you.”
Carol came out of her chair when the door crashed open, and when Riling walked into the room she went dead white. She put out a hand to steady herself and clutched the top of her dressing gown.
“Such modesty from you, sweetheart,” Riling gibed.
Carol tried to speak, and the words wouldn’t come. Riling circled toward her, keeping his gun pointed in the direction of Amy and Ted. Carol backed away until she was against the wall.
“Afraid of me, darling?” Riling taunted. “You weren’t the other day. You wanted me to marry you. Remember?”
He looked obliquely at Amy, who was staring blankly at Carol. Elser’s face was taut, his eyes wild and dangerous.
Riling put out a hand and said mockingly, “Come to Papa, dear, and have a good cry.”
“Keep your hands off her!” Ted Elser said. His voice was thick and choked with rage. Amy put a hand on his arm.
And then Riling laughed. “Why? That’s where they belong. She used to like them once, didn’t you, honey?”
Elser lunged for him then, but he didn’t have a chance. He was the whole width of the room away, and before he had taken two steps Riling shot. To Amy it was as if Ted had run into some invisible barrier; he stopped, raised his arms, and then his knees folded and he fell on his face.
