by Evans, Tabor
The horse DeCaro brought in from a corral behind the barn was a light-bodied dun, perhaps fourteen hands tall or a finger less, with brown points and a small muzzle. The feet were so small and delicate Longarm wondered how the little horse would manage over rough ground.
“Don’t be put off by his looks,” DeCaro said. “His blood is some foreign breed . . . I’m not sure exactly what . . . but he’s tough as whang leather and twice as steady. Smart too. I saw him get his foot in a wrap of loose wire once. Most horses would panic and try to pull away. Pull their feet clean off if they tried that. This little guy stood there like a rock, like he had as much sense as a mule. He waited for someone to come and unwrap that wire from around him. Right then and there I decided to buy him, and I’m still glad that I did. If it tells you anything, he’s the horse I ride myself when I go up in the hills hunting.”
“Your recommendation is good enough for me,” Longarm said, going around the horse and checking his feet one by one. The little dun gave his feet without a fuss and stood steady until Longarm was done with each.
“Turn around,” DeCaro said.
“All right, but why?” Longarm asked as he turned to face away.
“I’m not trying to admire your butt, marshal. I’m trying to decide what size saddle will you need.”
“Oh, I won’t be needing a saddle from you. I brought my own. Left it at John’s place, though, to avoid havin’ to lug it over here. But I will be wanting the use of your bit and bridle. Whatever the horse is used to.”
“He has a soft mouth. A snaffle is all I use on him, though some customers demand a curb bit. No spades though. I won’t permit a spade bit on any of my animals.”
“A snaffle is fine,” Longarm said. He normally used the army’s tack on borrowed remount horses. The army used fairly harsh curb bits on all their horses. But then nearly all of their horses were rough and needed the extra control that the curb gave.
“Let me get one.” DeCaro stepped into the tack room of his barn and emerged moments later carrying a very handsome bridle and bit made of a deep red cordovan leather and decorated with German silver brightwork.
“You give your customers fine tack to use,” Longarm observed.
DeCaro smiled. “It’s my own,” he said. “He’s used to it.”
“Thanks for trusting me with it.”
The hostler shrugged. “John sent you. If he trusts you, so do I.”
“I’ll give you a voucher redeemable from the federal government for the use of him. He’ll be stabled behind the sheriff’s place. I’m sure you know it.”
DeCaro nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll bring over some feed for him. That will be on my bill too. That way he won’t be eating up what John has there.”
“Fair enough,” Longarm said.
DeCaro slipped the bridle over the dun’s head and let him mouth the bit for a moment before he turned the reins over to Longarm. “I named him George, but of course he doesn’t come to it no more than any other horse would. One thing he does well is ground rein. I wouldn’t do that with any other animal I got here, but you can trust George on a ground rein.
“That’s good to know,” Longarm said. He arranged the reins, then sprang onto the little horse’s back. Touching the brim of his Stetson toward DeCaro by way of a salute, he nudged the dun in the side. As soon as they were out of the barn, he touched the horse again and lifted it into an easy trot back to the Tyler house to pick up his gear.
It was still fairly early in the day, plenty early enough to begin speaking with whatever herdsmen he could find in the valley.
Chapter 16
A wisp of pale smoke was visible above a fold in the land about halfway up the west side of the valley. Longarm reined the dun away from the stream and nudged it into a trot. The horse crested the top of the rise, and Longarm could see a moving sea of woolly sheep—albeit a small sea—white against the brown and green of the rocky hillside.
A wagon, covered with canvas but with tall, wooden sides, sat on the uphill side of the sheep. A clutch of men squatted around a fire beside the wagon, while farther uphill there were three horses grazing. Two of the horses were heavy-bodied animals with broad butts and cropped tails. The other looked like an ordinary cow pony.
The sheep were under the watchful eyes of perhaps a dozen dogs that lay in the grass nearby, ready to fend off predators. Longarm saw a small bunch of ewes try to escape the flock. Instantly there was a dog racing to head them off and turn them back to the group. One of the men beside the fire stood and gave a series of whistles that seemed to mean something to the dog, which instantly charged the lead ewe, nipping and barking until the shepherd’s commands were obeyed. Once the sheep were back in the flock, the dog lay down while the man resumed his seat by the fire.
Longarm kneed the dun ahead. When he was within a hundred yards of the fire, the men spotted him. Moving almost as one, they stood and picked up rifles that he had not noticed from a distance.
Well, Tyler’s wire to Billy Vail had said there could be a range war brewing up here. These boys looked like they were ready to start the fight right here and now.
Longarm continued his approach at a slow walk, and as he neared the Basques, he held a hand up palm outward to show he posed no danger.
“Anybody here speak English?” he called.
“I do,” came an answer in a voice that sounded more Texas than Spain.
The speaker stepped forward. He was a lanky fellow with a mustache that drooped a good couple inches south of his chin. He wore a black hat with a Montana peak and a flat brim and sported a pair of revolvers, one hung at his right side and the other rigged for a cross-draw much like Longarm’s outfit. Even from a distance Longarm got the impression that this fellow could be salty.
“Stop right there,” he said in a husky voice once Longarm was within a dozen yards of the fire. “State your business.”
“United States deputy marshal,” Longarm said, “so stand your men down or get ready to have hell come calling.”
The Texan turned and said something to the others, who quickly dropped the muzzles of their rifles. Several resumed squatting beside the fire and went back to a meal that Longarm seemed to have interrupted. To Longarm the English-speaking man said, “Come ahead, Marshal. We heard there was a federal man coming. Didn’t know you was already here.”
Longarm approached the group but stopped the dun and dismounted a little way downwind so he would not kick up dust that could get into the pots of food dangling over the fire.
He dropped the reins, hoping DeCaro was right and the dun would stand to the rein without wandering off to graze, then he approached the Texan and stuck his hand out to shake. “Custis Long,” he said, “out of Marshal William Vail’s Denver office.”
The gent shook and said, “Eli Cruikshank.” He added a small, slightly twisted grin that twitched the dangling ends of his mustache, and said, “Out of my daddy’s balls in Bee-ville, Texas.”
“Pleased t’ meet you, Eli. What’s your deal in this? I hope you ain’t here t’ be part o’ the war I heard was coming to a boil up this way.”
“No, not really. The bossman hired me ’cause I got a way with languages. Pick them up pretty easy. Good thing too because none of these boys can speak much in the way of English. I’m here to interpret more than anything else.”
“But if there was to come a shooting war?” Longarm asked.
Cruikshank’s answer was a shrug. Which told quite enough. He was there to ride for the brand, so if things came to a fight, he would be in the thick of it. Looked like he could handle himself too. Longarm hoped he would not have to face the Texas boy across the barrels of their pistols . . . all the more so because Cruikshank seemed a likeable fellow and Longarm would hate to have to kill him.
“Come set,” Cruikshank said. “We’re having a bite of dinner. You’re welcome to share.”
“Thankee kindly.” Longarm fetched a tin plate and a cup out of a bucket close to the fire and helped
himself to coffee, beans, and a chunk of some sort of meat. The Basques shifted somewhat away from him, as if he were contaminated with some disease that they did not care to catch.
“This ain’t bad,” he said after he got into the meat. “What is it?”
“Mountain lion,” Cruikshank said. “Tasty stuff, isn’t it? The boys favor it and kill one whenever they can to keep it from taking any of the sheep. It’s kind of a bonus that they cook up so good.”
Longarm nodded. “I heard they were good eating. Now I know for my own self.”
“What brings you here, Marshal?” Cruikshank asked, after giving Longarm the courtesy of letting him finish his dinner before they got down to business.
“Making rounds,” Longarm said. “Showing the flag, you might say. Letting everyone know that there will be law an’ order around here.”
Cruikshank snorted. “Tell that to the greasers. They’re the ones making threats.”
“Oh, I will tell it to them, but what’s the deal with you and your Basques?”
“They’re good fellows. Decent. Hard workers. Not afraid to stand up to wolves or mountain lions carrying nothing but staves or shepherd’s crooks. I like them.”
“Funny-looking staves,” Longarm said, pointedly looking at one of the Winchesters propped against a rock close to the fire.
Cruikshank shrugged and went on, “They work for Mr. Brent Wisner up in Billings, same as I do. He owns the sheep. They work for wages and a share of the increase. Used to be the outfit was scattered all over this valley, but since the Mex’cans came here and started making threats, they stay pretty much bunched up like this for safety. O’ course after dinner they’ll split the flock into smaller groups and graze out; then toward dark they’ll gather ’em up again. Used to be we could trust the dogs to keep watch overnight. Nowadays we post sentinels. You should ought to know that. If you come up on us at night, make sure you sing out who you are before you get close to the sheep. We, uh, we wouldn’t want to make no mistakes.” He grinned again. “Not by accident anyhow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Longarm said, reaching for the coffeepot for a refill. “One thing you might wanta know is that I don’t intimidate real easy.” He looked square into Cruikshank’s eyes. “We wouldn’t wanta have any o’ those accidents, you an’ me.”
Cruikshank’s answer was a grin. The Texan did not look any more intimidated than Longarm was.
It is good to know the opposition, Longarm thought. But it is even better if there is no opposition. After all, Billy had sent him up here to head off a war, not to fight one.
“Can I pour you another cup?” he asked.
“I’d like that,” Cruikshank said, reaching for his cup. “Thanks.”
Chapter 17
Longarm had his lunch with the Basques—and came to his unspoken understanding with Eli Cruikshank—so he then excused himself and stepped back onto the little dun named George.
“Thank you, Eli.” He touched the brim of his Stetson and said, “Keep ’em out of trouble, hear?” In a soft voice he added, “An’ yourself too.”
“Oh, I never cause trouble, Marshal,” Cruikshank grinned,
“but I’m generally up for any that comes my way.”
Longarm grunted and gently touched the dun’s side with his heel. The horse headed downhill to the creek.
The water there flowed swift and cold, but nowhere did it appear to be deep.
Longarm could not help but notice as he splashed across that the stream was lousy with trout. They lay facing upstream, lazily finning and waiting for something edible to come floating by. It was just a damned shame that he had not come here to fish. An even worse shame that he had not thought to pass himself off as a fisherman. He might have picked up all sorts of information if neither the Basques nor the Mexicans knew who and what he was.
It was too late for that, however. Dammit!
Unlike with the Basques and their sheep, the flocks of goats and their Mexican herders were not conveniently bunched up where he could get a look at them—and they at him—all at one time.
Whereas the sheep had been herded together into one huge flock, the goats were scattered all to hell and gone in small groups of twenty or thirty animals or so. Like the sheep, the goats were being controlled more by dogs than by men, an efficient and inexpensive method.
Longarm spent the afternoon riding from one small group to another. Several key differences from the shepherds struck him along the way, apart from the way every lone goatherd looked at him with nervous suspicion when he approached.
The first was that there seemed to be no spokesman for the Mexican goatherds. At least no English-speaking spokesman that Longarm could find. The goatherds spoke Spanish, and that was that. Trying to question them only frustrated both the herder and himself.
The other major difference that was visible to Longarm’s inquiring eye was that while the Mexicans were also armed, the Basques had been carrying modern Winchester or Marlin repeating lever-action rifles, but the Mexicans were armed with an assortment of old shotguns and Springfield trapdoor rifles, probably cast-off—and very likely worn out—army surplus.
If it came to a war, Longarm thought, the Basques would have a huge advantage. Not only were they much better armed, they had Eli Cruikshank on their side. Longarm suspected that Cruikshank was about as close to being a professional as you could come.
If it came to a war, he thought, it was apt to be a slaughter of the Mexicans.
He hoped it would not come to that.
It was his job to make damned sure that it did not.
Chapter 18
It was well past dark when Longarm got back to Dwyer. Lights showed in the windows of virtually all the houses in town but practically none of the storefronts. It seemed that Dwyer was a town that closed up early. The saloons were open but nothing else that he could see. That included the one café in town, a place called, coincidentally, enough, Café. At least that was what the sign over the door said. At the moment it was as dark and empty as everything else around it.
Longarm did not know exactly what time it was, but he was sure it was much too late to expect Nell Tyler to prepare a meal for him. Beer and peanuts would just have to do, he figured. He took the dun to John Tyler’s barn, unsaddled it and gave it a generous measure of grain, then briefly curried and brushed it before walking over to Helen Birch’s saloon.
But then he had had worse more than once in the past. There were times when beer and peanuts would have been a blessing.
“My goodness, Marshal. You look like shit,” Helen said by way of greeting.
“Thank you so much. Where is everybody?”
“At home in bed like honest folks should be at this time of night,” she said. Then the woman laughed and added, “Which tells you something about you and me, doesn’t it? But the fact is, I was just about to close up for the night.”
“All right. Sorry,” he said, turning back toward the door.
“No.” She stopped him. “Don’t go. What can I get you?”
Longarm leaned on the bar and said, “A feather bed an’ about ten hours o’ sleep oughta do it. But I’ll settle for a quick shot an’ then leave you t’ get on home.”
“Have you had any supper?” she asked.
He shook his head and yawned. “No, but that’s all right. Shove that bowl o’ peanuts over here, would you? I’ll take a handful o’ them. I can set on one o’ those benches over by the courthouse an’ shell the little sons o’ bitches.”
Helen chuckled. “I think I can do better than that. I haven’t had supper yet myself, so why don’t you join me?”
“Lady, that’s the best offer I’ve had all day. Thanks.”
“It will be nice to have company for a change.” She smiled. “I deal with people all day every day, but I never have any company, if you see what I mean.”
“Sure. It’s the difference between workin’ and visitin’. I get the same thing, I expect.”
“So you wi
ll do it?” she asked.
“I’d be pleased to.” He yawned again.
Helen lived in rooms behind her saloon. She turned the OPEN sign in the window over so that it read CLOSED instead and pulled the roller blind down before she bolted the door and extinguished all but one of the lamps burning along the walls. “This way,” she said, indicating a door behind the bar.
Helen went in first; she struck a match and lighted a lamp, then turned the wick up and lighted two more before she was satisfied. “I cook simple rather than fancy,” she warned.
“Simple is fine by me,” Longarm said.
“It seems I’ve caught you at a good time for my brand of cooking.” She laughed. “You’re too tired to know if it’s good or bad. Truth is, I’m not much of a cook. But I’ll thank you to keep from saying so. To my face anyway.”
“Like you said, I’m too damn weary t’ know the difference tonight.”
“Sit over there, Custis. I’ll stir up the coals and get things moving.”
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
“There is. You can stay out of the way. Would you like a shot or a beer to hold you off?”
“No, I’m fine. Really.” He sat where Helen indicated and watched while first she built up the fire inside a cast iron stove no larger than a sheepherder-style camp stove, then poured water and put it on to heat for coffee. Once that was done, she dropped a large nugget of lard into a skillet and sliced in a generous mess of spuds. She sliced slabs of bacon into the same skillet and set it onto the fire.
“Now we wait,” she said, joining Longarm at the table. “Tell me about your day,” she offered.
He found himself doing exactly that. He told himself he hoped to get a local perspective on the situation in McConnell County. The truth was that Helen Birch was a good listener, and Custis Long was half-asleep and in a mood to talk with the handsome woman.
He rattled on right through the process of cooking—she was right; cooking was not one of her talents—and on through the meal. By the time the simple meal was finished, he had pretty much exhausted the subject of his rather frustrating day.
