by Paul Lederer
‘John, tell them that it isn’t so! Tell them!’
Jared Fine had taken another step forward, and now the Rafter B foreman spoke to the woman: ‘Cassie, I know you like this fellow, trusted him, but what Marshal Bingham says is so. I saw it happen. The truth is that John, here, is John Dancer, a well-known gunman and killer down in New Mexico Territory. He killed Terrell without mercy, and probably Billy Dent as well so that Billy couldn’t testify against him after the shooting. We all know that he also killed Wes Carroll. I don’t know who Dancer is working for, we can only guess, but it is certain that he committed murder not once, but twice, and probably three times.’
‘John …’ Cassandra’s fingers had been working the fabric of Dancer’s blue shirt. Now her hands hesitated and she let them go slack. There was a flood of tears in her eyes as she looked up into his and begged, ‘Tell me it isn’t so!’
‘It isn’t,’ Dancer said, his eyes firmly fixed on Jared Fine’s lying face. ‘Terrell – and Jared – ambushed us, killing Billy Dent. I shot Terrell as he was trying to make his escape.’
‘Jared!’ Cassie said in confusion. The man lied again:
‘How long have you known me, Cassie? I came out to this country with your husband and helped build Rafter B. John Dancer is a killer by nature, and he killed Tyrone Terrell. I give you my oath on it. Do you need help with your prisoner, Bingham?’
EIGHT
Cassie had a brief, impassioned talk with Marshal Bingham, but the big lawman remained impassive. Dancer heard him say: ‘I have my duty to do,’ and then the two separated, leaving Cassie to stand alone on the bunkhouse porch, her hands tightly gripped.
The marshal had kept one eye on Jason Burr, his rifle at the ready, but Jason did not make a move. He had no stake in this, Dancer understood and it would have been foolish for him to intervene, not even knowing the truth of matters.
‘I’d like to get my own horse, marshal,’ Dancer said. ‘Hell, someone will likely be prosecuting me for horse-stealing if I ride out on the bay.’
Bingham remained expressionless. ‘We can do that. Though you won’t be needing your horse again for a while, if ever.’
They crossed the yard, Bingham a few feet behind Dancer, his cocked rifle at the ready. Inside the barn Washoe stood with three other ponies, his ears pricking as he saw John approaching.
‘You go ahead and saddle up,’ Bingham said.
In the back of the barn, raking up, stood Calvin Hardwick. He studied Dancer with mournful eyes as he smoothed out the blanket on Washoe’s back. The old man looked at the marshal who stood to one side of the open door, his rifle held ready for action. ‘Is it serious trouble, John?’ Calvin asked.
‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Dancer said, hefting his saddle onto the big gray’s back. ‘Just a little misunderstanding.’
Calvin shook his head worriedly, not believing Dancer’s reassuring words. John gave Washoe his bit, still under Bingham’s steady gaze. The marshal was an old hand at this business and ready for anything. There was no attempt worth making that had any chance of success.
‘I’m ready, I suppose,’ Dancer told the lawman.
‘All right. Lead your pony out in front of me. You don’t mount him until I’m in my own saddle, understand?’
Dancer only nodded. Calvin watched in dismal silence as his new and only friend led his horse out into the bright sunlight. The tableau in front of the bunkhouse had not altered appreciably. Jason Burr stood alone, his thumbs hooked into his trouser pockets. Cassie stood in the shade of the porch awning, watching his approach with wide eyes. Jared Fine held himself at a distance from the young widow, his face still dark with anger.
Bingham said, ‘Tuesday, Jared, we’ll need you at the courthouse to swear to the truth of the complaint.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Fine promised.
‘Can … anyone visit him?’ Cassie asked with subdued anxiety. Bingham shook his head heavily.
‘I wouldn’t recommend it, Mrs Blythe.’ Cassie’s eyes met Dancer’s once, briefly, and then she turned her face away, holding her kerchief to her eyes. Bingham swung aboard his sorrel horse and instructed John to climb onto Washoe’s back.
‘You know the way, Dancer,’ the lawman said and John nodded, kneeing Washoe into a gently cadenced walk. He was in no hurry to reach the end of this particular trail.
The sky was blue crystal, the sand flats mirror-white. The distant sawtooth range stood out starkly in vision. To the north where the land began to roll and grow vaguely green they could see a plume of dust rising high into the desert air.
‘Looks like they’re starting the combined herd toward Carson City,’ Bingham said, only to fill the silence. ‘Kind of late in the day for it, though.’ Dancer looked that way and nodded.
‘You know I didn’t murder Billy Dent or Terrell, don’t you?’ Dancer asked.
‘I know a complaint was filed,’ Bingham said heavily. ‘When that’s been done, I arrest the man who’s been accused. The rest is up to judge and jury.’
Dancer nodded, having expected no other sort of reply from the experienced lawman. Bingham, he supposed, had given up making moral judgements years ago. If he did his job exactly as it was defined, no blame could be attached to him.
Dancer was still watching the northern skies. Now he said: ‘That herd’s moving in the wrong direction.’ Bingham squinted into the sunlight, looking that way again.
‘Probably the wind’s shifting the dust,’ he suggested.
Dancer shook his head. ‘No. That’s the combined herd, all right, but it’s moving to the north, not westward.’
Bingham was frowning deeply now. Hesitantly he slowed his sorrel horse and studied the column of shifting dust as it passed slowly across the distant landscape. ‘They can’t be trailing north. The only road up that way is through a narrow pass in the hills. There’s no way they’d choose that route. The trail’s too difficult.’
‘Unless they are trying to conceal the herd,’ Dancer said. Now both men had halted their horses to squint across the distances of the sunbright land.
‘It’s the long way around to reach Carson City, that’s for sure. We must be wrong,’ Bingham answered, although now his voice was doubtful.
‘It’s the best way if they are trying to keep anyone from coming across rustled beef. The way they’re going they could have that herd across the county line before the sun goes down. They made sure that you’d be too distracted to look into it, that you’d be too busy taking me in. They figured to be long gone before you could know anything about it, let alone follow.’
‘I don’t buy that,’ Bingham said as his horse shifted its feet uneasily. ‘It can’t be. Mrs Blythe would never be party to such a thing.’
‘It wasn’t Mrs Blythe who sent for you, called you out to the ranch to arrest me! Filed the murder complaint!’ Dancer was furious, pleading for belief. ‘It was Jared Fine, can’t you see that? Him, Luke Garner, maybe in cahoots with Snake Eye and Double X.’
‘Jared wouldn’t do anything like that,’ Bingham said. ‘Not knowing the position that Mrs Blythe is already in. I know him, Dancer – Jared Fine came out here twelve years ago with Aaron Blythe. He helped open this range.’
‘And what has he gotten out of it?’ Dancer asked.
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Don’t you? What has Jared Fine gotten for those twelve years of work? Does he have one acre of land, six steers to call his own? House, wife, family? Maybe he was hoping as much as anyone else that Cassandra would just give it up. Maybe he had hopes that she would fall into his arms, needing his protection after Aaron was hung. Maybe he killed Aaron Blythe himself, for his own reasons.’
‘For what reasons?’ Bingham asked, showing genuine concern now.
‘For what reasons!’ Dancer said in exasperation. He waved a hand toward the country beyond. ‘For cattle, land, money. For a fine house and a young widow.’
‘I don’t like your insinuations.’
&nb
sp; ‘I don’t like them myself, Bingham! You could at least consider what I’m saying. We could ride north and see whose cattle those are and where they’re going. Who exactly is driving them.’
Bingham was long silent. The hot desert air shifted their horses’ manes and tails as they looked down from the rocky ridge toward the gray-green flats beyond. At last he shook his head. ‘I have to deliver you to Potrero first. I can’t take the risk of riding off anywhere with you. They’re expecting you at the courthouse, and that’s my first duty. I’ve a warrant on you for murder. I can’t be in two places at once. After I’ve got you booked and jailed, I may have to come back and take a look.’
‘It’ll be sundown by then! They’ll have that herd started toward Carson City, out of this county. Then you can do nothing at all, Bingham!’
‘I am responsible.…’ Bingham began to say, and then he was not responsible for anything at all, never would be again. The rolling echo of a rifle shot rattled across the barren land and Bingham stood straight up in his stirrups, clutching at his heart before he tumbled head first from the saddle to lie sprawled crookedly against the sand and red rock.
John Dancer kicked free of his stirrups and dove for the ground in a roll, hitting it before a second searching shot was fired, ricocheting off rock with a deadly whine.
Not again! was Dancer’s first thought. Was the whole country infested with men with rifles waiting to ambush any passing rider? The thought only flickered through his mind. He turned immediately to more practical matters. Crawling ahead on hands and knees, he was able to reach the marshal’s inert body and free Bingham’s pistol from its holster. What he needed was a long gun, but Bingham’s sorrel had danced away from the dead man in panic and was nowhere to be seen.
Directly in front of Dancer was a stand of cholla – jumping cactus – screening him behind their silver-thorned joints from anyone wishing to shoot again. His attacker could, of course, empty his magazine of bullets, hoping for a lucky hit, but that was a foolish tactic to adopt: a waste of ammunition and likely to increase the chance of drawing attention from any passing rider.
Sweat trickled into Dancer’s eyes. He scanned the distances, listening intently, but he heard nothing, saw no movement out on the desert. His grip on the revolver was too tight, his hand damp with perspiration. He tried to slow his pulse by taking in and slowly letting out deep breaths. That served little purpose. The sun was on his right shoulder now. Long minutes passed and he seemed to be able to actually see the spiny shadows of the cholla slowly stretch out from beneath the cactus plants. Flies had found him now, found Marshal Bingham and they paraded across the marshal’s face as his open eyes watched. Dancer spared a minute, no more, to think about his own mortality.
He could not stay where he was, nor was there cover in which he could lose himself. He decided on a dangerous ploy – one which could get his loyal ally killed as well as himself.
He whistled up Washoe.
The big steel-dust came toward him, his reins dragging, not understanding what was required of him. Dancer looked around once more and then rolled under the horse’s belly, rising on the gray’s right side, away from the direction from which he had been fired on. Carefully, he collected the reins and walked away, using the big horse as a shield, hoping that the sniper would understand the folly of trying to take the horse down at a distance. If his attacker did open up again, however, a lucky bullet could indeed kill Washoe and leave Dancer fully exposed on open ground.
Fifty feet they made, traveling shoulder to shoulder, and then fifty yards and still no bullets rang out. After a long, incredibly cautious look around the suffering land, Dancer chanced it, swung into leather and heeled the gray into a run. There were no following shots. Dancer slowed Washoe, patting the big horse’s neck gratefully, settling it into an easy walk. No matter who was behind him, running Washoe over broken ground under the hotly glaring sun was no option. If Washoe were to founder, he would be in every bit as bad a position as he had been previously.
Dancer saw movement to his right in a shallow, willow-brush-clotted wash and he turned his gun that way. Then, with relief he recognized the bulk of the shadow, realized that he had caught up with Bingham’s horse. He guided Washoe that way.
In the gully, where insects swarmed and hummed around his face, Dancer took the rifle sheath from the marshal’s saddle and fastened it to Washoe’s rig. Then he unsaddled Bingham’s horse, slipped its bit and unbuckled the throat latch, slipping the bridle from the sorrel.
‘Get out of here now!’ he said, slapping the horse’s rump, and after a minute’s uncertainty the sorrel began to lope off in the direction of Potrero.
As soon as the horse reached town, it was bound to be recognized and reported. In the courthouse they would have knowledge of where Bingham had gone and what his mission for the day was. There would be no posse formed immediately, however. Shopkeepers and businessmen are not eager to lock up and ride out in search of a killer who could be riding in any direction. Besides, he thought, glancing at the sky, it would not be that much longer before an early dusk settled in across the desert, making tracking nearly impossible. They would find Bingham in time – the buzzards would show them the way.
For now John figured he had the time to settle a few matters. He rode steadily northward, toward Tortuga Flats to settle matters with Jared Fine. The miles passed slowly, the sun beat down unmercifully.
The low sun was flushing the mountain slopes with color, dusk was purpling the long sand desert by the time he caught up with the herd. They were following what appeared to be a little-used trail which angled up and into a canyon cleft. Not the route a man would normally choose with a herd that size.
The steers were being pushed at a steady pace, urged on over the rough trail at a pace the cattle did not like – not this close to the time of evening when they normally bedded down. Apparently Fine was intent on driving the cattle across the county line before dark. Once they had passed that boundary there was no legal way for them to be halted. Likely no one would try.
Unless Pinetree decided to start a full-blown range war and was willing to fight it in the dead of night. Remembering the grim determination of Victor LaFrance and the unpredictable anger of Luke Garner that was not as fanciful as it seemed on the surface.
Let them fight it out, Dancer thought with his own brand of wild anger. He did not care if the ranchers all killed each other, if the cattle were stampeded for a hundred miles in every direction, with everyone’s hopes for a huge beef sale scattered to the winds by their own stubborn hatred, jealousy and greed.
Let them fight it out – he was still riding for the brand, but his mission was to save it from itself. To stop Jared Fine from profiting in any way from his murderous schemes.
It was full dark by the time Dancer did come upon the herd. They were still being pushed north, by the light of the stars and the white glow of the rising halfinoon. He could see starlight glinting on the horns of the cattle, see the ranch hands in silhouette, pushing the weary, unwilling steers onward. Dancer halted Washoe for a moment, letting the steel-gray blow. Where among that surge of men and cattle could he find Jared? He paused briefly, his anger stilled enough for him to consider that if he was caught he was certain to be gunned down. The only advantage he did have was the night itself. No cowhand, his mind on his work, cursing and driving 200 balky steers over the broken, narrow trail, was likely to even glance his way, let alone recognize him. No, he did not feel that he would be challenged once he reached the herd.
He frowned slightly now, searching the dark land. Had Jared Fine posted outriders to alert him in case any incoming rider tried to intrude? Men whose only job was to prevent any unwanted men from interfering. It seemed likely, not because Fine would fear Dancer that much, but because somewhere on the desert Pinetree would be riding. Dancer was now sure of that.
Victor LaFrance would not give up so easily. There would be outriders watching for interference.
Where would Jar
ed Fine be, John now had to consider? He wouldn’t be riding drag where eating the dust of hundreds of steers made for dismal work. Nor, Dancer concluded, would the Rafter B foreman be at the head of the herd. For one reason: if Pinetree hit the herd there was bound to be shooting, and at the first gunshots the spooked herd would certainly stampede up the narrow canyon. No man with any sense would willingly ride point in circumstances like these.
Dancer realized that he was again engaging in idle speculation which, if not acted upon, was utterly pointless even if his surmises were correct. Washoe had caught his breath by now and he tossed his head anxiously, eager to be on with the night’s business whatever it might prove to be. Dancer was less eager, but more determined. Speculation was useless. It was time to act.
He started Washoe down the rocky slope toward the herd.
Reaching the heated mass of lowing, angry beasts, of swearing, shrilly whistling cowhands, Dancer uncoiled his own lariat and merged with the shadowy bunch, flagging a few steers in passing. No one seemed to notice him or care who he was. One older hand who was circling the herd did glance at Dancer curiously, but John decided that it was because he was riding bareheaded. But many a man has lost his hat along the trail, and it wasn’t a significant enough sight to cause the cowboy undue curiosity.
A half-moon had been on the rise, but now as the trail climbed deeper into the dark canyon, it was again smothered by the jutting surrounding hills and the shadows grew deeper than ever. Dancer worked his way along the flank of the herd, his eyes searching the riders. It was impossible to see a man’s features or even to tell what color horse he was riding in the swirl of dust, the gloom of night.
After fifteen minutes or so, the rising half-moon appeared once again, peering through a notch in the broken hills. Its thin light illuminated the trail as they began an even more rugged ascent. Dancer wondered if the herd’s arrival had been planned to coincide with the cresting moon.
