Free Winds Blow West

by L. P. Holmes

  FREE WINDS

  BLOW WEST

  L. P. HOLMES

  Copyright © 1948 by Interstate Publishing Corporation.

  © renewed 1976 by L. P. Holmes. © 2015, 2016 by

  Golden West Literary Agency for restored material

  E-book published in 2018 by Blackstone Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6092-9

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6091-2

  Fiction / Westerns

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  Chapter One

  He came down across the looping foothills of the Lodestone Mountains, letting his long-striding black horse set its own pace along the cattle trails that followed this little watercourse fringed by alders and willows. Yesterday afternoon he had struck the headwaters of the creek, and last night he had made his frugal camp beside its chuckling waters. Today, keeping to the winding run of it, he had begun passing cattle—stocky whitefaces bearing a Rocking A brand. He flushed them from favored watering spots and saw others bunched in little meadows that broke and widened here and there. Knowing cattle, he sensed in them more than a natural wariness. They were fretful and uneasy, a condition of things that he turned over in his mind, and at which he wondered.

  He sat tall in the saddle, for he was long-bodied and sinewy, and solid through the shoulders. His deeply weathered features were lean, flat of jaw, and his chin was hard angled. The faint line of an ancient scar angled across one solid cheek bone. Pressure at the corners thinned his lips slightly, touching his mouth with a habitual grimness. There was a trick of erectness in the cast of his head that gave his gray-eyed glance a certain penetrating intentness. There was about him a physical and mental competence, a bold, tough sufficiency, alert yet taciturn. Bruce Martell was a man who rode alone, liked it so, and who neither asked nor gave odds.

  His jeans and jumper and gray flannel shirt were well worn, but showed a certain neatness in fit and appearance, the apparel of a man staunch in his own self-respect. His riding gear held the same plain but well-cared-for and good quality look. His spur rowels had been filed down to blunted stubs in definite regard for the horse under him. A rifle in a scabbard was slung under his near stirrup leather, and the holstered gun belted about his saddle-leaned waist was as plain and businesslike as the rest of his outfit.

  Here the trail turned and dipped, crossing a sparkling shallows of the creek, and the hooves of the black horse beat up a faint spray that was cool fragrance in a land whipped to tawny dryness by the solid beat of a late-summer sun. There was a long thicket of scrub willow through which the trail dodged and ducked before breaking into still another meadow, and at the lower end of this there was sudden movement that pointed and held Martell’s glance.

  A single slinking coyote was of small consequence, but when a man glimpsed a full half dozen of these wary scavengers, scuttling away through the alders and willow patches, he was faced with a possible significance he could not afford to ignore. So now Martell drew the black to a halt and let the careful survey of his glance run out ahead. The coyotes almost instantly vanished, but there, beyond a fringe of willows, lifted a fairly lofty alder tree, and in the branches of this several buzzards perched like somber-robed ghouls, craning naked necks as they watched rider and horse fixedly.

  There was a faint stir of breeze pushing up the creek, and with crinkled nostrils Martell tested it, found it fresh and clean, carrying no taint of carrion. He put the black horse to movement again, drifting down the meadow. At this closer approach the buzzards lifted from the alder with heavy flapping, then soared in wheeling, dipping circles, heads cocked as they watched with black, beady eyes.

  Martell’s horse laid the broad of its chest against a final barrier of willow and broke through into a little glade beyond, where, plain to the eye, were scattered the reason and cause of this gathering of furred and feathered scavengers. The remains of four beef carcasses cluttered the glade.

  Martell pulled up. The story was plain enough. Not too many hours before—yesterday afternoon or evening perhaps—these cattle had been butchered, hurriedly and wastefully. Only the loins and haunches had been taken, the balance left to the blowflies, the buzzards, and coyotes. Decomposition had not yet fully set in.

  This, mused Martell, was slow-elking if he’d ever seen it. Any cow outfit butchering beef for its own legitimate use would not have killed four animals at once, nor would they have left so much good meat to go to waste.

  Considering the matter, Martell thumbed tobacco sack and paper from a pocket of his jumper and spun a cigarette into shape. It was while he was busy at this that the black horse swung an alert head, ears pricked. At the same instant Martell heard the muffled thump of hooves, coming up along the creek. And then there was a voice calling, harsh and dominant.

  “The buzzards lifted out of that tallest alder, just ahead. We’ll have a look around there.”

  Martell straightened slightly in his saddle, swung the black around so that it put his right side to the downstream approach. He lit his cigarette, alertness a cold spark in his eyes. They understood each other, Martell and his horse, for now, under the caressing pressure of its rider’s hand, the big, black gelding turned motionless as a statue, waiting out those approaching hooves.

  Four riders broke through the willows at the lower end of the glade. At what they saw before them, they pulled in abruptly, and from the lips of their leader—a spare, leathery-faced man with a nearly white, sickle mustache that framed a grim, bear-trap mouth—burst words of bitter anger.

  “Knew it! Knew we’d find something like this. Those damned settlers … so smug and self-righteous! More of the same old thievery. Four good ones this time … slow-elked!”

  The torrent of the speaker’s anger broke off abruptly as his furious glance, sweeping the glade, came to rest on Martell and the statue-like black. For a moment he stared, then growled with savage authority.

  “Watch him, boys! Carp, come up with me!”

  They came spurring up, this older man and one who was younger and burly through the shoulders, with a thick neck and a ruddy intolerance all across a broad and blocky face. They set to a skidding halt in front of Martell and the impact of their eyes was a hot, suspicious challenge. The older man’s voice was like a whiplash.

  “What d’you know about this?”

  Martell shrugged. “Not a thing, except that you are plainly right in calling it slow-elking. I got here only a couple of minutes before you rode in.”

  “You’re from where and going where?”

  This time it was no shrug that caused Martell’s shoulders to swing restlessly. And his eyes darkened slightly, as though brushed over with smoke. He jabbed a back-pointing thumb over his shoulder and a stabbing index finger ahead.

  “From there … to there.”

  “Not definite enough … not by a hell of a ways. What’s your business around here?”

  It was the younger, burly-shouldered one who threw this blunt statement and question, and the hot intolerance of him burned in his words.

  Now the smoke did gather in Bruce Martell’s eyes, and his tone, drawling before, turned brittle.

  “Let’s ease up on the reins a mite. You,”—he looked at the older man—“got a right to be warmed up, if, as I figure, you owned this
beef. Only, don’t jump at conclusions. But you,”—and here Martell switched his glance to the burly rider—“where I’m heading for, and why, is none of your damned affair. Do I make myself clear?”

  The burly one flushed angrily, leaned forward in his saddle. The older man snapped a harsh command.

  “Easy does it, Carp. Let me handle this.”

  He made another hard, searching appraisal of Bruce Martell.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I owned those steers. I’m Hack Asbell and the Rocking A is my iron. What you see here ain’t the first I’ve lost. This sort of thing has been going on ever since the first rush of sodbusters hit Indio Basin. They seem to think that Rocking A beef is God’s free gift to the hungry. It ain’t. And somebody is due to damned well find that out, even if it takes a rope and a tall tree to convince ’em.”

  Martell nodded. “Cattle stealing is cattle stealing, slow-elking being part of it. It’d be bad enough if they took the whole carcass, but to take just the loins and quarters and leave the rest to rot, that’s worse than bad, and I savvy just how you feel about it. In your place I’d feel the same. Yet I say again, that I know nothing about this. I came across the Lodestones, and you can follow my back trail to prove it, if you’re of a mind to.”

  The hot, fuming intolerance in Carp Bastion was too much for him to hold back. He rolled his burly shoulders forward almost as if throwing a blow.

  “That’s what you say. Nobody ever seems to know anything about this damned thieving business. Still it goes on. You could be lying, just like all the rest of them. I think so.”

  Martell’s look went bleakly harsh. The pressure of his knee sent the black horse lunging forward. It crashed into Carp Bastion’s mount, nearly upsetting the animal. Martell’s reaching hand locked in the front of Bastion’s shirt, and with one lifting, savage jerk he hauled his man out of the saddle and flung him, smashing face down to the hard earth. Then Martell was backing his horse away, his spread right hand flat against his thigh, close to his holstered gun.

  “Mister,” he rapped coldly, “you talk too damned much.”

  There was a hard yell of anger, and the two riders at the lower end of the glade came spurring up. A gusty rashness ruffled Martell’s cheeks, and the swing of his glance missed no move on the part of any of them.

  “When a man calls me a liar, he’s pushed his jaw too far,” he warned. “Don’t get rough. Numbers don’t necessarily mean a damned thing.”

  Hack Asbell had come up the hard way in a tough and wild land. He knew a dangerous man when he saw one, and he knew he was looking at one now. His voice whipped his men back.

  “Cut it fine, boys. Carp more or less asked for that.” He fixed bleak eyes on Martell, then jerked his head. “This creek leads to the Hayfork River. The river is my line. Get across it and stay across. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt … this time.”

  Carp Bastion’s headlong collision with the earth had done his face little good. His chin was skinned, his lips split, and blood was seeping from his nose. He was dazed and he was raging. He tried to get up but fell over on his side, and in that position was pawing clumsily and blindly for his gun.

  “Hold him down!” rapped Martell. “If this thing goes any further, it’ll be because he won’t learn.”

  One of the other riders flashed from his saddle, grabbed Bastion’s gun, and took it away from him. Martell looked at Hack Asbell.

  “The name is Bruce Martell. I expect to be around Indio Basin for a time. I don’t like slow-elkers any better than you do. Should I run across any trail of them, I’ll let you know. Sorry this affair had to turn a little rough.”

  He swung the black and loped down the glade, smashed through the willows below, and was gone.

  Carp Bastion finally found his feet and lurched blindly toward his horse.

  “I’ll kill him!” he blurted thickly. “I’ll ride him down and—!”

  “You’ll shut up and cool off and stay right where you are!” cut in Hack Asbell harshly. “I’m thinking we both made damn fools of ourselves. That fellow was giving it to us straight. And one thing is certain. You’ll never meet up with a tougher, more dangerous man. We’ll be getting along home. We’re too late to do any good here, and I sure ain’t enjoying myself looking at what’s scattered around this glade.”

  “Mebbe if we work from here, we’ll pick up a trail, boss,” suggested one of the other riders.

  Hack Asbell shrugged. “And if we did … what?” he growled bitterly. “It would just lead into the basin, like all the rest of the trails we’ve followed. And there it would break up and scatter, and we’d end up chasing our tails, same as usual. It’s one thing to accuse a dozen men. It’s something else trying to accuse five hundred. No, what we’ve got to do is ride earlier and later and farther. We’ve got to catch these damn slow-elkers cold … in the act or with the meat. Then we can really do something about it. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Two

  Indio Basin was a land of rolling distances, and the afternoon was well along by the time Bruce Martell rode into Starlight, a town set down here in the heart of the basin. It had started as a stage station, lonely and with little hope of real permanence. Then a gradual increase in trade and income from scattered cattle outfits had given it added substance and some growth. And so it had remained—a weather-stained, little, wilderness cattle town—until the wild stampede of the present had caught it up, engulfed it, and left it as it was now—wild-eyed, bewildered, and bursting at the seams, growing madly overnight, without plan or reason or law.

  Government land, the wide miles of Indio Basin had been. Cattle outfits grazing their herds upon it knew this and, with one exception, drugged themselves with the high optimism that it was a condition that would continue to exist, time without end. The lone exception was Hack Asbell. While content and hoping for unruffled continuance of the status quo, Asbell was shrewd enough to realize that the odds were all the other way, and so he had prepared for what was now taking place. Retreating north of the Hayfork River, Asbell had settled on, filed on, and acquired enough range to establish a permanent headquarters that gave him access to all the foothill country of the Lodestones, land that he knew would never appeal to the vast run of settlers. From here he had continued to operate, grazing on basin grass south of the river, until word of the poised land rush came down across the miles. Then he had drifted his cattle back across the river and into the foothills.

  Other outfits, less longheaded, on getting the word that the government was opening Indio Basin to settlement, ranted and raved, cursed and threatened, but got nowhere against stern-talking government agents sent in ahead to ready things for the poised tide. Their day in Indio Basin was done, and in their hearts they knew it; so finally, with a vast reluctance, they began moving out, most of them driving south into the broken country beyond the distant Selkirks.

  And so, on the great day—from the jump-off point along War Lance Creek, away out to the east—the land rush had poured, and in short weeks had spread settlers and their wagons over the basin’s sun-whipped distances.

  Coming into this town of Starlight, Bruce Martell told himself that it was the wagon that was the real identification of the settler. Starlight was jammed with them—wagons lurching and rumbling into town, wagons lurching and rumbling out again, new wagons and old ones, sound ones and rickety ones, ponderous freighters, canvas-topped Conestogas, spring wagons, buckboards, buggies, carts. The single, steadily lengthening street was one mad tangle of them, and the dust of that street, never having a chance to settle, hung in a constant shroud over everything, an amber mist, shot through with the afternoon sunshine. Wagons, wagons—and people.

  The crush of activity was greatest around the door of a building that carried a newly painted sign across its front: land office. cashel edmunds, agent.

  Here men sweat and swore, milled and pushed and argued, trying to
get into the place, trying to get out of it. Tempers were short. Two men, jostling each other for space, suddenly began swinging their fists. They were elbowed aside and left to fight it out, the rest paying them no attention. The drive of more important things was at hand. Even the two battlers suddenly realized this, for they broke off their brawling, looked around foolishly, then renewed their efforts to get into the Land Office.

  Bruce Martell had thought of trying the Land Office for the information he was seeking, but sight of this struggling mob decided him against it. He saw he’d be hours getting into the place and waiting his turn, with the chances better than even that he wouldn’t then find out what he wanted to know.

  Martell had expected a lot of settlers in Indio Basin, but nothing like the actuality. Where he’d expected scores, there were hundreds. All the way in from Hayfork River he’d passed their camps, some already settled on the piece of land of their choice, while many more, latecomers, were scurrying every which way, seeking a parcel of land not already claimed—and having no great amount of luck at it.

  Some had merely set their wagons down in the middle of their quarter section, made frugal camp, and seemed to be resting up after the rigors of the rush; while others, more industrious and of greater energy, were already at work, marking out foundations of the homes they hoped to build, laying out the lines of fields they hoped to plant. One settler Martell had seen was already following a plow, breaking the virgin summer-hardened sod in one thin furrow all along his line, believing perhaps that this would prove an inviolate badge of ownership and so hold back any and all encroaching claims.

  At several camps along the way Martell had stopped to ask his question. At none of them had he been received even civilly, let alone being given any information. From one camp a surly growl followed him: “Damned cowhand! Wouldn’t tell him, even if I knew!”