Guardians of the Sage

by Harry Sinclair Drago

  He paused to let the effect of his words sink in.

  “This fight has just begun, and yet, your patience is gone already. You can’t win that way! My God, men, where is the iron in you? You haven’t lost yet! Don’t let yourselves be stampeded into taking the law into your own hands!”

  Lance Morrow stepped into the cleared space in front of Jim. He was a little bandy-legged man, nearing seventy, and the father of five strapping sons.

  “Montana, I was nursed on a rifle. I’ve lived with one all my life, but I was taught never to take hit down unless I couldn’t git justice no other way. I don’t want to take hit down now. My boys feel as I do about hit. But what are we agoin’ to do, Montana? Man to man, what hope have we got?”

  The old man had put it concretely. That was what they all wanted to know; what hope did they have? They waited anxiously for Montana to answer.

  Jim refused to be hurried.

  “Well,” he said at last, “I never knew Henry Stall to send bad dollars after good ones when time had proved that he had a losing proposition on his hands. If you stand pat and stick together, you can beat him. He can’t consolidate his water unless some one of you sells him land. The man who lets him have one acre is a traitor to you all!”

  “A steer needs grass as well as water. It’s going to cost the Bar S a lot of money to keep moving their stuff. It won’t put any fat on a yearling. And don’t forget, they can’t keep on driving cattle across your range. That’s been threshed out in this county before. The shoe is pinching you now, but it will be the other way around before snow flies.”

  His logic swayed the majority of them. They effected an organization of a sort under Dan Crockett’s leadership and agreed to act together. Even Quantrell consented to the arrangement. His apparent change of face did not fool Montana. He knew the man was dangerous.

  The sun had set before they finished, but no one seemed in a hurry to leave. Jim was talking to Dan and old Lance Morrow when young Gene sounded a warning.

  “Somebody comin’!” he called out.

  Montana looked up to see four horsemen fording the creek. Once across, they rode up at a hard gallop. Hands strayed toward guns in the waiting crowd. The oncoming men were either part of the Bar S bunch or strangers, and with things as they stood, a stranger was more apt to be an enemy than a friend.

  Montana shared the tenseness of the others. A moment later he recognized Reb Russell. Instinctively, the crowd had lined up to face the newcomers. Reb pulled his horse up sharply fifty yards from them and slid to the ground. Without a word to his men, he stalked across the intervening space, a mad fury on him.

  Dan stepped out to face him.

  “You’ve come far enough, Reb! I advise you to get back in your saddle and fan it out of here!”

  A dozen guns were trained on him, but Reb came on until only ten yards separated them.

  “You won’t shoot while I’m facing yuh,” he snarled. “You’ll wait until I’m lookin’ the other way for that.” He saw Montana then. “So you’re here, eh? I never thought you’d get down to herdin’ with a bunch that would pot a man in the back.”

  Foolishly brave, he walked up and down the line, meeting them eye to eye with a sneer on his lips.

  “Come on!” he burst out fiercely. “Which one of you potted that boy?”

  The surprise his words occasioned caused the crowd to fall back. Men turned to their neighbors for an explanation. Dan and Montana exchanged an uneasy glance, sensing that the thing they had feared and hoped to avoid had already happened.

  “Reb, I’ll talk for our side,” Dan announced. “I told you yesterday I didn’t want any trouble. If it’s come, I want to know about it. What’s happened?”

  Reb tried to glare a hole through him before he answered.

  “Picked up one of our boys west of here at the forks on Powder Creek about an hour ago. He was dead when we found him . . . Been shot in the back! Some skunk got him from the rimrocks!”

  Montana groaned. “Who was it, Reb?”

  “The kid.”

  “Billy?” Jim’s voice betrayed his emotion.

  “Yeah—Billy Sauls, your old buddy. You don’t have to look so white about it. You’re on the other side of the fence, ain’t yuh?”

  Montana let the taunt go unrebuked. For the moment he was speechless. The crowd was stunned, too, by the news that a Bar S man had been slain. All their deliberations had come to naught, for beyond doubt the boy had been killed by someone opposed to the Bar S. Being the sons and grandsons of feudists, they knew that only blood could atone for blood.

  Old Lance questioned his sons. Dan tried to read the souls of his boys. Brothers looked at each other with suspicion.

  “Hits natural to suppose somebody on our side done hit, said Lance, “but mebbe hit ain’t so. Mebbe that boy had a personal quarrel with someone.”

  “I’ll say he did!” Reb thundered. “With a hombre that filled four of our yearlin’s full of lead from the same gun that killed him! You can’t crawl out of it! One of your pack got him!”

  “Men, listen to me!” It was Montana. He had jumped up on the wagon-box Dan had been repairing. His voice was charged with a deadly calmness that was more arresting than all of Reb’s vituperation. “You know I’m an old Bar S man. I always found it a good outfit to work for; but I won’t takes wages from a man who’ll grind his neighbors under his heel and bring misery and poverty to women and children for no better reason than that he can make a few more dollars. All I said here this evening still goes. I’m with you to the finish. This killing hasn’t changed that at all. But I don’t believe you approve of shooting men in the back. God knows Billy Sauls never fought that way. I don’t know who got him, but I aim to find out!”

  “You needn’t bother,” Reb rasped scornfully. We’ll take care of that! There’s no need of any more palaverin’. Don’t let me catch any of you above the North Fork after to-night!”

  Without another word, he turned and stalked back to his horse. The light was failing fast. In a few seconds he and his men were only moving gray smudges bobbing over the sage.

  “There’ll be hell to pay now,” old Lance muttered prophetically. “Talkin’ won’t do no good.”

  Montana was not listening. He was staring at Quantrell. The longer he started the more certain he became that the big fellow was aware of his scrutiny and was purposely avoiding his eyes.

  “He’s a tin-horn, and a tin-horn did this job.” Montana could not put the thought away. Quantrell had been the last to arrive. His horse had looked winded.

  From where he stood, Jim could see the animal. Even now it looked weary, head drooping. The muzzle of a rifle peeped out of a saddle scabbard.

  That rifle suddenly became of absorbing interest to Montana.

  “I’m going to have a look at that gun before he pulls out of here,” he promised himself. “If what I’m thinking is correct, it’ll be dirty. He’d hardly have stopped to clean it.”

  Montana changed his position, moving about without apparent purpose, talking to this man and that, but gradually maneuvering so as to bring him nearer to Quantrell’s horse. And now he was certain that Quantrell was watching him.

  The big fellow had broken off his conversation with Brent Crockett. If Montana took a step toward the horse, so did Quantrell. It became a game.

  “Well, if it’s a showdown, let’s get it over with,” Jim muttered to himself. Throwing caution to the winds, he strode up to the horse. Quantrell was only a step behind him. It gave Jim time enough to insert the tip of his little finger into the rifle barrel. Quantrell caught him by the wrist as he started to bring his hand away.

  “What in hell are you snoopin’ around here for?” he snarled under his breath. His eyes were cold and fishy. “It ain’t healthy to handle my stuff!”

  “You might get a disease or something,” Montana taunted. He was armed. His left hand had closed over his gun. “Folks are beginning to look this way. If you want an audience, you can get one
in a hurry. Let go of that wrist or I’ll do a little irrigating on you!”

  Quantrell hung on, trying to save his face. He laughed unpleasantly then. “What’s the idea? What are you tryin’ to pin on me?” he demanded as he dropped Jim’s hand.

  “I guess you get my drift. You were the last to get here. You’re rifle’s dirty——”

  “What of it? That gun ain’t been out of the scabbard since yesterday mornin’ when I killed a coyote. It’s gettin’ so you got your nose in everywhere—and you’re wrong as usual. Why should I bump that kid off? He didn’t mean any thin’ to me.”

  “No?” Montana ground out between clenched jaws. “Let me tell you this, Clay—if I ever prove what I’m thinking I’ll make that kid mean plenty to you. This happens to be something I aim to remember!”

  CHAPTER VII FLAMING SKIES

  LONG after the crowd had gone, Dan and Montana sat on the long bench beside the kitchen door. A candle flickered in the window of the log cabin beyond the barns that old Ben and Romero used as a bunkhouse. A gust of wind shook the tall poplars in the yard. The stars gleemed frostily.

  “Goin’ to blow to-night,” said Dan. “Cloudbank off to the northwest.”

  Jim nodded. Even in July, windstorms were not unusual in that altitude. His thoughts were of Billy Sauls, the boy who had been killed.

  From the cabin came a snatch of song:

  “We rode the range together and had rode it side by side;

  I loved him like a brother, I wept when Utah died——”

  It was old Ben, singing “Utah Carroll”. His singing was lugubrious enough at any time, but to-night he seemed to hang onto every cracked note, as if loath to let them go. He was a lawless old Juniper to whom strife of any kind was welcome. His song drew a shiver from Montana.

  “To shoot a man in the back and not give him a chance is nothing short of murder,” he said.

  “No two ways about that,” Dan muttered glumly. “I guess it comes pretty hard to you, Jim. God knows it jest as well could have been Brent or Gene.”

  “You got any idea who did it, Dan?”

  “No, I ain’t!” He was speaking the truth. “It wasn’t my boys, I know. It puts you in a mean place. A friend of yourn gits killed. Naturally you want to know who done it. But mebbe it’ll be better if you never find out. It’s war to the finish now, and a man’s either for you or ag’in you. This boy was on the other side. I ain’t approvin’ of killin’ of that sort; but it looks like one of our side must’a got him; least we’ll be blamed for it. And right or wrong, we cain’t go gunnin’ for the party that’s responsible. It’s gain’ to be taken as a defy from us—and Jim, we got to back it up!”

  “I reckon we do,” Montana had to agree. “You’ve stated the case exactly.”

  They fell silent for a while. Dan puffed his pipe thoughtfully. Gene and Brent came out and sat down with them. A subtle change had taken place in their attitude toward Montana. It was nothing less than that they felt themselves under suspicion. Unconsciously, Montana’s manner was restrained, too.

  “I don’t like to say it,” Dan declared gravely, “but it’s a time for plain speakin’. Mebbe you feel you cain’t go all the way with us now. We need you, Jim, but if you want to pull out—now’s the time to do it.”

  “No, I’m staying,” Montana answered with great deliberation. “I came into this fight because I thought you folks were getting a pretty raw deal. I reckon I’ll see it through.”

  The boys had little to say. The tumbleweeds began to bounce across the yard before the rising wind.

  “Gettin’ dusty out here,” Dan announced. He knocked the dottle from his pipe. “Might as well turn in, I guess.”

  Jim closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. He was too busily turning over in his mind what answer the Bar S would make to the tragedy on Powder Creek. He surmised that Reb was undoubtedly under orders to make a pretense of staying inside the law.

  “But he’ll strike back, and he’ll hit hard,” he told himself.

  It was almost midnight when he sat up to find his watch. The wind was blowing a gale.

  “Who’s that?” Gene demanded fiercely.

  “Just looking for my watch,” Jim explained. “Can’t get to sleep.”

  He paused to glance out the window. The sky was red to the north. A gasp of surprise was wrung from him.

  “Gene, come here!” he whispered. “Look at that!”

  “It’s a fire, all right!” the boy cried. “Hey, Pap! Brent!”

  Half a minute later the four of them rushed from the house, pulling on their clothes.

  “It’s Dave Morrow’s place!” Brent exclaimed excitedly.

  “No, it ain’t the house,” his father argued. “Too many sparks for that. It’s Dave’s hay! By God, it didn’t take the devils long to strike back, did it?”

  “And you thought they wouldn’t do anythin’ like that!”

  It was young Gene. Jim sensed his hostility.

  “Some of us better ride over there,” he suggested. “It can’t be two miles.”

  “You and Gene go,” said Dan. “We’ll keep a lookout here. I’ve only got about eighty tons of hay put up. I’ll never be able to winter my stuff if I lose it!”

  Scarcely a word passed between the boy and Jim as they rode. Each appeared to prefer his own thoughts. Montana had no reason to doubt that the fire was a Bar S reprisal. It thoroughly discredited his prediction, as Gene had already remarked.

  When still some distance away from the blaze they saw it was Dave’s hay. A number of others had come hurriedly. There was nothing anyone could do.

  Most of those who had gathered there were young men or boys like Gene. Their talk was rife with threats of revenge and hatred.

  The older heads had many opinions to offer about the route the raiders had taken, how many were in the party and what should be done in retaliation. Nobody bothered to ask Montana what he thought.

  Dave, himself, tried to regard his loss philosophically.

  “Better the hay than the house with half a dozen young-uns in it,” he declared stoically. “I jest happen to be the first to git it, thet’s all. They’ll put the torch to more than mine.”

  “God a’mighty, man, you’re right!” Joe Gault cried. “If they ain’t another fire this minute over towards Jubal Stark’s place I’m losin’ the eyesight the Lord gave me! Turn yer back to the blaze and shield yer eyes!”

  “And it ain’t no hay this time!” Morrow shouted. “It’s Jubal’s house!”

  An angry roar burst from the crowd. The burning hay was forgotten. Sanity had fled. In their present mood they would have torn old Slick-ear limb from limb.

  Montana looked around for Gene. The boy had raced away already. In another minute all were raking their horses as they headed for the house on Powder Creek.

  Furniture and bedding had been carried out by the time they arrived. Jim tried to organize a bucket brigade—the creek was near—but the high wind soon convinced him that the effort was useless. Indeed, they were fortunate to save the barn and corrals.

  It was breaking day by the time the fire died down. Quantrell had not put in an appearance, although the blaze could have been noticed from his place.

  Jim said nothing, nor did he think it particularly strange. Things had come to a pass where every man was for himself. The thing he couldn’t understand was the strategy of the raiders in setting a second fire deeper into the enemy’s country after the first fire had been discovered.

  “You’d think they would have run into someone with half the valley up,” he mused.

  And yet, their strategy seemed to have worked. Certainly they had made a clean get-away.

  Dan was waiting for him when he returned to the Box C. Jim mentioned the matter to him.

  “I’m going to catch an hour’s sleep and then try to back track them,” he said. “We got to know how they’re coming down from the North Fork. We’ll be ready for them when they come again.”

  By this arran
gement, he left the ranch in the early morning and made his way over the rolling hills to Morrow’s ranch. So many men had ridden over the ground during the night that it was impossible to pick up any sign that meant anything.

  From there he shaped his course westward toward the smoking ruins on Powder Creek, keeping to the hills as a man might have done who was anxious to avoid being encountered. Once, where a spring drained away toward the creek, he found where a shod horse had crossed. The marks were fresh enough to have been made during the night. The horse had been walked across the wet ground.

  “Certainly wasn’t made by anyone rushing to the fire,” Jim decided.

  It was no effort for him to follow the trail to within a few hundred yards of the house.

  The Starks had moved their belongings into the barn. Old Jubal was poking about the smoldering ruins. One or two others were there. Jim said nothing about the reason for his presence. Ten minutes later he headed west and crossed the Big Powder.

  Once out of sight of the house, he crossed and re-crossed the creek many times, hoping to pick up the trail he had followed to Jubal’s place.

  He covered a mile without finding it. The creek began to climb toward the cañon. If anyone had gone up the Big Powder they must of necessity have passed through the gorge.

  There, on the smooth sand, he found what he was looking for, but to his surprise, the tracks turned west instead of north toward the Bar S line as he expected.

  He couldn’t understand it.

  “A man trying to get back to the North Fork wouldn’t be heading west,” he argued with himself. “First thing he knew he’d have the cañon of the Little Powder between him and where he was going.”

  Nevertheless, Montana followed the tracks, losing and finding them repeatedly as the trail climbed. Presently he was able to look down on Squaw Valley and trace the pattern of its many creeks. He could see the Big Powder, heading toward the hills to the north. Facing him was the black cañon through which the Little Powder flowed for over a mile. To the west he located Quantrell’s ranch-house, and perched in the hills above it, the old Adelaide mine, the tailings a great yellow scar in the sage-brush.