Brad let both hands drop slowly to his belt buckle. He moved his fingers, but made no move to slip the belt out of the buckle.
The three men began to walk toward him. The man with the rifle eased the stock down from his shoulder. The man with the ax carried it as a soldier would hold a rifle, across his chest, while the man with the pistol in his hand tilted it so that the barrel pointed downward.
Brad’s brain circuits ignited like streaks of lightning. Thoughts stormed through his mind with the speed of a prairie whirlwind.
Three men on foot. He on a horse. Who was the dominant figure here? He had speed and mobility. The three men had neither. They were armed, but so was he.
And Brad knew a trick or two for just such a situation.
There was only one thing to do or he was a dead man.
Brad dug his spurs into Ginger’s flanks and ducked low on the saddle. He slid to the right side of his horse and drew his six-gun, all in one fluid motion. He drew a bead on the man with the rifle, cocked his pistol, and squeezed the trigger. He hugged the side of his horse, Indian style, the way he had seen Arapaho braves play at war on their barebacked ponies.
Ginger charged straight at the three men, and Brad’s shot zizzed over the rifleman’s head. The rifleman threw himself to one side, his face drained of blood. The man with the ax stumbled backward to avoid the charging horse, while the man with the pistol jumped to his left and fell into the man with the rifle.
Brad turned Ginger slightly to his left and fired off two more quick shots. Dirt spurted up between the three men as Brad’s bullets plowed furrows in the soft damp soil, kicking up dust and sand, injecting fear in the three men who now sprawled facedown, their weapons as useless as children’s play toys.
Brad heeled Ginger over in a tight turn and galloped past the three men on the ground. He passed the wood cart and flew into the timber, Ginger’s mane and tail streaming in the breeze like guidon pennants in a downhill cavalry charge. He did not stop but let his horse weave the way through the pines and dodge the firs, spruce, and junipers like a slalom racer on a ski slope.
Brad heard the men shouting at him.
“You bastard,” one of them yelled.
“Come back, you coward, and fight like a man,” another hollered.
“Who in hell was that?” screeched another in a high-pitched voice.
He slowed Ginger to a walk and circled back to the game trail he had followed to the ridgetop.
Now he knew where the cow camp was, and that was enough for the time being. He would have to return and scout the adjoining timber and figure out how to capture or kill Otto Schneck. It would not be an easy task. Schneck’s men would be on their guard now. At least five of his men had seen him and knew what he looked like and what kind of horse he rode.
But he had some advantage, he figured. They would not know where he was when he came back and would not even know that he was nearby. He would be a shadow in the timber, a lone wolf prowling the perimeter of the valley, watching, waiting, and listening. Already, plans were forming in his mind. And he knew that his goal was to find Schneck, catch him unaware, and complete his assignment. Then he could return home and resign his job as a private detective. That would please Felicity and him.
He rode on, riding around deadfalls and clumps of brush, passing stone outcroppings with moss growing gray and green on the boulders nearest the ground.
Then he heard an odd sound. At first he thought it might be a squirrel or a chipmunk, gnawing on a tree trunk. Then he heard other sounds that were more familiar, the whack of a hatchet on pine bark. He approached the source of the sounds with caution.
He made sure that Ginger avoided rocks or anything that would announce his presence. He halted the horse when he got very near. More scraping sounds and more whacks from a small hatchet.
He waited and leaned from one side to the other until he spotted the rump of a horse. Then he saw a man in the saddle of that horse, a tall steeldust gray. He watched the man for several seconds.
Then he looked at the trees in the man’s wake. The pines were of different sizes and thicknesses. Some had odd marks on them, slashes and small blazes. The man had a knife in one hand and a hatchet in the other. He cut two slanted slashes on some of the trees, and a small square blaze on others, head high.
Brad prodded Ginger forward until he was within a few feet of the man on the steeldust.
The rider was so intent on his work that he had not heard Brad ride up behind him.
“Howdy,” Brad said in his friendliest voice. “What are you doing?”
The man whirled around in the saddle and stared at Brad. He bore no expression on his face.
The man was tall with a shock of light blond hair protruding from beneath his hat. He had a rifle slung from his saddle, and there was a pistol dangling from his gun belt. He had piercing blue eyes, square shoulders, and arms that bulged with muscles under his shirt.
“Marking trees,” the man said, “if it’s any of your business.”
“I was just out hunting and heard you making noise, so rode up to see what you were doing, that’s all.”
“I’m marking some of the trees for building log cabins and knifing those that can be cut down for firewood. I’m with the wavy Slash S outfit down in the valley.”
Brad looked downward at the steeldust’s tracks.
He had found the scout who had blazed the trail to the sheep camp.
“I thought I heard shots,” the man said. “Was that you?”
“A cow elk. I missed her.”
“Sounded like you was mighty close to where our cattle camp is.”
The man had a slight accent. Swedish or Danish, Brad figured.
“Well, I didn’t see any cows. Just the cow elk.”
“What’s your handle?” the man asked.
“Brad. Brad Storm. Yours?”
“I’m Thorvald Sorenson. My friends call me Thor.”
“Swedish?”
“I’m a Swede, jah, from Minnesota. I was a logger up there and come west. A cattleman hired me up in Cheyenne. I do some scoutin’ for him and, since I know timber, I mark the trees for the woodcutters.”
“I raise cattle myself,” Brad said.
“Oh? You live hereabouts?”
Brad sensed that he might make a friend out of Sorenson, even though that friendship might be very brief, so he did not want to make the man suspicious or be caught in a baldfaced lie.
“Over to Leadville, if you know where that is. West of Denver.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a little mining town, but there is good graze for cattle in the summer months. I have a small ranch there.”
“You might want to meet my boss, then. Otto Schneck, a German. You and him have a lot in common.”
“Maybe when I get my elk,” Brad said.
“Where you camped?” Sorenson asked.
Brad stiffened inwardly. The man knew where the sheepherders were camped and he knew something of the terrain in this part of the country.
“Way down on the Poudre,” Brad said. “I do some fishing for trout when I’m not out hunting.”
“I know the Poudre,” Sorenson said. “It’s runnin’ mighty fast about now.”
“Yeah, and it’ll get faster.” Brad touched a finger to the brim of his hat. “Well, I’m off and wish you luck in marking all those trees.”
“You stop by and I’ll introduce you to my boss. They call him Snake because of his name, I think. We’re in a valley on the yonder end of this ridge.”
“I’ll do that,” Brad said. “I’d like to meet Snake.”
Sorenson laughed. It was a wry laugh, as if the two were in some private joke. He raised his knife hand and touched the brim of his hat. He smiled.
Brad turned his horse and rode off through small gullies and rocky outcroppings, his heart hammering in his chest. He kept looking back to see if Sorenson might be following him, but he heard the distant sound of the hatchet cutting
into pine bark and knew that the Swede was back to marking trees.
Sooner or later, the man he had just met would find out who he was, that he had shot one of Schneck’s men and had a run-in with the ones gathering firewood.
He wondered what Sorenson would think when he knew that Brad was allied with the sheepherders. Was he loyal to Schneck, neutral, or a hireling who might be turned against Schneck?
It was sad to think that he and Sorenson might have to face each other in combat. In another time or place, they might have become good friends. The Swede wasn’t a cattleman. He was a woodsman caught up in a brutal range war in which he probably had little or no interest.
He hoped Sorenson would think kindly of him when he found out that he was not camped on the Poudre and he wasn’t hunting elk.
But that was probably too much to hope for. If he was working for Schneck, he was one of Schneck’s men and he would follow the cattleman’s orders.
Brad knew how dangerous it was once the battle lines were drawn.
Here, high in the mountains, where sheepmen and cattlemen fought over the best grass and hated each other, there was only one certainty.
From now on, it was kill or be killed.
Brad was right in the middle of it.
And so was Sorenson.
NINE
The dun horse was still standing where Brad had last seen it. The horse whinnied when he approached and tossed its head in greeting. Ginger nickered softly in reply.
Brad untied the reins. He patted the horse’s neck and rubbed it as he spoke to the animal in soothing tones. He looked at its teeth, figuring it to be no more than three or four years old. It had been well cared for. It wore fairly new shoes, and there were signs that its mane and tail had been brushed and its hide curried. Brad pulled on the reins and led the horse back along the path he had taken to reach the top of the ridge. When he emerged from the timber, he saw a cottony clump of sheep being herded by a furry black-and-white dog. A herder with a staff followed on foot. The man waved to Brad and he waved back.
He saw men lowering the body of the man he had shot into a pit at the edge of the tree line below the talus-strewn slope of the lower bluff. Two of the men were smoking pipes, and a man who leaned on a shovel puffed on a hand-rolled cigarette.
Brad rode toward the lean-to that housed the horses and mules. Some of the women eyed him from the doorway of the cabin where he assumed they were dressing the corpse of Polentzi for burial. None of them waved to him.
Inside the lean-to, he unsaddled the two horses and laid the saddles next to a log pole that served as a brace for the bottom of the structure. He draped the blankets and saddlebags over the pole and dipped some grain from a barrel which he poured into a pair of small troughs where he had tethered the dun and Ginger. Having removed a small can of oil and a cleaning rod from his saddlebags, he carried his rifle and shotgun outside, found a log to sit on, and leaned his long weapons against a pine tree. He opened the cloth wrapping and slid his pistol from its holster, ejected the two empty shells from his Colt and the four unfired cartridges. He began to clean his pistol, plumbing the barrel with a wiry brush, then putting a thin film of oil inside the barrel and on the grip, barrel, and cylinder. He drove another brush, a soft one, up and down the inside of the barrel and then wiped the gun clean, leaving a slight patina of oil on all the exposed metal and staghorn grips. He pushed six cartridges into the cylinder, spun it once, then let the hammer fall on a spot between two cylinders so that the hammer would not be touching a firing cap. He holstered his pistol as Mike walked up to him, a pipe clenched between his teeth.
His pipe smoke smelled of apples and moist tobacco. He sat down on the log next to Brad.
“One man buried, another to go,” Mike said.
“Senseless,” Brad said.
“Yes, but that is what most of life is, senseless.”
“Hanging a man does not solve any problems. Neither does killing the man who had a hand in the hanging.”
“No,” Mike said, “but it does bring matters to a head, does it not?”
“Maybe.”
“What did you find on your ride besides the dead man’s horse?” Mike asked.
“I found the cattle camp, and I met the scout who led the three men here. I think all three of them roped and hanged your friend Polentzi.”
“And did you kill the other two?” Mike let smoke stream from the corners of his mouth and in twin streams through his nose.
“No. I did not see them again. They were the ones who were watching us from the top of that bluff.”
“Ah. But you will recognize them when you see them again.”
“Probably.”
“And you will kill them? When you see them again, I mean.”
“If they attack me, maybe. I will not hunt them down just to kill them.”
“Why not?”
“They were just following orders. I am after the man who sent them to kill Polentzi.”
“They are equally guilty,” Mike said.
“Yes, I suppose they are. But to just kill them would not be true or full justice for Polentzi’s death.”
“Rafael was my brother-in-law,” Mike said. “Leda is my blood sister.”
Brad reared back in surprise.
“Are all these men and women related to you, Mike?” he asked.
Mike chuckled.
“Many are, but not all. The Basque are few in number, and we seldom marry outside of our own group of countrymen and women.”
“Are you married, Mike?”
Mike shook his head. “No. I was married, but my wife died in childbirth after we arrived in Wyoming.”
“Will you marry again?”
Mike laughed as if chewing on that bit of irony.
“Ah, if the Fates so decide, perhaps. But I have not seen that glow in a woman’s cheeks, nor the flash in her eyes when I come near. As I said, we are few, not only in Europe, in Spain, but here in this country. And we Basques don’t really have a country of our own. We don’t really have a nationality. We’re like orphans of the world.”
Smoke entered Brad’s nostrils, and he sneezed into his cupped hands.
“Bless you,” Mike said.
“That tobacco must have a bite to it, Mike.”
“It’s Virginia grown. Bought it in Denver.”
“Well, maybe it’s got some Virginia dust in it.”
Mike laughed.
“When’s the funeral for your brother-in-law?” Brad asked.
“Probably early in the morning. At sunrise. We’ll have our hands full when all those sheep get here. I expect they’ll be streaming in here all day and into the night.”
“Quite a big herd, then.”
“Yes, and we’ll graze some of them in that other valley. Bill and I may have to find new pasture for them.”
“Which means?”
“We may have to look beyond those bluffs and see what’s higher up.”
Brad looked up at the bluffs.
“That’s where Schneck is grazing his cattle.”
“I know. But we have grazed there before Schneck came barging in. It’s just below eleven thousand feet, and you’ll see our trails all over the place.”
“I didn’t see any when I rode up there.”
“A sheep trail is not very wide. And, after we leave, the deer and elk use the same trails.”
“Maybe I did see your trails, or one of them.”
“And you saw grass growing, too, didn’t you?”
Brad nodded.
“So, you see, we do not ruin pasture. We keep the sheep moving, and they leave their droppings on the ground, which feeds the grass and keeps the roots warm in winter.”
“Cattle do the same.”
“Too bad cattle and sheep can’t live together in such a beautiful country,” Mike said.
“As long as there is prejudice among cattlemen toward sheep, you’ll never see cattle and sheep grazing together.”
“And that’s a sham
e,” Mike said.
“Which reminds me,” Brad said, “I did meet and talk to one of the men who works for Schneck. I don’t believe he’s one of the killers.”
“How do you know? How can you be sure?”
“He’s not a cattleman. He’s not a drover nor a wrangler, either.”
“What is he?” Mike asked.
“He’s a woodsman, from up north. I think he works as a scout for Schneck.”
“A scout?”
“I think he might have been the man who found that valley where Schneck’s cattle are grazing. I think he also found this valley and probably told his boss about it. Maybe before you got here.”
“Or after,” Mike said, a rueful half smile curving his lips.
“That’s a possibility. His name is Thorvald Sorenson. He’s a Swede. He didn’t know who I was, of course. He thinks I’m up here hunting elk.”
“You are hunting, all right,” Mike said. “But two-legged animals. Because that’s what they are those cattlemen—animals.”
“I think it’s just Schneck who’s the animal,” Brad said. “He is the one who gives the orders.”
“But his men carry them out.”
“That doesn’t mean his men like the orders he’s giving them.”
“Maybe you are too tolerant for this job,” Mike said, and Brad sensed a testiness in his tone.
“I’m not tolerant of murderers, Mike.”
“But Schneck may not have killed my cousin or my brother-in-law. Those murders took more than one man.”
“I agree. The men who carried out those orders are equally guilty under the law. I am not absolving them of blame. But they are the body of the snake. It’s my job, as I see it, to cut off the head of that snake. And from all indications, that is Schneck.”
“What about the men who did the actual killing?”
Brad took in a deep breath.
Mike had asked an important question. It was a question he could not answer just then. He thought he knew what Garaboxosa wanted to hear, but he would not give him that satisfaction. Not yet.
If he were to go after the killers who worked for Schneck, he would need help. Armed help. And that would mean a full-blown range war between cattlemen and sheep ranchers. Such a war might become a western tragedy, involving townspeople, lawmen, and even, perhaps, the military. He didn’t want that, and he was sure Pendergast would not want him to carry that much power in his weapons or use that much force.
Snake Eyes (9781101552469) Page 5
