No, he would not start such a war. He had his assignment and Mike knew damned well what it was. Find the man who ordered the murders and bring him to justice.
Or kill him.
And that was assignment enough for any one man, Brad knew.
He might not be able to exact a pound of flesh from those men who obeyed Schneck’s orders, but he had a hunch that he would not have to look for trouble.
Experience had taught him that.
No, he would not have to seek out trouble.
Trouble would find him.
TEN
Otto Schneck was a stalwart man, bullnecked, heavy-shouldered, stocky as a Hereford bull, with orange hair, a brushy blondish moustache threaded with rust, and a mouth as pudgy as a blowfish’s. He wore leather straps on each thick wrist, and a wide gun belt draped his ample waist. His pistol nestled in a tie-down holster that was made of woven leather that matched his kangaroo boots. His large hooked nose emphasized the jutted jaw, the high chiseled cheekbones. His eyes were a pale blue that was almost colorless, giving him a vacant expression that was chilling.
He sat at the rustic table listening to the account of the two men who had helped hang the sheepherder. Halbert Sweeney and LouDon Jackson were both from the panhandle of Texas, both bowlegged as pairs of parentheses and balding under their ten-gallon hats. They called Sweeney “Hal” because he didn’t like “Bert,” and they called Jackson “LouDon,” making it into a single word.
Outside were the sounds of cattle and of men chopping wood up on the ridge. Otto could hear the groaning of the wheels on the wood cart as it rumbled onto the flat, and somewhere a horse neighed an arpeggioed ribbon of nasal and throat sounds.
“Sit down,” Schneck commanded. Both were standing at one end of the long table having just entered the log cabin to report to their boss. “Where is Rudolph?”
“Rudy’s dead, Snake.” Hal fished a cheroot from his shirt pocket and bit off the end.
“Dead?”
“Yes, sir, one of them sheepherders shot him plumb dead,” Hal said.
“Only I don’t think it was no sheepherder,” LouDon said.
Schneck fixed Jackson with those cold pale eyes of his.
“What was he, then?”
“He’s faster’n greased lightnin’, Snake,” LouDon said. “He looked more like a damned gunfighter than a sheeper. Rudy never had no chance.”
“That right, Hal?” Schneck said, turning his attention to Sweeney.
“They was a bunch of them sheepmen ridin’ to where we hanged that Messican kid and this one jasper got off his horse and walk toward where Rudy was hidin’ in the bushes. Rudy stood up and went to shoot the man, but he didn’t have no chance. No chance at all.”
“Why in hell did Rudolph stand up? If he was hiding in the brush, he should have stayed there,” Schneck said, his neck pulsating and bulging like a bull in heat. He looked over at Jackson.
“The man did somethin’,” LouDon said. “He pulled somethin’ from inside his shirt. I couldn’t see what it was, but Rudy jumped up like he was scared and started down the hill like somethin’ was chasin’ him.”
“I think there was somethin’ in that brush,” Hal said. “Somethin’ sure as hell put fire to Rudy’s feet. He boiled out of there like somethin’ was bitin’ him on the ass.”
Jackson struck a match and lit Hal’s cheroot.
Schneck waved the cloudlet of smoke away after it spewed out of Hal’s mouth.
“We heard somethin’, I think,” Jackson said. “I mean it was far off and hard to hear, but we might have heard it.”
Sweeney gave Jackson a dirty look that Schneck could not fail to miss.
“Did you hear something or did you not hear something?” Schneck asked. He looked straight at Sweeney when he said it.
“It all happened so fast, Snake,” Sweeney said. “I mean one minute that tall drink of water was walkin’ toward the hill where Rudy was hidin’ and ready to pick him off a sheepherder or two when they cut down the man we hanged. Rudy never had no chance. One minute the man was just standin’ there and the next he had a pistol in his hand. He plugged Rudy with one shot and Rudy fell down dead.”
“Rudolph Grunewald was a favorite of mine. He was turning out to be a mighty fine cowhand.”
“Yes, sir,” Hal said. “I’m real sorry Rudy got kilt.”
“I don’t know, Snake,” Jackson said, blurting the words out. “I heard maybe a buzzin’ sound. Coulda been a rattler in them bushes.”
“A rattler? This time of year? It’s a little early, I think,” Schneck said.
“Maybe Rudy woke this’n up,” Jackson said lamely.
“I didn’t hear no rattler,” Hal said, a little too belligerently to suit either Jackson or Schneck.
One of the woodcutters came into the cabin just then. Schneck looked up at him.
“I got somethin’ to report, Boss,” Cass O’Malley said. “Did you hear them shots up on the ridge a while back?”
“I did. What were you shooting at, snakes?”
“No, sir, weren’t us shootin’. It was us getting shot at.”
“Maybe you’d better sit down, Cass,” Schneck said. “Might as well listen to another tall tale. This seems to be the day for it.”
Cass sat down, a puzzled expression on his face.
A horse galloped up near the cabin, and they all heard the creak of leather as a man dismounted.
Then it was quiet. Schneck looked toward the open doorway as if expecting someone to walk through it. But he only heard the sound of the horse pawing the ground outside.
Cass told about the stranger riding up, and how he and Percy Wibble and Ned Kingman challenged the rider.
“We had him braced, Snake,” Cass said. “Ned told him to drop his gun belt, and he looked like he was a-goin’ to do it, then he up and slid sideways off’n his saddle, drew his pistol faster’n you could say ‘Jack Robinson,’ and come plumb at us, a-shootin’ that six-gun square at us. Well, sir, we all splayed out on the ground and he rode right on past us. Scared me plumb out of my wits. Them bullets plowed the ground right next to me and Percy.”
Cass wiped sweat from his forehead with a swipe of his sleeve. He was plainly rattled.
“Did you try and shoot him when he rode on past?” Schneck asked.
“Nope. I was pissin’ my pants as it was, Snake. I mean, I thought that man was part Injun or somethin’, the way he flattened out aside his big old horse and come at us with his pistol spittin’ fire and lead flyin’ all around.”
“Would you say that this man could have shot you dead, Cass?” Schneck asked.
“Hell, I don’t know. It all happened so fast. I didn’t even see him draw his gun. We never expected him to come right at us like that.”
Schneck looked at Hal and LouDon.
“Sound familiar, boys?” Schneck asked.
Jackson and Sweeney looked at each other.
“Was he a tall man wearin’ a Stetson and ridin a strawberry roan with a white blaze on its forehead?” Hal asked.
“Yep. It sure was a man on a strawberry roan.”
“Same man,” LouDon said.
Just then, Thor Sorenson stepped inside the cabin. He had been standing outside listening to Cass tell his story.
“Thor, did you hear all that?” Schneck asked. “You were standing right outside.”
“Horse had a splinter under its hoof. I didn’t hear anything,” Sorenson lied.
“I wonder if you saw a waddie riding a strawberry roan,” Schneck said.
Sorenson shook his head.
“Did you hear him shootin’ at us?” Cass asked.
“Nope,” Sorenson said. “I have been making the marks on the trees for you fellers.”
Schneck stared at Sorenson. He wondered if the man was lying, and if he was lying, why?
Sorenson stood there with no telltale expression on his face. In fact, he bore no expression whatsoever. He just stood there as if daring anyone in the roo
m to challenge him. Hal puffed on his cheroot and dropped the ashes on the dirt floor of the cabin.
“Sit down, Sorenson,” Schneck said. “Cookie’s makin’ coffee, and he will bring the pot in here directly.”
Sorenson sat down on one of the benches next to the table. He took off his hat and reshaped the crown as if to show his disinterest.
Schneck looked at him for a long time before he spoke to the Swede.
“Well, Thor,” he said, finally, “that nobody you didn’t see killed Rudy Grunewald today. Killed him with one shot. And he shot some bullets at Cass here and just disappeared, I reckon.”
Sorenson looked up at Schneck with that same blank expression on his face.
“It appears to me you got a handful of trouble, Mr. Schneck. I hired on as a scout. Whatever score you have to settle with those sheepherders is betwixt you and them. I ain’t rightly no part of it.”
“In this outfit, Sorenson, it’s one for all and all for one. You got that?”
“There’s other jobs,” Sorenson said. He put his hat back on and squared it.
“Not as good as this one,” Schneck retorted.
“Maybe better,” Sorenson said.
“Is that a threat, Sorenson?”
“Nope. I just don’t cotton to no gunplay, that’s all. Without good reason, anyways.”
“You liked Rudolph, didn’t you?”
“I thought he was a good kid. Light on brains, but a hard worker.”
Schneck stiffened in his chair at the head of the table.
“Well, with this jasper on the roan, we got us a black boy in the woodpile, Sorenson. I want to know if you might be interested in a little bonus, some sugar in your pay.”
“That depends, Snake. What kind of string is tied to that bonus?”
“You’re a tracker. I want you to track that man down and kill him. His horse tracks should still be fresh.”
Sorenson drew in a deep breath.
“Just like that, eh?” he said. “Track a man down and put his lamp out. No judge, no jury, just the law of the six-gun.”
“Just like that,” Schneck said.
“Otherwise?”
“Otherwise, draw your pay and light a shuck out of here,” Schneck said.
Sorenson stood up. He looked at the three other men, then at Schneck.
“I’ll sleep on it,” he said, and walked out of the cabin. They heard him climb into the saddle and ride away.
“What do you think of that, Snake?” Hal asked. He stubbed out the butt of his cheroot with his foot, grinding it down into the black earth.
“I think we got more than one darkie in the woodpile,” Schneck said, and his cold eyes turned even colder and pale as shirred egg whites in a black bowl.
The three men looked down at their hands as if they wished they were anyplace else but there in that log cabin with Schneck.
None said a word, and Schneck looked at them with contempt as his neck swelled again and turned the color of an April sunset when the sky in the west was on fire.
ELEVEN
Mike bunked Brad in a small pitched-roof log dwelling. Brad laid his bedroll out on the dirt floor against the back wall. Joe Arramospe set his blankets at a right angle, with small spruce boughs between him and the floor.
Sitting outside, the two men watched the sky change colors at sunset. They sat on a pair of pine logs sawed in half. Joe smoked a clay pipe with a long stem while the cook prepared stew for supper. The cook, Renata Tiribio, was a sturdy woman married to one of the sheepmen, Nestor, who was driving the flock down from Cheyenne the next morning. Two women brought bowls of the stew over to Joe and Brad, their faces partially hidden by their ample shawls that they wore like cowls. Brad knew they were not young, and their brown faces were lined with the evidence of past sorrows. He and Joe ate from the steaming bowls and washed down the food from canteens filled with cold creek water. The western sky became a bright smear of red streamers tinged with gold and the ashes of clouds floating in a netherworld of pale blue sky and encroaching dusk.
Mike walked over after supper and squatted in front of the two men, a pipe clenched in his teeth.
“There will be coffee,” he said. “Weak coffee so that we will all be able to sleep. Vivelda will bring us our cups.”
“I will patrol the pasture,” Joe said, “until midnight, when Fidelio will relieve me.”
Mike turned to look at Brad.
“Fidelio Yorick is Joe’s cousin,” he said to Brad. “He is also the brother-in-law of the man who was killed and beheaded. His sister was married to the murdered man.”
Brad was beginning to think that all of the sheepmen and their women were related. He did not know the name of the man who had been beheaded, nor the name of his wife, and he didn’t know if he wanted to know. He missed Felicity, and he was becoming a part of this Basque community despite his instinct to be detached from their troubles and strife. He had a job to do and the sooner it was over, the better, as far as he was concerned.
“We Basques have no nationality of our own, but we are one big family,” Joe said, as if perusing Brad’s thoughts.
“I’m beginning to see that,” Brad said.
“Will you come to the small funeral in the morning, Brad?” Mike asked. He shifted his feet but remained squatted, like a bulky grasshopper.
“I’m not much on funerals,” Brad said.
“Why not?” Mike asked.
“Grief is hard to take. Funerals have a way of wringing a man dry. And I don’t like to see a woman cry.”
“But a funeral is a way to show respect, add some dignity to death,” Mike said.
“Funerals may be a comfort to widows and widowers of the deceased,” Brad said, “but the dead need no such demonstrations. The dead are gone and will never return in this life. I say my farewells in private and do not need to hear words spoken over someone who has died and is about to be buried six feet in the ground.”
“Ah, then, I must respect your feelings, for you have spoken them like a man who knows his own heart.”
“I am sorry for those who have died, especially those who died needlessly and senselessly,” Brad said. “But I do not need a funeral to grieve for them.”
“I understand,” Mike said.
“I, too,” said Joe. “I think the church wraps the pagan practice of funerals in religious trappings, as if the priest’s words can open the gates of heaven for those who have departed this life.”
Mike cocked his head and looked at Joe with an odd expression on his face.
“I think we must leave this subject alone,” Mike said. “Or else it will become too complicated for this old mind of mine.”
“So be it,” Joe said, and the night came on with a solemn whisper as if a curtain had descended over the earth. The cook fire blazed and shot sparks up into the darkness where they danced like fireflies until they disappeared like tiny lives snuffed out by time and its endless cycles of births and deaths.
When Brad turned in and pulled his blanket over him, he thought of the day ahead and wondered if there was any meaning to life beyond any single moment of existence. He remembered his parents and how he had grieved for them. It seemed they had left empty holes in his life, places of vacancy where once they had been and to which they would never return. Death was the big mystery, and when he thought of it, life was an even greater one.
There was only one moment and, if that one passed, there might not be another. Beyond that, there was no guarantee that another moment would come. Perhaps life was a matter of luck. Lucky that it happened and unlucky that it would always end.
That night, Brad dreamed of being chased by wolves through a maze of tall pines while he kept reloading a rifle that would not work and only spit blood from its muzzle. He ran up to a man with a sheep’s head who taunted him with a large rope that turned into a snake. He came to a cemetery where there were several faceless men hanging from tree limbs, writhing and cracking like giant whips. He stumbled into an open grav
e that was filled with green water and bubbled up with red smoke that danced with lightning flashes. His pistols fell apart and his rifles had bent barrels and fell away from him, then wriggled off like tiny rattlesnakes.
He fell from a high cliff where cattle and sheep swarmed around a mound of dirt that resembled a fresh grave. He wandered through surreal nightscapes and blazing pastures of rabid flames, pursued by a shadowy man carrying an ax that dripped blood.
When he awoke just before dawn, Brad was exhausted and Joe snored like some wild beast in the dark of the cabin.
He walked outside and stared up at the stars. He saw the white wool of sheep off in the distance and heard the distant howl of a timber wolf. He wondered if the real world was any less dangerous than the dream world, or any less peculiar.
Women’s voices floated to him as the sky began to slowly pale in the east. A horse snorted. Smoke streamed through the valley like ghostly wisps, and he smelled the burning pine from the cabin where the hanged man lay, awaiting burial.
There was an eerie calm, and Brad felt a pang of loneliness as he thought about Felicity rising from sleep in their mountain ranch house. Instead of his own cattle, he heard the bleating of sheep and wondered why he was where he was. He felt like an alien being in an alien world.
He felt as if he were still in a strange dream where some part of the night was eternal and the sun might never rise again.
TWELVE
Otto Schneck rode out to speak to his foreman, Jim Wagner, who was breaking up the herd, separating those cattle fat with calves from the steers and the yearlings. He had two men on cutting horses who were doing most of the work.
Wagner was working a mossy-horned whiteface that had turned belligerent. He gave his horse its head after the cow bellowed and began to run toward a thicket of alder along one of the creeks. Schneck caught up to him just as the cow splashed across the creek and trotted into the timber, bellowing its rage at its pursuer.
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