“What about Snake? Do you know what he’s planning to do?”
“I know he’s going to need this valley right here in a few days, and he thinks the sheepers are going to want it, too. He aims to drive them plumb out of the mountains. And, with Snake, that means gunplay and dead sheepherders.”
“What about you? Are you going to keep working for Schneck?”
“I wish you wouldn’t pussyfoot around about such a serious subject, Brad,” Sorenson cracked.
“Well?”
“To give you a straight answer, no. If you look at what’s behind my cantle, that’s my bedroll. All I got in this particular corner of the world. I maybe got half a month’s pay comin’, but I don’t aim to go back and ask for it.”
“How much does Schneck pay you, Thor?”
“Thirty a month and found.”
“How would you like to work for me?”
“What is it that you do, Mr. Storm? I know you’re not up here hunting elk, and so does Schneck, by the way. He thinks you’re a hired gunslinger working for Garaboxosa’s sheepherders. I’m wondering if that’s true.”
“Some of it is,” Brad said.
“You’re a gunslinger?”
Brad shook his head.
“I’m a cattle rancher, like I said. But that’s only part of it. Right now I’m a private detective. I work for the Denver Detective Agency, because I’m indebted to them for my herd of cattle. This is going to be my last job.”
Sorenson whistled, long and low.
“I never would have figured you to be no Pinkerton,” he said.
Brad laughed. Ginger snorted. Monty shook his head and rattled his mane against his neck.
“Not Pinkerton. Head of the agency is a man named Pendergast.”
“You want me to work for you, you say. Doin’ what?”
“Keep on working for Schneck. Just tell me what he’s up to over the next few days. I’ll meet you every day about dusk to hear your report.”
“Where?”
“I can ride to the rim above the cow camp.”
Sorenson shook his head. “We might be spotted there. How about if I meet you at the first blaze above your camp? Know where it is?”
“I do.”
“Nobody from Schneck’s bunch will go back there right away.”
“That’s a good place, then. Are you finished up here?”
“I’ll tell Schneck this valley’s open for now, but he better hurry.”
“I’ll see you tonight, then?”
“Tomorrow night. I might know something by then.”
“All right.”
“This might be real tricky, Brad. How much salary are you offering me?”
“Fifty dollars,” Brad said.
“Fifty dollars a month?”
“Fifty dollars a week. I hope this job doesn’t last a month. I’ll give you fifty bucks tomorrow evening when I see you.”
Sorenson let out another whistle.
“One more thing, Thor. I can’t ride to Schneck’s camp to see you, but you can come into the sheep camp if anything urgent comes up. I’ll fix it with Garaboxosa and the others.”
“You got yourself a deal, Brad,” Sorenson said.
He rubbed his hands and clapped them together to rid his palms of dirt.
Brad extended his hand, and the two men shook over their agreement.
“Be careful, Thor,” Brad said.
“You, too. I think Snake is going to send one of his men to kill you. Maybe pretty soon.”
“I’ll watch my back trail,” Brad said.
Both men climbed atop their mounts and parted company. Sorenson rode back up the way he had come, and Brad angled off toward the sheep camp, the dead reckoning location firm in his mind.
Now, he thought, he had a spy in Schneck’s camp.
He also knew something else.
He had a price on his head.
FOURTEEN
Jorge Verdugo was surprised that Otto Schneck would even notice him, no less talk to him. Yet, there he was, a hand on Jorge’s arm, leading him out of the horse stable and into the nearby timber. Jorge had been finishing up one of the stalls on what had started out as a pole barn with a sloping roof, a back wall of logs and logged-in sides rising to a height of six feet. It was a large building, and another worker was in the process of framing in a tack room at the rear with crude, whipsawed lumber of various sizes.
“The stable’s looking good, Jorge,” Schneck said when the two men were alone. “You’re a good worker.”
“Thank you, Mr. Schneck,” Jorge said in his faintly accented English.
“Call me Otto, Jorge. How would you like to make some extra money?”
“Sure. You want me to bring you more horses or mules?”
Jorge had left Mexico with a string of stolen horses that he had rebranded with a running iron and driven up to Cheyenne, a long and tortuous trip, with three friends who had to fight Indians, white brigands, and mountain passes. He had sold his horses to Schneck, who had promptly hired him as a wrangler, along with his three friends. Jorge was grateful to Schneck not only for buying the stolen horses but also for giving him and his friends work on the cattle ranch.
“Know anything about sheep?” Schneck asked.
“What?”
“Sheep. Ever wrangle any sheep?”
Verdugo laughed, then quickly recovered.
“Sheep? No, I never wrangled no sheep, Mr. Schneck.”
“Just like cows, only smaller.”
“They make the funny noises. And they smell.”
Schneck laughed.
“Well, no matter, Jorge. I want you to join up with those sheepherders in the lower valley and pretend that you’re a sheepherder. Just for a day or two. I’ll give you an extra twenty dollars if you’ll do that for me.”
“I don’t know, Mr., ah, Otto. I don’t know nothing about sheep, and I don’t like sheep. They stink.”
“Just for a day or two, Jorge. I want you to tell me how many of the sheepmen are married and how many have children. Do you think you could do that and not let on that you work for me?”
“I don’t know. You want me to be the spy? For you?”
“That’s a good way to put it, Jorge. Now, do you have an old straw hat?”
“Yes,” Jorge said.
“You take one of them mules and ride around that valley and come in from the south, like you come from LaPorte or Fort Collins. You tell them you’re looking for work and you’ll work cheap. You can work with their horses and mules or learn how to herd sheep. That couldn’t be too hard. You keep your eyes open and you count heads. I want to know how many women and kids they got there and where they sleep.”
“How do I tell you when I know all this?” Verdugo asked.
“That shouldn’t take you more than a day or two. If they don’t hire you on, you find some excuse to stay there and eat their grub. You tell them you have a family and they’re starving. Cry, if you have to. Gain their sympathy. Then, when you know what I need to know, you sneak back up here and tell me all that you see. Comprende?”
“Sí, comprendo.”
“Leave as quick as you can. I will expect to see you in two or three days.”
“I will take the old mule, Rodrigo,” Jorge said. “I will wear the straw hat and look poor.”
Schneck grinned.
“You got the idea,” he said.
The two walked back to the stable. Schneck climbed back on his horse and rode off to survey the other hands tending to the cattle.
That afternoon, Jorge Verdugo was riding in a wide circle on an old mule. He came up to the sheep camp from the south and begged Mike Garaboxosa for a job. Mike looked him over and hired him on the spot.
Later that same day, the herd of sheep came down from the north. There were over one thousand head, and their bleating filled the valley as the herders with their border collies separated them into groups. They were led by Felix Oriola, a tough, bronzed man in his early fifties, who had
been born and raised in the Pyrenees. He was a bearded mountain man who spoke little but carried a heavy staff that was a badge of his office. He waved it when giving orders, and he wielded it on the backs of men who did not obey him promptly or who mistreated “his” sheep. He had no sense of humor but possessed a fine singing voice, and he knew all the Spanish and Basque songs from the old country. He also played the guitar, and at night, when he played and sang, his men saw a softer, more sentimental side to him, as tears rolled down his cheeks when he sang the sad songs of his people. That side vanished at daybreak when the sheep were rolling over the countryside like a wooly tide and he whistled orders to the dogs and yelled at the men.
Felix was not married, and none who knew him were surprised. He was not a man to show tenderness to any woman but his mother, and there were many who doubted that she, if she was still alive, would be an exception.
Verdugo had never seen so many sheep in his life and, as they streamed into the valley, he kept his distance, standing close to the old mule, Rodrigo, and wondering what kind of world he had entered just to earn a few more dollars from Snake.
Mike put Verdugo to work that afternoon, cutting and carrying firewood to camp. He told the Mexican that there was to be a big feast that night, since Oriola had brought vegetables and fruits from Cheyenne, a large wagonload of foodstuffs, along with another chuck wagon. They would have roast mutton and wine and there would be singing and dancing. He told them that they had just buried one of their herders and this was a way to set aside grief and welcome the new herd.
“You will meet all who are here, Jorge,” Mike said. “And, if you want to work, we will make a Basque out of you. After all, some of the same blood runs in our veins.”
“I am truly grateful to you, Mr. Garaboxosa. My poor family is starving, and I need the money.”
“And you shall earn every centavo, my Mexican friend. We thrive on hard work.”
Verdugo found himself liking the man he had been hired to spy on. He saw the women crowd around the wagon that carried the vegetables, fruits, and wine, eagerly unloading the goods and carrying them to the various huts in their aprons. Children laughed and ran about, helping to carry the smaller items, trailing small puppies in their wakes and laughing all the while.
The sheep camp, Verdugo soon saw, was much different from the sober cow camp. Here, there was life and laughter, and yes, even joy. But he knew that the cattlemen hated the sheepmen, yet he had not taken sides. He would do his job, but he must keep in mind that he worked for the German, Schneck, and should not bear sympathy for Garaboxosa and the sheepherders.
He would pretend to be friends with them, but he would do his job of spying and report all that he found out to Schneck.
Verdugo would do these things, but he would be very sad to betray such people. They were like his own, in many ways, and they made him homesick for Jalisco, where there was much dancing and singing, and much poverty. These people were not Spanish or Mexican, but they looked similar and their ways were more like the ways of his own people, his own family.
He had never tasted mutton, and he did not know if he could eat a sheep.
But he would make friends and try to understand these strange people who found joy in work and spoke a different language.
When he squinted his eyes and listened to their laughter and their lilting language, he saw his own people. He cut the wood and carried it to the log cabins and to the large fire ring near the two chuck wagons. He sweated and strained in the brisk mountain air, and for the first time in a long while, he was happy.
And the sheep did not smell so bad after all.
FIFTEEN
When Brad rode back into the valley, he was unprepared for the sight of so many sheep streaming out of the timber and flocking to their new home in the mountains. He sat on his horse for a long time on the rimrock, staring down at the flurry of activity around the wagons, especially the wagon piled high with sacks of potatoes, baskets of oranges, peaches, apricots, cucumbers, onions, and apples. He listened to the joyous cries of the children floating up to him like watery, quivering globes from a bubble pipe, and the women in their colorful dresses, chattering like magpies in the Basque language, oddly musical and as universal, somehow, as laughter.
Sheep poured into the valley in liquid wooly streams that flowed over the new grass in a dazzling white cascade, bleating and flexing their boundaries while the little black-and-white dogs chased deserters back into the flocks where they were swallowed up on the rippling woolen tide.
He rode down to the valley, taking the path that led him past the place where he had shot the man in hiding above the talus slope. He found a path through the woods that led him to the graveyard where there were two crude crosses at the head of two fresh mounds of dirt. The crosses were made of straight limbs nailed together. Someone had cleared away much of the brush and small saplings to make a level space, but had left the tall pines and a graceful pair of spruces. A little farther on, in a less than ideal place, there was another grave, unmarked, and he surmised that this was the place where the sheepmen had buried the would-be bushwhacker.
As he passed that grave, there were signs that at least one human had defecated on the grave. There would probably be more such deposits made by the angry men in the camp. He rode to the stable, which was only a large lean-to with log sidewalls where large twenty-penny nails had been driven so reins and ropes could be looped to hitch up the animals. There were some barrels sawed in half and tarred to hold water and feed.
He dismounted, led Ginger inside, dug out a halter from his saddlebag, and hitched him to a pair of offset nails where one of the barrel halves served as a watering trough. He dug into a sack of grain, corn, and wheat and placed it in another barrel half, which he moved within range of Ginger. The horse began to nibble on the grain while Brad unsaddled him. He hung the reins and his canteen on a lone nail higher up, set his saddle on its side next to the foundation log, and lugged his saddlebags, rifle, and shotgun to the log hut he shared with Joe Arramospe. He sat them next to his bedroll and walked outside to help unload one of the supply wagons.
Brad picked up a stack of blankets and asked a woman standing near him, “Where do you want these?”
The woman laughed and waved a finger at him.
“No, no,” she said. “You leave in wagon.”
“Huh?”
“No take blankets. Blankets stay. Tents stay.”
He set the blankets back down in the wagon and looked at the other items in the bed.
There were small tents, axes, saws, ropes, boxes of matches, sacks of beans, flour, sugar, and baskets of apples, apricots, and other fruits.
Leda walked up to him and pushed him away from the wagon. She, too, wagged a finger at him.
“This wagon for women,” she said.
Other women walked over and surrounded him and the wagon. They all had smiles on their faces, indulgent smiles, as if they had just caught one of their children with his hand in the cookie jar.
Brad looked around and saw Mike staring at him. Some of the children wandered over and joined the women, tugging on their mothers’ skirts. A small girl in pigtails had a wide grin on her face and looked at him as if he had trespassed on sacred ground.
“I don’t understand,” Brad said to Leda.
She took his arm and led him away from the wagon, away from the others who were all staring at him as if he were the village idiot.
“Mr. Storm,” Leda said, “that wagon for us. We go tomorrow. In morning, we all go to camp on river. Tonight, we eat much. We dance. We sing. Then, we all go to river.”
Brad listened to her and saw the others still looking at him with baleful eyes and twisted grins.
Mike walked over and put an arm around Leda. He hugged her, and she kissed him on the cheek.
“Did I do something wrong, Mike?” Brad asked.
Mike stepped a foot away from Leda. He looked at Brad.
“No, but that wagon there is for the wo
men. Two of my men will drive it downriver to a camp where they will stay. All of the women and children are leaving in the morning. We have work to do, and they must go where they are safe.”
Brad nodded that he understood.
“I feel stupid,” he said.
“Not stupid,” Leda said. “You my hero. You hero to all, Mr. Storm.”
Brad looked helplessly at Mike.
“I feel like a fool,” Brad said.
Mike opened his mouth as if to reply and reassure Brad, but Leda shushed him.
“You go, Mikel,” she said. “I talk Mr. Storm. Go, go.” She made a brushing motion with both hands. Mike turned and left to join his men.
Leda slid Brad’s arm in the crook of her own arm and the two walked over to a stack of logs. She pushed him down onto one of them and sat beside him.
“English no good,” she said. “You please forgive.”
“Your English is good enough, Mrs. Polentzi.”
“You call Leda. No Mrs. Polentzi, eh?”
“All right, Leda. But you must call me Brad, then.”
“You listen, eh? Brad.” She smiled. “We Basque people. Men tend the sheep. Women cook the food. Mikel, he take the sheep to other valley. Send women and children to camp on river. The men come back when leaves fall and get women and little boys and girls. We wait for the men. You find man who killed Eladio and my Rafael. You kill him. Make Leda very happy.”
“I will do my best, Leda,” he said.
She patted him on the hand.
“You hero,” she said.
Brad wished he were anyplace else but where he was. He was touched by Leda’s sincerity, but he was uncomfortable sitting there with Polentzi’s widow. He felt out of place. Yet he knew that she probably needed to talk, that she was still grieving for her husband.
As they spoke together, Verdugo approached. He carried a log in his arms. He put it on the back of the pile, out of sight of Leda and Brad. He waited and listened as the two continued to converse with each other.
“Tomorrow,” Leda said, “I go with other women and children down to river camp. When you kill Snake, you come and tell me.”
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