the Man from the Broken Hills (1975)

by L'amour, Louis - Talon-Chantry

  Scouting the banks of the creek again, I found no tracks of a shod horse. Whoever was driving those cattle must have been riding ... Unless he was atop an Indian pony!

  That was a thought. I had thought he must have been riding on air, for there had been no tracks of a shod horse ... or of any horse, when it came to that.

  Puzzled, I worked over the ground again ... No tracks of a horse, yet cattle rarely bunch up like that unless driven. Usually, given their own time they will walk single file.

  Another thought came suddenly from nowhere. Six ranches, I'd been told, and I knew of no farms ... Where, then, did China Benn come from?

  The blacksmith from Balch and Saddler had brought her to the dance ... Was she a relative of one of them? Somehow I'd had no such impression.

  Thinking of China turned my thoughts to Ann Timberly. Now there was a girl! Not only lovely to look at, she was a girl with a mind of her own--swift, sure, always on the spot in trouble and never at a loss as to what to do. Even when it was taking a swing at me with a quirt! I chuckled, and the dun twitched his ears, surprised, I guess.

  The cattle tracks were headed south, and I fell in behind. Once in a while there was a hoof print. But more than that, there was a sort of trail here, a way where cattle or something had gone many times before, and bunched-up cattle, at that.

  Under the shoulder of a small bluff, some twenty feet high, I drew up in the shadow, wanting to think this out. From here on, I would be in enemy country, and not only cow-thief country.

  South of me somewhere, likely close to the Lopez peaks was the Middle Concho. This was deadman's country, and I was a damned fool to be riding here. Danny was undoubtedly dead or had left the country, and there was no sense in adding my bones to his on the plains of the Concho.

  My dun started off of his own volition, wearied of standing. Yet we had gone no more than fifty yards when a wide draw cut into the one along which I rode, it came in from the northeast and I saw the tracks before I reached the opening.

  Two riders ... Puzzled, I studied the trail.

  One always ahead of the other who followed a little offside and behind. The tracks were from last night, because I could see tiny insect trails in the sand where they had crossed and recrossed the tracks during the night.

  Warily, I looked around ... Nothing in sight. A few more tracks ... I knew that long, even stride of the first horse: the unseen rider and probably the marksman who had been trying for my scalp ... The tracks were clear and definite in a few places, a horse freshly-shod not long since.

  Following at a walk, I studied the tracks, tried to understand what it was about the situation that disturbed me. There were a number of places where two could have ridden side by side, but they had not.

  Both horses were shod ... it came to me with a sudden hunch. The second horse was being led! It was pretty much of a guess, but it fitted the pattern. A led horse! I knew there was also a rider in the led horse's saddle from the way the horse had moved.

  What I needed was a definite set of tracks for the second horse. I got them when they passed some damp sand near a seep ...

  My breath caught and I drew up sharply. No mistake ... Those were the tracks of Ann Timberly's horse.

  These were days when men lived by tracks, and the average cowpoke, ranchman, Indian or lawman could read a man's track or a horse's track as easily as most eastern folks could read a signature. You saw tracks, and somehow they just filed themselves away in your memories for future reference.

  I'd had occasion to follow Ann Timberly to her pa's ranch. And I knew the way that horse stepped, knew the tracks he left.

  Ann Timberly riding a led horse behind the man I was sure was the stock thief. She was forever riding the country, and she must have come upon him or his trail--and been caught when he saw her coming, and laid for her. That was a good deal of surmising, but the fact was: he had her.

  For three to four years, this man had been stealing stock, preparing for something. And now he had been seen and recognized, and his whole plan could blow up in his face if Ann got away to tell of it.

  Therefore, he dared not let her get away. He had to kill her.

  Then why hadn't he? Because he didn't want the body found? No doubt. Killing a woman, particularly the major's daughter, would blow the lid off the countryside. Every rider who could straddle a horse would be out for the killer.

  Take her out of the country and then kill her? That made some kind of sense. Of course, he might have other plans. Now there was no nonsense about it. I had to stay with them. Moreover, I had to stay alive and save her life, and that would take some doing.

  That trail had been made yesterday evening, perhaps near to dark. They had camped ... I'd find their camp soon. They might still be there, but I doubted it. This gent would travel far and fast.

  I shucked my Winchester.

  Taking it easy, I walked my horse forward, lifted it into a canter, and moved along the shallow draw, alert for trouble. Maybe I'd come upon their camp. Right now I was seven or eight miles from the creek where I'd seen the tracks of Ol' Brindle, and twelve to fifteen miles from the line-cabin.

  Topping out on the plain, I followed the tracks at a gallop, went into another shallow draw and suddenly got smart. I stepped off my horse and put one flat stone atop another, then another alongside to indicate direction. If something happened to me, and the major and his boys started looking, they might need to know where I'd gone.

  Dipping down into another draw among the mesquite, I smelled smoke. Rifle in my hands, I walked my horse through the mesquite until I could see the smoke ... only a faint trail of it from a dying fire near some big old pecans.

  A small fire ... I could see where the horses had been tied, and where she had slept between two trees. He had slept some fifteen to twenty feet away, near the horses. Where she had bedded down ... and I could see her heel prints and the marks left by her spurs ... there were dry leaves all around. He had also taken the precaution to break small, dry branches and scatter them all about where he left her. So if she got free during the night, she couldn't make a move without making noise.

  Cagey ... he was very, very cagey. But I'd known that all along. Whoever the man was, he was a plainsman, a man who knew his way around wild country. He had made coffee ... there were some coffee grounds near the fire ... And the dew was mostly gone from the grass before they had moved out.

  They'd made a late start, but that didn't help much because the day was almost gone before I found their camp. Yet I rode on, wanting to use all the daylight I had. And before it was full dark, I'd covered a good five miles and was moving due south.

  Now there was mighty little I knew about this country. But sitting around bunkhouses there's talk, and some of the boys had been down into this country a time or two. Where I now was, if I had figured right, was Kiowa Creek, and a few miles further along it flowed into the middle Concho.

  This man seemed to be in no hurry. First, he was sure he wasn't followed. Second, this was his country and he knew it well. And, also, I had an idea he was studying on what to do.

  When Ann Timberly had come up on him. the bottom fell out of his set-up. For nigh onto four years, he'd had it all his own way. He'd been stealing cattle and hiding them out. There'd been no roundup, so it was a while before anybody realized what was happening.

  Now, on the verge of success at last, this girl had discovered him. Maybe he was no killer ... at least not a killer of women. Maybe he was taking his time, trying to study a way out.

  The stars were out when I pulled up and stepped down from the dun. There was a patch of meadow, some big old pecans and walnuts, and a good deal of brush of one kind or another. I let the dun roll, led him to water, then picketed him on the grass. Between a couple of big old deadfalls, I bedded down.

  Sitting there, listening to my horse eating grass, I ate a couple of biscuits and some cold meat I'd brought from the Stirrup-Iron. The last thing I wanted was to sit, but by now Ann and the man who
had her prisoner had probably arrived where they were going ... Yet one thing puzzled me.

  There'd been no more cattle tracks. Trailing Ann and her captor, I'd completely forgotten the cattle, and somewhere the trails had diverged. Yet that was not the problem now.

  With a poncho and saddle blanket, I made out to sleep some. It was no more than I'd had to sleep with many a night before so, tired as I was, I slept. And ready as I was to ride on, I opened my eyes with the morning stars in the sky.

  Bringing my horse in, I watered him, saddled up and wished I had some coffee. Light was just breaking when we started on, the dun and me. And I carried my Winchester in my hands, and spare cartridges in my pockets.

  It was all green and lovely around me now. Their trail was only a track or two, a broken green twig, grass scarred by a hoof ...

  Suddenly the trail turned sharply away from the creek, went a couple of hundred yards off, then swung around in a big circle to the creek again ...

  Why?

  Reining in, I looked back. There was an old trail following along the creek bank that had been regularly used, so why the sudden swing out from it? A trap? Or what?

  Riding back around the loop, I peered into the trees and brush, trying to see what was there, and I saw nothing. Back at the creek where they had turned off, I walked my horse slowly along the old trail. Suddenly, the dun shied.

  It was Danny Rolf.

  His body lay there, maybe a dozen feet off the trail, and he'd been shot in the back. The bullet looked to have cut his spine, but there was another shot into his head, just to make sure.

  He wore only one boot ... the other probably pulled off when he fell from his horse and his foot twisted in the stirrup.

  Poor Danny! A lonesome boy, looking for a girl, and now this ... Dead in the trail, drygulched. Something about the way the body lay bothered me. And studying the tracks, I saw what it was.

  When Danny was shot he wascoming back !

  He had been to where he was going, and he had started home ... And the rider who was Ann's captor had known the body was there, and had circled so Ann would not see it.

  He, then, was the killer.

  Chapter 22

  Moving over into the shadow of the trees, I studied the situation. Whatever doubts there might have been before, there could be none now. The unknown man with the rifle had killed once, and he would kill again. Yet as he had brought Ann this far, he might be having doubts. To kill a man was once thing, a woman another.

  Moreover, he was wily and wary. In this seemingly bland and innocent country, there were dozens of possible lurking places for a rifleman, and anytime I moved into the open, my life was in danger. Yet so was the life of Ann.

  Ahead of me, if what the boys at the ranch had said was true, this Kiowa Creek flowed into the Middle Concho. There was a fork up ahead, and the killer might have gone either way. Yet I did not believe he thought himself followed. He had passed along this creek yesterday, and by now had probably reached his destination.

  I swore bitterly. How did I get into these situations? The fact that I was good with guns was mostly accidental. I had been born with a certain coordination, a steady hand and a cool head, and the circumstances of my living had given them opportunity to develop. I knew I was fast with a gun, but it meant no more to me than being good at checkers or poker. It would have been much more useful to be good with a rope, and I was only fair.

  Now I was facing up to a shooting fight when all I wanted to do was work cattle and see the country. I'd heard of men who supposedly looked for adventure, but to me that was a lot of nonsense. Adventure was nothing but a romantic name for trouble, and nobody over eighteen in his right mind looked for it. Most of what people called adventure happened in the ordinary course of the day's work.

  The chances were, the killer had taken Ann on to wherever he was going, and they should be there by now. There was no time to think of Ann now ... she was where she was and she was either dead or momentarily safe.

  What I had to think about was me. If I didn't get through to where she was, we might both be dead. I could ride right out of here and summon the major and his men, but by that time it might be too late for Ann.

  I was no hero, and did not want to be one. I wanted to look through my horse's ears at a lot of new country, to bed down at night with the sound of leaves or running water, to get up in the morning to the smell of woodsmoke and bacon frying. Yet what could I do?

  You don't follow a man's trail across a lot of country without learning something about him, and I liked nothing I had learned about this one. What did I know? He was cool, careful and painstaking. He had succeeded in stealing at least a thousand head of cattle, probably twice that many--and over a period of three to four years--without being seen or even suspected.

  He had managed to create suspicion among the basin ranchers, so they suspected each other and not an outsider. He had moved around in what seemed to be a wide-open country, without anyone knowing he was around ... Unless he was around all the time and therefore unsuspected.

  That thought gripped me. If so ... Who?

  Moreover, he had shown no urge to kill anyone until I came along and seemed to be closing in on him. Danny had probably been shot by mistake because of the red shirt.

  But wait a minute ... Hadn't somebody mentioned another cowhand who rode off to the southeast and never came back?

  The chances were, the killer did not kill unless it looked like his plan was about to be exposed. He had several years' work at stake and, just on the verge of success, things started to go wrong.

  I had tracked him. Danny had come into his own country. And then Ann Timberly, forever riding the range, had come upon him somehow.

  One by one I turned the suspects over in my mind. Rossiter was naturally the first I thought of, because he was a shrewd man, dangerous, and known to me as a cow thief. Nor did I believe he was as blind as he let on. Nevertheless, he could not long be away from the ranch without folks worrying, because of his blindness.

  Roger Balch? A tough little man who wished to be known as such, driving to prove himself, but neither cautious nor shrewd. It could be Roger Balch. It could be Saddler.

  Harley? He came and went to his place, wherever it was. He handled a rifle like it was part of him, and he was cool enough, cautious enough, cold enough. He would, I was sure, kill a man as quickly as a chicken.

  Fuentes? He had been with me too much. Fuentes wasn't a killer.

  Somewhere in my memory, there lurked a face, a face I couldn't quite recall, someone I had seen, someone I remembered. Somehow, from somewhere. But that was all. That face was a shadow, elusive, indistinct, something at which the fingers of my memory grasped, only to come away empty.

  Yet it was there, haunting, shadowy ... The odd thing was, I had the fleeting impression it was something from my own past. Only minutes had passed since I'd seen Danny's body. The wind stirred the leaves, the water rustled faintly in Kiowa Creek. Like it or not, I was going to have to go forward.

  And I didn't like it. In such a case, the waiting rifleman has every advantage. All he has to do is sight in on a spot he knows you have to pass and just wait until you ride right into his sights. When he sees you coming, he can take up the slack on his trigger. And when he squeezes off his shot, you're a dead man or damned lucky ... and I didn't feel lucky.

  Nevertheless, Ann was up ahead, and there was no way I could get around that.

  Using every bit of cover I could, varying my pattern of travel when possible, I rode parallel with Kiowa Creek. Once, in a thick stand of hackberry and pecan, I watered my horse and took time to scan the country.

  Right ahead of me was that other arroyo that came into a junction with Kiowa Creek to form the Middle Concho. That was the one Ben Roper had once said they called Tepee Draw. I spotted a trail climbing out of the draw pointing toward the mountain and, returning for my horse, I rode down to where Kiowa Creek and Tepee Draw joined.

  A fresh horse trail went up
the bank and I started up, then reined in sharply. Not a hundred yards away was a corral, a cabin, and smoke from the chimney!

  Turning my horse, I slid back down the bank and back into the thickest stand of hackberry and pecan I could find. There were some big mesquite trees there, also. Shucking my Winchester, I loose-tied my horse and found a place in the brush where I could climb up for a look at the cabin. Nothing about the climb looked good. It was a natural for rattlers, who like shade from the sun, but after taking a careful look around, I crawled up. And there, under the roots of one of the biggest mesquite trees I'd ever seen, I studied the layout.

  It was a fair-sized cabin for that country, with two pole corrals and a lean-to shed. There was water running into a trough from a spring. I could see it dropping-and almost hear it. There were a half dozen head of horses in the corral, and one of them was a little black I'd seen Ann riding. Another was Danny Rolf's grulla.

  Aside from the movement of smoke and the horses, all was quiet.

  What surprised me was that I found no cattle anywhere around. Signs were there a-plenty, but not one hoof of stock did I see.

  It was very still, and' the sun was hot. Probably the coolest place around was right where I was, against that bank, among the roots of that big mesqnite and under its shade. Occasionally, a faint breeze stirred the leaves. A big black fly buzzed annoyingly about my face, but I feared to brush it away for I had no idea who was in the cabin. And even where I lay, a quick movement might be seen.

  A woman came to the door and threw out a pan of water, shading her eyes to look around. Then she went back inside. I felt certain it was Lisa, but it was more by hunch than recognition, for her face had been turned only briefly my way.

  If it was her, I surely didn't blame her for riding up to that box supper, nor for being scared at being away. More than likely he, whoever "he" was, had been off driving stolen cattle to wherever they'd been taken.