by Luke Short
Now, he cruised on past the open-face wagon shed. There was a light spring wagon missing, which surely wouldn’t have been claimed by the old Saber crew. Without pausing, Frank picked out the wagon’s wheel tracks; they swung close to the corral, where the team was harnessed, then cut out north, where they were soon blurred by what Frank read as the tracks of a half-dozen horses heading in the same direction. Hugh, apparently, had needed a wagon on his errand.
Frank was cruising around the corrals as the triangle clanged for supper. When, later, he took his place at the table in the cookshack he saw that Hugh had dug up an aged Chinese cook for the crew. The cook spoke to none of them, and they did not speak to him, and his food was wretched.
After supper, Frank went back to his room. Once there, he rolled a cigarette and pondered what he had seen this afternoon. The crew wasn’t going to let him out of its sight. On the other hand, they didn’t seem worried enough to send a man to Hugh to warn him that Frank was back.
That left the door wide open, and Frank was going to take advantage of it. With a headstart in the morning, he could follow the wagon tracks at a pace that would put miles between him and the crew before his absence was noticed.
It was an hour before daylight when he wakened and dressed in the chill darkness. He heard the soft murmur of the persistent rain on the roof, and he swore mildly; if it had held all night, the tracks of Hugh’s wagon might be washed away.
Letting himself out, he skirted the bunkhouse widely, thankful that the ranch dog had been appropriated by one of the departing Saber crew.
In the bam he lighted the lantern just long enough to saddle his horse, and afterward he rode out toward the north. Until daylight came, he concentrated on putting as much distance be-– tween himself and the ranch as he could. The valley curved in a great crescent to the east along the timbered base of the peaks, and when it swung north again it had lifted to the high aspens. On the hunch that Hugh’s business lay in the high country, Frank short cut the long valley road, cutting straight to the far point of the crescent, and keeping to the narrow trails through the dripping black timber that he had memorized from childhood.
In midmorning he came onto the upper Elk at the high meadow where he had first gathered his horses for Fort Crawford. Carefully then, Frank rode the bank of the stream, watching for the wagon tracks. He found them in the middle of the meadow; the wheels had gouged furrows in the turf of the stream bank, and they pointed north still.
He reined in and folded his arms on the saddle horn and looked off toward the north, considering this. Saber range ran on for some miles beyond this meadow, but it was upended country of poor grass that Saber hands had cursed every roundup. Each year, a few cattle strayed into its tangle of brushy canyons where they had to be pried out by dogged searching. There was little water back there, for this chunk of country drained the boulder fields that spent water as fast as it fell. It was the sort of dark corner Hugh Nunnally would hunt up, but the fact that he knew of its existence and was using it baffled Frank.
He went on now, climbing a sharp hogback and dropping down into a boulder-strewn canyon bed running an inch of murky water across its ten-foot width.
He followed this a little way and again picked up the wagon tracks as they crawled out of it, labored over a flinty ridge, and slid down into another rocky wash flanked with a tangle of brush. As he went deeper and deeper into this country, he tried to puzzle this out, and could not.
It was around noon when he heard the chunking of an axe somewhere ahead. Reining up, he tried to place the sound, and as he listened another axe joined in. Putting his horse into motion now, he rode up the wash that was close-hedged by brush.
Presently, the brush broke away for a steep cliff, and rounding it, Frank saw the wagon ahead of him. Hugh Nunnally, in a soggy yellow slicker, was standing by the wagon in the rain watching two punchers, slickerless and drenched to the skin, who were lugging a fresh-cut pine post past him and into the wide mouth of a canyon. Frank knew this canyon, although it had always gone nameless. It trailed back for two or three miles, giving scanty forage to stock, before its dry wash began to show water. This water came from a spring at the head of the canyon that was backed up against the peaks, but the water soon disappeared in the sand. Nunnally, Frank saw now, was directing the fencing of the canyon mouth.
He urged his horse forward now, and in moving the horse kicked a rock. Hugh’s head turned quickly. When he saw a rider, his hand clawed at his slicker, striving for the gun under it, and then it ceased movement, as he recognized Frank.
A blazing anger crawled into Hugh’s broad face now, and he turned and walked toward Frank. His slicker was soaked through, his arms muddy to the elbows, and his boots were caked with mud.
“Who sent you up here?” he asked meagerly.
“Nobody,” Frank observed mildly. The two men looked at each other, and Frank read the wild wrath in Nunnally’s pale eyes.
Hugh said then, his voice almost normal, “I thought you’d gone off for a week’s fishin’.”
“All the streams are muddy,” Frank said idly. He looked over at the pole fence strung halfway across the canyon. The crew had seen now; they stood silent, drenched and muddy, looking at Hugh. Ed Hanley, Frank noticed, was among them.
Hugh called to them now, “All right, knock off for grub, boys.” He turned to look up at Frank now, and his face was contained, amiable once more.
“Rush job?” Frank asked.
Hugh almost smiled, “No, these jugheads are goin’ to learn to work, once more. There’s plenty of it around here, too.”
Frank considered asking why it was necessary to work in this weather at a job unpleasant enough any time, but he held his question.
Hugh said now, “Anything special on your mind?” in an offhand way that somehow lacked the casualness it was intended to carry.
“Yeah. A crew. They didn’t have orders back at the ranch to work for me, so I came to you.”
Hugh looked at the wagon thoughtfully. The crew had stored dry wood under the wagon; now they were building a small fire under the wagon out of the rain, stamping their feet in the thin, cold drizzle and watching Nunnally.
Hugh shook his head slowly. “Frank, you came too soon. I’m goin’ to need every man-jack of them for a few more days, and I counted on your bein’ gone.” He scowled thoughtfully at Frank. “Look, help a man out, will you?”
“All right.”
“I left a dozen things hangin’ fire down at the lot that Rhino can’t settle. Get something to eat here, and then ride on down to town, will you? When you get back, I’ll give you a crew.”
Frank nodded. It was plain enough that Nunnally wanted him out of the way, the quicker and farther away the better.
Hugh tramped over toward the wagon, and Frank dismounted and led his horse after him.
The men at the fire nodded in greeting, and Frank came to a halt, nodding too. His glance traveled to Ed Hanley, squatting on his haunches warming his hands against the small flame. They regarded each other a brief second, each remembering their last meeting, and then Hanley said, “Howdy, Frank.”
Frank spoke to him, accepting the tin plate of half-warmed mulligan Hugh gave him. While he ate, Hugh enumerated the items he wanted Frank to pass on to Rhino. Any hay bought from Grannigan downriver was to be turned back, or if already paid for, destroyed, since it contained loco weed. All horses destined for Carpenter at Leadville were to be shod before delivery. There were other things of this nature, none of them really urgent, and Frank memorized them as he ate.
Finished with his coffee, he set the tin cup in the wagon bed, buttoned up his slicker, and tramped over to his horse. Hugh followed him, and watched him mount.
“I’m much obliged, Frank,” Hugh said. “Don’t worry about your crew. Once we have the horses moved and some things cleaned up, you’ll have your pick.”
Frank rode out then. When he was only a few minutes gone, he heard the axe chunking again. Hugh was in a h
urry to finish the corral, apparently, and Frank wondered why. It was illogical that the horses from the lot that Lister was waiting for were destined for this canyon. The sheer trouble of getting them in and out of here made Frank discount that possibility. Yet Morg was waiting for the horses today, and Hugh was driving his crew to finish the fence.
By the time Frank had reached Elk Creek again, his mind was made up. Instead of taking the short cut back to Saber, he clung to the big crescent meadow, and in the midafternoon he came across the bunch of horses the crew were driving ahead of them.
Lister was riding swing on the bunch of a hundred-odd horses; at sight of him, Lister pulled away and rode over to meet him.
“You sure turn out early,” Lister said sullenly. He was watching Frank’s face carefully.
Frank nodded. “I found Hugh, and we’ll pick a crew when he’s through. I’m on my way to town.”
Lister scowled, pondering this. The suspicion on the man’s face was transparent, but Frank’s statement that he had talked with Hugh confounded him. He said, “Hugh send you to town?”
Frank said, “Ask him,” and moved on past the herd. He rode some distance before he turned in the saddle to look back at them. The herd moved on, Lister with them, and counting the riders, he knew Lister had not dropped a man out to follow him. Once there was timber between him and the herd, he rode on a way farther, and then cut into the timber. He had been seen by the crew and his errand established, which was what he wanted. Presently, he found the trail he had taken this morning, and he turned back up it in the direction of the aspen meadow.
Arriving there, he left his horse well bade in the timber and made his way slowly through the thick aspens until he had a view of the meadow. Picking the driest spot here, he settled down to watch.
It was several minutes before he discovered the man huddled under the three pine trees by the corral where Frank had once camped. This man was waiting too; he tramped restlessly among the trees, smoking incessantly, occasionally sitting down until his restlessness drove him to his feet again. It was another half-hour before Frank heard the shrill whistles of the crew hazing the horses up into the meadow. The man under the trees moved toward the corral and opened the gate, then stood there, waving and whistling.
The first of the horses came into sight then, and the point rider turned them toward the corral. Once they were inside, the gate was swung shut and the riders collected under the trees. They built a fire and then settled down around it, and they too were waiting. So far, there was nothing significant in this, Frank thought. He shifted his position now, seeking a drier spot. There was more to come, he knew, and he hoped it would not be dark before it happened.
He waited another half-hour, cursing the darkening afternoon. In a short while it would be too dark to see anything. Water trickled down his neck, and his feet, soaking wet, were so cold they were numb.
He looked up then to see one of the punchers under the tree run out across the stream and pause in the meadow, head turned toward the mountains. The man raised a hand for silence, and Frank knew he was listening. Then he beckoned the others to him, so as to get them away from the noise of the stream. In a group, they stood motionless, listening. Then they waited.
It was another five minutes before a band of horses broke out of the trail from the peaks. They came boiling down off the trail and into the meadow in scattered formation, and made for the creek. Some of them started to graze immediately. All of them, Frank noticed, had mud-caked legs and bellies. And then he saw the three riders come off the trail now on weary, jaded horses. They rode straight up to the waiting crew, and there was a short parley. Half of Rhino’s crew now went back for their horses, mounted, and started bunching up the new herd that was scattered over the meadow.
Frank regarded these horses carefully, but they were too far away for him to identify their brands. There were about a hundred of them, and they looked travel-beaten and footsore, their tails burred and their heads down. But they were a good bunch of horses. They could have come, he knew, only from over the mountains by any of the old Indian trails.
Now half Rhino’s bunch started hazing the new horses north over the hogback. The horses went reluctantly, for they were almost beat, and now Frank knew why Hugh had been in such a hurry to finish the corral. He had expected these horses, who were being hidden out in the canyon back there.
Frank watched the rest of the crew mount now, while one man ran to the corral and opened the gate. Rhino’s horses were hazed out now, and roughly divided into two groups. One group was chased up the trail the other horses had just come down. The other bunch was driven back and forth across the meadow, and each time they were turned around they moved closer to the hogback.
Frank stared at this in bafflement. Once this bunch was close to the hogback, they were turned and driven clear across the meadow and onto a trail leading over to Horn Creek. They were gone only a few minutes, when they were driven back. Now the back-and-forth process was resumed again. The horses were driven ceaselessly, always bunched. Frank’s glance shifted to the three riders who had come in with the last bunch; they were squatted around the fire, resting.
The horses caught his attention again. They had been driven over to the head of the trail now, where they were made to mill round and round.
Frank watched this with growing bafflement. Suddenly, it came to him with the weight of utter conviction. They’re covering the tracks of the bunch that came over the peaks.
It made sense. Half the bunch sent up the trail would blot out the tracks on the trail. This bunch here, having been driven back and forth in the meadow and down every trail that led onto it, had left a thousand confusing tracks of their own and covered every track of the last bunch. In an hour the rain would leach out the sharp edges of all these tracks, making identification of any single horse impossible. Anyone trailing these horses over the mountains would come to the meadow and find thousands of blurred horse tracks going in all directions, and Rhino’s band of a hundred horses would be innocently grazing here.
He settled back on his heels now, and slowly rubbed a hand across his face. He had the answer to a lot of things now. Rhino, his partner, was dealing in stolen horses. With Saber’s vast range, he could hide the stolen stuff until they were vent-branded or their brands altered and healed. The set-up was foolproof. Nobody ever questioned a Saber-branded horse, and any number of horses could be brought in over the back door of the peaks.
He saw how carefully Rhino had planned and executed this, so sure of himself that these horses had been stolen and scheduled to arrive here weeks before Frank knew he was after Saber. No wonder Rhino had suggested the fishing trip, and no wonder the old Saber crew was promptly moved out. No wonder—
“Getting an eyeful, Pretty Boy?”
The voice was wry and gibing, coming from behind him. Even as he turned his head, still squatting in the brush, he knew who had spoken.
Albie Beecham stood there in the slow rain, gun in hand and cocked. He had taken off his slicker so its noise would not give him away, and he had come up within a dozen feet of Frank before he spoke.
Frank came carefully erect and turned, his hands at his sides. He was caught cold, and he saw the bitter exultation in Albie’s vicious face.
“It took all day, but I made it,” Albie said thinly.
Frank didn’t comment.
“So now you know,” Albie jeered, “and now you’re dead.”
A cold swift fear touched Frank then. Was he going to shoot him, now? Not without Nunnally’s word, Frank thought. But the promise was there, naked and cold, so plain the crew already knew it. Once he discovered Rhino’s business, he was dead. They’d used him and now they were through with him. His discovery here, coupled with what he had seen today, would earn him a bullet in the back.
He had been cold before; now he was sweating. He beat his mind for some way out of this, watching Albie with a narrow attention. If he moved, Albie would shoot. Even if Albie missed him, this
would bring the crew from the meadow here in a minute’s time. And then it came to him and he didn’t like it, but he knew he was going to do it.
He smiled with an easy confidence and put out his hand. “Give it to me, Albie. It’s no use.”
Albie’s gun steadied on him.
Frank took a step toward him, a slow step, his hand still extended, and now he raised his other hand slowly to push his hat off his forehead. He looked beyond Albie and called sharply, “Jonas, get closer—and be quiet. The meadow’s full of them.”
Albie had the hint. He acted promptly, wisely, because he was almost sure—but only almost—that Frank was bluffing, and that there was nobody behind him. He raised his gun shoulder high and fired a shot for help. That was the most Frank had hoped for.
He wrenched off his hat and threw it at Albie’s head, hoping to distract his aim, and lunged for the slight puncher. Albie’s shot bellowed almost in his face, but it was too late and Frank was on him. His head butted Albie’s chest and his long arms were around him.
Albie, cursing wildly, went down, and Frank fell atop him and clamped onto his gun. They wrestled silently, viciously for seconds in the muddy leaves, Frank holding Albie’s gun in an iron grip as they rolled over and over. It took Frank a few experimental seconds to discover that, once Albie was pinned on his back, his own extra weight could pin him down. Albie’s arm was wrapped around Frank’s neck, and he hugged Frank with a wild and stubborn tenacity. With a cold and wicked haste upon him now, Frank read Albie’s motives. Albie wanted to hold him until help from the meadow got here, and it was surely on the way.
