The sun was warm, and he sat down on the bank of the stream and watched the water. Until now he had known peace, and peace was the one thing most to be desired. His cattle grew fat on the grassy valley lands, there were beaver and mink to be trapped, deer to be hunted. Occasionally, a little gold to be panned from corners and bends of the old creek bank. It had been an easy, happy, but lonely life.
It would be that no longer. For months now he had seen the trouble building in Laird Valley. He had listened to the gossip of ranch hands in Rico, the cattle buyers and the bartenders. He had heard stories of Byrn Sonntag, of Montana Kerr, of Ringer Cobb.
Simple ranchers? He had smiled at the idea. No man who knew the Big Bend country would ever suggest that, nor any man who had gone up the trail to Dodge and Hays. They were men whose names had legends built around. them men known for ruthless killing.
Frank Salter was just as bad. Lean and embittered, Salter had ridden with Quantrill’s guerrillas, then he had trailed west and south. He had killed a man in Dimmit, another in Eagle Pass. He was nearly fifty now, but a sour, unhappy man with a rankling hatred for everything successful, everything peaceful.
Of them all, Sonntag was the worst. He was smooth, coldblooded, with nerves like chilled steel. He had, the legends said, killed twenty-seven men.
Looking on from a distance Mahone had the perspective to see the truth. Until lately, there had been no suspicion of rustling. No tracks had been found; there had reportedly been no mysterious disappearances of cattle. The herds had been weeded patiently and with intelligence.
Abraham Mclnnis suddenly awakened to the realization that the thousand or more cattle he had believed to be in the brakes wfere not there. The rustlers had carefully worked cattle down on the range so there would always be cattle in sight. They had taken only a few at a time, and they had never taken a cow without its calf, and vice versa.
Mclnnis had gone to town and met with Brewster, and Van had returned to his own ranch. For three days he covered it as he had not covered it since the last roundup. At the very least, he was missing several hundred head of cattle. The same was true of Collins, the Kastelles, and Pierce Logan.
All of this was known to Finn Mahone. Stories got around in cattle country, and he was a man who listened much and remembered what he heard. Moreover, he could read trail sign like most men could read a newspaper.
He mounted the stallion and started over the trail for Crystal Valley.
Pierce Logan was disturbed. He was a cool, careful man who rarely made mistakes. He had moved the outlaws into Rawhide, had made sure they all had small holdings, had given them their brands. Then he had engineered, from his office in town and his ranch headquarters, the careful job of cattle theft that had been done. Byrn Sonntag was a man who would listen, and Byrn was a man who could give orders. The stealing had been so carefully done that it had been going on for a year before the first rumbles of suspicion were heard.
Even then, none of that suspicion was directed toward Rawhide. When Rawhide ranchers came to Laird they were quiet and well behaved. In Rawhide they had their
own town, their own saloon, and when they felt like a bust, they went, under orders, to Rico.
Logan had understood that sooner or later there would be trouble. He had carefully planned what to do beforehand. He had dropped hints here and there about Finn Mahone, choosing him simply because he lived alone and consequently was a figure of mystery and spine suspicion. He had never mentioned Finn’s name in connection with rustling. Only a couple of times he had wondered aloud what he found to do all the time, and elsewhere he had commented that whatever he did, it seemed to pay well.
Pierce Logan had seen Mahone but once before, and that time from a distance. He had no animosity toward him, choosing the man coldbloodedly because he was the best possible suspect.
His plan was simple. When Mahone was either shot, hung for rustling, or run out of the country, the pressure would be off, the ranchers would relax, and his plans could continue for some time before suspicion built up again. If in the process of placing the blame on Mahone he could remove some of the competition from the picture, so much the better. He had a few plans along those lines.
His was not a new ide a. It was one he had pondered upon a good deal before he came west to Laird. He had scouted the country with care, and then had trusted the gathering of the men to Sonntag.
Everything had gone exactly as planned. His seeds of suspicion had fallen on fertile soil, and his rustlers had milked the range of over five thousand head of cattle before questions began to be asked. No big bunches had been taken, and he had been careful to leave no bawling cows or calves on the range. The cattle had been shoved down on the open country on the theory that as long as plenty of cattle were in sight, few questions would be asked. ,
Two things disturbed him now. One of them was the fact that Finn Mahone had proved to be a different type of man than he had believed. He had defeated Leibman easily and thoroughly, and in so doing had become something of a local hero. Moreover, the way he had done it had proved to Logan that he was not any ordinary small-time rancher, to be tricked and deluded. Also, despite himself, he was worried by what Dowd had said.
The unknown is always disturbing. Although he and Dowd had little to do with one another, Texas Dowd had the reputation of being a tough and capable man. The fact that he knew Mahone and had referred to him as dangerous worried Logan. In his foolproof scheme, he might have bagged some game he didn’t want.
The second disturbing factor was Texas Dowd himself. Pierce Logan’s easy affability, his personality, his money, and his carefully planned influence made no impression on Dowd. Logan knew this, and also knew that Dowd was suspicious of him. He doubted that Dowd had any reason for his suspicion. Yet, any suspicion was a dangerous thing.
Pierce Logan had been careful to see that some of his own cattle were rustled. He had deliberately planned that. It made no difference to him how they were sold; he got a big share of the money in any event, and it paid to avoid suspicion. Also, he had gone easy on the Lazy K, because Texas Dowd was a restless rider, a man forever watching his grazing land, forever noticing cattle. Also, Pierce Logan was pretty sure he would someday own the Lazy K. Along with his plans for the Laird Valley, two other things were known only to Pierce Logan. One was that he was himself a fast man with a gun, with nine killings behind him. The second was that he could handle his fists.
He had seen Leibman fight before, and had always been quite sure he could whip him, if need be. Until today he had never seen a man he was not positive he could beat. Finn Mahone was a puzzle. Especially as he noted that Finn had never let himself go with Leibman. He had toyed with him, making a fight of it and obviously enjoying himself. Then suddenly, dramatically, he had cut him down.
Pierce Logan made his second decision that night. Earlier, he had decided that Dowd must be killed. That night he decided that his plans for Finn Mahone must be implemented quickly. Mahone must be used and then removed from the scene, thoroughly.
He got up and put on his wide white hat, then strolled out on the boardwalk, pausing to light a cigarette. It was a few minutes after sundown, and almost time to go to supper at Ma Boyle’s. His gray eyes shifted, and saw the man dismounting behind the livery stable.
Logan finished his smoke, then stepped down off the porch and walked across to the stable. His own gray nickered when it saw him, and he walked in, putting a hand on the horse’s flank. Byrn Sonntag was in the next stall.
Speaking softly, under his breath, Logan said, “Watch when Mahone makes his next shipment. Then get some altered brands into them and let me know as soon as it’s done.”
“Sure,” Sonntag said. He passed over a sheaf of bills to Logan. “I already taken my cut,” Sonntag said.
Logan felt a sharp annoyance, but stilled it. “Dowd,” he said, “looks like trouble. Better have one of the boys take care of it.”
Sonntag was quiet for a minute, then he replied.
“Yeah, an’ it won’t be easy. Dowd’s hell on wheels with a gun.”
Pierce Logan left pc barn and walked slowly down the street. He scowldd. It was the first time he had ever heard Sonntag hesitate over anything.
Byrn Sonntag was pleased beyond measure when he encountered Mexie Roberts in the Longhorn. He passed him the word, then went on and sat in on a poker game. When the game broke up several hours later he was a winner by some two hundred dollars.
Mexie Roberts joined him on the trail. He was a slight, brown man with a sly face. “You know Texas Dowd?” Sonntag demanded.
“Si.” Roberts studied Sonntag.
“Kill him.”
“How much?”
Sonntag hesitated. Then he drew out his winnings. “Two hundred,” he said, “for a clean job … one hundred now.”
CHAPTER 2
The Rimrock that divided the open range of Laird Valley from Mahone’s holdings was almost as steep and difficult to scale from the inside. Finn Mahone had often studied the mountains, and knew there was an old, long-unused path that seemed to lead toward the crest. His black stallion was a mountainbred horse, and he took the trail without hesitation.
The steep mountainside was heavily timbered with pine, mingled with cedar and manzanita. The earth under the trees was buried deep under years and years of pine needles, except where here and there rock cropped out of the earth: the rough granite fingers of the mountain.
Several times he reined in to let the stallion breathe easier, and while resting the horse, he turned in the saddle to study the land around him. Below him, stretched out like something seen in a dream, were the three links in the Crystal Valley chain, and along the bottom the tumbling silver of Crystal Creek.
His stone cabin, built in a cleft of the mountain, was invisible from here, but he could just see the top of the dead pine that towered above the forest to mark the opening into the trail to Rico. It was a trail rarely used except when he drove his cattle to the railroad siding in the desert town.
Rico was as turbulent as Laird was peaceful, and it was a meeting ground of the cattlemen from Laird, the sheep men from the distant Ruby Hills, and the miners who worked a few claims in the Furbelows. Rico had no charms for Finn Mahone, and he avoided the town and the consequences of trouble there.
His occasional visits to Laird had built friendships. He had come to enjoy his contacts with Judge Collins, Doc Finerty, Dean Armstrong, and Otis.
Big, quiet, and slow to make friends, he had bought drinks for and accepted drinks from these men, and had, at the insistence of Otis, gone around to see Lettie Mason. Her house of entertainment was frowned upon by the respectable, but offered all Laird possessed in the way of theater and gambling. Lettie had heard Mahone was in town and sent Otis to bring him to call.
She was a woman of thirty-four who looked several years younger. She had lived in Richmond, New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, and had for eight years of her life been married to a man of old but impoverished family who had turned to gambling as a business.
Lettie Mason had mfet three of the men in Laird before she came west. Two of these were Finn Mahone and Texas Dowd, and the third was Pierce Logan.
Since her arrival she had been in the company of Logan many times, and he had never acknowledged their previous meeting. After some time Lettie became convinced that he had forgotten the one night they met. It was not surprising, since he had been focused on the cards that her husband had been holding and she was introduced by her married name. Dowd was a frequent visitor at the rambling frame house across from the combination city hall and jail, but Mahone had been there only twice.
One other man in Laird knew a little about Lettie Mason. That man was Garfield Otis, who probably knew her better than all the rest. Otis, lonely, usually broke, and’ always restless, found in her the understanding and warmth he needed. She fed him at times, gave him drinks more rarely, and confided in him upon all subjects. She was an intelligent, astute woman who knew a good deal about men and even more about business.
Finn Mahone, riding the mountainside above Crystal Valley, could look upon Laird with detachment. Consequently, his perspective was better. In a town where he had no allegiances and few friendships, he could see with clarity the shaping and aligning of forces. He was a man whom life had left keenly sensitive to impending trouble, and as he had seen it develop before, he knew the indications.
Until the fight with Leibman, he had believed he was merely a not-too-innocent bystander. Now he knew he was, whether he liked it or not, a participant. Behind the
rising tide of trouble in the Laird basin there appeared to be a shrewd intelligence, the brain of a man or woman who knew what he or she wanted and how to get it.
Understanding nothing of that plan, Mahone could still detect the tightening of strings. Some purpose of the mind behind the trouble demanded that he, Finn Mahone, be marked as a rustler and eliminated.
He was nearing the crest and the trail had leveled off and emerged from the pine forest.
He must have another talk with Lettie. He knew her of old, and knew she was aware of all that happened around her, that men talked in her presence and she listened well. They had met in New Orleans in one of those sudden contacts deriving from the war. He had found her taking shelter in a doorway during a riot, and escorted her home. She was, he learned, making a success of gambling where her husband had failed. He had died, leaving her with little, but that little was a small amount of cash and a knowledge of gambling houses.
Her husband, who had drawn too slow in an altercation with another gambler, had tried to beat the game on his own. Lettie won a little, and then bought into a gambling house, preferring the house percentage to the risk of a single game. Kindhearted, yet capable and shrewd, she made money swiftly.
Finn reined in suddenly and spoke softly to the stallion. Before him was a little glade among the trees, a hollow where the water from a small stream gathered before trickling off into a rippling brook that eventually reached Crystal Creek. A man was coming out of the trees and walking down to the stream. The man lay down beside the stream and drank. Dismounting, Finn held the big horse motionless and stood behind a tree, watching.
When the man arose, Finn saw that he was an Indian, no longer young. Two braids fell over his shoulders from under the battered felt hat, and there was a knife and a pistol on his belt.
The Indian looked around slowly, then turned and started back toward the woods. Yet some sense must have warned him he was being watched, for he stopped suddenly and turned to stare back in Finn’s direction.
Moving carefully, Finn stepped from behind the tree and mounted his horse. Then he walked the horse down into the glade and toward the Indian.
The fellow stood there quietly, his black eyes steady, watching Finn approach. “How Kola?” Finn gave the Sioux greeting because he knew no other. He reined in. “Is your camp close by?”
The Indian gestured toward the trees, then turned and led the way. Sticks had been gathered for a fire, and some blankets were dropped on the ground. Obviously, the Indian had just arrived. Two paint ponies stood under the trees, and the Indian’s new rifle, a Winchester, leaned against a tree.
Finn took out his tobacco and tossed it to the Indian. “Traveling far?”
“Much far.” The Indian dug an old pipe from his pocket and stoked it with tobacco, then he gestured toward the valley. “Your house?”
“Yes, my house, my cows.”
The Indian lit his pipe and smoked without speaking for several minutes. Finn rolled a cigarette and lighted it, waiting. The Indian nodded toward the valley. “My home … once. Long time no home.”
“You’ve come back, huh?” Finn took his cigarette from his lips and looked at the glowing end. “Plenty of beaver here. Why not stay?”
The Indian turned his head to look at him. “Your home now,” he suggested.
“Sure,” Mahone said. “But there’s room enough for both of us. You don’t run cattle,
I don’t trap beaver. You and me, friends, huh?”
The Indian studied the proposition. “Sure,” he said, after a while. “Friends.” Then he added, “Me Shoshone Charlie.”
“My name’s Finn Mahone.” He grinned at the Indian. “You been to Rawhide … the little town?”
“Rawhide no good. Rico no good. Plenty bad white man. Too much shootin’.” Charlie nodded. “Already see two white man, ride much along big river. One white man tall, not much meat, bad cut like so,” he indicated a point over the eye. “Other white man short, plenty thick. Bay pony.”
Frank Salter and Banty Hull. They had been scouting the upper Laird River Canyon. That was on this side of Rico, and beyond the Rimrock from the Laird Valley. It was far off their own range. If they were scouting along there, the chances were they were looking for the route he took to Rico on his cattle drives. He forded the river in the bottom of that canyon.
“Thanks. Those men are plenty bad.” Mahone watched the light changing on the mountainside across the Crystal Valley. The Indian knew plenty, and given time, might talk. He had a feeling he had won a friend in the old man.
“I’m headin’ back,” he said, “after a bit. Suppose you need sugar, tobacco? You come to see me. Plenty of coffee, too. I always have some in the pot, and if I’m not home, you get a cup and have some. Better not go into Rawhide, unless you have to.” The Indian watched him as he rode away.
He was restless, knowing things were coming to a head. It disturbed him that Remy thought of him as a rustler. The girl had stirred him more deeply than he liked to admit. Yet, even as he thought of that, he knew it went further. She was so much the sort of person he had always wanted.
If he had read the bullet-marked playing card right, Texas Dowd finally knew he was on the range. The fact that he was riding for her would account for the excellent cattle she had, and the condition of her grass. In his months of riding the Highbinders, he had watched with interest the shifting of the Lazy K cattle. The ground was never grazed too long, and the cattle were moved from place to place with skill instead of allowing them to range freely. They had been shifted to the lowlands during the spring months and then, as hotter weather drew near, moved back where there was shade and greener grass from sub irrigated land near the hills.
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