Wanted: Dead or Alive

by Ray Hogan

  VII

  The outlaws faced Slaughter. The big trail boss stood with his legs spread, his back to Jordan. Several of his riders had gathered about him in careless but watchful silence.

  “What’s got you thinking he came here?” Slaughter demanded, blunt and impatient.

  “Not sure he did,” Crawford replied. “Just had a hunch he might. Man on the run tries all kinds of fancy tricks.”

  He had not fooled the outlaws for a solitary moment, Ben realized. Crawford, personally acquainted with the problems of a man on the dodge, had recognized the possibilities a trail herd presented and deemed it wise not to ignore but to investigate. “A tall man, wearin’ a sheepskin jacket. Rides a sorrel with white forelegs.”

  Slaughter was still for several moments. “What do you want him for?”

  “Bank robbery,” Crawford said. “Been chasin’ him clear across Arizona and half of New Mexico. About had him two or three times, but he’s mighty slippery. Got away from us.”

  Jordan listened in amazement to the bald effrontery of Bart Crawford. The outlaws were passing themselves off as lawmen! They were making it appear that he—or, in reality, Walt Woodward—was the criminal! A surge of anger rocked Ben Jordan. He started to rise, to rush out into the open and confront Crawford and his gang, denounce them as liars before Slaughter and the others. And then he realized that would be a foolish gesture. He could prove nothing. He was a stranger to the trail boss and his riders, and it would be his word against that of Bart Crawford, backed by Aaron, Davis, and the narrow-faced Gates. Slaughter would have little choice but to believe Crawford. And he did have $20,000 in his saddlebags, something that would bolster Crawford’s accusations despite any explanation he would make. Fuming, feeling utterly helpless to protect himself, Ben Jordan listened to the conversation between the two men.

  “Figure he’s shot up some,” Crawford said. “One of my boys here thinks he winged him a couple of days ago.”

  “The man I hired didn’t look like anything was bothering him,” Slaughter stated flatly. “Fact is, he …”

  “There was a place on his sleeve,” a cowpuncher, sprawled out on his bedroll and propped on one elbow, volunteered. Ben recognized him as the first man he had encountered when he reached the herd.

  “What kind of a place?”

  “Sort of ragged like. Maybe a bullet hole. And somebody’s washed it up, like they’d cleaned off blood.”

  Crawford glanced at Cleve Aaron, then at Gates and Davis. “Could’ve been him,” he drawled. “What kind of a horse was he ridin’?”

  There was no immediate answer. The cowpuncher sank back onto his blankets. Slaughter drew a sack of tobacco and a folder of papers from a pocket, and began to roll himself a smoke.

  “I’m askin’ what kind of a horse?” Crawford snarled. “Speak up! You want me to charge the whole bunch of you with interferin’ with the law?”

  The trail boss shrugged. “Do what you damn’ well please, friend. Threatening won’t get you nowhere. I don’t figure the man I hired is the one you’re looking for.”

  “What kind of a horse?” Crawford pressed in a cold voice.

  “He was riding a sorrel,” the man on the blanket said. “Had white stockings.”

  Gates and the other two outlaws drew themselves upright in their saddles, looking expectantly at Crawford.

  “Where is he?” the renegade leader asked.

  Slaughter waved his hand toward the swale where the herd was bedded. “Out doing his trick at night hawking. He’ll be coming in for supper pretty quick.”

  Arlie Davis, breaking the silence he and the others had maintained throughout the conversation, said: “Reckon, we’d better get over there. Could be he’ll pull out again.”

  Crawford thought for a moment, shook his head. “Nope, don’t figure he’ll do that. He thinks he’s safe here. And trying to find him in the dark could tip him off. Best we wait.” He brought his attention back to the men around the fire, touched each with his hard glance. “Nobody leaves, understand? Anybody tries to warn him …”

  “Won’t be anybody doing that,” Slaughter said, “because we don’t figure he’s your man. Jacobs there’s got his ropes all crossed up about the ’puncher he saw.” The trail boss paused, confronted with extending a standard courtesy he cared little to observe in this instance. “Reckon you might as well step down. Coffee and grub over there at the chuck wagon.”

  Slaughter turned away. Crawford’s voice, sharp and suspicious, split the hush. “Where you think you’re goin’?”

  The cattleman did not halt, simply glanced over his shoulder. “I’m taking a turn around the herd, then I’m crawling into my blankets.”

  Crawford spurred his black across the camp and pulled up short in front of the trail boss. “What I said goes for you, too, mister!”

  Slaughter, a man with his temper always lying close to the surface, reached up impulsively. He grasped the front of Crawford’s coat, dragged him from the saddle. He swung the outlaw half around, shoved him, and sent him sprawling into the dust. “Don’t be telling me what I can’t do!” he raged. “This happens to be my camp, and you, lawman or not, sure ain’t running things here!”

  Davis and Cleve Aaron had moved quickly, and were now at opposite ends of the circle thrown by the firelight. Gates was motionless. Each now held a cocked pistol. In the tight silence Bart Crawford pulled himself to his feet, his eyes on Slaughter’s huge shape. He hung there, half crouched, poised as though ready to spring. And then he relaxed suddenly. He picked up his hat, dusted himself. “I’ll overlook that, mister,” he said in a low voice. “This time anyway. But you’re not ridin’ out. You or nobody else … not until Woodward shows up. After that you can do as you damn’ please.”

  A man on the opposite side of the fire cleared his throat nervously. “Cattle’s a mite jumpy, Mister Slaughter,” he said. “Some sort of a ruckus would sure start them a-running.”

  The big trail boss glanced at the threatening figures of Gates, Arlie Davis, and Aaron. He shrugged angrily. “All right, all right. Have it your way.”

  Jordan watched Slaughter wheel and cross the camp to where a lantern hung from a mesquite bush. There the trail boss squatted down, drew a tally book from his pocket, and began to flip through the pages.

  Crawford studied the man in glowering silence for several moments, and then turned to the rest of his party. He motioned and they drew together again and dismounted.

  Ben Jordan withdrew into the shadows as the four outlaws started across the camp for the chuck wagon behind which he was crouching. The cook, hunched by the fire, sucked at his blackened pipe and made no effort to rise and accommodate the guests; common courtesy required Slaughter to invite the strangers to climb down and eat, but it did not necessarily include being waited on.

  Jordan reached the sorrel, and stood for a time with his eyes on the camp. The tough, brassy ways of Bart Crawford had infuriated him. He would like nothing better than to call the outlaw’s bluff, and expose him and his three men for what they were. He could imagine Slaughter’s irate reaction. But it wasn’t practical, or even possible. He had nothing with which to back his contention. He could do nothing but let the matter drop—and move on.

  He took up the gelding’s reins and led the horse away from the camp a good distance before he swung into the saddle. He could take no chances on Crawford, or anyone else, hearing the sound of the sorrel’s hoof beats. He glanced at the stars in the black canopy of sky overhead, squared his directions, and struck off once again into the northeast. Tom Ashburn’s Lazy A spread could not be far now.

  VIII

  Two days later Ben Jordan found himself near his destination. He had seen the landscape change gradually from high, rugged mountains with towering peaks and deep cañons, to endless, rolling plateaus, rich with grass and gentle to look upon. Far to the east a new range of hills had appear
ed, seemingly more massive than those through which he had traveled, and so distant they were only a bluish smudge on the horizon. But the Lazy A would be found in a wide valley, he had been told when he chanced upon an itinerant peddler of housewares, and the mountains to the east were another world. Tom Ashburn’s ranch was a fine place, with good buildings, plenty of shade provided by giant cottonwoods, and all the clear, cold water it could ever use. In fact, the Lazy A was the finest spread in the territory, as Tom Ashburn was also the finest of men.

  The peddler had been right, at least so far, Ben thought as he topped out a low rise near the middle of the afternoon and started down a slope that led to the ranch. The house was a long, well-kept structure, neatly painted and trimmed and further beautified by a wealth of vines and flowers. Huge, spreading trees, vivid gold now in the crisp fall air, overshadowed it all.

  Several corrals and a small garden plot lay to the rear of the main building, while other structures, the bunkhouse, wagon shed, barns, and the like stood off to one side. A small pond a short distance beyond those mirrored the sun and, looking more closely, Jordan could see several canals cutting away from its circular shape to form other convenient water holes. Water, that was the answer, Ben thought, remembering the scarcity of it in the Barranca Negra. If a man had plenty of water, he could grow anything. How many times had he heard his father make that statement? And how many times had he personally realized its truth? It was the key to success, to life itself in the vast frontier West, and a man rose or fell according to the supply available to him. But it was a problem that would never plague Tom Ashburn. In one glance Ben saw the glitter of a half a dozen springs surging up among the cottonwoods, all independent of the distant pond.

  As he rode below the rim, Jordan cast a final look over his shoulder at his back trail, a gesture that had become habit with him since his first encounter with Bart Crawford and his men. The endless flats were empty and the comforting thought settled in his mind that at last he had shaken the outlaws, that, with a modicum of luck, he never again would see them. And the time was near when he could deliver Walt Woodward’s money to his widow and discharge that obligation. The saddlebags with their store of currency and gold coins had become a wearisome burden since he had accepted them and he would be thankful to rid himself of the responsibility.

  He circled Ashburn’s house, came in to it from the front. Two men and two women stood on the gallery that crossed its width. They glanced up as he swung in and slanted toward the hitch rack. The older of the men stepped off the porch immediately, a quick smile cracking his weathered face. He extended a heavily veined hand.

  “Ben Jordan, sure as a mule’s got long ears!” he shouted. “Ain’t seen you in ten, twelve year, but I’d know you anywhere. You’re the spitting image of your pa!”

  Ben dropped from the sorrel and enclosed the old rancher’s fingers in his own. He did not remember Ashburn too well, for he only faintly recalled the man’s visit long ago to the Barranca Negra. But he said: “Good to see you again, Mister Ashburn.”

  “Mister Ashburn,” the rancher echoed. “I’m Tom to you, boy.” He stepped back, a lean, bent man with faded eyes and seamy face. His hair and drooping mustache were snow white. “Come on and meet the rest of the family.”

  Ben hung Woodward’s saddlebags across his shoulder and followed the rancher to the porch. Ashburn seized him by the arm.

  “Folks, this here’s Dave Jordan’s boy, Ben. He’s who I’ve been waiting for. My wife Ellie,” he added, nodding to the older woman who smiled gravely and shook Jordan’s hand. “My daughter Sally.”

  Ben’s glance had been drawn to the girl from the start. She was young, well built, and had light brown hair and blue eyes that had a bright, dancing quality to them. She took his hand in a firm grasp.

  “I’m pleased to know you, Ben Jordan.”

  Ben swallowed, bobbed his head, suddenly conscious of his appearance, of his awkwardness in her presence. But he managed a grin, saying: “My pleasure …”

  “Feller there is Oran Bishop,” Ashburn went on, turning to the young cowpuncher waiting quietly off to one side. “He’s been sort of filling in for you, until you got here.”

  Bishop was a man with about the same number of years behind him as Ben, twenty-four. He was a husky, six-foot blond, handsome in a rugged sort of way. He was fairly well dressed. He took Jordan’s hand and said, “Howdy,” in a cool voice that carried no promise of friendship.

  “Reckon you’ve been quite a spell in the saddle,” Ashburn said when the introductions were over. “Long ride up from Mexico. Have any trouble finding the place?”

  Ben said: “None. Met a wagon peddler who put me on the right road.”

  “Good. Didn’t figure you’d have any problems. I’ve been around here so long now ’most everybody knows where the Lazy A is.” He wheeled to Bishop. “Oran, expect you’d better go move your duds and gear out of the foreman’s cabin. Ben’ll be wanting to settle in.” He came back to Jordan. “You got a wife, maybe some family that’ll be coming along later?”

  Ben shook his head. “No, I’m all there is to it.” He glanced at Bishop. “No need for you to move out. We can share the quarters.”

  Bishop said: “No thanks. I’ll get back in the bunkhouse with the rest of the hands.”

  There was a trace of bitterness in the man’s voice and Ben realized resentment lay strongly in his mind. Likely he had expected to step in and fill the job of ramrod for the Lazy A when the opportunity arose. That he would exhibit little cordiality to an outsider was to be expected. Jordan gave that a moment’s consideration and shrugged it off. He regretted Bishop’s attitude but he could not allow it to matter. Had Tom Ashburn felt the man capable he would have selected him for the foreman’s job and not sent all the way to the Barranca Negra for a stranger.

  Ashburn said: “I’ll show you around the place. You can meet the rest of the crew tonight.” In his quick way, he wheeled to Bishop. “Oran, you take Ben’s horse and turn him over to the wrangler. Put his stuff in the cabin. Forgot to ask,” he added, turning back to Ben. “You eat yet, boy?”

  Jordan said: “I’ll do until supper.”

  “Good. Now, figure to eat your meals with us here in the main house. Like to have my foreman around where I can yammer at him.”

  Ben slid a glance at Bishop. That such an arrangement did not set well with him was apparent. Probably he had been enjoying that privilege to this moment, but now he was being relegated to the general dining quarters where he would take his meals with the remainder of the hands. Again Ben Jordan shook off the problem. It was something he could not worry about. Tom Ashburn was calling the shots.

  Bishop reached forward. “The saddlebags,” he said irritably. “Pass them over if you want me to put them in your cabin.”

  Jordan stepped away. “Never mind. I’ll just take them along.”

  Bishop frowned. His eyes narrowed slightly at the rebuff. “There something special about them?”

  “Just a habit I’ve got.” Ben grinned, and moved off across the hardpan with Ashburn.

  IX

  That evening, when the crew had gathered for their meal, Tom Ashburn conducted Ben to the long, narrow dining hall that extended off the kitchen. All of the men would be there, except three or four staying with the herd, the rancher explained. Those he could meet later. As they walked into the room and halted at the head of the table, all conversation ceased.

  “Want you to meet your new foreman,” Ashburn said. “Name’s Ben Jordan.” The rancher made the rounds then, introducing each man individually. When he had completed the chore, he said: “Reckon you’ve been wondering why I sent all the way to Mexico for a ramrod. One reason was … I figure a man who can raise cattle, look after a farm, and still keep his skin whole while doing it in that Barranca Negra country, sure wouldn’t have no trouble doing a good job up here. That, and the fact that his daddy w
as the best damn’ cowman I ever knew.”

  One of the crew, a slim Mexican named Cruz Rodriguez, looked up with interest. He smiled. “The Barranca Negra, señor? It’s a place I know well. How are the banditos these days?”

  “They grow worse,” Jordan said with a smile. “And there are more of them each year.”

  Rodriguez shrugged. “In Mexico if you would fill your belly regular, you must be either a soldado or a bandito. Nothing else pays well.”

  Jordan laughed along with the crew. There was a great deal of truth in what the Mexican had said. “We’ll have to get together and talk about it, amigo,” he said. “I grew up ducking bullets from both sides.”

  He moved around the table then, shaking hands with each man, all of whom were cordial enough except Oran Bishop and another young cowpuncher named Ross Colby who evidently was a close friend of Bishop’s. Both maintained a cool, aloof attitude.

  When that was finished, he returned with Ashburn to the family quarters and spent another two hours listening to the rancher talk first of the old days in Missouri before Dave Jordan migrated to Mexico, and then about ranching in general. Ben had seen nothing of Sally, or Mrs. Ashburn since supper, and when at last he arose, tired and in need of sleep, they still were not there. Tom Ashburn had apparently ruled them out of the evening’s confab, decreeing that it was to be strictly man talk.

  “We’ll do some riding tomorrow,” the rancher said, watching Ben retrieve his saddlebags from behind a chair. “Want you to get a good idea what the place is like. You can take over the next day.”

  Ben nodded. “Certainly the finest ranch I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thanks,” Ashburn said, suddenly sober. “Took a lot of blood and sweat, but it was worth it. Problem now is to keep it fine. That’s the way it goes, it seems. A man puts in half his life building something good, then spends the rest trying to hang on to it.”

  “You’ve been having trouble?” Jordan asked, halting in the doorway.