Wanted: Dead or Alive

by Ray Hogan

  “Not much. A little rustling going on now and then. Got a few nesters. I figure you won’t have a problem taking care of both. Anyway, we’ll jaw about it in the morning. Good night, son.”

  “Good night,” Ben said, and moved out into the cool darkness.

  He made his way to the small house assigned to him, a squat, compact building that stood halfway between Ashburn’s main structure and the crew’s bunkhouse. Apparently the previous foreman of the Lazy A had been a married man for there was kitchen equipment available as well as the usual living facilities. After entering, Ben closed the door and dropped the latch into place. He struck a match to one of the lamps, and then drew the shades. He began then to search out a suitable hiding place for Woodward’s money. He could not continue to walk around with the leather pouches slung over his shoulder; already they had been cause for suspicion in Oran Bishop’s mind—possibly also in Ashburn’s. And the sooner he fulfilled his promise to Walt Woodward, the better for all concerned. Having the money was a worry and he would not rest easily until he had turned it over to Olivia Woodward. He could not afford to let it affect his position at the Lazy A. Tomorrow he would ask directions to the town of Langford, get Ashburn’s permission to make the trip, and have done with it.

  He prowled about the two rooms of the cabin, decided finally to place the leather pouches under a board in the floor that he managed to loosen. He completed the concealment by changing the furniture around somewhat, ending up with a small rug and a chair placed over the cache. He had no personal belongings to place in the closet and in the drawers of the scarred dresser. What little he had owned had been lost when the buckskin had gone over the cliff high in the Mogollon Mountains. When he made his visit to Langford, he would buy the items he needed—a razor, shaving and washing soap, and some extra clothing. Meanwhile he would make do as best he could.

  He had just sat down on the bed and was beginning to undress for the night when he heard a knock. He arose, lifted the bar, and faced Ross Colby.

  “There’s a man outside who’d like to see you,” the young cowpuncher said.

  Jordan’s first thoughts were that Bart Crawford had again caught up with him. He looked out into the dark yard. “Only one?”

  “That’s right, only one.”

  Ben pushed past Colby and stepped into the shadowy area that lay between his quarters and the bunkhouse. He heard the dry crunch of gravel, wheeled. He had a quick glimpse of Oran Bishop’s set, angry features, and then a rock hard fist smashed into his jaw and sent him reeling to the ground. He struck on his left shoulder, sending a wave of pain through his body as his weight crushed down upon his wounded arm. He lay quietly for several moments, aware of Bishop’s taut shape standing over him. Two or three men were now coming from the bunkhouse and Ben could hear Ross Colby laughing. Anger began to build within Jordan. Ignoring the throbbing pain, he sat up.

  Beyond Bishop, watching and waiting in silence, were the Mexican, Rodriguez, an old cowpuncher, Amos Wall, and a third man he had not met. Colby still was near the doorway of the cabin from which a shaft of yellow lamplight laid an oblong onto the yard.

  “Get up,” Bishop snarled. “You’re going to have to whip me, mister, to get my job!”

  The blond cowpuncher’s fury was so intense his voice trembled. Ben pulled himself to his feet. “Your job?”

  “Would’ve been, if you hadn’t come along,” Bishop said. “I was all set …”

  “That’s a dang’ fool thing to say, Oran,” Amos Wall broke in. “If Tom’d wanted you, he’d ’a’ picked you instead of sending clear to Mexico for Jordan.”

  “Keep out of this, old man,” Bishop said without turning. “We’re deciding right here who’ll ramrod this outfit. And when it’s done with, I’m loading him on his horse and sending him back to Mexico.”

  “You’re a damned fool and there’s no reason for this,” Jordan said then, his anger leveling off to a brittle hardness. “So’s you’ll have it straight, I never asked for this job. Had no idea Ashburn even was looking for a man until I got a letter from him.”

  “So you say.”

  “It’s the truth, but it’s neither here nor there now. I like what I’ve seen of this place and I figure to stay. If you think you can change my mind for me, you’re welcome to try.”

  Bishop rushed in suddenly. He swung a quick left, missed as Jordan ducked away, tried to recover with a right. Ben blocked the blow with his left arm, gritted his teeth as fresh pain rocketed through him from his wounded shoulder, and drove his own right fist into Bishop’s ear. The cowpuncher staggered, went to one knee, caught himself. He swore vividly, pulled himself upright.

  “Another thing. Something else. You keep your eyes off Sally.”

  He lunged again. Jordan, favoring his left arm, spun away, chopped a right to Oran’s neck as he closed. Bishop howled and wheeled off.

  From the half darkness Cruz Rodriguez’s soft, accented voice said: “I think you pick the wrong hombre this time, Oran.”

  Ross Colby no longer laughed. He slouched against the wall of Jordan’s quarters, watching with a stilled face.

  “Damn you!” Bishop growled, anger now a wild surging torrent claiming him mentally and physically. “I’m not letting you get away with this, not with anything! Don’t know what it is but you’re hiding something … trying to fool Tom.”

  “I’m not trying to fool him, or anybody else,” Jordan said, circling warily. “I’m here to work. Nothing else.”

  “You’re a liar!” Bishop shouted, and once more moved in.

  Ben fell back a step, was aware that his foot came up against something. He almost went down. From the tail of his eye he saw Rodriguez cross swiftly and take up a position next to Ross Colby. He realized that Colby, endeavoring to help Bishop, had tried to trip him. But there was no chance to do anything about that; besides, Rodriguez had apparently noticed it and was assuming the chore of keeping Colby out of the fight. He ducked beneath Bishop’s swinging arms, crowded in tight, and hammered a half a dozen rapid-fire blows into the blond cowpuncher’s belly. Bishop struck out blindly, desperately. Jordan took a sharp blow to the head, another across the mouth that started a warm flow of blood from his lips. Fury broke loose within him then, and, ignoring the pain in his arm, conscious of a stickiness along his side, he ripped a second flurry of fists into Bishop.

  Oran began to gasp, started to fold forward. Ben straightened him up with a stinging blow to the chin. Bishop sought to turn away, his breathing coming now in loud, rasping grunts, his mouth gaping open. Jordan spun him back around with a smash to the side of his head. Showing no mercy, paying no heed to the pain that screamed within him or the wetness that told him his wound had reopened, Ben Jordan punished Bishop without let-up. The cowpuncher was weaving on his feet, helpless. He rocked back and forth, staggered forward, was driven back to his heels, only to be caught up again. Finally his knees began to buckle. He started to sink slowly, wilting as though his legs were made of smoke.

  Ben felt hands close about his shoulders, drawing him off. Amos Wall’s voice said: “That’ll do it, boy. Reckon he’s had more’n enough.”

  Sucking for breath, his body quivering from the stress, Jordan allowed himself to be pulled away. Oran Bishop lay sprawled on his back, mouth open, chest heaving. Ross Colby came forward, kneeled beside him. He stared into the cowpuncher’s face. “Get some water somebody,” he said.

  One of the crew brought the bucket from the bunkhouse, dashed a quantity of its contents against Bishop’s head. Oran groaned, thrashed about briefly, and opened his eyes. He lay still for several moments, and then finally struggled to a sitting position. He looked around, dazed.

  “What … how …?” he stammered.

  “You just got hell knocked out of you,” Wall said laconically. “And by a man with only one good arm.”

  Jordan pulled away from the old cowpuncher, dismay
flooding through him. He had hoped to keep his wound a secret, thereby avoiding any speculation on the part of the crew, or by Tom Ashburn. But there was no hiding it now. The left sleeve of his shirt was soaked with blood.

  Bishop got to his feet, stared. “I told you,” he said, glancing at the small circle of men. “He’s hiding something. He’s been shot.”

  “Doesn’t concern you, or the job,” Jordan snapped. “It’s a personal matter.”

  “Personal … with the law, maybe?”

  “The law had nothing to do with it.”

  “Reckon it ain’t none of our business, anyway,” Amos Wall broke in. “And if you’re looking for advice, Oran, I’d say you’d be smart to forget it.”

  Bishop was silent for a few moments, then bent and picked up his hat. Pulling it on, he faced Jordan. “Reckon this means I’m fired.”

  Ben shook his head. “You can quit if you’re of the notion, but I won’t fire you.”

  Bishop stared, surprised and at a loss for words.

  “Just one thing,” Jordan continued, “if you stay, you do your job and keep out of my way. I’ll take no more of your lip or your foolishness. Or yours,” he added, swinging his glance to Ross Colby.

  Colby murmured, looked down. Beside him, Ben saw Cruz Rodriguez beaming at him through the poor light, his broad teeth gleaming whitely.

  “What’s it to be?” he demanded, coming back to Bishop.

  The blond cowpuncher shrugged. “I’ll stay,” he said, his tone low and surly.

  “Then get that chip off your shoulder and figure on doing a job, or else you are finished. You’re one man I figure on watching close.”

  Bishop wheeled, started for the bunkhouse. Wall stepped up to Jordan. “Come on, boy, let’s see what we can do about that arm of yours. It’s bleeding right good.”

  Ben moved across the yard toward Rodriguez who stood holding open the door to his quarters. Halfway he paused, turned. “One thing more,” he said, “there’ll be nothing said about this. Not to the rest of the crew … or to Tom Ashburn. That clear?”

  The men nodded. Colby said, “It’s clear” but Oran Bishop gave no indication that he had heard, and simply walked away, morose and sullen in his defeat.

  X

  They prepared to ride out shortly after breakfast that next morning, Tom Ashburn, Jordan, and Sally. Ben was surprised and secretly pleased the girl was coming with them. He was finding himself more and more interested in her and had been hoping for a chance to talk to her. There had been little opportunity during the two meals they had shared. He watched her stuff a lunch into saddlebags and swing lightly onto her pony. She rode astride, and used one of the heavy stock saddles, just as did any of the Lazy A ranch hands. She was wearing a corduroy skirt split up the center, a white shirt with a bright yellow scarf gathered about her neck. Soft, high-heeled boots and a broad-brimmed, flat-crowned hat completed her attire. As she settled herself on her pinto, Ben felt a tightness fill his throat; she made a picture he knew would never fade from his mind.

  Ashburn came from the house grumbling at the stiffness of his joints, and mounted up. He cocked his head at Ben. “Getting old sure as hell. There was a time when I enjoyed crawling out early and piling onto a horse. Now it’s a right smart chore.”

  Jordan grinned his understanding and the three of them wheeled out of the yard, the rancher and his daughter waving to Ellie Ashburn as they passed the kitchen door. They rode abreast and in silence, the men flanking the girl until they were out of the hollow in which the ranch buildings lay and had gained the plateau above it.

  “Told the boys to drift the lower herd on west,” Ashburn said as they broke out onto the flats. “Lots of new grass over there. Been no grazing on it since spring.”

  “How many head you running?” Ben asked, his eyes drifting lazily over the vast expanse of gray-green ground cover. It was like a monstrous field with only a few trees scattered here and there to break the horizon.

  “Pretty close to four thousand.”

  Jordan whistled softly. Sally turned and gave him her smile.

  Ashburn said: “Most I’ve ever had. Been holding back on selling. Market’s climbing. I figure next year will be the time to turn ’em loose.”

  “What’s the price now?”

  “Fifteen, sixteen dollars, thereabouts. Ought to go to eighteen, maybe twenty by spring.”

  Ben considered that for a time. On his and his father’s place they had never owned as many as four hundred head of stock, much less four thousand, and the highest price he could recall having received for a steer was $9. “Big difference in ranching up here,” he said. “How much of a herd do you figure to sell off?”

  “Only the three- and four-year-old stuff. They’ll be prime, and just right for the market.”

  “Wonderful country,” Ben murmured. “Should be no problem raising cattle up here.”

  “You like what you see?” Sally asked.

  His eyes settled on her. “Everything,” he said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Everything.”

  Sally blushed slightly and turned away.

  Ashburn said: “Swing north. Expect we ought to have a look at the line shacks up there. Recollect somebody saying there was some fixing up needed before winter sets in.”

  “It gets pretty bad around here?” Ben wondered.

  Ashburn nodded. “One of the drawbacks. Big snows. And plenty of wind. Have to watch the herds mighty close. Seen them drift thirty, forty miles, if we don’t keep on them. Sure makes it mean when we round up.”

  “How much acreage have you got, anyway?” Ben asked, surprised by what Ashburn had said.

  “I own a hundred sections. Got another fifty thousand acres of free range I’m using.”

  “Nobody on it?”

  “Not now. Been two or three families try it.”

  “You have to move them off?”

  “Didn’t need to. Land itself took care of them. This is good cow country, and nothing else. Too much heat in the summer, too much bad weather in the winter. And it’s a long way to water when the rain don’t come. I tried to tell them they can’t make a go of farming out here, but nobody ever listens. Got to find out for themselves. Worst thing is they break the ground, try to seed it. All they raise is a crop of dust, and that’s bad for everybody. But I won’t fight ’em. I figure every man’s got a right to a piece of this country, same as I had. Only thing, if they’d listen to some of us that’s been around for a spell, we could spare them a lot of sweat and heartbreak.”

  Ben nodded. “My pa always said the only kind of advice a man will listen to is the kind he wants to hear.”

  “Sure the gospel truth,” Tom Ashburn agreed.

  At noon they ate lunch in a small grove of trees where a spring trickled from a ledge of rock in a clear, cold stream. They had bacon and sliced beef sandwiches, prepared for them earlier by the cook, and topped them off with slices of layer cake made by Sally. Ashburn brewed the coffee himself, maintaining no woman alive could boil up a cup strong enough to suit him.

  Three hours later they caught up with the herd that was being moved to the western side of the range and paused there to have a few words with the riders who were handling the chore. It was Ben’s first close look at Lazy A cattle and he could not help mentally comparing these fat, sleek animals to the lean, rangy brutes he had labored so hard to raise in the wilds of Mexico.

  “Boys sure have took to you,” Tom Ashburn observed, when they were again moving on. He gave a sly look. “It have anything to do with that swelling on your lip and that bruise on your jaw?”

  “Just a bit of a misunderstanding,” Jordan said, skirting the subject.

  “A misunderstanding with Oran Bishop is at the bottom of it, I’ll bet!” Ashburn snorted. “Well, he’s going to be one of your problems, you can bank on it. A good boy but he just ain’t ever grow
ed up.”

  “We’ll get along,” Ben said. “You have a winter range?”

  The rancher shrugged. “Not much difference in the land. Usually let cold weather catch the stock wherever it happens to be. You got some kind of a scheme?”

  “I was wondering why it wouldn’t be smart to put everything as far north as we can. Then when the snow hit, they’d just naturally drift south. Grass there would be in good shape then, and it might cut down on a lot of work when spring roundup comes.”

  Ashburn wheeled to Sally. “See what I was talking about? Man’s either a natural cowman, or he ain’t.” He swung back to Ben. “That’s smart thinking. You start doing it … moving all the stock north…soon as you’re ready.”

  “Maybe a little late now to do any good this year.”

  “No, don’t figure it is. Snow won’t hit until late November, maybe even December. You can expect a couple months yet of good weather.”

  “Then we’ll get at it tomorrow. The sooner we move that beef off the lower range, the faster the grass will come back.”

  Ashburn murmured in satisfaction. Ben was aware of Sally’s glance on him, of the smile on her lips, and the pleasure in her eyes. She seemed as proud of his suggestion as her father had been—a suggestion that appeared no more than common sense to him. And the north range, as far as they rode into it, was in excellent condition; indeed, it seemed hardly to have been worked. Ben doubted if there had been a steer on it for months.

  “Settles it for sure,” Ashburn said. “It happens when a man don’t look after things himself. Crew gets lazy. Want to stay close to the bunkhouse so’s they can ride in every night at dark. You change all that, Ben. Keep ’em living in the line shacks, if you’ve a mind to. I’ll back you all the way.” The rancher paused, swept the land with a fond, remembering gaze. “Place has been good to me,” he said. “And I’ve been worrying some about its going to hell. Reckon I can forget that now and start sleeping easy.” He shifted on his saddle, turned to Jordan and the girl. His face was calm, settled, reflecting the ease he felt. “I’ll be leaving you here. Had enough of this blasted horse for one day. Sally, you take Ben on over to the brakes. I want him to see the bad part as well as the good. So long.”