End Of the Drive (1997) s-7

by Louis L'Amour

  Ringer Cobb took a long breath through his nose, and his fingers widened. Finn sat perfectly still, just looking at him, and Cobb's eyes wavered. He looked at Finn, and started to speak, but Mahone seemed to have lost interest, and he remarked to Collins, "Hand me that cup, Judge, and I'll pour this man some coffee." He looked over at Cobb. "If you're not going to shoot me you might as well have some coffee."

  He took the cup and filled it. "Better have some of that cake Ma bakes, too, Ringer. She's plenty good."

  Ringer Cobb swayed a little, staring around uncertainly. Then he slumped on the bench, and he was trembling with tension. He took the cup, and started to lift it, but some of the coffee slopped over.

  Mahone turned back to Nick. "My place is some of the best range in the world," he said, "most of it sub irrigated by water off the Highbinders. Not much erosion in there, an' I don't run enough cattle to keep it fed down. I don't aim to get rich, just to make enough to get along pretty well."

  "Sounds all right," Nick said.

  None of them seemed to notice Cobb. Several times he started to say something, but Finn Mahone continued to talk, calmly, easily.

  Suddenly, Ringer got up, jerking to his feet so hard he tipped over his almost empty cup. Then he wheeled and rammed through the door and was gone. Finn reached across the table and straightened the fallen cup.

  Judge Collins looked at Nick James, and James mopped the sweat from his brow. "You backed him down!" Nick said. "Just out nerved him!"

  "Better than a shootin', don't you think?"

  "Awful close to a shooting, Finn," the judge said. "Awful close."

  Finn filled a cup, took the cake, and, holding both under his slicker, went out the door and headed for the print shop.

  Nick James looked at Collins. "Judge," he said, "how could anybody ever figger him for a rustler?" Then his eyes widened a little. "Suppose he an' Sonntag ... ?"

  "Don't get anxious, son," the judge said. "I'm sure Finn's good, but you don't want to be out of a job, right?. If those two fight, very likely both of them will die!"

  Dan Taggart was a slow-thinking man. He sat in the bunkhouse on the Spur and smoked his pipe. The other hands had turned in, but Dan sat there, all through the pounding rain. On his return he had gone in to see Abe, but Mclnnis was still unconscious, although better. Mrs. Mclnnis had her sister with her now. Her sister was Mrs. Harran, wife of the storekeeper.

  Unable to ask the advice of his boss, the foreman had gone back to the bunkhouse and stayed there except for a few minutes to eat. He was vastly disturbed, afraid he had done wrong, and wanting desperately to repair the damage he had done.

  That the fault was not his alone he did not see. Brewster had voted as he had, and so had Logan. When Logan's name came into his mind he remembered Nick's peculiar attitude. What was it Nick said? That they had lost some cows after he had been ordered out of Sage Canyon? That didn't make sense. Would Logan have his own cows rustled? Taggart stirred uneasily, afraid he was out of his depth, but worried and uncertain of what to do.

  He glanced around at the sleeping hands, but there was none of them he could turn to, nor who would have been able to give the advice he wanted. Taggart felt the need of advice from a superior, of leadership. His job as foreman was still too new. Only one thing he knew: The voting-in of Sonntag as range detective had been a bad thing. It had put the rustlers in the saddle.

  He got up and pulled off his shirt, his pipe still in his mouth. Then he stood for a moment, scratching his stomach. He would ride over to Kastelle's in the morning. Abe Mclnnis set powerful store by Texas Dowd's opinion, and that of Remy Kastelle.

  Pierce Logan was sitting at his desk in a bright, rain-washed world when the door opened and Byrn Sonntag walked in.

  He had seen the man fifty times, talked with him nearly as many, and yet the man always did something to him, something he didn't like. There was something in Sonntag's very physical presence, his enormous vitality, the brash, raw health of him, and his deep, somewhat overpowering voice that made Logan feel less than he liked to feel.

  Sonntag was in rare form this morning. He stamped into the office and threw his big body into a chair. He tossed his hat to the wide, low windowsill, and stared across at Logan.

  He was a big man, weighing all of two hundred and forty pounds, with a leonine head covered with thick, dull red hair. His sleeves were rolled up, and red hair curled on his brawny and powerful forearms.

  "Heard the news?" he demanded. His voice was harsh and rang with authority.

  Logan looked at him carefully. "What news?"

  "Roberts is dead. Somebody killed him when he tried to git Dowd. It wasn't Dowd. Range folks figger it was Finn Mahone. Dowd ain't talkin'. Mahone must've spotted Roberts an' trailed him down. Anyway, he 'got two slugs through the heart."

  Logan scowled. He had been depending on Roberts to do another job for him, too. A job on a man much closer, and eventually more dangerous than Texas Dowd.

  "Anything else?"

  "Yeah, Cobb went over to that paper an' pistol-whipped Armstrong last night. That was my order. Then , he went into the eatin' house, an' Mahone was there."

  "Mahone? In town?" Pierce Logan was incredulous. "Where were you?"

  "I was busy. I can't be everywhere!" Sonntag growled. "Anyway, Ringer wanted him, an' he went after him."

  "Yes?" Logan leaned forward, eagerly.

  "An' nothin' happened. Mahone made a fool out of him. Bluffed him out of it. Told him to set down an' have some coffee, an' if he drew a gun he'd kill him. Ringer sat down an' drank the coffee!"

  "The devil!" Logan got up angrily. "Only two men blocking this thing and your men muff both of them! I tell you, Sonntag, those men have to be out of this!"

  "Don't get riled up," Sonntag replied deliberately. "We'll take care of them. Anyway," he added, "it's all in the open now, anyway. That girl of Kastelle's spilled the whole thing. Started people thinkin'. I knowed it was too plain you could fool 'em only so long as they didn't know there was any rustlin' goin' on."

  "Get Dowd and Mahone out of the picture, and I don't care how wild you go," Logan said. "I mean that. You can run off every cow on the range!"

  Sonntag sat up and his eyes gleamed suddenly. "Say! That's all right! The boys would like that!" He looked up at Logan who was pacing the floor. "By the way, Mahone was over to Rico. He promised Ed Wheeling a shipment of cattle."

  "Good! That's the only good news you've given me! Get some altered brands among them, I don't care whose or how. Nobody will see them over here, anyway. All we want is the story of some funny brands!"

  "Fine with me." Sonntag got up to go. "Got any money? I gave Roberts three hundred out of my own pocket."

  Logan hesitated, then drew out a billfold and handed over several bills.

  "Better make it four hundred," Sonntag said. "I can use it!"

  Pierce Logan looked up, but Sonntag wasn't even looking at him. Logan's eyes were ugly when he counted out the other hundred.

  Sonntag was getting too big for his boots, Logan decided. Yet, he needed the man. Only Sonntag could keep the Rawhide bunch in line. Ringer Cobb's failure irritated him, and he got to his feet and paced the length of the office. He would have to do some of these jobs himself.

  What had frightened Cobb? The man was reputedly dangerous, and he could sling a gun, but he had backed down cold for Mahone. Roberts was dead. That meant something would have to be done about Dowd immediately. Too bad they couldn't all do their jobs as neatly as he did. He, Pierce Logan, would do the job on Dowd, if necessary.

  He turned and walked out of his office and down the street toward the Longhorn. Judge Collins sat on his step, tilted back against the wall. He waved casually at Logan. "Old fool!" Logan muttered. "I'll have all that self-importance out of him in a few days!"

  Impatience was driving him, and he realized its danger. Yet inefficiency always irritated him, and he wanted this over and done with.

  He saw a roan horse at the hitching rail
, and Logan stared at it. What was James doing in town? There was plenty for him to do out on the range.

  Logan pushed open the door and strode into the Long-horn. Nick looked up when he came in, and shoved his hat back. "Howdy," he said briefly.

  "How are you, James?" Logan said. "Got a message for me?"

  "No," James said, "only that I'm quittin'."

  "Quitting?" Pierce Logan turned his head to look at Nick again. "Why?"

  "No partic'lar reason. I never stay on one job too long. Sort of get off my feed if I do."

  "Sorry to lose you." Logan poured a drink from the bottle. "Going to work right away?"

  "Uh-huh." Nick's voice was elaborately casual. "For Finn Mahone." Logan put the bottle back on the bar. There might be more in this than was immediately apparent. Nick James was smart. Maybe he was too smart. "I see," he lifted his drink, "but I didn't know Mahone used any hands?"

  "Changed his mind, I guess."

  The door pushed open and Texas Dowd walked into the room. With him was Van Brewster. "Where's Sonntag?"

  Logan turned. "Haven't seen him. What's the trouble?"

  "Plenty!" Dowd's eyes were chill. "Mex Roberts tried to dry-gulch me the other day. When I went through his pockets, I found nearly a hundred dollars. That's a lot of money for a range tramp. One o' the bills was stuck together with pink paper. Brewster here recognized it as one he lost in a poker game to Sonntag."

  "Sonntag's the type who does his own killing," Logan suggested. "You're on the wrong track, Dowd."

  "I'll make up my mind about that!" Dowd's voice was sharp. "If Sonntag hired Roberts to kill me, he did it on orders. I want to know whose orders!"

  Logan almost asked him who he believed had given the orders when he caught himself. If he asked that question Dowd might give the right answer, and if he did, it would mean a shooting. This was neither the time nor the place for that.

  "That's an angle I hadn't thought of. Sonntag's out on the range somewhere, and I imagine he'll be in town tonight."

  "All right." Dowd turned abruptly. "Then tell him I want to see him. If he's got an explanation, I want it!"

  Dowd strode out and Logan poured another drink. He was jumpy. That damned fool Sonntag! Why did he have to use a marked bill? This whole thing was going to bust wide open, and unless he was mistaken, Sonntag was down at Lettie Mason's right now.

  Pierce Logan returned to his office and seated himself at his desk. Abe Mclnnis was down in bed and in no shape for anything. Van Brewster was a hotheaded fool. Remy Kastelle was a mere girl, and her father a lazy ex-gambler who would rather read books than work. Judge Collins was too old, and Finerty was not a gunfighter. Dean Armstrong could be taken care of at leisure.

  It all boiled down to two men, and it always came back to them, to Dowd and Mahone. Dan Taggart, the foreman at the Spur, was rough and ready and a fighter if he ever made up his mind, but that was a process that ran as slow as molasses in January. There were only a few moves left; Logan just had to make those moves pay off.

  It was time he rode out to the Lazy K and had a talk with Remy. Once they were married, he could have Dowd discharged, and the man would leave the range if Sonntag didn't kill him first. The time for waiting had passed, but definitely.

  Pierce Logan went to his stable and threw a saddle on his horse. As he rode out of town, he saw a horseman far ahead. It was Nick James, on his way to the Notch.

  Far ahead of Pierce Logan and already on Lazy K range, Banty Hull, Frank Salter, and Montana Kerr rode side by side. They had their orders from Sonntag, and immediately they moved out. They were after a bunch of Lazy K cattle. At the same time, far to the north and east of them, Ike Hibby, Alcorn, Leibman, and Ringer Cobb were moving down on one of Brewster's small herds.

  With two hundred head, they started for Rawhide. This was no matter of altering brands, it was an outright, daylight steal.

  Montana Kerr saw the rider first, and jerked his head at him. "Who the hell is that?"

  Hull rode up a little, peering under his pulled-down hat brim. "Looks like Dan Taggart. Headed for the Lazy K, I reckon."

  "He's seen us."

  "Yeah." Montana's voice was flat. "I never liked him anyway."

  Taggart's route intersected theirs within two miles. He glanced from one to the other, and his heart began to pound. He had never seen Rawhide riders on this range before. Something in their eyes warned him, but Dan Taggart was not the man to back up, and even had he been, he would not have had a chance.

  "Howdy, boys." His eyes shifted from one to the other. Their faces were all grim, hostile. Some sixth sense told him what was coming. "What's up?"

  "Your number," Hull said.

  "Huh?" Taggart knew he was no match for these men. If he could get some cover, with his rifle, he might ... but there was no chance of that. It was here and now. "You boys off your range, ain't you?"

  "This is all our range," Salter said harshly. "Startin' t'day."

  "I reckon other folks'll disagree," Taggart said. "Tex Dowd for instance."

  "Dowd!" Salter spat the word. "I reckon I know him. I know him from Missouri, and I'd like t'hang his hide on a fence!"

  Taggart shrugged. "Your business," he told them. "You boys go your way, an' I'll go mine. I reckon I'll be ridin' on."

  He had his hand in his lap, only inches from his gun, but he knew Montana Kerr, knew the man was a killer, and knew that even leaving the others out, he wouldn't have a chance. He started his horse and rode on. For a moment, he thought he would get away with it. Then Kerr yelled at him.

  Dan Taggart turned in his saddle and Kerr's hand flashed with incredible speed. Taggart grabbed for his gun, but two slugs hit him and he went down, hitting the ground in a heap, and dead before he hit it.

  All three men emptied their guns into his body. "That'll be a lesson to 'em!" Salter's face was vicious as he spoke. "No use to botch the job like we did on Mcln-nis."

  They swung wide and headed around the Lazy K, driving cattle ahead of them.

  Behind them Dan Taggart lay sprawled in the thin prairie grass, his shirt darkly stained with blood, "and the grass beneath him red. His gun was still in its worn holster.

  His horse, after running away when Taggart's body fell from it, watched the three riders trot their horses from the scene of the killing. Curious, and lonely without its master, the cow horse walked back.

  Taggart lay on the ground and the horse drew nearer. , At the smell of blood, it shied violently, rolling its eyes, but impelled by a curiosity greater than its sense of danger, moved closer. The smell of blood was too much for it, and jerking its head away, it trotted off a little distance.

  On the crest of a rise it stopped briefly, looking back. Then, turning away, it trotted toward home, pausing from time to time to crop a mouthful of grass.

  Chapter 6

  Remy Kastelle sat on the cowhide-covered settee in the great, high-ceilinged living room of the Lazy K ranch house. The room as always was cool and still, and for this very reason she had always loved it. There was something of a cathedral hush in the great room, and the longer she lived in the house, the more she understood why her father had built the room so large.

  Kastelle had put his book aside and was idly riffling a deck of cards through his fingers. He had never cared for his onetime profession, and had no longing to return to it. Yet his life had taught him the uncertainty of things if no more, and he felt the necessity of retaining all his old skill.

  The silence in the big room was unbroken save for the ripple and snap of the cards. Kastelle shuffled the deck quickly, ran his thumb over the edges, and in a few rapid, easy movements, all apparently part of his shuffling, he had selected the proper cards and run up a couple of good hands.

  He in-jogged the top card, took off the bottom and shuffled off, then, locating the break with a finger, he shuffled off again and with a neat throw had his stack on top. Then he cut the deck, shifted the cut back, and dealt the hands, three fives showing up in his imaginar
y opponent's hand, three jacks in his own.

  From time to time he glanced at Remy, but said nothing. Her beauty always came to him with something of a shock. The fact that he had seen her grow from a long-legged, coltish girl, who lived only to ride, into a beautiful woman did nothing to detract from her beauty. Her mother had been lovely, and his own mother had been a beautiful woman, but neither of them could compare to the vivid loveliness that was his daughter.

  He had never worried about her. Growing up beside him she had grown up singularly independent, choosing her own way always, and if guided by him, the guiding was so slight that neither of them were ever conscious of it.

  Their relationship had always been more than that of father and daughter. They understood each other as people. She knew her father's pride in his appearance, his love of horses, his sensitive response to beauty. She knew what his life had been before he bought the first ranch back in Texas. She had never been ashamed that her father was a professional gambler. She knew what had led to it, and knew how he felt.

  The war with Mexico had ended, and Kastelle, a major in the cavalry, had found himself discharged in a foreign country with no prospects except an agile mind and a willingness to embrace the future. He had no possessions other than the horse he rode and the clothes he wore Gold had recently been discovered in the foothills of the California Sierras, and so like hundreds of other veterans he sold his horse and bought passage on a windjammer headed to San Francisco.

  Within months the town was swarming with sailors, treasure seekers, merchants, mining speculators, and revolution plotters from Latin America. Many of them , had money. Kastelle, from then on known as Frenchy, became a habitue of the cafes and gambling houses.

  A skillful horseman and an excellent shot, he possessed only one other skill. He knew how to handle cards. Swiftly, in the months that followed, he learned more by applying his skill. For a professional gambler he possessed perfect equipment. Cold nerve, an unreadable face, skillful fingers, and a shy, scholarly manner that was deceptive. Best of all, he possessed no gambling instinct. He played cards to win.