She whirled away from him, her face white. She put a chair between them. Her breasts moved with her breathing. “I should have. He asked me enough. And how was it in Mexico? With your girls?”
“There wasn’t no girls! We was in prison!” He told her about the prison of San Sebastian.
But she was so furious that she didn’t believe him. Her shoulder hurt from his fingers. If only he had the other kind of strength. The inner strength that would make him refuse to take the things he had taken in this country.
She said, “I imagine Janner was quite a hand with the girls. Maybe he taught you a thing or two—”
“Shut up, Nina.” He beat a fist against the table. “I’m home. I’m your husband.” Hungrily he reached for her, but she skipped lightly out of his reach and ran down the hall to the bedroom. Once in the room she slammed shut the door and bolted it.
She fell across the bed. But strangely she did not weep. She could feel the tears behind her eyes. Her anger and her pity were gone now. And she tried to analyze her true feelings. Had she ever really loved Joe? Did she love Byrd Elkhart? Before she could answer either of these questions she remembered how Clay Janner had looked at her that day.
She stared up at the rain-marked ceiling. Was she like some women she had heard of—those who could never stay with one man? The female counterparts of fiddlefooted cowhands. The women who drifted… Terror gripped her. And then she did begin to weep.
CHAPTER 5
Clay was helping Sam Lennox stir up sourdough and beans at the cook fire the next morning when Joe Alford rode in. Clay studied the discontent on the big redhead’s face. As one of the men took Alford’s horse Clay said, “How was the great reunion?”
Alford told him.
“She’ll get over it,” Clay said, and handed him a cup of black coffee. He could not really blame Nina for her attitude. It was no small thing for a woman to be left alone in country like this.
But Clay had other things on his mind. A black mood persisted, despite his efforts to throw it off. After all the risk and privation, they might still come out of this on the short end. Unless the herd of restless Chihuahuas got a chance to rest up and feed on good grass, they very well might.
Clay studied the big man who was sitting on bootheels, hat on the back of shaggy hair. “Why’re you shy of a gun, Joe?” he asked suddenly.
Joe Alford blew on his tin cup of coffee and scowled over the rim. “You know how I feel about guns. Knowed it for years. How come you ask me now?”
“We may have trouble before we get out of here, Joe. I just figured it was my right to know.”
Joe Alford’s eyes were bloodshot. He smelled of whisky. From the looks of him Clay figured he must have spent most of the night killing whatever whisky Nina had kept in the house.
“Joe, you’ve worn a gun ever since we worked together back in Texas. But I never saw you shoot anything. Not even a jackrabbit.”
“I hate guns.”
“Why?”
Alford took a long drink of the coffee and sank from his bootheels to the ground. “I was mebby seven or eight when a neighbor man argued with pa about some horses. This neighbor man shot pa in the guts with a pistol that looked big as my leg, and he shot me and left me for dead so I wouldn’t be around to tell. I was there alone with pa. He didn’t die easy. Ever time a man looks like he’s goin’ to pull a gun on me I freeze. I see that neighbor man pointin’ a gun. And I can feel that bullet hammer into my chest.” He broke off, sweating.
Clay thought about it for a moment. “Joe, you’ve got a cat on your back. I hope you can get rid of it before we maybe have to saw our way through Byrd Elkhart’s forty-mile fence.”
“I oughta kill Elkhart,” Alford said. “And maybe kill Nina. If I thought her and Elkhart—”
“Cut it, Joe,” Clay snapped. “Don’t ever talk about killing a woman. Just get away from her. That’s what I always do.”
“Maybe you got the right idea, Clay. Fiddle foot.”
“It might not work for you.” For some reason the idea of drifting on had lost its appeal. Maybe he was getting old. But no. He knew better. Whenever he closed his eyes he remembered how Kate French had looked. A pretty girl doing a rough man’s job.
Determined to put her out of his mind he said, “If you don’t make it up with your wife, you could head to Montana with me. I hear there’s range up there for the taking.”
Joe Alford finished his coffee. He sighed. “The hell of it is. I’m in love with my wife. I don’t want to leave her.”
“Then for God’s sake fight for her!”
Alford got to his feet, his face flushed. Sam Lennox, just roping out a fresh horse, stopped and gaped at the two partners facing each other so belligerently.
“I’ll handle Elkhart,” Alford said. “In my own way!”
He caught up his horse and spurred it toward the holding grounds where the herd was grazing on the sparse grass. Sam Lennox reined in his dun beside Clay.
“I sure thought you and him was goin’ to tangle,” the black-bearded hand said.
“Partners have a habit of yelling at each other.” He turned away, regretting that Lennox had overheard the argument. It wouldn’t help matters any if the hands knew there was friction between the partners. They’d be loyal only if the employers commanded their respect.
That afternoon they moved the herd into the hills, hoping to find better graze. Even though the grass was poor, it was no worse than the Chihuahuas had been accustomed to in their native Mexico. But it would take a lot of feeding to put tallow on them. And tallow meant dollars.
At supper, Alford lost his truculence. He and Clay discussed plans for driving the herd to the railroad once they were fattened up. He told Alford what Kate French had said about Elkhart’s fence forcing the basin ranchers to drive across the Sink in order to reach the nearest shipping point.
Alford swore. “Elkhart always did have big ideas. We’ll have a meeting with some of the other boys. We’ll figure a way out.”
“What’s your wife going to say if you’re forced to turn against Elkhart?”
“She won’t like it, probably.” He glanced up from his plate, scowling at Clay. “I don’t like you tryin’ to say that maybe Nina and Elkhart are sweet on each other.”
“Oh, hell, Joe,” Clay said wearily, and got to his feet. “If you want to be tough, save it for Elkhart. I’ve got money in this herd.”
“So have I!”
Clay held his temper in check. “Because of your wife I’ll let you work out this Elkhart business in your own way,” he said coldly. “But you better have some answers before we get ready to ship.”
He got his horse and rode to a knoll fringed with junipers. Below he could see their cattle scattered in the brush. A long way from Mexico, he thought. A lot of weary miles. A lot of hours off a man’s life back there in that dungeon at San Sebastian. Missing a lot of whisky and a lot of smiles from women. Missing all the good things. And all because of a few head of mangy steers.
Then he knew he was feeling sorry for himself. In the early darkness he turned his horse and rode back to camp.
The next day Kate French sent a man over to remind Clay of the repairs he had promised to make at KJ. Clay silently cursed the girl’s impatience, but told the rider he’d take care of the matter. Later that day Clay took Sam Lennox and one of the hands. On the way Lennox jawed about his early freighting days out of Joplin, but Clay barely heard him.
At the KJ ranch Kate greeted him coolly. For the rest of the day he worked with the two men, digging post holes for the corral. When that was done they righted the overturned shed.
Lennox combed dust out of his black beard and gave Kate a long look as she came out of the house. “Now if I was younger,” he said, “there’s a gal I could marry.”
“You’d probably be damned sorry if you did,” Clay s
aid, thinking of the tangled affairs of Joe Alford and Nina. He watched Kate approach at a brisk walk. She wore her boy’s shirt and levis. Her thick black hair hung down her back in two braids.
She surveyed the repairs grimly, then said, “You’ve done a good job. Now I’ll feed you.”
Something about her manner irritated Clay. He said, “We’re not range bums, ma’am. We don’t do odd jobs for a handout.”
He spun on his heel and started for his horse. Lennox and the other man exchanged glances. It had been a long time since they’d sunk tooth in anything but camp grub—and here was the boss turning his back on a good woman-cooked meal. Reluctantly they trailed along.
Clay reached his horse, and then he heard Kate running up. She seemed to be fighting for control. “I’m sorry if I rubbed you the wrong way, but—”
“Forget it.”
She swallowed. “What happened when Joe and Nina met?”
He told her. “Joe’s good at talk. But not much good at fighting. If it had been me—”
“You’d have shot Elkhart?”
“Probably.”
She bit her lip, peering up into his face as if she had never seen it before. “Are you really as tough as you sound?”
“No. Tougher.”
“Why are you so hard to get along with?” she demanded.
“You haven’t been exactly friendly today.”
She lifted her hands, running them along the firm line of her jaws as if trying to think of something to say. “I don’t mean to hold anything against you, but—well, you shouldn’t have talked Joe into going away with you.”
“Joe’s over twenty-one. He’s old enough to know what he’s doing.”
“Well, maybe Joe will stay home for a while now.”
Clay nodded. “If Nina will give him half a chance he’ll settle down now for keeps. That wasn’t exactly a picnic we had down in Mexico.”
“I’m glad he came home safely,” she said. “But we were all so certain he was dead.”
“You mean that business about the watch?”
“So you know about it.” She looked thoughtful. “Lon Perry ran into a Mexican who had Joe’s watch. This Mexican is supposed to have witnessed the execution. Lon Perry sent him to see Nina—”
“That Mexican had damned poor eyesight if he thought Joe got shot,” Clay said. “Maybe I’ll ask that yellow-haired Perry about it next time we meet.”
“Now don’t you tangle with him.” Worry touched Kate’s eyes briefly then was gone. “He’s a dangerous man with a gun.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Don’t make things any worse than they are,” she said.
His brows lifted. “Any worse? How could they be worse? We’ve got a herd of tired Chihuahuas. Joe Alford’s about to go loco wondering whether his wife’s going to divorce him.” His mouth tightened. “If it was me, maybe I’d just as soon she did.”
“Huh,” Kate French said. “I guess you don’t think much of marriage.”
“In this case, no. You’ve got to admit Nina Alford was having a lot of fun acting like a widow with Elkhart.”
“That’s hardly a nice thing to say!”
He swung into the saddle. “Everything I say seems to gravel you.”
“And I feel the same way about you!” She whirled and hurried across the yard and into the house.
As the door slammed behind her Clay had a faint regret that he had lost his temper. But there was something about her that brought out the worst in his disposition. Being married to a woman like that, he decided, would be the same as joining the Army. It would mean war.
The following day Joe Alford came to their camp to announce that he had received word of a meeting of basin ranchers to be held that afternoon at Reeder Wells.
“The boys want to get together on what to do about Elkhart’s fence,” the big redhead said morosely.
Leaving Sam Lennox in charge of the herd, Clay climbed his horse and rode with Joe Alford across a rugged mountain trail. From a promontory where pines grew thick among giant boulders, Alford drew up. He pointed at the flats far below, hemmed in by hills east and west and by the towering Sabers to the north.
“That’s Division Valley,” Alford said. “We used to make our drives through the valley. But now Elkhart’s got it blocked off.”
“He can’t get away with that fence,” Clay said, “and he knows it.”
“Maybe it’s bluff and maybe it ain’t,” Alford said. He pointed to a strip of land that angled in from the south rim, explaining that this was also hemmed in by the fence. “That’s part of Charlie Boyle’s Sombrero outfit,” Alford said. “It ain’t like Charlie to let Elkhart string wire across his land. We got to find out about that.”
“We’ll find out a lot of things when we get to town,” Clay said. When they began riding again Clay asked if Nina had made up with him yet.
Alford beat a big fist against the saddle-horn. “She don’t hardly speak to me,” he said. “Looks like she’s tryin’ to make her mind up about somethin’.”
“Don’t let it worry you,” Clay said, trying to brush it off lightly.
“Worry me?” Alford shouted. “Why in hell shouldn’t it worry me? If you had a wife and you knowed damn well she was tryin’ to make up her mind whether to stick in the saddle with you or climb into Byrd Elkhart’s buck-board—”
“You worry too much about women,” Clay said, wishing he hadn’t brought the subject up. “We’ve got a herd to worry about.”
He felt very uneasy now. If this business with Alford and his wife wasn’t settled it could very well wreck all their plans. Alford was loco enough to get drunk and do some damn fool thing. “You better make up your mind whether you want your wife enough to fight for her,” Clay warned. “Don’t let her even fool with the idea of going with Elkhart.”
“You think I should kill him?” Alford said thinly.
The sarcasm in Alford’s voice rankled Clay. “Don’t get smart with me,” he said, no longer able to hold himself in check. “You haven’t been worth a damn since the day you came home. You mope around like you’d lost your last friend. Either make her see things your way or forget her!”
“You didn’t answer me,” Alford said, turning in the saddle. “If it was your wife would you take a gun and kill Elkhart?”
“He’d stay off my front porch or I’d bury him,” Clay said. He shot Alford a sidelong glance. “Before you talk about shooting people, though, you better get rid of that cat on your back.”
“You didn’t see your old man shot. You didn’t get shot yourself when you was only a kid—”
“Damn it, Joe, I know some kids who saw Comanches handle their folks rough. Real rough. And they lived through it. One of ’em was a girl. Don’t tell me she had more guts than you’ve got.”
“By God I promise you this! When it comes time to do some cap bustin’ I’ll be doin’ my share!”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Clay said, and grinned.
To ease the tension further Clay asked how Kate French’s brother had died.
“Four years back they figured the railroad was comin’ through here,” Alford said, and explained that this had brought in land speculators. There had been a pitched battle when the speculators tried to back up their demands for land by importing gunmen. One of those imports had been Lon Perry. In the fight Jonathan French was killed.
“Did Perry kill him?” Clay asked.
“Nobody knows. There was a lot of shootin’.”
“Did Elkhart engineer that land grab?”
“No, he was on the other side of the fence. He didn’t want them speculators buyin’ up no right of way.”
“Funny that he’d hire Perry after the trouble around here.”
“He claims Perry’s a good man.” Alford spat on a sotol bush growing beside the tra
il. “A lot of folks don’t like it. But the more they turn against Perry, the more muleheaded Elkhart gets about keepin’ him on the payroll.” Alford grunted. “The whole railroad fight was stupid. When the smoke cleared up the railroad didn’t even come here. They built the line a hundred and twenty miles north.”
“And Kate’s brother died for nothing,” Clay said. Now he could understand some of the girl’s bitterness, her aversion to possible trouble.
There was a sameness about Reeder Wells that Clay had observed in many towns over the past years. ’Dobe and stone buildings were strung along either side of the main road. Behind the road on both sides the ground sloped sharply to tree-fringed bluffs. Here on the rise of grounds clung shacks, unpainted for the most part, with rusted tin chimneys tilted at odd angles.
They dismounted in front of a squat ’dobe building with a faded sign above the door: FIERRO’S CANTINA.
It was cool inside. A Mexican was watering the dirt floor. Tobacco smoke clung to the low ceiling. A large flabby Mexican behind the bar held out his hand to Joe Alford.
“We think you are dead,” the man said. Alford shook hands with him, then introduced Clay to Juan Fierro.
Fierro set out a bottle of Mexican brandy. He had a wide face, made even wider by enormous spiked mustaches. The brandy warmed Clay. There were no other customers.
Soon the basin ranchers drifted in. They crowded around Joe Alford, wanting to hear about the gun-running episode in Mexico. Alford didn’t want to talk about it. No one, Clay noted, made any reference to Alford’s wife and Byrd Elkhart.
The three ranchers, Buck Bogarth, Tom Shanley and Leo Reese, took a corner table with Joe and Clay. They had a bottle and drank too much. They seemed tense, and kept watching the swing doors as if expecting Elkhart or Lon Perry to walk in and catch them with their heads together.
“This is a hellish business,” Bogarth said sourly. He was beefy, thick-necked. “If it ain’t drought, it’s a rotten beef market.”
These were hard-working, serious men, Clay knew. Their faces were leather-brown from the sun. They were determined men, engaged in one of the most hazardous occupations in the world. They knew it and still they kept on. Mule-stubborn, he guessed you could call them. But now the normal hazards of the cattle-raising business had been increased by Elkhart’s damnable fence.
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