by Peter Dawson
Some minutes later he was tying Crowe’s borrowed roan at the barn corral gate and surveying the yard and outbuildings with a wary, restless eye. He found nothing to alarm him and shortly walked on over to the house, entering it by way of the kitchen.
He had it in mind to start on up the Porcupine within the next few minutes and to ride the stream until he discovered what was blocking it. But for the moment he wanted to stretch his cramped muscles, to rest. He went to the stove and filled a mug with coffee from the big pot simmering on the stove. He found the remains of a peach pie in the bread cupboard, took it from the dish and across to the table, sitting on the table’s edge as he ate it, meantime looking out the window that gave him a view of the hills off to the east.
Tired as he was, he felt on edge, jumpy. Much had happened last night and this morning to confound him. He felt insecure, as though unforeseen events were overtaking him, closing in on him. And it was typical of him, scorning as he did any weakness in anyone, that he now tried to shrug this feeling aside by telling himself: Get a hold on your nerve, man! Nothing’s gone so wrong.
Hardly had he become aware of the thought than he was seeing something that made him stiffen, quickly leave the table, and hurry to the window to open it so as to see more clearly.
Now he could make out two riders coming down the road that twisted out of the higher hills to skirt the foot of the meadow, the road that led to Anchor. The pair of horsemen was still better than a mile distant, too far to be recognized, and for a moment he thought that they might be Harry and Ben.
But then he was able to make out the color of one of their animals. It was a buckskin. And instantly the wariness in him tightened, threatened to become panic.
He swung quickly from the window, ate the last of the piece of pie, and emptied his coffee into the slop pail. He had put the cup on the counter and turned to the door before a thought made him reach for the cup again, dip it into the fresh-water bucket, shake it dry, and return it to the cupboard.
Outside, he ran as far as the corner of the house before looking out toward the road again. The riders had dipped from sight behind a low rise, and with a grunt of thankfulness and relief he ran for the barn. There he uncinched the saddle, tossed it and the saddle blanket aside, and hurriedly opened the corral gate, turning the roan in with the three other animals in the pole enclosure. Then, bridle in hand and lugging saddle and blanket, he ran into the barn and back along its runway.
He hung the saddle from a peg alongside three others. For a moment he stood holding the Winchester, wondering what to do with it. For he had it in mind to hide if Echols and Rivers rode in here, to let them look anywhere they wanted for him, and to leave no telltale sign that he had been here during the interval they had been gone.
Finally he decided it would be best to take the rifle with him. By the time he was outside again, he saw that Echols and Rivers were once more in sight, now riding the line of the rail fence at the foot of the meadow. Crouching low and moving slowly, he crossed a fifty-foot open space that separated the barn from the bunkhouse. Once behind the log building he ran to its far end. Then, by circling behind the mound of the adjacent root cellar, he gained the house’s back stoop without once moving into Rivers’s and Echols’s line of vision.
He had plenty of time to pick his hiding place now, though, as he tried to think of the best one, his thoughts ran anything but a straight course. He thought of the attic, discarded that possibility because it would place him beyond hearing the lawman and Rivers, should they ride into the yard.
What he wanted was a place of concealment within hearing if they should happen to talk. Finally he thought of a place. He would crawl under the kitchen stoop.
All at once it occurred to him that all his precautions might be wasted, that perhaps the two were merely riding on past on their way back to town. So he moved over to the corner of the house, took off his wide hat, and looked out along the line of the twin tracks leading up across the meadow.
They were on their way in.
He wheeled back behind the house. Even though it would probably be another five minutes before they could reach the layout, he ran for the stoop, went to his knees close to the wall of the house, and, carefully holding aside a clump of weeds growing close to the edge of the stoop, went flat and wriggled in behind the weeds, then in under the floor of the porch, pulling the rifle after him.
His breathing was heavy and labored, as he rolled onto his side and laid the rifle in the dirt, aimed at the opening through which he had crawled.
Chapter Twenty-Five
They were riding even with the house’s weed-grown yard, the bunkhouse directly ahead of them, when Jim Echols announced: “Wagon’s gone. So are the dogs. Charlie must’ve taken off for town.”
Frank’s restless glance had been shuttling nervously between the buildings, and now the hard alertness that had been in him eased slowly away before a settling disappointment as he drawled: “Bum guess on my part. But I keep asking myself why he’d stick around his camp once he got something to ride.”
“So do I.”
The lawman had reined in and Frank swung the buckskin around and joined him. For several moments they sat looking about them, Frank taking out his pipe, then deciding he didn’t want a smoke, pocketing it again.
“He was deaf if he didn’t hear that herd moving out last night right after Fred and I finished busting up his camp,” he said presently. “Now that he’s got a way of getting around, it could be he went on down to town to see if he could stir up any trouble for Kate and Fred.”
“Unh-uh. There’s nothing he could do without showing his hand and having me on his neck. He’s lost that bet. Let’s look around,” Frank suggested impatiently.
“Look where?”
“In the house to begin with. The rifle could be there. You could’ve missed it.”
With a shrug, Jim Echols led the way on to the rear of the house. They stepped down from their saddles near the kitchen stoop and, ground-haltering their animals, went on into the house.
Frank was unaccountably feeling on edge as he followed the lawman from the kitchen and across a narrow hallway into another room furnished with a bed, a roll-top desk, a deep barrel chair, a wardrobe, and a horsehair-upholstered sofa.
“Here’s his hang-out.” Echols motioned to the gun rack on the outside wall. “And there’s his rifles. Forty-Four-Forties, except for that Sharps.”
“Where else did you look?”
“Behind the desk, under the bed, in that clothes closet.”
“What about the other rooms?”
“There are only two more. Up front. Both’re closed off, empty. I looked ’em over.”
“What about the attic?”
The sheriff shook his head. “We could climb up there and have a look-see, sure. But you’re forgetting. He doesn’t know we’re looking for that Forty-Five-Seventy-Five. So why would he have hid it?”
Frank had to nod grudgingly at the soundness of that reasoning, though it did little to quiet the let-down feeling that was now laying its hold on him. “So what do we do?” he asked in near irritation.
“Well, it’s a cinch he hasn’t been here.” Echols led the way back into the kitchen and out onto the rear porch, Frank following and closing the door. “So we either head for his camp or back to town. I’d pick town between the two.”
Shrugging, Frank stepped to the edge of the stoop. He was dissatisfied with the lawman’s answer and drawled: “Suppose you leave me here. Just in case. Or,” he pointedly added, glancing around at the other, “maybe you’re not trusting me alone with him.”
The sheriff laughed softly, dryly. “I’d thought of that. You’d have to give me your word you’d try to bring him in without putting a hole through him. But you won’t get the chance. We’ve been here twice and drawn a blank. He’s either still at his camp or in the Springs.”
“I’d still like to stay put, Jim.”
“Suit yourself.” Echols walked out to hi
s horse, Frank following. And after the sheriff had swung up into leather, he looked down to say seriously: “I mean that about giving me your word to bring him in all in one piece if you run into him.”
“You have it.”
“I could be wrong about this. He could turn up here. And with his crew. Suppose he does?”
“You say he won’t.”
The momentary concern that had shadowed the sheriff’s hawkish face faded. “I still say he won’t. If he was coming here, he’s had a world of time to arrive. So you’re wasting your time. Might as well sit out in the sun and catch up on your sleep.”
“Maybe I will.”
Echols lifted a hand then and took his horse on out past the house and along the track leading south. He was halfway down the meadow before he made up his mind to ride straight to town and forget the fence camp. For if Red Majors had been here something like three hours ago, if he had gone back to the camp with horses, Pleasants would no longer be up in the hills. Since he hadn’t come home, there was logically only one other place to look for him.
In a way, the lawman was relieved at not having Frank with him. On the way down from the pass trail he had realized that Frank, having wasted better than four years of his life on Pleasants’s account, might well take matters in his own hands if he encountered the man. And had Frank done so, Echols could in no way have blamed him, for it was obvious that those four years had brought him much humiliation and bitterness, that a final settling of his reckoning against Pleasants was due him.
Yet Jim Echols was a lawman and a strict one, and, though he had a score of his own to settle with Pleasants for Bill Echols, he would see the law take the final accounting. He hadn’t a shred of doubt but what he had the proof that would hang Lute Pleasants.
So now that he was alone, now that Frank was out of the way, his mind was more at ease. He would find Pleasants, make his arrest.
Leaving Beavertail’s south fence behind him, he touched the horse with spur, going out along the bench road at an easy lope, anxious now to get to town and get on with this far from unpleasant chore. He would enjoy this arrest far more than any he had ever made.
Presently, when he crossed the upper bridge over the Porcupine and noticed the shallowness of the stream, he enjoyed a good laugh on wondering if Pleasants yet knew that his dream of ditching Beavertail’s big meadow had dried up and blown away as surely as though a drought had hit the range.
Thinking of Frank Rivers, of all that had happened since the first day he had laid eyes on him, and particularly of all Frank had done for Kate and Fred, he wondered if he had ever so misjudged a man, or grown to trust and respect one more. There was a quiet sureness about Rivers, a capacity for facing down trouble, rarely found in so young a man. Frank had, he knew, been aged far beyond his years by more trouble and frustration than the average man found in a lifetime, and it left Echols a little awed to think that he had found not the slightest trace of bitterness in him. Frank Rivers was as good as they came.
He was shortly jerked from his ruminations at seeing a rider coming toward him up the road. For an instant he supposed that this must be Lute Pleasants, and his nerves drew wire-taut. But then the slightness of the figure told him he was mistaken, and in another half a minute he recognized Kate Bond astride her sorrel. Her animal was at a slow walk, and, as he came in on her, he could see that her shoulders sagged, that her head was lowered. For a moment a strong alarm ran through him. But then as the gap between them narrowed, he suddenly understood. Kate was dozing. The night she had spent in the saddle was taking its toll.
He had swung out and was turning his horse, about to fall in beside her, when she gave a start, lifted her head, and saw who it was. A tired smile wreathed her face and she spoke his name.
“Tuckered out?” he asked as she pulled the sorrel to a stand beside him.
“A little, Jim. But it was worth it.” With an abrupt frown she asked: “Where’s Frank? I met Lute’s cook back there this side of town. He said you and Frank had been to Beavertail, looking for Lute.”
Echols nodded. “Friend Pleasants wasn’t there. Frank’s still at the layout, waitin’ for him. I decided it was a waste of time, that Pleasants was probably in town. So we parted company.”
Kate’s eyes came wider open in strong alarm. “But he isn’t in town, Jim. The cook told me he’d met him here on the road. He was headed home.”
“What!”
The lawman’s single word was spoken sharply as a strong foreboding tightened every muscle in him.
“It’s what Charlie told me. He wouldn’t have any reason to lie.”
Jim Echols knotted his right fist and hit the swell of his saddle a solid blow, swearing softly as he glanced back up the road. Then, lifting boots outward, ready to spur his horse to a run, he breathed prayerfully: “Let’s hope it’s not too late.”
Before Kate quite grasped his meaning, he had thrown home the spurs and was running his horse back up the road.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Frank stood in front of the bunkhouse, watching Jim Echols until the lawman rode around the bend in the road that put him out of sight behind the creek willows beyond Beavertail’s meadow fence. Then, trying to shrug aside the thought that perhaps he had after all made a mistake in not going to town with the lawman, he sauntered on down past the near end of the barn to the corral and climbed up to sit its top pole and lean back against the gatepost.
From here he could scan the hills that climbed to the east, he could watch both lower and upper reaches of the road. And as his glance idly studied the road, he was still wondering if his instinct had been wrong in making him think that Lute Pleasants would sooner or later ride in here. It was, he decided finally, a toss-up as to whether he or the sheriff had made the right guess.
The sun, well above the snowy peaks of the Bear Claws, had burned the night’s chill out of the new day. He was tired and drowsy, beginning to feel the effects of the long hours he had spent in the saddle these past two days and nights as he took his pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it, relishing the taste of the tobacco.
Once again it struck him that he might have used bad judgment in not going with Jim Echols. It was galling to think that after all these months of hunting Pleasants he should miss the final showdown with the man even though that should turn out to be nothing more than seeing him put under arrest and locked in a cell of the Ute Springs jail.
Looking out across the corral, his idle glance examined the four animals standing hipshot beyond the water trough, tails lazily switching against the torment of the flies. One was a brown gelding, two were mares—a sorrel and a claybank, and the fourth a roan horse. The roan looked older than the other three and wore a strange brand faintly resembling the shape of a bird. It stood head down, dozing, the damp splotch left by a saddle blanket showing along its bony back and barrel.
All at once that dark marking on the roan took on meaning. And instantly Frank was thinking back, trying to remember how many animals he had seen in the corral on his and Echols’s first ride in here right after dawn.
There had been five. He was certain of his count. Yet Charlie had taken the wagon to town, which meant he was using a team.
Unless someone had ridden in here while he and the lawman had been up the pass trail, there should be but three animals in the corral right now, not four.
Quickly he speculated upon the possibility that the roan’s owner might have left in the wagon with the cook. Then, knowing the ways of horsemen, he rejected that explanation with the certainty that any man who had ridden a horse in here would be leaving by no other way than astride a saddle.
Suddenly and with absolute conviction he knew that he wasn’t alone on the layout. Just as surely, and for no rational reason, he was positive that the man who had ridden the roan in here must be Lute Pleasants.
For a nearly overpowering moment he almost gave way to the wild urge to vault down into the corral and make a dash for the barn’s side door, to do anyt
hing but sit here in the open. Pleasants had tried to kill him once; he might try again, if given the chance. But then as the seconds dragged on and no sound broke the morning stillness, he realized that by making any sudden move he would only be inviting Pleasants to cut him down, if in fact his hunch was right that the man right now might be watching him.
“Better think this out,” he breathed softly aloud.
As quickly as that small panic had hit him, it subsided until shortly he was calm once more. He understood first of all that he couldn’t simply sit here waiting for something to happen. Instead, he must somehow force Pleasants’s hand. Or, if he was mistaken in his reasoning that the man had been the rider of the roan, he must prove himself wrong.
He eased around now and faced the house, reaching over to knock the tobacco from his pipe against the gatepost. Pocketing the briar, he glanced toward the house, studying first the side windows, then the rear.
The kitchen door was standing open. He had closed it on leaving the house with Jim Echols. Someone had gone into the house while he had been sitting here.
That someone was probably right now staring at him from the open kitchen window. He flinched momentarily as the realization struck home to him, then all at once that familiar prison-bred feeling of fatalism settled through him and he was ignoring the threat of the open window and thinking out what he was to do.
In several more seconds he eased down to the ground and, thrusting hands in pockets, sauntered obliquely over toward the front of the house. He passed a low-growing bush that screened him from the house and felt the strong urge to go belly down behind it, draw the .44, and wait this out, forcing whoever was in the house to make the next move. But then he realized that the bush would afford him no protection at all if the roan’s rider chose to open up with a rifle.
