by Elmer Kelton
Wade nodded and dropped his head. It was then that he noticed the golden rings on the third finger of her left hand. He swallowed once in disappointment. But, he told himself, he should have known. A rose like this couldn’t bloom on the desert and not be appreciated by some man.
“I came to see Price Stockton, ma’am. He around?”
She smiled then, and the pain left her face. Her lips were like a pale rose. “He’s out riding the east line. He’ll be back for supper. But if you’re looking for a job, I’m afraid it’s been a long ride for nothing.”
Wade still couldn’t keep his eyes away from her. Price Stockton had chosen his wife much better than he had chosen his ranch, he thought.
“I’m not hunting a job,” he said. “I’m here on business, Mrs. Stockton.”
Her eyebrows went up a little, then she smiled again. “Mrs. Stockton is at the house. I’m Bess Henry. Price is my brother.”
Wade took in a sharp breath. Bess Henry. So she was the widow of Stockton’s partner. Oliver Underwood had said Glenn Henry was killed two years ago when he roped a steer and was jerked down the rocky slope of a steep hill. Wade felt sorry for the woman now. But somehow he felt a little relieved, too.
“There’s grain in the barn,” she said. “Unsaddle your horse and come on to the house. We’ve got a pot of coffee on the stove.”
Wade took a straight razor and a bar of soap out of his saddlebags and shaved in the cold water before he went to the house. Bess Henry didn’t mention it, but he could tell by her eyes that she appreciated it. She called Mrs. Stockton into the kitchen.
Stockton’s wife was a jovial, plump woman with hair already beginning to gray. Wade placed her at forty. Stockton must be twelve or fifteen years older than his sister, he thought.
After they had had coffee, he stood in front of the rock house with Bess Henry and watched the sun sink into a splash of brilliant red beyond the bald rim which jutted up high and wide far to the west.
“One thing I can’t understand,” he said, “is why you stayed on here. It looks like too hard a country for a woman. Too hard for a man, I’d say.”
She shook her head. “It’s not an easy life,” she agreed. “Life comes hard here sometimes. But when you have to work and fight for something, you appreciate it all the more. At times it seems like the devil himself is against us. But look at it now.”
She swept her hand out toward the blazing sunset, the rolling mountains, the high, wide, formidable rim. “Have you ever seen anything grander? You look at it this way and you can forget the heat and the rocks and the thorns. That’s why Glenn loved it so much, I guess. That’s why I’ve stayed here even though he’s gone. He’s part of it now. So am I.”
No one could ever explain just how love works. One man can know a woman for years before he finally realizes she is the one he wants. Another can be with a woman only an hour and know even then that he is in love with her.
That’s how it was with Wade Massey. Long before Price Stockton finally came in at dark, Wade knew he had fallen in love with Bess Henry. It took all the strength he could muster to keep from reaching out and grasping her hand, or even pulling her to him and kissing those pale rose lips.
His heart was like a heavy rock inside of him. Before he finished his job for Underwood & Watson, she would probably have to leave this country she loved. And he knew she would leave hating him.
Price Stockton was a strong man, maybe six feet tall, about the same as Wade. His brown, leathery face showed he had spent the better part of his forty years out with the cattle in the hot dry wind, the blazing sun, the biting cold of winter. But the crinkly turkey tracks at the corners of his eyes showed he knew how to grin.
He came in afoot, leading a horse that limped on his left forefoot.
“Stumbled and fell up in the hills,” he told his sister. “The foot is pretty badly twisted.”
Wade noticed that Stockton was skinned up a little, too. But the man never mentioned it.
“I didn’t want to turn him loose up there in the shape he’s in,” Stockton said. “We can rub that ankle with salted grease a few days and maybe it’ll come down.”
Right then Wade knew his job was going to be twice as hard. He liked Price Stockton right off. Maybe Stockton wasn’t the best ranch manager in the country, but he loved stock.
Through supper, Wade forced himself to joke with Price Stockton and miserably felt the warmth of Bess Henry’s smiles. He tried to figure some way he could break the news easily.
He didn’t get the chance. About the time he was finishing his last cup of coffee, the kitchen door opened and a cowboy walked in, spurs jingling.
“Say, Price,” a gruff voice spoke, “Slim says he seen that big brindle bull—”
The voice broke off suddenly. It was a voice that rubbed up Wade’s spine like a wood rasp. He turned quickly around in his chair and almost let go his coffee cup.
The cowboy dropped his hand to his hip as if forgetting he didn’t have on a gun. His brown eyes were panicked. Then he turned and bolted for the outside.
Wade knocked over his chair as he jumped up and beat the man to the door. The puncher stopped and stood there, his muddy eyes wide, his quick breath ragged. Wade didn’t reach for his gun. He knew he wouldn’t have to.
“Lodge Agnew!” Wade said, his own breath coming fast. “I’ve hoped for a long time I’d run into you again. But I never really expected to.”
Agnew was trembling. “You’re a long way from New Mexico,” he breathed. “You wouldn’t drag me back, would you, Massey?”
Price Stockton had shoved his chair away from the table. He stepped up beside Agnew. “What’s going on, Lodge? Is this man an officer?”
Agnew shook his head. “The last time I seen him he was working for a bank. He closed out a ranch.”
The cordiality suddenly disappeared from Stockton’s face. The lines in it hardened. “A bank?” He peered keenly into Wade’s face. “You’re working for a bank?”
Wade swallowed. There would be no breaking it easy now. “That’s right, Stockton. I work for Underwood & Watson. I came to take up the loan they gave you and Glenn Henry.”
Stockton’s back stiffened. Wade glanced at Bess Henry. She blanched. Then her eyes turned to ice, and she looked down at the table. Plump Mrs. Stockton was about to burst into tears.
Wade felt little and mean. But it was his job. He had had to do it before. Usually the ranchmen were glad to turn the whole mess over to the bank and let someone else worry about it a while. But occasionally there was a case like this one, and Wade hated to look at himself in the mirror.
Price Stockton’s voice trembled a little. The yellow lamplight made the lines of his face deep and harsh. “If they’d just sent us word—but no, they sent you sneaking in here like a coyote.”
Agnew glanced at his boss, and his muddy eyes were desperate. “He’s just one man, Price. You could run him out of here,” he said hopefully.
A tremor of excitement played through Wade as he could see Stockton mulling over Agnew’s suggestion.
“You could, Stockton,” Wade agreed flatly. “But I’d be back. And I’d bring along a sheriff and maybe a couple of deputies next time.”
Angrily Stockton studied Wade’s face. His eyes looked as if they could strike sparks. But gradually Wade could see the ranchman giving up. Finally Stockton asked, “All right, then, what do you want me to do? Any choice?”
Wade nodded. It was going a little easier now. He slipped a tobacco sack from his shirt pocket and rolled a cigarette.
“You’ve got a choice. But first I’d just like to know what the trouble is. Why can’t you make the place pay?”
Stockton shrugged. “The country’s good enough. It keeps the cattle in good shape. But we’ve never been able to drive enough of them to the railroad to pay expenses. We can’t get a whole herd through that brush country. But you’ll find out for yourself, soon enough. Now, what’s the choice you were talking about?”
&n
bsp; Wade took a long drag on the cigarette and watched Stockton. “You can turn the whole outfit over to the bank, lock, stock and barrel, and wash your hands of it.”
That hit Stockton right between the eyes. The fury rushed back into his face.
“Or,” Wade went on, “we can try to get enough cattle to the railroad to pay what you owe the bank. I’ll ramrod the roundup and the drive. But they’ll be your cattle till they sell.
“The market’s not any too good right now. It might take every hoof on the place to pay off the debt. On the other hand, you may have had enough increase the last few years that you’ll still have some cows left when the debt’s squared. If you have, that’ll give you something to start out new with. But I wouldn’t count on it much.”
He looked again at Bess Henry and miserably accepted her hostility.
“The choice is up to you, Stockton,” he said. “Personally, I’d give up this godforsaken country. I’d be glad to get shed of the whole mess.”
Stockton’s eyes were hard. “I like this country, Massey. It’s wild and it’s rough. But it’s mine, mine and my wife’s and Bess’s. If we’ve got to fight you and the bank every step of the way, we’ll keep it.”
He didn’t try to prevent his hatred from showing. “Now that we got that settled, what’s the first thing we do?”
Wade said, “The first thing is to get a real crew of cowboys in here. If the rest of your bunch is like Lodge, I don’t wonder that you’ve never been able to get your cattle out.”
“And the next?” Stockton asked.
“The next thing is that I’m taking Lodge to jail.”
There was a look in Agnew’s muddy eyes like that of a scared rabbit. He had been a coward back in New Mexico. He still was.
But Stockton didn’t like it. “What’s Lodge done?”
Wade explained. Over in New Mexico a couple of years ago, someone had been stealing a ranchman blind. The stockman had a good cow country, but it was a good rustler country, too. He had fought until he was whipped down.
“He finally threw in his chips and turned it all over to the bank,” Wade said. “I went to liquidate the outfit. Then I found out Lodge and his brother were mainly responsible for the stealing.
“We got them cornered in a canyon with a bunch of stuff they were changing brands on. We wounded Lodge’s brother. Lodge lit out. He abandoned his brother, left him lying there bleeding to death. We never did know how Lodge got away.
“We managed to save his brother’s life. He’s in the pen now, and not claiming Lodge as kin. But he’s going to have company right soon. I’m taking Lodge to town.”
Firmly Stockton stepped in front of Agnew. “Lodge has done nothing wrong while he’s been here. He’s always been a good hand. You’re no officer, Massey. Even if you was, you’d have to get the say-so of the territorial governor to take him back to New Mexico. Lodge is my man. He stays.”
Wade felt anger surge up in him, then let it burn out. He knew Stockton had him there.
Presently Wade said, “I’ll start for town tomorrow, then, and bring out some cowboys. If there’s any chance in the world of getting that herd out for you, we’ll do it.”
A steady hatred kindled in Stockton’s steely eyes. “It’s easy for you to say that. What’ve you got to lose?”
Wade glanced once at Bess Henry, then back at Stockton. “I’ve got plenty to lose.”
Several days later he was back again with a group of hand-picked cowboys. Among them was Snort Shanks, long-legged, long-thinking cowhand from over in the Mogollons; Blackie Hadden, dark, squat puncher who seldom opened his mouth but was always out in the lead when the pinch came; two Mexican vaqueros, Felipe Sanchez and Ernesto Flores, who would chase a runaway steer down the bald face of a cliff just to see which one could rope him first.
There were three other cowpunchers cut from the same cloth. Wade had never worked with them before, but he knew the breed. They’d move cattle off the Rafter T or leave scars that would show for the next fifty years why it hadn’t been done.
He saw Bess Henry standing in the doorway of the rock house, watching them as they rode in to the barn. But when her eyes met his, she stepped back into the house. Bitterness touched him. After all, he was just doing a job he was hired for. But he could understand how she felt.
Price Stockton and his own cowboys were ready to go next morning when Wade’s men saddled up in the predawn darkness. Wade had brought out a string of pack mules. These stood ready in the corral, packed with bedding and food and cooking utensils, and grain for the horses. It would take grain to keep the herd in shape to outrun the wild Rafter T cattle.
Stockton sat his saddle, tight-lipped and aloof. Wade had it on his tongue to say again that he would save Stockton and Bess the ranch if there was any way to do it. But faced with Stockton’s coldness, he swallowed the words and motioned the men to start.
Bess Henry and Mrs. Stockton stood in the doorway, watching them move out in single file. Wade studied the younger woman’s face for some trace of kindness. All he found there was silent hostility.
All right, then, he told himself bitterly, he would take their hatred as a challenge. He’d get those Rafter T cattle to market if he had to do it in spite of Bess Henry and Price Stockton—and Lodge Agnew.
It was past noon when they set up camp alongside a little creek down in the rough country to the south. It was rougher than anything Wade had seen on his ride from town. There seemed to be nothing but steep, rock-scattered hillsides, deep gullies and box canyons. But this was where the cattle were.
Now and then on the trail out, they had seen some of them, but seldom for long. Usually there would be just a quick glimpse before the cattle would clatter down a slope or over a rocky hill with their heads wild and high and their tails arched. There was still lots of old longhorn in them, although most showed the sign of blood from some of the new breeds that were being brought into the country, here and yonder.
The rest of the day the punchers spent throwing a barricade across the front of a small box canyon that had grass and water. They left enough opening for an extra-wide pole gate. Wade and Hadden snaked the pine poles down from the hillsides.
As the men sat down to supper prepared by Chili, Stockton’s hostile-eyed, big-mustached cook, Wade outlined his plan to them all.
“This canyon will be our corral. This is where we’ll bring them until we’ve got enough cattle to try making a drive to the railroad. We’re going to gather in everything. There’s six- and eight-year-old bulls in these mountains that’ve never felt a branding iron or a knife. We’ll catch them if we’ve got to climb up and down the cliffs to do it.”
He glanced at Price Stockton, then back to the men. “From now on till we’re through, I’m the boss. And any man who’s afraid to chase a steer down one of these rocky slopes as hard as his horse can run had better leave now.”
He peered sharply at each of the Stockton men. There was only one who worried him, outside of Lodge Agnew. He was a small, middle-aged puncher named Corey Milholland. Wade could see the nervous twitching of the man’s hands, the dread that crept into his eyes. It seemed to Wade that Milholland was a little fragile for this country.
“How about it, Milholland?” he asked. “You want to leave?”
Price Stockton whirled around from the coffeepot where he had been filling his cup. “You leave Corey alone, Massey,” he warned. “He’s been with me for years. He’s staying.”
Wade bit his lip. “Have it like you want it, Stockton. But I’ll be watching him. He better keep up.”
They headed west from camp next morning. Eight or ten miles away he dropped the riders out in a wide semicircle and started pushing back toward the box-canyon corral.
It didn’t take long for the action to start. Wade jumped a little bunch of mixed cattle in a valley. At the sight of him they lifted their tails and struck out in a high lope for the south. Wade followed behind until he knew they would pass in front of the next rider to him. H
e reined up on a high point and watched in satisfaction as they bounced off of Snort Shanks and moved on to the next man. They would be run down by the time they reached the outside of the drive. The outside man would bring them in.
Sitting on the point, Wade gazed out across the rocky hills ahead of him. They were rugged and perilous, mean and hard. But there was a majesty to them, he realized, a wild beauty that made a man want to stop and drink in a long look. Maybe if he stayed here long enough he could learn to like the country a little, he admitted to himself.
The drive went on about the way he had expected. Now and again he could hear the loud shouts of a cowboy or two as they raced to head off a bunch of runaway cattle. He had a good many of those races himself. More than once he spurred down a steep hillside after a big steer. It was all a man’s heart could stand to watch his horse’s flying hoofs slipping, sliding, down those treacherous slopes.
It was always a relief to see Snort down there at the bottom, waiting to pick up the steer and push him on. Snort had lucked onto a fairly gentle little bunch of cows and calves. These made it easier for him to catch and hold the waspier cattle.
Along toward the middle of the afternoon, Wade stopped on a hill and took a long look around him, giving his horse a chance to get its wind after chasing two bulls for about a mile.
On another hill half a mile away he could see a rider spurring hell-bent after an animal that had broken in the opposite direction from the roundup. The rider was in easy roping distance of the steer, but he didn’t swing his loop. The steer plunged down off the slope. The cowboy reined up and stood on the rim of the hill, watching the steer get away.
Anger flared through Wade. He recognized the horse as the one Corey Milholland had been riding. Any other puncher in the outfit would have gone down after that steer. Well, there’d be retribution tonight, when the day’s drive was done.
The first day’s gather was a good one, everything considered. The count was close to a hundred head. The cowboys pushed most of them into the box canyon trap, roping and dragging in those that wouldn’t be driven. Wade and Hadden dropped the poles into place in the gateway.
