Brack prodded his big foreman in the chest with a stubby ringer and shouted: ‘You wanta keep your job, boy—you do it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Summers bawled Sprovan out of the bunk-house and sent him limping painfully to the corral to catch up a horse. Summers himself caught himself a fresh animal. While they were saddling, Sprovan, a young and eager man, asked: ‘Mike, what happened?’
‘There some diggers down on the west creek.’
‘Did they find gold?’
‘I reckon.’ He looked at Sprovan. He saw the light come into the man’s eyes, the light he had seen so many times before. He didn’t like it. ‘Now, don’t get any ideas, cowboy,’ he added.
Sprovan tightened cinches, heaved himself into the saddle and said: ‘You said that too late. I got ’em already. I’ll take my time, Mike.’
‘You can’t do this.’
‘I’m doin’ it.’
‘Brack’ll have your hide.’
‘Not if I have gold.’
The rider spurred away into a cloud of dust with Summers bellowing after him that the horse belonged to Broken Spur and Brack would hang him for a horse thief. If Sprovan heard, he didn’t give any sign he cared. Brack came from the house, bellowing to know what all that was about. Mounting, Summers told him: ‘the damn fool got the smell of gold and took off.’
Brack was fit to be tied.
‘That was my horse he rode out on,’ he shouted. ‘There’s a rope for that bastard when I catch up with him.’
‘This could happen with the other men,’ Summers said. ‘You know what it is when men hear about gold. They go crazy.’
‘Then don’t tell ’em. I lose one more man an’ you’ll hear from me, Summers. Hear?’
Summers turned his horse and rode out. Brack returned cursing his head off to the house.
Sprovan took some time to find the spot where the two boys were panning for gold and it was mid-afternoon before he came on them. By that time, the gold fever had gotten a real hold on them. They were doing well and in the short time they had been there, they had earned more gold than they had ever done in their lives before. They greeted the cowhand in a pretty friendly way, but didn’t show too much interest when he informed them what was afoot with Brack and the Broken Spur riders. They told him, he could stake a claim south of them or throw in with them. They did this because he had revolver and carbine with him and he looked like a man who could take care of himself. He didn’t have any supplies with him, but they didn’t give much thought to that. He could share with them and after that was finished, they would worry about it. He decided to throw in with them, for he had no equipment of his own. He unsaddled his horse, cached his saddle and sent the horse toward home. He knew there could be a rope ready for him if he kept the animal. He knew Ed Brack if he knew nothing else. As for Sam James and Ralph Hardacre, their minds were almost entirely on gold and they would worry about man-made catastrophe when it came on them.
Mike Summers headed north where he knew that there were two men riding line at the narrow head of the valley. He found one extricating a cow with a calf from a quagmire gave him a hand to complete the chore and told him to get back to headquarters as fast as his horse could carry him. The other man, he learned, was at the line camp about a mile away. This fellow he summoned with three shots from his revolver. The man who was with him wanted to know what all the fuss was about and this time Summers wasn’t foolish enough to let him know about the gold.
‘Some sod-busters have staked a claim on the west side of the valley,’ he told the man. That seemed to satisfy him and he headed for home.
The other fellow came in and Summers sent him along to the east to pick up some riders over that way. The foreman now rode directly south, riding his now tiring horse hard along the vast bed of the valley, scattering cattle and making for the camp which held the line between Broken Spur and the southernmost line of the spread where it met the land of the Lazy S. Here there was a steady old top-hand in charge named Lem Quarrel. He had three men under him to hold this important line. If Broken Spur cattle strayed onto the rich Three Creeks range there could be trouble with the Storms and Brack was beginning to learn that the Storms were folks to be reckoned with.
Lem was a hardened rider who rode true to his brand and no matter how the brand treated him, if he took wages he earned them and he backed the brand if necessary with his gun. Not many came like him and Mike Summers knew he was the most valuable man they had. He had ridden for Ed Brack for many years and had been brought up from one of Brack’s ranges in New Mexico. In him, Summers thought he could confide. He found Lem preparing the evening meal at the line-shack and just by the way Summers rode in told the old hand that something was amiss.
He straightened up from his cook fire out front of the shack and said: ‘What’s wrong?’
Summers stepped from the saddle and said: ‘There’s gold on Broken Spur, that’s what’s wrong. There’s a coupla pilgrims panning over on the west creek and Brack’s wants ’em run off. If word gets out, we’ll be swamped.’
Lem grinned. ‘Just like the Storms. There’s a kind of justice in it.’
‘Maybe,’ said Summers. ‘Sprovan already took out after the gold. Some of the other boys might get the same idea into their fool heads.’
Lem thought a moment and said: ‘It sure do make a feller think. You have to admit that, Mike.’
Summers said: ‘We take wages and we have a job to do. Let’s get at it.’
They fired their guns and brought the three riders running. Summers told them this was an emergency and that the line would have to be left unattended. That showed them there was something big afoot, but they couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. So there were two greenhorns on the creek. Hell, a couple of the boys could run ’em off with carbines and that would be the end of it.
Then Harry Calthorp got the idea. ‘Them boys found gold,’ he said.
The others all looked at him.
Then they looked at Summers.
‘Is that a fact, Mike?’ one asked.
‘It ain’t no never mind,’ Summers said. ‘We have orders to run ’em out.’
Calthorp said: ‘I been of a mind to try for the gold on Three Creeks, Mike. Me an’ the boys of talked about it. Now it’s right here on our doorstep.’
‘You do what you’re paid wages for,’ Mike said.
‘I reckon you can’t stop us if we’ve a mind.’
Summers got mad.
‘I say you carry out your orders.’
‘Maybe we quit.’
Lem said: ‘Now, boys, don’t do nothin’ foolish. I’m sidin’ Mike here. We owe Brack.’
Calthorp said: ‘I don’t owe Ed no more’n a kick in the head. He talked to me like I was a polecat or somethin’ oncet too often, I reckon.’
Summers said: ‘You ride outa here on my orders or you walk, boys.’
Calthorp unlimbered his gun in a pretty businesslike fashion.
‘No hard feelin’s,’ he said, ‘but we’d ruther ride.’
Lem said: ‘That makes you a hoss-thief, boy.’
‘It makes me a mighty sensible feller,’ said the other. ‘You with me, fellers?’
They said they were with him. One of them went and caught some fresh horses while Calthorp watched the foreman and top-hand to see they didn’t do anything they shouldn’t. Mike Summers was feeling pretty murderous by this time. He was thinking about the effect of events on his standing with Ed Brack. Only a day or two before he had been drinking and talking real friendly with the great man. Now Brack would regard him with the same favor as he would something a mangy coyote had toyed with. For a brief moment, he thought about throwing in his lot with the deserters, but he had some foresight and he knew that if he had to build a sure future for himself, it wouldn’t be done by chasing a gold find that might peter out tomorrow. If he stood by Brack and Brack came out on top there must be something worthwhile in it for him.
He made one more try to
stop these men when the horses were brought up, but they were deaf to his entreaties. They mounted their horses, after driving off any that Summers and Lem Quarrel might use. As they rode off, Summers cursed them pretty thoroughly. This being set afoot was more than he could bear. He had no more chance of getting back to headquarters before dark than he had of getting to be president of the United States. And he hated to walk more than anything.
‘Lem,’ he said, ‘you get a rope and you keep a-goin’ till you catch up them horses. You come back without them and you can have your time.’ Which wasn’t the wisest way to speak to the one man who had stayed loyal. Lem pointed this out to him and all he did was to curse. Lem went off to look for the horses.
As it was, Mike Summers and Lem Quarrel reached the house about one hour before midnight. They found a very drunk and very enraged Ed Brack who stood in the center of the yard and bellowed at them as they rode in.
‘What in hell’s name kept you?’ he demanded.
‘The rest of the men took out for the gold-fields,’ Mike explained. His own temper was pretty short by now. He was tired and he wasn’t in the mood for Brack.
Brack turned his tongue to some fancy swearing and Mike’s patience snapped.
‘Brack,’ he said, ‘I don’t have to take that kinda talk from nobody. You swaller them words or give me my time.’
‘Goes for me, too,’ Lem Quarrel said.
Now Brack knew Quarrel from way back, as has been said. When he heard this, the words from the veteran rider sobered him a little and he got a hold on himself.
‘All right,’ he growled. ‘I’m sorry I spoke that way, boys. I have some excuse, you have to admit.’
‘Forget it, boss,’ said Quarrel. ‘We have six men. If that ain’t enough to make a bunch of goddam greenhorns turn tail, an army wouldn’t do it.’
Brack brightened.
‘By God, you’re right, Lem,’ he said. ‘We go down there right now and clean ’em out.’
‘Best wait till daylight,’ Mike said.
‘Who asked you for your advice?’ Brack demanded. ‘Fresh horses. Fifty rounds for every man. See they all have repeaters. Them bastards will be long gone by dawn. We get ’em in the moonlight and we’ll scare the butts off ’em.’
So it was that the small expedition was mounted. Fresh horses, arms and ammunition for every man and they were ready. There wasn’t a man there who couldn’t use some sleep, except for Brack and he seemed to be full of vigorous and violent life. They angled across the valley into the south-west with Ed Brack in the lead. Now his mood had changed and he seemed completely happy. Maybe Storm was fool enough to make a deal with diggers, but Ed Brack wasn’t aiming to make a deal with any man if he didn’t take a fancy.
An hour later, he called a halt.
They had circled into the south so that they could come at the miners’ camp without having to cross the dangerous rocks. He halted now because a sight met his eyes that he couldn’t believe.
‘Jesus,’ said Lem Quarrel in awe and he voiced the feelings of them all there, ‘there must be more’n a hundred men there.’
When Mike Summers had discovered James and Hardacre on Broken Spur, their camp had been out of sight around the bend in the creek under cover of the great tangle of rocks and brush which the waterway rounded. Now they sat their horses and saw fires on either bank of the creek, stretching far to the south. In the few hours that Mike Summers had been gone, more gold-seekers had poured in. Bitterly, Ed Brack realized that the news of the gold on his range had gotten into the camp on Three Creeks and he now had a crowd of men whom he had meant to harass the life out of the Storms. Rage blossomed in him, but he quenched it at once with iron control. He knew that if he rode in there with five men those miners would walk all over him. They would be warned of his coming by his deserters.
‘What you aim to do, boss?’ Mike Summers said.
‘You boys camp here,’ he said. ‘Wait for me. I’m going in there.’
‘You must be out of your mind,’ Summers said.
‘You keep a civil tongue in your head, Summers, and mind who you’re talking to. There’s more ways of killing a cat than skinning it. We hit that bunch and they’ll shoot the asses off us.’
Without another word, he urged his horse forward and rode toward the line of fires.
‘Off his chump,’ said a young hand.
‘He’s crazy like a fox,’ Lem Quarrel said. ‘I ain’t never seen that man beat yet.’
Chapter Sixteen
There were more men along that creek than Ed Brack could have dreamed up in a nightmare. As he rode along the creek side trail, he looked about him with surprise and misgiving. It didn’t seem possible that so many men could have come in here on this one day. Already there were tents pitched everywhere and rough shelters of boughs and tree-trunks. Here and there men were obviously prepared to sleep in the open. Everywhere there were mining utensils lying around. Most of the men, he noticed, wore a heavy revolver in their belts. No six men were going to clear this crowd off Broken Spur.
He came within the shallows overlooked by the dark satanic rocks. Here the creek opened out into a wide and shallow pool. On the far side, he could see the lights of fire, going up the ridge side and into the hills beyond. To his right, he saw two young men eating their suppers off metal plates. He turned toward them. They watched his approach. When he halted his horse before them, he touched his hat with a forefinger and said: ‘I’m Doctor Morris. I’m at the lower camp and I heard you had a mighty sick man up here.’
One of the young men was on his feet in an instant. This was Sam James.
‘Real nice of you to come, doc,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t hear of anybody sick.’
There has to be somebody sick, Brack thought. There’s always somebody sick in a mining camp.
The young digger was saying: ‘Hold hard, doc. Maybe our neighbor knows.’ He raised his voice to a man some forty yards further up the creek—‘Hey, Millson—you hear of anybody sick?’
‘Sure,’ came the return bellow, ‘there’s a fellow a half-mile upstream was took mighty sick this afternoon. His partner thinks he’s like to die.’
The man Millson came down to them and explained to Brack where he could find the sick man. Brack thanked him with the gentlest courtesy and turned his horse upstream. As he rode, he asked for the sick man. One or two of the men whom he questioned accompanied him and took him to the camp he wanted. This suited Brack fine. The more the merrier. He laughed within himself. He was enjoying this. He would enjoy the result even more. The men led him to the far side of the water to a primitive camp belonging to two Swedes who looked as if they were at the end of their rope. The tall man who greeted him was gaunt and looked as if he hadn’t eaten a good meal in a week. His partner lay on the ground on a tarpaulin and with a greasy blanket spread over him. Brack could tell at a glance that the man was suffering a rigor. His eyes were wild and his brain took in little. He trembled violently from head to foot.
Brack sank down on one knee beside him and felt for his pulse with a knowledgeable air. He pulled down the lower part of the man’s eye-flesh and looked at the eyes. They were bloodshot. He felt under the armpits.
He stood up, looking grave. He looked at the gaunt Swede, deep concern in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘this is bad.’
‘What the matter, doc?’ the Swede asked.
‘The worst,’ said Brack. ‘Cholera.’
Every man there looked at his neighbor, sudden terror in their eyes.
‘Jesus,’ said one man. ‘What do we do, doc?’
‘Well,’ said Brack, ‘you can bet your boots there’s more victims here than this one man. This stuff spreads like the plague. There’s no hope for this man. When he goes, burn his possessions.’
‘But what about us?’
‘Every man for himself. I for one don’t aim to hang around here longer’n I have to.’
One of the men was running along the creek side t
rail, yelling : ‘Cholera ... cholera...’ Brack heard the cry taken up by a hundred different men.
He thought: I’ve done it. I shouldn’t wonder there won’t be a man here come dawn.
He returned to his horse. The Swede was following him, begging for medicine for his partner and Brack was saying there was nothing known to man that could save him. If the Swede had any sense, he’d high-tail out of there.
Just then a strange thing happened and for a moment, Brack sat his saddle in a state of utter puzzlement. Some insect seemed to whisper angrily past him. He heard a grunt and looked at the Swede. The man was walking slowly backward as if he were gradually losing his balance. He was holding his chest and from between his fingers there stuck a thin dark stick. Brack saw the feathers at the tip of it.
His mind screamed: Indians,
But Indians didn’t attack at night.
From across the water a man yelled. Swinging around in the saddle, Brack saw a horseman racing his mount into the shallows sending out a great cloud of spray. The rider was yelling. Firelight glittered on bright paint. Feathers fluttered. A gun banged and men were running.
Brack’s next thought was of flight. He spurred his horse back into the creek and started it across, then became aware that the Indian had turned in his direction. Men seemed to be shouting all around him. There were more Indians coming down off the ridge above them.
He pulled back the skirt of his coat and found the butt of his gun. Heaving it from leather, he cocked and fired. He knew that he missed as soon as he triggered and before he could cock the weapon a second time, the warrior was on him, the shoulder of his pony catching Brack’s horse broadside and driving it from its footing. The falling animal deposited Brack with an almighty splash in the water. He floundered for a moment and staggered to his feet, frighteningly aware that he had lost his gun. His horse was fighting to gain its feet, whinnying piteously.
Then the Indian was high above him, jumping his horse through the water. Brack saw the stone club making a downward arc and tried to dodge. The weapon missed his head and struck him heavily on his shoulder, knocking him headlong back into the water. He went down for so long that he thought he would never be able to fight his way to the surface. It was one of those awesome moments when the whole of a man’s life passes before his eyes. But finally he burst through the surface and, getting his feet uncertainly under him and gulping breath into his lungs, he thought only of escape.
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