by Hall, Billy
‘I’m fine!’ Sam fired back at his friend. ‘Let’s go home.’
He slowed his horse to a walk as Oz fell in beside him. ‘Thinkin’ about her again, huh?’
Several angry retorts fought against each other to be first released. Stifling them all, Sam sighed heavily. Instead of the first half dozen things that came to mind, he said, ‘You’d think I’d stop moonin’ about her and get on with things, wouldn’t you? It’s been over a month.’
‘You thought about goin’ back?’
Silence hung between the two close friends for a quarter of a mile. When Oz had nearly forgotten the question, Sam said, ‘It wouldn’t work. She’s the one that told me to hit the trail.’
Oz shook his head. ‘Yeah, but do you think she meant it?’
‘Why would she say it, if she didn’t mean it?’
‘She’s a woman.’
‘I was well aware of that. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Everything. Women are like that. They say all sorts of stuff they don’t mean when they get mad. Then they get done bein’ mad, they act like they never said it, and then they expect a fella to forget they said it too.’
Sam shook his head. ‘I ain’t built like that. Things like that ain’t that easy to forget.’
‘She ain’t either, I notice.’
Sam shot Oz a look that indicated his friend was treading dangerously close to forbidden ground, but he didn’t answer.
They were within a mile of the Rafter J headquarters when both of their heads jerked up. As one, they spotted a small cloud of dust. ‘Somethin’s up,’ Oz warned.
‘One rider,’ Sam responded.
‘Hurryin’ some.’
‘Wearin’ out a horse for sure.’
‘Your trouble or mine, you reckon?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Hard to tell. Hope it ain’t nothin’ big. I’m tired.’
‘Me too. That last bunch of steers were plumb ringy.’
The distant cloud of dust grew steadily closer. Both men studied it. ‘Anyone you know?’ Oz asked.
Sam frowned. ‘Looks like a guy I know, but it couldn’t be him. He’s up in Wyoming.’
‘If it’s him, I hope he ain’t run his horse like that the whole way.’
‘If he had, he’d have a dead horse. He’s a big man.’
‘Well, it’s a big man all right.’
Sam’s frown deepened. He swore. ‘It sure looks like him. C’mon.’
He touched his spurs to his horse and lifted to a canter, speeding their meeting with the mystery rider heading their way. Oz kept pace, glancing sideways at his friend with growing concern as he saw the question give way to certainty in Sam’s face.
It was only minutes later when Bartholomew Spalding reined in his spent and panting horse beside them. His words tumbled out as fast as he could force them. ‘Sam, you gotta get back there. Kate needs you. Russell’s finally figured out you ain’t there protectin’ her no more. He’s up to somethin’ and he’s hirin’ on gun hands an’ everything. He acts like he’s gettin’ ready to take on the whole country if he has to, to get that place o’ hers. Pa an’ Eddie’ll do all they can to keep him from it, but they can’t hold ’em off for long. Some of our hands are willin’ to jump in too, but not all of ’em. Some of ’em are just plumb scared, ’specially when Russell’s bringin’ in all them hardcases. You just gotta come back, Sam.’
‘Kate doesn’t want me,’ Sam responded, his voice much harsher than he intended.
Bart shook his head emphatically. ‘That there just ain’t so, Sam. Kate, she can’t hardly even talk to nobody without bawlin’ no more. I ain’t seen her since you left without her eyes bein’ all red an’ swelled up, like she’s been bawlin’ most o’ the time. Billy, he just sits around all the time, lookin’ like he lost his best friend. They ain’t sayin’ nothin’, on account o’ they get all weepy when they try to, but they’re both a-wantin’ you there somethin’ awful. And not just to protect ’em, neither. That there woman, she’s just plumb head over heels in love with you, Sam. That’s what my Ma says, an’ she’s a Mexican, you know. Mexicans, they understand stuff like that.’
‘You rode all the way down here just to tell me that?’
‘No, I rode all the way down here to find you and haul you back up there where you belong.’
‘How’d you find me?’
‘You told me where the ranch was, after we whupped up on them boys o’ Grede’s, remember?’
Sam sighed heavily. ‘Sometimes I talk too much.’
‘Well, you’re talkin’ too much now,’ Bart agreed. ‘You need to be grabbin’ your stuff so we can hit the road back to Wyoming.’
‘How long did it take you to get here?’
‘Two days.’
‘Two days? Didn’t you stop to eat or sleep?’
‘Nope. We ain’t got that much time. I’d ride a horse till he was pertneart ready to drop, then I’d stop at a ranch and swap horses and keep headin’ south. I ’spect we can swap horses at the same places on the way back, an’ we can be there day after tomorrow.’
‘That’d put you four days in the saddle without sleep.’
‘That don’t matter none. What matters is that we get back there afore it’s too late.
‘You forgot to stutter. What happened to your stutter?’
Bart grinned. ‘I d-d-don’t hardly stutter no more, ’cept when I’m thinkin’ about it.’
Oz spoke up for the first time. ‘I’ll go collect your time from Hap while you’re gettin’ your stuff together,’ he offered.
Sam jerked his attention to his friend. ‘I ain’t even said I was gonna go.’
‘You don’t need to. You’re goin’. You know it. I know it. You’re headin’ to Wyoming, and you ain’t never comin’ back to the Indian Nation. That’s just how it is.’
Sam glared at him a long moment before his look softened. ‘You comin’ with me?’
Oz pursed his lips thoughfully. ‘I just might do that,’ he said.
‘We could sure use you,’ Sam said, surprised at the gratitude and relief he heard in his own voice.
Bart’s face lit up as if the sun had just come out from under a cloud. ‘You mean you’re comin’? You’re really gonna come back with me? Eeeeehah!’
Bart threw his hat as high up in the air as he could throw it, causing his horse to shy and sidestep nervously. ‘You’re gonna spook your horse,’ Sam scolded. Bart grinned. ‘Aw, he’s too tired to spook much. He’s just about at the end of his rope. He needs a good rubdown an’ a bait of oats before he’d have energy enough to shy very hard.’
Sam returned the infectious grin of the youngster. ‘Oh, by the way, Oz, this here’s Bart Spalding. His family runs the H Bar V up in Wyoming. Bart, this is Oz Maguire. We been friends a while.’
Oz maneuvered his horse over where he could reach Bart, and held out a hand. ‘Bart, glad to meet you. Sam told me about you playin’ nine-pins with them fellas in the saloon.’
Bart frowned. ‘What’s nine-pins?’
‘Oh, that’s a game where you take a heavy ball and roll it into wooden pins standin’ up a ways off, and see how many you can knock over.’
‘Oh.’ Bart’s frown turned into another grin. ‘Yeah, I guess I did sorta do that, didn’t I?’
Sam lifted his reins impatiently. ‘If gettin’ back there is all that important, we’d best stop sittin’ here chinnin’ and get ready to hit the trail.’
As one they turned their horses toward the Rafter J, each lost in his own thoughts of what lay ahead.
CHAPTER 13
‘Looks quiet.’
‘Too quiet. The cattle we seen on the way in ain’t been bothered. The place looks normal. Nobody nosin’ around.’
‘You’re sure Russell’s up to somethin’, are you?’
‘All indications sure been pointin’ thataway.’
Sam, Bart Spalding and Oz Maguire sat their exhausted horses, looking down from a long ridge on to the site of Kate Bond�
��s ranch yard.
‘So what do we do now?’ Oz wondered.
Sam took in a deep breath. ‘Well, it looks like things are calm enough here. There ain’t no need to let them know I’m in the country.’
‘You ain’t gonna tell Kate you’re here?’
He shook his head. His lips were a thin, hard line beneath the coating of trail dust. ‘She don’t want anything to do with me. She made that real plain.’
‘Women say lots o’ things they don’t mean.’
‘They mean lots o’ the things they say, too. She didn’t leave no room for doubt. She don’t never wanta see me again.’
‘The boy don’t likely feel that way.’
‘I ain’t his say-so.’
Bart cleared his throat. ‘Like I think I tol’ you down there in the Indian Nation, I think she’s plumb sorry she said all that stuff. I’d bet anything I own she’d love to have a chance to take it back. But you gotta ride down there an’ let her know you’re here.’
Sam’s voice was flat and hard. ‘I don’t gotta do nothin’ o’ the kind. I’ll size up the situation, and figure out what needs done. I’ll take care of it. Then I’ll get outa this country just as fast as I rode back into it.’
‘Yeah, that’s why we just wore out five sets o’ horses an’ went two nights without sleep to get here in a hurry,’ Oz said with an exaggerated drawl.
Bart squirmed uncomfortably in his saddle. ‘I been five nights with pertneart no sleep,’ he reminded the others. ‘I’m headin’ home to bed. Oz, you’re welcome to hole up in our bunkhouse till Sam figures out what we’re doin’ next. Sam, if you’re gonna be too bullheaded to go tell your woman you love her, you’d just as well hole up in the bunkhouse too.’
Oz nodded. ‘Then let’s go. I’m too old to run this long without sleep, an’ I only rode half as far as you have.’
There was no response from Sam. The other two reined their horses around, urging them to a tired trot, leaving Sam to study the ranch yard alone. It was supper time. A thin tendril of smoke issued from the chimney. The smell of something frying in a skillet wafted on the breeze. Irritation surged at the sudden churning of his stomach the aroma aroused. Greater irritation overcame it because of the intense ache in his chest he could not stifle. It got tighter and tighter, until he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. Cursing softly, he lifted his reins and turned the horse away from the yard, following the others.
His horse responded reluctantly, for a moment the weary beast had sensed the end of a long trail. As they approached the familiar yard he whinnied a response to the greeting from Billy’s horse in the corral. Now he was being forced to leave that sanctuary and its promise of rest to follow the others. He was less than happy with the situation.
His emotional turmoil was nothing compared to Sam’s. His stomach was constricted into a hard knot. A lump in his throat made swallowing difficult. He felt as if he bore a five hundred pound weight on his shoulders. A gaping hole ached in the center of his chest.
Everything in him screamed for him to turn back around, race for the house, throw open the door, announce his return, and pray Kate would be happy to see him. After all, Bart might be right. She just might have been as miserable as he since they separated. She might be wanting him to come back. She might.…
He snuffed the thoughts before they could become any more unbearable. She had made her wishes perfectly clear. She didn’t want to see him again. But he couldn’t stay in the Indian Nation and just leave her in the peril Bart had described. He had to deal with those trying to steal her land and her security. His love would not allow him to do otherwise. When he had done so, he would leave. Only later would she learn who had rescued her. If she stewed over that, well, so be it. It was no more than she deserved, running him off her place for no reason.
CHAPTER 14
‘Whatd’ya reckon it is?’
Sam replied, ‘I ain’t got any idea. It’s been about the same every day since I been back.’
Oz Maguire, Bart Spalding, Eduardo Spalding and Sam Heller stood in H Bar V ranch yard, studying the distant cloud of dust.
Eduardo and Bart glanced at each other, silently communicating as only brothers can. As they looked at the cloud of dust, they looked at each other, and both understood perfectly the other’s assessment of the trouble it bode.
‘It’s gotta be pretty close to the crick,’ Bart observed.
‘Spring Crick?’ Oz asked.
Both of the Spaldings nodded as with one mind.
‘Then we’d best be checkin’ it out,’ Oz suggested.
‘Sooner rather than later,’ Sam agreed. ‘We’ve waited too long already.’
Bart came to Sam’s defense immediately. ‘We really needed time to check out all of Kate’s cows and horses,’ he offered, ‘just to make sure Russell or Grede wasn’t runnin’ ’em off.’
‘Besides,’ Eduardo added, ‘you needed to have some time to think of the beautiful woman waiting there for you, whenever you get lonesome enough to not be so stubborn.’
Then he added, his eyes twinkling mischievously, ‘If you were to decide such a thing, Billy would be most happy to visit at our ranch for a week or two, so the two of you could have your honeymoon.’
Sam shot a glaring look at Eduardo, but declined to answer. He said only, ‘I’ll get my horse saddled.’
Fifteen minutes later the quartet left the ranch yard at a swift trot. The farther they rode, the more ominous the persistent cloud of dust became. It remained in that one spot, drifting slowly away on the wind, but constantly replaced by new quantities of dust arising.
An hour and a half later, Oz opined, ‘It looks like it’s comin’ from just behind this next ridge.’
‘Spring Crick runs down that valley,’ Bart explained. ‘It runs on to your place – uh, I mean Kate’s place – about five miles down.’
Sam nodded, pretending not to notice the verbal slip. ‘Let’s tie our horses in that bunch of aspens, and we’ll slip up on top and have a look-see.’
Moving as swiftly as silence would allow, they walked in a crouch, then crawled as they neared the crest of the hill. At its crest, each removed his hat and slipped behind rocks or scrub brush, where he could see the scene below.
That scene most closely resembled a massive mining operation, or a road-building project. The valley through which Spring Crick flowed narrowed to less than a mile at that point. Its sides steepened, forming almost vertical walls more than a hundred and fifty feet high. Both above and below the spot, the valley widened again, making this the narrowest spot in many miles of the stream’s course.
Massive amounts of dirt had been and were being scraped from the surrounding prairie. Teams pulling slips scraped up, dragged, then dumped their loads of dirt in a never-ending procession. The dirt was forming a dike, more than two hundred feet wide at the bottom, that already reached more than fifty feet from the valley floor. Only in the center, where Spring Crick flowed, was the ground left at its original level. The stream still flowed unhindered, but they were clearly within a day or two of filling in that center portion as well.
‘They’re building a dam,’ Eduardo muttered.
‘They’re leavin’ the crick run normal, till they get the rest of it built. Then they can fill in the spot in the middle, and shut it off and make a lake.’
‘A humdinger of a big one,’ Oz agreed. ‘If they keep buildin’ clear to the top o’ the valley, it’ll make a dam a hundred and fifty feet deep and back up water for more’n ten miles. That’s high enough to dam up that crick for two or three years before the water reaches the top.’
‘Long enough to dry Kate plumb out,’ Sam reasoned aloud, ‘and everyone else down that crick.’
‘That’s what’s goin’ on, just as sure as blizzards are cold,’ Eduardo gritted, the anger in his voice evident in his hushed tones.
Bart inserted, ‘And since it’s the crick and all the beaver dams and such that spreads the water out and waters the whole valley, it’ll
make that whole place as dry as the high plateaus. Everybody downstream will get left with no hay meadows, no winter grass, no year-round runnin’ water, no nothin’.’
‘So who’s doin’ it?’ Sam asked.
Bart answered instantly, ‘Russell. All the brands I can see on the horses an’ mules is his.’
‘Is this land he’s got a patent on?’
‘Nope. He runs cows on it, but it’s gov’ment range.’
‘Then he doesn’t have a legal right to build the dam.’
‘There’s no way that he could have.’
‘But what are you gonna do ’bout it,’ Oz pondered. ‘We can’t go ridin’ down there an’ shoot a dam.’
‘There is a territorial government. You could find a lawyer and take him to court,’ Bart suggested. ‘The judge comes to Laramie often enough, you could get a court order to stop him.’
Eduardo snorted. ‘Courts and judges are a waste of time and money. By the time the territorial courts and the fancy lawyers and politicians get done with all their word games, the valley will be without water for three years.’
‘Let’s ease back outa here and get back to the horses,’ Sam suggested.
Accordingly, the four backed slowly away from their concealment, staying below the crest of the ridge until they were well past any danger of being seen. Then they stood and walked back to the horses.
‘I think we should pay a visit to the Rocking R, and put some holes in Lance Russell,’ Eduardo suggested.
‘That’s tempting,’ Sam offered qualified agreement. ‘The problem is, then we’d be the ones on the wrong side of the law.’
‘That’s gotta be costin’ an arm and a leg, hirin’ all them workers and all,’ Oz observed. ‘Does Russell have that kinda money?’
Bart and Eduardo looked at each other, then both shrugged at the same time. Bart brought another possibility into the discussion. ‘I think he’s stretched himself out too thin to have that kind of cash, but Grede does. Maybe Russell’s talked him into throwin’ in with him.’
‘Or providing the money and letting Russell take all the risk,’ Eduardo offered. ‘Then, since it’s illegal, he can have charges filed against Russell after he has dried that woman you say you don’t want out of her ranch.’
