Mart said in a low voice so the others couldn’t hear: ‘I know you, Dwyer, an’ I know Brack. You’re both trash. You touch anybody in this family and I’ll come after you. I won’t do it nice like my brother would. It’ll be a bullet in the dark. Don’t get one single fancy idea.’
Dwyer felt himself shaking with rage. Not since he had first buckled on a gun had any man spoken to him this way.
Through his teeth, he said: ‘You don’t scare me, Storm.’
It was childish, but he was brought down to his most elemental feelings.
Mart smiled gently.
‘You’d best be scared,’ he said. ‘Oh, my God, you’d best be.’
Dwyer’s face was transformed. The cheeks seemed to shrink. His lips thinned and drew back from his teeth like the snarl of a wolf. He didn’t say a word, but turned and got shaking into the saddle. He rode away without a backward look.
Mart walked back to the others.
‘A right gentlemanly fellow,’ Martha said.
‘Real handsome,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t know when I saw a handsomer man.’
Will nodded amiably.
‘He had our interests at heart, he said and only Mart and Joe caught the irony in his voice. ‘Ridin’ a real fancy piece of horseflesh.’
Joe propped his rifle against the wagon and picked up an axe. Mart went to hefting stones for the chimney. He prided himself on his building of chimneys.
Will stood thinking for a while. He knew they were in danger. Anybody on Brack land was in danger. He knew that he could be endangering his women. But surely not even a man like Brack would harm a woman. Not in the west. If he did, every man’s hand would turn against him.
Kate sat on a log and thought about Charlie Dwyer. He sure was handsome.
Chapter Four
Not unnaturally, they built a Texas house. Two separate houses with one roof, a dog-trot in between. They got through a good deal of hard work before winter set in and Kate and her mother worked along with the men. It was really miraculous the way everything fitted in. They had their house finished and the hay in before the first flurry of snow came sweeping up the valley as a herald of the hard weather to come. Not only that, but there was time for Will to make the long hard haul into Denver to stake a claim on the land and to bring back supplies. It was taking a risk, but all voted that it was something that had to be done. While he was gone, they all stayed close to the house, except for Joe who occasionally went into the hills for fresh meat.
They saw not a soul. Joe scouted the valley every day looking for sign, but he said that nobody had come into the valley to spy on the place.
A day before Will returned from Denver, however, late in the day, they were disturbed by the bawling of cattle and the valley was invaded by cattle. With them came some half-dozen cowhands. They snowed some interest in the house and some came within rifle-shot to stare at it, but none approached near enough to speak. They seemed satisfied to have brought their charges into a sheltered valley. It appeared that they all rode away into the north.
Mart was delighted with Broken Spur so conveniently bringing them fresh beef for the winter. He lived by the old Texas axiom that a cowman who ate his own beef was pretty short on sense. Martha told him not to be a fool and not to invite trouble from the cattlemen, but he only laughed. One day one of those cows was going to stray and then they would have fresh beef all they wanted. If Brack wanted a culprit, there were cow-thieves in the hills and there were Indians. Joe seemed to take the same attitude and said that if there was going to be any beef-lifting around there, let a master do the job.
The snow was starting to lay in earnest when Will returned with a well-laden wagon just as Martha was starting to worry. He came back through a snow-strewn world and found the valley beautiful in a new way. The fact that the place was full of cows did not disturb him in any way. It interested him. It would be useful having them there. Now he could learn how the Texas longhorn throve in such a climate. He laughingly agreed that they would all eat good Texas beef that winter.
He and the other two men unloaded the wagon and carried the supplies into the house. He had really enjoyed himself in Denver. They all plied him with questions, wanting to know what the city was like, what he had done while he was there. Apparently, he had luxuriated in the experience of being able to spend money. After the years of poverty, he had his pockets full of money. They had sold the herd well in Abilene and he had all that was left after he had given Clay enough for the trip back home.
The heavy iron stove he had bought Martha was carried with great difficulty into the house and Martha exclaimed in delight.
‘That ain’t nothin’, honey,’ Will told her. ‘You wait an’ see.’
Boxes, barrels, sacks were all carried into the house and laid out neatly. Here there was powder and shot, so necessary for defense and maintenance. There were presents for Melissa. Enraptured, the girl threw her arms around her father, almost crying with delight. Will had meant to leave her to the last, but he didn’t have the heart. Everybody was soft with Melissa. There were a couple of dresses for Kate.
‘You should of come with me, Katie,’ Will apologized. ‘I reckon buying doodads for young ladies ain’t my strong point.’
Two dresses and a shawl for Martha. Exclamations of delight from mother and daughter that may or may not have been sincere. Any road, Will glowed.
Tobacco for Mart and Joe. They clutched at their presents eagerly. They had been anticipating this for days. Joe started chewing right off, unable to wait.
There was whisky. The three men took a drink. It was just like it was a feast day. Everybody seemed to be laughing. Will started checking off the supplies from the list he and Martha had drawn up between them - flour, sugar, cans of tomatoes, even some potatoes. The prices in that city, Will cried. The sooner they started to grow stuff around here the better. If they went on this way they’d be broke in a year.
Martha couldn’t prevent herself from starting to cook. She had been working on strict rations for too long. She baked them an apple pie made from dried apples. The place was full of dramatic aromas. The men couldn’t wait. Kate tried on her new dresses and showed herself off. The men clapped her.
Somehow Will had managed to buy a sewing machine. He left it till last. It was his trump card. Martha had to leave her cooking to try it. It was the success of the day. Will had brought cotton-stuff for curtains and he demanded that she get down to making them on the very next day and make this place really look like home.
Then they ate the biggest meal they’d eaten in all their lives and lay back in their home-made chairs and groaned and reckoned that they really had made their home in this valley now.
That night when they lay in their little partitioned room, alone it seemed for the first time in a great many months, Martha took Will’s hand and said: ‘I haven’t felt like this since the day we were married. You know what I mean, Will?’
‘I know what you mean, girl. Somehow, we ain’t beat no more, We have a chance.’
There was silence between them for a moment, then Martha said: ‘It’s going to be all right here, isn’t it?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s goin’ to be all right. I guarantee it.’
It was a long, hard winter. And when they weren’t eating the ever-harder to find game Joe brought in, they ate good Broken Spur beef through all those hard months. Will reasoned that if he had any cows in the valley, Broken Spur would be eating his. It was the way it went.
The wolves were hungry and they came down from the hills at night, prowling around the place, sniffing at the door. This scared Melissa a little. Joe laid traps and caught a few for their pelts. He caught rabbits besides and they were a useful and tasty addition to their diet. Once a bear came sniffing at the door and the following day Joe and Mart trailed it back into deep timber and shot it. They skinned it and promised it to Martha for her bed. It was a grizzly and Joe reckoned it was the biggest he had ever seen. Joe was an enthusiastic hunter and promised that he
would have both Kate and Melissa warm as bugs at night. There hardly seemed a day that he didn’t come back with the pelt of some animal or other. He kept his word and the two girls slept snug.
The snow fell day after day. The drifts grew so deep that Will gave up going out to see how the cows were making out. A man could disappear into a drift. The snow piled high against the house, so the men had to each day dig a path to the dog-trot where they had the meat hanging. The cold became intense and they found that they hadn’t cut enough wood to last them through the winter. Every day the men were in timber cutting fresh supplies. It gave them much wanted exercise. For warmth, Mart and Joe who had lived in the other half of the house, moved into the part used by Will, Martha and the girls. They were snug enough inside.
They invented games to pass the time, they told tales, they sang, Martha and the girls sewed. They inevitably got on each other’s nerves at times, but they survived. They ate well enough and they all waited for spring.
All the time, Will waited for spring. So did Mart. The two brothers hadn’t talked about it much, but they both knew the kind of man they were up against in Dwyer. Brack would have been enough, but Brack with a hammer-like Dwyer would be pure poison.
Maybe, Will thought often enough during those long cold months, he had been crazy to stay here. Maybe Dwyer had been right and he should have moved on into the south a few miles. What was a few miles?
I’m stubborn, Will told himself, and I’m maybe endangering Martha and the girls with my stubbornness.
But there was no doubt in Mart. He was open about it to Will. He didn’t like being pushed. He had as much right to be here as any man and here he was staying. Let Will take the girls out of here if he wanted. He was staying put and he’d take a bet that Joe would stay here along with him.
Will didn’t doubt that. They were both a couple of damned mules.
They waited till they heard the ice cracking in the creek. There began the steady drip-drip of the melting snow from the roof of the house. The sod roof also steadily began to leak. It was a pleasure to get out into the open even only to get away from water down your neck.
Outside, the air was like wine and as heady. Will borrowed Joe’s snow-shoes and walked out into the valley, looking at the cattle. There were maybe some of them lying dead in drifts, but there were a hell of a lot of them still walking around and pawing the snow for the grass beneath. They didn’t look in great shape, but they were still alive and that was more than he expected. It raised his hopes. It showed that cattle could be raised in this place. They’d make a go of it yet. It wouldn’t be too long before Clay and the boys came up the trail from Texas with a fresh herd. He’d show that bastard Brack that he wasn’t the only sonovabitch that could raise cattle around here. He found that his thoughts were getting pugnacious.
Maybe, he thought, when he saw Charlie Dwyer and his riders come down into the valley, he wouldn’t feel quite so tough about things.
The sky was blue and the sun was up, warming the earth. The towering impressive ramparts of the Rockies shouldered the heavens. By God, he thought, he’d never seen such a country. Never thought to live in such a place in his wildest dreams.
He was reluctant to go back to the house. He just wanted to stay out here and savor it all. But he slowly made his way back, planning.
The thaw hadn’t come too soon. Their supplies of hay were running low and the horses had scattered out, cropping the lower branches of the trees. They were ganted down. Their own food situation wasn’t anything to boast of, though there was no shortage of beef. Thanks to Brack.
A week later, after the thaw had stopped and a slight freeze had started again and then once more the snow had consented to melt, patches of green started to show across the valley. It wouldn’t be long now before the horses were fattening on grass. Mart and Joe agreed that it would be some weeks before Dwyer would think it time to pull his cows out on to higher ground. The snow was still thick up there.
Will gambled on another trip to Denver. The horses didn’t have much pull in them, but they would have to do. This time, he sent Mart, for he wanted Mart to stake claim to land slightly north of his claim here on the creek. Later he would send all the boys in, sons and crew included and have them stake claims. He was going to get all the land he could, while he could.
While Mart was gone, a party of Indians drifted out of the hills. They had wintered there and had been on a winter hunt. They had women and children along and they weren’t looking for trouble. Just the same, Will kept his eyes on the remaining horses. They had a half-breed with them who seemed a nice enough fellow and he told the Storms that they were Arapaho and were going to head back on to the plains for the buffalo. Their medicine was good and they expected a good hunt.
Martha thought they looked a pretty wretched bunch and were not at all like the mighty Plains Indians she had heard so much about. They did indeed behave like beggars and when they could they stole any small article lying around the place. Will caught them at it once or twice and, through the half-breed, had a serious talk with their chief, whose name, he gathered, was Running Deer. He looked more like a broken-down nag than a Running Deer to Will. The chief said they would stay there by the creek for a few days and he gave his guarantee that his young men would touch nothing belonging to the whites, but it did so happen that they were mighty low on powder and ball after hunting through the winter and nothing would sweeten his attitude to the whites so much as a twist of tobacco. Will gave them the powder and ball they wanted, found the old man a twist of tobacco and fed the whole bunch of Indians. Martha grumbled that they had scarcely enough food for themselves, but Will said there was plenty of beef around.
Running Deer warmed to them. He made them presents of several pairs of beautifully worked moccasins which pleased Martha greatly. They departed on the fourth day on the best of terms, saying that they didn’t doubt that they would meet up again in the fall.
‘You started somethin’ now,’ Joe said. ‘You sure find yourself feedin’ every damn Indian this side of the Rockies.’
It was not until the snow-line had receded and the higher pastures were revealed in their fresh green that the Broken Spur crowd rode into the valley to collect their cows and drive them up to summer pasture. By this time, Mart was back from Denver. One moment they had the valley to themselves with the stillness all around them and the next the whole place seemed full of yipping, rope-twirling cowboys. The Storms stayed close to their house, watching. They were wary, but at this stage they need not have worried. It seemed that the riders had been ordered to stay clear of them. Once or twice a curious youngster rode to within rifle-shot of them and looked them over, but they made no move to interfere with the newcomers.
‘They’ll do it safely in numbers,’ Mart said. ‘Broken Spur has a whole heap of riders, I shouldn’t wonder, and they’ll come in here and over-awe us.’
Joe grinned.
‘This nigger sure do over-awe easy,’ he said.
Will wasn’t a man for taking chances when they didn’t have to be taken. He decided that when Broken Spur rode in here, the advantage would all be on his side. The cowhands would be mounted and exposed. He would have them covered even before they started making their threats. He would go out and talk with them, he said, while Mart and Joe took up strong positions. The women would get in the house and stay there. That would be the first round to the Storms. The second round was another matter.
He saw that he, Mart and Joe should know the country better than they did. He rode out himself through the hills, recording details that would be useful to him and had Mart and Joe ride out on several occasions to get a good feel of the land. Each of them were able to get a good look at Dwyer’s headquarters. When the second round of the fight came, Will knew that knowledge would come in useful. Each of them was to go carefully and avoid all contact with Broken Spur. They all managed that, though it wasn’t too easy. They rode the high ridges and they tucked away information in the way that men who
seldom read or write are able.
At night, by the light of the lamp, Will drew maps of the country and he made move and counter-move in theory till he knew the surrounding hills as well as he knew the brasada at home.
On the day Broken Spur arrived, the weather had turned warm and pleasant. The valley looked a picture, a green land to be coveted. They came openly and they came in force, slowly riding down the centre of the valley, making no attempt at concealment. Dwyer showed his misplaced confidence right off.
When he saw them at a distance, Will had to admit to himself that he had misgivings. There were more than a dozen of them and that made the odds a little discomforting for any man. It was Joe who spotted them coming on over the pass and Will had a good thirty minutes’ warning before they even came in sight. By the time they were headed for the house, the women were inside, Mart and Joe were under cover with their rifles.
There had been some difference of opinion about the way they should play the few cards they held. Mart had wanted to play it rough from the start, opining that a dead man was a mighty sobering sight. With one of their number drilled clean, he claimed, some of those boys would be mighty discouraged. They thought they were faced by a pushover. Disillusion them before one of the Storms got his. Joe was inclined to agree with him. Every man serving the brand reckoned the Storms would run at a show of force. Gunplay was the last thing they had in mind.
No, Will said, there were other ways of showing a man you weren’t easily took without killing him. He talked long and earnestly to the other two. They didn’t want a war on their hands if they could avoid it. Bad blood had a way of persisting. They had a future here and two outfits couldn’t live alongside each other with bad blood between them.
Mart said: ‘You ever know when Brack didn’t have bad blood between him and his neighbors?’
There was truth in what Mart said and Will had to admit it, but just for now they’d play it his way.
Riders West Page 4
