“No … only a scratch.” He put aside her detaining hand. “Wait. I’ll talk to your dad first.” His hands dropped to hers, and, as she looked up, startled at his touch, he said gravely and sincerely: “No matter what happens now, I want you to know that I’ve loved you since the day we met. I’ve thought of little else, believe that.” He dropped her hands then and stepped past her into the huge room where Gray Bowen waited, his big body relaxed in a homemade chair of cowhide.
Rose Martin was there, too, and her tall, handsome son Lee. Jim’s eyes avoided them for he knew what their faces were like; he knew the quiet serenity of Rose Martin’s face, masking a cunning as cold and calculating as her son’s flaming temper. It was these two who were destroying the B Bar, they who had brought the big ranch to the verge of a deadly range war by their conniving, a war that could have begun this morning, but for him.
Even as he began to speak, he knew his words would put him right where they wanted him, that when he had finished, he would be through here, and Gray Bowen and his daughter would be left unguarded to the machinations of this woman and her son. Yet he could no longer refrain from speaking. The lives of men depended on it.
Bowen’s lips thinned when he saw the blood. “You’ve seen Katrishen? Had a run-in with him?”
“No.” Sandifer’s eyes blazed. “There’s no harm in Katrishen if he’s left alone. No trouble unless we make it. I ask you to recall, Gray, that for two years we’ve lived at peace with the Katrishens. We have had no trouble until the last three months.” He paused, hoping the idea would soak in that trouble had begun with the coming of the Martins. “He won’t give us any trouble if we leave him alone.”
“Leave him alone to steal our range!” Lee Martin flared.
Sandifer’s eyes swung. “Our range? Are you now a partner in the B Bar?”
Lee smiled, covering his slip. “Naturally, as I am a friend of Mister Bowen’s, I think of his interests as mine.”
Bowen waved an impatient hand. “That’s no matter. What happened?”
Here it was, then. The end of all his dreaming, his planning, his hoping. “It wasn’t Katrishen. It was Klee Mont.”
“Who?” Bowen came out of his chair with a lunge, veins swelling. “Mont shot you? What for? Why, in heaven’s name?”
“Mont was over there with the Mello boys and Art Dunn. He had gone over to run the Katrishens off their Iron Creek holdings. If they had tried that, they would have started a first-class range war with no holds barred. I stopped them.”
Rose Martin flopped her knitting in her lap and glanced up at him, smiling smugly. Lee began to roll a smoke, one eyebrow lifted. This was what they had wanted, for he alone had blocked them here. The others the Martins could influence, but not Jim Sandifer.
Bowen’s eyes glittered with his anger. He was a choleric man, given to sudden bursts of fury, a man who hated being thwarted and who was impatient of all restraint. “You stopped them? Did they tell you whose orders took them over there? Did they?”
“They did. I told them to hold off until I could talk with you, but Mont refused to listen. He said his orders had been given him and he would follow them to the letter.”
“He did right!” Bowen’s voice boomed in the big room. “Exactly right! And you stopped them? You countermanded my orders?”
“I did.” Sandifer laid it flatly on the line. “I told them there would be no burning or killing while I was foreman. I told them they weren’t going to run us into a range war for nothing.”
Gray Bowen balled his big hands into fists. “You’ve got a gall, Jim. You know better than to countermand an order of mine. And you’ll leave me to decide what range I need. Katrishen’s got no business on Iron Creek, an’ I told him so. Told him to get off an’ get out. As for this range war talk, that’s foolishness. He won’t fight.”
“Putting them off would be a very simple matter,” Lee Martin interposed quietly. “If you hadn’t interfered, Sandifer, they would be off now and the whole matter settled.”
“Settled nothing!” Jim exploded. “Where did you get this idea that Bill Katrishen could be pushed around? The man was an officer in the Army during the war, and he’s fought Indians on the plains.”
“You must be a great friend of his,” Rose Martin said gently. “You know so much about him.”
The suggestion was there, and Gray Bowen got it. He stopped in his pacing, and his face was like a rock. “You been talkin’ with Katrishen? You sidin’ that outfit?”
“This is my outfit. I ride for the brand,” Sandifer replied. “I know Katrishen, of course. I’ve talked to him.”
“And to his daughter?” Lee suggested, his eyes bright with malice. “With his pretty daughter?”
Out of the tail of his eye Jim saw Elaine’s head come up quickly, but he ignored Lee’s comment. “Stop and think,” he said to Bowen. “When did this trouble start? When Missus Martin and her son came here. You got along fine with Katrishen until then. They’ve been putting you up to this.”
Bowen’s eyes narrowed. “That will be enough of that!” he said sharply. He was really furious now, not the flaring, hot fury that Jim knew so well, but a cold, hard anger that nothing could touch. For the first time Jim realized how futile any argument was going to be. Rose Martin and her son had insinuated themselves too much and too well into the picture of Gray Bowen’s life.
“You wanted my report,” Sandifer said quietly. “Mont wouldn’t listen to my arguments for time. He said he had his orders and would take none from me. I told him then that if he rode forward it was against my gun. He laughed at me, then reached for his gun. I shot him.”
Gray Bowen’s widened eyes expressed his amazement. “You shot Mont? You beat him to the draw?”
“That’s right. I didn’t want to kill him, but I shot the gun out of his hand and held my gun on him for a minute to let him know what it meant to be close to death. Then I started them back here.”
Bowen’s anger was momentarily swallowed by his astonishment. He recalled suddenly that in the three years Sandifer had worked for him there had been no occasion for him to draw a gun in anger. There had been a few brushes with Apaches and one with rustlers, but all rifle work. Klee Mont was a killer with seven known killings on his record and had been reputed to be the fastest gun hand west of the Río Grande.
“It seems peculiar,” Mrs. Martin said composedly, “for you to turn your gun on men who ride for Mister Bowen, taking sides against him. No doubt you meant well, but it does seem strange.”
“Not if you know the Katrishens,” Jim replied grimly. “Bill was assured he could settle on that Iron Creek holding before he moved in. He was told that we made no claim on anything beyond Willow and Gilita Creeks.”
“Who,” Lee insinuated, “assured him of that?”
“I did,” Jim said coolly. “Since I’ve been foreman, we’ve never run any cattle beyond that boundary. Iron Mesa is a block that cuts us off from the country south of there, and the range to the east is much better and is open for us clear to Beaver Creek and south to the Middle Fork.”
“So you decide what range will be used? I think for a hired hand you take a good deal of authority. Personally I’m wondering how much your loyalty is divided. Or if it is divided. It seems to me you act more as a friend of the Katrishens … or their daughter.”
Sandifer took a step forward. “Martin,” he said evenly, “are you aiming to say that I’d double-cross the boss? If you are, you’re a liar.”
Bowen looked up, a chill light in his eyes that Sandifer had never seen there before. “That will be all, Jim. You better go.”
Sandifer turned on his heel and strode outside.
*
When Sandifer walked into the bunkhouse, the men were already back. The room was silent, but he was aware of the hatred in the cold, blue eyes of Mont as he lay sprawled in his bunk. His right hand and wrist were bandaged. The Mello boys snored in their bunks, while Art Dunn idly shuffled cards at the table. These were th
e new hands, hired since the coming of the Martins. Only three of the older hands were in, and none of them spoke.
“Hello … lucky.” Mont rolled up on his elbow. “Lose your job?”
“Not yet,” Jim said shortly, aware that his remark brought a fleeting anger to Mont’s eyes.
“You will,” Mont assured him. “If you are in the country when this hand gets well, I’ll kill you.”
Jim Sandifer laughed shortly. He was aware that the older hands were listening, although none would have guessed it without knowing them.
“You called me lucky, Klee. It was you who were lucky in that I didn’t figure on killing you. That was no miss. I aimed for your gun hand. Furthermore, don’t try pulling a gun on me again. You’re too slow.”
“Slow?” Mont’s face flamed. He reared up in his bunk. “Slow? Why, you two-handed bluffer!”
Sandifer shrugged. “Look at your hand,” he said calmly. “If you don’t know what happened, I do. That bullet didn’t cut your thumb off. It doesn’t go up your hand or arm. The wound runs across your hand.”
They all knew what he meant. Sandifer’s bullet must have hit his hand as he was in the act of drawing and before the gun came level, indicating that Sandifer had beaten Mont to the draw by a safe margin. That Klee Mont realized the implication was plain, for his face darkened and then paled around the lips. There was pure hatred in his eyes when he looked up at Sandifer.
“I’ll kill you,” he said viciously. “I’ll kill you.”
As Sandifer started outside, Rep Dean followed him. With Grimes and Sparkman, he was one of the older hands.
“What’s come over this place, Jim? Six months ago there wasn’t a better spread in the country.” Sandifer did not reply, and Dean built a smoke. “It’s that woman,” he said. “She twists the boss around her little finger. If it wasn’t for you, I’d quit, but I’m thinkin’ that there’s nothin’ she wouldn’t like better than for all of the old hands to ask for their time.”
Sparkman and Grimes had followed them from the bunkhouse. Sparkman was a lean-bodied Texan with some reputation as an Indian fighter.
“You watch your step,” Grimes warned. “Next time Mont will back-shoot you!”
They talked among themselves, and, as they conversed, Sandifer ran his thoughts over the developments of the past few months. He had heard enough of Mrs. Martin’s sly, insinuating remarks to understand how she had worked Bowen up to ordering Katrishen driven off, yet there was no apparent motive. It seemed obvious that the woman had her mind set on marrying Gray Bowen, but for that it was not essential that any move be made against the Katrishens.
Sandifer’s limitation of the B Bar range had been planned for the best interests of the ranch. The range they now had in use was bounded by streams and mountain ranges and was rich in grass and water, a range easily controlled with a small number of hands and with little danger of loss from raiding Indians, rustlers, or varmints. His willingness to have the Katrishens move in on Iron Creek was not without the B Bar in mind. He well knew that range lying so much out of the orbit of the ranch could not be long held tenantless, and the Katrishens were stable, honest people who would make good neighbors and good allies. Thinking back, he could remember almost to the day when the first rumors began to spread, and most of them had stemmed from Lee Martin himself. Later, one of the Mello boys had come in with a bullet hole in the crown of his hat and a tale of being fired on from Iron Mesa.
“What I can’t figure out,” Grimes said, “is what that no-account Lee Martin would be doin’ over on the Turkeyfeather.”
Sandifer turned his head. “On the Turkeyfeather? That’s beyond Iron Mesa. Why, that’s clear over the other side of Katrishen’s.”
“Sure enough. I was huntin’ that brindle steer who’s always leadin’ stock off into the cañons when I seen Martin fordin’ the Willow. He was ridin’ plumb careful, an’ he sure wasn’t playin’ no tenderfoot then. I was right wary of him, so I took in behind an’ trailed him over to that rough country near Turkeyfeather Pass. Then I lost him.”
The door slammed up at the house, and they saw Lee Martin come down the steps and start toward them. It was dusk, but still light enough to distinguish faces. Martin walked up to Sandifer.
“Here’s your time.” He held out an envelope. “You’re through.”
“I’ll want that from Bowen himself,” Sandifer replied stiffly.
“He doesn’t want to see you. He sent this note.” Martin handed over a sheet of the coarse brown paper on which Bowen kept his accounts. On it, in Bowen’s hand, was his dismissal.
I won’t have a man who won’t obey orders. Leave tonight.
Sandifer stared at the note, which he could barely read in the dim light. He had worked hard for the B Bar, and this was his answer.
“All right,” he said briefly. “Tell him I’m leaving. It won’t take any great time to saddle up.”
Martin laughed. “That won’t take time, either. You’ll walk out. No horse leaves this ranch.”
Jim turned back, his face white. “You keep out of this, Martin. That buckskin is my own horse. You get back in your hole and stay there.”
Martin stepped closer. “Why, you cheap bigmouth!”
The blow had been waiting for a long time, but it came fast now. It was a smashing left that caught Martin on the chin and spilled him on his back in the dust. With a muttered curse, Martin came off the ground and rushed, but Sandifer stepped in, blocking a right and whipping his own right into Lee’s mid-section. Martin doubled over, and Jim straightened him with a left uppercut, and then knocked him crashing into the corral fence.
Abruptly Sandifer turned and threw the saddle on the buckskin.
“Dammit, I’m quittin’, too!” Sparkman said.
“An’ me!” Grimes snapped. “I’ll be dog-goned if I’ll work here now.”
Heavily Martin got to his feet. His white shirt was bloody, and they could vaguely see a blotch of blood over the lower part of his face. He limped away, muttering.
“Sparky,” Jim said, low-voiced, “don’t quit. All of you stay on. I reckon this fight ain’t over, an’ the boss may need a friend. You stick here. I’ll not be far off.”
Sandifer had no plan, yet it was Lee Martin’s ride to the Turkeyfeather that puzzled him most, and almost of its own volition his horse took that route. As he rode, he turned the problem over and over in his mind, seeking for a solution, yet none appeared that was satisfactory. Revenge for some old grudge against the Katrishens was considered and put aside; he could not but feel that whatever the reason for the plotting of the Martins, there had to be profit in it somewhere.
Certainly there seemed little to prevent Rose Martin from marrying Gray Bowen if she wished. The old man was well aware that Elaine was a lovely, desirable girl. The cowhands and other male visitors who came to call for one excuse or another were evidence of that. She would not be with him long, and, if she left, he was faced with the dismal prospect of ending his years alone. Rose Martin was a shrewd woman and attractive for her years, and she knew how to make Gray comfortable and how to appeal to him. Yet, obviously, there was something more in her mind than this, and it was that something more in which Sandifer was interested.
Riding due east, Jim crossed Iron Mesa and turned west by south through the broken country. It was very late, and vague moonlight filtered through the yellow pine and fir that guarded the way he rode with their tall columns. Twice he halted briefly, feeling a strange uneasiness, yet listen as he might, he could detect no alien sound, nothing but the faint stirring of the slight breeze through the needles of the pines and the occasional rustle of a blown leaf. He rode on, but now he avoided the bright moonlight and kept more to the deep shadows under the trees.
After skirting the end of the Jerky Mountains, he headed for Turkeyfeather Pass. Somewhere off to his left, lost against the blackness of the ridge shadow, a faint sound came to him. He drew up, listening. He did not hear it again, yet his senses could not have li
ed. It was the sound of a dead branch scraping along leather, such a sound as might be made by a horseman riding through brush.
Sliding his Winchester from its scabbard, he rode forward, every sense alert. His attention was drawn to the buckskin, whose ears were up and who, when he stopped, lifted his head and stared off toward the darkness. Sandifer started the horse forward, moving easily.
To the left towered the ridge of Turkeyfeather Pass, lifting all of five hundred feet above him, black, towering, ominous in the moonlight. The trees fell away, massing their legions to right and left, but leaving before him an open glade, grassy and still. Off to the right Iron Creek hustled over the stones, whispering wordless messages to the rocks on either bank. Somewhere a quail called mournfully into the night, and the hoofs of the buckskin made light whispering sounds as they moved through the grass at the edge of the glade.
Jim drew up under the trees near the creek and swung down, warning the buckskin to be still. Taking his rifle, he circled the glade under the trees, moving like a prowling wolf. Whoever was over there was stalking him, watching a chance to kill him or perhaps only following to see where he went. In any case, Jim meant to know who and why.
Suddenly he heard a vague sound before him, a creak of saddle leather. Freezing in place, he listened and heard it again, followed by the crunch of gravel. Then he caught the glint of moonlight on a rifle barrel and moved forward, shifting position to get the unseen man silhouetted against the sky. Sandifer swung his rifle.
“All right,” he said calmly, “drop that rifle and lift your hands. I’ve got you dead to rights.”
As he spoke, the man was moving forward, and instantly the fellow dived headlong. Sandifer’s rifle spat fire, and he heard a grunt, followed by a stab of flame. A bullet whipped past his ear. Shifting ground on cat feet, Jim studied the spot carefully.
The man lay in absolute darkness, but listening he could hear the heavy breathing that proved his shot had gone true. He waited, listening for movement, but there was none. After a while the breathing grew less and he took a chance.
Glory Riders Page 4
