The Sky-Liners (1967) s-13 Read online

  Warily, I took a step toward the brush, but nothing happened.

  Off on my right Galloway suddenly spoke. "I think you got him, boy."

  Walking slowly toward the brush, I had to make several climbing steps as I got close to it. There was an outcropping of rock, with thick, thorny brush growing around and over it, and several low trees nearby. The whole clump was no more than thirty or forty yards across, and just about as deep.

  First thing I saw was the rifle. It was a Henry .44 and there was a fresh groove down the stock, cut by a bullet. There was blood on the leaves, but nothing else.

  Gun in hand, I eased into the brush and stood still, listening. It was so quiet I seemed to be hearing my own heart beat Somewhere off across country a crow cawed; otherwise there was silence. Then the door of the trading post opened and I heard boot heels on the boards.

  My eyes scanned the brush, but I could see no sign of anyone there. Parting the branches with my left hand, I stepped past another bush. On a leaf there was a bright crimson spot ... fresh blood. Just beyond it was a barely visible track of a boot heel in the soft earth. I was expecting a shot at any moment. It was one of those places where a man figures he's being watched by somebody he can't see.

  Then I saw a slight reddish smear on the bark of a tree where the wounded man had leaned. He was hit pretty good, it looked like, although a man can sometimes bleed a good bit from a mighty inconsiderable wound.

  I could tell that the man I hunted had gone right on through the brush. I followed through and suddenly came to the other side.

  For about fifty yards ahead the country was open, and a quick glance told me that nothing stirred there. Standing under cover of the brush, I began to scan the ground with care, searching every clump of grass or cluster of small rocks - anywhere a man might be concealed.

  The ground on this side of the knoll sloped away for several feet, and this place was invisible from the trading post. A man might slip down from the mountain, or come around the base and ease into the brush, leave his horse and get right tip to that knoll without anybody being the wiser.

  Pistol ready, I walked slowly toward the further trees, my eyes scanning the terrain all around me. Twice I saw flecks of blood.

  Beyond the trees, on a small patch of grass, I saw where a horse had been tied on a short rope. By the look of the grass he had been tied there several times, each time feeding close around him. Whoever tied the horse had allowed him just enough rope to crop a little grass without giving him more rope than a man could catch up along with the reins, in one quick move.

  Whoever had been watching there must have suddenly decided to try his shot. It must have seemed like a copper-riveted cinch, catching me out like that. Only my move in getting Judith out of the way had saved me.

  Galloway had come up behind me. "You're bleedin', Flagan," he said.

  I put my hand to my ear, which had been smarting some, and brought it away bloody. From the feel of it, the bullet had just grazed the top of the ear.

  We followed the rider back into the hills a short way, then lost his trail on a dusty stretch. We found no more blood, and from the way he'd moved in going to his horse I figured he hadn't been hurt more than I had been.

  When we got back to the trading post, Evan Hawkes was there, making plans with Tom Sharp for the roundup.

  It turned out they had friends in common, stock-buyers and the like. There were eight or ten other cattlemen around the country who were all close friends of Sharp, and all of them had come to be wary of the Fetchen boys.

  "One thing I want understood," Hawkes said. "This is our fight. They opened the ball, now we're going to play the tune and they'll dance to our music."

  "Seems to me you're outnumbered," said Dobie Wiles. He was the hard-bitten foreman of the Slash B. "And it seems to me that JBF Connected brand will cover our brand as well as yours."

  "They left blood on the Kansas grass," Galloway said, "blood of the Half-Box H. I figure Hawkes has first call."

  He gave a slow grin. "And that includes us."

  Chapter 12

  The cattle came down from the hills in the morning, drifting ahead of riders from the neighboring ranches. They moved out on the grass of the bottom land and grazed there, while the riders turned again to the hills.

  At first only a few riders were to be seen, for the land was rough and there were many canyons. The cowboys moved back into the hills and along the trails and started the cattle drifting down toward the valley.

  The chuck wagon was out, and half a dozen local cattlemen, all of whom rode out from time to time only to return and gather near the wagon. James Black Fetchen himself had not appeared, although several Fetchens were seen riding in the hills. Once, Evan Hawkes roped a young steer and, with Tom Sharp as well as two other cattlemen beside him, studied the brand. It was his Half-Box H worked over to a JBF Connected.

  "They do better work down in Texas," Breedlove commented. "There's rustlers down there who do it better in the dark."

  Rodriguez looked around at Hawkes. "Do you wish to register a complaint, Senor?"

  "Let it go. That steer will be wearing a different brand before this is over."

  "As you will."

  "When this is over, if there is any steer you want to question we can either skin him and check the brand from the reverse side, or turn him into a pool for it to be decided. I want no cattle but my own, and no trouble with anyone but Fetchen."

  "And that trouble, Senor - when does it come?"

  "I hope to delay it until after the roundup. There's a lot the Fetchens don't know about cattle and rustling. If I figure it right, they're going to come up short and never know what hit them." He glanced around at them. "Gentlemen, this is my fight, mine and the Sackett boys'. There's no reason to get mixed up in it if you don't have to."

  "This is our country," Sharp replied, "and we don't take to rustlers. We'll give you all the room you want, but if you need a hand, just lift a yell and we'll be coming."

  "Of course, Senor," Rodriguez said mildly, "but there may have to be trouble. A rider from the Fetchen outfit was drinking in Greenhorn. It seems he was not polite to one of my riders. There were seven Fetchens, and my man was alone. At the roundup he will not be alone."

  Hawkes nodded. "I know ... I heard some talk about that, but shooting at a roundup might kill a lot of good men. Let's take it easy and see what happens when the tally is taken."

  I listened and had no comment to offer. It was a nice idea, if it worked. It might work, but there were a few outsiders riding with the Fetchen gang now, and they might know more about brand-blotting than the Fetchens did. That scar-faced puncher with the blond hair, for example. What was his name again? ... Russ Menard.

  I spoke the name out loud, and Rodriguez turned on me. "Russ Menard? You know him?"

  "He's here. He's one of them."

  The Mexican's lips tightened, then he bared his teeth in a smile that held no humor. "He is a very bad hombre, this Menard. I think no faster man lives when it comes to using the pistol. If he is one of them, there will surely be trouble."

  The cattle had scattered so widely in the hills that it was brutally hard work combing them out of the brush and canyons. This was rugged country - canyons, brush, and boulders, with patches of forest, and on the higher slopes thick stands of timber that covered miles. But there was water everywhere, so most of the stock was in good shape. Aside from Hawkes's rustled herd, there were cattle from a dozen other outfits, including those of Tom Sharp. By nightfall several hundred head were gathered in the valley.

  Most of the riders were strangers, men from the ranches nearby, good riders and hard-working men. They knew the country and they knew the cattle and so had an advantage over us, who were new to the land. Most of them were Mexicans, and they were some of the best riders and ropers I ever did see. Galloway and me were handy with ropes but in no way as good as most of those around us, who had been using them since they were knee-high to a short pup.

&n
bsp; Most of the stock was longhorn, stuff driven in from Texas over the Goodnight Trail. The cattle from New Mexico were of a lighter strain when unmixed with longhorn blood; and there was a shorthorn or white-face stock brought in from Missouri or somewhere beyond the Mississippi. Both Costello and Sharp had been driving in a few cattle of other breeds, trying to improve their stock to carry more beef.

  The longhorn was a good enough beef critter when he could get enough to eat and drink, but in Texas they might live miles from water, drinking every two or three days, in some cases, and walking off a lot of good beef to get to water.

  But in these mountain valleys where there was water a-plenty, there was no need to walk for it and the eastern stock did mighty well. And nowhere did we see the grass all eaten down. There was enough feed to carry more stock than was here.

  The only two Fetchens I saw were men I remembered from that day in Tazewell. Their names I didn't learn until I heard them spoken around the roundup fire.

  Clyde Fetchen was a wiry man of thirty-five or so with a narrow, tight-lipped look about him. He was a hard worker, which was more than I could say of the others, but not a friendly man by any way of speaking. Len Fetchen was seventeen or eighteen, broad-shouldered, with hair down to his shoulders. He didn't talk at all. Both of them fought shy of Galloway an' me - no doubt told to do so by Black.

  Others came to the fire occasionally, but those were the only two I saw. Them and Russ Menard.

  Meanwhile we were doing a sight of work that a body couldn't see around the branding fire. We were doing our work back in the hills, wherever we could find Half-Box Hitch cattle. All their brands had been altered by now, some of the changed brands so fresh the hide was still warm, or almost. Wherever we found them we dabbed a loop over their horns, threw them, and rebranded with a Pig-Pen, which was merely a series of vertical and horizontal lines like several pens side by each. A brand like that could cover everything we found, but we were only hunting stolen Hawkes cattle. We took turn and turn about bringing cattle to the fire, and the rest of the time we roamed up and down the range, sorting out Hawkes cattle.

  Russ Menard spent mighty little time working cattle, so he didn't notice what was going on. The Fetchen boys brought in cattle here and there, mostly with their own brand. At night Briggs and Walker could usually manage to cut out a few of them and brand them downwind from the wagon, out of sight in some creek bed or gully.

  By the third day half the hands on the range had fallen in with the game and were rebranding the rustled cattle as fast as we were. On the fifth day, James Black Fetchen came riding down from the hills with Russ Menard and six of his riders.

  Evan Hawkes was standing by the fire, and when he saw Fetchen coming he called to Ladder Walker. The tall, lean Half-Box H puncher looked up, then slid the thong off his six-gun. The cook took another look, then slipped his shot-gun out of his bedroll and tucked it in along his dried apples and flour.

  Cap Rountree and Moss Reardon were both out on the range, but it so happened I was standing right there, taking time out for coffee.

  Fetchen rode on up to the fire and stepped down, and so did Menard and Colby. Fetchen turned his hard eyes to me, then to Walker at the fire. The cook was busy kneading dough. Tom Sharp was there, and so were Rodriguez and Baldwin, who was repping for a couple of outfits over on the Cucharas.

  "I want to see the tally list," Fetchen said.

  "Help yourself." Hawkes gestured to where it lay on a large rock, held down by a smaller rock.

  Fetchen hesitated, and looked hard at Hawkes.

  Russ Menard was looking across the fire at me. "You one of them gun-fighting Sacketts?" he asked.

  "Never paid gun-fighting no mind," I said. "Too busy making a living. Seems to me a man's got mighty little to do, riding around showing off his gun."

  He got kind of red in the face. "Meaning?"

  "Meaning nothing a-tall. Just commenting on why I don't figure myself a gun-fighter. We Sacketts never figured on doing any fighting unless pushed," I added.

  "What do you carry that gun for?" he demanded.

  I grinned at him. "Seems I might meet somebody whose time has come."

  Black Fetchen had turned around sharply, his face red and angry. "What the hell is this? You've only got thirty-four head of JBF cattle listed."

  "That's all there was," Hawkes said quietly, "and a scrubby lot, too."

  Fetchen stepped forward, the color leaving his face, his eyes burning under his heavy brows. "What are you trying to do? Rob me? I came into this valley with more than a thousand head of cattle."

  "If you have a bill of sale," Sharp suggested, "we might check out the brands and find out what's wrong. Your bill of sale would show the original brands, and any stolen cattle would have the brands altered."

  Fetchen stopped. Suddenly he was cold, dangerous. Me, I was watching Menard.

  "You can't get away with this!" Fetchen said furiously.

  "If you have any brand you want to question," Sharp said, "we can always shoot the animal and skin it. The inside of the hide will show if the brand has been altered."

  Fetchen glanced at him, realizing that to check the brand would reveal the original alteration, the change from Hawkes's Half-Box H to his JBF Connected. Frustrated, he hesitated, suddenly aware he had no way to turn.

  Hawkes, Sharp, and Rodriguez were scattered out. Baldwin stood near the chuck wagon, and all of them were armed. Ladder Walker had released the calf he had been branding and was now standing upright, branding iron in his left hand.

  And there was me.

  To start shooting now would mean death for several men, and victory for nobody. Fetchen started to speak, then his eye caught the dull gloss of the shotgun stock, inches from the cook's hand.

  "While we're talking," I suggested, "you might tell Costello he should be down here, repping for his brand. We have business to discuss with him."

  "He's not well," Fetchen replied, controlling his anger. "I'll speak for him."

  "Costello is a very good friend of mine," Sharp said, "and a highly respected man in this country. We want to be sure he stays well. I think he should be brought down to my place where he can have the attention of a doctor."

  "He's not able to ride," Fetchen said. He was worried now, and eager to be away. Whatever his plans had been, they were not working now. His herd was gone, taken back by the very man from whom it had been stolen, and the possibility of his remaining in the area and ranching was now slim indeed.

  "Load him into a wagon," Sharp insisted. "If you don't have one, I'll send one up, and enough men to load him up."

  Fetchen backed off. "I'll see. I"ll talk to him," he said.

  Right at that moment I figured him for the most dangerous man I'd ever known. There'd been talk about his hot temper, but this man was cold - cold and mean. You could see it in him, see him fighting down the urge to grab for a gun and turn that branding fire into a blaze of hell. He had it in him, too, only he was playing it smart. And a few moments later I saw another reason why.

  Moss Reardon, Cap Rountree, and Galloway had come up behind us, and off to the left was Kyle Shore.

  Fetchen's gang would have cut some of us down, but not a one of them would have escaped.

  Russ Menard looked at me and smiled. "Well meet up, one of these days."

  "We can make it right now," I said. "We can make it a private fight."

  "I ain't in no hurry."

  James Black Fetchen looked past me toward the chuck wagon. "Judith, your pa wants you. You comin'?"

  "No."

  "You turnin' your back on him?"

  "You know better than that. When he comes down to Mr. Sharp's, at Buzzard Roost, I'll be waiting for him."

  The Fetchens went to their horses then, Russ Menard taking the most time. When he was in the saddle, both hands out in plain sight, he said, "Don't you disappoint me, boy. I'll be hunting you."

  They rode away, and Tom Sharp swore softly. With the back of his hand, he wiped
sudden sweat from his forehead. "I don't want to go through that again. For a minute there, anything could have happened."

  "You sleep with locked doors," Galloway said, riding up. "And don't answer no hails by night. That's a murdering lot."

  The rest of the roundup went forward without a hitch. The cattle were driven in from the hills and we saw no more of the Fetchens, but Costello did not come down from the hills. Twice members of the gang were seen close to the Spanish Peaks. Once several of them rode over to Badito.

  The roundup over, Rodriguez announced a fandango. That was their name for a big dancing and to-do, where the folks come from miles around. Since no rider from the Fetchen crowd had come down to claim the beef that still wore their brand over the Half-Box H, it was slaughtered for a barbecue ... at least, the three best steers were.

  Rodriguez came around to Galloway and me. "You will honor my house, Senores? Yours is a name well known to me. Tyrel Sackett is married to the daughter of an old friend of mine in New Mexico."

  "We will come," I said.

  Nobody talked much of anything else, and Galloway and me decided we'd ride down to Pueblo or up to Denver to buy us new outfits. Judith was all excited, and was taking a hand in the planning.

  We rode off to Denver, and it was two weeks before we got back, just the night of the big shindig. The first person we saw was Cap Rountree.

  "You didn't come none too soon," he said. "Harry Briggs is dead ... dry-gulched."

  Chapter 13

  It had been a particularly vicious killing. Not only had Briggs been shot from ambush, but his killers had ridden over his body and shot into it again and again.

  There could be no doubt as to why it had been done. Briggs was a hard-working cowhand with no enemies, and he carried no money; of the little he could save, the greater part was sent to a sister in Pennsylvania. He had been killed because he rode for the Half-Box H, and it could just as easily have been any of the other hands.

  And there was no doubt as to who had done it, though there didn't seem to be any chance of proving it. It was the Fetchen crowd, we knew. There was no other possibility. From the fragments of tracks found near the body, they could tell that more than one killer was involved; he had been shot with at least two different weapons - probably more.