Collection 1997 - End Of The Drive (v5.0) Read online

  “Who buys ’em?”

  “Well, don’t go saying I told you. Jim Hoff bought ’em, but then, he’d buy anything he could get cheap.”

  “Thanks.” He tossed off his drink. “This Sonntag deal is liable to be bad for those folks over to Laird. Sonntag is boss of that Rawhide bunch.” He glanced at Wheeling. “They run the Lazy Eight, Box Diamond, and IH connected, if that means anything to you.”

  “It does,” Wheeling replied. “It means plenty!”

  Finn left the saloon. What Wheeling had told him only confirmed what he had believed. There was brand altering being done somewhere around. And some, at least, were being sold in Rico. They would move against him now, he had no doubt of that. The employing of Sonntag would give them a free rein. He wondered what the first move would be.

  The noose was tightening now. Stopping in at the store he bought three hundred rounds of .44-caliber ammunition. His pistols had been modified to use the same ammunition as his Knight’s Patent Winchester, which simplified things in that department.

  He was just stowing it in his saddlebags when he saw Dean Armstrong. The newspaperman was coming toward him. “Howdy, Dean!” he said.

  Armstrong’s face was somber. “Watch yourself, Finn,” he said. “I think Sonntag’s gunning for you. I know Ringer Cobb is. He made his boast at the Cattleman’s meeting that he would accuse you to your face.”

  “What happened at that meeting?”

  “It was ramrodded, in a sense. Judge Collins, Kastelle, Remy, and Dowd voted against Sonntag. But Brewster and Taggart threw in with the Rawhide bunch.”

  “Taggart?”

  “Abe McInnis’s foreman. Abe was dry-gulched, wounded badly the same time they killed Tony Welt.”

  “Hadn’t heard about that.”

  Armstrong looked at him quickly, worriedly. “Finn, they’ve got you pegged for that job. It happened in one of the canyons in the wild country south of the Rimrock. They found the tracks of a big horse, and some of them say they saw your stallion in there.”

  “I might have been there,” Finn admitted, “but not when any shooting took place.”

  He dug his toe into the dust. “Remy voted against Sonntag, huh?”

  “Yes. In fact, Finn, she spoke right out in the meeting and said she didn’t believe you were a rustler.”

  “What did Dowd say?”

  “He was against Sonntag. But on the whole, he didn’t have much to say. I think Texas Dowd believes in killing his own beef.”

  “You’re damned right he does,” Mahone said sharply. “That man’s got more cold-blooded nerve than any I ever saw!”

  “What’s between you two, anyway?” Dean demanded, looking curiously at Finn. “I’d think you two would be friends!”

  Mahone shrugged. “That’s the way things happen. We were friends once, Dean. For a long time. I know that man better than anyone in the world, and he should know me, but he’s powerful set in his ways, and once he gets an idea in his head it’s hell gettin’ it out.”

  * * *

  FINN MAHONE HEADED across the plateau in sooty darkness. Dean’s information and what he had learned from Wheeling put the problem fairly in his hands. The Rawhide bunch were evidently out to get him. Ringer Cobb had made his boast, and he was the type of man to back it up if he could.

  From the beginning there had been an effort to hang the rustling on him. While his living alone would be suspicious to some, Finn had an idea that more than a little planting of ideas had been going on over the range. There was deliberate malice behind it. It was not Dowd’s way to stoop to such tactics. Texas Dowd would say nothing. He would wait, patiently, and then one of them would die.

  A roving, solitary man all his life, Finn had found but one man he cared to ride the river with. That man was Texas Dowd. They had ridden a lot of rivers, and their two guns had blasted their way out of more than one spot of trouble.

  Had there been a chance of talking to Dowd, he would have done it, but there was too much chance the man would shoot on sight. Cold, gray, and quiet, Dowd was a man of chilled steel, the best of friends, but the most bitter of enemies.

  One thing was now clear. It was up to him to prove his innocence. It might be a help to ride into town and see Lettie. She always knew what was going on, and was one of the few friends he had. She, and Garfield Otis.

  What was it Dean had said about Otis? “Funny about Otis, Finn,” he’d said. “He hasn’t had a drink in almost a week. Got something on his mind, but he won’t talk.”

  The trail dipped down into the Laird River Canyon, and the sound of rushing water lifted to his ears. Rushing water and the vague dampness that lifted from the trembling river. He should have told Ed Wheeling to say nothing about his bringing the cattle. Ed was a talkative man, and an admirer of those fat white-faced steers of Finn’s.

  This would be where they would wait for him, here in the canyon. A couple of good riflemen here could stop the passage of any herd of cattle, or of any man.

  The cabin on the ledge was very quiet when he rode in. As he swung down from the stallion’s back, he remembered the morning Remy Kastelle had stood on the steps waiting for him, and how her hair had shone in the bright morning sun.

  The cabin seemed dark and lonely when he went inside, and after he had eaten he sat down to read, but now there was no comfort in his books. He got up and strode outside, all the old restlessness rising within him, that driving urge to be moving on, to be going. He knew what was coming, knew that in what happened there would be heartbreak and sudden death.

  Aware of all the tides of western change, Finn Mahone could see behind the rustling in Laird Valley a deep and devious plan. It was unlike any rustling he had seen before. It was no owl-hoot gang suddenly charging out of the night on a wild raid, nor was it some restless cowhands who wanted money for a splurge across the border. This had been a careful, soundless, and trackless weeding of herds. Had it gone on undiscovered, it would have left the range drained of cattle, and the cattlemen broke.

  He could see how skillfully the plan had been engineered. How careful the planning. As he studied what Dean had told him of the Cattleman’s meeting, another thought occurred. The vote had been six to four to hire Sonntag. But what if McInnis had been there?

  The dour New England Scotsman was not one for plunging into anything recklessly. He would never have accepted the hiring of Sonntag. Especially as Collins and the Kastelles had voted against it. This the leader of the rustlers must have figured. The shooting of McInnis had been deliberately planned and accomplished in cold blood.

  Had McInnis been voting, Taggart either would not have been there to vote, or would have followed Abe’s lead. Brewster, hotheaded and impulsive as he was, would have been tempered by the McInnis coolness. Then the vote would have been against hiring Sonntag! At the worst, it would have been a tie, and no action.

  That the meeting had been called before the shooting of Abraham McInnis, Mahone knew.

  He sat down suddenly and wrote out a short note, a note that showed the vote had McInnis been present. He added, Show this to the judge. Then he enclosed it in an envelope, and decided he would send it to the newspaper office by Shoshone Charlie.

  Carefully, he oiled his guns and checked his rifle. Then he made up several small packs of food and laid out some ammunition. He was going to be ready for trouble now, for it was coming. He could wait, and they might never get to him, but he preferred to strike first. Also, he had his cattle to deliver.

  * * *

  MEXIE ROBERTS WAS not a man who hurried. Small, dark, and careful, he moved like an Indian in the hills. For several days now he had been studying the Lazy K from various vantage points. He had watched Texas Dowd carefully. Knowing the West as he did, he knew Dowd was a man whom one might never get a chance to shoot at twice. Mexie Roberts prided himself on never having to shoot more than once. His trade was killing, and he knew the tricks of his trade.

  Lying on his belly in the dust among the clumps of grease
wood, he watched every soul on the Lazy K. Shifting his glass from person to person, he soon began to learn their ways and their habits.

  He was not worried about hitting Dowd, once he got him in his sights. The Sharps .50 he carried was a gun he understood like the working of his own right hand.

  There was no mercy in Mexie Roberts. Killing was born in him as it is in a weasel or a hawk. He killed, and killed in cold blood. It was his pride that he had never been arrested, never tried, never even accused. Some men had their suspicions, but no man could offer evidence.

  He had been given the job of killing Dowd, and there was in the job a measure of personal pride as well as the money. Texas Dowd was to Mexie Roberts what a Bengal tiger is to a big-game hunter. He was the final test. Hunting Dowd was hunting death in its most virulent form.

  In a few days now, perhaps a few hours, he would be ready. Then Dowd would die, and when he died, there would be no one near to see where the shot came from, and Mexie Roberts would have his hideaway carefully chosen.

  * * *

  ALL OVER LAIRD Valley tides of trouble and danger were rising. Men moved along the streets of Laird with cautious eyes, scanning each newcomer, watching, waiting.

  In his office beside the barbershop, judge Gardner Collins moved a man into the king row and crowned him. Doc Finerty rubbed his jaw and studied the board with thoughtful eyes. Neither man had his mind on the game.

  “It was my fault,” Collins said. “I should have stopped it. Don’t know why I didn’t realize how Brewster and Taggart would vote.”

  Dean Armstrong came in, glanced at the board, then placed a slip of paper on the checkerboard between them. “Found this under my door this morning,” he said. “It’s Mahone’s handwriting.”

  For Against

  Ike Hibby Collins

  Ringer Cobb Kastelle

  Alcorn R. Kastelle

  Taggart Dowd

  Logan

  Brewster

  Had Abe McInnis been there:

  Ike Hibby Collins

  Ringer Cobb Kastelle

  Alcorn R. Kastelle

  Logan Dowd

  Brewster (?) McInnis

  Taggart (?)

  Show this to the judge.

  Collins studied it thoughtfully. “I reckon he’s got it figured proper,” he said. “That would make it at worst a tie vote. Taggart would have gone along with his boss, I know that. Dan’s hotheaded, but Abe always sort of calms him down and keeps him thinking straight.”

  “You see what it implies, don’t you?” Dean indicated. “That Abe McInnis was dry-gulched on purpose!”

  “Uh-huh,” Finerty agreed, “it does. I agree.”

  “Let’s call another meeting,” Armstrong suggested, “and vote him out. You’ve got some stock running with the judge, haven’t you, Doc? Enough to vote?”

  “It wouldn’t do,” Collins said. “The Rawhide bunch wouldn’t meet. We couldn’t get a quorum now. No, he’s in, and we might as well make the best of it. What’s he been doing, Dean?”

  “Riding all over the range so far. That’s all.”

  * * *

  PIERCE LOGAN SAT in his office. He wore a neatly pressed dark gray suit and a white vest. His white hat lay atop the safe nearby. As he sat, he fingered his mustache thoughtfully.

  It had been a long wait, and hard work, but now he was there. Only a few more weeks and he would be in possession of all he had hoped for. They would be shaky, dangerous weeks, but the danger would be of the sort he understood best.

  He had come out of the carpetbag riots in New Orleans with money. Enough to come west in obvious prosperity. The little affair near New Orleans, one of those times when the ingrown rapacity of the man had let go like an explosion, had passed over without trouble. Since arriving in Laird he had bided his time. Now he was ready.

  He was not worried about Texas Dowd. Sonntag had set something up, and it would be taken care of soon. Sonntag was range detective, and any killings he might commit would have a semblance of legality. There was opposition here in town, he knew. Judge Collins would be against him, but the judge was no longer young. Finerty could not stand against him, and as for Armstrong…Logan didn’t like Armstrong. At the first hint of trouble from The Branding Iron, he would have to have the presses smashed up.

  His eyes shifted out the window, and suddenly, he stiffened.

  A man was walking slowly along the sandy hillside beyond the livery barn and corrals. He was walking along as though studying the ground. Now and then he would halt, kneel down, and study it carefully, then he would rise and move on. Occasionally he would sift a little dirt through his fingers.

  The man was Garfield Otis.

  Pierce Logan put a hand to his brow. He was sweating. His heart pounding, he slid a hand in a drawer for a gun. Then drew it back. No, that wasn’t the way.

  But what could the old fool be looking for? Why would he be examining that hillside, of all places?

  It had been years ago. Certainly, Otis could know nothing. Yet he watched him, and Logan knew for the first time what it meant to fear.

  If he was discovered now, he was ruined. Not even the Rawhide bunch could save him. It was only his power and money that held them together, and if the lid blew off this—!

  Garfield Otis was wandering back down the wash now. He would be in the saloon in a few minutes. But no, Otis hadn’t been drinking lately. And Otis was a friend of Mahone’s.

  Whatever was done must be done at once, and Logan knew there was only one thing that could be done. He got up and walked out into the street.

  * * *

  FINN MAHONE HAD taken an old game trail east from the entrance to Crystal Valley. It led him down, and across a corner of the lava beds, then into the wild country of the Highbinders north of the Lazy K.

  His stallion walked slowly, and Finn kept one hand near his walnut gun butt. The chance of seeing an enemy here was slight, although he had decided against trying the Notch. If anyone were to lie in wait for him, that would be the ideal spot.

  The country in which he now rode was country where few horsemen ever went. The hillsides of the Highbinders were too grassless to draw cattle away from the fertile bottoms of the Lazy K range. This was a broken, partly timbered, and very rocky country that offered nothing to any man. Sheep or goats might have lived there; cattle could not.

  Yet, when he was almost due north of the Lazy K ranch buildings, he stopped and swung down.

  Coming out of the woods and turning into the small trail he followed were the recent tracks of a horse!

  Finn loosened his gun in its holster and walked on, leading Fury. On second thought, he turned off the trail and chose a way under the pines, avoiding the dust where his tracks would be seen. When he had gone a little way further, he smelled smoke.

  At first, it was just a faint suggestion, then he got a stronger whiff. Tying the stallion to a low branch, he worked his way cautiously through the brush. He had gone almost a hundred yards when he saw a faint blue haze rising from a hollow among the rocks.

  Crawling out on a flat-topped rock that ended in a clump of manzanita, he lay on his belly and stared down into the hollow.

  A fire, small and carefully built, burned among some stones. A coffeepot sat on the stones, being warmed. A buckskin horse was tethered nearby, and not far away, a grulla packhorse.

  There was one man, and Finn watched him curiously. The man was small and dark, and at the moment Finn spotted him, he was fastening a long narrow piece of white cloth to a tree trunk. Peering at it, Finn could see that it had a cross printed on it near the top, and then graduated markings running down its length. At the bottom was a weight so that the strip would hang straight down.

  When it was fastened, the small man carefully paced off a certain distance and marked the spot, then he picked up his rifle, a Sharps buffalo gun. Finn’s brow furrowed.

  Puzzled, Mahone watched the man carry his Sharps to the mark on the ground and rest the muzzle in the crotch of a forked s
tick he carried. Laying prone, the little man carefully aimed at the cloth strip and then proceeded to work the screw-adjustable peep sight that was fitted to the big gun up and down, making minute adjustments until it was lined up with one of the marks on the cloth.

  “Well, I’ll be forever damned!” Finn Mahone muttered. “That’s a new one on me!” The dark man was calibrating his sights for a long shot over a previously measured distance.

  When he was satisfied, the man left the rifle where it was and returned to his fire. He drank coffee, ate a little, and took a hurried look around. Then he put out his fire, scattered it, and carefully wiped out all footprints with a pine bough. For a half hour he worked until every mark of the camp had been obliterated.

  Only then did he take his rifle. Mounting the buckskin, which with the packhorse had been led into the trail, he held his rifle with great care, then he moved off, walking the horse.

  Finn Mahone got up quietly and walked back to his own horse. Moving carefully, he followed the strange rider. The man’s every action gave evidence that he had no intention of riding far, and the only place close to them was the Lazy K ranch!

  Who, then, was the killer after? For Finn had no doubts about the man’s intentions. Remy? That would serve no purpose. Frenchy Kastelle? Probably not.

  Who, of all the men on this range, would be most dangerous to successful rustling? Texas Dowd. Who, on this range, might match guns with Sonntag or Ringer Cobb or Montana Kerr? Only, aside from himself, Texas Dowd. All of which meant that this man intended to kill Dowd.

  His conclusion might be mistaken, but Finn could think of no logical alternative.

  When they drew near the edge of the timber, Finn tied the stallion in a concealed position among the trees and, rifle in hand, moved out after the unknown sharpshooter.

  The man had tied his horses with a slip knot and had vanished into the brush. Finn started to follow, then hesitated and walked back to the horses. Untying them, he retied the knot, and lashed it hard and fast. The man who rode these horses wasn’t going to be getting away in a hurry!