Desert Death-Song Page 21

  “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! I 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 nothin’!” 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, an’ 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 Mrs. 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 gunhand west of the Rio Grande.

  “It seems peculiar,” Mrs. Martin said composedly, “for you to turn your gun on men who ride for Mr. 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 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 aimin’ 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.

  CHAPTER TWO: Fight in the Hills

  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 new hands, hired since the coming of the Martins. Only three of the older hands were in, 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 killin’ you. That was no miss. I aimed for your gunhand. Furthermore, don’t try pullin’ a gun on me again. You’re too slow!”

  “Slow?” Mont’s face flamed. He reared up in his bunk. “Slow? Why, you two-bit 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, 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 backshoot you!”

  They talked among themselves and, as they conversed, he 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 B Bar range had been planned for the best interests of the ranch. The ranch they now had in use was bounded easily 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 th
e 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 was saying, “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 Katrishens’!”

  “Sure enough! I was huntin’ that brindle steer who’s always leadin’ stock off into the canyons 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 wont 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 an’ stay there!”

  Martin stepped closer. “Why, you cheap, big-mouth!”

  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 midsection. Martin doubled over and Jim straightened him with a left uppercut, then knocked him crashing into the corral fence.

  Abruptly, Sandifer turned and threw the saddle on the buckskin. Sparkman swore. “I’m quittin’ too!” he said.

  “An’ me!” Grimes snapped. “I’ll be doggoned 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, but 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 the Iron near Clayton 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, fleeing 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 the 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 lied. 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 its 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 awhile the breathing grew less and he took a chance.

  “Better give up!” he said. “No use dyin’ there!”

  There was silence, then a slight movement of gravel. Then a six-shooter flew through the air to land in the open space between them.

  “What about that rifle?” Sandifer demanded cautiously.

  “Lost … For God’s sake, help … me!”

  There was no mistaking the choking sound. Jim Sandifer got up and holding his rifle on the spot where the voice had sounded, crossed into the shadows. As it was, he almost stumbled over the wounded man before he saw him. It was Dan Mello, and the heavy slug had torn through his body but had not emerged.

  Working swiftly, Jim got the wounded man into an easier position and carefully pulled his shirt away from the wound. There was no mistaking the fact that Dan Mello was hit hard. Jim gave the wounded man a drink, then hastily built a fire to work by. His guess that the bullet had not emerged proved true, but moving his hand gently down the wounded man’s back he could feel something hard near his spine. When he straightened, Mello’s eyes sought his face.

 
“Don’t you move,” Sandifer warned. “It’s right near your spine. I’ve got to get a doctor.”

  He was worried, knowing little of such wounds. The man might be bleeding bad internally.

  “No, don’t leave me!” Mello pleaded. “Some varmint might come!” The effort of speaking left him panting.

  Jim Sandifer swore softly, uncertain as to his proper course. He had little hope that Mello could be saved even if he rode for a doctor. The nearest one was miles away, and movement of the wounded man would be very dangerous. Nor was Mello’s fear without cause for there were mountain lions, wolves and coyotes in the area, and the scent of blood was sure to call them.

  “Legs—gone,” Mello panted. “Can’t feel nothing.”

  “Take it easy,” Jim advised. The nearest place was Bill Katrishens, and Bill might be some hand with a wounded man. He said as much to Mello. “Can’t be more’n three, four miles,” he added. “I’ll give you back your gun an’ build up the fire.”

  “You—you’ll sure come back?” Mello pleaded.

  “What kind of a coyote do you think I am?” Sandifer asked irritably. “I’ll get back as soon as ever I can.” He looked down at him. “Why were you gunnin’ for me? Mont put you up to it?” Mello shook his head. “Mont, he—he ain’t—bad. It’s that Martin—you watch. He’s a pizen—mean.”

  CHAPTER THREE: Entombed!

  Leaving the fire blazing brightly, Jim returned to his buckskin and crawled into the saddle. The moon was higher now, and the avenues through the trees were like roads, eerily lighted. Touching a spur to the horse, Jim raced through the night, the cool wind fanning his face. Once a deer scurried from in front of him, then bounded off through the trees, and once he thought he saw the lumbering shadow of an old grizzly.

  The Katrishen log cabin and pole corrals lay bathed in white moonlight as he raced his horse into the yard. The drum of hooves upon the hard packed earth and his call brought movement from inside: “Who is it? What’s up?”