The Man From The Broken Hills Page 3

  As I went east, the hills grew steeper and more rugged. Turning in the saddle I could see the cap-rock far off against the sky. What lay behind me was what was loosely called the Basin, and far off I could see the tiny cluster of buildings that was Stirrup-Iron headquarters.

  It was midafternoon before I sighted the line-shack. It lay cupped in a hand of hills with a patch of mesquite a few yards off and a pole corral near the cabin. A rider's trail came down off the hill into the trail to the cabin—a trail that looked fresh. In the corral were a number of horses, yet not more than a half dozen, one of them still damp from the saddle.

  The cabin was of logs that must have been carted some distance, for there were no trees around. They had been laid in place with the bark on, and now, years later, the bark was falling off. There was a washstand at the door and a clean white towel hanging from a peg.

  Tying my horses to the corral bars, and with my Winchester in my right hand and my saddlebags and blanket roll in the left, I walked up to the cabin. Nothing stirred. A faint thread of smoke pointed at the sky. I tapped on the door with the muzzle of my rifle, then pushed it open.

  A lean Mexican with a sardonic expression was laying on his back on a bunk, with a six-shooter in his hand. "Buenos dias, amigo ... I hope," he said smiling.

  I grinned at him. "I hope, too. I'm in no mood for a fight. Hinge sent me up to watch you work. He told me he had a no-account Mexican up here who wouldn't do any more work than he could help."

  Fuentes smiled, rolling a thin cigar in his fine white teeth. "Of all he might say, that would not be it. I was sent to gather cattle. Occasionally, I gather them, and occasionally I lie down to contemplate where the cattle might be—as well as the sins of men. More often I just look for cattle to gather. I am trying to figure out," he swung his boots to the floor, "the number of miles to catch each cow. Then if I figure the wages they pay me, the expense of keeping horses for me to do the work, I should be able to figure out whether it is good business to catch cows."

  He paused, brushing the ash from his cigar to the floor. "Moreover, some of these steers are big, very, very big, and very, very mean. So I lie down to contemplate how to get those steers out of the canyons."

  "No problem," I said, "no problem at all. You send back to the ranch for one of those screw jacks. If they don't have one there, go to town. If you go to town you can always have a drink and talk to the senoritas.

  "You get one of those screw jacks ... You know, the kind they lift buildings with when they wish to move them? All right. You get one of those. Better yet, get several. You go back of the east rim of the country, and you stick them under the edge and you start turning. You turn and turn and turn, and when you get the country tilted high enough, the cattle will just tumble out of the canyons. And you wait here with a big net and you bag them as they fall out. It is very simple."

  He picked up his gunbelt. "I am Tony Fuentes."

  "And I am Milo Talon, once of Colorado, now of anywhere I hang my hat."

  "I am of California."

  "Heard of it. Ain't that the land they stacked up to keep the ocean from comin' in over the desert?"

  Fuentes pointed toward the coals of a dying fire, and the blackened pot. "There are beans. There are also a couple of sage hens under the coals, and they should be ready to eat. Can you make coffee?"

  "I'll give it a try."

  Fuentes stood up. He was about five-ten and had the easy movement of a bullwhip. "Did they tell you anything down there? About Balch?"

  "Met him ... along with Hinge and some others. I didn't take to him."

  We ate, and he filled me in on the country. The water was mostly alkali or verging on it. The country looked flat, but was ripped open by deep canyons in unexpected places. Some of these canyons had grassy meadows, some thickets of mesquite. There was also a lot of rough, rocky, broken country.

  "There are cattle back in those canyons that are ten years old and never been branded. There's even a few buffalo."

  "About Balch," I said.

  "A bad one ... and some other bad ones with him."

  "I'm listening."

  "Tory Benton, Klaus, Ingerman and Knuckle Vansen. They get forty a month. His regular hands get thirty, and Balch has passed the word that any of his hands who prove themselves will also get forty."

  "Prove themselves?"

  Fuentes shrugged. "Rough stuff against anybody who gets in the way ... like us."

  "And the major?"

  "Not yet. Saddler doesn't think they are strong enough. Besides, there are other considerations. At least, that is what I think, but I am only a Mexican who rides a horse."

  "Come daylight you can show me. Want to tackle some of the big stuff?"

  "Why not?"

  The mosquitos were getting bad so we moved indoors. Besides, it was cooling off. At the door I turned to look around.

  It was a nice little hollow, undistinguished but nice. The sun was setting behind us, leaving a faint brushing of pink along the clouds. Somewhere an owl hooted. The cabin floor was hard-packed but it had been swept. The fireplace was obviously little used. It too was neatly swept, with a fire laid. No doubt it was pleasant to cook outside.

  "Balch has a son? Roger, I think his name is?"

  Fuentes features became bland. "I think so. I see him here and there."

  "Big man?"

  "No ... not big. Small. But very strong, very quick ... and how do you say it? Cruel."

  Fuentes sat silent, considering the subject. "He is very good with his hands. Very good. He likes to punish. The first time I see him is in Fort Griffin. He has beaten a woman there, a woman of the dance halls. He has beaten her badly, and her man comes after Balch ... a big man, ver' strong.

  "Roger Balch moves in very fast. He bobs his head to get in close and then he hits short and hard to the belly. He beats that big man, but finally they pull him off, and in Fort Griffin they do not stop a fight for nothing. It was bad, senor, bad."

  Fuentes took out another of the cigars and lighted it. He waved the match out with a gesture. "You have reason for asking, amigo? Some particular reason?"

  "Oh ... not exactly. Heard some mention of him."

  Fuentes drew on his cigar. "He rides ... wherever he will. Rides very much. And he seeks trouble. I think he tries to show himself better than anyone else. He likes to fight big men, to beat them."

  It was something to remember. Balch bobbed his head, threw short punches from in close. Probably he had done some boxing, learned how to fight big men, and that would give him an advantage. For most men knew only about fighting what they had learned by applying it. So a man who knew something of boxing would have little trouble. It was a thing to remember.

  Chapter 4

  WE RODE INTO the broken hills before the sun rose, across thin, scant pasture drawn tight over cracked white rock. It was high country with no edge but the sky until we rode into the canyons, but here and there were bones, bleached by wind and sun, grass growing through the ribcages where once had been beating hearts. Among other bones, some burned-out wagons.

  "Some pioneer," I said, "played out his string."

  Rusted rims of wagon wheels, the solid oak of a hub, scattered bolts and charred wood. It was not much for a man to leave behind.

  Fuentes indicated the bones. "You and me, amigo ... sometime."

  "I'm like the Irishman, Fuentes. If I knew where I was going to die, I'd never go near the place."

  "To die is nothing. One is here, one is no longer here. It is only that at the end one must be able to say 'I was a man.' " We rode on. "To live with honor, amigo. That is what matters. I am a vaquero. They expect little of me, but I expect much of myself.

  "What is it a man wants? A few meals when he is hungry and, at least once in his lifetime, a woman who loves him. And, of course, some good horses to ride."

  "You have forgotten two things: a rope that does not break, and a gun that does not hang when one starts to draw."

  He chuckled. "You ask too much, amigo. With such a rope and such a gun a man might live forever!"

  We began to see cattle. I swung out toward four or five that were feeding nearby and started them drifting. They would not go far, but they would move easier when we came back with more cattle. Ours was to be a slow job and a dusty one, to roust out these cattle and start them toward the flat country.

  This was rough, broken country, and the mesquite thickets were mixed with prickly pear, some of the largest I'd ever seen. I wished for a leather jacket, or one of heavy canvas. Fuentes had a tight buckskin jacket that was some help to him. We plunged into the brush, rousting out the cattle. Some of the old mossy-horn steers were as quiet as cougars in the thick brush, moving like ghosts. When we got them out of the brush, they'd circle and make a dash to get back. We both rode good cutting horses, but they had to work. We kept the cattle moving.

  Sweat trickled down my back and chest, under my shirt, and my skin itched from the dust. When we paused there were the black flies. I'd worked cattle all my life, but this was some of the roughest.

  Often the draws were empty. We would follow them to where they ended and find nothing. In others there were little gatherings of cattle, four or five, sometimes more. By noon we had started fifty or sixty head down toward the flat with only a little young stuff.

  The sun was past the midmark when Fuentes topped out on a rise and waved his sombrero at me. It was a magnificent hat, that one. I envied the Mexicans their sombreros. When I joined him, he said, pointing with his hat, "There is a spring down there, and some shade."

  We walked our horses along the slope and into a pocket of hills. Two huge old cottonwoods grew there, and some willows. Further downstream there was much mesquite.

  It was a mere trickle of water from
the rocks, and a small pool where the horses could drink. A stream that ran a mere seventy yards before vanishing into the ground.

  We stepped down and loosened the girths a little, and let the horses drink. Then we drank, ourselves. Surprisingly, the water was cold and sweet, and not brackish like most of the springs and water holes.

  Fuentes lay down on the grassy slope in the shade, his hat over his eyes. After a few minutes, he sat up suddenly and lit the stub of one of his cigars. "You see something, amigo?"

  "There isn't much young stuff, if that is what you mean."

  "It is what I mean. There should be calves. There should be yearlings. We've seen nothing under two years old, almost nothing under three."

  "Maybe," I said, too seriously, "these cattle go over to Balch and Saddler to drop their calves. Or maybe these cows just don't have calves."

  "It is a thing," Fuentes agreed. He looked at the glowing end of his cigar. "I will be unhappy, senor, if we find that Balch's cows have twins."

  Fuentes went to the spring for another drink. It was very hot, even there in the shade. "Amigo, I am suddenly hungry. I am hungry for beef. There's a nice fat steer that carries a Balch and Saddler brand. Now if we—"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "It might be just what they want, Tony, so they could say we were rustling their beef. You mark that steer in your mind—and all the steers with doubtful brands."

  "And then?"

  "At the roundup. We'll peel a hide at the roundup. Right in front of witnesses. We'll be sure there are witnesses, sort of accidental-like on purpose, so when we take that hide off we'll have a lot of people watching."

  Fuentes stared at me. "You would skin that steer right in front of Balch? You'd do that?"

  "You or me ... one to skin, one to watch so nobody stops him."

  "He will kill you, amigo. He is good with a gun, this Balch. I know him. He has men who are good with guns, but none so good as him. They do not know this, but I know it. He will not shoot unless he must. He will let others do his shooting, but if he must—"

  "He'll either shoot or ride," I said quietly, "because once we peel a hide wearing his brand, and they see it has been worked over, he'll either leave or have his neck stretched."

  "He is a hard man, amigo. He does not believe anybody would dare, nor will he let them dare."

  I got to my feet and put on my hat. "I'm a mighty narrow-minded man. These folks hired me to ride in their roundup. They hired me to round up their cattle ... all their cattle."

  We split up again, and each went into the canyons. We saw nobody, nor did we see tracks except those of cattle. Twice we came upon buffalo—once a group of five, the other time a lone bull. He was in no mood to be disturbed so I circled and went my way, leaving him pawing the earth and rumbling in his huge chest.

  Once I put a loop over the horns of a big steer who promptly charged. My horse was quick, but tired, and just barely dodged the charge. And then we raced for a tree with the steer after us, and we did a flatout turn around the tree and I snubbed him tight.

  He snorted and blew, tugged and crashed one horn against the tree, but it was sturdy and held its place. Wild-eyed, he peered up at me, undoubtedly thinking of all he would do if he got free. I walked my horse into the shade and wondered why we had come so far without additional horses, when Fuentes came through the brush riding a short coupled bay, with black mane and tail, and leading a roan.

  "Meant to get the horses before nooning," he said. "I got to worrying about those brands."

  We moved into the slight shade of some mesquite clumps and I switched my saddle. "I'll take your horse back." He pointed. "There's a corral... an old one ... over there."

  "Water?"

  "Si ... good water. It is an old place. A Comanchero place, I think."

  He glanced at the steer. "Ah? So you have the old devil? Three times I have chased that one!"

  "I wish you'd caught him. He nearly got me."

  Fuentes chuckled. "Remember the bones, amigo! Nobody lives forever!"

  I stared after him as he rode away, leading my horse. "Nobody lives forever," he said, "and nobody does ... but I want to!"

  The horse was a good one, and he put in a hard afternoon. By the time Fuentes had come along, he was played out. Now he was leading a big old ox, heavy-muscled and slow. "Amigo, this is Ben Franklin Ox. He is old and slow but very wise. We will tie him together with your wild one, then we will see what happens!"

  A good neck-ox—which Ben Franklin Ox certainly was—could be worth his weight in gold to an outfit with wild steers to bring out of the brush, and Ben Franklin knew his job. We tied them together and left them to work it out. Of course, unless the wild one died, Ben would bring him in a few days from now, right to the home corral at the ranch. If the steer died, we'd have to track them down and release Ben.

  We fell into bed that night too worn out to talk, almost too tired to eat. Yet at daybreak, I was outside washing in ice-cold water when Fuentes came out, rubbing his eyes. "How many head, do you think?"

  "Hundred ... more probably, along with what we've got on the trail."

  "Let's take them in."

  He got no argument from me. Fuentes was a good enough cook, better than me, but the food Barby Ann put out was better. We'd ride in, deliver our stock, catch a fast meal and start back.

  "The old corral?" He squatted on his heels and drew a map in the dust. "It is here? You see? I will cook something, you take our horses and bring back mounts for us. Better bring our own horses, too, so we can leave them at the ranch."

  Saddling up, I lit out, leading his horse. It was only a few miles, and I did not relish leaving the dun out there so far from home. Ma gave me that dun, and it was a fine horse who understood my ways.

  The way he had shown was closer than the way we had gone while rounding up steers, so it was no more than a half hour before I topped out on a rise in thick brush and glimpsed the corral not more than half a mile off. Suddenly, I pulled up, standing in my stirrups.

  It looked to me like somebody ... No, I must be mistaken. Nobody would be at the corral. After all ...

  Yet I rode cautiously, and came down into the clearing smelling dust ... My own? Or had somebody been there? The horses had their heads up, looking over the corral bars toward the east, where the old trail led off toward the once-distant settlements. I thought I had seen somebody, but had I? Was it just a trick of the eyes? Of the imagination?

  Slipping the thong from my pistol, I walked on up to the corral and glanced toward the old cabin. Keeping a horse between me and it, I stripped my gear, roped a fresh horse and then called the dun to me.

  As I worked, my eyes swept the ground. Tracks ... fresh tracks. A shod horse, and well-shod at that. Saddling the fresh horse, an almost white buckskin with black rnane and tail and four black legs, I listened and looked, without seeming to.

  Nothing.

  Turning my horse into the corral, I checked the trough through which the spring had been guided to be sure there was water. There was ... but there was something else, too. There were a couple of green threads caught in the slivers at the edge of the trough—the sort of thing that might happen if a man bent over to drink from the pipe and his neckerchief caught on the slivers.

  I took them in my hand, then tucked them away in my shirt pocket.

  Somebody had been at the corral. Somebody had drunk here, but why had they not come by the line-shack? In cattle country, even an enemy would be welcomed at mealtime, and many a cattleman in sheep country had eaten at sheep wagons. In a country where meals and food might be many miles apart, enmity often vanished at the side of the table.

  Balch had not hesitated to come to our fire, nor would his men be likely to. Yet somebody had come here and had ridden swiftly away, somebody who had deliberately avoided our line-shack, which everybody in the country was sure to know.

  Leading my horse and that of Fuentes, as well as a fresh horse for him, I started back.

  Fuentes had suggested that Roger Balch was a trouble hunter, so it was unlikely that he would hesitate to stop by. Nor Balch, either, for that matter. Saddler? I had an idea Saddler spent little time out on the range. What of that other man? The one who seemed somehow familiar?

  Irritably, I rode back. There was a lot going on that I did not like. One thing I had done before leaving the corral, and that was to look to see how the tracks had pointed, and they had gone east, a man riding a horse with a nice, even stride ... a horse more carefully shod than many a western horse I'd seen.